Badr Milligan 0:00

In this episode of the short box.

Jason Fabok 0:02

After Three Jokers, that's kind of when it really started to act up, and I was in bad shape. I was kind of fearful. I didn't know if I would ever draw again. My hand was so I had such bad nerve pain in my drawing hand. Shoutouts to my my personal trainer, Bill. I reached out to him at my lowest and I just said, I can't sit. I can't hold the pencil. My shoulder is so jacked up. My back is jacked up. I need help, help, help.

Badr Milligan 0:31

Ladies, shortbox podcast is recorded live from Jacksonville, Florida. Yoo, Short Box Nation, hello again. Welcome back and thanks for pressing play today. If you're brand new, welcome to the show. I'm your host, Badr Milligan, and this is the Short Box Podcast, the comic book talk show where we bridged 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 510, and today I'm joined by award-winning comic artist Jason Fabok. If you've been living under a rock or haven't opened a DC comic in the last 10 years, let me tell you about Jason Fabok. Jason is most known for his bold line work, hyper-dailed backgrounds, and cinematic layouts on titles like Batman 3 Jokers, Detective Comics, he's worked on Batman Eternal, as well as Justice League Dark Side War for DC Comics. And he's not only an accomplished artist, but he's also a co-founder of the publishing company Ghost Machine. It's a company which is centered around creator-owned comics like the sci-fi epic Rook Exodus, which is a series that Jason currently serves as both the main artist and co-creator alongside writer Geoff Johns, colorist Brad Anderson, and letterer Rob Lake. Rook Exodus first launched in 2024 issue one, which is a sprawling sci-fi story about nature versus technology. It takes place hundreds of years from now and follows a man known as Rook, who was once a simple farmer who fled Earth for a new life on this paradise-like planet called Exodus. It's a terraform planet where all of nature, including its imported animal population, is controlled by humans called Wardens. And as you can imagine, everything goes south as soon as he arrives. The planet is destined for doom. It's about to blow up. And a lot of things go on and happen. We'll talk about what transpires here in a sec. The series is on its second major story arc at the moment. Issue 11 is out today, right now at all comic shops. So if you're listening to this episode, it means you can walk into a local comic shop right now and pick up issue 11 if you want it. We'll talk to Jason about his life, his career, about making Rook Exodus, and we'll also talk about what separates Ghost Machine from other publishers. But before we get started on that, I want to give special recognition to our amazing sponsors who help us make this show possible. Starting with a Gotham City Limit comic shop, it's the best comic shop in Northeast Florida. And if you don't believe me, go check it out for yourself today. If you live in Jax, go visit Gotham City Limit on Southside Boulevard. And if you don't live in Jax, maybe you don't even live in Florida, you can still buy comics for them online at GothamCityLimit.com. And I want to give a shout out to my short box family, aka the loyal supporters over on the Short Box Patreon. If you enjoy the show, if you're someone that listens every week and maybe one episode a week is not enough for you, why not be counted among the short box elite? All right, if you join the Patreon, you get access to bonus episodes, you get early access to everything I do before anyone else, and you get uh you get to be immortalized in short box history at the end of every episode with a shout out by name. Once again, that's patreon.com slash the short box. Join the Patronies, right? Now, without further ado, let's bring on our guest of honor today, Short Box Nation. It's Jason Fabok. Hey, thanks for having me, Badr. Hey, it's Jason. This is uh uh this is one I've been very much looking forward to. I feel like uh your name and your your work has been integral in my rather long comic book journey. I remember maybe first becoming aware of you, of you uh entering my my radar, my scope with Batman Eternal, you know. Uh I I remember thinking when I saw the cover for issue one, holy shit, this is the closest we're gonna get to uh someone on on like Jim Lee's caliber doing interiors and can keep up with a monthly, like uh uh like a monthly pace. So uh been a big fan of yours for a while, it turns out.

Jason Fabok 4:39

Yeah, that was well, that was a while ago. That was a lot of work. I think is uh yeah, the years fly by. Uh I uh I I sometimes I've been doing this for 16 years now. I started in 2010, so um 16 going on, 17 next year. So the years and the time fly by because you uh each book that you do, at least when I was at DC, every book you did was a month. That was a month of your life, right? So you could you would do a bunch of these books throughout the year. You take a little bit of time off for uh vacation stuff, family stuff, but that was how you kind of timed out your whole year and the the time just flew by. You always felt like you needed a little bit more time for deadlines and whatnot.

Badr Milligan 5:22

You know, as I was as I was doing like this retrospect and just kind of like you know, doing my research, I'm like, man, Jason has had a very uh concentrated career. You know, it's uh I was like, I wonder if there's there was stuff before Batman Eternal that I missed. And I mean, you know, it's like uh well, I I think your first credited work, major work is like uh uh two issues of Superman Batman. I think it was like 70 and 71. And then I think the only non-DC stuff I could find was uh uh like a full run of of um was it like Aspen Comp, Soul Fire or something like that? Yeah, Soulfire.

Jason Fabok 5:56

Yeah, yeah, I I I broke in in 2010 with the help of David Finch, who was my mentor, and uh I was thrown right into the fire right away with um with fill-in issues on Superman Batman. I remember I was really bummed out at the time because I was kind of brought in as a fill-in guy at the last second, so I wasn't my name wasn't on the cover, I wasn't getting solicits or anything like that. So it was kind of like this weird thing where it's like I first I got my my first opportunity to do some pro work, but it never really, you know, it was kind of like I didn't really get credit for it. But uh the thing I learned though was that it was so intense like going from working with Dave, building a portfolio, taking my time, working on these pages and stuff I was doing for my portfolio, and then all of a sudden being thrown into an actual like comic book where you need to work at a uh very fast pace. And I couldn't keep the quality and the quantity up at the same time. And I remember if you go back and look at that book, David Finch actually helped me draw a lot of that book. So he's not credited either either. Uh, I think it was issue 70, maybe it would have been, but he would he was kind of doing some layouts and then I would come in and do the finishes on it. Yeah. Because he was just like, we got to get this done. You got to keep your job, you got to keep going. And then the Aspen stuff came because of that. Because I kind of said to Dave, I was like, I don't think I'm ready. And so he brought me to a convention and I met uh Frank and some of the guys at Aspen, and they said, Hey, look, why don't you come work for us? And you can kind of learn at your own pace because these books aren't monthlies, they don't need to be out. Like you can you can take two months, three months to do them, and then build your speed and get the quality up at the same time and kind of figure this all out before you're ready to go back.

Badr Milligan 7:43

I it's been driving me crazy, but over your I think your left shoulder, what is that the print on the far left? Yeah, that one.

Jason Fabok 7:51

This is uh David Finch brightest day, I think. Oh, that's right. He was doing uh oh wow, he did covers for all the brightest day stuff. That would have been around the time when I just got hired at DC because he was at Marvel and then he went to DC. He was doing covers, and then he said to me, He's like, Well, I was gonna send your stuff into Marvel to get you a job there, but he's a he's like, I'm not there anymore, so let's send it into DC. That's how I kind of got in at DC.

Badr Milligan 8:19

Holy shit. So, wow, that's interesting. So there is a an alternate timeline where had David Finch still been at Marvel, he would have put in a good word for you there, and you could have easily been uh a decade at Marvel.

Jason Fabok 8:31

Uh and I was actually a Marvel guy. Like I was Batman was really the only DC character, but Marvel, I love X-Men, Wolverine, all those characters.

Badr Milligan 8:42

I'm assuming they've like reached out before to have you do a cover or or so. Have you done any Marvel work at all?

Jason Fabok 8:46

I've never done anything for Marvel. Wow. I've never even had a conversation with them. I figured at some point they would have reached out to me, but I've never dropping the ball massively. And I'd be up for it. Like now I'm kind of I could like because I'm not under DC contract. So if they were like, you want to do a Wolverine cover? I'd be like, Yeah, I'll do a Wolverine cover. I I've never drawn the character uh for real, you know.

Badr Milligan 9:10

Do you get a lot of people asking uh uh when it comes to like commissions, like to do have you done a lot of like Marvel commissions?

Jason Fabok 9:17

Yeah, like they that I that's a big one. Yeah, it's it's like Wolverine, they they like I can see Wolverine's Canadian too, so I always feel like I you have a little extra razzle dazzle. You're like, all right, I gotta draw him. But uh yeah, I people always ask. That's that's what actually it's either Batman or they ask for a Marvel character, and it's usually one, it's like it'll be like Ghost Rider. I'm like, okay, like I don't know if I would ever associate myself with Ghost Rider, but I think they just want certain characters because that's all they collect, you know.

Badr Milligan 9:49

Jason, before we get started talking about inevitably Batman and then you know, Brooke Exodus and some of the highlights from your career, I want to take a uh a detour from the very obvious and talk about some of the more interesting projects in your uh resume that maybe some fans don't know about. Such as uh in 2018, you designed a $100 fine silver sculpture coin for the Royal Canadian Mint. It was called Superman the Last Son of Krypton. It's essentially this mind-blowing three-dimensional Superman coin that you designed. Uh, you've also done statue designs for Prime One Studio. They've they've made statues based on your artwork of Batman and I think Wonder Woman and just the DC characters in general. What did it mean to have your artwork minted? And I guess I should say that you're a Canadian comic artist, you're currently based out of Canada, I think Ontario. What did it mean to have your artwork minted by your own government? And then how surreal was it taking, you know, Batman and Superman beyond just traditional comic publishing into high-end physical collectibles? And and listeners, when I say these statues are detailed, amazing, absolutely epic, uh, you got to check them out for yourself.

Jason Fabok 11:04

Yeah, the Canadian Mint thing came out of uh, I think at that point I was working on Justice League stuff. Uh, I caught the eye of one of the guys at the Canadian Mint, and because of the connection with Superman, and I think one either a Siegel or Schuster had some Canadian roots. So Canada has always been able to do some different Superman collectibles, and I think that was the 75th anniversary, something around there. So they were doing a line of different collectibles dealing with Superman and the Justice League. The Justice League movie was kind of coming out, and so I did a number of coins that uh connected with that, and then we did it, it was like a 3D Superman, almost like mini statue where he's coming out of a coin. That that was that was really neat. And then we also did this other one where they took a piece of artwork that I actually drew for like my kids, and it was like an old school kind of Justice League image. I was trying to ape like Jose Luis Garcia Lopez kind of stuff, you know, and they then put that on a big, like this big, like I don't know, like Superman logo like kind of item, like coin thing, collector thing. So I did some of that, and that was cool because Brad Anderson and I, Brad, who colors a lot of the stuff, we worked together, but we actually went out to the Canadian Mint in Winnipeg and got to kind of see how they do this stuff and how they print stuff on these coins, and that was really uh a cool, uh like an honor to be a part of that and see that. So that was really that was really neat and a lot of fun. And then um the Prime One stuff just came out of my love for collectibles. I'm a big I love action figures and statues and all that kind of thing. And and uh I don't even know how I got linked up with them, but but they reached out to me and uh uh asked if we could collaborate on some things, and they essentially just brought out a bunch of different covers and things that I had done and just said, can we transform this into a statue? And I was like, Yeah, sure. And so I did some designs and some poses and whatnot for that. And then they would kind of just run run wild with it. And some of the different designs, they would just kind of come with a like a rent, like they were like, Well, we just modeled this based on your cover. Can you can you go over it and just make sure it's all accurate? And so I would go in and maybe make a couple tweaks, but everything looked so so cool, uh, how it was that I was really I was just impressed and blown away by all of them.

Badr Milligan 13:29

Do you think if you weren't drawing uh comics full-time, you know, do you know, doing all the work that you do on Umbrook Exodus every month? Do you think that statue design, I don't know, like uh, you know, toy design would would be another, I don't know, I guess what else would you be doing if you weren't drawing comics villagely?

Jason Fabok 13:45

Yeah, I I think that might have been an avenue I've would have gone down. Um I also think like uh maybe concept art for movies and and stuff. I I it was really neat at San Diego. I actually met uh Richard Taylor, who's the head of Weta Workshop, who did all the work on Lord of the Rings and the Hobbit movies and and all like Avatar, all kinds of stuff. And uh I got to meet with him, and he's one of my personal like art heroes. I used to watch the making of Lord of the Rings DVDs like on repeat as a teenager. And so I met him and and I kind of had told him when I was talking to him, I was showing him Rook, and I brought him a book, and I just had said like how one of my dreams as a teenager, late teens, was I wanted to work for Weta and do concept art design. And and I thought that would have been a really cool job as well. So I I do enjoy that um that side of things. And uh, you know, it's always neat when somebody, you know, asks me to I I had opportunities to do some action figures with DC as well. Did a bunch of different uh figure designs and and they based a bunch of stuff off my art. So it's it's always it's really cool to to see that happen and and uh see it turned into something three-dimensional that you can put on your desk.

Badr Milligan 15:01

Yeah, yeah. I feel like it it just you know brings it to life in a in a way, you know, being able to like you know have it here in this space and occupy like real space and be able to touch it and move it and all that. I'm glad that you brought up like storyboarding because I've always felt like your artwork, you know, whether it be on uh DC stuff or like on Rook Exodus, has a certain like cinematic flair to it, like your compositions, your layouts. I think it also helps that you can draw literally everything from like the characters themselves to like really good rendered backgrounds and whether that be in the city or nature, like you know, there's a few uh uh panels from like Dark Side War that that come to mind of you know, like just Dark Side looking so menacing and how much uh emotion you can convey. Um, sometimes with like nothing else happening on the on the page other than you know a character just kind of like, you know, being in the moment. Um, have you had any formal education when it comes to like drawing? Was it something you just picked up on your own? Did you go to college for any type of art?

Jason Fabok 15:56

I mean, I I was always drawing in high school, drawing through my youth. I didn't really take the art side of things seriously until actually like like grade 12 when I was about to graduate and trying to figure out what I wanted to do. I actually wanted to go down the film route uh in my high school years and uh potentially be a film director. That was kind of my main goal. And I I applied to a bunch of schools and I didn't get into the one I really wanted to, and then I kind of changed directions and started looking at illustration. So film and like the cinematic quality of my work, I think comes from just watching a lot of movies and studying them and kind of seeing the kind of shots that work. You know, reading a lot of comic books does that too. Like if I like a panel that another artist has done and it really strikes me as like, wow, that's a really nice composition, or I really like how he used these characters in the foreground and these characters in the background. And like I'll I'll I'll use that as my inspiration for one of my own panels. Uh, I got like a whole pile of books spread out over here, and I there's certain ones I go to and and just uh try to get inspiration for something when I'm trying to tell a story. Um, I did go to college for three years uh for animation. And um I studied both 3D animation and hand-drawn animation, and so I have skill in both of those areas, but I when I was there, I kind of realized quickly that I liked to illustrate more than I liked drawing a thousand drawings just to make a character move for 30 seconds, you know, like that that was boring to me. I liked just drawing a one really cool image and then moving on to something else. And so I think all of those things kind of come together. Uh, I think if you want to be a comic book artist, I think you number one, you should study film, you should study how camera shots are are set up. I think you should watch lots of movies, including classic movies, because they they just use the basics and uh film noir movies are great for that because they're just black and white. So you really have to use shapes and and silhouettes and and all these kinds of things to help convey the story. And then read a lot of comic books too. You got to read a lot of comics and classic comics, new comics, and again, don't be afraid to uh to kind of uh take things that inspire you or or make you feel a certain way. I I remember Dave Finch said one time to me, because we were talking about a bunch of artists, I won't mention who the artist was, but he kind of asked me, like, Well, do you like this artist? You know, like he kind of like I was saying, like, Oh, I I really like this guy's work. And he says, Well, would you want to ever draw like that artist? And I was like, Well, not really. And he's like, How come? I said, Well, it doesn't, it just doesn't resonate with me. But I like, I know he's a great artist, but I I wouldn't want to draw like that. And he said, Remember that feeling because that's how people will uh see your work. You want them to look at your work and immediately get a visceral feeling of like power, especially if you want to draw uh big bold superheroes and whatnot. And um he's like, it's good to look at those other artists who aren't your say that art style that you're chasing. It's good to look at them though and see what they're doing because sometimes you can borrow different aspects from their uh techniques and the way that they present storytelling and all these sorts of things, even though you may not want to draw necessarily like them. It's very important to remember the feeling that certain artists give you and and how their work hits you, and just remember that, you know. And so for me, it's always been artists like Finch and Jim Lee and Mark Silvestri and Steve McNiven and these guys who just like there's just a lot of power and energy, you know. And so I draw, I gravitate towards that as my inspiration, but I also love looking at like Mike McNola and and like and Tim Sale and looking at that where it's more stylized, but it's great breakdowns of shadows and and and silhouette and how they use different things to frame their panels. And so you draw all of that into your work and you'll let the let it inspire you and come out on the page in different ways, and you experiment and you see where it where it takes you. Well said.

Badr Milligan 20:01

Uh and you know what the word visceral is a great uh word to use when describing, at least, you know, anecdotally personally, uh when I see like David Finch's artwork, especially like you know, when he was like really cranking out like both amazing covers and interiors, like Moon Knight, I'll never forget when I first saw his issue of Moon Knight or uh Batman Dark Knight. I mean, yeah, you know, like speaking about that is awesome that it's coming from someone that elicits, you know, at least personally, a very visceral reaction to his art, which is like, wow, how does someone convey such a grittiness, such a power, such a raw energy to him? Um, how did you and uh Dave Finch end up meeting?

Jason Fabok 20:40

Uh, Dave, he when I was in college, he actually came and spoke to my classroom. He lives, he lives in within my the area I live in. And he's about maybe 20 minutes, 20 minutes away from me. And so, but everything around here is 20 minutes away. We're in like a farming community. So you you're driving kind of in and around the different towns to do your different things, go shopping and whatnot. But uh when I was at college here, uh he came and spoke to my uh class. And at the time he was working on Avengers. Oh, uh uh it was Avengers Disassembled with Yeah, it was like one of those books. He was drawing like a hulked out she-hulk, she's like going crazy, and and he brought some of those pages in, and and that was that was like the first time that I ever really thought like, okay, maybe maybe I could be a comic book artist because before that I always thought, well, you have to live in New York, you have or you have to move to some like LA or some. But then here's a guy living in my community, and uh he's at that time the arguably the biggest artist at Marvel.

Badr Milligan 21:43

Was it common knowledge that hey, David Finch lives in 20 minutes from us? Like, was he known like as that guy?

Jason Fabok 21:49

Yeah, kinda within my at least within uh art class and like our our program, I but I I do think a lot of people started to figure. Started to learn that from the area. So I met him there, but only briefly. And then years later, it was maybe like three years later when I was done college and kind of building, I took a year and was building a portfolio. A friend that I knew from my class knew him somehow and got me his email. And I just sent him my portfolio and just said, Hey, if you have a quick second, can you just give me just a couple quick things I can work on? And instead, he just said, Well, why don't you just come to my house? Oh, and so he's like, It'd be easier for me to just talk to you in person. So do you remember what was in your portfolio? At that point in time, there was just some character art that I had done for like my own kind of characters. And then I think there was some Wolverine, a couple like Wolverine Canadian language phase. Yeah, like kind of like and dared. There was like a Daredevil sample script that I had done that I found online or something there. And so I did some stuff like that, and I had just had it kind of thrown. I just threw a bunch of stuff together and I sent it to him. And um, yeah, he invited me over, and then that's kind of started me working with him. And yeah, I would go over to his house and and he would give me a like a little project. Like today I'm gonna show you how to draw a building. Like he was working, so he like he'd be like inking like I remember he's inking like a Captain America cover or something. It was like the first time I met him, and he's inking this thing, and he's also like just really quickly like going like critiquing my work, and he was just very truthful and blunt. And looking back on it, I think he was actually testing me to see if he could break me because he was just like, no, this is all wrong. This is wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong. And he's like, This is how you fix it. But I remember we started with backgrounds. So he showed me really quickly how to do a perspective grid and all this kind of stuff, the way that he does it. And he said, Go home and just fill up this page full of buildings. And so I went, I went home and I filled up like two or three pages of buildings. I didn't just do one, I did like more. And then I brought those in and then he critiqued those and tore them to shreds. Wow. But then also showed me what I was doing wrong and then how to correct it. And then he said, Go home and do it again. And every time, if he asked me to do one page of head, like drawing a page of heads or whatever, or backgrounds or whatever, he would, I would give him three or four. I would just go nuts because I figured this could be my shot. Like I gotta, I gotta show this guy I want, I want an opportunity and I want to learn and I want to get better. And so I did that for like six months. Uh I would go to his house and he would invite me back over, and and he's, you know, working on pages and covers and all kinds of stuff and showing me really quickly what to do and what not to do, and then sending me off on my way. And and uh it was kind of like a magical time. It was very like I was very like stressed out. Like it was like like it was there was a lot of like fear like going over to his house because I'm like, I don't want to disappoint him and and he's working and I don't want to waste his time. But but he, you know, he took his time with me and helped me, and then he helped me get a job, and he and he's helped me multiple times over my career to help me get other opportunities. And you know, I'm forever grateful to him and his wife for what they've they've done for me.

Badr Milligan 25:15

He lived a karate kid movie, cranked up to like an 11. But you know, it sounds like that the the right kind of like approach that maybe you needed at the time, where it's like, you know, tough love and just blunt honesty, but also like a little bit of like that soft hand where you're like, hey, he's at least giving me answers and and showing me, not just like tearing me down without helping me build myself back up. Regardless, it does sound like a pretty intense boot camp. I I guess what would you say is the the single biggest lesson or or habit from David that that saved you when you were kind of given like the keys to like Batman and Justice League. Did you ever fall back on any like lesson or piece of advice of his that maybe helped you out when you were like at the peak of like, you know, your time at DC?

Jason Fabok 25:57

Yeah, I I don't know if there's any single thing. I mean, he uh he showed me not only the uh the art art side of things, but he also showed me the business side of things too. So he would he was integral and helping me uh you know land some gigs and do things a little bit out of the ordinary to to kind of uh get some certain certain gigs um by going directly to people and talking, kind of talking to like calling D, like just call Dan DeDio and ask him to give you a job on that book, you know, like kind of thing. And but and also negotiating contracts. There's all kinds of stuff that goes on kind of in the background that people don't see. But I remember also he had shown me how to draw, like like he drew. And I remember saying to him uh after my first couple books came out, I was like, you know, everybody they're just ripping on me and they're just saying that I'm a finish clone, you know. And he just, I remember he said that it was the kind of was a response that kind of caught me off guard, but he just said, Well, that's a good thing. And I said, Okay, he says, You're not gonna, he's like, My artwork, let's be honest, it sells and you're going to get jobs, you're gonna get work because of it. And he said, Don't worry about finding your look and your style. That will come in time. And then he said, I was a Mark Silvestri clone because Mark Silvestri taught me. And I used all of Mark Silvestri's techniques. And then he says, It took me four or five years to kind of find my own thing and start bringing in, you know, Simon Bisley and all these other things into his work that really m transformed his art into his own thing. And he said, the same thing will happen to you. You just got to give it time and just keep working, keep doing every book, get your books done, and then experiment, you know, play with inspirations that you like from this artist or that artist and and just see where it takes you. And he was right, you know, he was right.

Badr Milligan 27:50

At what point do you feel like, okay, I've I'm coming into my own now? Like I could look at this and say, no, this ain't no, you know, David Finch sidekick. This is you know, Jason Fabak has has has arrived.

Jason Fabok 28:00

I think that would might have been with like Justice League. Um uh the bat maybe a little bit through Batman, but I was kind of struggling with Batman stuff. Like I I got kind of thrown in on detective comics early on and was kind of like just racing through those books to get them done. And then um did a couple other books in there. Batman Eternal was another one where it was kind of, you know, I'm trying to find my way through it. But Justice League was, I think, when it really kind of started to really click and I kind of figured out what I wanted to do with my art. But it's it's interesting. I've I actually I think that I don't know, maybe people don't see it, but for myself, I see each project I attack, I came at it from different angles. Justice League, I couldn't, there's a lot of detail in there, but you're drawing a team book, so you got to just kind of just go with your gut and race through it. And I I simplified some stuff and and was just trying to just trying to get things done as quickly as possible. But then Three Jokers was very uh Brian Boland. I I really was looking at a lot of Brian Boland and wanted to kind of bring some of that fine kind of pen penmanship into it, uh, so that it kind of had this feel. But then with Rook, there's a lot of detail in there. But I'm a little more scritch-scratchy. I'm like, I'm not trying to be like as super clean as I was. I'm okay if it's like like whatever. Like I'm not filling in all the blacks all the time. Sometimes I'm more cross-hatching it. And and and so I uh I just feel it fits more with the world. And maybe if I went back and did another DC book or something, I would make myself fit towards whatever that is. But that's kind of I kind of try, I've tried different things, and I think in the as I go throughout my career, I'll probably do different things with even with Rook, I'll probably uh simplify things, or I don't know, or find it. There's there's always different artists, and you find different artists that really inspire you, and then you kind of get drawn towards that. You go, what if I tried something like that in my work? And then that kind of leads to new breakthroughs with what you're doing.

Badr Milligan 30:02

I really like hearing you say that because I I going into this uh the the research mode and and you know just uh the rabbit hole of going through your old your old stuff, you know, I I would have just commented on the art itself, you know, hyper-realistic. He's got great backgrounds. You could draw like damn near everything. But the more I kept like reading interviews by you and and I was stumbling across like old Substack posts that you were you were like breaking down, like really breaking down panels. One in particular that jumps uh out to me and pages too. You're breaking down pages and panels and like whole issues. Uh, I think it was uh one of the issues for the button, the Batman Flash uh crossover, where you're talking about how much attention you put into this scene where Batman is watching a hockey game on TV. And you were like, one of my pet peeves is you know, when when other uh artists will interpret sports on TV and it's like a sports game wouldn't broadcast this angle of from the game because it makes no sense and this doesn't make sense, it's not really realistic. And you were like, I really being Canadian, I gotta, you know what I'm saying? I have to do the hockey match correct. So I guess I say all of that to say intentional is another word I think I would use to describe you as well. And and I guess hearing you say, like, you know, there you do put that much thought into it. I also couldn't help but notice on your Instagram, you have uh uh is it uh colla collisions? Collisions 323 uh quoted, which is Colossians, thank you. I butchered that. Sorry, God. Uh Colossians You have Colossians, you you quote Colossians 3.23 through 24. I won't say the whole thing, but it's you know, whatever you do, work at it with your heart. And I thought it feels like you put your heart and soul into it. Was that always kind of like your approach is just to be as intentional as possible, or did that come along a little further in your career?

Jason Fabok 31:45

It was always drilled into me as a kid uh from my dad. It was, you know, uh Colossians 3.23 and and just working, working not for man, but working for God, like doing things to your best of your ability. And he would always say, like, it doesn't matter if you're cleaning the floor or if you're doing a piece of art or if you're doing a chore, you know, like you know, whatever you're doing, do it to the best of your ability and be proud of what you've done in the end because you did do your best. And and it doesn't mean it's gonna be perfect. It's like you're working for excellence, but not perfection, because you can't be perfect, but you can put your all into it and you can do an excellent job at that. And sometimes you stumble and you fail. I uh there's lots of stuff that I don't like about my work. I think as an artist, you're kind of uh cursed with this, like, I don't know, I you can see all your faults and everything that you draw. And it makes it hard to actually go back and reflect on your work and see good things in it. I think time separates it. And so I can now I can kind of go back and go, oh, yeah, okay, I was pretty rough around edges. But yeah, there's some, there's some pretty good stuff here, you know. Um, but that always pushes me to want to be better, to do better. And um, I just think that that's always been there with me, and that's just my personality. That's why I I have a hard time cutting corners and I could make my life a way easier if I simplified some of my work and I just did things a little differently. But I think that I wouldn't be doing my best and I wouldn't be doing it to the utmost of my ability. And um, I I also looking at other artists, uh, I just I don't like to see them drop off. I want to see them get better and better as they go. And so eventually I think at some point, you know, your body kind of gives out as an artist. My I'm already starting to feel that a lot uh personally. But uh eventually I may not be able to draw the long as long hours as I'm doing. And so then you kind of have to change and adapt. But but I believe, I just believe in doing your best job with everything you do. And I also I think if somebody's gonna pay whatever a comic book costs today, $3.99, $4.99, I don't know what the the average book is, but um, I want that to be worth their money, you know, like that's like five bucks, you know. So it's like, you know, if you're gonna pay money and then sit down to read this book, I want that reader to read it, enjoy it, and maybe even flip it open again and take a look at the art, you know, like instead of just being like, oh, that was good and then never look at it again. Like I kind of I I want that there so that they they read the book and they go, wow, I maybe I didn't like the story, but man, that art looked great, you know. You know, that kind of thing. I don't know. So that that's always been drilled into me and and um something I practice and I try to to do in all things that I do in my life.

Badr Milligan 34:39

Hell yeah, I think it comes across to work for sure. I want to go back to uh uh Justice League. You can correct me if I'm wrong, but was that the first time that you worked with Jeff Jones?

Jason Fabok 34:48

Yeah, I was. There's a funny story. There's a funny story about that one where he I I was working, I was on Batman Eternal and uh I was working on that, and I was kind of I was kind of like thinking, like, yeah, I want to do something different, I want to try something different, and I really would have wanted a shot on Justice League. And and then uh out of the blue, one night it was like 11 o'clock my time. Yeah, I get this text from Jeff Johns, and he's like, Hey, can we talk? And I was just like, Okay, sure. I'd only like really ever talked to Jeff like once or twice in person. And so he called me, and uh, he's on LA time and I'm on Eastern time. So, you know, he's he's calling me. It's like midnight, one o'clock in the morning by the time we ended up talking. And um he just like pitched me this whole dark side war thing and what he wanted to do. And we talked for a good hour on the phone and uh just really clicked. Cool. And uh I just felt like it was kind of like one of those like really cool moments where you just knew like something cool is gonna happen here. And then I start that's when we started working together on with Justice League and um a lot of fun. It was that was great.

Badr Milligan 35:57

And you guys have been putting out, I mean, you guys have put out bangers, you know, for lack of a better term, just bangers after bangers. I mean the uh uh Justice League Dark Side War, uh Batman Flash the Button, uh definitely can't gloss over Batman, uh three jokers. And now you guys are working together on Rook Exodus and all these great things out of uh Ghost Machine. I think it's definitely safe to say that you guys have probably built up a strong creative shorthand and relationship. You know, what does your back and forth look like now working on like Rook Exodus, where you two are building a brand new site, and not just a small like universe, like a pretty expansive universe from scratch versus you know how you guys were working together on like existing IP and characters at DC.

Jason Fabok 36:40

In all honesty, it's not too much different. Jeff is a firm believer in uh collaboration, and so it was actually very uh like a breath of fresh air when I started working with him because before I worked, you know, I worked with some some great uh writers, and uh, but there wasn't much communication. It was just kind of like here's the story, or I'm gonna I'm thinking about doing this as the story. And it like you get that in an email, and then you go, Yeah, okay. And then they would write you a script, and then that you were just kind of you just draw it, and maybe I would say, Well, I'm gonna change this, or I might add this, or whatever. But um, with Jeff, it was, you know, he talks to you on the phone, he gives you a call, he pitches you the whole issue. Uh, you might throw out some ideas back at him, and then you find you get the script and you find out that like he actually took some of your ideas and put them in the in the story. And or he might just be like, Well, what do you want to draw? Or like, what are you interested? Do you want do you like this character? I was thinking about putting this character in Justice League. And and so he was um very he just wanted to collaborate. And and you know, he told me, you know, we've talked about this quite a bit, but he his philosophy is that when you find an artist, you got to trust the other artists that they know kind of what they're gonna do and what they're good at, and so draw to their strengths, but also get them engaged in the project by getting their two cents, like seeing what they like, what they want to draw, what kind of storylines inspire them. Uh that was kind of with Justice League. I would toss out some just random kind of thing, and then and then all of a sudden I'd be reading the next script and he put that in the story. And it's like, oh, that's really cool. And that that engages me as a storyteller. Uh, as an artist, I'm also a storyteller and I want to tell stories. With with Rook, you know, it's something where we do talk a lot back and forth about the ideas and where we want to go with the story. And um, you know, he'll throw out things and sometimes I'll go, yeah, I don't know about that, or I'll throw out an idea and he'll go, ah, I don't know. But when we usually land on something, then we kind of start to cook with it. And it's like we see, we see where that idea can go. And sometimes you just throw out crazy ideas and and you know that it's not the right answer, but you'd be like, Well, what if this happened? And then he might go, Yeah, okay, I don't know about that, but what if you kind of take a little bit of that and that sparks another idea? And so we do that a lot with Rook in designing this uh world. Um, Jeff likes to focus as a writer. He's very good at focusing on the emotion and the feeling and the why, like why you should care about these characters. Who are they as characters? That's that's the part that um that really connects with people. And I agree with that. I come at a lot of stuff more from a visual angle because I'm a visual artist. And so I'm usually the balance where I'm saying, but okay, all that sounds great. This scene or this sequence that's got a lot of heart sounds great, but I also want a giant car chase with bullets flying all over the place and characters doing cool things. So it's like we we're constantly kind of push and pull of these two things and these two sort of ideas. I have a vision for what I see Rook as, and he has a vision. It's it's trying to find a good medium where as a team we're producing something that we're both happy with. And so that's that's kind of how we work. And uh, you know, we we seldom get into any arguments or anything. I'm I'm pretty I I trust him that he's gonna deliver me a good script, and he trusts me that I'm gonna draw something good as well. So it kind of works like that, you know.

Badr Milligan 40:16

I think that I think that trust comes across uh in the work as well. You know, I was like, man, this feels like a very unified front, you know. Also in addition with like, you know, uh Brad Anderson and the letters, I feel I was like, man, this feels like they all like really shared ideas and like, you know, every every voice was maybe heard, or you know, they were all like in in in lockstep with the production of this, which I would love to maybe use this opportunity to like really dive into the ghost machine because if I'm not mistaken, the the official announcement of like Ghost Machine is here uh happened at like New York Comic Con in 2023, which was my first New York Comic-Con. And I remember uh seeing the press release after the fact, and it was like, I was like, holy shit, this feels kind of like the forming of image comics, where it's like, oh wow, all these great artists are banding together to, you know, uh get creative control again and you know, this and that. But Ghost Machine was cool because it's like Jeff Johns, you, uh Gary Frank, you know, uh uh Brad Meltzer. You know, it's like this huge, this murders row of talent coming out and saying, hey, we're forming this company. It's not just about creative control, but also business control. So it's like, wow, I can, yeah, I can get behind that. And you got like some of the best creators, like these books are going to be awesome. I guess, you know, I want to talk about leaving the comfort zone that was DC comics. You know, uh, we've talked about, you know, all the titles you were working on and the success that you experienced while being there. You know, you spent over a decade as, I would say, one of DC's like premier go-to artists. You know, you were at a place that I imagine you could easily pick the projects you wanted to. You were maybe collecting a steady paycheck, the work was steady and safe at least. What was the exact moment or conversation where you decided to step away from all of that? To step away from work for higher security. I'm putting this in air quotes, and and start betting on Ghost Machine and deciding, hey, I'm gonna be a co-founder and I'm going all in on Ghost Machine.

Jason Fabok 42:14

Yeah, uh there was a couple, there was a couple moments like the uh after we had done three jokers, DC was kind of in like a weird like state of flux. Like I they there was there was Danadio had just left and and there wasn't like um it didn't seem like there was anybody kind of taking charge or in leadership. And we were trying to get we had ideas to take three jokers and expand upon that whole thing and with more stories. And we actually had a sequel that it was real would have been really awesome. I think it would have been better than Three Jokers. It was just like a great epic story, like Batman's story that was very personal, and nobody's ever done anything like this before, anyway. Uh sorry for that tease everybody, everybody's bummed out that we'd ever do that. I hear about it all the time.

Badr Milligan 42:59

Something that never happened that would have been.

Jason Fabok 43:02

I hear about it all the time because we had talked about it and then things kind of changed. But um, uh Jeff and I were kind of talking, and and uh it was like we were like, what do we want to do? What do we want to do here? And we we talked a little bit about uh that we talked a little bit about could we go to Marvel, do something at Marvel? But I was really loving what he was doing on Geiger, which at the time Gary were doing just an image. And I was like, I want to do that, I want to do a creator own project. And so that's when we really started talking about Rook. And I had drawings of the character, but I didn't really know who this character was or the world that he was part of. And uh Jeff kind of you know let that brew in his mind, and then after a little while, we we came up with the whole story and got excited about it. And then I don't even know if we had started working on it uh at that time, but um but we started. Kind of tossing around this idea of like what if we kind of just created our own company that would allow us to then have that creative control over everything and kind of strengthen numbers. And so it all it took a took a long while to figure out and kind of figure out what we wanted to do with everything behind the scenes and the legal part of it and all these sorts of things. But in the end, it was really about, like you kind of had said, like creative control and also business control. And and it's really neat, like when we do make like we like uh McFarland just announced a Geiger figure uh at um San Diego Comic-Con. And Jeff just had like remarked about how he's like, you know, I had like two meetings with them and we we figured out the contract and it was done. And he's like at DC, with you would have to like go through like 20 different meetings and 30 different people, and it would have to go all the way up this, this, all these people here and signed off by this person, this, and then by the time all that's done, it's been like six months has gone by. So you lose all of the the spontaneity of being able to do that. And he's like, like they did they had a Geiger Funko pop that was a San Diego Comic-Con exclusive, and he's like, that was a simple meeting, and we figured out the contract and off we went. And because we're our our own entity, you're keeping the the money and and the profits and all that kind of stuff, and whatever comes with that, it's it's staying with us, it's not going through 30 different hands as well, like Warner Brothers, you know. So it's a different kind of thing. The whole ghost machine thing is is tough because we're it's our own company and we're we're dealing with all these things, these business things that I never saw when I was at DC. You know, I was just an artist at DC and I worried about the book I was on, and that was about it. But now that I'm part of this, I mean I'm sitting through uh more business meetings and making decisions about things that we want to do in the future or hard decisions about what we're doing internally. And that's a different viewpoint. But I think it's like all this experience is there for a reason, and I'm accruing all of this experience for something down the line, whether it be, you know, as Ghost Machine grows and I take it, maybe I'll take a bigger leadership role or or whatever. I don't know. But it's the it's the sort of thing where uh I'm I'm actually enjoying it. I'm enjoying that part of it. It's stressful, it can be stressful and it can tug on your heart sometimes to make hard decisions, but you're doing it with the goal in mind of seeing your company grow, get better, and to see some of these things that we've created make leaps into other mediums as well. And some of that stuff is, you know, there's things brewing with that as well. So it's exciting and it's I mean, it's cool to see like a Geiger action figure from Todd McFarlane, like that's cool, you know. And then that opens doors for other things too. So it's I don't know, it's a very different experience. Uh, I'm very glad I'm doing it. And uh it's not only, I think, made me a better artist, but it's made me better uh business-wise, seeing the comic book world from a different perspective. That's that's another thing too. And just seeing the the business side of things and how it all works, and it's a lot of hard work, but it's very rewarding in the end.

Badr Milligan 47:11

Yeah, I imagine that I mean, like like you said, you know, like there's a a different level of difficulties and things you got to now think about, but the fruits of of that labor is probably much greater had you stayed with like DC or just gone like the normal, uh, I guess whatever, like the image contract. I I do like this like unified front. That initial press release, those initial interviews where you guys were talking about Ghost Machine and introducing the world. Um, there was a I don't know, I don't know. It was like you could tell like all of you were excited about it and were putting your all into it. So it's great to hear that you know it's pushed you in in in positive ways. And hell, I can't wait to have a Rook action figure one day to add to this like giant mess in the back. Um, I want to get to talking about Rook Exodus now. So you guys announced New York ComCon 23. Hey, here's Ghost Machine, here's who we are. You know, um we're doing great things that very, I think like starting 2024, you know, the first issue of a bunch of the series uh end up launching, Rook Exodus being one of those. Uh it's been almost two years and some change now. Like I said, issue 11 is out today by the time this episode comes out. Like, how are you feeling about the feedback from from comic shops and and readers? Uh uh uh you and Jeff and the team, are you guys like on track of all the things you had planned for the series? Or has there been any, I guess, like course correcting or any of that? Like, how's it been so far?

Jason Fabok 48:28

Yeah, um, I think the overall has been very positive. Um, I get a lot of positive feedback from the readers and fans, and you see different things pop up on YouTube or Instagram, people reviewing the books and really liking it, and uh just kind of people uh you know saying things like, Oh, I wish this book was bigger than what it is, like, you know, I wish more people were reading it. Um, my my personal thoughts on that is that, you know, it's something new and you have to take some time and it has to grow naturally, you know. And so um one of the things I think like, like I kind of uh I think the setbacks would be is that uh I'm slow. Uh I'm slow at drawing. It's a very detailed book. I'm slower than I've ever been, though. But uh like when I was at DC, people people uh online they'll say things like, well, Fabbock takes forever to draw a book. But I I when I worked at DC, like I was pumping out like there was a few years there I pumped out like nine, 10 issues in one year. Like I was working like an animal, and uh it was really hard on me and my personal life and my mental health and all these kinds of things, but I was in the trenches, and when you're there, you're fighting for for jobs and you're fighting for position, and I wanted it. So I was going hard uh after it all at that point in time. Uh, I'm in a different stage in my life right now. So, you know, I have a young family and uh kids, and I'm involved with sports and all kinds of stuff with them as well. And uh, like I kind of alluded to before, my body also I've been having a lot of physical issues with my arm and my drawing, my drawing hand and my shoulder. And uh I had to I've had to change a lot about my life. I have to uh exercise and train pretty much a couple times a week in order to do my job. And there's different things that have kind of come into my into the way where I can't actually I can't really draw any faster, and I don't really want to either. Um, but I wish I could we could get issues out quicker. And I think that's kind of to be honest with you, I I I and I hear the fans, uh, I think it has hurt the book in the sense that the book I think could be selling more copies. It's it's our uh Ghost Machine, it's one of our higher selling books. I think it could sell more. I think we could reach a bigger audience, but to in order to do that, I would have to push myself beyond the limits of what I'm physically able to, and then that would set me back. Um, or I would have to bring in other artists to take on the art. Um, but uh I don't know if the book's at that place yet where I can really do that. Um, and so my kind of the way I see rook is it's a long game, and I think we're getting close to this the end of our second arc with issue 12, and then we've already got our next one planned out, and we're kind of uh we might actually shorten the amount of issues each arc is so that we can get more of a story out in a year kind of thing. And uh I don't have to kill myself on six issues, I can maybe do four issues and still tell a nice complete story and have it move quick and fast. And um, I think uh I think I'm I'm very happy with how the book is turning out and how it's reading. And I I still think that we're a couple volumes off from the thing really kind of reaching a big crowd. Like I think, you know, it's gonna take some time to lay down these stories. But then once we have three, four volumes of this thing and people can restart to read it and see where the greater story is leading towards, that's when I think people will see that, yeah, we have a plan. We have a very long-term plan, and we have bigger story arcs within these smaller story arcs, and it's all leading to certain places that we have kind of like figured out along this timeline. And uh it's like the sky's really the limit with our story and what we want to do with it. And it's gonna get deep and it's gonna get uh sometimes dark, sometimes it'll be silly, but uh, but there's there's some there's some really cool epic storylines that we have planned for this. And for me personally, I really hope that this is something I can do for the rest of my career. You know, God willing, I can do rook and build up these storylines from now until the time I'm 60 and and have a really big, complete epic story. And uh, I look at guys like Mike Magniola, what he did with Hellboy, and he he accomplished that. Like he drew this whole epic that he had and he finished it, and now he kind of is just playing around in that universe. Or, or even like how manga it doesn't go on forever. It's like it has a beginning, middle, and a and a definitive end, and they end it, and it's like that's my epic, that's my story. This is a different kind of thing, and I'm trusting in the fact that I believe that we have a great story and that it will make for a great epic comic book series, and then hopefully one day, maybe a great epic movie or animated show or video game or action figures. I don't know what. I I can see it, I can almost visualize it, but it's getting to that point. I need to put the work in. So yeah.

Badr Milligan 53:40

I love hearing you share your aspirations like this, man. If anything, it yeah, you know, to your point, you could have stayed at DC and they probably would have had you can still doing Batman because you're that good at drawing Batman and the whole Gotham family and things like that. But I love that you decided to go out of your for your own to build something for yourself. Um, I also like, you know, um, obviously, I don't like hearing this, but I do appreciate the honesty uh and transparency that you're sharing about like the physical toll that comes with doing comics. I think, you know, we always talk about, you know, giving artists creative control, you know, uh getting them paid accordingly, you know. But I feel like we don't always talk about the physical aspect of the job and how there is, for a lot of creators, unfortunately, there is no like retirement plan, health plan. So hearing you say, like, hey, you know, I'm I'm gonna do my own thing and and build my own like legacy, I think that's fucking awesome, for lack of better terms. That's great to hear.

Jason Fabok 54:35

I I was gonna say, like, uh the the physical aspect of the the toll that it takes on you is something I learned too late. And and um, you know, uh as I was going through my career, I would talk to different artists and inkers and different people, and you would hear them talk about, yeah, man, my back is so jacked up and I can't sit at a desk anymore, and I can barely work. And and you will, and you're a young guy and you're thinking, ah, that's that's them, you know. I'm you know, that's not gonna happen to me. And I was physically active. I I played hockey, I go for walks, but I wasn't doing things like lifting weights and strength training and and stretching and doing all these sorts of things. And after three jokers, that's kind of when it really started to act up and I was in bad shape. Uh, I was kind of fearful. I didn't know if I would ever draw again. My hand was so I had such bad nerve pain in my drawing hand. Uh, shout outs to my my personal trainer, Bill. Uh he This is can I say this is the first time anyone has shouted out their personal trainer on the podcast?

Badr Milligan 55:40

You just made history, baby.

Jason Fabok 55:41

Yeah, yeah. Bill, Bill, Bill Nolan. He's uh he lives uh near me, just leaves in the the next uh road over. But uh, hockey with him on Monday nights and and he's been uh a trainer. He's he's 61 years old and he's in the best shape of anybody I've ever seen. And uh he trains this guy trains like NHL hockey players in their offseason, like he's done it for years. And he I reached out to him at my lowest and I just said, I can't sit, I can't hold the pencil, my shoulder is so jacked up, my back is jacked up, I need help. And he said, Come and train with me. And he's like, But you just gotta be consistent, man. If you don't put the work in, you're not gonna fix yourself. And so I started going there and I go there three times a week, even to this very day, and I train and we work on shoulder health and uh body health, and I lost a bunch of weight and I'm kind of in the best shape I've ever been in. But the problem still is there, and it's it kind of like it'll rear its head, and and then I'll have to we kind of change our workout routine so it's a little bit more physio and getting uh stretching in there and getting blood flow in there and helping out. If there's any young artists out there listening to this, any young guys who are just, you know, you're working at DC and Marvel and you're thinking, oh, I'm in good shape, nothing's gonna happen to me. Uh, my my advice would be to, as an artist, you need to train like an athlete. And if you start early, you may avoid some of the stuff that I'm now going through.

Badr Milligan 57:14

Hearing you bring this up has got me thinking about who's the buffest comic creator? Who's the buffest creators in comics? Who's the buffest people in comics, the most, you know, physically fit. And my mind goes to Greg Capoula, but also hearing you also talk about like, you know, how how uh taking care of your health and and training and you know, extend your longevity and your ability to do art. It makes me think about John Romita Jr. I saw at um uh OAX this year, and I don't know what his age is. I'm just guessing here. No, disrespect. I think he's like mid-60s. He looks great, he looks fucking like he's he's cut, he's like lean, he looks he looks healthy, and he's still out here, you know, like drawing, you know, interiors, covers, you know, he's doing sketches at at shows. Um so yeah, I guess maybe that's the key right there is you gotta get in the gym, you gotta lift, you gotta get small a little bit.

Jason Fabok 58:03

I think that's part of it. It's part of it. Even and if you're not, you don't have to be lifting crazy heavy stuff. I just think getting blood in there and and exercising those muscles and pulling your shoulders back, getting that posture realignment is great. And uh actually it was Jeff Johns too who got on me because uh he said the same. He said when he turned 35, he threw his back out really bad from just writing and sitting at a desk all the time, writing, writing, writing. And he and he was freaked out and he realized I got to start working out. And so then when it happened to me, he said the same thing. He's like, You need to work out every day, you need to do either some cardio or you need to get into a gym, and that kind of revitalized and changed my mindset.

Badr Milligan 58:44

That sounds odd. I I hope you continue to put your health first and foremost, and I hope you continue to feel better. I want to get back to uh uh talking about Rook Exodus and maybe drill down just a little bit about the story. I mentioned in the intro that the story takes place many years from now, you know, uh, you know, it's a sci-fi story uh about nature versus technology, following one character named Rook who leaves planet Earth to go to this planet Exodus, thinking it'd be a much better life. Turns out that is not the case, and a lot of things happen in between. You mentioned that you guys are, you know, issue 11 comes out today, issue 12 will wrap up this second story arc. Can you give us just like a quick recap? Maybe someone that hasn't been following. Where's the story of Rook Exodus? Uh, where does it find us at like now in this current moment?

Jason Fabok 59:27

You know, we started off with the first volume is Rook kind of discovering his connection to his crows. These these warden characters have these helmets that allow them to interface and and link up with a specific animal uh species. So Rook is the crow and the blackbirds and and rooks and ravens and direwolf is the the wolves and Ursa's the bears and and uh, by the way, one of my favorite uh your character designs in this series, if I may interject, have been A1.

Badr Milligan 59:59

And I think that's been one of the more uh the more interesting uh aspects of reading this series and following along, is like, oh shit, Jason really gets to like stretch and play with like these character designs, like really gets to flex his ability to come up with like really unique character designs. Because, like we mentioned, you know, you're building this world from the ground up.

Jason Fabok 1:00:17

Yeah, it that that's actually one of the hardest parts of it. Uh, some of the characters come easy, like Stag was one of those characters I just knew right from the get-go. He was one of like the first five characters we kind of talked about. And and so I knew all those characters, I just knew what they look like immediately almost. It was just they were formed. And then other ones I've had to kind of play with and and find inspiration and other things. Um, but you know, back to kind of where we were, like we we kind of the first story arc is about Rook versus Ursa, the Bear Warden, and and kind of this battle over the planet. And and then now we're kind of going through this uh the storyline where Rook and Direwolf uh have met up with Stag and uh they are trying to discover why the world engine failed and why the planet is dying and see if they can't revive it. And they're finding out that it has to do with uh the spiders and the spider warden arachnid that is uh uh infested into this core, like this this world core where the world engine is. And uh it was kind of uh when we were talking about the storyline uh after the first storyline, we kind of said, Well, what do we want to do next? And and I said I kind of was like, I would like to do something that's a little more self-contained and like almost like aliens, you know, where they're trapped in some sort of thing and there's hallways and it's spooky, and and uh kind of do something like that. And so that's where we're at with this storyline, and uh and there's some pretty cool stuff that comes up in issue 11 um and some twists that lead into issue 12. After this storyline, we have the next ones we're gonna be exploring more of the world of Exodus again, getting outside, moving around, and there's a little bit of a Western vibe to it. And um, I love world building and I love you know character building with these characters as well, and bringing two characters together and seeing where that might take us and what it might inspire us for the next storyline. And and uh we kind of see Rook, Jeff, Jeff kind of sees it in the same vein as like how he did Green Lantern or or even like classic X-Men, where you have these kind of these core characters that you can kind of follow along with, but you can bring in other ones for a story arc and they might interchange out with other ones. Rook is kind of the constant and he'll kind of always be there. And I think Dire Wolf is is gonna kind of be there too as we go through. I I really enjoy drawing her, and I really think that she, you know, kind of brings a nice balance to the to the two. But we can play with all these villains and we got some pretty out there ideas as well. Like arachnid, as a character, if anybody has been reading the book, he's this guy who's like uh inside of a giant mech suit that kind of looks like a spider. It's like some sort of war machine suit that he found and he he interconnected it with his body, and and uh it's it's fun to come up with that idea, but then you realize you've got to draw this thing for six issues, and it's not it's not easy to draw. I've I've there's a lot of the character designs I look back and go, why did I design it like that? It's it's very hard to draw, but it makes for a cool looking book in the end when you get it and you read it, you know. Yeah.

Badr Milligan 1:03:30

You mentioned that you've had the uh the the idea of rook as a as a sketch for a while. Like how far back are are we talking?

Jason Fabok 1:03:37

Uh I was kind of drawing, well, I I would have been in college, so um yeah, back when I was like early 20s.

Badr Milligan 1:03:45

Are we talking like just a mask or just the the the concept of a guy that can control birds? Like how how much of like the rook we see now was around you know twenty whatever, 20 years ago.

Jason Fabok 1:03:56

Yeah, it he originally he always had the jacket. He always had like a duster jacket. Did you have a good jacket? He always had the jacket, but originally it was almost like a film noir style, like detective character with a mask, and then and then it became something else after that. It was more superhero-esque. And then I kind of started stumbling upon like I was I was really uh I loved I loved like Metal Gear Solid and I loved Star Wars and all these things. And I started kind of like pulling from some of that, and and I just thought it would be neat to have a character who was a science fiction kind of uh vigilante kind of character in on uh in some off-world kind of thing. And but that was about I just had he had like a cool mask because I I just this I like this idea of him being called Brooke and he had like a bird mask. And so my brother and I worked on this bird mask, and he's a 3D animator uh and modeler at uh he works for Infinity Ward. Um, they do Call of Duty, so he does all that, he does like the character models for Call of Duty, and I would like send him sketches and he would be modeling it in Z brush. Uh, and we and then I would make changes because I wanted this mask to look cool from all angles and stuff. And so I had that, and then I pitched Jeff this, and he said, Well, yeah, but what's the story? Who's this? Who is he? And I'm like, I don't know, that's your job. Like, you know, I just have a cool, I just have a cool guy. Yeah, yeah. You know, he's a cool looking guy, he's got some spikes on his head. Yeah, and so then he he's like, Well, how come he wears a bird mask? And I was like, I don't know. I I figure it's kind of like Batman, where Batman's called Batman and he looks like a bat. So this guy's called Rook and he looks like a bird. He's like a like a rook is a like a crow or a raven. And and then he's like, Well, what if he what if he can control like mechanical crows? And then we thought, well, wait a minute, what if you can control real crows? And then it was like boom, this huge bomb blew up in our minds, and and then we just started throwing. out characters. Ursaw was the next one. This guy who has these giant bears and he's like, I'm Viking. And he's got like a I was like, yeah, and he's got like a cyborg arm and like we can go crazy with that. And then and he's got a big axe and and uh and then and then it was like direwolf and direwolf was originally like a guy and he was going to be like a werewolf but then we thought well we need a female character. Let's well direwolf would be great for that. And then her father became Bloodhound who's in our in our stories now and he's kind of the werewolf character. So that was part of it. And stag comes from my love of like samurai like Japanese samurai. I love that kind of stuff. And so I was like I want to do a cool samurai character and I thought uh a deer would be an interesting choice because they're not really a violent or uh like a uh creature that you would think about who's like tough or cool or vent like vengeance or anything like that. But um just the look of like a deer skull look it looks so cool. And I was like imagine if his helmet was red and and he's like a black samurai garb with a red sword and a red hat and it's like that's cool. You know so um I don't know the all of that that's kind of how it came about and then the whole world Jeff had this idea about the world dying and and then we put it on its own planet so that we could kind of create lore and mythos there. And yeah.

Badr Milligan 1:07:25

And I want to say I I think aside from how bad as the art is and the character designs and how cool like some of these like warden masks are I I was definitely gravitated to the the plot right so we're talking like nature versus technology. And it's you know I think it's safe to say in today's day and age you know we lean a lot more drastically one way versus the other. You know almost feels like we've become disattached with nature. But I love that the story doesn't just like is it just one dimensional in that way where it's like hey look technology bad nature good I love the fact that you know the the wardens have these masks that give the ability to control these specific animals in Brooks' case birds but the birds can also influence him like he's getting in their mind and their their urge for survival and you know just very basic necessities like food you know can sometimes be overwhelming to him. So it's like now it's a conversation about like finding balance where it's like well now you can also go too far into nature and lose like your your humanity and what makes you human. And I'm like man this is a really cool concept and you've mentioned the world building a few times. I find that the world building I don't know it's like the the vehicle of like the different wardens and the different sections of this world is a really cool vehicle to like build out this world. And I am looking forward to uh I think in like issue three or four where you're introduced to the rest of the wardens and I'm like wait a minute there's a warden for the deer too you know like oh I just met the turtle warden. So I don't know it's it's yeah you guys are hitting on on a lot of cylinders and the world building feels both inviting but also like you want to explore these other corners of the and at that a dying world. So now I'm like well there's definitely they're working up against the clock. So you know what I'm saying it's like a now you got like the thrills and the stakes are high too.

Jason Fabok 1:09:06

I like how you brought up the technology versus nature aspect of it. And that's kind of that goes back to like your your classic themes from westerns the western was always kind of about uh the what the wildness of the wilderness versus civilization being the town, you know, and they're building a town or they're going across you know the prairies to find their home the which is and so you're they're battling the elements and they're battling nature and all these sorts of things to get to civilization. That's kind of like a classic theme of westerns. And so that's something that we've kind of worked into rook and uh and like you said it's not it's not that nature is always better than technology it's and tech or technology is better than nature. It's like trying to find a balance between the two and and uh um I think for myself like I the way that I kind of see everything is is like a stewardship. So it's like it's like we I think as people we we need to be good stewards over what we have and over nature and and but I also don't believe that you need you go to the point where you're now putting uh um uh human lives above nature I think like like there's has to be a balance in in everything and if you're a good steward you can use the things that we have in our for our natural resources but you know like you can use them to benefit people but you also have to be protective of those things so that you know uh they're not being wasted and they're not running out. And that's kind of some of the themes of Rook too is and we're gonna get into that as we go more and more but it is about like kind of a connection that we've I think we've lost with nature and and trying to reconnect with it. And I find that even myself uh I've become more and more reconnected with nature around me and uh I really uh enjoy being outside and being more in nature and I'm paying more attention to animals around me. I notice everywhere I go ravens and crows are there. Uh I've noticed them even though they were there before but like and I just never noticed but I've noticed them all over the place uh and it's kind of funny. Uh but uh I've I've really the crow and just reading about these different animals and their and what they do and and their interesting characteristics and and and it's just it's really cool. There's a I really feel that Rook has a a unique vibe, an original vibe that uh I haven't seen it's a good way to put it yeah you know what especially in it especially in sci-fi because sci-fi usually is you go to a planet and there's aliens. That's usually the sci-fi way it's fantasy that is more or less like hey we go out and we fight the giant bear or the giant spiders you know like that's kind of your classic Dungeons and Dragons like fantasy style thing. With sci-fi it's always aliens and but we we thought it would be neat to take that science fiction Star Wars kind of thing but what if the animals were and the the animal life is earth animal life but with a twist there some of them are bigger some of them are you know mutated to be giant and so like you're fighting giant snapping turtles and stuff like that. You know like that's kind of the the science fiction the aspect of it and almost a little bit of that fantasy Lord of the rings aspect uh is there as well.

Badr Milligan 1:12:34

Good stuff hell yeah. All right Justin I want to uh I want to switch gears and and get into a segment where it gives me a chance to take a break real quick and stop asking all the questions. Let someone else ask all the questions. I call this the short box friends and family segment in this case this question comes from uh the owner of said best comic shop in northeast Florida. This is a question from Ben Kingsbury. He owns Gotham City Limit comic shop here in Jacksonville. He is one of the biggest pro ghost machine guys I've ever met. I'm gonn a play you get this voicemail from Ben.

Jason Fabok 1:13:05

Here we go to Ben Oh thanks Ben that was I I loved that uh I loved hearing from you and uh yeah I I again like we kind of were talking before I think my biggest regret is I wish I could draw quicker and I wish I could publish get the books out faster because I do I do see that there's momentum behind the book and people do really dig the dig the the stories and what we're doing. I wish I could I wish I could put them out quicker so that we could have the book coming out faster. We did announce though what's interesting is we at San Diego we announced that we will be doing some a series of sort of I don't know if one shots is the correct word but there's sort of like side issues dealing with other characters within the Rook universe. So the first one is is like a uh it's called Rook Wardens Direwolf. And so it's uh gonna be uh it's drawn by Ed Bennes. So we got like a heavy hitter coming in there to do like a that's my and the artwork looks awesome and uh it's it's written by Jeff Johns that that issue but we're gonna have different uh writers come in and do some like short stories you know featuring some of the characters that we've seen in the books but also some other characters that are like brand new just for these these uh singles and so what I'm kind of hoping to do is that we can bring those issues out when I kind of stumble or we hit a lull or we hit a point where we need something to come out in there. Jeff and I have always kind of said that Rook was never meant to be a monthly book. It's not it's not ever going to be um and some times we're rolling well and we can we're pumping out issues and things are going great. And then again like health health scares and health problems my stuff rears up and it kind of sidelines me and I'm not able to produce to the speed I may have been going at. And so I want to at least draw six issues of Rook a year and then hopefully get those published out within a year year's time. So in 12 months we can get six issues out. We kind of failed with that with this last uh six issues but um again uh I'm I'm personally very thankful to hear from the retailers because they are you know the lifeblood of our of our industry and they're out there on the front lines and they're getting people engaged in these books. And I hear from them a lot and and they're the kind words that come back are so encouraging. I almost get like a little uh worried or fearful that that uh because you you know that they're relying on you to put out the the books and the product and but I can't operate at the same level as like DC where they have so many artists and they can punt they can just throw artists on, fill in artists and all this kind of stuff. And I don't I don't really want that. I want to grow the book naturally the way I want to draw it. And like I said I'm in it for more of a long game on this one. I don't want to let down the stores I don't want to let down the readers and the fans and the good thing that I see is like there was a pretty big gap between issues nine and ten and yet our sales went up so so it's like okay we not every sometimes I wonder people didn't abandon us in droves you know they stuck around they got the next issue they read it and then just like three jokers came out a long long time it took a long time to do it but then it came out and it sold really well and then it goes into trade and then it's it still sells really well even this day and people forget oh yeah there was delays between so it's gonna be the same thing with Rook and I think hopefully we can we get these uh one shots going uh the first one looks awesome and we can get those kind of coming out to help out so that something of Rook is always there on the on the store shelf.

Badr Milligan 1:18:05

I will say this depending on if it's a uh how invested I am in the series sometimes a good old delay gives me a chance to catch up and then I'm ready for you know whenever the new issue comes out. So I do like uh the the the plan that you've got with these fill in issues. Um and big shout outs to Ben Ben if you don't mind giving me the name of this guy with these 3D printed helmets because there's a few I wouldn't mind maybe having on the shelf. With that said, oh you know and Ben, let's we've got to send Jason one. We have to send you one for sure. I got to see what these look like first. Hopefully they're quality. Okay Jason uh I've got one more question for you uh we've spent all this time talking about your career and and rook exodus i wanted uh I want to zoom out real quick and and get your opinion on what your favorite ghost machine title is that is not Rook Exodus.

Jason Fabok 1:18:47

Because like I mentioned in the in the intro there's a murders row of creative talent attached to the company I mean yourself Jeff Johns Gary Frank I forgot Ivan Reyes is on the team as well Brad Anderson uh Brian Hitch et cetera et cetera what is uh some of your favorite uh uh titles on Ghost Machine that's a tough one because I I really do enjoy them all um and I think it just depends on whatever one I've read last you know like you mentioned Ivan like I'm not a horror guy like I'm not like so Hyde Street when Jeff was pitching to me like oh we're gonna do I'm gonna do this horror book I was kind of like I don't know man I'm not really that's not my jam like you know but uh but Ivan's drawing that book and I've enjoyed every single issue and just the artwork um seeing Ivan draw that book is just incredible uh Gary guy Gary Frank on Geiger and Brian Hitch are doing great on Geiger and Redcoat respectively and then um you know Francis Manipool who's also a fellow Canadian on uh Rockefellers has been really good and he's just drawing his heart out. I don't know if the other artists would say this but I find that there's a lot of like uh you see these guys and they're drawing and they're sending like their artwork like we got like a little like group chat right and you're seeing like Ivan like post like oh here's the page I just drew and you're going like oh my gosh like like my stuff I'm in this gym Ivan all right I'm in like it's like you're just like I like it it's like oh I I'm competing like we literally have some of the best artists like ever like let like Brian Hitch comic book legend right and it's like and you and you're just like oh do I even belong here like these guys are so good but it but I also find it it inspires me still it helps me like yeah it helps me like raise my level and like and I take I gain some in uh inspiration from those books too and I I wish personally I wish I was again I wish I could draw quicker and get things out quicker so I could actually do more like covers and stuff for some of those books. But with Rook it's like it's we're we're behind where what we wanted to be and so it's like I just trying to focus on getting that thing going.

Badr Milligan 1:20:58

Look if anyone is out there complaining about these delays or or or the release schedule I ask you to once again open up an any issue of Rook and just take a look at just one page and see how much fucking detail goes into the artwork. I mean I I don't blame you at all. I mean to your point you mentioned you know you wanting you know your work to feel like it justifies the price tag. I I definitely feel that way reading through Rook. It's like I mean for the amount of amazing art that we get in the story so far it's well worth it. Sometimes you just got to wait for good things, all right? Sometimes you got to be a little patient.

Jason Fabok 1:21:30

Yeah it's it's hard it's go into that just briefly it's like you can have a million positive comments come your way about how people love your work and and then there's one person who's like these guys can't get a book out on time and that one drives a state through your heart and you just dwell on that one comment but it's like but there's like there's like 20 other people saying that they really enjoy your work and that they care if it comes out late they just want good good books and so it's always that one just the loudest stuff for you. Yeah yeah for sure.

Badr Milligan 1:22:02

All right Jason I lied I have one last question for you and that is is there anything that you want to promote anything you want people to pay extra attention to as as we wrap up this amazing interview.

Jason Fabok 1:22:13

Just checking out uh Ghost Machine Pro on Instagram and my uh my Instagram account too I try to post some stuff there some behind the scenes look at different things I'm working on. I am working on right now I don't know when it'll be up but I am working on a new like website and art store. I'm hoping to maybe do some um you know exclusive covers for rook or you know uh poster prints and and sign books and that kind of thing. People have been asking me for that for a long time and just really haven't had the time but I think um now that I own a lot of the stuff that I do I can kind of do stuff like that. You know so it's like I am not you know so I um look for that at some point in the near future here. I I we're trying to get all of our ducks in a row and figure out shipping and how to do all that kind of thing.

Badr Milligan 1:23:05

So you know I if I I I do got one more quick question because you know you just mentioned another like advantage of going you know creator own you know the fact that you get to own your you get to keep your art you know you get to sell it as you want and that that's an extra you know uh revenue stream for you or source of income. Would you ever go back to I guess doing work for hire knowing like you know having all this experience and this freedom to do what you want and like the way you talk about your aspirations and building your legacy and you know and and even hearing you talk you know we're talking about that the physical toll I'm sure that that plays a a role into the decision making too of like hey I'm going to really triple down on this so I have you know something that I own. I guess like yeah would you ever go back to doing work for hire?

Jason Fabok 1:23:49

I think so I think but it wouldn't be like a permanent thing. I I I I'm up for um I'm up to do like a cover for DC every once in a while like I loved my time at DC like I I I for me that was a childhood dream like to work on a Batman and draw Superman and Wonder Woman like that it was an honor. Like I I consider that like an honor for me. Like I'm really and and I loved the relationships I have at DC and I left on good terms. Like I I still there's still I have great friends over there who are still working in the front offices that I really look up to and I still talk to and they still email me every once in a while and they're they're supportive and uh I think I think in the future yeah I will do some stuff some covers here and there. I don't know about books. Uh I I like I said I want to focus on rook but uh I'm sure you know if there's a three jokers anniversary whatever and they want a new cover or new some new release I might do something like that, you know, or you know but um I don't know it you can't you can never say never because things could change and who knows what's in the future. But for now my my path is kind of like I want to just stick to uh what I'm doing. I like owning what I'm doing and I want to see where that can go. Hell yeah.

Badr Milligan 1:25:08

I think that's a great way to end this right here. With that being said, ladies and gents this is the Shortbox Podcast and we just finished talking to Jason Fabok about a little bit of everything right we we talked about his time uh learning under David Fench we talked about working with Jeff Johns we talked about uh experiencing creative and business freedom of with Ghost Machine we talked about Rook Exodus which you should absolutely check out if you're into good comics right uh issue 11 is out today issue 12 will be out soon ending this second story arc a perfect time to jump on if there was any uh buy it read it uh check it out tell your local comic shops to hold you a copy right now I'll have links to uh Jason's social media uh as well as his website the ghost machine website all of that good stuff in the description in show notes give him a follow keep an eye out for future projects and announcements and uh that's all I've got to say about this peace hey yo run it back now I'm like I think I would absolutely ask you you brought up Metal Gear Solid my ears pricked up and I'm like oh shit okay I the jacket on Rook reminds me a lot of the jacket on Liquid Snake so I'm like damn yeah and and like Rook's undersuit is like essentially like the sneaking suit from like Metal Gear Solid 5 which I was playing at the time yeah there's there's a lot of like little like visual things there I I've I just played Metal Gear Solid like the Metal Gear Solid 3 remake.

Jason Fabok 1:26:38

Oh same snakey uh Delta or Delta Eater whatever it's called yeah Delta so I just played that for like the fourth time like I've I played it like I I keep replaying it I'm like it's just like a go to game I don't know I really enjoy it it's like one prior to its release three was my favorite Metal Gear Solid.

Badr Milligan 1:26:57

Like I remember playing it for the first time when it first came I think I was in like a senior or something in high school I mean the music the intro the the 70s espionage