In this conversation, Ryan George speaks with Ra’Chaun and Ashes from Lawful Evil Comics about their experiences with crowdfunding for their comic book projects, particularly focusing on their successful Kickstarter campaign for ‘Dark Spider’ and the upcoming project ‘Pyre: Burial at Sea.’ They discuss the challenges and lessons learned from their first campaign, the importance of audience engagement, and the creative process behind their new comic. The conversation also delves into character development, storytelling influences, and the accessibility of their work for new readers. In this engaging conversation, the hosts delve into the intricacies of writing comics, particularly focusing on intimate scenes and character development. They discuss the challenges and creative processes involved in their Kickstarter campaign, share insights on future series plans, and provide valuable tips for navigating conventions.
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Ryan George (00:01)
Hey everyone, so I’m here with Rashaan and Ashes. How you guys doing?
Ashes (00:06)
Doing well tonight. Sorry to chat.
Ryan George (00:09)
Yeah, it’s been a couple of months. I think we last talked on June, July with you were launching for Dark Spider. So I guess before we get to your current project, why don’t you tell me a little bit about what the status is of Dark Spider, how the crowdfunding campaign go and where you’re at with that whole process.
Ra (00:09)
Yeah, not too bad, yeah.
Yeah, we got funded, fully funded more so. And yeah, it was great. And we are in the process of fulfillment. We fulfilled all the digital orders. So everybody who pledged or backed for digital rewards, we fulfilled those. We’re just waiting for essentially the printer to send us the proof. Well, we got the proofs. They look great.
Books are great. We did do an update actually taking images of the proofs of the different covers not too long ago. So we’re just waiting for the final orders to come in, literally shipping to us and then we’ll, you we have all of the materials to send them out to people. you know, it’s just, yeah.
Ryan George (01:16)
Nice. So question on that with the proofs, and guess this is a lesson for any comic, I’ll share my experience, which is a lesson for any creator. But did you go with the digital proof or physical proof?
Ashes (01:32)
Cooper.
Ryan George (01:32)
Yeah, good choice, because I went with the digital proof and it was with the print that I went with, which I was happy with the quality. basically the way that the digital proof they sent me was like of the comic, almost everything, there were no white borders around anything except for one page. And that one page, they misaligned it. But because the border was white, I didn’t catch it with the digital proof because it was just like, it just looked
Ra (01:33)
physical.
Mm.
Mmm.
Right.
Ryan George (02:02)
normal with the white border and the white background. And their response basically was like, well, we’re not going to, you know, we’re not going to redo it even though was kind of our fault. So they basically was like, I got half off my next order on the book. So yeah, it’s like a lesson, lesson for any creator. I mean, it’s good, but I mean, it’s like, lesson is, yeah, get the physical proof, pay the extra for it. Don’t make the mistake, you know, that I made with that. But so what printer did you have to go with?
Ra (02:16)
okay. That’s good.
Ashes (02:17)
nice.
Ra (02:25)
Yeah.
Ashes (02:34)
We did end the overall head wrap.
Ra (02:34)
We ended up working with Kablam down in Florida. we ended up working with them. Pretty good prices. The colors popped. Quality was really good. Colors popped. yeah. yeah.
Ryan George (02:38)
Okay, yeah. Yeah.
Ashes (02:47)
quality, really good, yeah, the colors are…
really happy with them. This was, we just switched over to them. So we were really excited to see how they matched up versus previous sprinters and really happy with it. And we’re really excited to get the books out. I think like they should be here in like the next week or so. So me and Ra are going to get together and just start put some good music on and get packing. Packin’ party.
Ryan George (02:54)
Yeah.
great.
Ra (03:09)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Ryan George (03:15)
Yeah, so yeah. So now have you figured out how you’re going to pack it? Like what are you going like the kind of, what route are you taking as far as packing it? Are you using like the special comic mailers? Are you going to do like, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Ra (03:16)
Get packing, yeah. Have a packing party,
Yeah, we have to Germanize. We have to Germanize, yeah. We have to Germanize. Yeah.
Ashes (03:31)
Gemini Mailers, gonna bag and board everything. And yeah, the Gemini Mailers. I don’t think we have anything else, yeah, whatever the standard kind of is.
Ra (03:40)
No.
Ryan George (03:42)
Yeah, yeah, which is definitely the way to go. One of the things you don’t, you you learn when you’re doing it. think I’m like having backed quite a few, like I’ve gotten some that have been shipped, you know, just kind of, you know, maybe a couple, you know, sandwiched between a couple pieces of cardboard and I’ve a couple that actually come in with issues. But yeah, the German I’m dollars are amazing. I’m there. Not, not cheap, but you know, at end of the day, it’s like people are, you know, investing in you. So you want to make sure that they’re getting, you know, really getting a good product.
Ra (03:43)
Yeah.
Hmm.
Mm-mm.
Ryan George (04:09)
So now, with that first Kickstarter, so I know that this was your first Kickstarter campaign, what did you take away or what did you learn from that that maybe you will use or maybe you have been using with this upcoming campaign? Like anything that you took away that you did not expect, like running a Kickstarter campaign.
Ashes (04:29)
I think for me, just the amount of work with like just posting, updates, making sure we’re, I feel like we’re always really communicated with what we’re doing, but you know, just making sure like, know, proofs didn’t look great. Let’s let everybody know. Let’s like sit down, write something. Those were some pretty good learning experiences. A lot of work that just goes into a Kickstarter. We haven’t even had the packing part yet, you know. All that is, you know, a lot and we really positioned ourselves.
better by just being more, I guess proactive in some ways, although we were pretty, we had a pretty good checklist. But there’s always improvement. What about you, Ra, what do you think?
Ra (05:05)
Yeah, yeah. Yeah. I think a lot of it, I think some of the stuff that we kind of use for advertising and marketing, kind of the process that we used, we carried over. We kind of, I don’t want to say we didn’t perfect it, but when we implemented it during Dark Spider, we’re like, hey, this works, or this is a good idea, or this is, you know, a
something we should carry over into Pyre because it helped us, or at least it seemed to be something that worked or got people’s attention or assisted in the campaign. So we did do a lot of that, but that’s also a lot of work. Asha says, it’s just, Kickstarter’s in general is a lot of work, especially, we don’t have a big machine behind us. It’s just the two of us. So it’s a lot of…
Ryan George (05:57)
Yeah.
Ashes (05:58)
Just ask.
Ra (06:03)
hand-to-hand legwork outside of our day jobs and everything else. it’s just having to, creating a schedule helps. A schedule helps.
Ryan George (06:06)
Yeah.
Yeah, absolutely. No, it’s like, yeah, no, I get it. It’s like a full-time job on top of your full-time job trying to manage gigs or anything. That was the biggest shock. Now, what have you, have you done anything different this time around to manage that better or have you kind of mostly applied what you learned in that first campaign?
Ashes (06:15)
Definitely.
Ra (06:21)
Yes.
Ashes (06:36)
I go ahead. No, I was just gonna say, think just, like just making sure we’re organized, making sure that Ron, you know, is for us, I’d like it’s just us, you know, so just making sure we’re communicating, you know, having a lot of copy variations or posting, you know, because we don’t want to like just keep saying the same things. Like I hate that when I see, you know, people from a kickstart, it’s like the same two sentences. Like, what else, you know?
Ra (06:38)
I… No, no, that’s…
Mm-hmm.
Ryan George (06:54)
Yeah.
Yes.
Ra (06:59)
break.
Ashes (07:04)
So just like sitting down to do all that, just that kind of proactive learning.
Ryan George (07:07)
Yeah.
Ra (07:09)
Yeah, I also think, I, we are communicative, when we update people, but I think not overdoing it. it’s something that we didn’t do the last time we didn’t do the first time, but I think we also saw from kickstarters we had backed where you’ll have instances where people will, you know, if you’re a backer, let’s say you backed somebody for four projects and they’ll go back to their
their oldest projects and they’ll send a message, an update message about their new project to everybody from four projects ago, you know, and it’s like, backed four projects from you. I’m getting this message four times. So we didn’t want to, you know, we kind of looked at, at the way we did, you know, we were worried, okay, well, are we not giving enough from, from, are we not speaking enough? Are we not communicating enough? Or we should, and then we kind of, you know, people tell it like, yeah, yeah, we, we hate, we hate that, you know, that people hate that kind of.
Ryan George (07:41)
Yeah.
Ra (08:04)
You know, like just constant, like you got a flood of messages in your, in your inbox about, this Kickstarter. it’s like, same thing four times. So we, kind of, it wasn’t something different, but it reassured us almost of, okay, this is the right way to go.
Ryan George (08:10)
Yeah.
Absolutely. Now, I want to get to this upcoming campaign and this comic, but a question for you guys. like, what do you have you have you thought about like, or what do you guys do in the interim, let’s say between campaigns or between issues to, you know, engage your audience and keep people, you know, connected with you and with with your projects?
Ashes (08:41)
a lot of social media. We’re escaping Twitter currently, but we’re hanging out on Blue Sky a lot more. So, you know, we get to work with a lot of artists, so always just sharing some cool art, sharing, you know, what we’re up to. I was putting some Dragon Age stuff in some of our feeds because I’ve been nonstop playing Veilguard. So just kind of like…
Ra (08:47)
Yeah.
Ryan George (08:59)
Mm. Mm.
Ra (08:59)
Yeah.
Ashes (09:04)
Letting people get to know us, let people know what’s coming up. We do have Lawful Evil 4 in production. I’m really excited about that. So we’ll start dropping some little tastes of that soon, probably in the coming months. So yeah, just let them have some crumbs and whatnot of the future.
Ra (09:18)
Yeah.
Ryan George (09:23)
Yeah. No, question about, so I haven’t, I’ve been on threads, I, you know, did, I left Twitter as well. And I’ve been using threads is, but is blue sky bad? You feel like blue sky is better for like creatives or for comic creators?
Ra (09:23)
Yeah.
Ashes (09:39)
I feel like a lot of artists and writers that we’re friendly with are moving more to Blue Sky. We are on threads, but I’m not really seeing the engagement on threads. It’s really like still Instagram versus threads. then, know, Blue Sky, I feel like it’s really starting to pick up. And we recently just started a TikTok. that’s been fun. Actually, it’s been
Ryan George (09:45)
Got it, yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Ra (10:02)
Yeah.
Ashes (10:04)
kind of fun to be honest. There’s a really engaged audience over there. People are to be really loving the videos we’re putting up, but we haven’t had to dance yet. So we’ll have to dance in the future. Now Rob, going have to dance for the fulfillment party. Mostly kidding.
Ra (10:06)
Yeah.
Yes, fingers crossed, fingers crossed.
Ryan George (10:13)
Yeah, that would be a deal breaker for me. Anything with dancing. All right, so let’s get to your current book is A Pyr Lost at Sea. so guess, sorry.
Ra (10:19)
Yeah, I guess that’s true.
Hehehe. Hehehe.
Ashes (10:27)
Same.
Ra (10:39)
ALC.
Ashes (10:40)
no, I’m sorry, Barry, let’s see. No, you’re good, you’re good.
Ra (10:42)
Very letsy.
Ryan George (10:43)
sorry, sorry, my mistake. Sorry about that. Yeah, so I had a chance to read it. I really engaged with the story and excited to know where goes. And I love the art. think the, is it the same artist that you’ve used for previous projects or is this a different artist?
Ashes (10:59)
No, so this is actually our first time working with Shan Benian. They did the art, colors, letters, design, you some of the, you see Lily as a pirate, you know, they designed Lily’s, you know, costumes and everything like that. They did such an amazing job. We love working with them and we hope to have them on more projects. They’re so booked and busy, but.
Ra (11:00)
Don’t.
Ryan George (11:15)
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah, the art, yeah, no, really, really like that was like stand out. Like art was really, really, really good. And your other work, it’s not that the art’s not been good. But then this is really excellent. So I guess tell me a little bit about, so I’m interested. So obviously with, when we last talked, it was the reverse. think Rashad, you were the writer on Dark Spider and Ashes, you were kind of the editor consultant. What were the roles on this book?
Ra (11:21)
Yeah.
Yeah, but yeah.
Ryan George (11:50)
How did that work? Just tell me.
Ra (11:53)
Yeah, so, go ahead. well, yeah, Ash is. Yeah. Yeah, I was I was the editor. got to kind of get a first look and, you know, I I’m excited, you know, I was an editor, but I also kind of like, you know, I had my comic book fan had on a little bit like, you know, like, man, like this is like, I know, you know, I know where this is going.
Ashes (11:54)
Yeah, go for it. No, no, I was gonna be like, you should, you you were my editor this time. It was so much fun.
Ra (12:21)
And I can’t wait for everybody else to get there almost because it’s like, it’s like, you know, knowing it’s like knowing something before everybody else does and having nobody to talk about it because nobody else knows about it yet. Cause it’s not out, you know, it’s not out yet. So that was, it was fun. Lily as a character getting to see the
Ashes (12:27)
Ha!
Ryan George (12:34)
Yeah.
Ra (12:50)
human, I guess. I guess it’s like a better phrase, somewhat human side of her because, know, in the lawful evil main stuff, she’s kind of enigmatic. You know, we see Dark Spider, you know, we see him kind of like in this space and we see his problems and his issues. But it was really interesting just to read and get a chance to work on Lily’s microcosm, her part of the world.
And her fears, her, again, her human side, because again, she’s this enigmatic figure who we think just has fun and has all this power or whatever the case is. But then in Pyre, we see her, the trials and the things that she has to deal with. And it’s like, okay, this adds a layer, another layer to her that I’m really excited for people to read about.
Ryan George (13:46)
Yeah. Interesting. So, so, Ashes, you so you wrote that you were the writer on this. Did you guys collaborate on building the story or was it more you wrote the story and then, Rashaan, you were the, edited or you were the editor.
Ashes (14:00)
I mean, me and Ra are always talking, so it’s kind of like, I was like, should I do pirates? Like, what if she was a pirate? You know, like we were discussing one day, and it’s like, yeah, that could be like a pretty cool thing to explore. So I was like the main writer, but you know, Ra is always like, we’re like attached to the hip when we’re doing stuff. So, you know, like, we’re always like reading each other’s things. And it’s how we do off-league, too. Like, I mean, we’re coming together more, it’s just two little writers.
Ra (14:08)
Right.
Yeah.
Ashes (14:29)
but we’re always looking at each other like, what are you cooking in this page that I haven’t gotten to yet? It’s really exciting stuff. So yeah, we’re on a definitely a big piece of the project.
Ra (14:34)
Woody Air.
Ryan George (14:40)
So with this, yeah.
Ra (14:40)
And I also want to say like I, know.
the key when Ashley said, is she gonna, you I like pirates. want to put something about pirates in there. I said, well, she’s a woman out of time, right? She’s like a Captain America or a Hellboy, mainly, you know, more so like a hell, but she’s lived through these different errors. So what we have to look, we have to know what her formative years are. We have to know where she grew up, how she came to be. So I was like, yeah, pirates sound great because if we’re talking about
America where she’s 369 years old. She’s 300 years old at this point. But in this story, if we’re talking about her origin, she’d have to come up in, you know, these different ages. So I just kind of was like, yeah, play with that idea. Play with the woman out of time.
Ryan George (15:32)
Yeah. Well, yeah. So now I guess I’d love you to explain, I’ve read the books, I kind of have the context. But for somebody who does not, you know, has not read the book or even is maybe not too aware of the Lawful Weaver universe. Because the great thing about this actually is like it required zero knowledge of like, you know, what’s going, what comes previously. So you can go into this completely, you know, without any background. But I guess tell listeners about the character, about this.
you know, about her story and about specifically, I guess, like this book.
Ashes (16:04)
Sure, so for fans of Lawful Evil, you might recognize her better as Succubabe, but she, this is before she actually went by that, that was a moniker given to her by actually the villain in issue one. But that’s Lawful Evil. And like, you know, you don’t need to know Lawful Evil, but if you want to come in and check it out, like that’s awesome. We always try to make our books super, super accessible because…
It’s really frustrating with DC and Marvel. It’s like, I want to read Batman, but I have to read 500 issues to understand what’s going on with the story right now. But all that aside, Lily is a succubus, and she’s around three or so hundred years old at this point. And at this time, she’s living in the city. She’s enjoying her quiet wealth and her quiet solitude.
But unfortunately, there is something that she’s ignored for centuries at this point that is quickly catching up with her. And it’s an eldritch god, basically, that is looking to take over her body and soul. And it’s something that she tried to put off and was like, it’s not going to happen. I’ve separated myself in ways. I’m safe. And if I just…
keep my head down and keep moving. I don’t have to or I don’t have to think about it. You know, it’s a very human thing. You you have this problem that’s on your back and it’s like, well, with her, it literally on her back. But, you know, and you just don’t want to deal and it’s this war that’s coming for her in a way. And it’s a war that she didn’t sign up for. She just wants to be who she wants to be. And that person or demoness, as we like to say,
is, you know, she wants to have a nice orgy. You she wants to have some booze. She loves her lux apartment with all these things that she’s gathered across her life. And maybe she’s looking for some, like, real connections as well. And because of this horror that’s coming for her, she can’t. And at this point of her life, it’s unavoidable. And we’re seeing her kind of look back at humanity that she’s had all this.
disdain for her whole life and go, well, I haven’t tried what humans have done with spells and religious artifacts, so I have to go to them. And that’s kind of where she is, where she’s still kind of looking for these relics of a forgotten age to hopefully banish this god from her existence, more or less. And that’s where the story kind of is rooted in. And you get to see
Ra (18:47)
Yeah.
Ashes (18:52)
As we talked about, you get to see a little bit of her past as a pirate. You get to see her day to day and how she feels about the world, about late stage capitalism a little bit, about corporations. And there’s also like a really fun heist that’s kind of happening in here, like a little noir mystery heist. But yeah, so that’s kind of a pyre burial at sea without spoiling anything. If you see the Kickstarter page, it’s got similar kind of things on there.
Ryan George (19:03)
Okay.
Ashes (19:22)
Did I say too much? Yes.
Ryan George (19:23)
Yeah.
Ra (19:25)
Yeah, no, no, no, think you hit all the beats. I think you hit all the beats. I think you hit all the beats. I think, again, something that Ashley mentioned, the humanity. I feel like a lot of the stories in Malfoy Evil constantly lean on, again, that human and the superhuman. And with Lily as a character, she’s only half human. But…
Ryan George (19:26)
it
Ra (19:52)
that humanity is, it’s almost as though like who are you when you’re, you know, when your back is against the wall. And she spent so much time, you know, as Ashley said, living in a certain way and regarding humans is almost beneath her, but she’s also somewhat, you know, she’s human after all. It’s kind of, you know.
What expectations do we have of ourselves or what do we, how do we see ourselves and you know, what parts of ourselves don’t we like, but we have to kind of confront and have to say, Hey, I’m, this is what I have going on too. And it’s not great, but it’s not pretty, but it’s still me. And so I think that’s a, that’s something that, I mean, we always bring in lawful evil. feel like we just, that’s just what the story is about, but I feel like.
fans are in for a treat, especially if you’re a fan of Loft of Evil, if you’re a of horror, if you’re a fan of Odyssey, the Odyssey or Odysseys in general, and self-discovery, I think fans are in for a treat to see, peel back the layers of this very, almost basically immortal onion, as it were.
Ryan George (21:11)
So now with this character, I know you mentioned this is part of a character that was in the universe and that you’ve then now really developed a standalone story for her. And I you mentioned some of it, like the pirate parts and things that have been developed. How much of the character and her backstory was developed when you initially came up with her or was it mostly created for this project?
Ra (21:21)
Mm-hmm.
Ashes (21:34)
So we’re big writers. We love writing our lore. We love delving into mythos, like things that may never actually come up in the comic. We kind of have like written out in ways. I mean, there’s some stuff we definitely want to come up, but like there’s things just for us. So Lily, wow, in Lawful Evil, we purposely keep her kind of guarded at this time. In issue four, maybe we’re gonna learn a little bit more about her, who could know? But wait, but.
Ra (21:38)
Okay.
Right, right.
Ashes (22:05)
in terms of her when we were writing her, there were definitely things about her that developed from writing Pyre, but before any, before I ever even thought about it, I, and like, rock and a test, I really was like, I’m not writing anything with her. Like, I don’t know, I don’t want to do that. And not in like a bad way, but just in a like, I didn’t have confidence in myself, but that’s a whole other story. But we had, you know, a lot of the
Elbridge got stuff written out. had a lot of her past written out. The pirate was actually something that when we were talking, it was like, well, what has she been doing for 300 years? Like she can’t just be sucking out souls and just kind of like flying around all the time. It’s like people would probably want to hunt her. You know, it’s like this demon woman, like, you know, vampire rules. A vampire eats a town too much and Hellsink shows up, right? Like, so we had
Ra (22:43)
Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah.
me.
Ashes (22:58)
done a lot of stuff with her past in terms of her lineage, but some of the really cool stuff like what has she been up to? Being a pirate, know, some of her different escapades that really came from pirate just kind of delving into the character and we also spent a lot of time like thinking about her motives for lawful evil and a lot of that fed into pirate just as you know, this is a way that it kind of worked out.
Ra (23:26)
So the bones were kind of there already. bones are
Ashes (23:28)
Yeah, the bones were there, but we had to get a little muscle and sing you on there.
Ryan George (23:28)
Yeah.
Ra (23:32)
Thank you.
Ryan George (23:32)
Yeah. No, what are, like, are there any parallels, like, for other characters in pop culture that you’d say that this character is similar to? Or, if you like this type of story or like this character, you’re gonna like, you know, like…
Ashes (23:44)
Yeah, Jennifer’s body, super inspired by that amazing movie, Megan Fox, love her. Really inspired by, said it before, but I’ve kind of been like my weird, the Odyssey era. So very homeric, or I’m not saying it right, but you know, very inspired by like kind of Greek tragedies and Greek mythos. And then like Hellboy, Constantine, just one like some cool like supernatural.
Ryan George (23:46)
Yeah.
Ashes (24:13)
little dash of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. You’re definitely going to probably get a little bit more of that in the next issue. But yeah, like little pieces from like things that we both love, things that I like pull from, you know, in terms of like literary inspiration, or we both do. So that’s kind of some of my influences for sure.
Ra (24:16)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Ryan George (24:34)
Yeah, nice.
Ra (24:35)
I’d also say some Raven from Teen Titans a little bit with that kind of, know, not necessarily intentional, but it just sort of happened that way, you know.
Ashes (24:39)
Yes, 15 times.
Ryan George (24:39)
Okay.
Ashes (24:45)
So
Ryan George (24:49)
Yeah, no, I can definitely see that. So now, guess the question, the, it’s obviously the books as we talked about before are very much not safe for work. Not, know, definitely not, not, not fortuitously so, but, but yeah, definitely. Like it was one day when I, when I was reading it and I was like, I was going to read it on the train and I was like, you know, I was like, remember that for the first book, maybe I’ll hold off reading it until I get into a space, you know, where I’m not on a crowded subway. But,
Ra (25:00)
You
Ashes (25:08)
So.
Ra (25:12)
I wanna, yeah, See you soon. Yeah.
Ryan George (25:17)
But again, it’s not done in a gratuitous, crazy way. My question for you though is how do you write those scenes in your script? Do you mostly just leave it to the artists? Are you very specific about what you want in those panels? How do you write that when you’re doing the script?
Ashes (25:34)
for me, I have like base ideas and it’s like, this would be funny if like, you know, this is something from Waffle Evil we did, but it was like, what if they were flying and having sex? Like, it’s like, so we like wrote that out for some of the naughtier parts of Pyre that was written out. Shannon did great job interpreting my panels and putting their own spin on it and, you know, just making it even better than I had in my lie’s eye. So.
Ryan George (25:45)
Okay. Yeah.
Ashes (26:04)
A little bit of column A, a little bit of column B. know, Rye, I think you’re kind of similar to me where you kind of like bring out.
Ra (26:10)
Yeah, yeah, very similar writing out. I felt like, guess in Pyre, it seems a little easier because she’s succubus. So it’s like, this is part of this story. It’s part of the job. But yeah, I write it out and I come up with, I think we, like you said, we don’t do it gratuitously. It’s not a sex comic. It’s a comic that has a story that happens to have sex in it. But I feel like,
Ryan George (26:21)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Ashes (26:22)
of the job.
Ra (26:40)
It’s always, there’s always a human, something related to that in there, you know. I’m not gonna spoil the sex scene in the entire, because it’s integral to the plot, it, you know, it’s a part of her existence, you know, in some ways. And so, you know, that’s just, it’s not like, well, you know, some people are shy away from that, because it needs to serve the story, you know. It does, but at the same time, you know, I’m,
Ashes (26:50)
little bit.
Ryan George (27:02)
Yeah.
Ra (27:11)
It’s fun to look at.
Ryan George (27:13)
Yeah, well, I did think about it too, because, you know, it’s got like, haven’t written anything like this for a script. But it must be a lot easier than writing in prose, which I having an issue where I’m writing, I’ve been working on this novel for a long time. And there’s this one scene that I’ve been just avoiding because it is like an intimate scene between characters. I just don’t know how to write it in a way that’s going to sound.
Ashes (27:13)
Hahaha
Ryan George (27:38)
okay and like and so I’ve been you struggling with that and then you reading those like it’d be so much easier to just like give it to an artist you know just say okay outline here’s what you know here’s what I want and you just figure this out instead of me having to figure it out like with words you know which is is a challenge but but yeah no it’s it’s definitely definitely part of the character and you know like fits as far as your story like organically right into the story so it doesn’t feel like a thing that’s like you know gratuitous or or just there to be there
Ra (27:45)
Yeah.
Ryan George (28:08)
So tell me a little bit about the campaign itself. Any interesting reward levels that you’ve got or reward tiers? Yeah, let me know little bit about the Kickstarter. Let our listeners know about the Kickstarter itself.
Ashes (28:20)
Yeah, so we have some really amazing rewards. think we have what, six cover offerings with two covers being nude variants. So for our extra spicy fans, we do have a nude variant of her as a pirate, and we also have a nude variant of her in kind of this burning bed that I’m just absolutely obsessed with. It was one of the early cover concepts from the amazing Yodaks on Instagram.
Ra (28:40)
Yeah, it’s a great cover.
Ashes (28:46)
So have some really cool rewards there. also bundle up. So if you just want the naughty covers, you can get a nice bundle of that. We also have like a lawful evil catch up tier. So if you want this digital only tier, but if you want to like have everything that’s integral to the lawful evil universe, which is issue one, two and three dark spider, and then of course higher, that’s really great tier. We have some really amazing covers. So Shan Benian who did the interiors, they did the standard covered.
Absolutely obsessed with it. MK did the really awesome horror cover where there’s like intestines. Obsessed, they killed it. There’s just so many cool covers. We’ve got stickers for add-ons. You can get single issue stuff digitally as add-ons. And then the stretch goals, we’re really close to unlocking stretch goals. We’re in that little bit of that mid campaign valley. But if, when we are,
Ra (29:21)
Our cover is amazing.
value.
Ashes (29:46)
funded, everyone’s going to get a really super secret mini comic, it’s really fun. And everyone will get that regardless of physical or digital background. Very similar to how we did Dark Spider, we did like a little mini comic. And then at the next, I’m sorry, the next stretchable level, you can get a naughtier version of one of Martin patrons who Mockle evil fans might recognize from issue three and Dark Spider fans might recognize from number one.
Ra (29:50)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Ashes (30:12)
He did some naughty variants of Lily, so that’s in the back of book. And then we also have a tip jar for Shan because they crushed it and we’d love to toss them some more coins. And they also helped us with graphics for the campaign. They were just such an amazing collaborator. So if we hit our 3K goal, toss them a little bit more. We’d love to do that.
Ra (30:22)
killed it.
Yeah.
Ryan George (30:39)
Yeah, and I think you know it too with the covers, think, are the way to go really with the ovarian covers are the way to go with these rewards and not getting too ambitious with crazy rewards. I made a little mistake, thankfully not many people backed it, the reward levels that would have been rough for me. But yeah, I think the covers are great, stickers, easy stuff like that. Not easy stuff, but those things that are tangible and that really look cool.
Ashes (30:45)
Yeah.
Ra (30:53)
Yeah.
Ashes (31:03)
Exactly.
Ra (31:04)
Yeah.
Ryan George (31:08)
something. So now, yeah, no, yeah.
Ra (31:09)
Yeah, stuff that’s not gonna cost too much to ship or anything.
Ashes (31:13)
Yeah, we want to keep cost-downs for ourselves, but then also the backers, because it’s like, if anything gets too heavy, then we have to up shipping and stuff, know. So we try to keep it simple, just try to keep it nice and easy with some really just amazing cover art across the board. But maybe next time, you know, we were talking about maybe doing like a little standee, some stuff, maybe play around with something. But yeah, for this campaign, we’re really happy with the reward tiers and offerings. And we have more stretch goals. So if we keep pushing.
Ra (31:21)
price.
Yeah.
Ashes (31:43)
unlock more but we don’t know what it is yet. We can’t say it. We gotta have it unlocked first.
Ra (31:46)
Yeah.
Ryan George (31:48)
Yeah. So now what do you have planned as far as this series? Do you have a set goal? Is this going to be a limited series? Is it going be ongoing? What are your plans as far as where this goes? Obviously, it ends on a bit of a cliffhanger. so I’m like, well, I want to know where this goes. So yeah, what do you have planned for this? And when do I get to know what happens next?
Ashes (32:03)
I’m
Ra (32:03)
Hehehehehe
Ashes (32:09)
Yeah, my gosh, thank you. So this is my main ongoing series. I have started scripting issue two. It’s not super far along, but I’m really excited in the direction that it’s going at the moment. I don’t have a set number of issues, probably like maybe 10, maybe 12, something like that. Yeah, we’ll see kind of how the script
Ra (32:10)
Hehehehe
Ashes (32:37)
those or I like to say how my muse kind of takes me as I’m writing. But yeah, like, we’re going to focus on Malfeval 4 getting those ads for fans or getting that finished production. in the hands of the artist right now. Script is done, edited. Artists is killing it at the moment. And we’re going to focus on that. And then we’ll be doing the Dark Spider issue two as well, which I’m very excited about. I have a little sneak peek.
Ra (32:53)
Mm-hmm.
Ashes (33:07)
guys are really in for it. then yeah, like Pyre issue two, and we’ll also have Lawful Evil five. We have a lot of scripts for Lawful Evil. So we go through refine work with our editor. And yeah, just gonna keep doing it like that. And we’ll also hopefully have some like cool one shots and stuff. But yeah, like for Pyre, definitely want to like, gotta pay off that cliffhanger, right?
Ra (33:09)
Thank you. Yeah.
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
Ryan George (33:29)
Yeah. Yeah, exactly.
Ra (33:31)
Yeah, yeah.
Ashes (33:31)
I can’t just leave everybody on that. It’s like such a hard… I would hate like, okay, bye. Like that’s the season finale, you know, but sorry about it. But yeah, like really excited about issue two and yeah, I’m so excited that you’re excited about issue two of LEMON.
Ryan George (33:36)
Yeah.
Ra (33:36)
Sorry!
Ryan George (33:48)
Yeah, no, it’s good. And then it’s a good, it’s a great, like good story, beginning, middle, end. And then you give it that cliffhanger. So it sort of works. So it’s one of those like, didn’t feel gypped or robbed, you know, but then I was like, what’s going on? So no, definitely, definitely, you know, works and keeps you wanting, wanting more. It’s not, you know, definitely a great job. So do you guys, what do you, do you guys have anything planned as far as conventions upcoming this year or next year? Yep.
Ra (33:56)
You
So conventions, mean, we’re going back, we’re heading back to Brooklyn Comic Con next year. Brooklyn Independent Comic Showcase, we go every year. We love it there. We love the folks there. Yeah, it’s one of our best shows, yeah. We’re looking into, you know, expanding hopefully if we can get in, you know, it’s a lot of those conventions, especially the read pop ones, the big ones are, you know.
Ryan George (34:21)
Okay. Yeah.
Ashes (34:29)
or bet shows. So much fun.
Ryan George (34:41)
Yeah.
Ashes (34:43)
C2E2, we’re hoping for this year.
Ra (34:44)
Yeah, C2E2, we’re hoping next year, you know, but that’s like, you know, who, you know, and all of the, you know, that kind of stuff. And, and also, I guess, first come first serve, you know, if you get in early enough, because a lot of those we’ve seen, you apply and you’re like, it just opened. And then within an hour of opening, it’s like, we got all people who, yeah, everybody who’s wanted to get a table has gotten one. It’s like, you’re on a waiting list now. So, but yeah, we, we do plan on doing more conventions.
Ashes (34:49)
Thanks.
It’s gone.
Ryan George (35:05)
Yeah, exactly. Yeah.
Well, hope to hopefully, hopefully I’ll see you at the Brooklyn independent comic showcase. I know that they, yeah, like I’m hoping I don’t think the applications have gone out yet, but I hope to do that. I’m always in industry city or not always, but I’ve been in there a lot. that’d be really fun to attend. And yeah, it’d be great to see you guys there.
Ra (35:14)
Next year, last year was good.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Ashes (35:25)
Not yet.
Ra (35:34)
Yeah.
Ashes (35:35)
Yeah, it’s a really great show. This year was actually crazy. think we did the most conventions ever for us. We were at Baltimore Comic Con, which was huge. It was our biggest show for the year. Got a lot of love in Baltimore, so that felt really nice. But yeah, we’re hoping to do add a couple more to the list for 2025. We’ve got a spreadsheet going. My favorite thing in the world, my spreadsheet.
Ra (35:41)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Ryan George (35:58)
Yeah. Yeah, that’s the thing I’ve been working on this year. I kind of this spreadsheet, mostly just tri-state area. I there’s a couple. I know I’m doing a couple next year and then a bunch of applications and waiting to hear back. But yeah, for me, this is going the first year actually doing conventions. So that should be fun.
Ra (35:58)
Yeah.
Ashes (36:23)
that’s so exciting. Yeah, this was… Yeah, this is like…
Ra (36:24)
That’s great.
Ryan George (36:25)
So what advice do you have for a first time, for somebody doing conventions for the first time, what advice do you have?
Ashes (36:31)
my gosh. Have a tablecloth that isn’t black. Have a bright tablecloth. Definitely… that’s not black. Because they give you black ones just to start, but we use a red one and it really pops out of the crowd, so we really like it. Just like having your… my gosh. Having your comics and everything just set up in a way that’s high, that is an eyesight.
Ra (36:32)
Just…
Yes, yes, yeah. That’s not black, that’s not black. Yeah.
Ryan George (36:36)
Wait, did we have a tablecloth that, that what? why?
Ra (36:44)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Ashes (37:00)
Because we went we’re really working on our booth and like our first year of like I think we did like one time our first year and it was just books on the table and we’re like why is there anybody stopping us like no one can like See the books, you know, they’re too busy just looking around So that was like really important to get a bookie or a book stand. my gosh a book stand and What else Rob we have like yeah, like a wire rack. Yeah
Ra (37:07)
Right, yeah.
see what you’re selling,
Ryan George (37:13)
Yeah.
Ra (37:22)
Yeah.
racking a rack, we got a wire, get a wire rack, I would say get something that because a standing wire rack like a standing magazine rack, because it allows visibility, something we’re working on if you can, when we’ve noticed a lot of people get a banner, if you can, you know, just make sure that everything that you are one that you’re, as Ashley said, go for a tablecloth, that’s a different color that will pop because most people like
Ashes (37:31)
Yeah.
Ryan George (37:41)
Yeah.
Ra (37:53)
you most people have have a standard is black. That’s what they’ll give you. And also bring water or bring something to drink. Yeah. And some snacks, because depending on where you are, you know, like if you’re at, you know, we were in Baltimore and or, you know, broken Comic Con, sometimes, you know, the food trucks or whatever that’s out there, they’re charging a pretty penny. So, you know, you want to, you know, you want to have, you don’t want to, you know, you’re trying to make money. You don’t want to spend too much money, you know.
Ryan George (38:01)
Yeah.
Ashes (38:01)
and some stack.
Ryan George (38:20)
Yeah.
Ashes (38:21)
Yeah.
Ra (38:21)
And also try to make it a point to introduce yourself to your, I guess, role mates, whoever is in the role with you. Try to network, try to, because you can look at them and they can give you tips or you can exchange tips and they can also tell you about different conventions, other conventions to go to. And it can just be good community experience also, creating community. So I would say that, be personable in that regard.
Ryan George (38:30)
Yeah.
Ra (38:52)
You people will come to you. You don’t have to, you want to be visible, but you don’t want to be overbearing. So, I would say that.
Ashes (39:01)
don’t be a horrible barker. We’ve had some experience where people are blocking the aisle so people can’t even like further down the aisle, just holding their book up and it’s like, whoa, like it’s a little much. We don’t take that approach and we still are able to get a lot of attention. So I feel like just being chill, being nice, having a cool looking table. Yeah, standee, some kind of banner behind you is super helpful. We’re working on that with our graphic designer right now.
Ra (39:03)
Yeah
Ryan George (39:04)
We should.
Ra (39:08)
Yeah.
Ryan George (39:11)
Yeah.
Ra (39:12)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Ryan George (39:26)
Yeah.
Ashes (39:30)
Yeah, super help. And snacks. and cell phone charger. Like have a little external battery. It’s so important. And Wi-Fi is terrible. Wi-Fi will always be terrible. So just get ready for all that. It’s a trip. I really enjoy cons. We get to connect with fans. People that are like, we followed you. Like, I picked up one. You have two, three. my god. know, like, it’s really cool. And it’s like wild, you know, to like have people like recognize us or recognize the brand. It’s a lot of fun. It really means a lot.
Ryan George (39:32)
Yeah. Yeah.
Ra (39:33)
yeah.
Yeah, Wi-Fi is…
Ryan George (39:38)
Yeah.
Ra (39:41)
Yeah.
I would also say one more thing, either bring a jacket or a sweater and or a fan depending on the time of year you go. Because yeah, Ashley brings a fan because if in some places you yeah, we went to we went to Brooklyn Comic Con and it was it’s not even that you know, it’s not even that in some places that it’s the the air that the you know, heat system or you know, temperature system is inadequate. It’s just the amount of people.
Ryan George (40:05)
Yeah, that makes sense.
Ashes (40:06)
I bring a fan.
It’s hot.
Ryan George (40:26)
Yeah. Yeah.
Ashes (40:27)
so many people.
Ra (40:27)
that might be in there. She’s just body heat, you know, so it’s like, you know, you’re gonna, you’re gonna be, it’s gonna be somewhat uncomfortable sometimes. So you want to make sure you’re, you’re, you’re able to control your own temperature.
Ryan George (40:38)
Yeah, no, that’s a fair point. It makes sense. And actually, like the you know, I’ve done a decent amount of like, kind of research into what would make a good table and you’ve given me a couple ideas I did not have on my list of like things. So that’s great. Well, well, awesome. So I guess so tell me where can guys where can people find you and I will make sure to leave like the link to the to the Kickstarter campaign. But yeah, let us know like what what were you active on social media and where where the best places people find you if they want to find out more.
Ashes (40:50)
Yes.
Ra (40:51)
That’s good.
Ashes (41:06)
Yeah, so we’re, I guess, not on, like we’re on Twitter, but we’re slowly, slash, not so slowly making our exit. We’re probably just gonna keep the lights on over there. But on Twitter, we’re at LawfulEvilComic, which would not give us the S. Instagram, you’re definitely gonna see us more on Instagram, and BlueSky, we’re LawfulEvilComics with the S.
Ra (41:18)
Yeah.
No ends.
Ashes (41:30)
We’re a little bit on Facebook and we’re dipping our toes more into TikTok and we’re also Lawful Evil Comics over there. And so yeah, those are like the major platforms. You can still get the digital copies of Lawful Evil on Gumroad and we do have a free copy of issue one up on Global Comics. So if you want a little taste before you buy, you can check it out.
Ra (41:48)
Global Comics, yeah.
We’re also on Tumblr and we are on threads as well. We’re on Tumblr and we’re on threads as well. Lawful Evil Comics for everything with the exception of Twitter. They didn’t give us the S.
Ashes (41:54)
Tumblr, my gosh.
Except for Twitter.
Ryan George (42:04)
Yeah. Well, Roshan and Ashish, thanks so much. It’s been great. Always fun to talk to you guys. yeah, I’m excited, excited about this book. Again, anyone listening, it is really, really good book. Great story, great art, and definitely looking forward to It’s a issue too. Thanks. Thank you guys.
Ashes (42:04)
Thanks, Eli.
Ra (42:12)
Thank you for having us.
Thank you.
Ashes (42:21)
Thank you so much. It’s always great chatting.