The Short Box Podcast Ep. 404 - The Adventures of Wyatt and Pouches: An Interview With Kyle Willis About Indie Comics, Kickstarters, and Owning a Comic Shop

 
[00:00:00] Intro music plays

[00:01:10] Badr: Yoo, short box nation. Welcome back to the podcast. This is episode 404. Thanks for joining us. If you're new, well, welcome to the show. This is the short box podcast, the comic book talk show that brings you the best conversations about comic books and pop culture inspired by comics. My name is Badr and I'm doing, I'm doing special field journalism today.

[00:01:30] Badr: I'm I'm in the field doing some reporting today. Obviously I'm not recording this from the short box HQ like normal. I'm actually out here at Cowabunga comics and Green Cove Springs. And for anyone that doesn't quite get Florida or Northeast Florida geography, Green Cove is about, you know, just a short 40 minute ride out from Jacksonville.

[00:01:49] Badr: Today I'll be chatting with a Florida native that not only owns this shop, but he's also an established and known comic creator in his own right. Today, I'm happy to introduce you to Kyle Robert Willis. He's a comic and fine art artist that has quite frankly lived many lives. And he continues to wear a lot of different hats in the comic industry.

[00:02:07] Badr: He produces fine art prints. Uh, he owns this lovely shop that I'm sitting in, Cowabunga Comics in Greencove Springs. He's a regular at all the comic cons worth going to. I mean, he's always set up. He's always selling art. He's got exclusive variants. He does a ton of whatnot shows. And most notably, by the time you hear this episode, he'll have completed a very successful Kickstarter for his new comic book, and as far as I understand it, his first creator owned comic book, which is called The Adventures of Wyatt and Pouches, a Kickstarter that I personally backed, and I can't wait to have the book in my hand whenever it comes time for that fulfillment part, and you're in a lucky position, because even though the Kickstarter will be over by the time you hear this, there's going to be extra copies available for purchase.

[00:02:47] Badr: So, Overall, you're going to be in for a good conversation, and you'll have the opportunity to support a hard working indie creator. I mean, what more could you really ask for? Without further ado, Shortbox Nation, let's welcome for the first time ever, and long overdue, quite honestly, long overdue for a neighbor, you know, a Jax native and neighbor of mine.

[00:03:05] Badr: Let's welcome for the first time ever Kyle Robert Willis to the show. Kyle, what up, man? Welcome to the pod.

[00:03:11] Kyle Willis: Thank you for having me. What an introduction. You know, I try

[00:03:15] Badr: to impress, man, especially when it's the hometown peeps. Even

[00:03:19] Kyle Willis: though we're not in the studio, this is quite the setup. It's almost intimidating.

[00:03:22] Kyle Willis: So.

[00:03:24] Badr: Dude, the portable setup, you know, it comes in handy. It's, I think the bar is set really high with the, the normal equipment and production I go for, but the portable stuff comes in handy and it feels good to be in a comic shop recording a podcast. Well, if this is a milestone,

[00:03:38] Kyle Willis: I'm glad you, I'm glad you achieve it here.

[00:03:41] Kyle Willis: You

[00:03:41] Badr: know, I'm going to let you have this milestone until I can prove otherwise. Cause the onus of proof is on me, the burden of proof is on me

[00:03:47] Kyle Willis: right now. It is. It is. So if there's a listener that knows otherwise, go ahead and chime in, send an email.

[00:03:52] Badr: I need my, I need my short box of story. Who did I say is my short box of story?

[00:03:56] Badr: And I'm going to give a shout out to my man, Jeff Fremid, who has kind of taken on the role as our unofficial, uh, our unofficial historian. He's been gone. He's been doing the hard work of going back and listening to. Every episode of the podcast and they'll send me occasional updates like, Hey, just listen to episode 230.

[00:04:14] Badr: Funny how this ties back to episode 248. You know what I'm saying? It's like, wow. Yeah. So big shout outs to Jeff. But we're not here to talk about short block history Kyle. We're here to talk about what you got going on with your Kickstarter because Kyle, you're someone that I have known. I think it's safe to say, if you had to take a guess, how long have we known each other?

[00:04:30] Kyle Willis: I'd say 9 years? I was just about to say

[00:04:33] Badr: about 9 years. Maybe 10? Yeah. It wasn't long

[00:04:36] Kyle Willis: after moving to Jacksonville. When did you move to Jacksonville? I moved here the day before Thanksgiving 2011. Oh wow, okay. It was a memorable time in my life, so. Where did you move from? I came from South Florida. I was down in, uh, right before I moved here, I was in Wilton Manor, which is a subset of Fort Lauderdale.

[00:04:53] Kyle Willis: I was living with my brother over there. I saw an internship to, to learn digital, you know, graphic design and media, which brought me up here. And I was only slated to be here for two months and I never left.

[00:05:07] Badr: Huh. Yeah. I feel like Jax does that to folks, man. Sucks them in. Yeah. I think they realized like, wow, this is really quaint, like this is really nice.

[00:05:15] Badr: It's, it's, even though I hated how our tourism board, um, remember a couple years back, they had like, did the rebrand for Jackson. Oh, it's easier here? It's easier here, which kind of pissed a couple people off because they're like, it's not that easier, man. Like, you know, I think there was a lot of people our age and younger, uh, that, Felt like it made it seem like it was a retirement place.

[00:05:35] Badr: Like it wasn't, you know, and everyone at the time was pushing for more creatives to move to

[00:05:39] Kyle Willis: Jax. Like there's no hustling and it's all laid out. Yeah, right. You're already successful and that's definitely not the case. No, we work our

[00:05:44] Badr: asses off here, but I do kind of get where they were coming from. I think when people visit Jax.

[00:05:49] Badr: It's like, yo, we got everything. You want the beach? We got it. You want, like, really great food? We've got it. You know, like, affordable housing? We got it. You know, it's the South, baby! Welcome!

[00:05:57] Kyle Willis: Anybody that thinks that this is a congested city has clearly never lived in either New York or Miami or, you know, it has the bonus here of being a metropolitan city without having the congestion that you'll see in Miami.

[00:06:10] Kyle Willis: Yeah,

[00:06:10] Badr: yeah. You know, and hearing, I didn't know about your, uh, uh, graphic design background, but now it makes, it makes all the sense in the world. I actually

[00:06:17] Kyle Willis: moved to Jacksonville to learn how to do post work for a 3D comic book firm, and it wasn't until after they lured me here that I realized it was a pornographic comic book firm.

[00:06:28] Kyle Willis: So, so I

[00:06:29] Badr: learned how to do...

[00:06:30] Kyle Willis: You'll be insane. So I'm learning how to take, you know, the rendered frames and, and add shadows and highlights and perspiration and other bodily fluids and stuff. There was a call at the end of the two months when your training is complete, you can either stay on and they'll make you an offer, or you can go back where you came from and carry on with your life.

[00:06:48] Kyle Willis: And that the latter was my original plan. And I met. Beth on plenty of fish of all places, and here we are, you know, almost 12 years in. Oh,

[00:06:58] Badr: wow. That's awesome, man. That's awesome. And you were telling me that you just recently celebrated, well, you're about to celebrate. Like, we are recording the day before you're celebrating the two year anniversary of opening Cowabunga Comics here in Green Cove Springs.

[00:07:10] Kyle Willis: Yes, our grand opening was October 2nd, two years ago. So tomorrow will be our second anniversary here on our brick and mortar. Which is crazy to me. Cause I, I never, I wasn't the kid who dreamed, I want to have a comic book shop one day that quite literally just became a weird series of events, COVID included.

[00:07:27] Kyle Willis: It brought me to here. And, uh, it's, it's been a hell of a two years, man.

[00:07:32] Badr: That's cool. You know, when I, when I walked in, you were asking me. You know, of all the things I've learned from the day I started podcasting till now, and you know, we were, I was sharing some of that, I guess I want to turn the tables on you, and when you look at yourself now as a retail, on the retail side, being a comic shop owner, about to celebrate his two year anniversary.

[00:07:51] Badr: What's, uh, how, how do you feel like you're, how different do you feel from, like, day one when you first started, like, do you feel like you could run laps around day one Kyle here at Cowabunga or do you feel like, you know, I kind of

[00:08:03] Kyle Willis: want to, I've got two years of empirical data in my brain that I didn't have two years ago and I've seen other business owners struggle to adapt to their demographic when they open up Uh, brick and mortar, like you remember emerald dragon games, he opened that place, Mike, and he knew exactly what he was and he knew exactly what he was going to be.

[00:08:22] Kyle Willis: And then the customers came in through the doors and they showed him that, yeah, that's not what you're going to be. You're going to be, you're going to be a tabletop gaming place. You know what I mean? And he'd had to, he had to adapt or, or, or disappear. And he, and he adapted and he absorbed this, this, you know.

[00:08:36] Kyle Willis: Uh, this body of folks that ended up becoming his regulars. And I did the same. I was like, okay, I'm going to have the homage section over here. This is going to be the area that's going to have all the comics that blow your mind and have controversy in them. And then the majority of the people coming through my doors were little kids.

[00:08:51] Kyle Willis: And the parents were like, what is that? There's a swastika on that comic book. You know, there's a swamp thing with, you know, so I had to take those off of the wall and put them into a box. So yeah, we, we adapted and changed a lot into years, you know, um, but I've got, uh, I've got a Google. Photo album of the place and its evolution over time.

[00:09:09] Kyle Willis: And it's, there's people that they haven't been here in maybe only six months. And they come in, they're like, Oh my God, there's so much more stuff or so much different stuff. And I just started carrying a Pokemon and it's, it's way different. You've

[00:09:20] Badr: also done a really good job of having an online presence for, for a shop.

[00:09:24] Badr: I think when I walked in, you were like, honestly, what did you say? You were like, I'm an online shop. That

[00:09:28] Kyle Willis: just happens to have a front door. I think that's the artist in me. Cause no artist is going to make it in there. Their local neighborhood or area, they're going to have to seek fans and followers elsewhere, because art and being successful at art is a numbers game.

[00:09:43] Kyle Willis: The more people you get, you're not going to be everybody's cup of tea. So the more people to see your stuff, the more. That whatever that percentage of the body of viewers is just going to become a fan, they'll see your stuff. So I had that part of it figured out with being an artist and that transcended.

[00:09:58] Kyle Willis: And when I started selling comic books, I started selling online only, and we graduated to the brick and mortar. So,

[00:10:06] Badr: and when we talk online, we're talking, you have a, you have an online store, but you really, I know. When it comes to staying faithful and consistent with whatnot, you know, you're throwing whatnot shows pretty consistently.

[00:10:17] Badr: I know, you know, shout outs to Trey, friend of the show. I know he's done a couple of your whatnot shows for you as

[00:10:22] Kyle Willis: well. He runs two shows a week. We run seven shows consistently every week. Jesse comes in and he runs daytime shows Monday through Friday. And then Trey's late night Friday and Saturday nights.

[00:10:32] Kyle Willis: So we used to do the Facebook live. We started with Facebook live. And once we realized how much time. Is saved selling on whatnot as opposed to doing the online facebook claim sales It was just a it was a no brainer for us to jump and change course um, but it was my Being an artist that got me on the whatnot the person who is now The head of what not comics, Jack DeMaio reached out to me on Instagram with a message.

[00:11:00] Kyle Willis: Hey, long time follower, first time caller, uh, I work for this new little startup called whatnot. I'd like to see about getting, you know, onboarded onto the platform. I think it'd be a great place for you to find new viewers. And we did a. You know, now people, when they onboard to the platform of whatnot, there's like 50 people in a live stream or whatever.

[00:11:19] Kyle Willis: And, you know, being spoken to address like a class, but it was me one on one and Instagram video chat with Jack. He was basically telling me how to navigate the website and got my, my seller account approved. And I went on and I. Did a couple of shows, but I didn't really know what I was doing. And I didn't have any followers yet.

[00:11:35] Kyle Willis: I didn't make a ton of money. Um, I sold a couple of originals for way less than I normally would have. And, uh, I kind of tucked it away in my back pocket and forgot about whatnot. And it wasn't until after the store was open and a couple of my regulars were in here and they were looking at, uh, eBay listings and they were talking about this book that was selling for.

[00:11:58] Kyle Willis: 1, 000 3, 000 and I'm like, what are you guys looking at and they showed me and it was the um, what not exclusive invincible number one and there was a virgin and trade dress set sold for like 3, 000 and I was like I remembered what not sent me a copy of that Those two books for being one of the first hundred people to sell comics on the app And I said I got those books in the back and they're like, no you You're like,

[00:12:22] Badr: yo, I've been sitting on a goldmine

[00:12:23] Kyle Willis: for months now.

[00:12:24] Kyle Willis: I'm like, yeah, I do. So I went to the back and I grabbed them and I put it in their hands and they kind of looked at me like they were, they were shook, you know, and I was like, give me 600 bucks for both of them. And they, they walked out of here with those two bucks. Like they had just robbed a bank and to me they were, they were, it was just a, uh, like a thank you comic.

[00:12:40] Kyle Willis: It was a nothing comic. A second

[00:12:42] Badr: ago. You could hear them say, you know, faintly in the distance, sucker. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:12:47] Kyle Willis: I was. Glad to be a sucker that day. Yeah,

[00:12:49] Badr: yeah, you walk away with some money in your pocket, hell yeah. But at that

[00:12:52] Kyle Willis: time it made me take a second look, like maybe this WhatNot thing, you know, what's going on?

[00:12:55] Kyle Willis: And I took another look and the person who actually runs WhatNot's, uh, official Discord channel lives in St. Augustine and he walked into my shop and I had him, I had just gotten a collection with a bunch of Spawn, so I let him do a pop up show with Spawn books in my mail room and he... It did very well in, in like an hour's worth of time, and I was like, yo, Trey, Jesse, y'all gotta, y'all gotta figure out how to do this, man, we gotta, let's,

[00:13:21] Badr: let's do it.

[00:13:21] Badr: Yeah, you guys speak the language. I feel, uh, I feel like, uh, Whatnot, especially, and you can say this about like going like live on Instagram or any other like platform, there's a certain language that you've got to speak that's, uh, you know, a part of the, the, the platform, like Whatnot. Is not the same as like the pla you know, how you would speak or address or, or do things on say like Instagram Live or Facebook Live.

[00:13:43] Badr: Exactly Like whatnot's got its own like quirks and, and nuances that are, um, unique to that, that community. And, you know, when I started doing whatnot shows, you know, tr I was absorbing as much knowledge I could from Trey and I know that, you know, he's passed that on and got stuff from you. So, yeah. You guys, uh, do fantastic as far as online.

[00:14:02] Badr: I'm curious, do you think in this day and age that. It's almost, like, essential for comic shop owners and folks that work in retail to be online in those spaces, like, you know, especially, like, Whatnot. Whatnot is

[00:14:14] Kyle Willis: not for everyone. So, no, I wouldn't say Whatnot exclusively, but the online area, absolutely.

[00:14:20] Kyle Willis: Yeah, a lot of comic shop owners don't... Don't mess with variants and they feel that because they don't mess with, you know, modern variants, they shouldn't be online. And that is definitely not the case. Even if you're only on eBay, you want to get online as a, as a retailer. Um, it's weird to me that just because you aren't, aren't great with technology, you don't, you know, they got to find somebody, get them online, get them a website, you know, um, you got stuff sitting in the, on your back wall for, for six months.

[00:14:51] Kyle Willis: That's too long,

[00:14:52] Badr: put it online. Yeah, you're almost limiting. It feels like, uh, I mean, tell me if I'm right, it feels like a backwards way of thinking now where it's like you're waiting on someone to come into your shop. You know, you're relying so heavily on foot traffic, returning customers, you know, pull this customers when you've got the whole world at your hands.

[00:15:07] Badr: Like you're literally

[00:15:08] Kyle Willis: you're choosing to be the needle in the haystack instead of, you know, jumping out and being, you know, part of the forest and not just one of the trees.

[00:15:15] Badr: Right. That's something I talk to, um, like young or starting out podcasters that like these podcaster meetups I run is, uh, you know, they'll, they'll ask like, Hey, do I need to be on, on Apple or focus my efforts on Spotify?

[00:15:28] Badr: My advice is always go exactly wherever your listeners are. So be everywhere. But also if you have a niche topic, like comic books for me, like. I've always gone to where the listeners are. So my ideal listener is someone that goes to a comic shop. So I've got flyers at comic shops. It's someone that's going to be at conventions.

[00:15:45] Badr: So I'm going to go to conventions and, you know, host panels and push, like you gotta be where your, your, your customers are at and now, and with the advancements in technology and how easy it is to just be online or have a, uh, you know, a marketplace online or online store, it just doesn't make sense to only think in like the brick and mortar

[00:16:02] Kyle Willis: terms.

[00:16:02] Kyle Willis: For some people, it's the thought is so overwhelming. They, they don't know where to start, you know what I mean? And, uh, when what they don't realize is you can open up a Shopify store and then you can just use the widgets on Shopify and you can have every single item. Say you only have 100 comics that you only have time to put up 100 comics on your store and then you can't do it until it makes a couple bucks for the, for the, for the business.

[00:16:24] Kyle Willis: You don't have any more time to devote to it. Put those 100 comics on your Shopify store and then you can use their apps and widgets to push those items through to tick tock into Facebook marketplace and to. You know, eBay and there's an eBay sales channel. Now your stuff is live in seven different places.

[00:16:41] Kyle Willis: So that's a hundred listings. So that's 700 listings. Now you have a 700 possibilities of making a sale. And when you make that sale, say you sell it on eBay, Shopify will automatically. Pull it out from all the other places that it's pushed. And then you, then you fulfill the order and then you got maybe, maybe that 20 sale bought you 10 minutes to make a couple more listings, you know, but because the whole thing, Oh, there's seven different places that I have to put on my listings.

[00:17:05] Kyle Willis: I mean, you know, and just like with podcasts, you know, yeah, there's a lot of the I heart radio and all the different places, but then there's the, there's apps. I don't know the name of them. I'm sure you do where you put your podcast on that app and then it. Puts it through to everything else. Apple

[00:17:17] Badr: podcast, a podcast hosting a service really is, is what you're talking about.

[00:17:21] Badr: That pushes everything out for a nominal fee or whatever, but I like the point you're bringing it up as far as like seeking ways to automate the process and make it easier on yourself. Cause when you do think like granular like that, like, okay, I've got to have a presence here, here, and here it does, it does feel overwhelming and you can't be perfect on everything or, or manage or have that much time.

[00:17:40] Badr: But when you start seeking out ways to automate things where you're. Like maybe I'm going to spend more hours upfront, building out my process, trying things, failing, but the goal is to get it to where going forward. Once I've invested that time, now all I need is an hour and I can, you know, it's sure I can hit all these spots and all that.

[00:17:58] Badr: You know, there's a lot of cool stuff in here and I do advise anyone if you haven't been to Cowabunga Comics, uh, I'll share just a quick little antidote. Uh, my man Kyle had the first couple of issues of how to do a power bomb, which I thought have just been sold out. I was like, you know, Daniel Warren Johnson Comics.

[00:18:12] Badr: If you didn't buy them when they came out, you're not finding those in the back issues. Kyle had a couple of issue number ones for cover price. Just chilling, you know, there's a lot of cool stuff in here. So my, the thing that

[00:18:22] Kyle Willis: I'm most proud of in this store is our independent selection. I challenge you to find another comic shop in Florida with more indie books than I've got from, from local, you know, because I came from, I was with these guys.

[00:18:36] Kyle Willis: I was, I was. Brushing elbows with them. So when they got a comic on Kickstarter, I'm like, put the LCS tier up there so I can, you know, double the price. And, and I'll buy 50 copies off of you. So I've got all kinds of, you know, local creators from Travis Gibbs, Austin Janowski to Jonathan Hedrick, John David Byrne.

[00:18:55] Kyle Willis: You know, I got all their books, you know,

[00:18:56] Badr: I've got, I've got Jonathan Hendrick on my list of, uh, reaching out when I've got time to get some more folks. But yeah, you, you do a good job of spotlighting, you know, other indie comic creators, local comic creators. Cause like you said, you're someone that I've watched go through the ranks.

[00:19:11] Kyle Willis: I give those shout outs and I support these artists the way I wish somebody would have shouted me out and supported me when I was first starting out. And if they, if they're putting in the work and they they're made out of hustle butter. I'm going to, I'm going to carry their book in my store, and if it's a great book, I'm going to recommend it to every person that walks through the door.

[00:19:27] Kyle Willis: Hell yeah.

[00:19:28] Badr: So, speaking about, uh, Hustle Butter, which I, I, I'm going to add that to my lexicon. I mentioned in the intro that you live a lot of lives in, in the world of comics. I mentioned artist, uh, comic shop owner, uh, you know, now, you know, comic writer at this point. And I would say that you, you live in two worlds, like you live in the world of comics and art, like your home is both conventions and artist alley and in comic shops, but also at art markets.

[00:19:53] Badr: Like I've seen you at art market, like events where specifically like, hey, you're You know, buy local goods or buy art from like, you know, you know what I'm saying? Like just strictly art. And it is interesting that you can easily live in both worlds and how you've managed to leverage your artistic background to, you know, succeed in the world of comics.

[00:20:11] Badr: Well, you used a word I wouldn't

[00:20:12] Kyle Willis: have used, which was easily. But when I first moved to Jacksonville, I told you that that internship that brought me here, I was only supposed to be here for two months. And once I started dating Beth, and I was like, Oh, I'm not gonna be able to let go of her. So, and I realized I was stuck here.

[00:20:25] Kyle Willis: Um, I reached out to every gallery and artist co op and Club and group that existed in Jacksonville kind of with a hey, I'm Kyle. I'm a new local artist, you know You know hoping that they would I welcome me in or whatever and the ones that even bothered to respond It was like this is how much it is to be a member You know what I mean?

[00:20:46] Kyle Willis: Very cold, you know, boilerplate response, you know, canned, canned response. And I was just like, what is this? So I made it my personal, when I had to learn how to dive into the local art scene, I made it my personal mission to try to make other people, to ease their transition. So, hey, yeah, you don't have to be a card carrying member of the art guild to set up an art wall.

[00:21:08] Kyle Willis: Come on, come on down, come on down. And I would find them venues and stuff. But, um.

[00:21:12] Badr: Well, I want to know, like, what's your favorite hat that you wear? Is it artist? Is it shop owner? Is it the convention circuit? Or is it, you know, working on, on comics? Curator. Curator? What does that mean? What does that mean in, in, in comics?

[00:21:24] Badr: Well, uh, three

[00:21:25] Kyle Willis: weekends ago, when I had that event here, the squad takes over whatnot. And I had people fly in from all over. I curated who I brought the comic con to me, but I got to choose who I wanted to be in the building, who I wanted to participate. So that way we were able to have 15 streamers here running shows for four, four and a half days, all staying together under the roof at this, this place that I rented them a half a mile away from here.

[00:21:50] Kyle Willis: And it went, it went off without a hitch without, without incident.

[00:21:53] Badr: So you like to be the Rick Rubin of comics? Sure.

[00:21:56] Kyle Willis: I just have more than one post on Instagram.

[00:21:59] Badr: Like artist jam sessions, you like to get artists together and help get in front of

[00:22:04] Kyle Willis: folks. Sure, sure. And I'll say yes to anything. If it's a new thing and it sounds wild and absurd and obscene, let's do it.

[00:22:10] Kyle Willis: I'll try it once. And, and, and that has helped me in also working with, with as many people that anybody that says, Hey, you want to do something together? I'm going to, you know, I wouldn't go, Oh, how many followers do you have? Or how big of a fish are you? I'll work with you at once. See how I like the cut of your jib.

[00:22:23] Kyle Willis: And if we work well together, then maybe in the future, you know, um, but curator, you know, um, I curated. The, the collection of independent comic books that is in this place, the art from local artists. We got art hand cut by, uh, uh, Eddie KCI is a 70 c 77 year old vet, and he cuts all these pieces that are framed behind you by hand with an Exacto knife.

[00:22:44] Kyle Willis: Oh,

[00:22:44] Badr: wow. Yeah, it's like the, uh, for, for our, well, I mean this is strictly audio only, but it is, uh, what would you call this? Like shadow boxes. Yeah.

[00:22:52] Kyle Willis: Three D cutout

[00:22:53] Badr: article. There we. Yeah. So you've got like the classic, uh, you got amazing. What is that amazing? Fantasy 15, where Spider Man is looking like he's popping out of the panel or the cover.

[00:23:02] Badr: Now that's pretty bad ass. Yeah. You got some cool stuff in here. I want to turn the corner here and talk about the, the Kickstarter and what is your, you say it's your first. Independent creator owned comic book, right?

[00:23:13] Kyle Willis: Well, my first creator owned comic that's, that's mine. That exists, yeah. It's called, The Adventures of Wyatt in Pouches.

[00:23:19] Badr: I want to read to you the solicitation. Let's read the solicitation. I want you to add to it. If there's anything missing. I doubt it, because I'm sure that you, you're the one that wrote it, but just for our listeners at home, let me, let me give them a level set. The Adventures of Wyatt and Pouches is a journey through the innocence of childhood and the wistful nostalgia of 1990s comic books.

[00:23:37] Badr: Think The Wonder Years meets Deadpool meets Calvin and Hobbes, which honestly you had me at that trifecta. A whimsical and introspective tale for all ages, 18 and plus. Both laugh. What else would you add to this solicitation to let people know what this story is about? And then I want to know who are Wyatt and Pouches as characters, like where they come

[00:23:55] Kyle Willis: from.

[00:23:56] Kyle Willis: So this is a story of what happens when a 13 year old kid has a fork in the road. Um, due to an accident that he was in, he finds himself the smartest room in any, any room that he walks into with heightened, you know, uh, uh, mental function and, and, and, uh, acumen, but he doesn't want to lose his sense of childhood.

[00:24:19] Kyle Willis: He doesn't want his friends to know that he's got these new abilities, so he pretends that he doesn't have them. So in order to maintain, you know, his sense of being a 13 year old kid and having friends and being able to play, he has to confide in somebody. So he actually had written his own comic book before this happened to him, and Pouches was the main character of his book.

[00:24:39] Kyle Willis: So now he forms this kind of Calvin and Hobbes relationship with Pouches, and most of every book is a fantastical journey that they're on together. But Pouches is imaginary. Why it is not.

[00:24:52] Badr: So the Kickstarter is for issue one, right? Issue one's got two stories in it.

[00:24:56] Kyle Willis: Yes, it does. It's got one written by me and one written by Stephen Rohlberg, who you might know used to work over at Mythical.

[00:25:02] Badr: Oh, man, I have not heard that name in a minute. Yeah. Oh, that's cool. Okay, awesome. Very exciting for both. Well, I'm glad, uh, definitely glad I backed it. And it's illustrated by C. Michael Lanning. Tell me a little about

[00:25:13] Kyle Willis: C. Michael Lanning. Lanning I met in a creator group. So, uh, it might even be one that, that, that I I had to ask you for local creator groups back in the day, and I added myself to a couple of them, but I've seen his work, and I really liked it, and, um, I hate to say this, but I had somebody in mind for the book, and they are going through stuff with family, and they're working on another book, and I couldn't have my number one choice, so I took the best person for the job that wasn't my first pick,

[00:25:40] Badr: which is C.

[00:25:40] Badr: Michael Lanning. That's just how it works out sometimes. And for our listeners, the episode artwork For this episode is an example of that artwork, but I got Earthworm Jim vibes, you know, like that cartoony, it's fun, uh, animated kind of look to it. Absolutely.

[00:25:55] Kyle Willis: So there's more than a couple of people have told me when they saw the artwork, they're like, Oh, it's an all ages book, right?

[00:26:01] Kyle Willis: And it's not. I wanted the pages in the artwork to be fun. And I knew that there was a certain amount of people that would see it and think, Oh, that's a kid's book. It's for one, it's absolutely not a kid's book, but a kid could read it. Okay, the same way, you know, they could read a Sunday morning cartoon, you know what I mean like non sequitur But they're not gonna get the jokes So at the at the risk of people immediate But if somebody looks at something and without reading a single panel and they write it off as a kid's book I don't want them as a reader.

[00:26:33] Kyle Willis: Anyways, you know, I mean, so you judge the book by its first panel

[00:26:38] Badr: Yeah, I don't need you buddy. Okay. I think I might have mentioned already, but the kickstart has already met its goal. I think that it's going three minutes. It was a very humble goal, too. I understand that you guys were really just trying to raise funds to get the book made and then also to pay the colorist Samuel Diaz, right?

[00:26:54] Badr: Correct. You guys had already finished the book. It was good, which I do enjoy, you know, cause sometimes you sign up for a Kickstarter and you're like, all right, where is it at in this process? And it's like, well, I just came up with this idea and I have not hired anyone to draw it, right. It, but you guys were like, Hey, we're ready done.

[00:27:07] Badr: We just need a little help to get past the finish line. And what you got, what you got was a whole defensive line pushing you towards the touchdown pass, the touchdown field into the damn stadium, right? Where we're just,

[00:27:18] Kyle Willis: we just need to field goal at this point. So, and, uh, we're going to win the game without it.

[00:27:22] Kyle Willis: You know what I mean? All right. Tell

[00:27:23] Badr: me about some of the perks because you've already got the books. Uh, you already met the initial goal of getting the books made. What are some of the

[00:27:29] Kyle Willis: perks that so we've already unlocked? Um, everybody backing at a physical level is going to get a free hollow foil sticker.

[00:27:35] Kyle Willis: It started out as a regular sticker. If we got to 1000, we get the 2000, it would be a hollow foil sticker because they're a little more expensive to make than it was if we get this much, it would be a trading card. And now we're We're going to, we're, it's going to be two trading cards and we're going to have the Hulk one 81 cover as a magnet is going to be unlocked.

[00:27:52] Kyle Willis: The only stretch goal we have left is the 12, 000 stretch goal. And we're a little over 10, 500 right now. And if we hit 12, 000, then everybody that bought the collector's box is going to get the challenge coin for free. The challenge

[00:28:03] Badr: coin looks lovely, by the way. It's a nice gold plated coin, double sided.

[00:28:07] Badr: It's got pouch man on one side. It's pou it's pouches. Pouch I'm sorry, pouches, sorry. Oh, and we'll get into that, by the way. That was a Freudian slip. We'll get to, but it's got pouches on one side and Bossy the cow, the Cowabunga. The logo for Cowabunga Comics. Yeah, it's a good looking, uh, it's a good looking challenge coin.

[00:28:22] Badr: I

[00:28:22] Kyle Willis: appreciate that. So, yeah, the challenge coins, not only are they cool, but they're more than twice the size that I thought they would be. They're so big.

[00:28:30] Badr: They look like one of those, um, They look like one of those collector coins that you see in the commercials where they're like, only for a limited time now, free shipping and handling.

[00:28:38] Badr: And you're like, damn, it's made out of

[00:28:39] Kyle Willis: pure gold. Yeah. But it looks like it would be like a 40 or 50 thing. Yeah, it's a nice, it's a nice touch. I got them for a great price. Um, and I'm, and I'm, I'm excited. I can't wait to unlock the stretch goals so I can put them in everybody's box.

[00:28:51] Badr: How many Kickstarters have you done before?

[00:28:52] Badr: Is this your first one? Um,

[00:28:54] Kyle Willis: well, I did one for Artwork, um, it was called cosplay character commissions and it was basically, you know, how I do the collage paintings where I'll put the comic book pages down on canvas and paint a character over the top of it. It was basically for cosplayers that have a photo of them that they really, really liked and I would put the pages down of whatever that character was and I would paint them on the canvas and uh, and it was successful, but it wasn't.

[00:29:18] Kyle Willis: By any means, a project like this and it wasn't even something maybe did even really belong on Kickstarter because it wasn't like I needed the funds to, you know what I mean? I just wanted to be a part of Kickstarter. So this is the first comic book that I put on Kickstarter and it's the, um, I had one for my trading cards that did not meet its goal.

[00:29:36] Kyle Willis: So it's technically the third campaign that I've ever made on Kickstarter.

[00:29:39] Badr: Okay. Well, I was trying to figure out if maybe you've. You know, you've done plenty of kickstarters and you're leveraging that experience and that's why it's so successful, but I guess help

[00:29:48] Kyle Willis: me out here Well, I've I have backed over 180 campaigns So when you I know you've gotten these emails saying that somebody that you know back to such and such a campaign Yes They've got some metric where it knows who's crossed the streams and who knows each other and I think that that Has definitely helped, but, um, I didn't go back and, and, and spam every person that I ever supported, but I do think that when I went to launch, uh, somebody that you backed, got an email.

[00:30:16] Kyle Willis: Got it. Hey, this, he's getting ready to go live with this. You know?

[00:30:19] Badr: So it's a, it sounds like a case of you were giving and supporting so much. It kind of came back to you. You know how they say, you put the world. If it comes back to you. Absolutely. I'm not surprised that you're, you've already met the goal that you, you're ha, you know, the, the campaign is successful, you know, whether you hit any more stretch goals, which I'm sure you will or not, I was not surprised that it was successful because like I said, you have, you dabble in so many, you know, so many different hustles and in, in corners of the comic universe that, I can imagine that, you know, you have met so many people, you've helped so many people, you've probably been involved, and, you know, you know what I'm saying, like, your name, you know, your name's got some weight to it, so when you make an announcement, like, hey, I've got a project going on, I think you have gotten so many people, you know, in your corner that, yeah, I can imagine people like, hell yeah, I'm a, you know,

[00:31:08] Kyle Willis: I can support the campaign.

[00:31:08] Kyle Willis: Well, how lucky am I that I've been able to help other people on their journey? And then also they come back, circle back and help me be successful on the next stage of mine. I mean, I feel like I'm one of the most blessed people on the planet, dude. Yeah,

[00:31:21] Badr: I like that attitude, man. Okay, let's, let's address the, uh, let's address the elephant in the room and my little slip here.

[00:31:27] Badr: I was talking to Trey the other week and I brought up the Kickstarter. I was like, yeah, I'm gonna be interviewing Kyle, you know, finally get him on the pod. Want to talk about the Kickstarter. Why it in pouches looks really fun. And I was telling him, I was like, yeah, it's kind of cool that he ran with this idea, this pouch man idea from Lee field.

[00:31:42] Badr: And he corrected me like, you know, like, like, like, like a good friend should. He was like, well, hold up. That's Trey. He was like, nah, nah, nah. You know, contrary to whatever the internet may say, Kyle's Pouches precedes, uh, you know, the infamous Rob Liefeld Pouch Man, which he did as a kind of a meta joke about, you know, all the pouches that he used to draw on cable.

[00:32:03] Badr: Um, I think it was just like a cover that he put out of this original pouch character. And, you know, I think it was a couple of years ago, but, you know, It was 2018. 2018. All right. You know what? I'm just going to ask you for the story because it sounds like just the way you answered that you've already had to explain this plenty of times.

[00:32:21] Badr: So give it to us on the podcast. I had

[00:32:22] Kyle Willis: that answer ready like a katana. Boom. Um, do you remember Joe Peace? Joe Peace. Joe Peace was that dude, he was like, he looked like he's a over the hill rock star and he would run shows at the local Holiday Inns and Ramadas called the Comic Book Connection Show. It's five bucks to get in and you get ten free comics and a yellow bag.

[00:32:40] Kyle Willis: Right? So he used to throw these shows and it was like going to a show at a local hotel But there's only one vendor because he had a tractor trailer full of stuff So I went to one of them and I was like, hey looks like you need an artist to set up and and sell their art He's like, yeah, you know anybody and I was like, yeah, I'm

[00:32:57] Badr: your man.

[00:32:58] Badr: What's your next show? He like I start tomorrow.

[00:33:00] Kyle Willis: So back in 2014 2015. I started setting up at his shows and selling my art And prints and originals and whatnot. And I was at one of these shows waiting for doors to open. And I took a comic book backboard and I started doodling on it. And I drew a picture of pouches.

[00:33:18] Kyle Willis: And when I put it on Instagram, I said, uh, you know, summoning the creative vibes of comic book legend, Rob Liefeld pouches is made completely out of tactical pouches with big guns. No, it's something like what he lacks in feet. He makes up in big guns, you know what I mean? Um, and Rob even commented on it with a little LOL, you know.

[00:33:36] Kyle Willis: And, uh, I started developing that character in Flesh and Amount. It was just a cheesy little doodle, right, but I started over the, over the years following Flesh and Amount, and I came up with Wyatt, and I, you know, rolling around, but I didn't know anything about comics, and I wanted to learn from other people that make comics before I tried to write my own, because as a writer, I was dealing with the burden of knowledge.

[00:33:56] Kyle Willis: And then in 2018, I started getting people would tag me that knew that I was developing this character and posts by Rob, where he was like, Oh, introducing the pouch that's created by created by Rob, you know? And I was like, Oh, that's cute. You know, he's doing his own version. I was like, I, mine was inspired by him.

[00:34:13] Kyle Willis: So what does it matter? You know, but then when he printed it on the cover of blood strike brutalists, number 23, I, I kind of went. And a couple of my friends were like, Yo, that's messed up. You need to do something. I'm like, what am I going to do? Yeah. I'm going to go to the top of a mountain and yell,

[00:34:29] Badr: you know?

[00:34:29] Badr: Yeah, it's a few things, right? It's like, one is Rob Liefeld. It's like, hard stuff. And then second, like you said, it's an interesting conundrum because he inspired you and, you know what? It's like a weird snake eating its tail type thing.

[00:34:42] Kyle Willis: So, I reached out to Rich Johnston from Bleeding Cool. Wow. And I was like, yo, I think this dude copied my homework.

[00:34:50] Kyle Willis: And he was like, well, give me the receipts. So, I showed him the post where I had March 8th, 2015. Anyone who wants to scroll back and see. Um, and I showed him the post where Rob had commented and, and, and, and told him that I was writing this book, which it had a different name. I was going to call it on my honor.

[00:35:08] Kyle Willis: I think on my honor is going to be the subtitle of a future issue anyways. So he's like, Oh, cool. Looks like you got something here. Let me reach out for, for, to Rob for comments. So he reaches out to Rob and Rob was like, yeah, I never heard of this guy. He was just like, well, what about this, this post three years ago where you commented on his thing?

[00:35:24] Kyle Willis: And he's like, you know, he gets all mad. He can do whatever he wants. You know, he probably talked

[00:35:28] Badr: shit about you on his podcast. Your name was definitely said on the podcast. Oh yeah. Uh, it's called, uh, uh, Rob Observations. Of course, it's, and, uh, what, what he, I think every episode he kind of retells like a, a period of comics, you know, during his days and he'll give like, comic history.

[00:35:45] Badr: I've heard it's a really good podcast. I've heard it's, you know, he's got a solid following, but it's also Rob Fel, right? Like of course he does. But after the

[00:35:51] Kyle Willis: Bleeding Cool. Did their Separated at birth article. I never saw. The pouch ever again, right? Um for for good

[00:35:59] Badr: reason. I assume it sounds like it sounds like a silent W right there That's a silent win for you.

[00:36:03] Badr: It

[00:36:03] Kyle Willis: definitely has been a silent W for a few

[00:36:06] Badr: years Well, let me ask you how many people have backed Have you had anyone back the the Kickstarter or the campaign and reached out like hey, this isn't What, what is this? This isn't, you know, the pouch, uh, you know, have you had any of that? Well Or has it worked in your favor?

[00:36:19] Badr: When

[00:36:20] Kyle Willis: I've had the character on my table at conventions, it's definitely a conversation starter. They're like, oh, is that Rob's character? I'm like, nah, it's actually, it's my character. Rob saw it and did his own version. That's why you're so

[00:36:30] Badr: good at telling the story. So, uh, so, uh, the

[00:36:34] Kyle Willis: campaign's live, we, we meet the goal, it's like two or three days in, and I post one of the covers in comic book group on Facebook, and I was like, uh, yeah, someone in that 90s nostalgia with segmented metal arms and cybernetic eyes and a character made completely out of pouches, am I doing it right?

[00:36:53] Kyle Willis: And then I, I, I posted it, and then the first comment, I put a link to the Kickstarter. And then the next day. Rob sees my post and he comments on my post with image comments with every cover of Bloodstrike Brutalist 23, all the variant covers with his character on it, then he makes his own post in comic book group, which I've never seen him post in there before, saying created.

[00:37:20] Kyle Willis: 2017 the pouch by Rob Liefeld established 2017 and everybody's commenting on it and I was like, well, I mean, he said it right there 2017 like my timestamp still on my post 2015 like this is a dumb argument because he inspired me to create the character in the first place. For him to come in, knowing he's got the fanbase that he does, trying to, like, shit on me like that, I'm just like, whaaat?

[00:37:45] Badr: It's like, Rob, I'm the last person you need to worry about, buddy. I'm just trying to do my thing over here. You know,

[00:37:49] Kyle Willis: and you know what? Even, like, right in this moment, if he walks through the door, I would probably kiss him on the mouth because so many people saw the interaction between me and him and they're like, well, I mean, they look at the timestamp and they're like, he's saying he came and then he, uh, Rob posted a, uh, and he's got his own extreme group and he posted a picture of just a pouch that he drew.

[00:38:12] Kyle Willis: Did someone requested him to draw on a sketch cover in 2009? No eyes, no face, no care, no limbs or anything. And he was like, see. The first 2009. So he keeps moving the goalposts. He's either trolling for fun or, or he, Rob is doing for me the work that no marketing firm could. I was just

[00:38:30] Badr: about to say, I like that you, you realize this is kind of a stupid ass argument, but at the same time, it's like, well, I mean, you know, if, if you want to drag this out, thank you for helping me sell these books.

[00:38:40] Badr: I definitely

[00:38:41] Kyle Willis: feel like I owe him an extreme gift basket.

[00:38:44] Badr: You know, I want to go back to, you mentioned something about conventions and setting up. I know that I mentioned in the intro, you were at just about every worthwhile and major convention. I mean, you've been to, you go to San Diego Comic Con pretty regularly.

[00:38:57] Badr: You're going to be in New York Comic Con. Uh, what else is a regular for you? Heroes Con you were at?

[00:39:01] Kyle Willis: Yes, I was there. That was the first time that I had set up. So up until June of. Last year, not last June, but June of last year, I only stuck to like St. Mary's, Georgia and Florida conventions. And then I'm standing in line at this coffee shop, spring park, coffee across the street.

[00:39:21] Kyle Willis: And I get a call from rich to show runner for mega con. And he's like, yo. You want a booth? And I was like, yeah, y'all are sold out. And he's like, I'm in charge. You want a booth? I'm like, yeah. So he called me and hooked me up with a booth and I was like, Oh, that's cool. And then shortly after I got called by Brooklyn Comic Con and they're like, Hey, we want to fly you out here as a guest with Phil Lamarr.

[00:39:41] Kyle Willis: And I kind of like. I'm look left to right. Like, well, what? I'm a Kyle Willis. I'm like, I'm nobody. You know what I mean? Like

[00:39:47] Badr: what are you talking about? And what do you think it was that they saw? Was it a cover? You did a a So

[00:39:51] Kyle Willis: it print out, I asked them when I got up there and we had, we hit it off really well.

[00:39:55] Kyle Willis: And it turns out I was like, so what made you reach out to me in the first place? I had to know. And they're like, when we did our, um, our online con through the, the Covid, we reached out to people who, we followed their work and asked them if they would participate. And you were one of the few that said, yeah.

[00:40:11] Kyle Willis: Which goes back to what I said earlier about, so I'll say, yeah, if I like to cut a ear jib, we'll work together again. You know? So saying yes to somebody that maybe didn't have a a, a big following came back when they, when they did have the following and they were putting on their own actual show, they're like, let's get this dude.

[00:40:25] Kyle Willis: That's cool. You know? And they flew, flew Me and Nick Justice were the two artists guests out there.

[00:40:29] Badr: Well, I wanna know what piece of advice would you give someone that. That is either going to try to do, that wants to do the convention hustle or is doing the convention hustle. How do you keep from getting burnt out?

[00:40:40] Badr: Like what is the best practices to when it comes to like ensuring that you're not wasting your time and resources?

[00:40:45] Kyle Willis: Well, that's a trick question because you're not going to be successful as an artist unless you're one in a million. Without getting a little burnt out. So my suggestion would be the opposite of the question, which would be do as many local, small craft shows and art shows and comic book shows as you can and scale up from there when you, you know, you're not going to do mega cons, not going to be your first show.

[00:41:08] Kyle Willis: San Diego is not going to be your first show. We're a couple of local shows until you figure out what your boots are supposed to look like, look like, and switch up how your booth looks from show to show. So, you know. How to understand the potential of the real estate of your tabletop and what works if you do trading cards and you do glass prints and you got little baubles over there and the trading cards do really well but you didn't sell a single one of those other prints maybe double up the size of the trading card you know what I mean and uh and and then go from there because you don't want to Spend eight, 800 to 1, 500 to participate in a mega con and an artist alley to be drowned out because you didn't know what your table was supposed to look like, and you didn't know how to handle, so start small.

[00:41:48] Kyle Willis: Um, do as many as you can get burnt out, getting burnt out. You get to take that energy when you stop doing shows for a little while, put it back into your heart. Go into the studio, all burnt to a crisp and put it into your art. Put that energy into your art. That exhaustion and that despair is going to make you make better art because you're going to be hungry for it.

[00:42:04] Kyle Willis: You're either going to quit and you're going to go back to your full time job, or you're going to go hard. Kyle, you are

[00:42:09] Badr: a, you are a wild man. You're a, you, you sound like a madman that thrives on like pushing yourself to the limit. Cause that is, I want to say that is the opposite of what a lot of people would say, but I think people would be very cautious in telling someone to like.

[00:42:23] Badr: Push themselves to that limit. But for you, it sounds like you live in that, in that world of like busy ness and hustle and having to push yourself and fail. It sounds like you're not afraid of failure.

[00:42:34] Kyle Willis: The failing is what's gotten every milestone I ever achieved. And every, every little bit better that I got is because I did it and it sucked in one way or another.

[00:42:43] Badr: I want to talk about your, your signature. You mentioned that you have a lot of prints where you do the collages, you know, the, uh, you'll chop up, uh, uh, comic pages and panels and have that as a, as a background. And then you'll draw like a character in front that relates to whatever pages and panels. I'm not going to say that's your piece was the first time I had seen that done.

[00:43:06] Badr: I think you, it was the first time I had seen that. Adopted as a style consistently, you know, when I would see your work at like art walk or some of these, um, art markets, like you had, you combined, uh, like in particular one piece of art I bought from you, it was a print and it was a Norman Rockwell piece, uh, of an electrician on a pole, maybe not an electrician, but a flagpole, someone, a worker on a flagpole, it

[00:43:30] Kyle Willis: was Spider Man and it was Spider Man, it was the original painting is called gilding the eagle.

[00:43:34] Kyle Willis: And it's a painting that he had an old man was at the top of the The flagpole where the Golden Eagle is, and it had rusted and the man was painting it. So I actually did that piece with Photoshop, I got rid of the old man, I put Spider Man in there, I took several composite photos of cosplayers that I had taken photos with over the years.

[00:43:50] Kyle Willis: Oh, cool. And I Photoshopped Spider Man in there with his camera, kinda doing like a, like a peace sign or I can't remember what he was, he was doing something like, you know, doing, doing one of

[00:43:59] Badr: these numbers. Yeah, I think he, was giving a thumbs up. But you've got a lot of pieces like that where you, where you've either combine a fine art famous piece of like comic book elements and it looks seamless, or like you're saying, like the collages, and I think even earlier than that, uh, when I was first going into Gotham City Limit, you were doing a lot of epoxy tables for him, where you were taking that collage style and making like tables.

[00:44:24] Kyle Willis: I was showing somebody else how to do that. So I had done a couple of them and my buddy Jeff knew about it. And he's like, Hey, I got this space. My, my, my grandma passed away and her house is in probate right now. So while they figure out her estate, I can use the house, you know, the garage to make these tables.

[00:44:38] Kyle Willis: And then you can, you should come over and show me how to do it. So I made a bunch of them with them and we sold two or three of them to Ben and we split the money and it was awesome. Yeah, but but but what's different than with the ones that I made then what when other people do them is I painted on it before we covered them with the epoxy so we put the comic book pages down with the wallpaper paste let it dry then I painted, you know, the Batman on one of them and then we coated it and it looks really

[00:45:03] Badr: really cool.

[00:45:04] Badr: Well, I guess what I want to know is it what come what came first is it the At the base, are you, uh, were you a fine arts fan or comics

[00:45:14] Kyle Willis: when, when I came to Jacksonville and I tried to introduce myself to this city and I was met with these, you know, this is what it costs to be a member emails. I realized because a lot of what I do is pop culture.

[00:45:26] Kyle Willis: And no matter what you're doing it and what medium you're doing it, if you're painting something from pop culture, they call it fan art. And I noticed a lot of people in the fine art world look down their nose at fan art and they call it low brow. So I was like, all right, bet I took it. As a challenge, so everything I do, I try to bridge the gap between fan art and fine art.

[00:45:49] Kyle Willis: So when you come into my shop, and you see a mosaic, it's on a gallery wrapped 18x24 canvas, and there are over 4, 000 pieces of comic book pages cut up and assembled to make Venom. There's no denying that the skill that's in that piece, I can, I can, I can, I can confidently say that about my own piece.

[00:46:08] Kyle Willis: Love it or hate it, you gotta respect, that's fine art right there. I don't, I don't care what side of the train tracks you're from.

[00:46:13] Badr: I think when you look at one of your original pieces, you definitely appreciate the amount of, of skill and, like, you know, like, oh, no, this isn't a fly by night, you know, this isn't just, uh, he didn't just draw Venom or whatnot, or paint Venom, it's like, no, there's a lot, there's some nuance to it, there's layers, and you could definitely tell him, like, no, that took some effort, that took some serious effort.

[00:46:33] Badr: There's a piece I

[00:46:33] Kyle Willis: did for, uh, uh, Creator owned title called final boss by Tyler Kirkham and the shop that hired me to do that piece They couldn't be at the drop of the book, which was it amazing Las Vegas back in like May or June or whatever? And they asked me they're like, hey if we fly you out there Will you go pick up the books and I'm like, well, yeah But why don't you just have a mail them to you and they were like because when you pick up your books you get to Go to this VIP party and you get a 10 minute stream.

[00:46:59] Kyle Willis: You can stream with Tyler Kirkham and talk about your school and I was like Buy my tickets, so they flew me out there, and I went to Amazing Las Vegas, and I went to the VIP party, and I got 10 minutes, so I had to log in to the Kiss Comics account, and we went live, and they were doing them back to back to back to back, so you had like no time to glad hand with them before or after the show.

[00:47:19] Kyle Willis: You just went live, and then you sat down, and the other guy, the other guy gets up, and you sit down. So I sit down from across from him and I hand him like 10 copies to sign and he's looking at it and he's seeing all the little pieces and he's like, Oh, I remember this piece when we approved it. He's like, yeah, you did this in like Photoshop.

[00:47:34] Kyle Willis: And I was like, nah, man, that's a 18 by 24 inch canvas. I cut up three copies to issue one and cut the pieces up into thousands of little pieces to assemble them to make that picture for issue two. And his brain melted. But the cool thing is we were live. So we had all the books in the buy it now. And he was like, wait, what?

[00:47:52] Kyle Willis: And I'm, he's like, you telling me there's an original somewhere? And I'm like, it's hanging in my shop in North Florida. He's like, I can't even grasp the, the, the, the magnitude. He's like, wait, wait, like, he didn't have words. It was, it was, and I'm sitting there and I'm just kind of smirking a little bit. I was like, well, thanks for the compliment, man.

[00:48:10] Kyle Willis: He's like, he's like, this is so many pay grades. You know, so many levels above my pay grade. I can't even, this is fascinating. And then he starts stopping people and like some. Tony Mouy went to walk by and he stops Tony Mouy and he's like, he made this with thousands of little pieces of, you know, like he was like a little kid.

[00:48:24] Kyle Willis: He was like, he couldn't believe it. I got a real big kick out of

[00:48:28] Badr: that, man. I thought you were going to tell me he was like, wait, you cut up my comic book, you

[00:48:31] Kyle Willis: asshole. Once, once you sell it, you got no, no ties to what happens to it.

[00:48:36] Badr: Do you have a piece, like, do you have an original art piece or commission that you regret selling?

[00:48:41] Badr: Absolutely. Really? Yeah. You answered that really quickly. You probably thought about this

[00:48:45] Kyle Willis: a lot. It's, it's one of my mosaic pieces, and it's the, the recreation of Batman 423 that I covered by Todd McFarlane. I used to take it with me when I would work shows, if I would paint live, and I had a, a, a fuck you price on it.

[00:48:57] Kyle Willis: And the person who... Owns this building that we're sitting in right now was at one of these events when I was painting live and he got a couple bottles of red wine at him and he came over to me and handed me his Metal Amex and he was like I gotta have it and it's actually hanging in his office next

[00:49:13] Badr: door And that's one of the ones where you cut up a bunch of thousands of people.

[00:49:15] Kyle Willis: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, it's One of the most popular ones I've ever done, but I collected that books foreign editions. So I had Uh, Batman 423 from I think nine different countries, maybe more the Hungarian edition, the Brazilian edition, the Greek, like, and I had that piece on my accent wall in my home and all the foreign additions kind of encircled it.

[00:49:37] Kyle Willis: And it was really cool. And, and I couldn't tell him, no, no, that was just a fuck you price. I don't want to sell it. And I was just like, to me at the time, I was like, that's a, that's a lot of money. I got to take it, you know?

[00:49:46] Badr: Yeah, no, absolutely. How do you ensure that you make time for actually creating art, considering that, you know, you've got a shop to run, you've got, you know, online stores to do, and I'm sure plenty of fulfillment and, you know, bookkeeping and all that.

[00:49:59] Badr: How do you find, how do you ensure that you find time to create and do

[00:50:03] Kyle Willis: art? Well, the only way I've been able to successfully do it is to give up a little. And what I mean by that is... I built this place from scratch. I built this from, this was something I did on the side in my, in my dining room. And now it's become what it is, but I've basically given up the retail portion of this venture and let my wife run it.

[00:50:22] Kyle Willis: So I've got my home studio. I used to do it here. You see, there's a little art desk on the other side of the room from where we're sitting, but now I stay home. And she comes in and she's got the shop cat to keep her company now, rescue. And she runs the retail side of the business. She does all the ordering so that I'm freed up and I can work on cover work and, and writing and travel.

[00:50:41] Kyle Willis: Oh my God, so much travel this last year. I've traveled to so many shows. I worked San Diego comic conf. I didn't even go inside the con. I went, I was in the con for maybe an hour. I spent all my time at hero house. I kind of treated hero house, like a coworking space. And I took a bunch of product with me that I had printed and I gave streamer packs to all the streamers.

[00:50:58] Kyle Willis: And then we, we had a percentage split. So they all ran my stuff. So I took all this stuff out there, but then I didn't have to be responsible for shipping any of it. So it was kind of, everybody's like, man, you got, you got, that's kind of a G move, bro. And I'm like, yeah, I didn't realize how well it would work out when I went there.

[00:51:13] Kyle Willis: So,

[00:51:14] Badr: yeah, it was really cool. Kyle, oh, this might seem like we're taking, like, several steps back, but only because we got, we hit such a good stride in the beginning, I kind of overlooked this question, but I normally like to ask this in the beginning, anytime I do interviews, and that's, do you remember your first conscious exposure to comics, or the one that made you, like, a fan, like, a lifelong fan?

[00:51:34] Badr: Like, is there a particular memory that comes to mind when you think of, like, early comic book exposure? Yeah, well,

[00:51:39] Kyle Willis: I mean, it was, it was Spider Man. Um, I met a kid, I was 12, he was 14, and I met him at church, and we started, you know, you know how kids are, hey, you want to hang out, and I was a little fat kid, right, so he lived about a mile and a half away from a convict shop, he's like, let's go to the convict shop, and I'm like, where is it, he's like, right over here, man, I wanted to kill him by the time we finally got there, a mile and a half, what is that, I don't think I've ever walked a mile and a half,

[00:52:04] Badr: I said I want to hang out and exercise, you asshole.

[00:52:07] Kyle Willis: But, uh, and he would sit there and read the comics and I could kind of, my mom was a street smart people person, so I could tell right away that the guy that owned that shop hated this kid because he'd come in there, maybe he'd buy 5 worth of stuff, but he'd sit there for four hours reading the comics, you know, but he had his own collection.

[00:52:26] Kyle Willis: So when I would go over and hang out at his house, I would read the books that he had in his PC. So, uh, he had a lot of his collection was DC, so, you know, I got to read Nightfall and a bunch of DC stuff, but it was definitely the Spider Man books that took me and I started collecting Spider Man, but McFarlane and Larson and the way they drew Spider Man, I was very much in love with, but Todd McFarlane will always be my, my first comic book love, you know, um, but for Zeta was the first artist that I, that I was like, Oh, yeah.

[00:52:53] Kyle Willis: Wow. Art can be for me. This isn't just for like, this isn't just for old, stinky people. You know what I mean? It, it, it gallows. This is something that I can get into. I saw Frazetta, Frazetta did the album cover for flirting with disaster and another album by Molly Hatchet and that death dealer and that one flirting, flirting with disaster as well with the, uh, the barbarian with the battle ax coming through the wall.

[00:53:13] Kyle Willis: Dude, that was so

[00:53:14] Badr: incredible. Those images are bad. And you know what? McFarlane and Frazetta make so much sense. for you being like big inspirations. 90s comics meets fine art is how I would definitely describe you. For sure. Like that image era. And, um, yeah, man. And the fact that just kind of watching like your career and the success you've had in all these different spaces is really inspiring, man.

[00:53:36] Badr: Like you definitely have worn a lot of hats and it's cool to see like what you've built up

[00:53:40] Kyle Willis: for sure. I appreciate that. Thank you for the compliment. Is

[00:53:43] Badr: there anything else that you would share to an aspiring comic creator or artist that's listening that's like, man, I want to kind of, I want to do what he's done.

[00:53:51] Badr: I want to have that success that he's done. Like, what advice would you give to, like, that aspiring artist or creator? I

[00:53:57] Kyle Willis: would tell them to trust their instincts. Um, uh, I've made it a habit of when I have an idea that I think is super outside of the box idea, and I ask somebody for feedback and they're like, oh, that'll never work.

[00:54:11] Kyle Willis: I take that as a challenge. And I'll do it just, it's almost like the fuel that I, then telling me it couldn't be done is the fuel that I needed to go ahead and spend my energy making that thing come, you know, come to life. Um, and ultimately every time it's, it's been something that I'm proud of when I look back.

[00:54:29] Kyle Willis: So if you think you got an idea that might be a little bit bonkers, but, but, but you're excited about it, do it and don't let anybody fucking talk you out of it. Hell

[00:54:39] Badr: yeah. Solid piece of advice. From a retailer perspective, what is your opinion or feelings on the comic industry today? And I bring that up only because it feels like every other month, you know, I'm, I'm, especially like on Twitter and, and the online spaces that I'm in, when it comes to comic book commentary and journalism, it feels like every other month, there's a conversation to be had about, Are comics dying is, is manga blowing it out the water.

[00:55:04] Badr: Are they going to push that out of the way? Like, what are your thoughts from a retailer perspective on the health of the comic book market? I

[00:55:11] Kyle Willis: think that the discussion around manga outselling American comics to the point that it is and has been for over 20 years is the distraction that Indie comics needed.

[00:55:22] Kyle Willis: To completely outpace DC and Marvel. Now, a lot of people are saying that it's the woke culture or whatever, that's killing comics. Comics are just the money that DC and Marvel are willing to put in to their super profitable products. It isn't what it used to be and it shows so all those people, they're like, why, why would I go work for Marvel if they're not even going to pay this, that or the other?

[00:55:50] Kyle Willis: So the Indie comic scene, there's an uprising happening right now, but because it isn't like one publisher, it's millions of creators. That are finding their space and that slice of the pie taken by the indie community. It can't be quantified, so you can't make a pie chart out of it. So nobody realizes that indie comics is where it is at right now.

[00:56:13] Kyle Willis: You think comics are dying? Put that Marvel and DC book down and pick up an indie book written by a creator that you know, and support them and break bread with them.

[00:56:22] Badr: Damn, I just found the soundbite that I need for this intro. Well said, Kyle, and I love the intensity that you just had talking about indie creation.

[00:56:31] Badr: Which brings me to one last thing I'm going to ask of you. So, the Kickstarter's a success. You've obviously baked in extra copies that can be purchased and whatnot. Where can people find The Adventures of Wyatt and Pouches if they're hearing this and they're like, I gotta support, I want a copy, I love Calvin Hobbes.

[00:56:45] Badr: Well, the very

[00:56:46] Kyle Willis: next place you can find these two characters is in the preview. Of the book, the uncolored unfinished book printed as a preview that I will have a New York comic con. Let's go. But if you keep up with me, just go to artofkylewillis. com or artofkylewillis on any social media platform, except for Snapchat.

[00:57:03] Kyle Willis: I'm 45 years old. You'll find my stuff in my updates. Kyle, I

[00:57:09] Badr: love how self aware you are, man. You're self aware, you're honest, and I love it, man. This has been a fantastic conversation. I'm glad we finally got to make it happen, man. Me too, brother. And I'm glad we got to do it out of Cowabunga Comics. Once again, if you are in the Northeast Florida area, do yourselves a favor and make a little day trip to Cowabunga Comics.

[00:57:25] Badr: Come see what Kyle's got going on. And if you're listening, and you don't live in Jax, or Florida, Check out art of Kyle Willis. com. I should have mentioned at the top links and, and previews and all of that are going to be linked in the show notes. The episode artwork is from the adventures of Wyatt and, uh, and pouches.

[00:57:41] Badr: So we've got you covered. Um, but that's the show we got for you today. Short box nation. Thank you so much. For tuning in. If you enjoyed this conversation, you know what you got to do. You got to make sure that you subscribe to the podcast if you're new to it. And if you're already subscribed, consider leaving a five star rating and review.

[00:57:57] Badr: Let us know if you enjoyed the show and most importantly, let others know that this is a worthwhile podcast. Besides that next week. Well, I got to see what I can, I got to see what type of interviews I can get at New York comic con. The, this episode will, uh, come out the week of New York comic con. So next week I'll see if I got any interviews to drop, but I will have something new for all of you to tune in on.

[00:58:17] Badr: So just stay up to date with the podcast feed and, you know, continue to make mine and your short box. I appreciate and love all of you.

[00:58:25] Kyle Willis: Peace.