The Journey to Comic Creation: Insights from Tom Hutchison

Discover how Tom Hutchison transitioned from art to writing comics, his creative process, and valuable tips for aspiring writers.

Creating comics is a unique blend of art and storytelling, and few understand this dance better than Tom Hutchison. In this post, we explore Tom’s journey into comic creation, the challenges he faced, and his valuable insights for aspiring writers. If you’ve ever wondered how to navigate the world of comics, this is the guide for you.

About Tom Hutchison

Tom Hutchison is a seasoned writer and publisher in the comic industry. With over 16 years of experience, he has made significant contributions to various comic projects, demonstrating both his passion for storytelling and his understanding of the visual medium.

The Origin of a Comic Creator

What drives someone to become a comic creator? For Tom, it wasn’t a childhood dream but rather a spontaneous decision. He explains, “There was no game plan. I loved comics and art, and one day I just thought, ‘Let me see if I can make a comic.'” His journey began not with a specific goal but with a desire to explore his artistic capabilities.

Discovering the Medium

Tom’s interest in comics was sparked in his youth, drawing inspiration from the comics of the late 80s and early 90s. He initially attempted to replicate existing characters but quickly grew bored. “I created my first comic character, Critter, during a business class because I was bored with drawing what I already knew,” Tom shares. This character became the foundation for his exploration into writing and storytelling.

Transitioning from Art to Writing

Despite his passion for art, Tom soon realized that drawing wasn’t his strength. “I thought, ‘If I can’t draw the character, can I write the character?'” This question led him to study comic scripts, leading to his own unique methodology for writing comics. The process wasn’t easy; it required a significant amount of learning and adaptation. Tom reflects, “It was a disaster to begin with, but eventually, I refined it enough to feel confident in my writing.”

Crafting Compelling Comic Scripts

Writing for comics is more than just words on a page; it’s about creating a visual narrative. Tom offers some crucial tips for aspiring writers:

1. Absorb Comics and Film

To truly understand the medium, immerse yourself in comics. Tom advises, “Just go deep into comics. Spend time in libraries or online exploring various styles and formats.” Additionally, he encourages writers to study films, noting that understanding camera movement and visual storytelling can enhance one’s scripts.

2. Balance Words with Visuals

Comics thrive on the relationship between art and dialogue. According to Tom, “You want a dance between the words and the art. The artist should interpret your script while you provide essential details.” This balance ensures that the story remains engaging and visually dynamic.

3. Start with What You Know

Tom emphasizes that personal experience can fuel creativity. For him, his background in art and years of comic exposure shaped his storytelling. He suggests that new writers draw from their backgrounds, interests, and experiences to create authentic narratives.

Key Takeaways for Aspiring Comic Creators

Embrace the Journey: Creative paths can be winding. What matters is your willingness to explore and adapt.
Learn from the Masters: Study successful comic creators and their scripts to understand different styles and techniques.
Practice, Practice, Practice: Writing and drawing are skills that improve with consistent practice and feedback.

Conclusion

Tom Hutchison’s journey into comic creation highlights the importance of exploration and adaptation in creative endeavors. For anyone aspiring to dive into the world of comics, remember: it’s about finding your unique voice and learning from every experience. Whether you’re an artist, writer, or both, the comic medium offers endless opportunities for storytelling.

Want more insights? Watch the full conversation with Tom Hutchison here.

Frequently Asked Questions

What inspired Tom Hutchison to create comics?

Tom’s inspiration came from his love of art and comics, leading him to explore his own creativity through storytelling.

How can aspiring writers improve their comic scripts?

By immersing themselves in comics and film, aspiring writers can learn to balance dialogue with visuals, enhancing their scripts.

What are the challenges of writing for comics?

Writing for comics involves creating a visual narrative, requiring an understanding of how art and words work together to tell a story.

Transcript

Ryan George (00:14)

Hey everyone, so I’m here with Tom Hutchison. ⁓ I hope I’m getting that right. ⁓ Okay, cool, great. So Tom is a writer and a publisher and I’m really excited to get into talking comics. So Tom, how are you doing today? You had no problem, thank you for being on the show. So the first question I always have for anybody that we interview is to get an idea of your like origin story as a comics creator. know.

Tom (00:18)

You did, yes.

I’m good, I’m good. Thanks for having me on.

Ryan George (00:43)

If you want to tell you, you can give the long story, you can give the short story, but like what kind of got you into to comics? What was that that path that got you to becoming a comic kind of creator?

Tom (00:46)

Yeah.

It was it was honestly it was a like most of the things in my life as I’ve I mean, I have worked in so many different jobs, so many different fields, so many different things that when I when I finally was like, well, let me see if I can make a comic book. It was it was literally just let me see if I can do it like there was no game plan. There was no like goal in my life. Sorry, everybody. There’s no like hard goal when I was eight. I want to be a comic book creator.

Like that didn’t happen. It was just, I loved comics and I loved art. I had been an art dealer for a little while, like just sort of on the side, had my nine to five job, all that kind of stuff. And it really originated, because back when I was a kid, I would draw all the time. And so I would have, you know, my mom would send me to art classes and just, you know, art in general, not comic art, but just art in general. And, ⁓ and so over the time that became like, you know, my friends were into comics and stuff.

This was like the 90s late 80s early 90s before the image kind of pop off But indie stuff had been happening. And so we were all into comics My friends were kind of artists. I was kind of an artist. So we were drawn and monkeying around with it and I so I was like, well, yeah, I like art. I think I understand art Let me do art as a let me learn how to do art as a comic book person So I started to draw as we all do the X-Men, you know Wonder Woman

because that’s what we understood. But I found myself getting bored drawing what I had already seen. And so I created my first comic book character, which was Critter, basically in the back of business class when I was in college, because I was bored with that too. And I was like, well, I’m going to design my own character so that I can learn to draw through that character rather than drawing magic again.

Jean Grey or whatever. that’s basically where the pure origin was. But then over time, was kind of like, even if I’m moderately good at this, like drawing this character, I’m not going to draw trees and cars and horses and all this stuff. And I was like, this is based on where I am. This is not a sustainable, by the time I’m good at anything, it’s going to be way down the line.

And of course, this is like 20 year old thinking, right? Nowadays people start and they’re like, well, Jack Kirby started when he was 44 years old, you know, that kind of stuff. And I’m like, yeah, and I was 27 and I gave up immediately. I was like, no, this is not happening. But what it did lead me to was writing because I thought, OK, well, if I if I can’t draw the character, can I write the character? Can I figure out how to write a script? What does it look like? Et cetera, et cetera. And so I kind of fell into that. And but again, instead of like, well, I’m going to pitch to Marvel to write the X-Men.

Ryan George (03:02)

Yeah.

Tom (03:25)

I wrote Critter’s story. I was like, okay, this is my character. Who is she? Where does she come from? What does she do? And that’s what I used to write. And since I didn’t really know what a comic book script was, I knew it was similar to like a movie script, which I was familiar with. I just kind of dove into the internet, like, show me what a comic book script is. And I would find like, okay, here’s how Chris Claremont does it. Here’s how.

Alan Moore does it. And they were like wildly different. But they all had similarities that I could sort of be like, OK, well, you need this, and you need this, and you need this. Let me build my own way of writing a script. that was a disaster to begin with. It was all color coded and weird and stuff. But eventually, I did it enough because I had my 9 to 5 job too. And eventually, I did it enough, and I refined it enough, and I kept reworking it that I was like, OK, I think I have a system here, a methodology.

And then, you know, that was at that point, I was like, well, I need somebody to draw this book. So I went to go find somebody to draw. But that was really all there was from from growing up with comics to just saying, can I do it? And that was the that was sort of the the general, you know, gamma bomb that started me.

Ryan George (04:29)

Yeah, okay. a bunch of questions I have got it based on that. So yeah. Yeah, no, that’s great. So I guess the first question before, cause I do want to get a little bit more into like the decision that that actual decision of, I’m going to make, make this and where that comes from. But when it came to writing a comic, so I had that, I think a lot of people have a very similar story of like, you know, wanting to make a comic realizing, uh, even if I do learn to draw, I’m never going be able to do this in a way that’s effective.

Tom (04:31)

Of course, that was sort of the medium long answer.

Mm-hmm.

Ryan George (04:58)

and better to pay. But, for myself, you know, I had this moment of like, well, why don’t I just write like prose instead of writing a comic? Like what’s the point? So did you ever have that moment of like, well, maybe what if I just write a novel? And if you did, like what made you decide to go the route of writing a comic?

Tom (05:13)

No, this is where everybody will start to cancel me. I hate books. I don’t. I used to read a lot when I was a kid. I used to read a lot. I read comics or books, all that kind of stuff. But I think that there was a period of time where I shut the book off fiction books like I read, like ⁓ reference and stuff that I need, you know, history and whatever I need to write my story. I’ll read that stuff. But as far as like reading other people’s fiction, didn’t really I wasn’t vibing on it anymore.

Ryan George (05:27)

Yeah. Yeah.

Tom (05:37)

⁓ But part of that was because I was now vibing on what comics were doing and because I was so art forward as coming up as a kid, the art side of it was equally as interesting as whatever story was being told. I over the course of my career now, which has been 16 years, I have written a book and that was the exact same thing of how I did comics was can I do it?

And I tried to do it. And so there is there’s a book out there. But yeah, I’ve just never I fell out of the prose aspect of it. I love the way that well, part of it, here’s the thing that I and I don’t know if this is cause and effect or what, but, you know, comics are primarily people talking. It’s the dialogue. It’s it’s the character saying something. Sure, there’s captions and whatever, but it’s primarily

I’m saying something to this guy. And that to me is how the story moves forward in the best possible way, because it’s the instant drama or the instant conflict or the instant romance or the instant whatever these characters are having together. Whereas with prose, it’s always like, well, the moon crept up over the back of the hills and this, you know, the mist was on the dewy grass. I don’t care.

Ryan George (06:46)

you

Tom (06:52)

Just show me a picture of that. know, I don’t need to be told that I just like seeing it. And so my, my mental capacity and my creative flow went immediately into that. Now the irony is, is when I have to write a script, I have to write all of that for an artist to draw. This is the irony. Hey, I need this thing and draw some mist and what that’s like. my God. So that’s the irony of it. But, I like the output, which is I see where we are. I see who the character is.

Ryan George (06:52)

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah.

Tom (07:20)

and I can go right into what they’re doing, what they’re saying. And for me as a writer and as a reader, I wanna be drawn into these characters as quickly as I can because the environment can be shown to me. But I wanna know what these guys are doing, saying, feeling, and I think comics is more effective in that way for me.

Ryan George (07:39)

Yeah, no, so that’s great point. now for an aspiring writer, I think it helps definitely. I didn’t have an art background. So when I started writing, I think a lot of my scripts and my writing was very much from the perspective of somebody who’s not, I was trying to think visually, but I’m not that person. And so a lot of the writing did not have that in mind. So I really leaned on the artist for that. Then I learned how to color.

Tom (07:56)

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Sure.

Ryan George (08:06)

And once I learned how to color, I started thinking about how I wanted to apply the colors to the script. And then I started to have more of that kind of knowledge. So how, for, for an aspiring writer, let’s say that doesn’t have an art background, what, what, tips do you have for them when they’re writing scripts to be able to make sure that, cause yeah, it’s like comics are a visual medium. We want to take advantage of that. So how do you take advantage of that, the art and the visual aspect while also still telling your story?

Tom (08:11)

changes everything.

Yeah.

So you gotta be, there’s two ways to me. And they’re both equal in their own way. The primary way is just go deep into comics. Like for me, I started reading comics like when I was seven or eight. And so comics has been in my life for 40 plus years. It’s like when I got to the point where I was writing and trying to do this, I had 40 years of osmosis.

of comics, just being in my life, being in my, being in my room, being on my shelves, being on my walls, talking to artists as a fan, you know, how did you do this? Why did you do this? You know, I didn’t even know that that was like research at the time because it wasn’t, it was just, talking to, I’m talking to these guys and it’s fun. So that’s number one is just go deep. if, if, cost is a difficulty, it’s going to library and there’s bound to be tons of, comics at the library. You can check out.

Ryan George (09:03)

Yeah. Yeah.

Tom (09:18)

from across the board, Marvel, DC, Dark Horse, you’ll be seeing all kinds of stuff. Just go deep into that. But the other side or the other aspect that I have used now, because again, 40 years of comic book osmosis, I wanted to take what I was doing visually to another sort of stage. And my sort of way to do that was to start absorbing film, movies.

people famously will give me the hashtag Tom hates everything because I’m notoriously difficult and brutal on my movie reviews. But I love movies. I love the way that they have taught me things like just simply moving the camera. Like if you’re in a scene, the idea is that, you know, they have to figure out how to move the camera around, you know, whatever the bar that they’re in to keep the keep it all interesting and

you know, use the dialogue against what you’re seeing to keep the visual fresh. And so ever since I started doing that, I myself can see my writing change because I’m thinking hard visual now. I’m not like specifically necessarily being like panel one is like we’re deep on this guy and we can see the tear. I mean, sometimes if I feel that, but a lot of that you want to leave to the artist.

but you do want to give them camera motion. Like we’re in the bar, we’re on the left side, panel two, we’ve moved to the right side, whatever. So you get a flow of story through whatever you want to show them. And then when you do have those keys where you need that close up, then you tell them the guy’s at the bar, he’s hunched over and his face is right over the beer. And you can see one tear drops into his beer. You you want those things as a writer, you want to give your artists that.

but then the artist can then still take that and still interpret it within their sort of creative sphere of the art and the drawing and so on. you know, that’s why I said, like, when you look at like Chris Claremont or Alan Moore, like those scripts are wildly different. Like if you read an Alan Moore script, it’s like paragraphs describing one panel sometimes. And so he’s really, really deep. then the artist has to kind of come in and be like, this is what Alan wants. This is what Alan gets.

Ryan George (11:16)

Yeah.

Yeah. ⁓

Tom (11:26)

⁓

but other, other times it’ll just be like, well, I need six panels and, we’re, going through the bar and at the end, the guy’s crying in his beer. You might get something as loose as that where the artists can then kind of come in. But so for me, I kind of sit in the middle. Like I, there are things that I visualize that I want. I want this, I want this, I want this, I want these beats. and I’ve worked with enough artists like over time now that, that they get me, they know what I want.

Ryan George (11:43)

Yeah.

Tom (11:53)

Um, so there’s very little like, oh, here’s a page and I’m like, oh no, dude, you’re not even close. It’s usually like, well, let’s go a little closer on this. Let’s move out on this. Let’s maybe go, go wide here or whatever. And then they’re like, oh yeah, I got you. Fix it. Um, so yeah, I would say just go, if you’re, if you’re beginning, if you’re truly beginning, just absorb comics, that has to be where you start because watching a film will be great, but you’ve got to understand how comics are constructed.

Ryan George (12:15)

Yeah.

Tom (12:21)

⁓

by different people, beginners and by the pros, you know. And then from there, just incorporate whatever other storytelling elements that you kind of are comfortable with into whatever. mean, if you’re a big book person and a prose person, you can go deep in words in a comic book. But I think it has to be done in a way that…

It still allows you to be turning the pages on with a fairly regular sort of, you you don’t want to get hung up like a wall of just words, you know, covering art and like, what am I, what am I doing here? You don’t want that. So there’s a way to do it. You know, other, you know, guys like Frank Miller and those kinds of people, they know how to really not just, not just put words on the page, but put the right words on the page. And it’s all in relation to what you’re seeing.

Ryan George (12:53)

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Tom (13:10)

So while they are still telling you versus showing you, it’s more of a dance between the words and the art. And that’s ultimately what we all kind of need to be trying to do.

Ryan George (13:15)

Yeah.

Yeah, that’s a great way to put it. think that’s when you get something that when you’re reading something that’s really beautiful, really well done. It is. It does feel like that. Right. Like there there it is a dance. And I think that’s a that’s a great way to put it. So let’s get back to your. So you get back to your kind of origin. You decide to make a comic. What I guess what did you what were the steps that you took initially to make your first comic? And how difficult was it? Because it’s such it is a challenge, I think, for anybody the first time they do it, especially if there’s not a background in the industry.

Tom (13:27)

Mm-hmm.

No question.

It’s probably, well, I mean, the hardest part, I think, overall, is just finding, you’re assuming you’re a writer, the hardest part is just finding an artist. Not finding an artist, artists are everywhere, but finding an artist is actually going to commit and do the job and not flake out on you or do half the work and then disappear. Like I went through that in the early days. I had people that would come in and start jobs and then disappear.

Ryan George (14:00)

Yeah.

Tom (14:11)

That’s why nobody gets paid up front anymore. Sorry guys, people say pay your artists. Of course pay your artists, but my friends, there are a lot of people out there who will just be like, I need $500 up front to start. No, sorry. We work it out a different way. that’s even harder for new guys because why does an artist trust a new guy coming in, right?

Ryan George (14:13)

Okay.

Yeah.

Tom (14:36)

very difficult. That’s the hardest part is creating that initial sort of like I need an artist who’s going to stick with me. This is what I can pay. So on and so on. That is the hardest part without question. And there’s no real like advice I can give you there. It’s it’s literally just almost lightning striking. You will find somebody you like. You say, hey, I got a comic book. This is what I can pay. Are you interested? They either are or they aren’t. If they’re not.

You move on if they are you take the next step. Well, this is what I can pay you. Maybe we pay half up front, half when it’s done, something like that. But that’s the hardest part. And it took me a while. And when I finally found the two guys that did my first comics, J.B. Netto on Penny for Your Soul and Jose Luis on Critter, when I finally got him, one of them is still with me today, 16 years later.

Ryan George (15:29)

Okay.

Tom (15:30)

JB is still drawing Penny for your Soul for me. And Jose, as soon as he finished Critter, he got hired by DC Comics and was drawing Justice League and Teen Titans and whatever. And what’s funny is he’s always felt bad about that. We’ll talk, because we still talk. He still works for me. He just covers and stuff. And every now and then we’ll talk about Critter, like where we are with Critter now. And he’s like, ⁓ man, I always feel so bad that I did that to you. I’m like, dude, I’m going to tell you to not go work for DC. Like, go do your thing. just in fact,

Ryan George (15:36)

So, yeah.

Yeah, exactly. Yeah.

Tom (15:58)

I take it sort of the opposite. like, yes, I lost him. But also, yes, I found him first, you know. And so there’s been a lot of artists that I have put into the market and I was first with them. So I kind of I kind of it’s the one thing I pat myself on the back for in all of this is that I feel like I can find artists. I feel like I can find artists that are completely marketable. And the proof is in the pudding because they work for me and then everybody else wants to hire.

Ryan George (16:25)

Yeah. Now, how did you find, how did you initially find your artists? mean, they’re, you know, they play, there’s a variety of websites and Reddit and Facebook. was your process for you?

Tom (16:25)

So that’s just what that is.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Back in the day, there was a place called Digital Webbing. It does not exist anymore. But it was basically in the days of message boards, essentially. So the whole site was essentially a giant set up for message boards where people could post their stuff and show it off and get critique and whatever. But they also had a classifieds section.

Or you could say, like, I’m looking for an artist, I’m looking for a colorist, whatever it is. And you could connect that way. And that’s how I did it originally. This was well before Facebook, well before social media really was anything. And so that’s how I did it. And then through those, like with Jamie Neto, he was part of a studio. So when I needed somebody else for Legend of Oz a couple of years later, I just went through him into that studio and they had more artists. So I pulled.

Ryan George (17:04)

Mm.

Tom (17:20)

Allison Borges out of there and he did the Oz book for me. So I started to get that six degrees of, know, Kevin Bacon type of thing happening. And and, know, and then. When social media came along, artists were posting their stuff all over the place, so, know, I’m just constantly watching my feeds for like, I like that, who’s that guy? And then I go message him if I want it. Hey, you want to do stuff, you want to do stuff and nine times out of 10, it would be a yes, like I want to do this and.

Ryan George (17:26)

you

Tom (17:45)

⁓ we found a lot of people, a lot of people also we found at Comic-Cons, they would just come to our booth, with their portfolios or whatever, know, Natalie Sanders, Jen Brumel, we met them at, at, Comic-Cons. and now, you know, Natalie is off doing all kinds of DC stuff. Jen has worked for, for, Xenoscope and IDW. She did some GI Joe stuff, like just, just crazy.

And Shannon Mayer, we found Shannon Mayer. He did his first work for us and now he’s off doing crazy stuff for everybody. So. It’s the Internet will allow you to find. Endless amounts of people, but that still doesn’t mean they’re not scammers out there, so you got to still be careful, especially when you’re dealing with like, well, I live in Brazil or whatever, like there’s tons of great artists in Brazil, but you know, when you’re dealing with that.

Ryan George (18:23)

Yeah.

Tom (18:31)

there’s really no repercussions if they were to scam you. It’s not like you can go to Comic-Con and be like, that guy in the booth, like, scammed me. Like, it just is what it is. yeah, scour the internet, scour Comic-Cons, go to your artist alley sections and find the people that are doing the work, the work that makes sense to you, and just see if they’re interested in doing it.

Ryan George (18:35)

Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. So now with your first few books, obviously like, you know, now there’s a quite different, ⁓ it’s a different world as far as like, if you want to self publish, we have so many options for us. But when you started, what, how did you initially get your stuff out? you, did, were you published? Did you, did you pitch? Did you self publish? Like, how did you go about that for yourself initially? Cause you, I don’t think, you know, when you started, I don’t think you had Kickstarter or anything, you know, like that to kind of get yourself out there.

Tom (19:02)

yeah.

No,

no. It was we were we were in the system back then, and I had run a comic shop. I had my own comic shop prior to that. So I knew the system. I knew how it worked in 2010 when we did this. Well, 2009 is when we were kind of pitching stuff around. But 2010 is when we were actually published, self-published. We just did it ourselves. I pitched Penny for Your Soul to again, I was in the system.

pitched it to a half a dozen publishers. Only one of them even bothered to tell me no. And even the no was like, well, you have something that we’re kind of doing similar, so we don’t want to double up. And I was like, I understand. I appreciate that. I appreciate that. Everybody else just ignored me. And so the chip just sat on my shoulder. And I was like, all right, well, then I’m going to do it without you. And I went into, again, the system, which was send it to Diamond.

Ryan George (19:48)

Mm.

Yeah.

Tom (20:09)

They have to approve you. If they don’t approve you, there was like a panel of retailers that they would send it to. If they were like, well, I don’t know, they would show it to these guys and they would decide whether they would carry it in their shop. If they said no, you were done. If they said yes, it would kick back to Diamond and they would consider, you know, whatever it was. For us, it wasn’t a problem. They were immediately like, yes.

go ahead, we’re gonna we’re gonna bring you in. So I was like, oh, OK, great. And when we did our first printing, we sold out of it like thirty five hundred copies or something. And I was kind of bummed because I was kind of really looking for that five thousand to kind of start. And I had no reason to believe that number, but that’s what I wanted. But then Diamond came back and they say, look, nobody knows who your company is. Nobody knows who you are.

Ryan George (20:47)

Okay. Yeah.

Tom (20:56)

Nobody knows who your writer is. Nobody knows what this book is. And you still sold 3,500 units, which at the time they were like comparing me to other like Xenoscope and Aspen and some of these other companies. They were like, look what these guys are doing and look where you are on your first time out of the gate. And I was like, that’s really great. Like people talk bad about Diamond, but Diamond was never anything but supportive for us, ⁓ mostly. And so.

Ryan George (21:11)

Yeah.

No.

Mm.

Tom (21:22)

I it’s it’s really honestly, it’s a shame that they’re gone now because it’s much harder now to get into that retail space, to get into lunar, to get into Penguin, to get in Universal. Like it’s so much harder now. So thank God for Kickstarter, because a lot of these guys that would just have zero chance to make it into any sort of retail environment now can at least get their feet wet as far as creating, selling.

Ryan George (21:25)

Yeah.

Tom (21:47)

understanding what’s going on. And, you know, some of them hit lightning in a bottle and do really great. Others struggle and, you know, the struggle works for you too. If the struggle, if you’re not making it, the struggle is your lessons. You have to go back in. You have to be strong enough as a creator. This is really important. Strong enough as a creator to understand what the critique is. Like if somebody reviews your book, whatever what the critique is, what it means.

Ryan George (22:00)

Yeah.

Tom (22:13)

Do you care? Because trust me, there are reviews that do not matter. And then there are reviews that do. ⁓ Does it matter? If it does, OK, how do I take that sort of idea, transplant it into what I’m doing as I go forward? You have to learn. And sometimes winning on the first try isn’t the best. So while we were successful kind of out of the gate, Critter came out later. Same thing. It sold out.

Ryan George (22:19)

Yeah.

Tom (22:38)

We did second printings of Penny for Your Soul. When we got to Oz the next year, our sales numbers went up again. So we were kind of winning out of the gate. And I’ll tell you that that was probably as great as it was. It was not the best thing for us as a company, for me as the lead of a company who didn’t know what the hell was going on. I was just riding the wave that I had happened to catch on to. And

It was just every year after that we released another book or release another book, release another book, another title.

And we were just kind of off to the races. But we did find sort of the glass ceiling as well. ⁓

Ryan George (23:11)

yeah, what were those pitfalls ⁓ that you fell into after having such great success early on?

Tom (23:18)

Well, it wasn’t so much pitfalls as just sort of a desire to keep it going. Like we were looking at it like, well, we can just do this again and we can just do this again. We can just do this again. Not that the books that we were releasing weren’t things that we wanted to do. They were, but there was sort of like a thought process of this should only get better as, know, as we’re seeing this. But like I said, then we hit that sort of glass ceiling of like, we’re not.

we’re not moving forward anymore, or not moving upwards. Like our sales numbers are not moving upwards, not moving upwards, not moving upwards. So.

We had to start to think about like, does that mean? mean, are we, you know, have we have we reached our cap or have we reached a cap of sort of awareness that that we need extra awareness, extra eyeballs from from some sort of different source. And that was when we made the decision to talk to Aspen Comics about taking us on as an imprint, basically, because we were like, well,

They do sort of bad girl books too. It seems like it should be sort of the same type of audience. So it should be like if we were to drop Critter or Legend of Oz on their fans, they should be like, this is on our wheelhouse. This shouldn’t be an issue at all. And so we did that. And what was interesting was even though we were essentially just reprinting stuff we had already done,

on our own at Big Dog Inc. Our sales numbers were basically the same. So it was like second prints, but the same sales numbers. So what does that tell us? That tells us that we are a hundred percent in a new window of people buying. However, we still were at the same number. So it wasn’t like, you know, we’re 3000 and suddenly we went to Aspen and we’re selling 5,000. Like it didn’t happen. It was the same number. But part of that issue too was,

that because we had moved to Aspen, people that were following Big Dog Inc. Thought we were gone because we weren’t in the catalog anymore under Big Dog Inc. We were under Aspen. So we lost a lot of the people that were following Big Dog Inc. As we picked up all of these people that were Aspen fans. So it was basically a wash as far as sales go. And even now, I go into cons, places that we haven’t been in a while. People will see us.

Ryan George (25:03)

Oh, Ah, okay, yeah.

Tom (25:22)

and they’ll be like, you’re back? And I’m like, we literally never stopped making books. At any point in 16 years, we have not stopped making books. And it blows their mind because we just weren’t in the same box that we were in when they understood us. it was a plus and it was a minus and there was good and there was bad. I learned a lot from Frank and Vince and Peter and Aspen was fantastic.

Ryan George (25:26)

Yeah.

Tom (25:44)

to be a part of, again, you learn wherever you’re at, just learn what’s going on. ⁓ But then when they ended up selling part of Aspen to a Hollywood studio and their focus was going to be on taking the Michael Turner properties into animation and stuff, there wasn’t going to be a spot for us anymore. And so I made the decision at that point, which is now about nine years ago, instead of just falling back into this system,

Ryan George (25:47)

Yeah, of course. Yeah.

Tom (26:09)

That’s where we started using Kickstarter to kind of test, again, test a different set of waters.

Ryan George (26:14)

Yeah. And so now that’s perfect transition because you’ve had some, some success on Kickstarter. What did you find that, um, that Kickstarter was able to take you to the next level? like, what, what, guess, you know, secondary question, like what tips would you have for people who are looking to utilize Kickstarter? Um, you know, in lieu of doing, you know, you know, the traditional model.

Tom (26:32)

Yeah, we’re different because when we came in, we weren’t we were new to Kickstarter, but we weren’t new to the industry. We came with a fan following. And so when we relaunched for your soul, a new Penny for your soul on Kickstarter, it was really good. did really well. In fact, what was funny was there was a guy who was doing some kickstarters prior and he was trying to give me advice on stuff. And I’m like, yeah, tell me tell me what you’re doing.

And he says, well, what you’re planning won’t work. And I said, what do mean? says, well, if you’re going to do one issue, one issue like normal, like I was planning to do issues like we did through Diamond. So I was like, issue one, issue two, issue three. He says, it won’t work because the attrition from issue two, three, four, five, it’ll fall right off and it just won’t work. And I said, I think you’re wrong. I had no reason to believe that he was wrong, but I told him, I think you’re wrong.

Ryan George (27:17)

Yeah.

Tom (27:22)

And so when we did the first issue of Penny for Your Soul, we had something like, I don’t know, 250 backers, something like that, and did about $16,000. A few months later, we did the next issue. We did almost identical numbers, roughly 16,000 and 250 backers, almost identical. So no attrition, no fall off. Then when we did issue three, we bumped. We went nearly 300 backers. We went like 20,000.

Issue four bumped issue five it bumped issue six it bumped. All the way to issue seven where we had like 400 backers and 30 K something like that. So I was right. I was really happy about that. I was right. And I at that point I was like you know that now granted here’s here’s sort of the differential. 400 backers. So 400 people are buying an issue right.

Ryan George (27:56)

I’m happy about that.

Tom (28:08)

When we were in Diamond and going to stores, we were selling three, four, five, eight, nine thousand issues of a book. So wildly lower customers, let’s say. But because everything that was in that in the kickstarters is is sort of collectible limited edition stuff. Yeah, we had the regular book, but, you know, variant covers and so on, limited editions. The price points were higher. The margins were higher.

And so even though we sold fewer units than we would at retail, our margins were higher. And so again, there was this balance of like, well, this is what we would have made if we sold 3,000 units. But over here, we can sell 1,000 units across these different covers and stuff, and it balances out. So it wasn’t really a windfall change. And listen, when you make 30,000 on a Kickstarter,

Trust me, you don’t make 30,000 on a Kickstarter. doesn’t, yeah, a lot of people will see those numbers, but that you got to take away all of the costs to make the book, art, writing, color, printing, shipping, plus Kickstarter takes like 10 % right off the top. Like the numbers that you see folks are not real numbers. That is not end of the day. This guy’s going to go buy a car, you know, because he made a comic book. That’s not happening. So, but.

Ryan George (28:57)

Yeah.

Tom (29:21)

It showed me that it works, that the system works, that Kickstarter works. And so we just kind of dove in. mean, everything that I did was really sort of aping a lot of Brian Polito visuals and stuff. Brian was really, really generous with his time because I knew him out in Arizona. And I was about to do a Kickstarter and I was like, can I just like take you to lunch and like.

Ryan George (29:23)

Yeah.

Tom (29:46)

pick your brain and what the hell is going on here. And he was like, yes, let’s go. So he went and spent a couple of hours with me and talked me through what he was doing because he was doing lady death stuff and with success. And so I just started to look at his campaigns and it’s just sort of like ape. That’s how he does that image. And that’s how he does that. I mean, let me, you know, it’s that whole thing like, can I copy your homework? Yeah, but don’t don’t make it look like you’re copying my homework. So that’s what we did. And then over time, you know, everything that you see on my campaigns and stuff, I make all of that.

Ryan George (29:59)

you

Yeah.

Tom (30:13)

I do it all on Photoshop, it’s all me. So over time, I got tired of it and I started to develop my own thought processes and methodologies of design and imagery to the point where we are now, which I think is a sort of a unique take than most people do. A lot of people have said that they’re like, you do this very differently than other people. And I’m like, well, yeah, I mean, I want to stand out as much as I can. So when people come to my, it’s branding, right? So when people come to your campaign,

they know where they are, right? this is a big dog in campaign because this all looks like what I’ve seen 52 other times, you know, on their campaigns. So, yeah, I, that’s, that’s again, it’s, it’s sort of like, like making comics, right? It’s like, what’s the advice go watch Kickstarter, go watch the people that are succeeding at any level, go watch the ones that aren’t succeeding. And you can figure out kind of what not to do. You can kind of figure out what to do. And then you,

Ryan George (30:47)

Yeah.

Tom (31:07)

you put yourself somewhere in that middle spot. when you’re creating writing, art, whatever, all of it is just sort of chance. You may have an IP or an idea that instantly connects with an audience, or they may completely reject it. Doesn’t matter how good it is. Doesn’t matter what names you have attached to it. Even the bigger names in this industry have flopped hard when they’ve made their own books. So.

You know, don’t take it as like, I suck. Like it’s just that thing didn’t work. Figure out why. Retool it if you have to retool it. Or if it really was just rejected, sometimes you just have to walk away from

Ryan George (31:42)

That’s fair. Now, so when it came to this, like this, the success you had with it, not only fighting kind of attrition, but actually, you know, building on an audience, what do you, what do you attribute that to? And then the second question is, do you ever, did you ever get to say, told you so to the guy that, told you that you never be able to do it? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Tom (31:57)

Absolutely, was not happy. He was not happy. He was not happy at all.

Yeah, no, definitely, it wasn’t snarky, but he and I were like, And he was like, yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, so it was fine. So he’s a fun guy and he’s done a bunch of stuff too. But audience,

Ryan George (32:11)

Yeah.

Tom (32:21)

gathering an audience is really just consistency of whatever it is you’re doing, whether it’s consistency of putting out the book, consistency of being on social media in some capacity, doing these types of shows, know, particularly if you’re getting onto different shows. So that again, it’s different eyeballs, right? Like I’ve never been on your show. So whoever’s watching this is now aware of who I am. So that’s theoretically a good thing. So there’s no sort of like

a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow as far as like, you know, this is how you attract people. The only thing there’s only I’ve kind of said this cons and on some podcasts stuff too, because this kind of comes up. There’s really only two ways to flop. One is don’t be an asshole. Like just don’t don’t don’t be that guy. You can have.

personality, can have an attitude, can have, you have to have a little bit of ego because you have to believe that what you’re making is valuable to whoever you’re talking to. You have to have a little bit of ego because if you don’t, then you’re at the bottom where you have no personality. You have no drive. You have no way to tell people why they should be buying the legend of Oz about the Dorothy Gale gunslinger. If you can’t tell people in a personable way,

about what it is you’re doing, you need to find somebody who can, you know, you need to find somebody who can sell your book. It’s one thing that you’re creator, that’s great, but you need somebody to sell your book. I was back in the day, I was never really comfortable on camera like this. Like I would do well before this podcasting thing existed. People would just come up and like bring video cameras and stuff. And then that would get translated into YouTube clips and whatever. I was never comfortable doing it.

⁓ but just over time, I learned to just have confidence in what I was making, primarily what I was making was confident, what I was making. And because I was confident when I was making that created sort of a confidence in myself as a creator that I could speak to some aspect of creating of selling of whatever it is that they wanted to talk about. and, and, know, ask.

J.D. Calderon and Rosario. Now I won’t shut up. ⁓ That’s that’s the reality. ⁓ I love doing these shows. I love talking about movies. I love talking about comics like just I love talking about the creation of like everything. ⁓ And I am by no means an expert at all. Everything that comes from me is is just my experience and and and what I have to sort of give to you. There are people that have infinitely more years of time in this.

Ryan George (34:25)

Hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Tom (34:51)

People that have worked for Marvel and DC and worked on all the big properties and all that I have none of that I’ve worked myself. I’ve worked for Aspen comics. I have worked for dynamite I did a bad kitty one shot for dynamite comics I am now being published by by Antarctic Press who came and they’re now republishing the critter series And I have a book coming out from Dren publications for their What I dubbed for them. ⁓ I said you have to call this the planet verse guys

because they’re doing these Plan 9 from Outer Space spin-offs. And so I did one for them called Plan 39 from Outer Space, which takes place in the 80s. And that book’s hitting, I think, like next month. So those are the companies that I’ve worked for. And I’m open to working for other folks. I’ve been approached by other folks. But at the same time, have to, I have a lot that I’m doing, like all the time.

Ryan George (35:18)

Okay. ⁓ cool. Yeah.

Tom (35:38)

You know, we’re working anywhere between two to three books at a time now to get as far ahead as we can, try to build that infrastructure as best we can so that when we do a Kickstarter, you know, that thing’s like 90 % done by the time we do it.

Ryan George (35:41)

Yeah.

Yeah. So, so I, ⁓ I almost like want to talk about the movies, but I do want to get into the get into a legend of Oz, but I’ll give you a couple of quick questions. Were you good with the Oscar winners this year? Yeah.

Tom (35:55)

Yeah.

You know, I don’t even pay attention to the Oscars. I

haven’t paid attention in years. Nine times out of 10, whenever I see like these are the best, best, ⁓ best movie, nominees. Like I didn’t even see, I didn’t even heard of half of these things. Like literally I have no clue. So, I, I, the only time that, ⁓ that I was bummed, was I remember when Barbie was nominated for a bunch of stuff and Ryan Gosling was nominated for like supporting actor for being, for Ken.

Ryan George (36:14)

Yeah, that is true. Yeah.

Yeah.

Tom (36:28)

and he didn’t win. Like they won for the song, the I Am Ken song, which was great.

Ryan George (36:29)

Yeah. Yeah.

Tom (36:32)

But I was like, there’s no way you can’t give Ryan Gosling the Oscar for Ken. Like you have to do this. And he didn’t. And that I was really bummed about. ⁓ But the rest of it, don’t. It’s, you know, most of those movies, I don’t even know what they are. So it’s the Oscars are kind of shaky to me.

Ryan George (36:35)

Yeah.

Yeah, that’s

Very fair point. Like we always, for whatever reason, make it a point my wife and I to look at, to watch as many of them. And it’s crazy. Yeah. Cause it’s like by the, by the, let’s say the late fall, early winter, when they’re announced, when we decide we’ve only seen one or two of them, because those are the only ones that are actually known. And then it’s like kind of finding all these weird, obscure movies. Um, speaking of Ryan Gosling, I did see, um, project Hail Mary this weekend. Yeah. Oh wait. Okay. Yeah.

Tom (37:11)

thumbs up. Thumbs up. Yeah.

Ryan George (37:14)

Yeah, that was enjoyable. think they did a great job. Yeah. I was glad I could talk to somebody that saw it my wife was supposed to go and she wasn’t feeling great. But I read the book and I was like, I have to go see this movie. So, okay. Yeah.

Tom (37:16)

Unbelievable film. Unbelievable movie. Yeah.

See, I’ve never read the book, you

know, bringing that full circle from the beginning. I had no idea that it even was a book. So I went in completely blind. I went in from the trailer. I was like, oh, it’s like a dude and there’s like an alien and I’m in for that stuff. And I got a ride that I was unprepared for. So it was fantastic.

Ryan George (37:29)

Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah,

yeah, no, they really it’s like nailed it. You know, and I’m not the I’m not the type of person to like, compare the book to the movie. I just knew like, look, if it hits the main notes, and if it and if they make the ⁓ like the alien as endearing as they did work for me, I thought he was great. I think they did a great job with that. And like, they made a rock basically, like

Tom (38:01)

My brain

was breaking because I was like, what is CGI and what isn’t? Because everything looked so good. And then I find out that there was like no green screen in the whole thing. They built all of this, including the rock is a puppet. Like, ⁓ my God. Yeah. Yes. Yeah. If you do it, let people do it. Let people do it. Yeah.

Ryan George (38:04)

Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah. Incredible. And just shows what you can do if you, with practical effects. Cause yeah, exactly.

Like I knew, cause I knew I, so obviously I knew the story and I was interested in how are they going to make this work? How are they going to get the animal, you know, the alien, but I didn’t know the whole thing about not using a green screen and, everything being practical. And I remember just watching things. This is beautiful. It looks amazing. And then after the fact, like, well, yeah, it made sense. Like there were, like, there were no points where I felt

like taken out of it. Like a lot of times with any of big budget Marvel movies, Star Wars, even like there are moments where you’re just taken out of it. It’s like, look, I’m watching animation at this point. You know, there’s so much CGI and I never felt that in this. didn’t think about it until later on reading that there is no, you know, no green screen or very little. And everything was built. It was like, well, that makes sense. Like, because it was all real. Yeah. Yeah. So no, glad to talk to somebody that saw it, enjoyed it. I thought he was great. ⁓

Tom (39:08)

Felt real, because it was real.

100%.

Ryan George (39:15)

So, so yeah, so getting back to, so tell me, tell me about Legend of Oz. And then I have a couple of questions about like your upcoming anthology as well. But yeah, tell me about Legend of Oz, where it came from, what’s the story, and then what, you know, what this next anthology is all about.

Tom (39:22)

Sure. Yeah.

So this is our girl. This is Dorothy Gale. She goes by Gale in our story. It is basically the original mini series is basically the Wizard of Oz. Dorothy comes to Oz, gets her buddies, sees the wizard, all of our Western twists. So instead of Ruby Spurs, she’s got Ruby bullets, Ruby Spurs, her guns have Ruby handles on them. All of the witches of Oz have individual jeweled guns and so on.

which of the West has the onyx, Glinda has the sapphire, which of the North has the diamond, and then they all have their own individual powers within those guns that we see kind of throughout the story. We get to see what the magic can do. But basically it is a Western re-imagining of the Wizard of Oz. So instead of Ruby slippers, Dorothy’s got the Ruby spurs and bullets, totos or horse. And the first volume is basically the Wizard of Oz with our ending.

that allows us to keep telling the story in our way. So, Frank Baum wrote 14 Oz books. So instead of just like adapting book by book by book by book, what we did is we just kind of took all of that as like, okay, all of this exists and how do we want to use it within the story that we’re doing? So we know we want to do the battle with the gnome king. We know we need to do the search for Osma on and on and on. We know we want the wheelers and et cetera. So it just all exists.

And as we’re telling our story, we figure out where to drop in these, these threads that bomb, you know, has in his books. So that way you get a new story, but it’s very grounded in the source material. So it may not be used in the exact same way, but those that know Oz will be like, I see what you did there. and so that’s that I think has been the biggest, sort of.

I don’t want to say selling point, but there’s a lot of people who are like purists. Like it’s the book and it’s the original movie and that is it. but I get invited to an Oz event called Ostrava Ganza in New York. This will be my 13th straight year, 14th straight year. and over time I’ve had people, the purists, I’ve had people come up to the booth, the table, and they’ll look at the book and be like, I don’t know what that is. I don’t care.

And then I’d be back the next year and I’d see him again and I’d be I don’t know, why is he here again? And then I’m back the next year. And sometimes it might take four or five years, but all of a sudden these people are like, why are you here? And so tell me what this book is. And so I show it to them and I tell them what I’m telling you guys. And they generally will buy the first issue or first volume. And then they’ll come back the next day and they’ll be like, you know, Wizard of Oz, you read the books, you understand this source material.

Ryan George (41:44)

Hehehehe

Yeah.

Tom (42:00)

⁓ So even though it’s not what we know Dorothy Gale to be, there’s still that tactile bomb foundation under it all. And I think that’s what’s really helped make the book as popular as it’s ever been.

Ryan George (42:13)

Yeah, well, that’s great. So now, what made you decide to go the Western route? And how do you feel like that kind of meshed with the source material and maybe made it something different and not better, but unique or something that stands out its own?

Tom (42:30)

Yeah, ⁓ it was basically just a fluke. This would have been end of 2010. Whenever I do cons, I drive to cons. I don’t fly or anything. I just load up the car and go and I just drive. So we were coming back from Arizona, from Phoenix Comic Con, and I had been looking to get tickets to go see Wicked, the play, and the musical.

And I had been seeing that shot of Elphaba with her head down and smiling, because that’s like on all of the posters. And so as I was driving back through Arizona and New Mexico and Texas.

Ryan George (42:57)

Yeah.

Tom (43:02)

I was seeing all this, you know, wild west imagery, right? And so the idea of the wild west started to blend with the wicked witch of the west. And it was like, the wicked witch of the wild west. Like, what would that be? That would be kind of cool. And so I have hours and hours of time. So my brain just started putting all the pieces together, you know? ⁓ So OK, so Dorothy, like she comes to this Western Oz. She can’t wear ruby slippers, but she could wear spurs. That would be cool.

Ryan George (43:10)

Mm hmm. Yeah. Yeah.

No, interesting, yeah.

Tom (43:27)

Toto could probably still be a dog, maybe a coyote or something, but if it’s a Western, she has to ride a horse. So Toto became the horse and it was just this, you know, again and again and again, and it all started to work. ⁓ And so by the time I got home, like four days later, I had a sort of a foundation of what I wanted this to be. And that’s when I started to do my deep dive into the Wizard of Oz and into the books and all that kind of stuff to again, to flesh out my idea.

Ryan George (43:40)

Yeah.

Tom (43:54)

using the bomb foundation so that it would all kind of even though it’s definitely different, it’ll still have a sense of bomb to it. And then what we did on the first cover was I wanted to pay homage to Wicked and Gregory Maguire, who wrote the Wicked books. And so we did a cover that was like the Elphaba cover, but with Dorothy. ⁓ So, you know, we wanted to toss that out and say thank you to Gregory and thanks to Wicked and

Ryan George (44:14)

Okay, yeah, yeah, looks great. Yeah.

Tom (44:22)

And the book went wild immediately. We knew we had a solid hit by the time we were on issue three. And I was like, okay, let’s wrap up this mini and work on an ongoing series. now we’re working on, this year is the 15 year anniversary of the book. We’re working on volume seven of the series. And then we’re also doing spin-offs. So this Saturday, March 28th,

We are launching what is called the BD16. We’ve been doing these anthologies, BD13, BD14, BD15. This is our 16 year anniversary. So the BD16 anthology this year is the Oz-thology, because all three stories are Oz books or Oz stories with all kinds of new characters that have never even appeared in the regular series. That was part of the idea was we want to use some of what we’ve had.

but we also want to go and expand this universe as much as possible. that is what we’re doing on Saturday. But if you’re new to the book, the trade paperbacks and stuff are all available. You can catch up very, very easily. You can just read the anthology and you will, all of these are self-contained. So you will know precisely what is going on within these little, these short stories. And then if you like it from there, if you just want to buy that one book, you can come to our website and all this stuff’s available on our website too.

Ryan George (45:23)

Yeah

Got it. what are any interesting rewards or reward tiers that you’ve put together?

Tom (45:39)

So we do a bunch of variant covers. There are three primary variants that are all based on the stories that are in the book. And then we also have a Dorothy Gale cover, a Wicked Witch of the West cover, Scarecrow. Again, just to kind of keep the world involved in everything that we do. There’s a mystery box in there.

where it’s 10 books, nine of them are Big Dog Inc variants from like all of our different titles. So it’s a great starter pack as well. If you don’t know Big Dog Inc, you’ll get nine different books to get a taste of. And then every box has a unique, not unique, has an exclusive Legend of Oz variant cover in it. We only do 50 of those boxes. So there’s only 50 of those books as well. So we do have those.

⁓ there are some day one exclusives as well, like the first 24 hours. So, Nia Ruffino, who is, ⁓ one of our good friends has been doing Oz for us all 16 years. she’s got a cover for the silver princess and we’ll have a special like artist package for her, like using the line art and making a foil cover. that’ll be just available for the first 24 hours. so that’ll be.

Saturday at noon and then that’ll be gone Sunday at noon. It’ll it’ll disappear and then we also have Just an automatic bonus item. We’ve been doing these I don’t think I have one here we’ve been doing these trading cards that are sort of Again homages and tributes to the old wizard magazines. So it looks like our cover our character on a wizard magazine We’ve been doing that as a series of covers or as a series of trading cards. Those are automatic. So if you are in

Ryan George (46:55)

Okay.

Tom (47:16)

on the first 24 hours, automatic bonus card just goes into your package. are stretch goals and stuff, of course, but that’s just an automatic thank you for being here, you know, day one. Yeah.

Ryan George (47:27)

Cool. Well, that’s great. This has been, this has been so informative. can’t, you know, I’d love to have you back on to talk. I like, you know, I, you know, we were talking before and like, like some part of what I love about doing this is like, learned so much. So if I’m learning, you know, definitely listeners, you know, hopefully we’ll be picking up with this one. Great. So, so Tom, where can people find you? Where can they find the, you know, backers of the book? know the Kickstarter will be live and we’ll definitely include a link to the Kickstarter ⁓ in the notes for this, wherever, wherever this goes up.

Tom (47:32)

You

Sure.

Ryan George (47:54)

But yeah, where can people find you? Social media, any information.

Tom (47:58)

Yeah, social media, we primarily do everything on Facebook first, but we have Instagram, have TikTok, we have, I don’t know, whatever, whatever. We’re on most of the things. We’re on most of the things. Just look up Big Dog Inc wherever you’re doing your social media. You should be able to find us. But Facebook is sort of where we start. We do have a Patreon that’s a lot of fun. So if you are into the sort of

Ryan George (48:08)

There’s so many. Yeah.

Tom (48:20)

Creation method of things that’s what we do there all of our patreon members get to watch the cake being made You know, here’s the lines. Here’s the art. Here’s the design. Here’s the logos Here’s the final product they get to see they get to watch everything that we do happen sort of in real time and and then there’s also bonuses for There’s like a couple of tiers So there’s like a five dollar tier that gets you all the posts and then there’s like a ten dollar tier which gets you extra bonus items as well as

Ryan George (48:27)

Mm.

Tom (48:50)

special offers and things through Patreon. So that’s just patreon.com backslash big dog Inc. If you guys want to join up there and big dog Inc. .com is our website. We’ve got trades, single issues, whatever we have single issues left, varying covers, whatever you’re looking for. Big dog Inc. .com. can grab books at your leisure.

Ryan George (49:08)

Cool. Well, Tom, it’s been amazing. Thanks so much for having me on the show and I would definitely love to have you back on. Yeah.

Tom (49:13)

Of course, anytime. Appreciate it.