Badr Milligan 0:00

In this episode of the short box.

SPEAKER_02 0:02

There seems to be this separation between the artist and the writer a lot of times. And what really it comes down to is that every step of the comic that you go through, because there is a pipeline, there is a process, and you can't do it out of process. Every step that you take should be elevating it.

SPEAKER_03 0:24

Ladies and gentlemen, the shortbox podcast is recorded live from Jacksonville, Florida.

Badr Milligan 0:51

Hello again. Welcome back and thanks for pressing play today. It's it's always nice to know there's you know that you guys are out there pressing play and tuning in every week, alright? I I I you could be anywhere in the world, but you're here tuning into this podcast, and that means a lot. If you're brand new, welcome to the show. I'm your host, Bodder Milligan, and this is the Short Box Podcast, the comic book talk show where we bridge the gap between the panels of your favorite comics with the people who put their blood, sweat, and tears into making them. This is episode 503, and today we'll be talking with comic writer Erica Schultz. And to be totally fair, uh calling her just a writer is actually the farthest thing from accurate. Alright, Erica Schultz is not only an award-winning writer who's worked on comics like X23, Daredevil, she's got her own creator-owned stuff like Forgotten Home for Dark Horse and The Deadly Bouquet for Image Comics, but she's also an experienced letterer, she's uh been a colorist, she's been a uh a former editor at Mad Cave, a teacher slash instructor at the Kubert School. And then I mentioned she's also the first woman to write spawn. Oh yeah, she's that and a whole bag of chips, right? She's also uh uh sewing too. Um, before we got started, she was telling me how she also sewed. She does it all, all right? But she's here on the podcast to talk about how she wears all of these hats and what she's working on now, which includes writing Spawn Rat City, Gunslinger Spawn, and the upcoming Vampirella Summer Special. But before we get into that, if you'll just give me one minute to give some special recognition and shout out to our amazing sponsors, we'll get right to that. All right, here we go. Big shout out to our presenting sponsor, coverprice.com. They're the ultimate comic book price guide and collection management tool for comic collectors. CoverPrice.com, they do all the hard work of telling you what your collection is worth right now. And you can get access to CoverPrice for one dollar for one month by using the special promo code in this episode show notes. Just click the link. I uh save yourself from having to memorize a URL. Just look in the show notes, click that link, and enjoy using coverprice.com for one month for one dollar. And we can't talk sponsors and not show some love to Gotham City Limit Comic Shop. It's the best comic shop in Northeast Florida. It's my local comic shop. And if you live in Jacksonville too, you can go visit them today on Southside Boulevard, or you could buy comics from them anywhere in the world by shopping online at GothamCityLimit.com. Those are our sponsors. I also can't proceed without giving a big shout out to the Patronies, all right, the loyal supporters, over on the Shortbox Patreon page. You guys are the best. I love you guys. Now, without further ado, let's bring on our guest of honor today. She's got more titles than a DMV. Shortbox Nation, let's give it up for Erica Schultz. Hey Erica, how you doing?

SPEAKER_02 3:30

Thank you, thank you. Hey, how's it going?

Badr Milligan 3:32

Not too shabby, Erica. I'm gonna be very interested. Um uh you before we hit record, you were telling me you you're sewing this bag for your your niece. You're an amazing aunt. Uh, you've already given me the credentials. So I'm very curious to see how well you uh um multitask answering questions about your life and sewing. And I wouldn't be surprised if you've also got something like cooking in the back too. You seem to be uh multi-talented.

SPEAKER_02 3:56

Well, I mean, I do have some embroidery floss, and I could start embroidering it too if you want.

Badr Milligan 4:02

That is hilarious. Erica, do you mind? Uh I want to start, I want to start from the beginning. I want to ask you a question about the earliest creditslash project I could find uh your name attached to. According to my research, you were back in 2010, you were working at the late great Neil Adams, RAP2 to Neil Adams, his uh studio, continuity studio, as an animator. And you worked on the 2010 Astonishing X-Men Motion Comic. Does that sound uh does that ring a bell?

SPEAKER_02 4:34

That absolutely does ring a bell.

Badr Milligan 4:36

Hopefully, good memories. I I want to start with this because I remember when this was released, uh, I think around 2010, Marvel was doing some interesting things in the like digital space. They were trying to like, you know, incorporate new technology. I think this around the same time as like Marvel AR. Uh, they had the motion comics. And uh, you know, at the time I was doing uh I was going for my bachelor's in IT. So like I would use any opportunity to write papers or reports about Marvel in this digital space. I would love to hear like what do you remember from that time working at Continuity Studios, getting to work on like an animated digital comic?

SPEAKER_02 5:15

It was interesting because there were a few companies that were doing it. Continuity was only one of them. Um, there was a Black Panther one, there was one for Spider Woman, there was one for um Fantastic Four. And so we all had different, there were different companies doing it, and I think because it was a lot of experimentation, there was not one, there was no like house look to it. So basically we had different companies doing different things, different styles of animation. Um, and I think when they rolled them all out, it was a very strange thing because you would watch one of them, and then when you go to watch the second one or or another um another issue for lack of a better term, it would be totally different. So there was really no um consistency, and I think that that may or may not have kind of been the nail in the coffin when it came to doing motion comics and such, simply because like there was no real um there was no one, there was no standard, there was also no one person that was really saying this is what we want it to look like. So I think it was they cast a very wide net and they got some very interesting results back. Um, and I don't know if it worked for everybody. Uh, but yes, I do remember I was the lip sync and I mean I did some animation on other things, but um, I was doing lip sync animation mostly um on that book. And it was the first six issues. The uh story arc was called Gifted. And then there was a second one that they ended up doing, which was issues seven through twelve. Uh, this was the late John Cassidy and uh Josh Whedon, their run on Astonishing X-Men. And that was another company that did seven through twelve. So again, it was there was not very much consistency when it came to, you know, you could watch one through six and you get one complete style, and then you go to seven through twelve and it's something completely different. Even though the artwork was the same, the animation style was different, the uh camera moves were different, just basically the ethos of the of the story was different, or rather the animation style, not the ethos of the story.

Badr Milligan 7:40

I think what's a little disappointing is that those motion comics aren't really collected or available online. Uh I I had to do like some digging to find like to watch a couple of the um the astonishing X-Men episodes. I literally learned like a couple minutes ago, I think all of them, but at least the Astonishing X-Men one is on Apple TV, surprisingly. Interesting. So like that is there. And then I also learned that uh up until 2014, they were still making it. Uh, I found like this list on uh the Marvel wiki page. And the last one uh that they've got credit is an adaptation of Eternals, the um Neil Gaiman uh Eternals story of John Remita Jr. Uh back in 2014. So from 2010 to 2014, I I guess you know, these motion comics, uh animated motion comics were were a thing.

SPEAKER_02 8:32

There were some interesting things that happened. Um you had mentioned AR, the augmented reality comic stuff. Yeah. So it was just strange that they sort of were working with they kind of basically said, we want to do everything all at once, right now. And in doing so, there I think there were a lot of missteps. Um, and I think that it just looked kind of slapdash and haphazard. Because like I said, we had there was Astonishing X-Men at the same time as the Spider-Woman. Uh I I Agent of Sword.

Badr Milligan 9:11

Yeah, you got it.

SPEAKER_02 9:12

Agent of Sword, yes, thank you. Um, and then there was an arc of the Black Panther as well. And it was just it was weird to me when you see them like side by side. Although I will say that uh at least I don't know about the second um Astonishing X-Men story arc with the other company, but ours was actually released as a Blu-ray at one point.

Badr Milligan 9:35

I actually own that it uh I own this uh uh hardcover uh edition of Astonishing X-Men. It's smaller than like your typical um trade paperback. Yes, yes, yes, and it's a hardcover, and then at the very end is uh the DVD. Uh I've got that somewhere in my storage unit. Um, but I own like Astonishing X-Men of so many different versions. Um I might actually go back, I might go to this weekend to go dig that out. But I do agree, I think these motion comics, one, we're probably a little early. I I do appreciate the uh kind of a bold move to try to incorporate and do like all these things digitally at that time. Um, but looking back at it, I don't know if it's aged that well. It's kind of like they they kind of live in like this weird space between a regular comic and animation, you know, right?

SPEAKER_02 10:21

Like, yeah, it's an uncanny valley it hits.

Badr Milligan 10:24

Yeah, yeah. And I think uh I I went down, as you could tell, I went down a serious rabbit hole about these motion comics and just like revisiting like the stuff from like my college years, but I found a a review online, and I think the best way to describe these for anyone that's listening that has no idea what I'm talking about with these motion comics, someone online compared them to essentially a radio play set to pictures. And I think that's a perfect uh summary of of what these comics were.

SPEAKER_02 10:50

That I can definitely see that. Um I I think that it's not just the the technical aspects of it, because I know we were working in After Effects, and I don't know if the other people were working, were doing their animation in something else. Um the other eight um, I guess studios rather were doing their animation in something else. We were working in After Effects. And obviously there's limitations to that, but there's also um advantages, whereas other studios, I mean, at the time people were still doing flash animation. So for all I know, they were doing flash animation. So at this point, it was just a matter of like, well, this is what we're doing, we're gonna focus on this, and uh yeah, we'll see, we'll see what comes out in the end. Uh but you're right. I mean, it was a little uncanny valley, and I think that that was um, I think that was the problem. Had they wanted to make it full animation, obviously the budget would have been much different. So I think that because this sort of digital let's throw everything online, I think because of that, um, they sort of ran before they walked. Um, although at one point you said that you found them on Apple. At one point, they were on YouTube. I know that.

Badr Milligan 12:06

I I found like, you know, chapter 11 here, but not like uh a full playlist or something. And it just so happened Apple TV had them all organized. Well, I didn't see if they had like some of these other ones, uh these other titles, like The Spider Woman, The Black Panther, but Astonishing X-Men is on there. And if I needed a reason to go find like a trial edition of Apple TV, I might have found it. So we'll see. I think the other surprising thing too for me was I had no idea that Neil Adams studio, Continuity Studios, was attached to the project, which I thought was, you know, sent me down another interesting rabbit hole. But sticking to you here, um, you know, uh I ended up learning that you worked on lettering or lettering and coloring, uh, uh Neil Adams Batman Odyssey and some of the other projects that came out of there. What memories do you have when you think back about work of Neil Adams and being in his studio?

SPEAKER_02 12:56

It was it was definitely a big education. Um I didn't do coloring on Batman Odyssey. I did like more color assists on it. Um, I am not a very good colorist at all. Um, I basically like I can do flats and I can lay down the foundation, but someone always has to go back and make it look 10 times better. It was the same thing as like I would do inking backgrounds, uh whether it was digital inks or uh traditional inks and things like that, but I wouldn't be inking um foreground principle characters because I mean I would be competent, but I wasn't very good. And it's obviously when you're having a foreground character speak in a panel, you want it to be like the star of the show.

SPEAKER_04 13:39

Sure.

SPEAKER_02 13:39

Um, so yeah, so I would do background inking and you know, color assists and ink assists and things like that. Um, but I wasn't inking, you know, Batman smirking or anything like that.

SPEAKER_05 13:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 13:52

Uh just because I don't have that, I don't have the the ability really to do that. And I trust me, I know my limitations. Um, but it was definitely an education. I mean, I learned so much about comics, I learned so much about animation. I had worked in advertising prior to working at the studio with Neil. So I had seen animation and uh working on stuff and storyboarding from the agency side. But then as Neil technically would have been considered like a vendor for the agency, working on that side, it was a little bit different because instead of the agency having the client being like Pringles for like, you know, just off the top of my head, sure. It's the studio's client is the agency, the agency's client is Pringles. And it was like sort of like this like six degrees of separation kind of thing. Um but it was, I mean, I learned a lot. It was, I needed a job at the time. And Neil and his wife Marilyn had known me for years when I was at the agency. And at the time I'd been out of work for a while and I really needed a job, and they were kind enough to give me one. And um originally I when I came on, I was only supposed to be on for the Astonishing X-Men because they were basically bringing in a lot of freelancers to do either animation or um what we would do is we would get the pages digitally from Marvel and we would have to sort of like cut them up. So you would like cut people's arms off and you would cut at the elbow and stuff, and then you would add a little extra, you know, here. So when you moved the elbow, there wasn't this like big void or something like that. So they originally brought me on just to be a freelance uh digital artist and basically help cut up art. And I I was, you know, learning a little more animation with some of the other animators there, and then I showed them that I could do the lip sync animation really well. So I would still, you know, cut up art and things like that, but then I would also be doing the lip sync animation. Um, and then I think I was only supposed to be there uh until like April 1st or something like that, or you know, end of March, early April or whatever. And Marilyn came over to me, it was like mid-April, early May, and she's like, You're still here, and I'm like, Yeah, am I fired? She's like, No. I'm like, all right. And I literally I was at the studio for seven and a half years, so I just never left.

Badr Milligan 16:18

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 16:19

It just took me a really long time to go.

Badr Milligan 16:21

Sure. And those seven and a half years, what would you say is maybe the most prominent memory of you you have of of Neil Adams, or or maybe like what's the most important lesson that you'd say you you picked up from Neil?

SPEAKER_02 16:34

I I mean, honestly, I I learned a lot in the sense that like a lot of technique. I learned a lot of very technical things. How to look at a page, how to think of a scene, and find um not just an interesting way of presenting the scene visually, but um something that is going to elevate the script. I think when people do comics, and maybe this is the fault of some people who are, and I put it in quotes, uh comics journalists, there seems to be this separation between the artist and the writer a lot of times. And what really it comes down to is that every step of the comic that you go through, because there is a pipeline, there is a process, and you can't do it out of process. Every step that you take should be elevating it. So you have a concept that you work with an editor, and the editor helps elevate that concept, and you write your script, and the editor looks it over and tries to make sure that the script gets into the best place possible. Then you take that script and you give it to the artist, whether it's penciler or inker, they look at the script and they read it and they try and take the best possible version of this visually. And then if the pencil is inking their own work, then they go back and they sort of refine when they do their inks, or if they hand it off to an inker, that other inker is then going to add depth, add uh um more atmosphere. And then that goes to the colorist who is going to add more mood and brightness, and it goes to the letterer who's then going to not only just add the balloons, but add sound effects and things like that. And every single step that you take should elevate the medium. So you start with an idea that gets elevated to a script, elevated to art, boom, boom, boom, and it just keeps going up. And every person that touches it should be trying to make it better than the person before them, and not in a competitive kind of way.

SPEAKER_03 18:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 18:51

Because the idea is that the book on the shelf at the end of the day should be as good as it can possibly be. And if that means that everybody puts their ego in their pocket and just works toward making that the best book possible, then I think that's where really good comics come from. I think that sometimes you can actually read if there is acrimony, for lack of a better term, between a writer and an artist or a um an editor and you know, the creative team and things like that, because there's this dissonance. You know, the art and the the lettering and the dialogue that you're reading, the internal monologue that you're reading, they're they're not coalescing, they're not complementing each other. You you see one thing and then you you're reading something completely different. And it can really sort of, it takes you as a reader, it takes you out of the moment. It it breaks that suspension of disbelief. So I learned a lot about, you know, trying to make the best comics. I learned a lot about the process, the, like I said, that pipeline, that very A to B, B2C process. And I learned a lot of technical stuff.

Badr Milligan 20:11

I'm glad that you brought up the pipeline of you know making a good comic, because you've worn nearly every hat in the comic ecosystem/slash pipeline. I mean, we mentioned animator, um, I'd seen somewhere inking, you had an inking credit, letterer, editor, teacher, writer. What which role do you feel most at home or comfortable wearing? And which one requires you like to give like your full attention because maybe you know it's it's a little more difficult. What comes to mind?

SPEAKER_02 20:40

I am a competent artist. I am a decent letterer, I am a good writer, and I never set out to be decent, I always set out to be good at something. So I focus most on writing simply because that is where I feel I'm the best at what I do. However, um, it's also the hardest. And I think that if you're doing something creative that you are so comfortable with that you just sort of do it on autopilot, I don't think that's where you should be creatively. Um, David Bowie, I'm I'm I'm not gonna butcher the quote, but David Bowie basically said, like, if if everything that you're doing creatively is just so simple, so that you're doing it too easy, you're not challenging yourself, you are not pushing yourself as a creator to reach new boundaries, you're not pushing yourself um as a person and finding what the next frontier for you as a creator, for you as an artist.

Badr Milligan 21:43

Personal journey.

SPEAKER_02 21:44

Um yeah, exactly. And so uh writing is difficult, it's always gonna be difficult for me. Um, but it's something that I think I'm pretty good at. And uh it's something that I'm gonna continue doing. Because I think I'm pretty good at and because it is challenging.

Badr Milligan 22:04

I read somewhere that you were part of, I don't know if it was the first inaugural class or the second one, but the DC talent development workshop. I guess it was the pilot program, I see it right here. Yeah. Which got Snyder head led, which got me thinking. Big shout out real quick to Al Letson, uh, who was also, I think, a part of the second class. But but looking back, what would you say was the single biggest, like maybe light bulb moment from that workshop that fundamentally maybe shifted how you approach storytelling? Is there anything that you took from that class that you still use to this day?

SPEAKER_02 22:35

It was interesting to see the process that other people had taken. One of the things that I will say about that class, and this isn't a criticism, this is this is an observation. Every one of us that was in the pilot class, with the exception of maybe one or two people, we had all had a body of work. And one of the things that I think they, and I can't confirm this because I wasn't part of the second class, but one of the things that I think that they changed was they brought in more people who obviously were writers, but had had less of a body of work already. Because all of us had already been working in comics either significantly on our own independent work or had had uh RD work published, we had already created our own process. And many of us were very fixed within it.

SPEAKER_05 23:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 23:30

So when we came into this class and they were trying to say, this is the process, to some, it was like, oh yeah, I already do that. And to others, it was, oh no, I have my process. Like I I got this, I'm good. And I think that I think that that was sort of a mistake. I think that pushing some people toward a specific process versus saying, this is how I do it, take that as it's worth, and then try and see if you can maybe use that information as a way to incorporate into your process to make your process more streamlined. And I think that, I mean, it's been 10 years since that class. One of the things that we've learned is that everyone has a different process, even tiny minute details are different. Um, and that if you force someone to adopt a process that is not, I don't know, copacetic with who they are as a person, who they are as an artist, as a creator, et cetera, then that can create uh more, I guess, drama than it could than it should.

SPEAKER_05 24:44

Interesting.

SPEAKER_02 24:44

When I was teaching, one of the things that I said was, you know, this is my process. And you are all students, and you have all admitted to me that none of you have a tried and true process for you. So I'm going to teach you my process. And for the fit the sake of this class, you will use that process. The goal is that at the end of this class, you know, at the end of the two semesters, you will either find a way to make this process work for you, adopt to this process yourself, or say, okay, now that I've seen the way that's done, I'm going to create something that is more in line with my creative endeavors and more in line with who I am as a creator.

Badr Milligan 25:31

Take what you need from this and adapt it to your own way, sort of thing.

SPEAKER_02 25:34

Yeah.

Badr Milligan 25:35

And I'm glad you brought up um, you know, your time as a teacher, because I really truly, Erica, your bibliography is it was really kind of interesting to just kind of like research and go. Like I said, you've worn so many different hats. And I'm glad you brought up your time teaching, you know, for those that maybe didn't catch it in the in the intro, you spent time as an instructor at the Joe Kubert School, I think teaching uh uh comic writing or or script writing. I I guess can you talk a little more about your experience at the Joe Kubert School? Like how long was your tenure there? And then were there any students of yours that went on to become published writers or work in the industry?

SPEAKER_02 26:08

Um, I was at the Kubert School for uh a little more than two years. The main focus at the school while I was there was focusing on art. So being the writing instructor, I mean, I I'll I'll be very frank. It's not, you know, it's not a pleasant thing to say, but it's the truth. I mean, I would tell the students like, you need to learn how to write because some of you, from what I'm seeing from your portfolio, some of you are not at a professional artist level. So you need to learn how to write because if you want to be in this industry, then learning how to write might be your way in. Also, I would try and teach them about what an editor does. Because again, some of the artists didn't have the ability to create, however, they did have the ability to recognize good creative ideas and to help nurture those. So, again, you know, learn how to be an editor. Um, I think what happens in any creative pursuit is that you get so myopic as to what you really want to do that you are not realistic and your expectations are wildly off base. And so, you know, someone says, I'm gonna be the next Arthur Adams, I'm gonna be the next Jim Lee, you know, I'm gonna be, you know, the next Joelle Jones. Well, first of all, those people are still around. Second of all, they're all wildly talented, but third of all, they worked so hard to get to where they are. And what you are seeing today is light years from where they started. And I think that that's that's a problem in general. The whole get rich quick scheme has been around since the beginning of civilization. So that's you know, that's nothing new, but that's a flaw, I think, in humans is that we think that we can jump the line. And that's one of the the I mean, aside from the environmental impact and the um the exploitation of of people in underserved countries, you know, vast majority of them not being, you know, non-white people. Um the thing that gets me about AI is that it and it's you know stealing wholesale from people, but the thing that gets me about AI is it it promises something that's not true. It promises you you can jump the line. No, you can't. Because if you want to be a true creator, you have to do the work. That's the only way that you're going to learn. And when people just type in, you know, take this comic book script and make it look like Jim Lee. What have you learned from that? You haven't learned anything. You haven't learned how to pace a story properly. If you're a writer, if you're an artist, you haven't learned how to look at the script and create a scenario in your head that physically illustrates the information that's on the script. You know? Um, and that's to me one of the most important things that will, for lack of a better term, weed out people who can do this as a for a living. Because not many people can do this. Not many people can do it at a professional level. And even fewer still can be a full-time creative and make a living at it. Yes, there are some superstars. I myself am not one of them.

Badr Milligan 29:54

I don't know. Your bibliography says otherwise.

SPEAKER_02 29:56

Well, I mean, but like that's the thing is like I'm a middle class writer. You know, I don't live in a huge house, I don't have a bajillion dollars, uh, anything like that. There are some superstars out there. God bless them. But again, they've worked so many years to build up a fan base, to build up a bibliography, to be able to then parlay all of that experience into writing television, writing film, etc., etc. Um, and so one of the ways that you sort of, for lack of a better term, weed out people that are going to be able to do this for a living is by seeing who gets back up after they get rejected. Every time you pitch something, that is more or less an audition. And every time someone rejects you, what do you do with that rejection? Do you say, okay, what is it about this pitch that they rejected? The first comic that I wrote was a comic called M3. And uh Vicente Alcazar was the artist, he was an artist at the studio with me, and he was the artist on the book. And we pitched it everywhere. And the places that did get back to us, it was very educational. So my mistake, and this is one of the things that I taught to the students, my mistake was that I sent it to every single publisher I could think of. Whether or not that book, that genre of the book, the style of the book, etc., was appropriate for that publisher, I sent it to everybody. And that was wrong. It was a waste of my time, it was a waste of their time. Um, and that was that is something that I would teach my students. I would teach the students about all the mistakes that I've made in my career. I would tell them everyone is gonna sign at least three to five terrible contracts. Wow, and you're gonna sign them because you're desperate for the money, you're gonna sign them because you didn't read it, you couldn't afford a lawyer, you got a terrible lawyer, you know, there's there are a vast majority of reasons why you're gonna sign these terrible contracts, but it's gonna happen.

SPEAKER_03 32:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 32:10

And if these things, if these hiccups, if these speed bumps, if these failures didn't happen, then I wouldn't be here. If I just typed into chat GPT or whatever, write me a comic script and draw me a comic based on this script, then I wouldn't be where I am. Sure. All of my successes, and most especially my failures, are what I would teach my students. And some of them found it informative, others took it as a, oh, well, you're a loser, you know, look at all the times you failed. I'm like, all right, I'm a loser.

Badr Milligan 32:48

I appreciate hearing, you know, you championing the uh the the failures, because you because you're right, those are the the prime moments to like really learn and and hone a skill. Because you know, like well, when you get the accolades, it's like, okay, it's it's great. It's like, okay, that's great. I'm glad that everyone thinks that this is great, but like, is there really a lesson to be learned from there versus like say a failure? And I think what you're saying about AI giving people a misconception that, you know, they can, you know, fast forward or skip like the years of just sucking, right? Like, I think there's something to be said about embracing just sucking at first, like just being bad at something and like picking yourself up and redefining yourself and and trying new things and learning from those mistakes. It does feel like that part of any uh a creative endeavor is is kind of like being thrown away, is like, you know, just being overlooked because of how much technology is like at our disposal.

SPEAKER_02 33:44

I think that it is vastly underestimated and undervalued the learning from failure. Because failure can teach you a lot of things. Failure can teach you that you uh approach something differently. Uh you approach something in the, and I put it in quotes, wrong direction. Um, failure can teach you that this is something that's not for you. One of the things that I say on panels, and some of my fellow panelists laugh at it, but you know, people will come up at panels on at conventions and say, like, what should I know about being a comic book writer? And I said, lower your expectations.

SPEAKER_03 34:26

What does that mean?

SPEAKER_02 34:27

That's the first thing. It means that do not believe that the first script that you write is going to get picked up by image comics and uh become a massive hit and then get optioned in the become a movie and make $250 million on a $15 million budget. Don't expect that every store is gonna have the Funko Pop of that character. You know, but like think about it.

Badr Milligan 34:55

Like No, no, no, no. I that makes Funko Pop is level four. Yeah, you're like maybe even your four project.

SPEAKER_02 35:00

That's the thing is don't expect that anybody is gonna want to make your 250, your first comic is a 250-paged epic. That is an unreasonable expectation. People have unrealistic expectations of what working full-time in comics is, they have very unrealistic expectations with that about what how much money the average writer or artist makes. They have very unrealistic expectations about what being a full-time freelancer is. Um, and some are very, very surprised when they find out some artists and writers have other jobs andor um spouses or partners that have a very good-paying job and therefore they have the privilege of being able to do safety net. And I'm the first person to say, you know, my husband and I are both freelancers. We've both struggled, we've both taken on second jobs at times. I've been very lucky the past few years that I can focus solely on writing for the most part, but it is not out of the realm of possibilities that I'll go back to lettering, that I will go back to Doordash, that I will, you know what I mean? Like that is not out of the realm of possibilities.

SPEAKER_05 36:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 36:18

And making it in comics is never guaranteed. You know, my first professional job was in 2014 with Marvel. I didn't get another job from Marvel until 2018. They didn't call and they didn't pick up the phone and they didn't respond to emails until 2018. 2018, I got a one-shot for Daredevil, and I thought, this is it. I am in. I didn't hear from Marvel again for another three and a half years.

Badr Milligan 36:43

Area, this is a very honest. I I am like here for the honesty. Uh, and you know, like I think some people might listen and think like, wow, this is very blunt uh advice. But uh I think it's real, and I can always appreciate some real ass shit.

SPEAKER_02 36:59

It is real, it's blunt, and I and this is the problem is people don't want the people don't want to hear the reality of it, or they'll say, Well, that's just how it was for you, Erica. I'm different. Okay, you're different. Maybe, maybe it will be different for you. And you know what? I hope it is an easier track for you.

SPEAKER_05 37:15

Sure, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 37:16

I genuinely do, but if it's not, don't say you weren't warned.

Badr Milligan 37:21

Sure, sure, sure. And I think there's so many examples of how difficult, how just like how random the the industry is and what it's like to be a creative in this space. And I and I do think too, what you're also spotlighting, aside from like, hey, here's behind the curtains. I think it also paints a bigger picture of like why, if you're a comic fan or someone that claims to be a fan, why it's important to go out and support these books, right? Like support the books, especially creator-owned and the books that you say you like. I think this definitely paints um uh gives ammo to that as well. And if it feels like I am jumping over the place with my topics, it's only because you were giving some of the most well-rounded answers that you're like you're literally answering two or three other questions, follow-up questions I have. Erica, I want I want to pivot real quick. Uh, I still we still need to talk about spawn and obviously Vampirella, but how about we we we take a break here and I want to get into a segment I call the short box friends and family segment. I think this is a good uh this this will be a good uh time to jump into this. It's my segment of the show where I shut up for a little bit and let someone else ask the question. In this case, I reached out to the owner of my local comic shop to submit a question for you, and he was very excited to hear that you'd be on the show. So I'm gonna play this voice down.

SPEAKER_02 38:31

Gotham City Limit.

Badr Milligan 38:32

Wow, you got oh, you were listening to the intro. Yeah, absolutely. Oh yeah. Well, here he is. Here's Ben Kingsbury for you.

SPEAKER_00 38:41

Hey Erica, this is Ben Kay from Gotham City Limited, a comic shop down here in sunny Jacksonville, Florida. Thanks so much for taking some time to jump on the podcast. Speaking with Botter is always a pleasure. I'm sure you're already enjoying yourself. So I've been following your work with Laura Kinney ever since the X23 Deadly Regenesis days back in 2023. We actually did a Tyler Kirkham ASM 238 homage for that first issue, the first appearance of Haymaker. I thought Laura Kinney ripping up uh an old Wolverine suit was right on par. And I rode through the whole Laura Kinney Wolverine run, and then Laura Kinney Sabretooth in Age of Revelation kind of blew me away. That whole event was my favorite thing in X-Men Comics in a long time. With Age of Revelation being this big shared universe, how much of Laura's story and the big twist of her becoming Sabretooth was already mapped out for you going in? Did Marvel or Jed McKay or anyone give you a pretty specific direction? Or did they give you a broad outline and let you put your own spin on how Laura ended up in that spot? Loved it. Anyway, I'll leave and let you answer now. Thank you so much for what you do. We literally couldn't do it without you. And remember, short box nation, always take it to the limit. Peace.

Badr Milligan 40:04

Big shout outs to Ben Kay.

SPEAKER_02 40:06

Thank you very much, Ben. I appreciate that. I appreciate the kind words. Um every crossover that, and I I can only speak for crossovers at Marvel and Dynamite because I've done a crossover at Dynamite, but I can't speak for crossovers at any other publisher. But at Marvel, every crossover that I've worked on has been a different experience. It has had either a different um editor that is heading it up, it has had a different direction. Um, and it's kind of had a different um, it's had a different goal. Like what is the end goal after all of this stuff? How is it going to change the Marvel universe forever? You know how they always say that.

SPEAKER_05 40:51

Sure.

SPEAKER_02 40:51

So with Revelation, a lot of it was uh Jed McKay as more or less an architect of it. And we had worked out, you know, Laura basically being on the quote bad side of it, you know, being on um Doug Ramsey's side slash Revelation. Um so we had worked that out already. And we worked out that she was gonna be a mom and how that was gonna change her significantly. This is a funny anecdote. Um, I had wanted to name um Laura's son Thomas as a throwback to uh Logan's biological father, Thomas Logan. Yeah, and I don't know if Tom Brevo or somebody on on the editorial was a little like kind of like bristled at it or whatever. And so I just turned around and I said, His name is Alex. That's it. It's Alex, and that's the name of my my sister's um son is Alex. So it was just a name off the top, but I was saying his name is Alex, it's fine, let's not fight about this anymore. I don't care. Like we can I tried to do a thing, it is what it is. Um, so we had originally, um, I had wanted not necessarily for it to be Laura Kinney's saber tooth, but I had originally wanted to be the last Wolverine. And so the story idea was basically yes, Laura would be on quote, the bad side because she would be on Doug Ramsey's side, on Revelation side. But the idea was that there's always a Wolverine, and um Wolverines have always done really, you know, shady underhanded things uh for good or for evil. And this is just another way to sort of flip it. Um, also, I mean, Laura having the backstory that she has, she's not always been on the side of good, she's not always been on the side of the angels. So being uh taking Revelation's side uh was a way to hearken back to that uh and a way to sort of bookend my work with Laura, having uh started with X23, gone through Laura Kenny Wolverine, and then ending with Sabretooth, sort of bookending that, you know, Laura's the again, in quotes, bad guy. Sure. I want to say it was the Wendigo book, maybe. I believe it was Saladin Ahmed writing a book that was the last Wolverine. I believe it was it was the Wendigo character. And so that title was sort of already kind of spoken for. And I forget who it was an editorial had mentioned, hey, why don't we make her saber tooth? And I don't know who mentioned it, but there was this really, really gross suggestion that she and Victor Creed ended up together.

Badr Milligan 43:45

And I was like, Nope, nope, nope, nope, nope, nope, nope, nope, I will not even entertain that idea.

SPEAKER_02 43:51

I said, I said, I will walk out of the room. Like, I have any power. I mean, let's be honest. They probably would have been like. All right, don't let the door hit you. But I said I was like, absolutely not. I will choke on my you know, on my own upcycled gene purse, uh, rather than than do that. So I said, if you want to make her a creed, this is what we're gonna do. And so uh we created uh Zane who unfortunately was killed off panel, and there was a lot more. I mean, the fact that we only had three issues, 20 pages apiece, we were all every one of the creators, we were all bristling at that because we're like, what do you mean we only have 60 pages to tell this story? Like, nope, that's it, that's all you get. And we're like, can't we even have 25 pages at the first issue like we've been doing with all these other things? Nope. So unfortunately, I mean, there was so much backstory with Zane, where you know, Victor Creed has had multiple dalliances um across multiple decades, even centuries. I mean, because that's he and uh Wolverine are both much older than you would think. And, you know, Victor had uh a child, had fathered a child with a woman, had no idea that he had fathered this child. This woman gives this kid up for adoption. This kid gets uh adopted by this incredibly loving family, absolutely wonderful loving family. And I just pulled the age-old nature versus nurture. So Zane had no idea that his dad was Victor Creed. He was always a big kid, but nobody had any idea that it was, you know, out of the ordinary. And then he, you know, manifests his mutant abilities being, you know, very strong, very durable, didn't have the healing factor like his father, uh, but he was a strong guy and he was a durable guy, and he learns, then he learns that he happens to be um a mutant. And when he finds out who his birth father was, um he is very frustrated because there's that notion of like, well, is that self-destructive behavior in me as a person? And his um adoptive parents, you know, it was very nature versus nurture. It was very, we taught you to be a good person and we believe that you are gonna be this good person. And so he took the name Saber Tooth as a way of reclaiming it, as a way of saying, I'm gonna take this name and I'm going to make a hero out of this code name. And Laura even says that uh in the first issue when she meets with Gabby and uh and the hero, and she has that conversation when you know Gabby sort of taunts her with the name of Sabretooth. She says, like, I Zayn took that name to be a hero, and I take that name to honor him and to honor his loss. Um, it has nothing to do with Victor. Victor's dead, Victor's been dead, you know, whatever. We've we've reclaimed that, and we've we have have uh not rewritten history, but we've reclaimed that and we're we're basically trying to scrub away all of the the pain and the death that is associated with that name.

Badr Milligan 47:20

Damn. That was a damn good Easter, like a rabbit hole right there. And Ben, I hope you've I it sounds like I would love to do that whole thing. Well, uh well, I'm glad you you mentioned that because I got a question about you've written everything from like long-running series, like Spawn Rat City is up to 26 issues, you know, with no end in sight, as far as I could tell.

SPEAKER_02 47:40

Uh well, it's actually with 25. We're we're ending at 25.

Badr Milligan 47:44

Oh, okay. I must have read that solicitation wrong. Okay, well, look, if 25 issues there, you've written a ton of 10 issue runs, five-issue runs like like Rogue, Laura Kenny Wolverine. You've done plenty of one-shots and short stories. Like you have it. Sounds like your preference is the longer storytelling. Is that safe to say? Any reason why?

SPEAKER_02 48:04

Oh, I mean, it just gives you more time to develop things, it gives you more time to not craft a side quest, but to to give you more character development, to give you uh the ability to um really flesh out characters. Um, in Lore Kenny number eight, uh, I brought Haymaker back. And Haymaker uh debuted in uh X23 Deadly Regenesis, um, drawn by Edgar Salazar. And the reason why I brought Haymaker back was because we didn't get a good enough chance to see Jordan Haymaker on the other side. We see them and Laura at a grief counseling meeting at the end of that miniseries, but we don't see what happens after. So bringing Jordan back and partnering Jordan up with Polly, who was introduced in Laura Kenny Wolverine number one. The reason why we did that was because all we've seen is Jordan in pain. Now we get to see Jordan happy. All we've seen is Polly working really, really hard to uh fix Oasis in Dubai. Now we get to see Polly creating something new. And these are characters that I originally thought Jada and I would never have a chance to get back to, but because we had that 10-issue run, we did have the opportunity to slot in and to show, you know, one of the things with Laura Kinney is that she's always in a bad mood because she always feels that she's basically got the black cloud over her. And it's important, I think, as a character for her to see other young mutants experiencing joy.

SPEAKER_03 49:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 49:58

So seeing uh Jordan and Polly as a couple, experiencing joy, being happy together. Um, I think that that's important for Laura to see because it's difficult for her to imagine that for herself, but it's not so difficult when two people that she knows pretty well, she sees that with them. So it sort of gives her that idea of, huh, maybe it is possible.

Badr Milligan 50:29

Erica, you really care about this. I I'm hearing you talk about, you know, what you taught your students, you know, your thoughts on the industry and being a writer, and hearing you talk about, you know, a character like X23 Laura Kenny, I can tell you really do put your heart and soul into your work. I think it's really refreshing to hear that.

SPEAKER_02 50:47

Thank you. It's more of a curse than anything else because you put so much of yourself into it. If somebody, you know, you know, you get a review and people are like, this is the worst thing that I've ever read. It like you feel it genuinely. Like I genuinely feel hurt when people are like, oh, this was the worst thing in the world. I don't even know why I spent, you know, 20 minutes reading this. Like I'll never get those 20 minutes back. I'm I'm worse of a person for having read this. And part of me is kind of, you know, has the, you know, we were talking about Jersey earlier, has the jersey like, eh. And then other another part of me is like, well, maybe they just didn't understand. Like maybe if I could just sit down and have a conversation with them, then I can explain it to them and then they like it.

Badr Milligan 51:32

Yeah. Drive yourself crazy trying to do that. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 51:35

Exactly. But I do, I do care about these because I know that there are a lot of people who put a lot of stock in these characters. I also know that, you know, it's not the world that we currently live in right now. People are looking for some type of fantasy escapism. Like, I get it a thousand percent. I'm as much a creator and and professional as I am a fan.

Badr Milligan 51:56

Who who would you say you're the uh like what what character story, whatever it may be, would you say like you're a huge fan of? I'm curious, like who who you kind of invest in.

SPEAKER_02 52:06

I mean, I love Daredevil. I especially love Electra as Daredevil. Yeah, um I I only got to write eight eight or ten pages, but I love Beta Ray Bill. I really do. I think he's got so much potential. I loved writing Hollows Eve.

SPEAKER_05 52:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 52:23

Uh Mike Dowling and I got to do a lot of good work with her. And then um, when I worked on uh Bloodhunters and we were building this team, uh, I was able to bring Hollows Eve onto the team. They were like, okay, we want four people and Miles Morales, and you gotta have Dagger and you gotta have Elsa Bloodstone. And I was like, well, I like bringing in somebody with no power. So we brought in White Widow, we brought in Yelena Um, because it's always the people that have no powers that are the ones that are the most resourceful, that are the most creative on the fly. And also, you know, Elena has somewhat of a fish out of water, um, especially when it comes to um lexicon and uh uh colloquialisms, and then you have Elsa who is pure cockney. And then I and then I figured, okay, Halloween, because the whole point of a of a team is that there is conflict, and that's what makes it interesting. And the point is that yes, there is conflict, and they're gonna fight with it with each other, but they're also going to fight for each other, yeah. And the fact that Hallowe's Eve has always sort of been a solo free agent, the fact that she comes in and sort of says, like, all right, fine, I'll do this. And then at the end, it's kind of like, you know, it wasn't so bad hanging out with you people. You're not you're not so terrible, and then the best character on that team, 1000%, is uh Moggie, the toothless vampire cat. Absolute best character on that team.

Badr Milligan 54:02

I mean, it's a toothless cat. I mean, it's a cat, period, in in the Marvel universe. So, how can it not be?

SPEAKER_02 54:06

And she's actually based, we used to have this very, very old, like ancient cat uh named Kara. And uh Maggie physically is based on Kara. So it's always nice to it's always nice to see her.

Badr Milligan 54:20

Yeah. I think I'm going to use this opportunity that uh since you brought up uh a toothless vampire cat to shoehorn in our next uh topic, which is the queen vampire herself, Vampirella. Uh let's talk about your upcoming project. The Vampirella Summer Special, which uh is slated to come out June, I'm sorry, July, Wednesday, July 1st. I'm either gonna have this episode drop the day of or the week before. So, listeners, please uh put this on your radar, go to your local comic shop, pick up Vampirella Summer Special number one. But um, Erica, you're taking an iconic horror/slash pulp character like Vampirella and and dropping her 2,000 years into the past and throwing an active volcano on her, according to the solicitation.

SPEAKER_02 55:03

Literally throwing an active volcano on her.

Badr Milligan 55:05

What was the genesis of this wildly chaotic vacation story? So I You're like, I went to Florida one time, and the humor was so terrible, I was like, hey Vampera, this would be a great story.

SPEAKER_02 55:18

No. Um, I so I love Adriana Mello, who is the line artist on this book. Uh, she's the penciler in Anger, and she's phenomenal. And Adriana and I have worked together tangentially on multiple things, but we've never sat down and worked together on like a full story. And so I wanted Adriana because Vampirella can be seen a lot of times as just a TNA character, and there are more times than than not that she has been sort of written as such. I wanted to get back to the sort of Cryptkeeper kind of EC comics, old school Warren kind of things, where something bizarre would happen. We wouldn't exactly explain what, but it's like you just gotta go with it. And so this idea of Vampirella being, you know, been there, done that, I've seen everything, I've done everything. I'm really tired and I just want a freaking vacation.

Badr Milligan 56:18

I never thought of it that way, but you're right. If anyone in the comic universe deserves a vacation, it might be Vampirella.

SPEAKER_02 56:23

And she literally says, like in the dialogue where she says, you know, I know it seems like I've seen everything, but I actually haven't seen everything. And so, you know, the magic of comics, uh, she gets drawn back in time and uh deals has to deal with uh social conflict and then like an actual geological conflict that occurs uh while she's in the past. And with any story, uh it changes her, it gives her perspective that she was unaware of, and it changes her. And uh we wrap it up with a nice bow at the end. And one of the I mean, there's so many things to admire about Adriana's work, just in general.

SPEAKER_05 57:10

Yeah, she's great.

SPEAKER_02 57:11

But Adriana can show sexy and strong, you don't have to, you don't have to have just one or the other. You don't just have to have a really attractive, sexy female character, and that's all she is, or you don't just have a a very strong female character that no one can see any physical attraction to because she's just so strong and brutish or whatever. Adriana just threads the needle so well. And there's a uh there's a mother-daughter aspect to this, not with Vampirella, but Vampirella's uh uh observing this. And Adriana had this really sort of beautiful back and forth between this mother-daughter. Um, and it just, I mean, I love Adriana's, I've always been a fan of her work, and I just I love her style. She gives everyone these really just very soulful eyes.

SPEAKER_05 58:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 58:08

And the character acting that comes across in the art is always just really so beautiful and so expressive. Um, so yeah, I mean it's it's an embarrassment of riches being able to work with her on this book.

Badr Milligan 58:22

And uh this isn't, and to your real quick, to your point, yes, I I think I either went down a rabbit hole on her Instagram or I had just found a couple of like uh black and white versions of the pages from the the summer special. And you're right, everything you said about her artwork is amazing. The acting, the uh how lush everything looks, uh yeah, just the expressionism, all of it, like super strong pencil work. Um, but this isn't your first time working with dynamite, right? I read somewhere that in 2015, like Gail Simone like personally handpicked you to be a part of like this red Sonia Dynamite crossover event. Does that ring a bell?

SPEAKER_02 58:59

Yeah, so it was called Swords of Sorrow, and what it was, it was all of the main female characters from Dynamite. So you had the Chaos Girls, you had um Irene Adler, Deja Thorus, Red Sonia, Vampirella, Lady Zorro, Black Sparrow. Wow. Um, I mean, it was a very long list of characters, and um there were 21 issues over four months in this uh crazy uh back and forth in this crazy uh crossover series. And so I co-wrote with Chi Willa Wilson of Ms. Marvel and Poison Ivy and Black Cat Fame. Um, I co-wrote the um Masquerade and uh Kato uh story, and then I wrote a Black Sparrow and Lady Zorro story, and it was really very it was eye-opening because it was the first time I had worked on a crossover, and it was also the first time that I had worked with um so many other writers and artists, and that in and of itself is just no matter how big or small the crossover, it's it's always a juggling act because you never want to step on another creator's vision at the same time, you still kind of want to fight for your own vision. That's when you need to check your ego at the door, kind of thing.

Badr Milligan 1:00:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:35

Um, and just do what's best for the story in general.

Badr Milligan 1:00:39

You know what else comes to mind when I think about your your work is that, and uh, you know, your career is that student of the game, like that phrase kind of comes to mind. I'm I'm hearing you know you've learned from Neil Adams. You've you know attended a workshop with you know Scott Snyder leading it. You know, you mentioned Gail Simone working with G. Willow Wilson. I'm curious to hear who are some of your North stars when it comes to uh other writers that you look up to or admire or personally enjoy their work. It doesn't even have to be within comics. Is there, I guess, what names come to mind?

SPEAKER_02 1:01:10

Um, definitely Gail, Kelly Sudukonic, definitely Willow. When I was when I first started out, someone said I was the poor man's Ed Brewbaker. And I thought that that was like a huge comp I thought that it was a huge compliment.

Badr Milligan 1:01:22

Let someone call me that. I'd be celebrating, I'd actually have that on my LinkedIn right there. Poor man's Ed Brewbaker right there.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:29

And I it made me realize though, that I needed to find my own voice rather than trying to imitate a voice of someone else.

Badr Milligan 1:01:40

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:41

So it was it again, it's learning from a mistake. You know, it's learning from at first I thought it was positive, and then I realized, oh, I'm leaning too much into what I really enjoy from what he writes.

Badr Milligan 1:01:55

Got it.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:55

Um, and I can't do that. I need to find my voice. I mean, uh, I love the original Hellboy. Uh, Nancy Collins is a phenomenal like I I've read some Vampirella, but the only Vampirella that I actually own is Nancy Collins run uh when she wrote Vampirella.

Badr Milligan 1:02:11

If you don't mind me asking, because what you just said about the Ed Rubaker story, uh at what point do you feel like you found your voice? Like, is there a particular series, project, comic, whatever it may be, where you felt like, oh, I am I'm stepping into my own now and I'm you know I'm firing on all cylinders. I've reached like I'm I'm tapping into something real special here.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:32

I don't know. I don't know if there is an Erica Schultz style. Um, I mean, if I if I read something that I wrote today versus something that I wrote uh even a year ago, I'll still see a change.

Badr Milligan 1:02:47

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:48

Um, I think a lot of it is circumstantial. Um, I mean, there was one point when I was writing like seven books a month for like five or six months for Marvel and Image, and it was too much, and it was absolutely too much. And I think it can even came across in the books that you could see I was so burnt crispy.

SPEAKER_04 1:03:05

Damn.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:06

There's a phenomenal um creator uh named Robin Warren, and um they're uh more than an acquaintance of mine, and they're they're a lovely person. And I was watching a panel that they were on last year at San Diego Comic-Con. And they said, if you can acknowledge that it's burnout, it's already too late. Damn. And it's funny because I actually I was having a conversation with them online uh about a week ago, and I had said, I was like, I want you to know that that that has stuck with me. So I was beyond that, I was beyond burnout, and um and I think that it got to the point where everything that I was writing felt the same. Everything is the same, just slot this character in. Um, and I didn't like that. I didn't like getting to the point of that, and I didn't like, you know, the capitalistic rat race of it, and you know, and all the deadlines and everything. But again, like that is unfortunately that is a um it is a necessity when you are a full-time freelancer. You have your deadline, you have this, you know, you have your bills to pay, and that's just the way it is. But yeah, I don't know if I have like yeah, it's funny. When I when I was sort of interviewing with Thomas Healy and Todd McFarlane to do uh Rat City, um Todd had asked me when I had started writing comics. And I was like, oh, I was about 30 or 31 years old when I started writing comics. And to some people, that is a late start.

SPEAKER_03 1:04:49

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:49

And it's funny because there are people that are 10 years younger than me that are almost surpassing me. And I'm like, why is that? Oh, that's right, because you didn't start writing comics when you were in high school and college, you started writing them when you had already been out of school for 10 years.

unknown 1:05:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:04

And Todd had said, I'm I'm badly paraphrasing, but he said something like, he likes the fact that I'm of an age where I kind of have sort of settled into who I am and that I have a voice and I have something to say and I have experiences. And that is, I guess that's true. I don't know. I feel like every nine months or 12 months, I'm like changing who I am as a person.

Badr Milligan 1:05:31

Sure, yeah. Which I think is is a is a good thing, right? You don't want to be like the same person you were fucking years ago. I'm glad that you you you brought up Spawn and Todd McFarlane because a couple of episodes ago I had the chance to talk to Matt, uh Matthew Rosenberg about, you know, he got announced as the the new writer of the the mainline spawn and King Spawn, I believe. Yes, yes, thank you. That's right. He's writing two different spawn series. Um I I guess I'll ask you the same thing I asked him, like, and you've kind of given you You mentioned interviewing for the writing uh Spawn Rat City. As far as you know, how did you get on uh Todd's like uh radar and how did that conversation go? Was it like a phone call? I mean, what was the interview process like with Todd McFarland?

SPEAKER_02 1:06:13

So uh 2022 question mark above my head. Um, I was at New York Comic-Con and uh Thomas Healy had approached me. There is a pretty well-known anchor named Joe Prado.

SPEAKER_05 1:06:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:32

Um, and Joe also is a rep for a lot of different artists, too. And I think I don't know for sure, so please don't quote me. Um, but I believe Thomas was talking to Joe about working with some of the artists that you know Joe represents. And possibly within that conversation, he said something about, you know, um different writers, and Joe suggested me. Um, and so Thomas came and talked to me, and he said, you know, like, hey, it'd be great to like get you uh writing something, blah, blah, blah, blah. And um, maybe she spawned, maybe this. And I'm like, all right. And I'm the first person to admit that I understand that the easiest thing to say is, oh, we're gonna get a woman writer, let's have her write a woman character. I get that.

SPEAKER_05 1:07:20

Sure.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:20

All right. When I was writing Laura Kinney and Electra Nacios, I was told I was writing the sister books because Saladine Ahmed was writing Logan, Wolverine, and Matt as uh Daredevil. So I get it. I get that reflex. So I took Thomas's card and I was like, okay, cool, you know, we'll chat, whatever. And if anybody knows the uh timeline of New York Comic-Con, New York Comic-Con is usually the first or second weekend in October. And then, you know, you get into holiday season with Thanksgiving coming, et cetera, et cetera. Long story short, too late. Uh, I didn't end up really being able to sit down with Thomas until like almost Christmas time. And I had written up a pitch uh for Rat City, an original pitch.

Badr Milligan 1:08:12

Oh wow. So you took it upon yourself to come up with a completely original pitch. Like you didn't run with the you didn't run with the assumption that like, oh, they they're gonna want me on She Spawn or something like that.

SPEAKER_02 1:08:21

I wrote a completely fresh new pitch.

Badr Milligan 1:08:24

Dope.

SPEAKER_02 1:08:24

Uh for it. And um I sent it to Thomas. We we had had a call that we were going to um that we were going to do. I said it, I sent it ahead of the call so he would know kind of what was on the agenda for the meeting, et cetera. Um, he really liked it. He uh asked for a couple of tweaks and then he sent it to Todd, and then a couple of weeks later, I got on a uh on a call with Thomas and Todd, and I basically said, like, this is this is what I'd like to write about. A lot of the stories that I have have to do, especially my independent work, have to do with um PTSD, with people who are veterans. My father was a veteran, uh, my grandfathers were veterans. Um, the character of Peter Cairn, the uh the deviant, uh, who is the um Hells Bond in Rat City, uh, he's a veteran amputee. My grandfather was a veteran and an amputee. And I like showing the side of people that people have a misunderstanding of. People have a misunderstanding of how veterans are treated in the United States. People have a misunderstanding of how just in general, your usefulness is basically your purpose. You know, especially people of my generation of Gen X, like we were sort of drilled into us that you have to earn your spot. You're only as good as your usefulness, whether that's with your job, with your family, you know, with whatever. Um, and that idea of, you know, what happens when through no fault of your own, you are no longer, and I put it in quotes, useful to basically the capitalistic machine, you know, the the big, the big they, you know. Um, and so I talked to him about that, and he really liked that idea because and he liked the I he likes the idea of collateral damage and consequences. And the way that we tied it into the larger spawn universe was when Al Simmons detonated that bomb in issues 300 and 301. Um, Al didn't realize what he was doing, and he didn't understand the consequences of his actions and the consequences that tore open the hole in space-time that pulled gunslinger and medieval into the current time, and also sent a shockwave of terrible energy out across space and time that Peter and all these other people end up getting caught up in and how that will then affect their lives.

Badr Milligan 1:11:08

I I will I will be the first to admit I am not the biggest spawn expert out there, but between talking with Matthew Rosenberg and then talking with you, I've kind of gone through like uh, you know, I've I've revisited a couple issues, I've at least looked up like some Wikipedias, I've tried to like catch up to the story, and I gotta say, it is fucking wild. It's like wildly awesome. You know, like I just found out about the bomb that went off at issue 300. And uh the everything that you're saying, and it's like, man, I I guess you know what when I think about Spawn, it's wildly, I forgot what like the official stat or accolade is. It's like longest running American comic books.

SPEAKER_02 1:11:45

It's the longest running independent American comic, uh, the longest successively running independent American comic.

Badr Milligan 1:11:53

Yeah, and so and I think that adds a certain layer to it when you consider that you know Spawn was came out at a time where you know Wildcats, uh Youngblood, like all of these other image uh pillars that have not like that they're no longer around.

SPEAKER_02 1:12:07

So there's something and I don't know, very interesting about well, you know, Wildcats and Youngblood, well, Wildcats especially was sold.

Badr Milligan 1:12:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:12:15

And which no, which blade is still around.

Badr Milligan 1:12:18

Yeah, that's true. That's true. But none of them are are on Spawn's level in terms of longevity, but also like building out a universe, bringing, I think also Todd stepping uh you know out of the spotlight and bringing on fresh talent like yourself, Matthew Rosenberg. I think it's really impressive what's going on with Spawn. And and like we've said, you know, you've made history as the, you know, uh come on now, like a moment, you know, here you could definitely get one of these. You deserve one of these. A round of applause. I mean, history, right? As the first woman to write a Spawn comic with with Rat City. I do want to know, you know, uh, Spawn has a very distinct, you know, thinking about like how Spawn entered the scene, even now, you know, very distinct, grim, you know, 90s originated DNA. Like, how do you go about putting your own creative stamp on this world while honoring like McFarland's, you know, legendary sandbox at this point?

SPEAKER_02 1:13:08

Well, I mean, for Rat City, it's pretty easy because it was a world that all I had to do was fit Peter into the world. And if you look at Peter's story arc, it is similar to Al's, but we sort of get to the literal, you know, uh, catch me if you can, a lot earlier. Um, we also deal a lot more, whereas with the original story arc, you had the CIA and uh Jason Wynne, you know, coming down on Al and Terry and Wanda and that whole thing. Um here we didn't have the CIA specifically. We had uh Pharmatech Solutions PTS, which is also post-traumatic stress.

SPEAKER_03 1:13:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:13:54

No one no one seemed to pick up on that. No one seemed to pick up on that one. Um, but we have that also as sort of the ubiquitous they machine, you know, this idea of pharmaceutical companies, government contracts, et cetera, et cetera. You know, that's something that people talk about now as, you know, seeing these conglomerates, these monopolies. Um, that's something that is we sort of take that through line to its fruition to show, yes, this is a company that has everything.

SPEAKER_05 1:14:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:14:27

The original name of Pharmatech was All Tech. So basically, for everything you need, all tech has it all, kind of thing. And so this idea of you know, starting this new environment allowed us to, and Shay Carlos, who was the artist on uh on Rat City, allowed us to really do a lot of things that honored what Todd had done in Spawn, but wasn't bound by it. I think I have more continuity to to deal with on Gunslinger than I did on Rat City.

Badr Milligan 1:15:08

Okay, okay. And I guess uh I'd like to know uh, you know, if you mentioned Rat City ends uh uh I just looked it up. Uh we're recording June 9th. It ends last issue tomorrow. I might have to go in the shop and buy it just out of respect, uh, from after getting a chat with you. But so you're moving from Rat City and then you're gonna be the the new writer for Gunslinger Spawn, starting with I I had the issue here somewhere. I think it's like 54. 54. Thank you so much.

SPEAKER_02 1:15:32

Which is in stores already.

Badr Milligan 1:15:33

There we go. Listeners, you already know what you gotta do. You already know the homework assignment, all right? I guess what what are you bringing to Gunslinger Spawn that that is different than uh what you brought with Rat City? I guess what can readers expect with, you know, what seems like kind of a jumping on point with you taking the the helm of writing.

SPEAKER_02 1:15:52

Yeah, I took for um for Gunslinger 54, I kind of took the Jim Shooter route of where Jim Shooter's uh legendary editor over at Marvel, his idea was basically any issue that somebody picks up a book should be able to be their issue number one. And so for the people that don't know anything about Gunslinger, I give them just a quick three-paged overview of who Gunslinger is, where he fits in this world of hell spawns. And then I don't pick up the character again for 17 pages. The entire rest of the issue has nothing to do with it.

Badr Milligan 1:16:34

Um I read it this um, I read it actually this morning, and everything you're saying is is absolutely accurate. The first three pages are some like beautiful, gorgeous like uh splash pages, double page spreads, showing Gunslinger Spawn, which I was like, man, I forgot how dope his overall character is. And then you're right, it feels like I'm reading a completely different comic afterwards, but I'm like, okay, she's clearly setting up you know a much larger plot. You know, there's uh time travel involved, obviously it's spawn, so there's heaven and hell involved, and all that. It's it's a lot for one issue, but uh yeah, it's definitely intriguing.

SPEAKER_02 1:17:08

I the idea, Carlo Barberi is working with me on this, and I think Carlos's fantastic.

Badr Milligan 1:17:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:17:14

Um, and the idea is that I again I'm terrible at paraphrasing, I really am, but like that line from Hamlet is there's more to heaven and earth than your imagination, Horatio, and that is so far off from what it actually is. But the idea of the paradigm between heaven and hell um is so so dug into people that what happens if your entire existence is based on the paradigm of heaven and hell? And what happens if you sort of deprogram yourself from that? So we have characters called the regulators, and we have characters called the accountants, and the accountants, their job is to make sure that neither heaven nor hell has a surplus of souls. Um, the sacred equation is sigma equals plus or minus one. So they can have one soul more than the other because the next second that goes by, the next person who dies is going to go to the other and back and forth and back and forth. Um, they always want to make sure that they have to sort of keep the peace. And as with every spawn book, they've always talked about, you know, the war between heaven and hell is on a knife's edge. And the accountants are there to sort of not be the one to set the bomb off. And so if there is a uh a disparate number and a mistake, then they employ the regulators, and the regulators are the ones that go out and they're soul assassins, and they say, okay, this person was supposed to die and they didn't. We got to take them anyway. So there are certain characters along the way through the first 53 issues of Gunslinger that Todd had written, uh, characters that were going to die, but because of Gunslinger's interference didn't. And therefore, that has that has sort of turned around and and offset the numbers.

Badr Milligan 1:19:09

I feel like something just clicked hearing you explain that. Um I I think with me just jumping in with issue 54, you know, there's obviously 53 other issues of continuity and story I missed out on, but I feel like you just perfectly encapsulated and summarized what I was missing. That is pretty awesome.

SPEAKER_02 1:19:26

There you go. So basically, you have these characters that are more or less mopping up after Gunslinger, Gunslinger who thinks he's doing these heroic deeds and is actually contributing more to the uh the imbalance between heaven and hell. Um and one of the things about gunslinger as a character in general is he is selfish and then he feels guilty about it, and then he does something to try and make up for it, but in the long run, doing that ends up screwing things up even worse. You know, he's he's kind of like the Peter Parker of like, you know, spawn your he's kind of like the Peter Parker in that sense. Um every once in a while I give him a win, every once in a while, just because like you can't have Eeyore in a cowboy hat. Um, but but um basically we're we're doing some interesting things. Um, there's also a bunch of things that Todd had sort of uh I had a conversation with Todd. I was like, well, what about this character? What about that character? And you brought this up in issue number blah blah blah. And he's and he just kind of laughed and he's like, okay, crazy lady, reading things a little too little too closely. Well, because when I when I read things, I take notes.

Badr Milligan 1:20:52

When you got the assignment, did you it sounds like what I'm getting at of it is that did you go back and read 300 issues worth of spawn and you know 53 issues worth of gunslinger?

SPEAKER_02 1:21:03

I've I have read up to 225 give or take on spawn. And um, I have all of the bricks. I have oh correction, I have five bricks, so I have 250 issues, the brick books that are five issues a piece. Yeah, wow so I have five bricks, and I want to say they have six out. So I haven't gotten the sixth one yet.

SPEAKER_03 1:21:29

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 1:21:30

Uh, but I've read a lot of spawn, a lot of OG Spawn. I've also I've read issues at the time that I was assigned, uh issues one through 48 were available to me for gunslinger. So I read all of those and I took notes on all of them because I'm crazy.

Badr Milligan 1:21:54

Or a professional.

SPEAKER_02 1:21:55

And and so there are certain characters that you know Todd sort of dropped in and didn't really flesh out or didn't explain. And so I was like, well, what about this? And what about that? So there's a couple of characters from earlier issues that I'm going to be bringing in. Um, but I will explain who they are.

Badr Milligan 1:22:17

That's cool. What would you say? Uh what do people get wrong the most about one, Spawn? And then two, I I can this is uh this might be me projecting, but I feel like Tom McFarland is a funny ass dude. Uh like what what do people get wrong about about Todd?

SPEAKER_02 1:22:36

Okay, so what they get wrong about Spawn is that they feel as if it is just 90s bombastic schlock. And if it were just that, then it wouldn't be at 370 issues.

Badr Milligan 1:22:55

That's a damn good point. That is a great way of putting that right there.

SPEAKER_02 1:23:00

I mean, there's a lot of like crazy visuals and bombast, and sometimes you're like, that doesn't really make any sense. But I mean, Todd will admittedly say, I, Todd, am not a very good writer. So he he talks about like, I just want to draw cool stuff, and I'll think about something really cool to draw, and I'll draw that, and then I'll build a story around it if I have to, kind of thing. Um, and it's funny because when I was talking about doing outlines and all this other stuff, I was on the phone with him and he's like, writers are weird, outlines. And I'm like, look, dude, I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna argue with you, but yeah.

Badr Milligan 1:23:44

This is part of the job, Todd. He's like, Yeah, if you're not Tom McFarlane, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:23:50

Um, I think I think what people get get wrong about him, and I think it's also the things that they got wrong wrong about Neil, was again to paraphrase Cypress Hill, it's a fun job, but it's still a job. And yeah, you're drawing Batman, you're drawing Spawn, you're drawing Spider-Man, uh, you're writing these characters, you're you're playing in this in this enormous field of weirdness and everything, but it's still a job. You still have deadlines you have to hit. And Todd is very, very deadline focused. Um, we were lucky enough when I was still teaching to have him come and speak to the students.

SPEAKER_03 1:24:33

Oh, wow.

SPEAKER_02 1:24:33

And he would say, like, you know, after, you know, I think it was like we were at issue 300, give or take, uh, for Spawn at the time. And he's like, Yeah, you know, you put out 300 issues, blah, blah, blah, blah. They're not all perfect, but they gotta get out the door. And this idea of um perfect is the enemy of done.

Badr Milligan 1:24:52

Yes, I was just thinking about that quote, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:24:54

And, you know, it is a business and it is a job, and retailers are dependent on that book being on the shelf. And I don't know if people really understand how retailers work and in terms of like pre-orders work, um, especially with single issues and such. And I would suggest you maybe having Ben Kay on to talk about it.

Badr Milligan 1:25:23

Ben Ben has been on the show as a multi- not only is he a sponsor of the one of the the longest running sponsor of this year podcast, but I think he's been on the show more than any other guest. Uh, but I don't think I've we've ever gotten into the nitty-gritty. I think actually that's what I'm gonna do, because I'm gonna have him on later at the end of the year. We always do like an end of the year wrap-up type thing, and he's like the perfect person to ask for it. But I don't think we've ever gone into the weeds of like, hey, explain to me what happens when I ask you to add this comic to my poll list. I think I might actually have him like break down that complete pipeline. Because you're right. Uh, just from talking and working with him these over the years, it is extremely eye-opening about just how risky it is to like own a comic shop in like today's day and age. I mean, it's always been, but you know, um, yes, I to your point, I I don't think people really understand just how dated, uh how archaic some of the, you know, the the the market.

SPEAKER_02 1:26:23

Well, I mean, the other thing is that like you see people all the time talking about, like, I'm always posting on social media, hey, final order cutoffs for this issue is out, and things like that. And sometimes, you know, people will, you know, jump in my DMs and be like, you know, you know, it's kind of annoying that you keep saying this. And I'm like, well, I don't think you understand if you want if you like the story and you want to see the story continue, this is what has to happen.

Badr Milligan 1:26:55

This is the life of the blood, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:26:57

And you need to order it and not just order it and put it on your pull list. You need to get off your butt and go to the shop and actually pay for your books because people who sit there with poll boxes that are four months, five months, you know, the shop needs to sell those books. So not everybody has to be a Wednesday warrior, but I would say don't go more than five weeks without picking your polls up from your shop.

Badr Milligan 1:27:25

The most for sure. I think a once-a-month cadence at the very least. More of you can help it, but I get it.

SPEAKER_02 1:27:32

I mean, it's important, it's important for the retailers. And I think something that people don't may or may not know about Todd is he acknowledges the retailers being the lifeblood. He acknowledges how important it is to get the books out on time. Because if they're not out, they're not on the shelf. If they're not on the shelf, they can't be sold. If they can't be sold, the retailers can't make money. If the retailers can't make money, why are we even doing this?

SPEAKER_05 1:27:58

Well said.

SPEAKER_02 1:27:58

You know what I mean?

SPEAKER_05 1:28:00

Sure.

SPEAKER_02 1:28:00

It is such an ecosystem. I mean, I think that's probably the the best term to use. It is such an ecosystem. And I think that with the diamond bankruptcy, that shed a lot of light on how fragile the ecosystem is.

Badr Milligan 1:28:18

Absolutely. Man, this we we've gone all over the place, Erica. This has been a fascinating conversation. Uh, I think I want to end it with one question. Uh uh spotlighted on you, okay? Um, I I'd be curious to hear your answer here, but if you could tell the version of yourself working back at Continuity Studios, whatever, now 16 years, 17 years ago, one thing about where your career is today, what would it be? What would you tell a younger version of yourself? Or I guess, you know, that younger version of yourself is possibly, you know, uh someone listening right now that's an aspiring writer. Like what would you what would you say?

SPEAKER_02 1:28:54

Uh don't do drugs, kids.

Badr Milligan 1:28:56

Um you waited until I drink some water. That was good. That was good. Is it because I'm wearing a dare shirt right now?

SPEAKER_02 1:29:04

No, but I wasn't even looking at you. I was literally staring. I have I have only a couple of Funko Pops. I only have pops of characters that I've written. And I'm staring at the Hello's Eve pop when I said it. So I didn't even see you drinking water. Um I would say, I mean, I I would rather give advice to a stranger than give advice to myself because when you think about it, life is an equation. If you change any of the variables, you're gonna end up in a different place.

Badr Milligan 1:29:34

And then the regulators will come after you.

SPEAKER_02 1:29:37

Well, yeah, the regulators. I the design of the regulators are so amazing because I I asked Carlo about, I said I was like, let's do crazy, like anachronistic mashups. So you have Cassius, who is literally a Roman legionnaire World War II veteran, and you've got the the gladiator skirt with the the armor and then the Colts 9-11 piss 1911 pistols, you know, as side arms, you know, things like crazy mashups and everything. And he was so down for that. Um, okay, so what advice I would give? I would say think really long and hard about if this is something that you genuinely want to do. And if there is anything in the world that you can picture yourself doing that is not this, then go do that thing because there are much easier ways to make a living, there are much easier ways to make a lot more money, there are much easier ways to make a living, and there are much easier ways to um fulfill yourself creatively. And I've said this at panels like if I could turn around and get a full-time gig like at an ad agency, like I had many, many moons ago, with good health care and everything, and just write comics on the side, I would actually think about it. Considering, you know, I mean, I can only speak for the United States. So I know that you probably have a more international, you have more people all over the place listening. But for the US, I mean, everything is more expensive right now. And the tenuousness of having a job that is freelance is not great. It doesn't give you a lot of peace of mind.

Badr Milligan 1:31:22

It's uncertain as hell right now.

SPEAKER_02 1:31:24

Exactly. And so if you can do something that would make more sense and that you can picture yourself doing, do that because this isn't easy. It is going to test every relationship that you have, it is gonna test yourself in ways that you didn't know. It is going to you're gonna learn a lot about yourself and some of the things you're not gonna like. Um it's going to be a journey of acceptance, it's gonna be a journey of self-reflection. And when you look back on things, you it's not always rosy. I mean, one of the things that I I talk about very, very openly is, you know, I'm in recovery, I've been in recovery for 17 years. And, you know, self-reflection going back and saying, like, when you were still using, you would have done things differently. Like there are there's a lot easier ways to do self-reflection than pouring your heart out and then examining it and dissecting it and then jamming it back together into your chest and hoping that it's gonna still beat. It was a really graphic metaphor. Sorry. Sorry if anybody's eating.

Badr Milligan 1:32:43

No, not at all. Erica, I want to just say thank you so much for keeping it real, but also, you know, uh, I'm I'm so glad to hear that you decided that hey, I I am going to be in this space and share my stories and put my heart and soul into my projects and you know, put uh put your everything into comic books. I I do want to say thank you and and show my appreciation for that. This has been a wonderful conversation. And I think I think a damn fine point to put uh a bow on this on this very uh very honest and and very uh all-encompassing conversation. Erica, quick question before we wrap up. Where can people find you in person? Are you doing any in-person conventions this year?

SPEAKER_02 1:33:29

I am doing a lot of conventions. So I'm taking June and July off. I will be at Terrificon in Connecticut in the first week of August. I will also be at FanExpo Chicago in August. I will be at Fan Expo Dallas and Baltimore Comic Con in September. In October, I will be at Wicked Comic Con and GalaxyCon St. Louis. And in November, I will be at Halcon in Halifax, Nova Scotia.

Badr Milligan 1:33:57

A consummate professional all the way through. I love hearing that. So plenty of opportunities, listeners, to uh go to one of these conventions uh in a city probably near you and uh say what up to Erica in person. So if that, ladies and gents, this is the Shortbox Podcast. And we just finished talking to Erica Schultz about about everything, okay? We talked about motion comics, we talked about uh a very deep dive into Laura Kenny, all right. X23, we talked about spawn, we talked about Vampirella, we talked about keeping it real, all right? This comic industry, it ain't for the weak of heart or the faint of heart. So, you know what you can do? You can go out there and support comic creators like Erica Schultz by going to your local comic shops and picking up a spawn rat city. Jumping on Spawn Gunslinger, do you needed a reason to jump into a spawn series? I think this episode gave you all of the uh all of the reasons for that and more. And obviously, check out the Vampirella summer special number one. It should be out, like I said, uh Wednesday, July 1st. This episode will either correlate with that or be a week before that. But do yourself a favor, go into your local comic shops, go pick up something that Erica Schultz is writing, because it's amazing. And with that being said, I'll have links to uh Erica's uh social media in this episode's uh show notes in the description. You can give her a follow, keep an eye out for future announcements and projects. And that is everything I've got to say. Erica, any parting words? Anything to say to the uh listeners?

SPEAKER_02 1:35:12

Just be good and be safe.

Badr Milligan 1:35:15

Where's the live? I can get behind that. We'll catch you around. Peace.

SPEAKER_03 1:35:23

Hey, yo, run it back.

SPEAKER_02 1:35:25

And you know, Neil had a lot of stories about the way things were done in the past and how sometimes things maybe were better done analog, and sometimes, you know, and this is something that I learned when I was at the ad agency. Because when I first started at the ad agency, Photoshop was just taking off as like a big thing. And unfortunately, there was a misunderstanding of the clients, not only the limitations of Photoshop, but also um the limitations of the people working it. So clients would always think, oh, well, you're doing it digitally, just press a button and the change is made. And, you know, and unfortunately people are dealing with that with, you know, dare I say it, you know, the scourge AI. Um, so it's it's interesting how, you know, sometimes things are better with pen and paper. Um and I also think that that it's important as a creator, as an artist, to work on pen and paper simply because when you do it digitally, it's just way too easy to do control Z and to undo it. When you fixing something to paper, yeah, you can use, you know, white acrylic and you can, you know, white out that line. But the point is that you have to make a decision. And it's not just, you know, and it's gone. You have to make a decision. And it's those decisions that are actually important in the creative process.

Badr Milligan 1:36:55

Yeah. I've I've read somewhere that that is like such a big part of creating art, is how many decisions that you go about making, like from the smallest things to the to the biggest things. It is so decision heavy. And I think to people that aren't maybe uh artistic or or have a sense of art and what goes into it, they don't realize like how many decisions uh an artist is making at any given time. And to your point, you know, uh about like you know, whether to delete the something, you know, the gauging the effort it takes to do so. Um very fascinating stuff.