Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (00:06):
Good evening everyone. Shane here from Comex and Jerome.

Jerome Castro (00:10):
Hey guys.

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (00:11):
Hey Jerome. So today we’ve got Dave Guy and Hayden Sperl come to talk to us. Also, at the end, we’ll be talking to Brad Daniels about some comics that he’s read. Yeah, without any ado, let’s get on with the show. Welcome to the Comex Show. Oh, comic show. Sorry. First we’ll be talking to Dave Dice. I’ll just bring him straight in. Hi Dave.

Dave Dye (01:03):
Hey Dave. Good Goodday. Shane Goodday. Jerome, how are you both?

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (01:08):
Good, thanks.

Jerome Castro (01:09):
I’m doing awesome.

Dave Dye (01:11):
That’s good.

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (01:12):
So Dave, let’s give everyone out there who don’t know you, a little bit of a spill about how you got into producing your own comics and a little bit about yourself.

Dave Dye (01:24):
I got into producing comics by, well, pretty much, well, when I got out of the Army, I decided to write a history, a graphic history, about the Anzac Landing. Oh, cool. I was very inspired when I read the official history because a really a brilliant read written by Charles Bean and it’s got some great stories, and I thought it’d be really great if more people knew about this. So the first thing I did when I got out of the Army, well, I actually started preparing for it a year or two before I got out G. And yeah, that was when I started to produce graphic stories in the graphic nature. I had dabbled with it before because actually when I was in the Army, I did this

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (02:23):
Cool,

Dave Dye (02:24):
This is Oakey Fire Station. Oak is an army aviation base up in Queensland, and this was a bit of a rough comic about life in the station, a few of the events that happened, a few embarrassing moments for everybody involved. That was, I had a lot of fun doing that. And when I finished that and I got it photocopied and I gave everyone a copy, I put it in their pigeonhole where they get their mail and the blokes came in and had a look, and they were all just laughing and rolling around, grabbing their sides. It just went down so well. So I just thought, oh, this is fun. That was more fun than if you gave me a hundred bucks for that. This was much better just to see ’em all laughing and enjoying it. And so I suppose I sort of got involved from that point on, but that was back in 95 when I did that. I had done Gday Danny, gday mate. I had done a few other delved into comics. Gay Lee.

(03:45)
Yeah, so I have done comics and that sort of thing. Just tried to do a few little stories here and there. And actually going back, actually, after I finished being a fireman in the army, I became an illustrator and I drew pictures and did signs and calligraphy. And we do help the instructors in the schools to give organised, we do training aids for them and stuff like that, posters or stuff. And I went to Iraq for the Gulf for the war. It was over there with the Syop group intelligence. And one of my jobs was we produced a comic strip for the locals and it was to educate the locals to report any terrorism terrorist activities. We had a character called Basel. He used to run around the desert. He was a policeman in the Iraqi police force. And he’d go and arrest the baddies after they were doing something, like they’d drop a bomb or rocket us or set up IEDs and we’d say, report some. And in the end, basil would always arrest them and have them in jail and whatever. So that was, that’s cool. So that was another little thing I did before I got out of the army. It was that sort of thing. Yeah. And then I got out, made me Anzac legend.

(05:31)
That’s the hard colour version. It was first published in a landscape version, but I converted it to portrait. So that’s 200 pages. That was the first thing I did. They say, when you do your first book, do something short and simple. How’s 200 pages? Very short and simple. So yeah, that was the first thing I did when I got out of the army.

(06:08)
Yeah. Thanks mate. Yeah, I will keep rattling on. Danny’s just mentioned my style, but my style when I was a young fella comes from this. A lot of it comes from this. Oh, okay. Norm Lindsey. Yeah. You got, when I got this as a 15 or 16-year-old out of the library, I became very interested in pen and ink drawing and just the power of black and white illustration. And I wanted to be an illustrator, a book illustrator, like Norman Lindsey. Okay. But anyway, that didn’t happen. I just ended up drawing comics. But that’s my love of using the old steel pen and ink, Andy and ink. And that’s why I like to do that. And of course, I like the old American cartoonists and comic artists. Jack Davis, Mort Drucker. They were as a young fellow when I read Mad, very Inspiration, here you go. That’s the first mad magazine I ever bought in my life. That’s awesome. You still own it.

(07:50)
Hello? January, 1971. You just froze up for a minute there, Dave. Sorry about that. Yeah, I saw that. Yeah. Yeah. And then that’s the next one. I started buying mad magazines. So that Mort Trucker and Jack Davis, of course everyone, a lot of people know them for their great art. They’re an inspiration also as a youngster. These sort of books. Wall Picture Library Mainstay, black and White. I’ve never seen this before. Yeah. Beautiful artwork. That’s beautiful. A lot of these fellas were Spanish or Italian artists that came across to England to do the art for these blokes. But DC Thompson or Fleetway Press, whoever it was that was putting these things out. And I used to love buying those for the stories and the art. I love the art even as a youngster.

Jerome Castro (08:57):
That’s from the sixties, seventies.

Dave Dye (09:00):
Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. Back in the sixties, they started making those back in the fifties and stuff like that. Goodday, rusty, how you going mate? Here’s an example of the art. Yeah. This comic here, I read, I pinched this off one of my mates at school. What a bugger around me, because I actually borrowed it, but it never got back to him. But this one here, this little comic is probably one of the only comics I ever got a chill up my spine reading. It was a real chiller. Gee, it was a good story. And people say, oh, they just throw away little things. But I’ll tell you, that was a good story and it gave me a chill from, as a youngster, I used to read Commando. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Commando. I didn’t read Commando so much, but I always had, these were out before Commandos, the War Picture Library and the Battle Picture Library. Good day, Zach, how are you going mate? And so Commando came out later on for me. I was onto these Mads by the time I finished my, so it sort of developed, my taste had changed a bit. Actually, there’s another box of comics up. Excuse me for a sec. I was going to grab these before.

Jerome Castro (10:28):
Yeah, of course. We love seeing history here.

Dave Dye (10:33):
Oh,

Jerome Castro (10:34):
They’re beautiful, man.

Dave Dye (10:36):
Yeah. Well, the black and white’s, what I sort of grew up with, and that’s probably why I like to do it now. That’s a bit about why I do it. But I used to buy, I got the very first when Core was a British comic that came out and I got the first three or four issues of that, five maybe. And then I missed the next issue and then I missed a couple, and then I sort of stopped buying it. But I was buying a lot of British comics and the Victor was one that I was very happy with. Rusty. Yeah, mate. So this is the, I dunno if you blokes have seen the old British, this is what I grew up reading, these sort of comics and Dandy Core, this is Victor, there’s Valiant Tiger. There’s all different ones at these, but they’re just on Newsprint Wizard and Chip.

Jerome Castro (11:35):
Oh yeah. Around these data around early sixties. Yeah,

Dave Dye (11:39):
Yeah, yeah, yeah. That’s right. Well, to the seventies. I was buying them in the seventies.

Jerome Castro (11:45):
Oh, that’s awesome. Okay.

Dave Dye (11:47):
I never bought a superhero book. Only recently. I’ve bought a few just to see what they’re like. As I was saying to someone the other day, the closest I got to it was Nick Fur and his Howling Commando who? Sergeant Fury back then, I think. And I read, it would’ve been probably written by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby. I was only a young fellow. I was only maybe about eight or nine, and I was probably after a Sergeant Rock. I really loved Sergeant Rock, but I had to grab Nick Fury. He is a soldier. I liked army stuff. So I bought that, but it was just almost all this text. Couldn’t believe it. I never bought another one.

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (12:41):
I was the same rusty. I was the same, actually. I only discovered New Comex at the news agent probably. Oh. It would’ve been five years into my collecting.

Dave Dye (12:51):
Yeah. Right. You’ve buying,

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (12:52):
I just knew secondhand stalls. That’s the only place I knew to get comics.

Dave Dye (12:55):
Well, when we was kids, we used to go to church on Sunday, we’d get our pocket money from dad on after church. And on the way home, dad had stopped at the newsagent to buy the paper. So myself and my sisters had duck into the newsagent there and have a look at the comics and we’d come out with this one. These,

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (13:21):
Oh yeah,

Dave Dye (13:22):
We and Casper and hot stuff and all them. But I think these are the original ones. They must have survived a hundred moves, these things. And still, I think these are the original ones that we bought back then. A lot of those old comics. Oh yeah, mate. Yeah. Love Joe Qubit’s work mate. Yeah, love it. I’ve got one here. There’s a Sergeant Rock. Yeah. That’s not him there. Where’s Joe? Where’s old? The front there. Here he is also.

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (13:58):
Still nicely vivid.

Dave Dye (14:00):
Yeah. That’s the sort of stuff I read as a young fella growing up. And that’s what I probably started to get into for a long time. And that’s what I tried to emulate when I started to do the comics was the Sergeant Rock and that sort of stuff. Yeah. So of course that went on for a while at school. We never talked about comics. We played footy. I was one of the kids that I played footy and I played cricket and sports. That’s pretty well what we talked about. And I wasn’t into cars or anything like that, but some blokes were. So we all had, some blokes had interests that didn’t affect other people or we didn’t talk too much. But I bought comics and we had, back in those days, you got, well, nowadays you call ’em nerds. We didn’t call ’em nerds. I don’t dunno what we called ’em. We just called ’em those bloody pansies. Those pansies up there. But sometimes those blokes would buy, mostly they were buying these sort of comics. I don’t know anyone that bought a superhero comic when I was a young fella. Most of them were born in that. We never talked about it. So at school it wasn’t discussed. Not because, I don’t know, I don’t think everyone said you’re an idiot if you read them. It just wasn’t talked about, I don’t think. I don’t even,

Jerome Castro (15:37):
Yeah, those sign up the times. Yeah.

Dave Dye (15:40):
Yeah. And our environment, perhaps because this is a country town, not in the city. Yeah. There was one or two blokes who bought comics, but we didn’t, there was no, I don’t think there’s any stigma or anything like that about it. It was just you did or you didn’t do what you want. No one worried too much about it. No one got picked on because they read comics or anything like that. So that all sort of stuff just didn’t, I hear people talk about that sort of problem. We never had anything like that when I was growing up, which was good. Everyone could pretty much do what you want, but I suppose we were still, you still got to do what the crowd does and that’s always going to be something that kids have to do.

(16:29)
Asterisk. Yeah. Well, that’s right. Asterisk, one of the kids came to school with her asterisk. He had two asterisk books. His mom came back from, I think, the Big Smoke. She’d been up in Sydney and bought in these asterisk books and we’d never seen ’em. I was in primary school then. They were hardback and loved the art in that. They were fantastic. Funny thing, I never saw a Tintin book until I was, I joined the Army and I would’ve been, would’ve 1997, I would’ve been 40 years old, never saw a Tintin book. Wow. Was crazy about him. One of my mates, he was crazy. He had every Tintin book going, geez. Wow. So he introduced me to Tintin ing, so yeah. Oh right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That’s where

Jerome Castro (17:25):
I discovered tinting

Dave Dye (17:25):
Was a school library. Yeah, right. No, I never saw ’em. But I really loved the art when I saw it. And the stories. I’ve read a few of them and they’re quite good stories. Yeah.

Jerome Castro (17:36):
Yeah. I also, Tinton also has a nice history to it about RJ and the author in general. Everyone thought he was a Nazi sympathiser. So long story.

Dave Dye (17:49):
Yeah. Well, was he in occupied Belgium when the Germans took over and Right? Yeah. Yeah. Phantom Rusty, yeah. Was

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (18:01):
A big

Dave Dye (18:02):
One. My cousin had, he had a stack of phantoms, a stack he had, his wardrobe was stacked about three foot high with fandoms. Oh wow. What Zach just flash up then. Oh,

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (18:17):
Hang on. That he hadn’t seen Tin Tin until it was a cartoon.

Dave Dye (18:21):
Oh, a cartoon. Was it a cartoon? I didn’t know that either.

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (18:24):
Yeah. They brought out a, I dunno how many years ago, but,

Dave Dye (18:28):
Right. Yeah, yeah. But you look at Tintin, her’s work, he’s got that, what they call, what do they call it? The line, it’s, there’s a term they’ve used for his line. It just a dead deadline. I suppose. It’s, it’s not cursive. There’s no variation. It’s just the one width the whole way through. But it’s quite well done. Of course. Yeah. I like that sort of stuff. Yeah. So, yeah. What was that? What was the question? Do you remember? Which was the first din title you had? Oh gee. I dunno. I dunno. It would’ve been one mate gave me, probably, it might’ve been, yeah, the Pharaohs Cigars or something was it or something. Yeah. Yeah. It would’ve been, mate. Yeah.

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (19:27):
Yeah. I think I know the cartoon now. I was thinking the cartoon movie, but the cartoon series was I think, eighties.

Dave Dye (19:35):
Oh, was it? Oh, right. Yeah. Well, I had a big long period. Well, I didn’t buy any comics, and that was pretty much, I might’ve bought one or two, but not many. It would’ve been when I joined the Army in 83, 83, 82. I joined the Army up until probably the nineties, although I did, actually just before I joined the Army, I went back to my hometown and was looking through the news agent, and I found this.

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (20:15):
Oh, nice. And I’ll just boost that up.

Dave Dye (20:20):
And that really blew my mind when I read that heavy metal. And I went back, I read that in one day, and then I went back the next day looking for any more. They normally take ’em straight off the shelf. But then I found this one, it was the one the month before, so that one was February. Oh, nice. January. And the lady said, oh, you’re lucky to find that, because normally we take them off the shelves. So I bought that, and then I just went out, got, there’s a thing in the back of there, buy back issue. So I rode away to America and I bought all the back issues to get me up to date.

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (20:58):
Oh, cool.

Dave Dye (20:59):
And back then, the Australian dollar was about a dollar 15 American. It was a lot more than the, so our dollar was 15 cents more than the American dollar, not less. More.

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (21:15):
Yeah. Yeah. I remember those days.

Dave Dye (21:17):
Yeah. Lot cheaper. Only cost me, I think it was $90 to get three or four years worth of heavy metal and catch. That’s awesome. Up to date. And yeah, so that really changed my, got me interested in comics. So yeah, then I was buying those every month. Yeah, right. Yeah. Yeah.

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (21:51):
The IES

Dave Dye (21:53):
Recently heard about, yes. Jimbo, I think, yeah,

Jerome Castro (22:00):
In Image, I think. Let me verify that. Yeah, OGI. Jimbo is basically, he’s a rabbit samurai, basically

Dave Dye (22:12):
A rabbit. Oh, that’s

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (22:13):
What it’s, I knew I knew the name.

Jerome Castro (22:15):
Yeah. It’s from,

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (22:16):
I remember him now. Yes. I thought,

Dave Dye (22:19):
I know Dan Whites. He’s bloody mad keen on it, and I’ve never read it, but I think it might be something that I’ll have to investigate because they’re saying it’s a little bit a dark horse. There you go.

Jerome Castro (22:32):
Oh yeah. It’s lower horse. Yeah.

Dave Dye (22:34):
I might have to investigate. I’m quite adventurous now with my buying, who mentioned just a second ago, indie comics. Yeah. I try to buy, mostly, I’ve been buying Australian indie comics. Usually when I go to the supernova, not only to support Australian talent, but also because I enjoy it. Australian stuff. I like the ones that are talking about Australian subjects, generally Australian situations in Australian cities, you’ve got the old Southern squadron and stuff like that. The Jackaroo and all those old comics that they had. I’d like to see more of that Australian influence killer rule. Now, it’s been around for a few years, but it does Australian content. It’s not set in the USA in America or wherever else. That’s what I like. I guess people do set them in those countries and use those things they think that may increase their audience, which is, I can understand that as well. But I lot

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (23:47):
Of comics that are based in nowhere as well, you hit those on.

Dave Dye (23:50):
Yeah, that’s right. They’re quite

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (23:52):
Like battle for Bussels. Not as far as I know. I could be wrong, but as far as I know, Lee has just based that in some imaginary city.

Dave Dye (24:00):
Yeah, yeah, that’s right. And that’s probably a good way to go, an anonymous city. But yeah, that’s what I try to do with mine, with my amazing Tales. Westerns. Yeah, that’s right. Danny. I’d love to do an Australian Western, and I’ve very tied with that. Very cool. That sort of thing. And I’ve just finished inking. Have I got any pages here? Just set off my inks, finished inks to Rie for the Rick McLoan story that I was doing. So these, oh, it’s

Jerome Castro (24:44):
Already finished.

Dave Dye (24:46):
I finished the inks, so I sent those off to Gary today. That’s the first page written by James Broad. And that’s a bloody brilliant story. I tell you, when you get yourself a copy of this,

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (25:04):
Oh, sorry.

Dave Dye (25:05):
Zillion is based in Australian. Oh, in space. Yeah. Good. Yeah. Well, Ben’s a good mate of mine. Yeah, that’s right. Axillium’s a great series.

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (25:15):
Yeah, it is. I’m looking forward to in the next Kickstarter up.

Dave Dye (25:18):
Yeah. Yeah. Ben’s a top bloke too. Yeah, that’s right. That’s right, rusty. Good on you, mate. Thanks for straightening me out there. Oh yeah. Oh, good. On Youy. Yeah, right. Of course. I should have known. Yeah. No, that’s good. Yeah. Well, that’s great. That’s what I would like to see more Australians doing that sort of things. Yeah, mate. Yeah. Okay. I’ve heard your story has been pretty much illustrated. Good on you, Pete. Thanks, mate. Yeah. Where were we? Got sidetracked there. I can’t remember my, I

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (26:09):
Think you’ve answered my question. I think so. We’ll move on to Jerome’s questions.

Jerome Castro (26:14):
Yeah, yeah. I mean, well, this is not in the script, but I’m curious, when did you start drawing? Because I know that since you were young, you like comic books, but when did you start drawing them, illustrating them? Because it seems that you’ve been doing it for far too long,

Dave Dye (26:32):
A long time. Well, I have two brothers and two sisters, well, three of them, two sisters and one brother older than me. And they were really good artists, good drawers. And we’d sit around as kids around the table on a wet, windy days, living Ack in Victoria and bloody wintry cold place that there now tell. And on one of those wet wintry days, we’d sit around the kitchen table and we’d be drawing things, drawing pictures, and they’d always be the better artist than me. But I’ve stuck with it and they’ve sort of put it aside. So when we were kids, I remember as a youngster, I was telling someone the other night, I got a little notebook type thing, something like this, that size bit smaller. When I was a little kid for Christmas, a big present when I was about five or six. And we went off to, the longest day was the movie that just came out, John Wayne. And in 1965 or something, and it was at the Drive-in, in Wagga Wagga. We were living at NAND at the time, and it was an hour’s drive. So after work, dad packed all us kids in the car and we drove to Wagga Wagga to watch the longest day. And I still remember the parachuters falling down out of the sky. And I filled that little book with all these pictures of parachuters dropping down and German shooting.

(28:12)
So that’s when I started to draw. I was a very young age. And of course, you always sort of draw and it’s such a cheap, easy way to keep your kids act. Mine’s busy. We didn’t have computer games. We had a tv, but only had two channels, and that had kept us entertained. But so drawing was always something that was near and dear to our hearts as youngsters. And as I said, I dabbled every now and then on comics. And I think the first proper full comic I did, Goodday Lee Goodday, mate, what is it? I’ve got it up here. I think I’ve never slow anyone. This one, if it’s in this envelope, is it in this envelope? Yeah. Here it’s now. No one’s ever seen this. Not even me. Nobody. No brothers, sisters, anybody. So here you go. Exclusive. This would be the first course I put together.

(29:29)
I used to be a fireman. I was a fireman for 14 years. And so I’ve done red coals, the fireman, because it’s a moral, we used to write these stories and have a little bit of a moral on them. The moral to the story is get out and don’t give up. Keep fighting. Good moral. Yeah. So anyway, it starts off on the volleyball court. Every fiery knows how to play volleyball. If you don’t play volleyball, you don’t pass the course. So anyway, that’s the first. I was thinking maybe I might put that in. Print that up one day. Oh, cool. Not bad. Little pages there. That is one.

Jerome Castro (30:20):
Wow.

Dave Dye (30:22):
That’s amazing.

Jerome Castro (30:23):
That’s amazing. Yeah,

Dave Dye (30:24):
That’s probably one of the first comics I did. It was in, would’ve been 1993 or something like that, I think before I put out of the fires. Never give up. That’s right, rusty. Yeah. So yeah, I’ve finished Firies, finished as a fire, and then became an illustrator in the army. That’s where I learned to do calligraphy and posters and painting and stuff like that. It was actually better to do that course than it was to do a TAFE course, because TAFE courses that they don’t really teach you how to draw or anything, which I thought they would, but they give you the pencil and paper and they just say, go for it. But the illustrators course actually taught you how to mix GU when you did gu, how to get it to the correct consistency, how to do calligraphy and use the different nips and different pens for different sizes. And they explained that sort of stuff to you. And that was really great course that I did with my illustrator course. So I learned a lot in that, really appreciated it. Okay. So you Jerome. That was the start of my delving into comics.

Jerome Castro (32:01):
Oh, that’s awesome. That’s good to know because a lot of the guests here, they always start young and they always start theirs and what’s this? And at some point they either stop or just start to doodle and then they decide to go on with it.

Dave Dye (32:24):
I think everyone sort of shares the same sort of thing. You’d pretty much draw most of your time. Although Ed Kersley, when you spoke to him the other day, he say he started drawing because he couldn’t find an artist.

Jerome Castro (32:39):
It was out of necessity.

Dave Dye (32:41):
Yeah.

Jerome Castro (32:46):
Well, what was the hardest challenge when you started drawing comic books?

Dave Dye (32:52):
I think the hardest thing is distribution. I didn’t have any trouble with writing a story. I didn’t have any. It’s hard work. You’ve got to do a lot of work. You’ve got to do a lot of hours. But the most difficult thing is promoting yourself and distributing your product. I was, I couldn’t get anyone to do it. I think I might’ve approached one of those books, I can’t remember who they, Angus and Robinson or Dims or whoever, prints books. I approached them and they didn’t, weren’t interested self, not professionally edited and all that. So they weren’t interested in me. So I thought, oh, well, I’ll do it myself. So I published my book myself, but that was a lot easier than selling a bloody Thing. That’s the hard bit. But that Anzac book, that was the first one I did. That’s my best seller. That is my best seller. I always sell a box. Well, always. Generally, I take a box of 13 to a supernova or a comic convention, and I’ll sell most of all the stuff I’ve got or bar one or two. So it’s quite a popular thing, and people want to read that stuff because I suppose it’s a good subject because people are interested in learning more about the Anzac story. Yeah, exactly. And so for that reason, it’s my bestseller.

Jerome Castro (34:34):
How was your research process for the Anzac legend? Was there a research process? Did you learn it from somewhere?

Dave Dye (34:44):
Yeah, there’s a book. Haven’t got it here with me, but it’s called The Official History of Australian in the Great War or something or other. Charles be wrote, I think I’ve mentioned it before. It’s probably gets thicker than this book. All right. Thicker than that. That’s the dictionary. Oxford Dictionary, but that’s sticker than that. It’s a thousand pages or something. And I read that and it was great. And so that was the research. That was the main thing I looked at. But I also wanted to improve on that because that was written in 1923 or something. It was update had a few updates over the years, but I had to improve on it. And I delved into about five, probably about 50 other history books

Jerome Castro (35:35):
To find

Dave Dye (35:36):
More. And there’s a couple I got from the Turkish side, which helped a lot with a few things. And I also travelled to Turkey twice.

Jerome Castro (35:47):
That’s awesome.

Dave Dye (35:47):
The second time I was there for a week at Gallipoli, and I walked over all the hills and through all the valleys there, taking photographs, drawing, making notes for a whole week. And so when I sat down to draw the final images for the panels, if you’re looking across, if you’re standing at the spot that I mentioned in the book, in the background that I’ve drawn those hills, that’s exactly what you’d be looking at. So it’s almost like being there. Very cool. So research, I sort of nutted it out that it took me a week to do a page. So there’s three days worth of research. There’s a day of, what was the other day doing the draughts writing. Writing was the fourth day, and the fifth day was drawing. So that’s the five days of doing one page. So it took me four years to do the whole thing.

Jerome Castro (36:54):
Wow. Wow.

Dave Dye (36:56):
When I got out of the army, I had done some, had started it before, but a lot of those pages I had to redo because it was pretty, I hadn’t really settled on a proper format. So when it got stuck into it, I pretty much work seven days a week. And I said, this is not going to be a project that I’ll get halfway through and stop, put it aside. And then eventually I’ll get to it later. I get to it later and never get it finished. Ends up as a project in a box up in the shed. Well, I finished that one day. I finish that one day, never happens. I was going to finish this come held nor high water. Nice. I knuckled down for four years, pretty much seven days a week, morning till night. After about two weeks

Jerome Castro (37:53):
Dedication,

Dave Dye (37:55):
I had to have a rest for a week or so, and then I’d get back into it. But you had to give yourself a rest. You couldn’t just do it nonstop the whole time. But I was determined dedication. It was going to be a finished product, not half finished.

Jerome Castro (38:14):
Awesome. And that’s why it sounds good, because the dedication that you put to it, the due diligence basically.

Dave Dye (38:23):
Yeah. I think I tried to put too much in it. That’s the trouble. Probably the only thing, because there was so much to put in there, I wanted to put everything in there, but I couldn’t actually, and I did trim it down, but I think I’ve learned with that volume that when I did the second one, which I’ve started done, the first chapter, wherever it is, theier one, it’s a lot briefer. I don’t have as much writing. This is the first chapter of volume two. This has got less writing and more speech bubbles, telling the stories. Okay. More. And I think I learned from the first one, so this is a bit lighter on, and it was a bit more brief with some of the explanations because the first one, I just wanted to put everything in. But there’s so much to tell. You can’t do it. You just can’t do it.

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (39:28):
So Dave, was it that one or the bigger one that you got nominated for?

Dave Dye (39:34):
Well, actually the bigger one was nominated back in 2014, and it was shortlisted, so that was the big one. So it was shortlisted in 2014. It didn’t win. And this one this year has been shortlisted

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (39:52):
For well done.

Dave Dye (39:54):
Awesome. Twice the N Up legend’s been up for me.

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (39:58):
Nice. Just going to to show it all that extra work you’ve done for it. Paid off almost.

Dave Dye (40:04):
Yeah. Well, that’s right. I don’t know. Yeah. Anyway. Yeah, I think because it’s telling, it’s a different sort of comic in that it’s a history comic. It’s not just a fiction.

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (40:25):
Yeah.

Dave Dye (40:27):
Yeah. It was a labour of love doing that first one in this one too. It’s a labour of love. It’s something I’m very interested in. I really want to do it. And that’s why I put so much hard work in it, some of those, because I went there and I really studied the maps. I made a three dimensional model of the thing. But these sort of, I just created that. I’ve never seen a map like that in my life. But it shows you that. It gives you an idea of the terrain at Hellers, which is on the toe of the peninsula at Gallipoli.

(41:13)
I this, I think I was put on Facebook when I published this one. I got it printed and I advertised it’s been done. And someone said, oh, there’s other stories than Anzac, because everyone’s sick of hearing about Anzac. But I asked that person, have you heard of the Battle of cri? I said, no. Well, that’s why you don’t dunno, the story of Anzac, battle of CRI is part of the story of Anzac. But people dunno about it until they read this. They don’t know about it. They know about, know about Simpson and his donkey, they might have heard of Shrapnel Gully or the neck, or the charge at the neck, which was made famous by the movie Gallipoli. They may have heard of a lone Pine, but what does it mean to them? It doesn’t mean anything to them. They probably can’t tell you much more than that.

(42:04)
But if you read the books I’ve got, it’s an interesting way to actually learn about what went on and just understand how much of a struggle it was for the soldiers involved. It was those blokes didn’t sleep for something like three days or maybe longer. Can you imagine that? And under intense physical running up and down the cliffs getting shot at hiding, can’t take a crap sitting down. You’ve got to lie down, have a crap and a pee. And it’s under just incredible hardship. And people, they know it was a hard thing for ’em over there, but they don’t know really what it was like. Translator, sorry. Oh, sorry. Yeah, I didn’t quite, yeah. Anyway, as you can see, I’m quite passionate about the story of Anzac, and I’d like more people to know more about it. Yeah, mate. They were selling it for me. They were selling my book for me for a while, Danny. Oh, cool. Yeah. So yeah, it’s been a good seller and I’ve done quite well with that.

Jerome Castro (43:31):
Yeah. And all of these are hand letter. Yeah.

Dave Dye (43:35):
Yeah, mate. Yep. Hand lettered, all hand lettered. I don’t hand letter. This one was done. Hugh Dolan asked me to do this one for him. Eureka Stock Aid. He actually asked me to do Ned Kelly before that one. But Nat Carmichael had brought out Ned Kelly by, what’s his name, Monty, wed, and I said, I’m not going to try and compete with Monty. Wed no way. He’s a legend. So when he approached me to do the Eureka stock aid, I did all the art for this one, and I did digital lettering for this because it had to go back and forward to the editor, digital lettering. And Hugh read my Anzac legend book and he said, look, mate, I want you to do it exactly the same way you did the Anzac legend. So it’s exactly the same as that.

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (44:39):
Awesome.

Dave Dye (44:40):
Yeah. That’s why it’s that pen. It’s all pen and ink and pen line. There’s a bit of brush work, but most of the shading, and that’s done with a pen, nib and hatching. So that one had digital lettering. And here you go. Look, mate, once you get me talking, there’s no stopping. Now, this one here, this is a story that I started while I was still in the Army. It’s a story in New Guinea, set in New Guinea, and that was originally just done as a sort of those little war comics, like these little ones.

(45:31)
Yeah. Thanks mate. And so this one has got digital lettering in it too, and that’s because it changed a lot. Yeah, thanks, rusty. This story, I changed it and manipulated about three or maybe five times the whole thing. But this final printed version, I reckon is a good yarn. I really reckon it’s a good story. And I had Jim Bridges from the Australian Cartoon Museum approached me at the supernova in Melbourne. Tell me, he reckoned it was one of the best stories he ever read in his whole life. Oh wow. He really loved the story, the characters, and just the whole situation, the way it was written and that. So that was good feedback to receive.

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (46:35):
That’s pretty awesome.

Dave Dye (46:38):
It’s actually that one, when you read that one, you’ll see there’s a few different fonts used because it had a few different, as I said, it was done a few different times, and some of the lettering, I’ll keep that bit. So I never bothered changing it. And I just did another font there when I changed the other one, then the balloon next to it or something. But it doesn’t matter. It still reads the same.

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (47:11):
Awesome. Well, we’ve run out of time, Dave.

Dave Dye (47:14):
No, you haven’t. I’ve only just started. Haven’t

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (47:18):
Even started. We’ll have to bring you back so we can chat some more.

Dave Dye (47:22):
Yeah, I better let Hayden on. He’ll be wondering if he’s going to get a chance.

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (47:29):
But no, we’ll definitely bring you on to talk about probably more of your amazing tales and so forth.

Dave Dye (47:33):
Yes. Yeah, we started on that, Edward. Alright, well I will look forward to that. And look, I really appreciate you blokes putting me on and giving me a chance to talk about what I’ve been doing and all that sort of stuff. Oh,

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (47:47):
Not a problem. A pleasure to have you.

Jerome Castro (47:50):
Yeah, it’s been educational, Dave. Very,

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (47:53):
Yes, very

Dave Dye (47:54):
Good. Thanks J. Thanks, Shane. Good on you.

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (47:57):
Cool. Thanks Dave. See you mate. See you. Okay. That was awesome. Awesome. A lot of history there. Cool. Super. Well, we’ll bring Hayden on so he can have the chance to talk about his talk shop. So here’s Hayden.

Haydn Spurrell (48:17):
Hey guys, how you going?

Jerome Castro (48:18):
Hey

Haydn Spurrell (48:20):
Dave, it’s a pleasure to listen to Simon. I would’ve happily let him run over time.

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (48:31):
So how about yourself? I know I’ve had you on the other show, but for people who watch the Wednesday show, this one here, tell us a little bit about how you got into writing comics.

Haydn Spurrell (48:42):
Yeah, sure. So I started writing comics probably five years ago, maybe sort of early to mid twenties. So I started reading them at about 18 or 19, pretty late maybe. But yeah, so I got into ’em sort of late teens, and then I just started, I sort of dabbled in a lot of different types of writing and I still do. It’s a lot of fun. And I just came into comics and it sort of felt like a really good fit. I love the collaborative experience and I love the marriage of words and imagery, and I think that it just sort of gelled for me personally. So yeah, that’s where I came into it. And so I went off and I made Chimaera, which was a three issue miniseries that’s wrapped up now, but I put it out the first issue of that back in 2017, I think off the top of my head. So it was a while ago now. But yeah, just going from strength to strength since then and keep meeting really great people and working on really exciting things to this day.

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (49:54):
Awesome.

Jerome Castro (49:57):
Good to hear. Yeah. And since you were writing well before comic books. Yeah.

Haydn Spurrell (50:04):
Yeah. I mean, I’ve been writing since I was a kid. It’s been a forever thing. I guess you come under the class of aspiring writer for as long as you need to. So I’m also an editor and a publishing student, so I’m still at university. So just that whole world, that whole industry is a real passion for me, and I want to be part of it in any and every way possible.

Jerome Castro (50:36):
Awesome. Yeah. Okay, so I guess it speaks for itself. How did you start in the comic book industry, but what was your challenge before? I’ll ask you the same question. What was your challenge when you started doing comic books? Because for Dave it was distribution, and what is it for you?

Haydn Spurrell (51:02):
Good question. I mean, I guess the very first thing was because I’m a writer solely, so I don’t do my own art. So the first challenge was figuring out how that worked, how I find an inn, and I did find that quite tricky. So I actually ended up hooking up with an artist abroad. I found him online and we worked together on Chimaera. And it was sort of following that experience is when I really threw myself into the Melbourne scene and have started meeting people through groups in person and online and sort of getting experiences that way. But I guess figuring out how to be a writer in comics was a bit of a trick, and it remains as trick. It is challenging

(51:57)
Because I have so much admiration for artists. They do so, so much of the work. So navigating that from a purely a script writing perspective is, yeah, it’s sort of an endless challenge, especially because every artist is different and every artist has different ways of working. And so you have to work with them and figure out how do you tell a story that is the right fit for both of you, and how do you deliver the information to the artist so the artist can deliver the information to the reader and so on. And that’s before you bring into account your letter is and your colorists and everything. So yeah, it’s a huge process.

Jerome Castro (52:45):
Yeah, sounds like it. Yeah. And now what are you doing right now? What are your current projects?

Haydn Spurrell (52:56):
So the big thing I’m working on at the moment is an anthology called Satellites. So it’s a science fiction anthology that I’ve put out a call for submissions. So I am inviting writers and artists in predominantly Australia, but I’ve had some interest abroad as well. But anyone who wants to get involved contributing pages from one to four pages to the anthology overall, I’m accepting pictures and portfolios at the moment. So basically what this book is meant to be is that I’ve tied it in with my postgraduate study. So what I’m doing is I really wanted to explore what authorship means in such a collaborative medium as comics. So the best way that I thought to do that was to actually curate a comic from an editorial perspective and then have a look at what that process looked like and what the final result looks like, which is why I’m not actually accepting finished stories.

(54:09)
I am reaching out to people who want to get involved in a production. So we’ll start next month and will aim to finish it in September. So that’s sort of the big thing that I’m working on at the moment is, and I’ve already had quite a bit of interest, which is amazing, even from some people who are in the chat room tonight. So I’m really excited to sift through those submissions. I’ve already had a look at some of them, but I, I’m really excited start getting back to people and getting the ball rolling. I think that it’s really exciting, especially from an editorial perspective because it’s a bit of an unknown in comics. I guess the layman can determine vaguely what an editor does in say a publishing house for fiction novels or whatever, but it’s a little bit less clear in comics, and that’s another aspect in which I want to interrogate.

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (55:08):
Nice. Hayden, just so I know, is there an easy way for people to get in contact with you if they’re interested?

Haydn Spurrell (55:15):
Yeah, they can reach out to me in any way. I’m available everywhere. You can also find Imposter Publishing on Facebook and Instagram, so that’s the label that I’m going to be publishing the anthology through. You can email me at Imposter publishing@gmail.com, or if you go to either of those social media platforms, you will find the call out really easily. It’s just a Google form and it has some really direct links to a submission screen where you can just have a look at what we’re asking for,

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (55:56):
Just to check. Is that the correct spelling?

Haydn Spurrell (56:00):
There’s an O instead of an E.

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (56:02):
Ah, so I can’t spell

Haydn Spurrell (56:04):
No, no, no. Me and Spie have had lots of chats about this one. Yeah, it’s an O, but it’s commonly spelled with an E, so it’s sort of Oh

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (56:17):
Good. I thought I was done it wrong.

Haydn Spurrell (56:19):
No, no, you’re fine. You’re fine. It’s okay.

Jerome Castro (56:22):
It’s an alternative spelling. I’ll

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (56:24):
Put it up there for everyone so they can see how it’s S spelled then.

Haydn Spurrell (56:28):
Beautiful. Yeah. So yeah, that’s sort of the big thing. And again, I’ve got some really talented people interested in being a part of it, so it’s incredibly exciting and I’m so thrilled to be getting to work with some of these people, both people I’ve worked with before and also people that I haven’t worked with. And that’s again, part of the fun challenge and part of the learning experience that is this medium.

Jerome Castro (56:55):
Well, are you not putting the carriage before the horse, but are you planning to make this, is this a one shot? Will this be a regular thing?

Haydn Spurrell (57:09):
I’m hoping so. As I said, it is functioning as both an anthology release that I’ll be putting it out app for purchase, but I’ll also be using it for my studies. However, beyond that, I really do hope to continue it on and create other anthologies, whether it is a satellites issue too or whether it’s a completely new thing, but I want to try and make this a regular thing, assuming that I have some interest and people get excited and get on board. So definitely awesome,

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (57:42):
Excited people. Yeah,

Jerome Castro (57:46):
Because I got to admit, I’m also trying to learn about sequential writing right now. I’ve already told Shane about it, and yeah, I’m also looking to put out the story in the future, so I wish I can this, there will still be a call in the future.

Haydn Spurrell (58:04):
Yeah, I mean the call out for this one’s still open, man, so feel free to submit something.

Jerome Castro (58:11):
Well, awesome. Yeah. Okay, so what titles that inspired you to start creating comic books? Do you have any?

Haydn Spurrell (58:26):
Yeah. Yeah. So one of the first things I got into was The Walking Dead. So that played a big role in me getting into comics to begin with, as well as Scott Snyder’s Batman I was really into in those early days. But as I sort of go further in, I found that I was really inspired by writers like Brian Caugh, why the Last Man and Saga are just incredible. Also, Neil Gayman, which is kind of an obvious one, but the Sandman is really special. And also Ed Brubaker, he’s a huge influence on me, which is interesting because he’s a very sort of narrative writer. He writes a lot of narration, which is something I absolutely can’t do. And it’s sort of almost that thing that you’re actually prompted to avoid doing, especially if you are an early career comics writer, is that narration can often act as a bit of a, it’s there, and if you’re using it too much, it might be to try and make up for a lack of clarity in your own storytelling. Makes sense. But someone like Brubaker just manages to pull it off in this really wonderful way and not a way I’ve been able to do just yet.

Jerome Castro (59:51):
Oh, don’t worry about it. Yeah, I’ve read a lot of comic book writers who are really good at narration, if you’ll eventually be interested in Japanese manga, there is a guy there who is a manga artist called Hir Taghi. He excels at doing narrative stories and using narration as his student man. So if you’re looking to improve on that, he’s a good source for it.

Haydn Spurrell (01:00:20):
Yeah, yeah, totally.

Jerome Castro (01:00:24):
Okay. Tell us about how your typical day goes when you start working on your comic books. We’re interested in knowing it. Yeah.

Haydn Spurrell (01:00:35):
Yeah, it’s a lot of in and out of the, it can be a messy process actually. Sometimes it’ll flow really easily, although when it does flow really easily, I actually find that the editing of it later on is far more intensive, which is a bit odd. But I also often find that when it is a little bit harder, I might actually be thinking a bit more about what it is I’m putting down because it feels like I’m pulling at teeth. Whereas if it is flowing, and sometimes that’s the best way to ride is just to let it spill out. But that’ll often mean that I need to go back and take a really critical eye to that work that I’ve put down. So I’ll start writing, and it probably takes me,

(01:01:31)
I dunno, it probably takes me about a month to write an issue of a comic just by the time I’ve written it all down and then by the time I’ve edited it and spent time with it. And then I’m sort of also working on other ones at the same time. But I might also be working on, say if I’ve written an issue one, I might be moving on to an issue two, but I do still want to be thinking about that, number one, if it’s still in draught mode, as in if it’s not yet with an artist, I’m still thinking about where has it started? So the process differs depending on what the publisher wants, which is Gary Della for. So sometimes he will ask for a story written and he’ll want three issues to be put down before they enter production. And that can be a really beautiful opportunity because it can allow you to write all three issues in one go, and you can retroactively look at what you’ve put down and how can you strengthen, and in terms of what you’re setting up and what you’re paying off. But then in other times, you are writing an issue, one that needs to get to the artist straight away, and you’re sort of, okay, you write issue two, you are devoted to that story and you’ve obviously written an outline and where you want to go and you need to be a lot more, I think you need to plan a lot more ahead in that instance. Whereas if you are writing a three issue limited, that just one and done, you can spend more time planning that. Does that make sense?

Jerome Castro (01:03:06):
Yeah, of course. Yeah. And are you the type of writer who jumps from scene to scene and or are you a writer who writes from start to finish? Or do you just write what’s on your mind and then fill the gaps in between?

Haydn Spurrell (01:03:25):
A bit of start to finish? I think I am a very linear sort of thinker. I think I can get very overwhelmed by the process if I’m going in and out, but that’s when editing might come into it where I will break it down into those scene by scenes. And there are opportunities where, say if I’m working with an artist and we have a rapport, that might be where we actually break up that say, if thumbnails or sketches have been drawn, we might actually break those sketches down into each individual plot thread and take it all out of order. And that’s a really fun way to reassess the flow and the pacing of the story.

Jerome Castro (01:04:09):
Yeah, that makes sense. Yeah.

Haydn Spurrell (01:04:10):
Yeah, it’s a lot of fun. I think that every project for me so far has been a little bit different. And I think that’s part of the beauty of comics is that, and this kind of goes back to what I’m talking about in terms of my interest in author shipping comics, because I don’t necessarily think it’s as straightforward or as sort of factory line as we’re led to believe. Yeah,

Jerome Castro (01:04:39):
Alright. Yeah, because some people think it’s, some comic book creations are like factory lines where everyone just adds one thing to it and then it finishes at the end, but it’s more collaborative than that again, I guess that’s the way to put it. Yeah. Well, how do you communicate your version with your artists? I mean, how do you communicate? What’s the picture in your head to them and how do you make sure that they get it? Yeah,

Haydn Spurrell (01:05:15):
Again, it depends on the artist. And so for example, I’m working a lot with Ben Sullivan at the moment. We’ve written two comics now together and we are sort of working on Mr. I detective agency as our sort of big current project. And we’ve been working on a lot of shorts together as well, sort of one page things. Because of that, we speak quite regularly and we do hash out the story and we hash out the action and the pacing and yada yada. So the scripts for him, they’re not super detailed. They’re pretty straightforward with what I think needs to be there. And he’s incredible because he is so often added things to the story in his visuals that I didn’t even think of, and I look back at it and I wish I could take credit.

(01:06:17)
So yeah, he’s an enormous talent. But then obviously you’ll often sometimes work with artists who you’ve never spoken to and you may never speak to. And in those cases you have to be a lot more rigorous, I think with you direction and especially I put a lot of effort into, I guess a preamble for my script. So a bit of a character breakdown and a plot breakdown, some reference images if need be, both for character and location, which comes into it as well with an artist you have rapport with. But there’s a little bit more flexibility if you know that you’re going to be communicating together throughout the process. But there’s also, there’s just so many different ways to do it. I’m practising Marvel style right now with someone, and that’s been a lot of fun. I didn’t think I would be into Marvel style, but we’ve been toying with it, and that’s just a whole other ball game.

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (01:07:21):
So what does Marvel style mean?

Haydn Spurrell (01:07:24):
So, well look, I’ll probably butcher the description, but for the, I guess I’ll apply it to, the one I’ve done is that I’ve written a four pager. It’s basically a couple of pages of prose, of prose writing, so a page one and then a basic paragraph or two on what happens on page one. What happens on page two, what happens? So I’m not giving a really structured breakdown of the script. I’m not giving a panel one, I’m not including dialogue at this page, and then I give that to the artist and that makes it a lot, that gives the artist a huge amount of freedom. It’s how Stanley Lee and Jack Kirby did a lot of their work together, hence the name Marvel style. And so I’m getting sketches back and now I’m thinking about what the dialogue is going to look like based on how the artist has interpreted that really basic script that I’ve given. So yeah, that’s definitely something I’ll want to do again, because it’s been a really unique experience.

Jerome Castro (01:08:38):
Yeah, it sounds really interesting. Yeah, I never knew that it existed, to be honest with you. I’d have to look it up after this.

Haydn Spurrell (01:08:50):
Yeah, check it out. It’s really interesting.

Jerome Castro (01:08:52):
Yeah. Okay. Let me ask you this one thing. Are you particular with your vision or do you like to do compromises with your artists? Because it’s a common problem among writers that they have this vision that they want and at least there’s some element of it that they want the artist to hit. So are you very particular with what you see in your writing, or if your artist does something that’s not in your head that you do compromises with their work?

Haydn Spurrell (01:09:28):
I mean, this is really, really interesting question because I think that there’s a death of ego that has to happen when you’re writing, and particularly when you’re writing in collaborative medium. I that don’t think you get to go into comics with a vision that you do not want to compromise on. I think that that moves us back towards thinking about artists as basic work for hire. And I think that that really devalues the work that they do for the medium. And I think it sort of casts a writer in this God-like position that to me, it feels uncomfortable. I can’t speak to every writer and I certainly can’t speak for the medium objectively. This is sort of just my opinion, but I always allow the artist to be able to dictate where the story’s going and say, I’ve mentioned Ben Sullivan and I’s Work Together. I feel like our conversations have made my writing better, and I think that the story we’re telling is very, very different since we started collaborating on it than it was when I sort of sat down with a pair of headphones in my ears and plotted it out way back last year. And I think that’s just one example of where I just really relish the opportunity to work with artists really closely. So any opportunity I get to do that is I’m just really grateful for it.

Jerome Castro (01:11:21):
Cool.

Haydn Spurrell (01:11:25):
Yeah. Awesome, Dave.

Jerome Castro (01:11:28):
Yeah. And do you have a specific genre or kind of story that you like writing about that you can write about it quickly and efficiently if you ever go on writing about it?

Haydn Spurrell (01:11:45):
Not necessarily. I think I lean towards a bit of, I lean towards science fiction. I’m just a huge fan of sci-fi, but I also lean towards horror, but sort of maybe a gothic style of horror. I think that I find those really interesting. I think just really powerful things with it. I think that’s sort of where we’ve taken Mr. I. Hopefully Gary doesn’t mind. We’ve been working on pages and I’m getting art from Ben and we’re sort of talking and we’re thinking, oh, it’s getting pretty graphic, but it should be fine. Yeah. So I find Sci-fi and horror. I see a lot of similarities between the two genres. I think that there’s a lot of innovation there, so I guess that’s where I lean to lean towards. And I think that they’re really good genres for metaphor and for exploring themes within those genres that aren’t necessarily tied directly to the genre.

Jerome Castro (01:12:56):
Yeah. Well, which specific sci-fi I feed do you like a lot? Which ones did inspire your body of work?

Haydn Spurrell (01:13:09):
Are we talking comics or just everything

Jerome Castro (01:13:11):
In general? Sci-Fi in general. In general.

Haydn Spurrell (01:13:13):
Don’t worry about it. I guess anyone that knows me well enough knows I’m a huge fan of the Alien franchise. I think from a storytelling perspective and just from a visual perspective, those are huge influences on me. I mean, namely the first one, but also the Blade Runner, both Blade Runner movies. So I guess those sort of sci-Fi noir and Sci-fi horror a sort of big for me. In terms of comics, I’m thinking, it’s interesting because I’ve tended to lean towards sci-fi movies more so than Sci-fi comics. When I read, if I’m going towards, especially I create our own stuff, I’m probably reading more crime or more maybe horror, but a lot of crime. Whereas if it’s film, it’s television, it’s probably where science fiction gets me more. However, I’m a huge fan of Rick nda, so I really enjoyed black science and I really enjoyed Tokyo. Tokyo Ghost, I believe it was called.

Jerome Castro (01:14:26):
Oh, okay,

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (01:14:28):
Nice.

Jerome Castro (01:14:29):
And the Alien franchise is really good. I actually am very interested about learning more about Waylon, so I need to dabble into that a little bit more.

Haydn Spurrell (01:14:40):
Have you seen them all?

Jerome Castro (01:14:44):
The first two not, and I’ve played the game, so I will need to walk a little bit more and read a little bit more of the lore.

Haydn Spurrell (01:14:58):
I think that’s what’s really strong about, particularly that first movie, is that it’s so full of mystery and it doesn’t feel the need to answer those questions.

(01:15:10)
And even after, however reviews are in that franchise, six or whatever, I still find that I can go back to that first one, and I can still just get enveloped in that mystery all over again. And I think that’s a really special thing too, from a writing perspective. I think that’s a really fine line that you walk is how much do you need to answer for your audience and how much can you leave ambiguous? What do you need to answer in order to satisfy your viewer? And I think that’s such a skill, and I don’t think I’ve mastered that skill or anywhere near it, but I very much admire filmmakers, writers, anyone who manages to pull it off.

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (01:15:57):
Yeah, definitely a good job. An alien. I mean, you spend most of the movie scared of a dot on radar and actually see the alien until close to the end.

Haydn Spurrell (01:16:06):
Well, yeah, it’s a whole less, they did

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (01:16:07):
A really good job of

Haydn Spurrell (01:16:08):
It. Yeah, yeah. I mean, they get less scary the more you see the alien as it goes on, in my opinion, frankly. Yeah.

Jerome Castro (01:16:20):
Well, yeah. How do you write enough that your readers get to clearly understand your message and your stories? Because there are stories where the plot can be very vague, and so how do you write that? How do I put this? How do you put your writing enough that your message comes clearly through the comics?

Haydn Spurrell (01:16:51):
I’d have to ask my readers if I actually have my to do that.

(01:16:59)
Yeah. I mean, it’s something that I think about all the time, and it’s something that sort of plays on my mind. The more and more, the closer and closer I get to submitting a script, and it sort of plays a huge role in the editorial process to me, is making sure that everything is clicking, and even then you can be too close to it. So I do, like Rob and I talk a lot, and so sometimes I’ll get him to read a script that I’ve written just because there comes a point where there’s nothing more I can do. I’ve spent too much time with it, and this is where an editor is really valuable, and I think that there needs to be more of it, but, so I guess I can’t really answer your question only to say that it’s something that I’m endlessly thinking about, and I’m trying to improve all the time and make sure that, because you can have a message or a theme that you want to explore, but the story, you have to pull off the story first and then that will elevate the theme or the message that you’re going for. You can’t lead with the message. I mean, they work in tandem, but if your plot is messy and your characters make no sense, then your reader is not going to care about your message.

Jerome Castro (01:18:30):
True. Makes sense. Makes sense. Yeah. Well, is there anyone, any creators, Australian or not that you’d love to see him of and create a comic book with?

Haydn Spurrell (01:18:43):
Oh, Jesus.

Jerome Castro (01:18:47):
And they shouldn’t have worked with you before. So

Haydn Spurrell (01:18:51):
Yeah, I dunno, man. Look, I am very early in my career, so I am humbled. Anytime I get to work with anyone who’s either in the same place as me or who’s been doing it longer, I’m even more humbled. It just, maybe I’m sort of ducking your question a little bit, but every experience I get to have with any artist or any writer is an opportunity to learn. So I don’t particularly have a wishlist of people that I want to work with. Same goes for characters or titles or books or publishers, just I’m trying to take it one book at a time. I think it can be really easy to think a little bit too far ahead. I’ve certainly fallen in that trap before where you can feel like, and you put pressure on what you’re doing in the present because you’re thinking so hard about what the future is going to look like and subsequently what that book will do for that future or what it won’t do for that future.

(01:20:00)
So it’s a really easy trap to fall into start thinking, where do I want to be? Or who do I want to be working with? Or et cetera. So yeah, I guess I just try to focus on what I’m working on now, who I get to work with right now and what that might mean next. But I’m trying to sort of one project at a time knowing that there’s another project that I have to do next, and beyond that, I need to just put that aside for the timing and do the best job possible right now.

Jerome Castro (01:20:35):
Yeah, good answer. Yeah, that’s really good. That’s really nice. And well, knowing that you’re trying to develop your skills, or are there any skills that you feel like you still don’t have yet that you wish that you can develop in the future?

Haydn Spurrell (01:20:53):
Oh, man. I mean all of them, but look, I find that something that’s really easy a trap to fall into is if you’re lettering your own comics, which I’m doing a lot of at the moment. One thing that I found myself doing at times is rewriting dialogue if I feel like it needs to be rewritten. I suppose whether that’s a positive or negative depends on the creator, depends on the situation, because again, comics is, it’s always different. But for example, if I imagine if you’re working for a DC comics or whatever, that you’re not lettering your own books, which means that once your script is done, it goes to your editor and it’s pretty much out of your hands. So I would love to focus more energy on making sure that my dialogue is as good as it possibly can be during that script phase so that I’m not needing to go back and forwards.

(01:22:00)
Because I think that there’s an iterative experience there, because you can get the arts from the artist and that can dictate the dialogue. And I think that there’s something beautiful about that at times. But again, it’s about figuring out, am I rewriting dialogue because Ben or Rob or whoever has added character to this or personality to this character? That means that, oh, there should be a little bit of a tonal shift with these words here. Or we could really hone in on something here. Am I doing it for that reason or am I doing it because I have the power to, because I’m lettering it right now, so I’m just going to overhaul my own script. And I’d love to do less of that.

Jerome Castro (01:22:51):
It comes to us sometimes, so yeah. Are there any elements of your stories that you sometimes find a hard time developing? Because I’ve heard some creators of, some are weak at drawing women, some are bad at writing about people of colour. So what do you think is the hardest element of your stories to develop, to write about?

Haydn Spurrell (01:23:20):
Probably the ending. Yeah, endings really mess with me. I think that there’s a lot that you’ve got to do. I find that it’s something really exciting for me is when I get to write a one shot, because you can just tell a beginning, middle, and end in 24 pages or 22 pages. And so I guess the longer a series becomes,

Jerome Castro (01:23:51):
The more plots you need to tie. Yeah,

Haydn Spurrell (01:23:53):
The more that’s going on. And that could very easily get a little bit out of hand or get away from you if you’re not planning enough, you’re not as rigorous in your pre-production or whatever phase. Yeah, Dave, that’s super hard. I’ve been sort of writing the Mr. Eye. I at this stage, Mr. Eye is a three parter, whether it’s an ongoing, I guess it just depends as always in comics, it depends on how we do it, depends on whether people are interested. So I am writing number three with an ending in mind thinking, if we don’t get to do more, this is, we want to be really proud of this one solid story. So the third issue has had many, many versions. So I think I wrote its first draught back in probably December last year, maybe earlier. And I sincerely hope I don’t have that version anymore on my laptop because I don’t want to read it. I think, and again, this goes back to the influence of the artist, because had Ben and I not had such rigorous discussions about this,

(01:25:11)
I don’t think it would be nearly as strong. And I think that we’re pretty close to a place where we are going to be really proud of what we’re making. And I think that it’s not something I’ve always felt when I’ve written, it’s just by nature of it, you can look back on your own work and not love what you did. And I’m hoping that that’s not going to be the case with Mr. I because we’ve spent a lot of time and a lot of energy, and we’ve put a lot of passion into this story. So we can’t wait to start putting it out, and hopefully we nail that ending that I’m so terrified of.

Jerome Castro (01:25:51):
Okay. So I’m not sure if you’ve said it before, but are you free to tell us about the synopsis of Mr I, at the very least?

Haydn Spurrell (01:26:02):
Yeah,

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (01:26:02):
Journal about it? Yeah, just a non-scale version.

Haydn Spurrell (01:26:07):
Yes. I mean, Mr. Ice spins off of Torn, so the character was introduced in torn issue too, basically is a character who has no eyes, but he has, I guess, an arsenal of floating eyeballs that see everything for him. So he can be in every crack and every crevice. If he wants to be in Melbourne, his eyeballs can be everywhere. He can be watching everything, which makes him a very good detective. The story we’re telling is about the people that revolve around him. I found that writing Mr. Eyes, he’s quite a passive character and quite a flawed one, flawed because his ability gives him such power, and I think that it gets to his head. So I guess the story is the plot itself is about a person who’s gone missing, and they’ve been, Mr. Ryan and his agents have been hired to find them and find this missing person.

(01:27:18)
That’s a very basic premise. So it sort of goes out from there, and it gets a little bit wacky and complicated. And so we’ve tried to keep it action packed. We’ve tried to keep it flowing, but always with this thing in mind that Mr. I has this manipulative nature about him, whether he intends it or not. And I found it really fascinating to observe that from the other characters and how they interacted with him and what his behaviour or lack of empathy, even at times actually does to those people that he pays and that he supposedly cares about.

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (01:28:03):
Cool. Well, I just have a question for you. This will probably be your last one. Tell us a little bit about your three part year, Mira. Am I pronouncing that right?

Haydn Spurrell (01:28:18):
Yeah. Yep. Camara. Yeah. Yeah. So as I said, I wrote it back in, well, I started it back in 2017. It’s basically about a girl whose dreams for tell the future and present. So anything that she sees in her dreams is something that’s either happening concurrently or it’s going to happen in the future. And the story is basically about her learning about why she can do that, but it’s also about her trying to escape it. She is unhappy. So yeah, it’s a three parter. It’s very much the first thing I wrote. I feel very much like it was a huge growing experience and a huge opportunity, and I’m really proud of having just dived into comics and made it my first thing, and I learned a lot from it, and the potential for a future there, because I love that character, how a future might manifest, I’m not too sure yet.

(01:29:23)
But yeah, it was a lot of fun, and I think that it did stem from often when you write something, it comes from a personal place. So that came from a place that I was in back in 2017, which again may contribute to why there’s a level of detachment that you sometimes feel with something you created years ago, which is why it was such a relief to get it finished and get it out there. And I really chuffed that Some people have read it and they really liked it. I got some great feedback from Lee Hawker. So yeah, anyone who’s interested in checking ’em out, send me a message and I’d love anybody’s feedback. It was a huge opportunity to learn and grow, and I’m still learning and growing, so Yeah.

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (01:30:21):
Well, what I’ll do is I’ll just, oh man, I’m so bad at this. I’ll just put that email up again for anyone who’s interested in being part of satellite.

Haydn Spurrell (01:30:33):
Yeah,

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (01:30:37):
So there’s the email Imposter publishing@gmail.com if you’re interested in being part of satellite with Hayden, and I guess contact you probably on Facebook or something like that if they’re interested in Camira is Camira Know I said It right the first time. Is that also available at Revie at the moment?

Haydn Spurrell (01:30:58):
Yeah. Yeah. It’s available on the Reverie website as well, so really easy to find. I’ve got a Link tree as well on my Facebook and Instagram. You can find it there. And Oh, yeah, just send me a direct message and we can hook that up

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (01:31:14):
There. I have got it here somewhere. There you go. River publications.com au. I didn’t have your other ones ready to go, so

Haydn Spurrell (01:31:23):
No. All good. Cool. Cool. Well,

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (01:31:26):
Thank you very much, Hayden. It’s been great talking to you this afternoon or this evening I should say.

Haydn Spurrell (01:31:32):
No

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (01:31:32):
Problem, pleasure. I’m looking forward to getting my copies of CIR two and three, and I’m looking forward to getting to know Mr. Stride a little bit more as well, and I can’t wait to see what happens with satellite. That sounds awesome. Quite the journey as well.

Haydn Spurrell (01:31:51):
Yeah, I can’t wait to start charting that journey and going on that adventure with all the writers and artists. Hopefully they enjoy the process just

Haydn Spurrell (01:31:58):
As much as I’m going to.

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (01:32:01):
Awesome. Cool. Well, thank you very much, and I guess have a good night.

Haydn Spurrell (01:32:08):
See you

Jerome Castro (01:32:08):
Later. See you here, Ben. Yeah, take care.

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (01:32:16):
Cool. And

Jerome Castro (01:32:17):
That’s very informative,

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (01:32:20):
Very informative, and I am very much looking forward to getting more of those books a bit like Dave Dies as well, but I think I am guilty of the fact that Mr. I believe I have number one and he’s in my to read pile, so I do remember seeing that comic, so I feel a bit guilty that I didn’t read that before tonight. We’ve got a comment here. Oh, just people saying goodbye. Oh, Mr. Comment, Mr. I Sounds like a blind Constantine. I guess that makes sense, and we can get rid of that. I’m so bad at using this thing. Cool. So Jerome, I’m going to put you on the spot here.

Jerome Castro (01:33:15):
No problem.

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (01:33:16):
We’re supposed to talk about comics that we’ve read, and I am very, very guilty of the fact that I have been flat out with these calendars as anyone who knows about the calendars would know I’ve been doing that or getting ready for our next Kickstarter. So I haven’t actually had a chance in the last week to read a comic, which is a little sad for me and for this show, but yourself randomly pick a comic that you’ve read and let’s have a little chat about it. Hopefully it’s one that I’ve read in the past.

Jerome Castro (01:33:46):
Yeah, I mean, from the past week I’ve been reading What’s this? I’ve been reading, what’s the title again? It’s missing from my, what’s this?

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (01:34:02):
Oh, here we go. Here’s a question for you. We can talk about this one if you have.

Jerome Castro (01:34:12):
I still haven’t gotten around it, man.

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (01:34:15):
I’ll

Jerome Castro (01:34:15):
Be honest with you.

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (01:34:20):
It is on his list. On his list.

Jerome Castro (01:34:22):
Yeah, it’s on my list because I’d love to be able to read it, especially since it’s Celtic. Zach, you know how much I love Celtic mythology? Yeah, I’ve read, what’s this, the Four Horse Femes? I’m not sure if you Oh,

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (01:34:41):
Four Horse. Yes, I have. I skim that before I put it in the to read pile, so I haven’t actually read it, but I have skimmed through it and have a vague idea what the story is about. So are you talking issue one?

Jerome Castro (01:34:56):
Yeah, actually, I finished all 16 initials that I had over the past three 40 days, three, four, that much.

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (01:35:09):
Zach, don’t tell Zach

Jerome Castro (01:35:12):
Don Zach’s going to kill me. No, no, but

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (01:35:20):
That’d be by Stuart Black, if I remember correctly.

Jerome Castro (01:35:22):
Yeah, it’s from Stuart Black. Basically the gist of the story is there are four girls who are basically the part of Supreme Justice. It’s the, what’s this in world version of Marvel Shield? It’s a superhero organisation that takes meta humans in and makes them their agents, and basically it follows an orphan girl named Lina, which she has Si powers, and she was basically taken in initially, she was initially a target of Supreme Justice and eventually became an agent for them. Yeah. Oh, cool. Yeah, it was quite the read, because initially, at least for me, the story started a little bit slow on the first couple of issues, and then it started rolling into this in every issue. It went grander and grander in scale. Awesome. It eventually came. Yeah, it eventually, I found that it’s very easy to read if you are not the type who likes, what’s this? It likes a very linear narrative. It doesn’t make too many offshoots of the story. The perspective is, yeah, the perspective is really straightforward, and there’s this part where there’s an arc there that lingers for a good six or seven issues, but it really ties in really good, and eventually they flesh out the stories of all of the four poor girls within the team. So it’s very much like the TV show Agents of Shield, basically. Oh,

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (01:37:44):
Okay. Cool.

Jerome Castro (01:37:45):
Yeah, it plays like that, but all four girls are medical. Take it

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (01:37:49):
Off to read, poll and actually read it.

Jerome Castro (01:37:53):
I’m sorry, Zach. I’ll get around it, man. I promise you,

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (01:37:58):
I’ll just answer this question from Spie. Yes, SPIE, I got it. I haven’t had a chance to post it on my mail call posts, but yes, thank you very much. I did get it. Now we have a guest with us to talk about Comic Tonight. This is Brad Daniels. I’ll just bring him straight in. Hey, Brad. Hey,

Brad Daniels (01:38:16):
Brad. Hi. How’s it going? Can you hear

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (01:38:19):
Me? Thanks yourself? Yes, we can hear you. It’s all loud and clear.

Brad Daniels (01:38:24):
That’s good. Yeah. Last time I was using my iPad and it was super easy to sign in, and now I’m using my computer, a custom made thing for doing this, and it was a nightmare.

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (01:38:38):
Oh, sorry to

Brad Daniels (01:38:39):
Hear that. It’s good to be here.

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (01:38:45):
Yeah. So you’ve hopped on. Tell us some to review or just tell us about some comics that you’ve read, some Australian indies.

Brad Daniels (01:38:54):
Yes, indeed. Great question, and thanks for leaving it up to me. Where to start? I do have some comics start

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (01:39:06):
At the top of the pile.

Brad Daniels (01:39:08):
That’s what I’ll do. I’ll start with, so I was at Sydney Supernova on the weekend. Cool. I picked up a heap of new stuff there to check out, but this is one I picked up earlier this year. I’ll

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (01:39:22):
Just zoom,

Brad Daniels (01:39:23):
And this is misery, Ms. Muff.

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (01:39:29):
I haven’t heard of that one.

Brad Daniels (01:39:30):
Key side of decay, Tim Burton very similar. Not Tim Burton, the Hollywood director, but a very similar aesthetic. So I don’t know if he’s like, I was actually sitting across the sky at the convention on the weekend, and I’m not sure if he is Tim Burton into Skies. He doesn’t look like him, but yeah, this is a dark fantasy sort of thing. A little girl put in some sort of nightmare world. They’re all, yeah. Let’s have a look at some of the creatures that she encounters in there,

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (01:40:11):
And I’ll just zoom in on you.

Brad Daniels (01:40:14):
She wakes up in like, well, I guess a mortuary. She’s all looks

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (01:40:19):
Like it, doesn’t it?

Brad Daniels (01:40:20):
That’s cool. Yeah. So this is for people. This is definitely aimed at the crowd who likes Johnny, the homicidal maniac films and sort dark fantasy sort of stuff. It’s got a dreamlike quality to the story. If that appeals to you, then this is definitely the book for you. And I think, I dunno, it’s a couple hundred pages by the look of it. So very little dialogue, a lot of silent panels and stuff like that. But if you look at this cover and you say, that looks like my jam. This is your jam. This is totally your jam.

Jerome Castro (01:41:09):
Yeah. It looks like another IP starve and coral line. Basically. It’s movie and video game.

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (01:41:21):
I actually know one of the creators of Don’t Starve. Sorry, just a bit of a throwing my thing out there. I went to uni with him.

Jerome Castro (01:41:28):
Oh, really? That’s cool.

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (01:41:30):
Yeah.

Brad Daniels (01:41:31):
Nice name drop.

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (01:41:31):
He’s, he’s one of the programmers for the game.

Brad Daniels (01:41:35):
Oh, cool. Cool. Wow. So yeah, that’s for sick adults and Twisted Children. I suppose that’s a high recommendation for, okay, now I’m going to go for something that, something that I picked up in Sydney, not once again, earlier in the year at the OSCON popup that they had there.

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (01:42:05):
And this

Brad Daniels (01:42:06):
Is by Bad Harvey Publishing, which is Aaron Harvey and Chris Ache writing an art respectively. It says Giant Size first issue. This is another book. I mean, this is just a couple hundred pages or something like that, or a hundred pages or something. Now, this is entirely inspired by eighties horror films. It’s got a very, very thing. John Carpenter’s the Thing Filter, got a crew of what are not scavengers. They go through old ships sc and basically, no, I think

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (01:43:04):
You do call it a scavenger, don’t you?

Brad Daniels (01:43:08):
I sure there’s probably a nicer term.

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (01:43:11):
Yeah, it’s

Brad Daniels (01:43:12):
Probably a nicer term. It’s probably a nicer little term. So it says pre celebrating, pre-code comment, classics and paying homage. The author, authors and filmmakers like H HP, Lovecraft and John Carpenter does what it says on the tin. I will say this, I enjoyed this book, but it’s a slow read, a slow burn. Not a lot happens in their a hundred pages that they have there, and this is part one, and they’re bringing out the second part, I think later in the year. Cool. Definitely. It’s sort of like the film alien. It’s got that vibe. It’s very like these guys are working class. You have all the different personalities of everyone who are introduced and things go wrong as always. And there’s a dark, unnatural like horror that lies at the centre, which has not even got to in this particular salvage. Salvage is the word we’re looking for. So yeah, that’s what got

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (01:44:24):
Es.

Brad Daniels (01:44:25):
Yeah. If you like those influencers, you’ll probably enjoy this. I will say, I don’t want to be mean, I just say the art is a little uneven in places, but this is the first book that these guys have done. So it has to be expected, and I’m sure it’ll only get better as it goes along. But if you’re interested in an eighties style horror romp with rais, go for that one.

Jerome Castro (01:44:57):
Yeah.

Jerome Castro (01:44:58):
Looks like something from, what’s this? Journeying to mystery or something?

Brad Daniels (01:45:05):
Oh yeah, yeah. Definitely inspired by those old comics, like those old horror titles. Hey, Sy,

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (01:45:20):
That’s an awesome story.

Brad Daniels (01:45:23):
That sounds like something I’d say. Now what else have I got on my pile? I says, shorter pile tonight. And I thought I had more on it, but I’ve got this one, and this is like how awkward. This is a comic by Hayden Sper. I don’t know if you’ve heard about this guy, but he is like an up and coming writer, a comics writer. So it is Mick Rick McClean Dead are Alive, second Fastest Gun in the West. It’s a western. Yeah, it’s well put together. I enjoyed it quite a bit. I mean, being a Western, I don’t know if it did anything new. It’s hard to do new things in a Western. The genre has been around for so long. I got a real sense that it was inspired by the old spaghetti westerns, like the Italian produced ones, which always were a little bit more morally grey, a little bit more uncertain than what they’re doing, A little bit less black and white. It’s got an interesting story and it’s got a deliberately ambiguous ending, which some people like that. Hey, Dave, how’s it going? Yeah, so if you like ambiguous endings, and this is definitely for you. If you don’t like ambiguous endings, it might give you a spoiler. There’s an ambiguous ending you can make of it what you will.

(01:47:24)
But yeah, a good solid Western style book. Righto. So I thought I had four things in my piles, but I only got three, so

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (01:47:37):
No, that’s

Brad Daniels (01:47:37):
Fine. Any more questions?

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (01:47:39):
Yeah, Brad, while you’re on here, tell us about where we can get your comics.

Brad Daniels (01:47:45):
Oh, well, thank you. You can go to Edge Comics with an x.com, edge comics with an x.com, or you can go to owner indy.com and they’re all on there. I just put the latest one up. Oh, last week. So yeah, I’ve got my humour title tail you to tell. I’ve got my collection of short stories, stuff that never happened. I’ve got my Steampunk comic, what is it? And I’m currently working on some other stuff as well.

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (01:48:24):
Very cool.

Brad Daniels (01:48:26):
Yeah, I know it is. Yeah,

Jerome Castro (01:48:33):
Yeah, yeah. Well, just to ask you, because I promised you the last time you were here that I’ll ask you about it. How’s the sci-fi story going?

Brad Daniels (01:48:46):
That’s a great question. I’ve done a little bit more work on it, but I think my motivation is to have something to say to you every time you ask me that. So I’ve started colouring page six and I’m planning out the rest of the thing. But my whole week has been pretty much disrupted by heading down to Sydney for Supernova, which happened on the weekend. Now, from my point of view, that was a pretty good show, but there’s been all sorts of, I dunno, I don’t know if I should mention it, about the controversy that happened there.

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (01:49:31):
Yes. There was a bit of a disturbance, we’ll say.

Brad Daniels (01:49:35):
Yeah, a

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (01:49:36):
Bit of a disliking of one of the vendors.

Brad Daniels (01:49:40):
Yeah. Well, there was a lot to dislike, let’s say, that much.

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (01:49:44):
There was a lot to dislike. Yes.

Brad Daniels (01:49:46):
Yeah. So to me, me, my point of view, I had no idea any of that was going on. There was a lot of people there, a lot of enthusiasm, which was surprising considering the situation in Sydney with Covid and all that. It was definitely, definitely well attended. I did fairly well overall, and as always, all the fellow stall holders who were around me were a pleasure to chat with and just hang around while we were going through the day. It was good stuff. But I do have another review of something that I’m consuming at the moment, but I have not finished it yet. Would you like me to have a go? Yeah,

Jerome Castro (01:50:34):
Yeah. Tell us about

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (01:50:35):
It. Yeah, go for it. Tell us about it.

Brad Daniels (01:50:37):
Okay, so who here is familiar with Sweet Tooth?

Jerome Castro (01:50:43):
Yeah, I haven’t gotten the chance to read

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (01:50:45):
It, but I haven’t had a chance to read it.

Brad Daniels (01:50:48):
Yeah. Well, it was a comic by Jeff Moir came out about, I’m going to guess 10 years ago, and they’ve just released a TV show on Netflix. Yeah,

Jerome Castro (01:51:04):
I’ve heard of that.

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (01:51:05):
That’s why I’ve heard of it.

Brad Daniels (01:51:07):
Yes. Yes. There’s eight issue series. I’ve watched the first six. It’s completely, I read the book 10 years ago, so I’m not exactly sure what happens, but I’m pretty sure that this series is completely different in almost every respect, except some of the visuals to what happens in the actual book. But I’ve found it pretty interesting so far. I’ve really enjoyed it. It’s taking a much more, Jeff Laie is generally pretty cynical, let’s say It is not happy go lucky stuff that happens with Jeff Lair. Jeff Laie is create own stuff. This is a much more hopeful book, but it has its own cynicism and it is telling its own story. I can say if you read the original book, you may be disappointed if you didn’t read original book. You’ll find it in an interesting take on a post-apocalyptic sort of story.

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (01:52:16):
Okay.

Jerome Castro (01:52:17):
Okay. It’s with DC right now. Yeah, it used to be Vertigo.

Brad Daniels (01:52:24):
That’s right. What else? The only other comic I have to review, which I just found, I did a quick review on issue one last time,

Jerome Castro (01:52:40):
Issue

Brad Daniels (01:52:40):
Two, issue two of Honour Band by Ollie Ward. More Strange, I’ll say. It’s definitely different. Definitely. Definitely not what you expect. This is the second comic that Ollie’s ever done, and obviously he’s improved from the first one. The artwork is still a bit rough around the edges, but as a rough artist myself, I totally understand that. But I’ll say you’ll find this entertaining and you’ll not expect what you get out of it. Looking at the cover, what sort of comic do you think this is?

Jerome Castro (01:53:33):
It’s nights and robots.

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (01:53:35):
Yeah, I’m not too sure, actually.

Brad Daniels (01:53:38):
That’s right.

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (01:53:41):
Clean fun.

Jerome Castro (01:53:45):
It’s very mediaeval samurai jack,

Brad Daniels (01:53:52):
Let’s say. I don’t want to ruin it, but there’s some crazy stuff in there. So this is someone who’s young and excited and has boundless and enthusiasm and is doing it. That’s the best review I can give for it.

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (01:54:08):
Awesome. I’ve actually written his name down to look him up, and I haven’t had a chance to Ollie. That is. Yeah. Cool.

Brad Daniels (01:54:17):
So that’s everything I’ve got. I’ve bought a stack of new comics on the weekend, but I haven’t had a chance to read them yet. No, that’s fine. I’ve been recovering from the drive back from Sydney.

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (01:54:29):
Ah, you drove there. Yes. That would take a while to recover from.

Brad Daniels (01:54:36):
It was the cheapest way to go. So that’s me. I’m cheap all over.

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (01:54:40):
Nice. You got to be in this industry.

Brad Daniels (01:54:44):
Yes, indeed.

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (01:54:47):
Thank you very much, Brad. No worries,

Brad Daniels (01:54:50):
Shane.

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (01:54:51):
Yeah. So do you think you’ll have those read by next week? Do you want to come back on next week?

Brad Daniels (01:54:57):
Absolutely.

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (01:54:58):
Oh,

Brad Daniels (01:54:58):
Awesome. It’s a chance to chat with you, Shane and Jerome. Course. I’ll read it. We’ll make this a regular.

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (01:55:07):
Yeah, we’d love to have your back because it saves me from needing to find time to read some myself.

Brad Daniels (01:55:14):
Well, that sounds like the best possible reason.

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (01:55:17):
Time is not my friend. Time is not my friend. Neither is sleep time and sleep. Neither are my friends.

Brad Daniels (01:55:26):
Okay. So throw together, I’ll will read through what I got and have another four or five books to discuss with you next week.

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (01:55:36):
Yep. And I will try to read something between now and then. It’s just been a shocker of a week. So

Jerome Castro (01:55:42):
Now I’ll check back with you again next week, Brad. Thanks,

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (01:55:47):
Jerome. Cool. Well thank you very much, Brad. Thanks. Jerome will pick on you next week, and that’ll be it for the show. Thank you very much everyone who watched. We’ll talk about some more Indie Australians next week, and yeah, we’ll get Brad on again to talk about what he’s read this week, that week, the week coming. So yeah, see you everyone. See you guys. Have a good night.

Jerome Castro (01:56:13):
Good night, guys.

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (01:56:14):
Night.

Jerome Castro (01:56:15):
See you.