Battle Quest Comics Publisher: Andrew Kafoury, talks indie comics publishing and fantasy & sci-fi comics - The Short Box Podcast Ep. 454

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In this episode of The Short Box. As you know, there's about 2500 stores in the US, UK market. And I think Battle Quest at our peak was in about 492 of them. Of the 2500 stores, around 500 of them will buy independent comic books. Of those 500, a lot of them are dependent on those independent comic book sales to stay in business. You know, Battle Quest has been well received by the comic book stores in the direct market.

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largely because of our emphasis on story,  the kind of stories that we tell. I say that everybody who goes into a comic book store is looking for a little battle quest. Let's face it, right? Like, what are we doing, right? We're going and we're getting a cool little collectible picture book about heroes who go on journeys and have battles.

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intro music plays

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Yoo, Short Box Nation. Hello again, welcome back and happy new comic book day. It's another Wednesday, another new podcast. Thanks for pressing play today. If you're new, welcome to the show. My name is Badr and this is the short box podcast, the comic book talk show that brings you the best conversation about your favorite comics with the creators that put their blood sweat and tears into making them, this episode 454.

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And I've got a special creator interview lined up today with Andrew Kafoury. He's a comic writer and the publisher of Battle Quest Comics, which is a  YA publisher of action, adventure, fantasy, and sci-fi comics built around multiple flagship titles like Nomad the Unconquerable, The Steel Siege,  and The 27 Run. Battle Quest Comics has been publishing for almost a decade now, but recently re-inked a deal with Diamond Comics for an extended publishing slate of two years.

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which means you'll be able to find their books in your local comic stores each and every month. So we'll talk to  Andrew about what that means for the company and what it means for you and other fans of sci-fi and fantasy comics. But first, I'm duty bound to give a big shout out to the longest running sponsor of the podcast, which is Gotham limit comic shop. It's Jacksonville's premier shop for comics, collectibles, toys and more. If you're local to Jax or ever find yourself in the area.

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That takes care of that. And now we get started the show. Shorebox Nation, without further ado, let's welcome the publisher of Battle Quest Comics. It's Andrew Kafoury.  Hey, Andrew, how you doing?  Hello.  Andrew, I want to go ahead and say I was perusing the  Battle Quest Comics Instagram page. And there was a post that made me really happy to see.  There was a post highlighting and celebrating the season finale of Severance Season 2, which automatically made me a big fan.

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So I gotta ask, who's in charge of the Battle Quest social media page? Go ahead and give them a raise. And who's the Severance fan  among the company? Oh, that's me. There we go. A man of good taste. Yeah. You know, it's funny because I think like, how do you show sincerity as a comic book publisher? And do you want to push consumer attention to other places? But when it comes down to Severance,  think  we can all agree that we should all join the conversation. Oh, absolutely. So unanimous like, you know,

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Everyone that's got fine taste or a good taste in anything is a fan of Severance is what I've noticed. I mean, considering that you are a writer on a lot of titles and maybe I might be like reaching or I don't want to put any words in your mouth, but as a writer yourself, do you appreciate the writing and the show as much as I think a writer would? Yeah. So from a, from a writing standpoint, sometimes I look more at the,

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the internal journey of the character, right? You know what I mean? Those are kind of the patterns and the beats that I'm trained to pick up. But then I go on TikTok and I watch all the reels on it and they talk about all the external things like the sheep on the side of the notepad. And then I start realizing that there's like an entire side of Severance that I miss. so I get to kind of watch the show for the story as I enjoy it and then read all the theories, you know, like the things the directors put in.

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Do you know how  happy that makes me that  a smart guy like yourself that writes professionally also goes on TikTok to look up the theories and all the other videos? I think it just, it warms my heart to know that everyone is so interested and invested in like the spin-off theories and like, you know, you can always pick something up. But Drew, we are not here to talk about Severance as much as I would love to do a whole two hour episode with you about the season finale. I want to talk about Battle Quest Comics, which is  why you're here. You're the publisher of Battle Quest Comics.

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I can probably count on maybe one hand how many publishers I've had on this show, but  I think it would be worthwhile to ask,  what is the role of a publisher?  what is it? How do you see your role at Battle Quest? What does a publisher do? Well, I'm the champion of all the projects that we create.  I'm also the chief story officer of the company, which is maybe unusual. Well, I make sure that the comic books that are going out are on brand.  I am the person who makes sure that what you see is what

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brand wants you to see. And I make sure that it gets where it needs to go on time. Okay, so the mascot, the project manager, you're a man of many hats is what it sounds like. And you write comic books, too, you write like  a few of the titles, right?  I wrote,  I will so so yeah, so Nomad the unconquerable was a comic I wrote. And then  it was recommended to me that, you know, maybe we should take the Nomad brand into something that was more of a home for fantasy adventure. So that's where Battle Call came from.

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And then when Battle Quest was created, we populated it with  the Trident of Aurelia, which is a mermaid action adventure about mermaids who battle sea dragons and  crustacean abominations and gods and all these cool things. And then  we did a Steel Siege, which is a mech war universe about  a soldier and a diplomat who basically battle for peace on a war-torn world. So we had our three titles.

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And that gave us about 19 months of publishing and we took that to Diamond and Diamond put it into direct market distribution. And we used that cushion to build  more  titles. And that's what gave us the extension with Diamond to keep distributing. then I think we have seven flagship titles right now. Yeah. And I definitely want to talk more about the flagship titles and get your thoughts on those. guess I want to hear what's the temp check at Battle Quest comics. Like what's the vibe right now?

08:05
You know, you guys have been publishing comics for the last decade. You guys just signed a new deal with Diamond Comics to distribute your comics in a larger scale. But I mean, just this year alone, you we've had the headlines of, you know, Diamond has declared bankruptcy. then just last week, you know, they were or not even last week, I think just a couple of days ago, but they just got bought out. You know, it seems like every week something new is happening with Diamond. Now, Diamond isn't like.

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the monopoly big, you know, only game in town anymore. You've got now like lunar distribution and Penguin Random House. But I guess I say all that to say what's the temp check for you guys at Battle Quest? I'm assuming you guys are on your toes as well. mean, what's the level of difficulty like navigating the industry having just signed like this deal of diamond and probably being super excited about distribution and things like that?  think for us,  we have had a lot of discussions  about

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where the future is for the company and they're all productive.  know, I should say Diamond was terrific to Battle Quest comics. They were really terrific to us.  I  actually feel worse for the people there who might not have their jobs  in less than a year than I do for anyone at Battle Quest, because we'll find a way. We're making pretty good comics. We've got a lot of

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other publishers  that we're talking to about forming alliances. We've had offers to,  you know, sub distribute other places. So battle quest is going to find a home one way or the other.  But you know, it definitely was like, it was, you know, it's,  it's,  it was interesting.  It was interesting. Yeah, I would say like, as far as the temperature check,  you know, we're, we're okay.

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But it's been interesting to read for so many years about all the drama that goes on in the comic book industry and then to actually be distributing at a time where there's so much change happening and actually talking to a lot of the people involved and hearing a lot of things behind the scenes that led up to this. And also hearing what other people are doing and getting a lot of experience, excuse me, a lot of firsthand.

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information from, you know, other publishers and marketing directors and editors at not just like, you know, a lot of the independent companies, but the top five, right? Like how is this impacting them and what decisions are they making? How is that going to, how's that going to form or forge, you know, the next 10, 15 years of what comic book distribution and comic book creation looks like? Andy publishing has been on my mind a lot lately with the news of diamond folding and things like that. Like I,

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And I think that was a big reason why I  jumped on the opportunity to  do this interview with you. Big shout out to Tyler for coordinating this. We're already talking about a very difficult industry to break in and be successful in. And then now you've got the news of Diamond Folding and all these uncertainties. So hopefully it doesn't sound like too much like a platitude, but I definitely am sending good vibes your way. And I hope the next steps are  fruitful. I think that  every comic book

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company does things a little bit differently.  Most of the money that comes  into  comic book publishing usually comes from an outside source or it's crowdfunded. It's pretty rare that there's like a family like, you know, a family owned company like Battle Quest. That's not, it's not normal.  when you say family owned, you've got family working on the company too or?  Well, I mean, we, we own Battle Quest. are not, we don't have

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We don't have investor capital swimming through it. We're not managing someone's, you know, stock portfolio and making sure that their brand is bringing in hot IP.  Right?  um, that's what a lot of the most comic book companies that have been made, not all of them, but most of them that have come out in the last 10, 15 years come from the tech sector. There's somebody in the tech sector that raised a lot of money and they wanted to get into comic books. So they build a company, they populate it with nine

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titles. They usually hire Garth Ennis or something, right? They launch with nine core titles. And I think what we did at Battle Quest, which was different than that, is we put a specific emphasis into story. You know what I mean? Like we were less about holding like IP and we were more about building story. And I think that's what helped, you know, Diamond really relates us as a publisher because Diamond is one of the, they, really are like,

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one of the last, if not the last, you know, of the big companies that really believed in the ebb and flow of story in the market. You know, not everything in story for it to be successful is supposed to make a billion dollars. There's supposed to be a handful of things that make all the money and there's supposed to be lots of money. And that's supposed to make the room for all these new stories to be seen by people. And Diamond understood that and believed in it. And I think, you know, after 30 years that

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You know, it's just unfortunate to see to see, you know, what's happened because diamond did a lot of good for a lot of people. I they did a lot of good for battle quest. And I'm certainly not saying anyone who hasn't been burned by the diamond system doesn't have a grievance. But, you know, I think it's going to be unfortunate if we're in a world where every single story that gets out there has to be profit driven because that's going to all the stories are going to look identical to one another. Where is the innovation supposed to from? Right.

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Yeah, you're right. If sales is the only objective, well, you kind of run into the same issue that I see with like the music industry, where it's like everyone's kind of chasing the formula, where everyone's like kind of looking over each other's shoulders instead of focusing on like the story that they're trying to tell. Cause it's like, well, the only thing that matters is sales, you know,  what does everyone else do and what's the formula? And you do want those sales. Don't get me wrong. You want those sales, but like, okay, let's say you open a bar, right? You open a restaurant every your first five, six years, you're going to not, you're not going to be turning a profit at that restaurant.

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But you build a culture, you build a culture in the restaurant and that culture starts to be something you can monetize over time, right? And that's the same with story and story development.  You  build your stories to create a culture  and  to build a foundation and grow your reader base and put yourself in a position to try to monetize that creativity. But if you just launch it with the idea that you're going to  turn a big profit,

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Um, what are you here for? Right? Like, you know what I mean? Like, how do you, how many comics did Stanley and Jack Kirby have to create for 50 years before they came around to Marvel comics? I understand that that's an exaggeration, but right. How many comics did they really make for decades before they finally got around to the Marvel universe? How long did they have to lay that foundation to put themselves in a position where they could just hit fire like that? agree. Sales.

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is obviously important to still business at the end of the day, but not at the cost of your vision, your passion,  doing what  you set out to do. So that's great to hear that  that is a driving factor for you guys.  Diamond aside, I was looking at the  Battle Quest sampler that you guys handed out at the recent Comics Pro,  I think  last month or so. So I am curious, what's been the reception from the industry  at large and retailers and comic shops?

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Um, well, we have, let's see, think there's, as you know, there's about 2,500 stores in the US UK market. And I think Battle Quest at our peak was in about 492 of them. Um, we've, we've had a good reception of the 2,500 stores around 500 of them will buy independent comic books of those 500. A lot of them are dependent on those independent comic book sales to stay in business. Um, and that's another thing with the diamond thing that we're,

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worth talking about.  I know Battle Quest has been well received by the comic book stores in the direct market, largely because of, you know, our emphasis on story,  the kind of stories that we tell, I say that everybody who goes into a comic book store is looking for a little battle quest. Let's face it, right? Like, did you do that? Is that right? What are we doing? Right? We're going and we're getting a cool little collectible picture book about heroes who go on journeys and have battles. that where the name came from?

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So battle quest was um,  it sounded cool.  that's enough. Yeah, like enough said, you know, that bring up Stan Lee enough said sometimes just a cool title or a cool name does it? Yeah,  I feel like I want we tell stories about heroes who go on journeys and have battles. So it's like, let's just battle quest. And then it rang really true. I've had a lot of people who have been like, Oh, battle quest. Yeah, I've heard of you guys. And it's like, No, you haven't heard of us. But

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But the name is so familiar. like you know what it means without the name itself as an archetype, right?  We know what the name means without being familiar with the brand.  And that's helped a lot.  And Battle Quest, you guys are based out of Portland. What's the best way to describe the comic scene in Portland through your eyes? Because I know it as  one of the meccas  of comic book activity. mean, the amount of creators that live there is almost too long to name.

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Brian Michael Bendis, Jeff Parker, the whole Helioscope Studio group is out of there. think Rick Remender is from Portland or in Portland, Matt Fraction, et cetera. How would you describe the comic book scene for, especially as an indie publisher and creator? I think Portland's just like a capital for comic book creators, largely because it rains here. So people can stay inside and work. And then I think that economically, it's affordable.

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for comic book creators, some of them make pretty good salaries, like, you know,  living in Portland provides a high quality of life and then,  you know, economically where they're at. And  I think Portland also kind of  in general has,  we  err on the side of caution when it comes down to, you know, politics and things like that, you know, and I think the comic book creators are often writing about heroes who err on the side of caution for people. And so I think that there's like,

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If you want to make movies  or, or, whatever, like Portland's probably not the best place. Although I think we could have a great movie scene here, but we don't, we have an okay one. Um, we've got a pretty good theater scene here, but it's not, it's not like Minneapolis or. You know, Chicago or anything like that, but we've got this really robust comic book community. like, you know, if you want to be a storyteller and you live in Portland, why not? Why not participate in it? We're good to know the next time I have a project that I need to just like buckle in and focus on.

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rent an Airbnb in Portland, because all I'm going have to do is just stay inside and work anyways, it sounds like. I see Greg Rucka walking  around the neighborhood all the time.  Everybody in Portland sees Brian Michael Bendis ride his bike. All right, Drew, the other interesting thing about  Battle Quest comics to me is  the fact that you guys  specifically  promote and create comics suitable for young adults, like YA titles. I guess how does that?

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I guess why is that important? And then how does that impact, if any, like the creative process for you, especially like, you know, as a writer yourself? So for me, it's like I create the kind of comics that I wanted to see when I was a kid.  I think that,  you know, there is a I think young people can read comic books to learn lessons about how to be better adults. Do you know what I mean? Like, I think that comic books

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you could argue arguably their their purpose is to teach children how to be adults  and you know Superman and Batman and Wonder Woman and the X-Men and Spider-Man and these characters they they make these decisions at the crossroads  to kind of you know try to heal the world and set things right  and then you'll have someone like Magneto  or  you know the the bad guys right and they do the opposite of that and kids  kind of get it do you know what I mean and I think a lot of kids

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can read a comic book and learn when I  as I reach the crossroads in my life, I want to do what Batman would do. I want to do what Superman would do. And the kid gets to be a certain age and you know, most of them will put the stories down and move on. Some of them will hold on to the stories, right? They'll hold on to them forever. Like me,  present company included. Yeah, present company. Right, like me. So  and I also think that that's been really helpful with with us in in the direct market is that, you know,  the store owners know where to

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to tell their customers,  if parents bring their kids in, go check out a Battle Quest comic. And I  see all the time when I'm at a trade show, kids will look up and just see the art and they wanna know what that is, they wanna know who that robot is, they wanna know who this guy with the Moonlight Axe, who are these people he's battling? They wanna open the comics and collect them and flip through them. And so it was important to me that we didn't have the ton of  R-rated,  X-rated,

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content, things like that. was basically PG, but like  80s  PG, 80s PG, which was pretty intense stuff anyway.  For sure. 80s PG is the equivalent of like light rated art now. Yeah. And the chime in on what you said too about learning morality as someone that grew up reading comics since, you know, middle school, especially like high school. You know, I can confidently say like,

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those early  Spider-Man comics I read,  Batman comics, whatever it may be,  those definitely had an impact on my morality, my views of the world, and being able to  put myself in another person's shoes. Obviously,  as I grew up and as I started reading maybe more adult comic books, I still think to this day,  maybe it doesn't teach me the same level of morality. I think I've got my own experiences now to rely on. But I think comic books still to this day, if the story is really good,

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Even as an adult, it might make you question  or see a different perspective or see the gray area.  It's always interesting to see  how a comic book can tackle a complex issue or situation. But to your point,  think is  comic books are a great vehicle to teach the very basic right and wrongs to a young kid. Yeah. Yeah.  And they have evolved. They have evolved and they've become

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There's almost like these comics that they're like super comics that they're just so good,  especially a lot of the things that image comics comes up with. You know, like you hear that image has got, you know, a huge chunk of the market share of the top five, and then you read their comics and you learn why you're like, you you read, you read some of these image comics and you're like, how did they do that?  Who came up with this? And how did they execute this on the page so well?  think it helps that image doesn't, you know, like there's no in house

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like image team there. You know what I'm like compared to Marvel or DC. There's like the in-house editorial. You know, they've got a brand, they've got parent companies. You know, I think it helps that image is for the most part, you know, I think it's probably safe to say like more of a distribution arm than say like a publisher. I mean, obviously they help people publish their comics and get it out. But you know, there's like not one singular voice. It's not like a

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homogenous, you know,  brand of comics versus like say Marvel or DC. So you get like a lot of different, you know,  perspectives and stories from writers. Cause it's like, yeah, well, you know, if your comic is good, you know, like we'll help you distribute it. We're not going to mess with the editorial and try to bend you to like some sort of narrative or mission that we've got. So I, I, will say this much about that. Cause I've never worked with image, but I  know that image image is the one publisher who says,

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You know, let's not worry about what we could do to make a movie out of this. Let's not worry what we could do to  build a friend. What can we do to make this comic the coolest comic it can possibly be? And how can we help this comic book creator make the coolest comic they possibly can? So I don't know when I hear that image doesn't do the editorial, they just kind of stamp their logo. I sometimes wonder about that because  I'm not there, but like I sometimes wonder, I know that they have a mission statement to make sure that the

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If you're a comic creator and they want to carry your comic, they really offer what they can to help make it the comic. Yeah. And I've heard both sides  of that fence. They're  very hands off versus like, they're an extremely great resource in terms of fine tuning the story and things like that. Staying on the topic of  YA and targeting young readers.

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One of the common things that I hear a lot of in terms of like, you know, the the success of the comic book industry and, know, why it might not be achieving like the success it could be achieving is that there seems to be an oversight in terms of targeting like young readers, getting like young adults and even younger kids like into comic shops. Would you say that is a mission for Battle Quest is to get more young readers in there? I guess like, is that something that you're conscious of as the publisher and, you know, putting out your books?

25:20
I think as far as kids going into stores, it depends which store we're talking about.  think kids, younger kids in general are being deprived  of good, strong archetypal moral stories in our society. And whether it's in the comic book sphere or not,  you know,  a lot of kids these days are being given phones and they're just kind of  even at a very young age just to watch their their kids cartoons to keep them from crying. You know,

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I have taken,  I'm fortunate enough to go into schools  and talk about Battle Quest to students, to young kids. And I'm seeing a lot of young kids who will, you know, how they respond to the Battle Quest brand is pretty incredible.  And  there is  absolutely an  absence of being able to easily access and tap into that consumer base to be sure. And I don't mean to speak of kids as consumers, but that really is.

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it's challenge. think, I think a lot of that for us would be to get into the book market and get into libraries and have librarians be our champions and have librarians hand our, our comics off to kids. Cause cause all over the United States,  you know, in a lot of, I'm in Portland, but in a lot of the smaller communities, the library is where a lot of young kids go to, to find community. They might not have a comic book store in that, in that town, they go to the library.

26:48
But yeah,  I think that there is a  real challenge here because the  movies  have been so successful and so many of them are so good. But  I think that there is  maybe just a little bit of like waning away from some of that classic archetypal like right and wrong for kids that we're talking about. And that's interesting though, because the Enter Battle Quest comics to be someone who can respond to that.

27:17
You know what I mean? Yeah. Yeah. So, so, so it's, it's, yeah, but I think when we talk about not getting to reach kids with story, I think that expands beyond the comic book  domain, right? I think that's actually a big, big problem in society in general. What stories do we  talk? What stories do we tell our children and how do they access those stories? No, well said. And you brought up, uh, you know, libraries being kind of a hub for.

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not only community, also librarians being a champion for comic culture and helping  spread the word.  I do  that resonates really closely for me because my local library, the Jacksonville Library, they throw one of my favorite annual events, the  DCAS event, Duval Comic and Zine Fest, where they invite  indie comic publishers, zine makers from all over Northeast Florida. And I'm telling you, the turnout is great. And I will say I see more younger

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know, a parent's bringing their kids there, younger, you know,  teens hanging out there.  So there's definitely something to your point that I've personally seen anecdotically, you know, personally, personally, and anecdotically about the library serving as a means of like, you know, getting comic books out and getting them, you know, a community of other readers too. Well, and I would also add to that that, you know, Scholastic has tapped into that market so excellent, right? Like Scholastic,  how Scholastic has got the

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through the success of Harry Potter and all of the other comic books.  Captain Underpants, yeah, for sure. Captain Underpants. know, comic books, even Battle Quest comics are one of those things that get kids to put their phones down. Captain Underpants right there. They will put Bluey down to read the comic book for a while. Nothing wrong with Bluey's face, but yeah. Have you ever thought about having that as your tagline? Battle Quest comics, your kid will put Bluey down. That's a hell of a statement right there, because I know

29:09
some bluey diehards.  I mean, I,  I don't think I can throw shade at bluey because bluey is like the largest growing think entertainment, anything anywhere right now, like bluey bluey is like something like the largest growing of the top five. We get access to consumer spending data as a publisher because we get to go to go to publisher conferences and we get to learn about consumer spending and what

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us about what's on the minds of people who are buying stuff. on that note, like fantasy is the largest growing genre. When other genres are not selling as well, fantasy right now is doing really well, led by RomFam, which is a romance fantasy, like the Lore Olympus and things like that. So you have a lot, you do have a lot of teenagers that are flocking to get good RomFam, but with that, fantasy in general is a growing

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of genre in sales  nationally. And it's spearheaded by what they call the joy economy, which is that consumers are spending money on things that take their mind off of reality.  you're seeing,  yeah, you're seeing a huge decrease in people watching the news.  You're seeing a decrease in people buying nonfiction.  But people are spending money on  experiences like cliff diving in Nicaragua.

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something like that, right? Like just take their mind off of something, right? Just go have fun.  And so  that shows that people are actually depressed at what they're seeing. And they want to go and, you know, experience something. And, yeah, I don't know how that got around to Blue Earr. But that's what the consumer  spending report is teaching  us about where we are as a people when it comes to sales.

31:03
Yeah, the answer lies in blue. Wow, I cannot wait to share this episode with my buddy. That's all about blue at this point. But you know what, speaking about fantasy, Drew, I want to play kind of a name recognition game for you. I'm going name a couple of the titles, the Battle Quest comic titles, and I just want to get your thoughts. What comes to mind? Describe it. Who's the story for? know, like, what can you say about it? So I'm going start off with what.

31:26
What seems to be the flagship title for Battle Quest comics, is Nomad the Unconquerable, you do the story along with art by Aaron McConnell. What comes to mind? That was the comic that I was working on just to teach myself how to get into like story development at a higher level. That is an 80s inspired, like if you bought a lot of He-Man toys as a kid, you'll understand Nomad the Unconquerable. It's kind of like a serious He-Man, if you will, where like Nomad is...

31:56
Nomad is a bit like Ned Stark in the sense that he he's a father and he's kind of honorable to a fault to an extent. But Nomad is very much a man's got to do what a man's got to do. And Nomad has set out to set this world right. And along the way he is going to he fights  he fights aliens he fights gods he fights robots he fights ant creatures he  he battles  giant demonic aliens from outer space that have been created by God.

32:25
planets and thing.  no, no,  I say with Nomad, like, all I need to do is just have someone got to throw a kitchen sink at him because he fights everything else.  Nomad is really, it's really a story about, you know, love  and  like, heroism and family, you know, and, and, and so it's, it's, I feel like if you looked at it,  who is Nomad for? Like, I just think Nomads for everybody,  everybody and anybody who likes, you know,

32:55
fantasy or action or adventure like Nomad is for you. Nomad is your guy. Love it. That's a great sell right there. Okay.  Let me go down the list.  Another flagship title for Battle Quest is the Trident of Aurelia. Hopefully I'm saying that right. But it's  by writer Lee Moyer  and artist Melissa Spandry. I will say this, I didn't get a chance to  go through the trade for this one or anything, but I did read the solicitation and it probably was the most, it piqued my interest the most because of just how interesting.

33:22
The hook was  what is the hook and how would you describe this one?  This was this one is it's mermaid warriors that protect their city from  from invaders  and it's very much  It's kind of a reverse tale of Atlantis if you will where like Atlantis is very much the search for knowledge of our ancestors to solve the problems of today and this is more about you know, what if you found that the knowledge of Atlantis, but it

33:51
actually discovered what was contributing to to what the what what our ancestors knew actually is part of the reason why society is decaying today.  And I think it's just kind of  a story that explores that question. But it's it's  it's a cool story. And  Melissa Spandry.  She  she will I think, man, she's an incredible illustrator. She's an incredible, incredible illustrator.  And

34:20
Lee Moir is a bit of a Neil, I shouldn't say that  one, but he comes from like a time when there was a certain type of fantasy story that was told. And  so he's an amazing fantasy storyteller.  He had that project in an envelope because he pitched it to Wizard World. And when it came time to create Battle Quest, he had this whole world where there was like mermaid citadels that like

34:49
They were filled with ocean water, but they would pop up over the top of the ocean and the mermaids could come up in the Citadel like and look around like they could look around in the top of their towers outside of the ocean and go back down. He had all of these cool ideas for this mermaid universe. He had  he had the gods. had the realms. He had the heroes and the villains. And so this was an opportunity for him to create that world. And  it actually is  one of our best selling titles.

35:17
flipping through some of the preview art and I gotta say Battle Quest is not short on incredible illustrators. The art in this is just like you said, Melissa Spandry, I would not be surprised if she becomes a household name in the next couple years. Now it looks awesome. All  right, what are some words that come to mind for Steel Siege, which you're the writer of this particular comic with artist Eric Vargas and Russell Brown. Right, so Steel Siege is a soldier and a diplomat.

35:46
work together to fight for peace and i think that that is all the battle quest comics that's the one that's got the most social commentary in it so you got  these two characters and they get put in these situations where there are these conflicts in the conflicts mirror what's happening on earth right and so the two characters encounter these diametric opposite world views and  violent opposition with one another and they

36:11
They are us, they are the audience like learning about this and they can either choose one of these two diametric opposite views or they can alternate, they come up with a third view and try to to  solve the problem that way. And so I saw Steel Siege as a universe where we could explore a lot of the problems that we're going through in the world today.  You know,  in a way that sometimes there's a situation that seems like it's just black or white, but it's a shade of gray, but even within shades of gray, there's black and white, right?

36:39
So those characters  go into these very difficult situations where these groups of people are really angry at one another, mean, violently killing one another, and they try to make peace. And to do that, they have to sometimes make some hard decisions. And so I think it was our opportunity to kind of take some of the events in the news that we're reading about that are so horrible  to read about and learn about and package them in a way that we can.

37:07
maybe become better problem solvers and especially for young people to become better problem solvers when they see these types of situations. That's great. All right. And then last but not least, I want to hear your thoughts on 20 the 27 run, which is, like I said, is the one that I had a chance to really dive into. mean, art is amazing. It really gives me, you know, as a fan of movies like Pacific Rim, Tomorrow War, Edge of Tomorrow, et cetera, like it definitely scratches that itch for like big mechs fighting like

37:35
Big scary, awesome, know, Kaiju's and Monsters. So, so Justin, who's also our media director, he, he wrote that one and, um, we, he, he did a, uh, a screening at the Hollywood movie theater in Portland of Pacific Rim. And it was timed out with the release of a 27 run crash. Number one, that is a Mac versus Monsters universe. And so we had like three, four, 500 copies of, uh, uh,

38:03
the comic book laid out on tables outside of  the lobby of the theater.  And I mean, like so many people bought tickets to that. It was a packed movie theater. So so many people came, they picked up the comic book, everybody watched the movie. Justin gave a speech  and everyone walked out of that theater. So jazz, cause that's actually a way better movie than I remember. Oh yeah. Wait, wait, Pacific Rim, right? I remember watching that in theater when it came out and I was like blown away. That movie was fire.

38:31
Yeah, cancel the apocalypse, right? So  so so the 27 run is I think there's a guy and he's he's lost his eyesight and he has an AI companion. And the AI companion is sort of guiding him in his mech while he's got to battle these 27 monsters that are attacking. And if you like giant mech versus monster stories, 27 run crash is a perfect comic for you.  Plus, it's funny. You know, like it's funny. It's it's it's a very witty story.

39:01
We're building  more in the 27 run universe.  know Justin's working with Sid Van Blue who did Transformers for IDW. She's going to be drawing some of the later comics and I've seen some of that art and it looks really cool.  I just want add back, we work with illustrators.  I've got about 30, 35 illustrators all over the world at any given moment drawing or writing or work on Battle Quest. Yeah. That might be one of those.

39:26
badass ways of saying it. They're just waiting for the special Battle Quest phone in the back to go off. Yeah, or their PayPal account to just be like,  yeah. I like it.  What you said earlier about Battle Quest, the name says it all. Even if you don't know it's a  publishing company and you guys have got a comic, the name really does say it all. And even though we're talking about stories about a...

39:52
mermaid warriors or mechs and kaijus and monsters and et cetera. That  name Battle Quest, think perfect. Like they still fit underneath that umbrella.  And the way you described it, like, yeah, I don't see how any fan of like sci-fi or fantasy wouldn't want to check this out. Especially considering to your point, the illustration, you know, we're talking about comics, a very visual medium.  The art is so fantastic. And I think, you know, you guys deliver on the vibe that comes with the name of Battle Quest.

40:20
Well, we had to do that. That's what gets you into Dungeons and Dragons, right? You go by and you see, you know,  somebody battling a dragon on the cover  of a beautiful looking book and they're in a dungeon somewhere and there's a wizard in the corner, right? And there's, you know, like a dwarf with an axe and some maiden with like spells and, you know, glowing spells coming around. And, know, you're like, what is that? Like I really, and so Dungeons and Dragons,  and I think fantasy in general has to use  above industry standard art to get us into it because

40:50
Because it's fantasy, right? Every fantasy book in the bookstore has got a really beautiful painted cover. They all do. It's also one of the downsides of that industry, though, which is like, you got to invest a little heavily. got to deliver. You got to deliver on the inside. I totally agree. I hate getting cover swapped. You're like, oh my god, this cover is amazing. And you look interior, it's like, it's not the same artist. But you also brought back some memories of flipping through like,

41:19
some of my dad's old comics from the  80s, maybe even the 70s, but particularly the 80s,  and how many times I would flip to the way back and it's like, at the time I didn't know what Dungeons and Dragons was, or I wasn't that familiar, but just being completely in awe of the badass ad for a Dungeons and Dragons game, and I'm thinking it's like a video game or another comic book.

41:42
But yeah, I mean, even back then, you know, it worked on me to see a badass red dragon fighting some sort of wizard in a corner and stuff. There's symbolism there. There's archetypal things that as a young kid, we're sort of tapping into like the dragon in particular in the Western world is is greed. And it's it's it's hoarding. And so, you know, you as a little kid, you see  the hero with the sword fighting the dragon and you just kind of intuitively get that that dragon is up to no good. And there's this little this little thing inside of us that's resisting.

42:12
Do know what I mean? We understand it. We understand it without fully getting why we understand it. we- It's something almost like primal, those symbolisms. Yeah, it's primal. humans, as you know, right? Like  what helped humans evolve from all the other hominid species was we communicated in symbol. You know, our ability to communicate in symbol is mission critical to our survival. It's arguably the most significant  aspect of why we've survived.

42:41
up until this point, although  it's actually out as to whether we're a successful species or not. Get back to us in a million  years. Yeah. Well, I mean, we created Bluey, so I'd say we're  pretty... Yeah, we created Bluey, right? Drew, I want to know, what is your earliest memory of comic books? Can you remember your first conscious exposure that  made you a fan? And then I guess I also want to know, to add to that,

43:08
How did you channel that fandom and that energy into wanting to do this full time? First of all, first thing with superheroes was going to be the superhero cartoon from the 70s, Super Friends, because that would be on TV. There'd be He-Man and Super Friends and things like that. So Super Friends was the first time I saw a Batman or a Superman or a Wonder Woman. The first time I really saw comic books is going to be at the rack at  a grocery store. And they're not there anymore.

43:35
You know, you go to the grocery store and there'd be a rack of comic books. And as a little kid, you're like, Oh, I want to go see what these little cool adventure books are. I'd get so, so bummed if my mom or my dad wouldn't let me get one. I actually have like, I've got real vivid memories of the covers of some of the old comics that I saw as a kid that my parents wouldn't let me buy. And, um, it was like, you could get one, but you already got one this month or whatever. Do you know what I mean? You can't, you can't go back yet. Yeah. I remember there was a West coast Avengers cover. I really wanted to get, and somebody was like throwing Tigra in the air.

44:05
As an adult, realized that was West Coast Avengers number nine. But  I also really vividly remember the first day I went into a store and that rack was gone. That rack was gone and it never returned. I remember like  I rushed in the store. Yeah, little did I know it was all designed to get me into the comic book store and out of the supermarket chains to buy comic books. the comics that I liked as a kid were, you know, Spider-Man, X-Men, Batman. I really liked Batman.

44:33
I  liked the early Ninja Turtles comics a lot. Okay. And then I guess, like, what was the catalyst to go from fan to writer and publisher? Yeah, so, uh,  sounds weird, but my mom was a manager of a children's theater. So I grew up like kind of immersed in story as a kid. And, um,  I,  I wanted to work in story professionally one way or the other.  And,  um, it just so happened to be that comic, you

45:03
The comic book community in Portland was really big and comics were really big here. So  I thought, let's just get into making comic books. Of course, I had no idea how to make a comic book. I didn't know the difference between a JPEG and a TIFF. It was just like  slowly learning how to  make a story as a comic book, then how to illustrate it, then how to edit it, then how to letter it, how to color it, how to print it, how to sell it.  And that was...

45:32
I mean, that's probably like a nine year process from, you know, 2011 to 2020. Right. And then in 2020, you know, I think I'd been doing Comic Cons for about seven years. So I knew how hard it was to sell comic books, but I could also see the state of the market and what the market was missing. And the market was missing that, that kind of just traditional sense of adventure. You know what I mean? That that was inherent when I was younger. And a lot of that was just because of the

46:01
the economic changes and the movies and generational change. All of these things were happening at once. So it's okay, there's an avenue for us to enter the market. so I took that and it just so happened to be that because some of the bigger publishers had left Diamond, Diamond had room for Battle Quest. Who are some of your inspirations or North stars, whether it be other comic writers?

46:25
Or maybe like someone  on the  business side of comics, another publisher, like who helps guide or inspire you creatively? Well, I definitely loved Marvel in the Jim Shooter era. And I loved the early Valiant comics that Jim, you know, I loved Magnus Robot Fighter. Like I got a chance to meet Jim Shooter and tell him how much I liked Magnus Robot Fighter. And like, he just smiled.  Do you know,  I  liked the Jim Shooter rule about how all the characters had to repeat what their powers were.

46:55
Do you know what I mean? Yeah, I do. Yeah.  He had to act as if the hero had, the reader had picked it up for the first time.  I actually thought that was really smart. Yeah. He basically took like,  I think that was like one of Stan Lee's initial creeds and rules  early on was like, it should always be someone's first, you know, always keep in mind this might be someone's first comic. I think Jim Shooter's rule only like built on top of that. Oh yeah. That's why Rogue, Rogue a million times over was like, I'll touch you and take your powers and you'll like it.

47:24
That's like all the time. That era is kind of what I grew up in.  That sort of stuff was really inspirational to me.  As far as like I really loved what Marvel did with the Ultimates universe, you know, the way that it revived it.  I mean, I loved Mark Millar's run on Ultimates.  Like, loved that issue where they were fighting the aliens.

47:49
And it was like, it was like Ultimate's number 12 or something. It's like 52 pages or whatever. And Quicksilver is just running around, just beaten the crud out of all these aliens. And he comes to a stop and he's like resting and someone says something him about Quicksilver, like you're not doing anything or go faster or something. There's just this one little panel of Quicksilver is like looking up. He's like, did you not just see what I did?  You know, yeah, I like good story and good storytelling wherever I can find it.

48:18
I had a chance to work with Tomor Zachowski, who,  you know, the letter of the uncanny X-Men. was the first like, of the classic run of the X-Men, the Claremont run. He was the first like, like I'll say like OG. He was like the first like real old school creator that ever came in to like lend a hand  to me, you know?  And  he was lettering comics that I wrote. It would be like he was working on Todd McFarlane,  Grant Morrison.

48:47
And drew before he comics, right? Like go figure that one out. But he said something to me that was real interesting. He talked about how, cause I loved that classic run on the X-Men and he was talking about, um, like how shadow cat and aurora had this mother daughter relationship  and  how much that meant to him writing or working on those comics. You know what I mean? And I hadn't thought about it, but I was like, you know what, Tom, I liked that too. I, know, that, that really

49:16
really was interesting. There really was like the mother to the daughter and it wasn't,  you know, it was about growth and maturation and love.  I hadn't thought about that before. No, that's a great perspective. mean, you know, that is one thing I do remember. I don't remember every detail from the Claremont X-Men run. I do remember like absolutely being enthralled by it as a young teen finding those issues. But I

49:44
The thing that stands out still about those stories is like the humanity and the characters, you know, the character work and stories of like,  and just how different every single X-Men was, you know, like,  yeah, there was something very warm, you know, the way Storm is kind of like portrayed, like whether it in the Claremont  X-Men or even like, you know, something like X-Men 97, there's something very regal and warm and, you know, just something very motherly about Storm. I think that's why she's one of my favorite characters. you know what Tom said about Wolverine?

50:14
Well, obviously, mean, he said something he said,  he said Wolverine was an animal who  wanted to be human.  And that's, that's why the samurai was so important to Wolverine, because it balanced the  feral side with humanity. And that's why like when his relationship with the woman in Japan, he was going to marry went south in the comics, it just broke him. Yeah, something about like,

50:43
having that honor and him putting that  honor on such a high pedestal. It's interesting because I actually just,  read on the topic of Wolverine, I read Weapon X for the first time,  the Barry Winsor Smith classic.  I don't know if Clarence Caramont wrote any of that, I think it was just Barry Winsor Smith did the art and the story, but reading it for the first time, at  this age, just hit a little different, man. like, once again, I feel like humanity. I've said it so many times, but there's something very,

51:11
just heartbreaking about reading that and seeing like the last bit of humanity that Logan was holding on to like completely stripped from him to become like this killing machine. Now you got me wanting to reread a bunch of X-Men things. Well, and I love that. I like the Barry Windsor Smith one where it's I think it's X-Men 208 or 207 or something. It's where Wolverine fights Lady Deathstroke in the snow.  Oh, that is a good one. Actually, I think it's in this collection that I'm reading. Yeah.

51:40
It should be in the back. Yeah, yeah. It's kind of like the epilogue to all of that. But man, that's a bitch in comic. Damn right. A bitch in comic. And I think with that being said, Andrew, ladies and gents, this is the Short Box podcast. And we just finished talking to Andrew Caffore about running the company that is Battle Quest Comics. Be sure to check out some of the company's flagship titles like Nomad the Unconquerable, Steel Siege, The 27 Run and so many more. I'll have links in these show notes.

52:07
to the Battle Quest Comics website. We can take a look at all of their flagship titles.  I'll also link to,  Andrew, I don't know if you're on social media, but I'll try to  at least link to something for you so people can give you a follow. I think you're a very smart guy. You got a very sharp head on you  and a great perspective and view on comics. Do you have any parting words or anything that you want to plug before we wrap up?

52:27
Yeah, I would just say to anyone listening to this  on social media, you're going to like just there's a ton of negativity on social media about the comic book industry. And I'm not going to sit here and say that there aren't a lot of people who've been burned by the comic book industry.  However,  at the core of the industry are good people working on stories to try to help help other people.  Really, truly, that's what's really going on there. And  the sales in comic book stores, there is data that is showing that comic book stores

52:56
or one of the few brick and mortar  shops  that  are actually doing very well  in society today. So when you read about doom and gloom and comic books dying and stores going under, I am certainly not saying there aren't people impacted by that. There's a lot of stores out there that have $3 million in profit every year too.  And a lot of it is driven by the sales of  new number ones  from publishers like Image Comics, Marvel Comics, DC Comics.

53:26
And hopefully one day those sales will be driven by Battle Quest products too.  I love ending on optimism. This was great. Andrew, you are fantastic man.

53:37
There you have it short box nation. That's the end of the show.  Thank you for hanging out. Thanks for being here. And a special shout out if you made it this far. If you enjoyed this episode and you have some thoughts or comments that you want to share with us, write us at the short box, jacks at gmail.com. And if you really liked this episode, help us spread the word, share this episode with a friend or someone you know that loves comics as much as we do. And don't forget to leave us a five star rating and review on Apple podcasts or Spotify or wherever you get your podcast.

54:07
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54:32
Speaking of our Patreon community, want to give a big shout out to our current members, including Adam Chaitani, RcGamut, BJKicks, Blake Simone,  Blythe Milligan,  Bo Evers, Brian Brumleaf, Chad Landenberger, Chris Hacker, David Morales, Greg Lichtig, Hershel, Mack Jacobson, issue number three, Brad, Jay Sinner, Jeff Fremid, Jerome Cabanatan, Jose Sepulveda, Justin McCoy, Corey Torgeson, Matt Godwin, Amanda Maron,

55:01
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