Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (00:34):
Hello, Shane here from Oz Comex. Sorry, the Oz Show. I’m getting used to that name. Dave Di came up with that name last week, so thanks for that, Dave. So I’m here with Jerome, my co-host.

Jerome Castro (00:53):
Hey guys, how are you doing?

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (00:56):
And we’re here to talk to Tim Styles and Nicole Kane. First, we’re going to bring on Tim Styles to talk about himself and well, his Kickstarter that he’s got going at the moment, so let’s just bring him on board. Hey, Tim.

Big Tim Stiles (01:12):
Hey, how’s it going?

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (01:14):
Good, thanks yourself?

Big Tim Stiles (01:16):
Yeah, good, good. Glad to be here.

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (01:19):
And I’m just trying to do the technical stuff here. So we’ll probably just start off with just tell us a little bit about yourself. Yeah, just how you got into comics, that sort of stuff.

Big Tim Stiles (01:35):
Yeah, look, my name’s Tim Styles. I write under the name Big Tim Styles. I’ve basically been a comic book nerd, like most of us since my teenage years. Mostly a Marvel zombie, and then I sort of moved into sort of Dark horse comics. As far as the stuff that I like to read, I’m still a bit of a Marvel zombie at heart, so I’ve still got a number of Marvel books on my weekly pull list.

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (02:03):
Nice.

Big Tim Stiles (02:04):
As far as getting into creating comics, I actually reviewed comic books for about four years for a website that doesn’t exist anymore, called Giant Fire Breathing Robot, and basically when that, yeah, it was a great website. It covered all sorts of geek stuff, whether it was comics, comics, movies, video games, role playing games across the board, if you’re a geek of any kind, it had you covered sort of thing. And look. Then when that sort of website went under, or sorry, when the owner of the website just decided to call it a day, I went on to, I started to think after reviewing so many comics, three or four comics a week for four years, that I would try my hand at writing my own comics, and that was about five years ago, and then I’ve just been doing my own thing.

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (03:04):
Sweet. Sounds awesome. So what we’ll do is go into the Kickstarter, just make sure that you get your time to talk about it. So I’ll just bring it up while you, oops, that’s the wrong button. You have to, excuse me. I’m still learning all these buttons. So actually I’ll bring it up full screen. So just tell us a bit about the Kickstarter and then we’ll scroll through it and pull it apart, I guess.

Big Tim Stiles (03:36):
Yeah, cool. So this is my latest Kickstarter gorilla. My Dreams, the Sheep from the Ghost. Now what it is, gorilla My Dreams is a series of comics, a series of one shots that focus on a superhero named Knock Around guy who is basically a talking gorilla. He doesn’t have any powers, but because he’s just a gorilla that talks, people think he’s a really smart detective. So he tries to live up to the expectations that everyone places on him, even though he is not really that smart. And he sort of screws up more often than not. Now, this is the third chapter of the book. Now each issue is written in the form of a one shot, so that if you can’t get your hands on all the issues, any one of them should be a really satisfying experience to read by itself. Whereas if you can get all the issues, it serves an overall story that you can see the links between the one shots and the development of the characters.

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (04:50):
Oh, that’s awesome. Yeah, so you can jump on board anyway, pretty much.

Big Tim Stiles (04:56):
Yeah. Yeah, pretty much. This is just as good a jumping on point as the first issue we released in this issue, knock around Guy has woken up from a bit of a coma. He’s found himself in a nunnery nari called the Convent of the Perpetual Ewes, which is full of nuns that are sheep people. And he’s basically, the story behind this is about a superhero who’s trying to retire, but against his own wishes, he sort of gets dragged back into the adventuring life and he has to make that rough decision of does he just do what he wants to do as far as Retirings concerned, or does he serve the greater good?

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (05:49):
Oh, awesome. Oh, okay. Sounds awesome.

Big Tim Stiles (05:53):
Yeah, it’s basically come a lot of people who know me recognise that knock around guy, this Gorilla superhero is practically me. Now, this issue really comes from a part of my life where I’ve had to make tough decisions as to what path I take creatively, what’s the word, personally in my social life, in my extra curriculum activities. So it’s from having to make some really tough decisions in my real life that sort of helped me channel this story into Gorilla my dreams.

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (06:36):
Wow, that’s really awesome. So nice personal story.

Big Tim Stiles (06:39):
Well, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (06:45):
Cool. So what we’ll do is we’ll just go through the Kickstarter itself. So it looks like you’ve unlocked the stretch goal here. I’ll just go full screen again.

Big Tim Stiles (06:55):
Yeah, no worries. Okay. So what we’ve done so far is we’ve unlocked three stretch goals. Oh,

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (06:59):
Three. Awesome.

Big Tim Stiles (07:00):
Yeah. My philosophy with Stretch Goals, and it’s just my philosophy, it’s not putting down anyone else’s, is I just want all my stretch goals to make this book bigger and better. So the three stretch goals that we’ve unlocked is more bonus story content for the comic.

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (07:21):
That’s awesome.

Big Tim Stiles (07:22):
We have one artist, Samir, who has done a two page, what do you call it, prologue for the story. Then we have Lauren Marshall, who you’ll know is working on your calendar Kickstarter. She’s provided a two page epilogue for the end of the story, and then an artist I found from Barcelona has done two pages for, what’s the word, sort of intermissions throughout the story that focus on our villain, Lucifer Bibo and what he’s doing while knock around guys trying to sort his life out. So, so far we’ve unlocked six pages of more story for the book. Our next stretch goal we want to unlock is a pinup again by Lauren Marshall. And the more we unlock, the more page count we’re going to get, the better, just the bigger and better this comic’s going to get.

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (08:23):
That’s really cool. I like that as a philosophy.

Big Tim Stiles (08:27):
Yeah,

Jerome Castro (08:28):
It sounds like it adds something into the original story without taking away anything from it.

Big Tim Stiles (08:35):
And that’s the thing. The story is written so that for example, if we didn’t break any stretch goals, you’re not missing chunks of the story or anything, but I’ve purposely written these, the prologue, the epilogue, and these two intermission scenes just to add another level to the story.

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (08:55):
That’s really cool. I like that. And yeah, I’ve supported it. So everyone else out there go support it. Go pledge. This is awesome. That means I’ll be getting all these extras.

Big Tim Stiles (09:07):
Great stuff. Yeah, man. Both digital and print copies will have all the extra pages.

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (09:12):
Awesome. Well, I’ve got a print, I’m a bit OCD about print copies. Yeah.

Big Tim Stiles (09:19):
So then what we’ve got here are basically the three covers that we’re offering. The red one there is by Sammy coa, who people may know from a bunch of Ryan Kay Lindsay’s books. I’m a big fan of Sammy Covea. Currently. He’s working on a comic book called Done By Blood, which is sort of a western revenge comic. He’s on Ryan k Lindsay’s next comic called Rost. Everything he has done, he’s one of these creators that I’ve just adore everything he’s done. So that’s the red cover with the gorilla and the mime on the front. The next cover is the limited edition Kickstarter cover, the green one, which is by Armoured Raft. Now, I don’t know if you guys are familiar with a movie out of New Zealand called House Bound. Are you guys familiar with that movie at all?

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (10:09):
Not actually. Personally, no. Unfortunately not,

Big Tim Stiles (10:12):
No. See now that movie was a big inspiration when I was writing the Ghost Story side of this comic book. And so I got armoured to do a tribute cover of the movie poster and that frame there with the four characters in it, it’s practically straight out of this movie. Cool, cool. So that’s our movie homage cover. And then of course, we’re offering blank covers for artists who might want to draw on their own covers or there’s pledge levels where I will draw something on the cover for you if you like.

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (10:44):
Oh, nice bonus. So

Big Tim Stiles (10:48):
That’s the three covers we’re offering,

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (10:50):
And that’s the quote that you just went through, so we don’t need to really look at

Big Tim Stiles (10:54):
That. Yeah, that’s just explaining everything I’ve said. So yeah, see these pages here, this is, as I said, the process of knock around guy, waking up from this coma and seeing these sheep people praying for him, and he doesn’t even know what’s happening or where he’s at. The artwork is beautifully done by Armoured Raffi, my co, I would call him my co-conspirator, actually. He’s even the co-creator of this comic. He brings so much to this comic, more than just being an artist for hire. He brings lots of ideas to it as well. So as far as I’m concerned, me and him are co-creators of this book. And as you can see, he’s artwork is very detective noir, black and white. It’s really beautiful and really suits the tone of the story.

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (11:46):
Yeah, it does.

Big Tim Stiles (11:49):
So then that’s still just knock around guy waking up and actually having an anxiety attack, a panic attack, because he can’t understand what’s happening around him. Now, the thing with Knock around guy again is because he’s semi based on me, I suffer from depression and anxiety and all sorts of that nasty stuff. So when you see a knock around guy having an anxiety attack and he can’t breathe, that’s pretty much pulled straight from my life. You know what I mean? A bugger. Yeah. And I mean, look, right now I’m in one of the best places I’ve been in for years as far as my mental health is concerned, but there’s always the experience there. You’ve always got it. It’s something, yeah,

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (12:34):
You remember today? Yeah, yeah, of course. And what do we got here?

Big Tim Stiles (12:41):
Okay, that’s just some pull quotes, some people who have read previous issues and Oh, nice. Really not really nice things they had to say,

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (12:54):
And these are the pace that’s seen.

Big Tim Stiles (12:56):
Yep. Yeah. So okay, now it’s the

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (13:00):
Pledge levels. Yeah, we

Big Tim Stiles (13:01):
Pledge levels. Excellent. So the base pledge level is the $5 PDF. As I said, all the stretch goals that make this book bigger and better will be included in the PDF as well. So that’s basically your bottom tier level there.

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (13:18):
Great for people overseas as well who don’t want to pay shipping.

Big Tim Stiles (13:21):
Yeah, definitely. But also the thing is, I’ve actually got, I’ve got Ahed in the UK who’s going to be doing fulfilment over there to keep prices in the UK fairly low. And I’ve also got comic impressions in the states who will be doing the fulfilment in the states.

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (13:40):
That’s awesome. Physical copies for all.

Big Tim Stiles (13:43):
Yeah, that’s right, man. That’s right. And then once it gets out of UK and the US and Australia, that’s when it starts getting expensive. But there’s a few good digital pledge levels in there for people who are outside of the states and the uk.

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (13:58):
Oh yeah. Nice.

Big Tim Stiles (13:59):
So this next one’s an audio commentary. I do a podcast called the Turtle Boy podcast, and basically what we do is for the audio commentaries, me and my friend Luke, we sit down with a copy of the comic each, and we just go through it and discuss me writing the comic, me receiving the art from Ahmed or whoever the guest artists are, just basically start to finish. We work our way through. The last one was about an hour and 15 minutes. The one before that was a jumbo two hour discussion we did. So yeah, the audio commentary’s a good pledge level that, so you can go through your PDF and have a listen to us and really get inside my head as to the whole process of it all.

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (14:48):
That’s awesome. That’s really cool. I’ll just, whoops, I press the wrong button. I’ll get there eventually.

Big Tim Stiles (15:02):
So next up we’ve got the print editions. Now what that gets you is the PDF, which is available in every single pledge level, but this one gets you a copy of the regular cover and the limited edition cover. So you can either have one copy to bag and board and one copy to read and throw around, or one copy for you, one copy for your mate or whatever you want to do with it. You know what I mean? That’s awesome. Yeah, I found that most people want the two copies. They want to bag one and read the other. So yeah,

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (15:37):
I believe that’s the one I got just for the record.

Big Tim Stiles (15:41):
And then I was asked, I’ve been asked by some retailers to put together retail packs. So this one is just the first retail pack, which is basically just three copies of the regular cover, one copy of the limited edition cover for 20 bucks for a store, so they can, because basically half the ticket price per issue so that they can make a little bit of money off it as well. Oh

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (16:07):
Yeah. That’s really cool.

Big Tim Stiles (16:11):
Now this one’s another digital bundle. I called the King Kong digital bundle. Now what this one is, is you get the PDF, you get the audio commentary, but then you actually also get the entire back catalogue in PDF, the entire back catalogues, audio commentaries, and the back catalogues are script PDFs. So if you’re a real process junkie and you love looking at from script to finished book, this is the pledge level for you. You get all four issues, audio, commentary, scripts, and in a digital package with not having to, what’s the word, ship anywhere.

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (17:00):
Yeah, that’s really cool. I like all these extras. These are very cool extras.

Big Tim Stiles (17:04):
Yeah, look, I try to come up with some original pledges, but also make it easy on my end. So a lot of the bonus stuff is all digital. So I’ve already got most of it on the computer just to be able to send with a Dropbox link or an email. And that’s also part of the reason behind the stretch goals just going into the book to make it bigger and better, is that I don’t have to chase around mini prints or badges or bookmarks or all that sort of stuff. The books come to me, the books go out sort of thing.

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (17:45):
That’s really cool.

Big Tim Stiles (17:48):
Okay, so this one’s the print editions and the blank cover. So you basically get all three copies of the book. I know some people have got it so that they can draw on it themselves or take it to a convention and get someone else to draw on them. I usually get my first two issues. I got Dan Watts to draw my gorilla guy on the first issue. Oh, cool. I got, now I’m not going to be able to pronounce his name, Carillo from Sydney. He did the cover for Australia Burns. He does a lot of Ninja Turtle stuff. I can never pronounce his last name. My apologies Carillo, but I got him to draw on the second cover for me as well.

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (18:39):
I actually know who you’re talking about and I can’t pronounce the name either. Yeah,

Big Tim Stiles (18:42):
It’s, it’s a tough name. Greatest guy, sweetest dude in Australian comics. But yeah, I can never spell his name. I can never pronounce his name. Now this pledge level has actually been fairly popular in previous Kickstarters and this one, so I call it the artist pack. So you get the two issues, wonder, wonder Bag and Board, and then you get three blank copies. Now that’s for artists. They can draw their own thing on them and resell ’em conventions as one of a kind collector’s items sort of thing. So there are a few artists that I know that grab this one and do various covers for people and things. So yeah.

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (19:27):
Cool. And there’s another retail pack, or this one’s pretty full on,

Big Tim Stiles (19:30):
So this retail pack basically has the back issues as well.

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (19:34):
Ah, yes.

Big Tim Stiles (19:34):
Three copies of everything that they get. So yeah.

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (19:38):
Nice.

Big Tim Stiles (19:41):
Now this is the pledge level that I hand draw a one of a kind drawing on the blank cover for you. I’ve got a couple of hardcore super backers who every Kickstarter I do, they grab this because they’re the super collectors. They want this one of a kind comic book, this one of a kind collectors item that they can show off and say, I asked Tim to draw this on here, or you know what I mean? And you’ll never see anything else. You’ll never see this anywhere else. It’s one of a kind thing for the super collectors.

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (20:14):
Nice. Nice.

Big Tim Stiles (20:18):
Okay. A lot. So this one’s the job lot. It’s basically all the digital pledge levels and the comic pledge levels all bundled up into one package for a hundred dollars. As I said, all the previous audio commentaries and comics in digital form with the scripts and then the three comics. And again, with me doing one of a kind hand drawing on the cover for you.

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (20:41):
Very cool.

Big Tim Stiles (20:45):
And then, so this next one I

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (20:48):
Nice. A backpack.

Big Tim Stiles (20:49):
Yeah, a backpack in it that has Sammy Cove’s artwork all over it. It’s beautiful backpack. So yeah, basically the previous pledge level plus the backpack to carry everything around in. What else? What else could you ask

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (21:05):
For? What else could you need? What else could you need? Actually, that’s awesome. Oh, we’ve got a cover commission.

Big Tim Stiles (21:11):
Yeah. Okay. So this one is, again, you get the backpack, you get the books, you get all the digital loot, and Ahmed will do a cover commission for your comic, whatever your comic may be. I put in the explanations there that we sort of don’t want to do pornographic stuff, but having said that, Ahmed does a web comic called Astro Nudes, so he’s not afraid to be tackled with something a little bit racy. So if you’ve got a comic book and you love Ahmed’s work, here’s an opportunity. There’s only one available. So here’s your opportunity to snag that and get Ahmed to do, whether you use it as a limited edition variant, whether you use it as the regular cover for your book. Yeah, that’s ready to roll.

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (22:01):
Yeah. Nice.

Big Tim Stiles (22:03):
And then this is the final one. So this is the Creator’s package where again, you get everything previously mentioned, the bag, the comics, all the digital loot. You get a cover commission by Ahmed, and you also get a four page full finished story by me and Ahmed based on your comic, based on your idea. So if you’re looking for a backup feature for your comic book, you want to add some more pages to it, me and Ahmed will, based on your character, based on your story, write a four page story, get it all drawn up for you, cover for your book as well. Yeah. Simple as that. And then all the loot from the Kickstarter as well. So

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (22:49):
I love that writing as doing a story for you. That’s awesome.

Big Tim Stiles (22:52):
Yeah, I mean, in previous Kickstarters, I’ve had people come in to write backup stories for stretch goals like I have with this one. So if anyone out there is planning a Kickstarter, even if it’s a year away, hit us up. You could use our four page story as a stretch goal or whatever, and that’s awesome. Now, I’ll give you a bit of my philosophy behind that is my very first comic was a comic called Kullu Williams, and it was very sort of Hellboy, what’s his name? Constantine Hellblazer type inspired. And the way I funded that comic, the way I funded the art was I actually backed Kickstarters who had art pledges like this, where they will draw your story. So that Kaulu Williams comic, it has three short stories in it, and all three of those stories came from me backing someone else’s comic on an art level.

(24:02)
So they would illustrate it for me. So I’ve always had the philosophy that Kickstart is great for funding your books, but it’s also great for you’re supporting someone else’s project, and at the same time, you’re backing for an art reward to make your dream come true. So you’re helping them with their dream and helping yourself with your dream too. So I wanted to offer that sort of opportunity for up and comers who might be writing scripts and just be like, how am I ever going to afford an artist? Well, look, here’s one way you can do that.

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (24:46):
That is awesome. And that’s a really cool backstory to the Williams one. Yeah,

Big Tim Stiles (24:52):
Yeah, yeah.

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (24:54):
That’s really cool. So that’s probably the Kickstarter, I think, unless there’s something else you wanted me to. Yep. Cool.

Big Tim Stiles (25:03):
No, not really.

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (25:05):
Okay, cool. Jerome.

Jerome Castro (25:09):
Hey. Okay, so before we free up, Tim, we have a few questions out here. Actually, we’ve been itching to ask Tim a few questions because we’ve been reading Gorilla My Dreams for a while now. So cool. Here, a few questions for Tim.

Big Tim Stiles (25:31):
Yep. Shoot, man. I’m ready. Yeah,

Jerome Castro (25:34):
For starters. Okay, let’s start this with what inspired to make Gorilla My Dreams? Because it’s not every day that you see a gorilla superhero. So what started it all, man,

Big Tim Stiles (25:48):
Look, this answer is sort of a two-pronged answer. I dunno if you guys were familiar with the online video game called City of Heroes. Did you guys ever play that? Yeah,

Jerome Castro (25:57):
Yeah, I did get to play it myself. Yeah,

Big Tim Stiles (26:02):
I used to be addicted to that game, man, and I’d work eight or 10 hours at work and then I’d come home and I’d play that stupid game for 10 or 12 hours and then sleep for three hours and do it all again. But there was a character who basically the gorilla you see on the screen right now, that’s pretty much what this character looked like that I made. Of course, he didn’t have any character behind him. He was just me running around punching heroes and villains, but that’s pretty much what he looked like. And so he wasn’t really much of a character as far as a storytelling piece at this point in time. Now I’ve got a bit of a history with screenwriting, and I was at this screenwriting workshop where the guy really challenged us and he says, I’m going to give you 30 seconds to write down 30 story ideas, so you can’t even stop to think about it.

(26:54)
You’re just like bang, bang, bang, bang, bang. And so I did that as he told us to, and then he said, okay, now go through your list. I want you to pull out three ideas and sort of see if you can mash ’em together to come up with something truly unique. So I had obviously Gorilla Superhero. Another idea I had was the Great Clown and Mime War, and then the third idea I had was a mime suffocating inside an invisible box. So I took those three ideas and came up with this story about this gorilla superhero in the middle of some big gang war. Of course, the story has changed a bit since then, but that was where the actual idea of Gorilla my dreams as a comic book came from, just from that exercise that this lecturer got us to do. So yeah, that’s where knock around diet and gorilla my dreams comes from.

Jerome Castro (27:48):
Yeah, that’s cool. That’s super cool because it’s rare that you get those eureka moments and then pen them down.

Big Tim Stiles (27:56):
Yeah, yeah.

Jerome Castro (27:58):
Okay. So did you always plan for Gorilla? My Dreams to be noir? Because you always see those noir comic books, especially from Indies, but they always that they always use that it was noir for the sake of noir, but yours was entirely different. So what made you decide to make it noir?

Big Tim Stiles (28:25):
Well, again, man, it was a lightning in the bottle moment where at the same time I was trying to develop this story, I came across three pieces of, I’ll say Art, that made me realise that Detective Noir doesn’t have to be a 1920s movie with Humphrey Bogart in it. So I came across, remember that Disney movie Zootopia?

Jerome Castro (28:48):
Yep. Yeah, yeah,

Big Tim Stiles (28:49):
Yeah. Okay. So I watched that. About a week later, I read the script for a movie called Brick, which is kind of a detective noir story in a high school. And then around about that same time I read Ryan k Lindsay’s Chum, which is a murder mystery on a tropical island with sharks and things, and the penny dropped with me that Detective Noir can be any environment. So I love superheroes, so I can take this superhero story and make it detective noir. It doesn’t just have to be a punch ’em up superhero story, the kind that I love so very much, but I can make something fresh and original by having stumbled across these three pieces of art that really made me understand that noir can be in any setting in any time with any characters. So that’s where that came from, and that’s why we’ve on Purposely left the art black and white as well, with grey tones to help serve that noir outlook.

Jerome Castro (29:49):
Yeah, that’s cool actually, because the element of Gorilla, my dreams that I always loved was the noir art style. I’m a sucker for noir, so

Big Tim Stiles (30:02):
I’m glad you did it, man. I’m glad you did it.

Jerome Castro (30:06):
Yeah. Okay, so I guess the last one for me now is what was your inspiration behind your villains? You had a lot of mimes and clowns and these things. I mean, we’ve seen Joker is a clown, but your clown is an entirely different one man. So how did that come true?

Big Tim Stiles (30:32):
Look, yeah, I’ve always loved Killer Clowns, whether they be the movie it or whether they be the Joker or I love Scary Clowns. I always have. And when I wanted to use Lucifer Bimbo as the main villain of the piece, I knew I had to make him something completely different from the Joker because everyone straight away is going to go, oh, another joker. So I went out of my way to make sure that he wasn’t insane like the Joker, that he was more of a mean vicious person than an insane person, if you know what I mean. And even though I’ve always loved themed henchmen in comics, I think that’s what I loved about the 1966 Batman. Every villain had their themed henchmen, and so that’s something I’m obsessed with. I love the idea. I love Batman’s villains more than Batman himself because of all this sort of themed villains sort of thing. And so that’s what had me, okay, we’ve got a clown villain, but then he’s got his clown henchmen and things as well. So yeah, that’s the development of that guy, Lucifer Biba, our villain. Anyway,

Jerome Castro (31:59):
Yeah, I actually just recently saw the Lucifer Bimbo story. It was, and it was really good because without revealing anything, it reminds me, as I’ve said in one of my reviews, it reminds me of the killing joke, but it’s not that it has the same feel, but it’s an entirely different story because you’ll see some comics that they will feel like ripoffs, but yours was really fascinating. If anything.

Big Tim Stiles (32:41):
Oh, thank you for that. Yeah, I really wanted to, with that book, again, the object was to really differentiate Lucifer Bibo from the Joker and really show why he does what he does. Again, again, that issue was a bit taken from my life as well in that there’s certain ways you don’t want to necessarily go with your life, but then you find yourself stuck in a job or a relationship or some other circumstances where everything actually seems out of your control and you end up almost becoming someone you’ve never wanted to be. So Lucifer Bimbo at the start of that comic, he’s never interested. He’s not interested in, what do you call it, a life of crime, especially a life of costumed crime. But then there’s certain influences from outside his control that just almost push him down that way until he has no choice but to become this villain that he didn’t originally want to be.

Jerome Castro (33:50):
Yeah, very cool.

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (33:53):
I’m going to be rude here. It’s been great chatting with you, Tim. Cutting into the next guest time.

Big Tim Stiles (34:02):
Oh, yep, yep, for sure, man.

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (34:03):
Yep, that’s cool. But just before you go, just tell us one thing you want to say about the Kickstarter.

Big Tim Stiles (34:11):
Look, guys, this Kickstarter, as I said, this comic book is getting bigger and better with each stretch goal that we unlock. It’s about a talking gorilla with who’s clinically depressed trying to retire, but being forced back into the spotlight, back into the action. And if you’re looking for something a bit different, if you’re tired of the usual superhero, punch ’em ups and you want something a little bit more cerebral, check this out, man. If you’re looking for just a fun gorilla comic, check it out.

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (34:43):
Yeah, definitely agree. It’s an awesome comic, and I’m sure this one is as well.

Big Tim Stiles (34:47):
Yeah. Thanks EAPs, guys.

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (34:49):
Awesome. Thanks, Tim.

Jerome Castro (34:50):
Thanks, Tim. See you guys.

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (34:52):
See you.

Jerome Castro (34:53):
Tim. Styles everyone.

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (34:55):
Yeah, that was awesome. But yeah, I’ve read the other Gorilla, my dreams, and they’re all awesome, so I’m sure this one’s just as cool

Jerome Castro (35:04):
For sure. Yeah,

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (35:05):
For sure. So without any further ado, let’s bring on Nicole. Hi, Nicole.

Jerome Castro (35:13):
Hi, Nicole.

Nicole Kane (35:15):
Hey, how are you guys? Doing

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (35:17):
Well, thanks. Yourself? Good, thanks. Awesome. Awesome. So just tell us a little about yourself before we jump into the Kickstarter. Just about

Nicole Kane (35:30):
Do I have to say anything else?

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (35:32):
Not to put you on the spot or anything.

Nicole Kane (35:34):
No, no. All good, all good. So I’ve been writing for about five years now. Went from doing Novela style writing into doing comics. Absolute fluke of that happening. I wasn’t planning on it as a big jump in my life. I was only writing novels for fun, and it came about basically from doing cosplaying. So we used to nationally compete, and when we got out of that, we really didn’t know what to do. And so my wife basically started looking for cosplay. She wanted to do just for fun.

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (36:16):
Cool.

Nicole Kane (36:18):
She just literally typed in the words red and black and Batwoman came up and she turned to me and she went, she’s lesbian, she’s in the bat family. I just went, you don’t have to say anything else. I’m there. I’m reading this now. So we literally went to the comic bookstore, we bought all these comics and stuff like that, and we just started deep dived into it, but in the back of one of the comics was a piece of script, and she looked at it and she went, you can do this. This is something you can do. And then I looked at it, I went, yes, yes, that is something I can do.

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (36:54):
Awesome.

Nicole Kane (36:54):
So yeah, it kind of just took off from there. And five years later, here we are now with a couple of Kickstarters, Fox and Hound and a couple of other things. Yeah, it’s been where I’ve wanted to go. The more I do it, the more I sit there and go, okay, no, this is it. I’m done. So yeah.

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (37:18):
Very cool. Cool. Well, we’ll jump into the Kickstarter. I’ll just bring it up. I’m getting better at these buttons now. Cool. So is there anything you want to say about the Kickstarter before we scroll through it or, oh my God, it looks like you’re going quite well. 175. Nice.

Nicole Kane (37:37):
It’s crazy. It’s crazy. But the Kickstarter, this is for issue four, so we’ve already had the last couple already done. Pretty happy with it, pretty happy with the rewards. I think it’s something that the normal Fox and Hound people expect, but there’s also new content, new stuff, and I’m really excited to have the artist, Chris Karen, who’s doing all of the art now for it, really step up and add his own flavour to it, which is just incredible.

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (38:13):
Awesome. Yeah, he’s an awesome artist. So yeah,

Nicole Kane (38:17):
So there’s the warning sign,

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (38:19):
No S warning sign.

Nicole Kane (38:21):
Nice big warning sign for all of your people. This is not safe for children, so

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (38:27):
I’m in the wrong box. I’m trying to scroll and it wasn’t going anywhere.

Nicole Kane (38:30):
That’s okay. It’s fine. It’s fine. So like I said, it’s for number, for issue number four. The first series or the first arc is six issues in total. So we’re up to number four in this little first part of the story that will then get turned into a big trade at the end, but we wanted to go with the sort of traditional little issues to begin with. So there’s

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (38:59):
Just some interior.

Nicole Kane (39:01):
Yeah, some of the ear interiors up there. Chris actually does pretty much 90% of the work on this, and I love him for it. He does all the lettering, he does the colours, he does the layouts, he does the inks. He’s just an absolute master at everything. So yeah, that’s all of his wonderful, wonderful work. Basically what I do is I just hand in the script, put the little things where I want them to go and just go have at it, have fun.

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (39:32):
Nice. He does a great job.

Nicole Kane (39:35):
Our working relationship has skyrocketed since we started working together. It’s like two peas in a pod. It’s crazy.

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (39:42):
That’s awesome. So there’s you guys. Oh, okay. Here we go. If you want to go through the tiers to explain to everyone what they should be pledging for

Nicole Kane (40:02):
Sure. First one is obviously just your normal standard PDF of the comic. Nice and easy, nice and handy. Just download it straight to your computer or your phone or wherever you want, and you can read it straight away. The next one’s obviously the actual physical copy of the book. So what will happen is when we get them printed, we ship them out. We had a problem with shipping on the last one, so our shipping has gotten a lot better since the last campaign. So they’ll be nice and protected in cardboard and yeah, pretty much ship them anyway. Anyway, so it doesn’t matter where you’re from across the world. The next one is the PDF version and the physical version. Nice. A lot of people I noticed really, really like the PDF, so we’re happy to give that with the actual physical copy for 15 bucks, you pretty much get the, I think that’s the PDFs of everything. Yeah, PDFs of all the issues. If you haven’t read the Fox and Hound story up until now, you can get it straight away. Download it, read it, it’s there.

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (41:04):
Haven’t read it yet. Who are these people? But they not have read it already.

Nicole Kane (41:14):
So the next one is Chris’s print for the campaign. Really, really happy with this. It’s just an awesome little mob scene. He was doodling this mob scene quite a while ago

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (41:26):
And

Nicole Kane (41:28):
He hadn’t finished it or anything, and he goes, I don’t know, I just got this idea. And then I said, run with it, because I thought it was such an awesome idea, and we got that out of it, and I was just like, oh, that’s better than I expected. Oh god. So yeah, so you get his little print with this. We print them all in a four size, so it’s just a nice little bonus, and they look really nice when they come out. People have sent me their photos of when they get them as well, so you’ll get his print and the book.

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (41:59):
Awesome. Just bit of a technical issue there.

Nicole Kane (42:03):
So this is our second print that’s on offer. So Mike Wolfer is an absolute amazing artist. He’s got his own books and series and stuff like that on Kickstarter at the moment too. But he has offered to do an artwork, and I’m actually in talking with him at the moment over this one of the girls in front of a fireplace, sort of romantic looking image, and I cannot wait until it comes out. I absolutely, it’s going to be phenomenal. If any of you have not seen any of his work, go and look him up on Facebook straight away, and then you will understand how amazing he is. So yeah, we’re very lucky for him to be doing a print for this next here. Obviously you get the two prints and the little funky stickers with the book.

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (42:51):
Nice.

Nicole Kane (42:53):
The stickers are all die cut. They’re really cute. So for this one, you can have all the physical copies. So again, if you haven’t got any of the other copies before in your new fan, this is a really good pack, and then you get to choose which prick you want at the end of the day.

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (43:09):
That’s pretty cool. That’s good. Oh, not safe for work. Here we go.

Nicole Kane (43:14):
God, no, this one, you get the Not Safe for Work cover done by David Frog, and you get the PDF version with the same cover.

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (43:25):
Nice. Yeah, I’m scrolling the wrong one again.

Nicole Kane (43:29):
As you can see here, we’ve done naughty covers before. So in this one you can collect all of them in the naughty. Again, for people who don’t know anything about Fox and Hound World, they just get everything and if they wanted a naughty, they can have your naughty and then you get the standard prints.

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (43:45):
Yep. Cool.

Nicole Kane (43:46):
So this one, you get the physical copy of Fox and Hound plus your prints, plus the sexy pillow fight print, which is always

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (43:55):
Fine. Always fun. Yes.

Nicole Kane (43:58):
Yeah. So we’ve got Chris’s prints in there. He’s done a Playboy print that’s for the naughty side of things. Now you get to choose what you want in these higher tiers, so you really can customise what you want. There’s a bunch of add-ons as well, by the way. Oh, awesome. Oh yeah, there’s a heap of add-ons. So pretty much whatever you want, you can add onto this physical copies of the ones. Yep. Physical copies of Fox and Hound issue one to four again, and then you get your choice of any prints that you want, plus this 3D printed comic stand. These look freaking awesome. They look amazing when they’re printed and you can actually stand the comic on them or just leave ’em with the works Fox in house.

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (44:45):
Wow, that’s really cool.

Nicole Kane (44:46):
Yeah, I love 3D printing stuff, so I was really happy to do that. Yes, we’ve added a ttr. I know I

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (44:55):
Hadn’t looked this far down before.

Nicole Kane (44:58):
It’s just like, yes, this isn’t for children at all. So yeah, after that one you’ve got the shot glasses. So these are actually the comic and they’re sort of etched into the glass, so only that’s really cool. Those left. So yeah, they’re a real rare item. Then you’ve got Chris’s actual sketches of the characters. So he’ll basically you pick which character you want, do you up a little drawing from pencils to inks to the actual four colours, which is really cool. Yeah. So it’s like a little custom image for you 300. Do you actually get to design an image with the characters? So last Kickstarter, we had the cameo spot, but in this one I think this is going to be a better construction for people who want a bit more, they want to interact with the characters and they want to play out a little scene or something like that. They’ll actually get to choose what they want. So Chris is super excited to do that as well.

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (46:07):
Yep. Oh, hang on. Sorry, I wasn’t paying attention.

Nicole Kane (46:10):
The last one’s already gone.

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (46:12):
Oh, last one’s already gone. It’s already gone one time.

Nicole Kane (46:14):
Yeah, the one’s already gone. So yeah, it was basically you get the pencils of Mike’s artwork when it’s finished.

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (46:22):
Oh yeah. Cool.

Nicole Kane (46:23):
Yeah. So these

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (46:23):
Are just the stickers.

Nicole Kane (46:25):
Yep, yep. We’ve just got some closeups of the rewards there, so the little stickers and what they look like, the standee, what it looks like.

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (46:34):
Nice.

Nicole Kane (46:35):
Pretty easy shot glasses, just so people see what they’re actually getting in the actual years as well, which is always fun. That’s what the book looks like when it’s actually printed.

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (46:49):
Well, I’ve actually got some pictures here that you sent over. Yeah. Is there anything else? Sorry, before I, yeah, sorry, interrupting there. Is there anything else about the Kickstarter you want to go through, or should I keep scrolling or,

Nicole Kane (47:01):
Oh, no, we’ve just got the stretch goals to open now, so hoping to get people a couple of more freebies on the end of it.

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (47:09):
Stretch goals, here we go. So you’ve done Unlocked two already. Awesome.

Nicole Kane (47:12):
Two already done, three to go. We’ve got a print by Axle. The artwork is just beautiful. Then we’ve got a little phone wallet that’ll have the Vox and Hound logo the same as the glass on it, and then the last print from David that will also be unlocked if people go to 11 grand. So yeah, there’s heaps of free stuff to unlock, and we’re happy to hopefully get it unlocked by the end of this. So we’ve still got 13 days to go, so it’s not like it’s ending tomorrow.

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (47:43):
Fingers crossed. Fingers crossed.

Nicole Kane (47:45):
Fingers crossed.

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (47:50):
Okay. I am getting lost now. Too many things on the screen at once. No,

Nicole Kane (47:55):
You’re all good. It was a bit sketchy there for a second, but you’re all good.

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (48:00):
So that’s the Kickstarter picture. Nice. Yep. Issue four.

Nicole Kane (48:03):
Yep, issue four. We can’t believe we’ve actually made it to issue four, honestly. Wow. I’m

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (48:09):
Glad you have. I’ve enjoyed the other three,

Nicole Kane (48:13):
Both Chris and I really love the girls, so it’s really awesome.

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (48:18):
Yeah, they’re very funny. If nothing else, they’re very funny.

Nicole Kane (48:24):
God, they’re funny. Funny in a interesting way.

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (48:29):
Oh yeah, we went through these pictures in the Kickstarter, so I won’t,

Nicole Kane (48:32):
So these are, go

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (48:33):
Through those again, pictures

Nicole Kane (48:34):
From the actual panels and the book, and you can see that Chris has been working on those as well, which is really nice. I wanted that uniformity with the bubbles because he did the bubbles on issue three, and I really liked the little nuances he put on the bubbles. So I said, let’s just continue that in issue four, give it some similarity through the issues.

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (48:57):
Oh yeah, cool. Yeah. So what I’ll do is I’ll pass you over to Jerome. He’s got a few questions for you. He’s our question man for the night.

Jerome Castro (49:12):
Yep. Okay. Before anything else, Nicole? Big fan actually.

Nicole Kane (49:17):
Oh,

Jerome Castro (49:17):
Really? Yeah, you

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (49:19):
Both are both.

Jerome Castro (49:22):
I just discovered your work from the last time and I’ve been bingeing like crazy about all your work. We’ll put my other opinions on your other works for another time, but for now we’ll focus on Fox. And how, and first question, what inspired you to make Fox and how? Again, much like how I ask Tim, it’s not every day that you make two Foxy ladies. Sorry, about two Foxy ladies.

Nicole Kane (50:01):
Oh God, there was a lot with Fox and Hound. It kind of was a mesh of a couple of things, but the big Cincher was when my wife was in the shower and I had this sort of half a script, so it wasn’t really a full script, but it was bits and pieces and we sort of were hashing it at the time, and I said, I don’t want to dump it because I, it’s too good. I don’t want to dump this work yet. And she’s like, well, why don’t you repurpose it? Why don’t you do something else with it? And then Fox, somehow Hound just came out of absolutely nowhere, and it was such a lightning bolt moment where they just completely started running off the paper. And then I sort of tweaked the original script and went, okay, I can fit this in here, I can fit this in here. And then we decided to make the mercenaries so they weren’t just completely just superhero sort of stuff. They’re a little bit different, and I’ve sort of moved away from the superhero stuff with them. I think it makes them a little bit more interesting as their characters. And then it opens up the door for second arc, third arc. Chris and I have been talking about that, so definitely it was a good move. But yeah, it came out of a really dodgy conversation in the bathroom and then

(51:24)
Do a lot of the band at a soundtrack. That’s pretty much where it came from.

Jerome Castro (51:31):
So if that’s the case, what’s your process of making Fox and how, because I mean, every artist has their own way of doing things. Put us on a small tour about how you work out a specific issue.

Nicole Kane (51:47):
Fox and Hound is, the only way I can describe it when I write Fox and Hound is like shifting your car gear from one to fight. And it such a huge change in chop between these stories. And especially going to Ingham where the ladies have to be really quick witted, they’re funny. The gags are sometimes a little bit hidden in there and you got to read it again and go, wait, that’s what they were meaning there sort of thing. So usually when I’m writing Fox and Hound, I talk with Chris quite a lot beforehand. I will talk with my wife quite a lot beforehand as well. And then the first thing I do when I start writing is to hit the band at a soundtrack. It’s like a cue in my head that I’m in that head space, you know what I mean? When I’m writing other works, I tend to have my playlists that I listen to that will put me in that headspace. And immediately I think of that sassiness that there’s little bit of adult jokes that come from Bandit in that genre. And I kind of go, okay, you know what? I need the girls to be sassy. And then I just start looking up really not dirty jokes, but I’m going to say dirty jokes.

(53:16)
And sometimes even just an entire scene will come from one line and I’ll be like, oh, that was a great, great line, but would I use that? Where would she say that? And then I start building an entire scene around them and then it just kind of cascade, sorry, cascades from there. God, I’m a writer and I can’t even speak.

(53:38)
But yeah, the girls I find are probably the easiest for me to write. I don’t know what happens, but when I sit down and I start working on them, it’s like they know what they’re going to say and they already start coming out of my head. Whereas some other pieces sometimes struggle on the dialogue or something like that, but these girls, they just blow. They just keep going and keep going and keep going. And it’s basically like Chris and I will say one thing or to another, we’ll tweak it a little bit, but generally I’ll go through two to three draughts, whereas some other works, I can go to 10 or 11 draughts. So yeah, the girls are definitely, definitely here to stay, and they’re a hundred percent one of my favourite things to ride. If I’m having a bad day, I’ll start

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (54:23):
Working on them. Nice.

Jerome Castro (54:26):
That’s really good. So I mean, how long does it take to make one comic book? Which process takes time? Because I don’t think these things come out just from a few days of work. So

Nicole Kane (54:42):
No, to do anything from 22 to 24 pages completely finished for me to write a script, I can go anywhere between eight hours to a week. It depends. Fox and Hound again, usually I’ll sit down, I’ll write the first draught really, really quickly, then I’ll use the rest of the week to go through the other draughts and pinpoint it and make it better. But the hard part is getting Chris to do everything. When you’ve got an entire team, once one person’s finished a pencil page, they’ll pass it straight away onto the ink and they’ll pass it straight away onto the colorist. But when you’re doing it all by yourself, you have to do all of that work by yourself. So Chris and I love him to death for this. He does take on quite a grunt. It’ll take him about two months to two and a half months to finish it.

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (55:44):
That makes sense.

Nicole Kane (55:45):
If I don’t make any changes,

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (55:48):
Which

Nicole Kane (55:52):
I, I’m like, that doesn’t match up, we need to change that right now. And he’s just like, oh,

(56:00)
It’s happened. We’ve been there. And then what he’ll do is he’ll give me all the pages once he’s done the lettering and everything that the lettering is probably the quickest part because all he has to do is just copy and paste my script. So it’s not as bad. But once he gives that back to me, it’ll take me about three days to format the entire comic, get it ready for printing, go to the printer, and then it usually gets printed within a week. So all in all, you’re looking at about three months to do 22 pages, and that’s if we don’t do it or get distracted by a million things, which we do.

Jerome Castro (56:40):
Yeah, that’s arduous work. Well, anyway, here’s a question I’ve always been meaning to ask. I mean, people write your style. I mean, let’s admit it, there are parts of the story that’s not for kids. Oh God, yeah,

Nicole Kane (57:06):
I love it. So with the normal covers, I went to a convention and we had it on the table and this little kid came and picked it up and I was just like, no, immediately. No, no, that does not. I’m like, yeah, it’s pretty colours and everything, but no, no,

Jerome Castro (57:24):
No, no, no, no, no. Yeah, and a lot of people have different opinions on it, and some people do it a different way, and at least from my opinion, you do it really nicely. You do it really artistically. So I mean, what’s your opinion on these kinds of work for comic books and how do you balance it? How do you make it sensual and not weird?

Nicole Kane (57:56):
Not weird. It is hard to do it. My problem is that I actually am the reverse. I like writing sort of stuff with adult themes, and when somebody asks me to do a young adult one, I kind of look at them blankly and then go, wait, you don’t want nudity in there? That’s weird.

Jerome Castro (58:19):
True,

Nicole Kane (58:19):
True. But look, it’s difficult. And I think some people do take it too far in their works. I think some people do just do sex for the sake of putting sex in a comic book. So that’s why I tried to make it a little bit more clever, a little bit more funny. Have those typical gags in there that everybody knows. In, I think it’s the first issue when Fox runs out the bathroom and she doesn’t have a towel on. There’s a bonsai over her downstairs area. So it’s that typical joke that everybody, they know what’s there, but she’s still half naked. So yeah, we really do try to make it interesting and a little bit more adult in its tumour. And then of course you have the nud, these themes, but that’s what happens in life. These people in stressful situations, of course, they’re going to shag look at every PY movie in the world, a million girls in five minutes. So yeah, it’s that sort of realism as well, I guess that you expect when you watch an action movie or APY movie, something like that, that I still to the comic and colliding adult stuff, it’s just easier, I guess, for me to write it, if that makes sense. So yeah, I try to do it in a clever way, really. You do it well. I hope so.

Jerome Castro (59:59):
Ably good. So okay. Of course, you already said that you guys edit your work again and again, but there are stories where there are comic books where they decide on something different. So do you have any stories or interesting panels or stories that you left when you were cutting off the fat basically from the comics, from what you left on the cutting room floor? Any good stories that,

Nicole Kane (01:00:38):
Well, when we got to issue three, which is the one behind me, I had to sort of rethink where the story was going because I originally had this plan to incorporate another comic book with it, and unfortunately that completely fell apart. So I needed to go back and really think, okay, what are these girls doing? What do they need to be doing? What are the important parts? So I just cherrypicked what I needed and then filled the gaps with some new stuff that I thought was interesting. One of the funny thing was I actually had a Russian translator translate all of the Russian for me in the issue.

Jerome Castro (01:01:25):
So all the Russian

Nicole Kane (01:01:28):
Is not formal Russian, it’s more like slang Russian, if that makes sense. So it’s more casual what people would say when they’re in that situation.

Jerome Castro (01:01:39):
Yeah, pretty cool. Makes sense. Absolutely.

Nicole Kane (01:01:42):
Yeah, it gives it that little bit of grit to it. It’s not like if you are a hundred percent, if you’re Russian and you’re reading that, you’re going to go, ah, okay, I see what you mean. So yeah, I feel bad for Chris though. It gives

Jerome Castro (01:01:59):
More life to it.

Nicole Kane (01:02:01):
Yeah, it does. And Chris had to research so much Russian stuff because I started putting all these little things in the background. He’s just like, what is that? What does this do? Sorry. And the other thing that Paul, Chris has had to do is find outfits that look sexy, but still cover them. So in issue three, there’s a point where you see Fox’s outfit, which is this snow kind of fur coat thing, and you see that she’s literally got almost nothing underneath it, but the way he draws it just covers everything. So he’s like, oh my God, these outfits, I got to keep finding these weird outfits for them. I’m like, yeah,

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (01:02:53):
Yeah,

Nicole Kane (01:02:56):
Semi bondage outfits here. I’m like, I’m sorry.

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (01:03:00):
It’s

Nicole Kane (01:03:00):
Fine. It’s fine, it’s fine. I get to look up fashion, it’s fine.

Jerome Castro (01:03:04):
That’s cool.

Nicole Kane (01:03:06):
Yeah, so we love it randomly just send me a picture all of a sudden in the middle of the day or night or whatever, and he goes, oh my God, I could see Fox in this, or I could see Hound in this. This is amazing. And I’m like, yes, save that. We’re putting that in the comic.

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (01:03:22):
That’s awesome.

Jerome Castro (01:03:24):
Yeah, he search history will be interesting if that’s anything. Yeah,

Nicole Kane (01:03:29):
And that’s where come from, we’ve just been scrolling through Pinterest or something and then all of a sudden we’ll see something and we’re like, oh my God, that’s them all over.

Jerome Castro (01:03:46):
And it looks like, from what I read from the story, I mean Charlie and Lena have a really, really good relationship. I mean, have

Nicole Kane (01:04:01):
They have close relationship?

Jerome Castro (01:04:04):
Yeah. Yeah. And I have Hus who Charlie and Lena are based on, but I might as well ask you, are they based on people? Are they character inserts?

Nicole Kane (01:04:17):
No, they’re completely themselves. I think I did kind of take what I love about some of the female spy sort of things. Again, banner, you can see that all running through Charlie. I think Lena is a little bit of atomic blondie, but still with that gag factor from, what is it, Austin Powers a little bit. So they’ve kind of come from a couple of influences from movies and other comics and stuff that I’ve read. But yeah, the girls just pop out of my head randomly and say the weirdest things. Don’t even know where the heck comes from half the time. So actually I blame my wife. She’s sitting behind me laughing.

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (01:05:10):
Awesome.

Nicole Kane (01:05:11):
Yes, I’ll ring her randomly if I can’t get a quote out or something. I’m like, what would she say? In this moment? She just gives 10 really dirty things. And I’m like,

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (01:05:20):
Okay.

Nicole Kane (01:05:22):
Yeah, that’s awesome. They’re not really based on anybody, but I have taken influencers to create the bills.

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (01:05:30):
Cool. Cool. Well, we’ve hit the hour.

Nicole Kane (01:05:35):
Woohoo.

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (01:05:36):
So thank you very much. Just give you a chance to say one last thing about your Kickstarter after this great little interview, I guess.

Nicole Kane (01:05:47):
Well, you can go and back it, but be warned, be warned. Might fall in love because

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (01:05:56):
That’s awesome. Awesome.

Nicole Kane (01:05:59):
Well, thank you very much for having me guys. This is great fun.

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (01:06:02):
Yeah, it has been great fun. Yeah, I’m looking forward to our next show. I’ll have to put that up somewhere. Definitely. Yeah,

Speaker 5 (01:06:07):
We’ll get

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (01:06:08):
You back here.

Nicole Kane (01:06:09):
Definitely. Sounds like a plan.

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (01:06:12):
Awesome. Well thanks for that. I’ll let you go and me and Jerome will go through the other Kickstarters and thank you very much, Nicole. It was great having you on. It was a good laugh. Just lucky comics.

Nicole Kane (01:06:24):
All right guys, have a good night.

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (01:06:26):
Yep, you too. Good night. See you. That was awesome. Yeah, that was awesome. True. This is fun. Episode two. Hang on, hang on. I got to do again. Got to get the banner up. Second episode. That was fun. Yep. Cool. So what I’ll do now, I think I accidentally closed that window. Yes. I did close it. I’m an idiot. Okay, I’ll just bring up another one. Okay, so what we’re going to do here is just have a look at the other Kickstarters and I’ve just got a, I’ve taken you off the screen. I can’t see anything now. And for those who were on Facebook, I believe it was the group Love Australian Comic Books. I believe about 10 or 20 minutes into the show, it got the connection, got cut, hopefully you all got the, I put a link to the, what do you call it? The YouTube. The YouTube. So hopefully everyone who was in there who got cut off, saw that YouTube link and hopped on over to YouTube to watch the rest of the show. So I would just, it’s always watching me stumble around in the computer. Okay, there’s our Kickstarter, so

(01:08:22)
We’ll quickly just see how quickly I can do this. Okay, so here’s all the latest Kickstarters we’ve just gone over Gorilla, my Dreams, the Sheep, the Ghost, and Fox, and the Hound Four. There is also our Kickstarter, the 18 month calendar with Comex with 18 artists. That’s in the link below Comex Link. There’s also a few other Australian Kickstarters that are still going. We’ve got Darren Close, Kru,

(01:08:58)
Semper Fidelis. I think that’s pronounced. I’m not sure. Yep. Cool. Thank you Jerome. And that’s only got 62 hours left on it, so if you want to go across there and it’s your last chance to go get that comic, it looks awesome. It sort of looks like a Predator meets, so it looks pretty cool. We’ve got Inferno Girl, Inferno Girl Red, that’s going gangbusters. That’s like at 87,000, so wow, it’s only seven days left. So if you want to get a copy of that, I think I’ve pledged for that as well. As well as Kru. I usually pledge for every Australian comic to be honest. And there’s a Mosey, I think, I’m not sure how to pronounce that, sorry. Ben Book one, epical from Ancient Egypt comes to life. This looks pretty cool and they’ve only got 35 hours left to go. So if you want to check that out now to check out all the latest links, I will write this up here or edit that. So if you just go to this link that I’m typing in, now I have TVA guys. It’s fun, isn’t it? So if you go there, that particular link will take you always, always take you. I’ve set this up to always take you to the latest Australian indie comic book Kickstarters. So I will also share that in the comments.

(01:11:07)
Hopefully I didn’t misspell anything and that link actually works. Okay. So that’s a good way. If you’re ever curious what’s going on in the Australian Kickstarter, that’s a great link to go to to just see what the latest stuff is. As you can see, it just so happens the Gorilla, my Dreams and Fox and Hound are the two latest Kickstarters that we talk to tonight are also the ones we talk to tonight night. Just as a quick to finish this off, I will simply do a quick little, oh, where is it? Okay, sorry, that just did something on my screen I wasn’t expecting. So here’s a quick look at our quick starter. I’ll just go through this quickly so you can see what’s going on with the 18 months. So here’s all the art together of the 18 artists. Nice little superhero, saving a helicopter. We’ve got our Demon and Alien by Peter Wilson. Got Ben Sullivan’s sort of like the X-Files for Australia, Bruno and Maggie. We’ve got Duncan Vic, hopefully I got that right, Duncan. But his cool little picture here from Ben Kitty got Lee Hawker’s picture here from Battle for Bustle. Karen, Jack’s picture from the Walk, no, the Talking Bread,

(01:13:15)
Colin Wells has done an awesome picture here of Dark Nebula. This is Dave Do’s character, I believe her name is Lee Lauren Marshall’s character Lana Luca. And this is an assortment of characters from Rod’s, SP, sorry, Lyle’s, I guess we’ll call it Spie verse. Yeah, that’s what I’m going to call it. It’s now called that Rob sp verse. And we’ve got Peter Lawson’s picture here of Billabong from Torn, and of course Chris, was it Pitcan? I dunno if I’m pronouncing that right. Sorry Chris, if I got that wrong. And these are the lovely Fox and Hound. So we were just talking about them. We’ve got Tim McEwen, I forget the name of the bull, sorry Tim, but it’s from Greener Pastures.

Jerome Castro (01:14:19):
Yep, it’s from greener pastures.

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (01:14:21):
Greener Pastures. Yep. Sorry about that, Tim. And of course Bronwyn from Isaac George. I’m not actually familiar with the name of this character, sorry Chris. But this is from Chris Hunt and this is a lovely scene by Tom Menzie from his new comic, I believe it’s called Fallen and Stuart Black. Always, always a little funny joke thrown in there from his characters. The four no, the four horse femmes. And this is Zach Elliot’s. This is the December the last month. And this is his little comment called Jet X, I believe that guy there is Jet. And here is us saying pledge. Pledge. So just go to that link com X, so COMX link and that’ll take you to the Kickstarter where you can check out all the different tiers. We won’t go through that now. Check out the ones you like. Check out the one that will suit you in your budget and what you’re after and pledge. That would be awesome. We’ve got a 2300 stretch goal coming up. We’d love to hit that. That’s extra bonus postcard for everyone with a physical pledge. That’s awesome. Art by Ed Kiley. And we’ve got the first three issues of the four horse femmes. I can’t talk tonight. Apparently as part of that stretch goal, everyone with a digital or

(01:16:11)
A physical pledge will get that if we hit that stretch goal. We’re only a hundred and I think it’s about 160 off. I can’t remember to be honest. So yeah, I will stop screen the screen. Thank you everyone. I’ll just check the comments, see if anyone’s said anything towards the end there. No, we’re all good. Thank you everyone who joined us on our second show. We all had fun. I’m glad you did too, Jerome.

Jerome Castro (01:16:42):
Yeah, thanks for having me.

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (01:16:46):
Oh, thanks for coming along. It’s always a pleasure and I guess we’ll see everyone for the night. Thank you very much for coming and yeah, have a great night everyone, and see you next Wednesday. Same Comex channel, same Comex time.

Jerome Castro (01:17:01):
Yeah. Thank you

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (01:17:03):
Guys. See you all next week.

Speaker 5 (01:17:04):
See you. See.