Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (00:05):
Hi everyone. Welcome to the sixth episode of the Oz Comic Show. We’ve got, Nicole came with us tonight, so let’s get the show rolling and it’ll help if I press the right button. Hi, Nicole. Hey guys. Hey, Ian. Hi. Well, welcome. We’re back to the show again. It’s good to have you back this time for a proper hour, so we can talk this time

Nicole Kane (00:55):
For a full hour. So yeah, people have for a full hour, the whole hour,

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (01:00):
So we can talk about more than just one book this time, so that’s

Nicole Kane (01:02):
Pretty cool. Exactly, exactly.

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (01:04):
Yeah, because you’ve got a few, so it’s silly just to talk about the one. So I mean, some people wouldn’t have seen the last show, so I’ll just ask the same question again. Just tell us a little summary about yourself in the industry.

Nicole Kane (01:16):
Sure. So I’ve been writing for about five years now, started comics coming off of cosplaying. Basically, I used to do national level cosplaying, and then after a lot of tears and stuff, ups, I just went, I can’t do this. So basically we found a character and it was Batwoman, and I’m sitting there going, oh my God, I love this character. I love everything about her. So I started researching her, started going into that backstory, and then we looked in the back of the actual books and we saw the scripts and they were done by Greg Rucker and we’re like, oh my God, this is something that I can do. This is something that I can actually write. So after that, I just absolutely, like Wildfire took off and I love doing it. Absolutely love doing it.

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (02:09):
Awesome, awesome. And you’re very good at it too, so that’s pretty cool. Always a bonus. Always a

Nicole Kane (02:14):
Bonus. Some people think I’m good at it, me, but

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (02:18):
I don’t know. The ledgers disagree. I think they think you’re good at it.

Nicole Kane (02:21):
Let’s hope so. They think I’m good at it. But yeah, no, the point of it is really about the fun and bringing these characters that I sort of thought of to life and giving them a voice is super fun. And then when you see the finished product at the end, it’s like, oh my God, this is something I can hold in my hand. And it’s just a work of art, but it’s also a story itself, so very cool doing it. Not going to stop anytime soon.

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (02:51):
Excellent. Excellent. It’s good to hear. Well, I think Jerome has a few questions for you. I might pass you over to him while I go grab my hat.

Nicole Kane (03:00):
Fire away.

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (03:01):
Fire

Jerome Castro (03:02):
Away. Joan your hat at this time, man.

Nicole Kane (03:04):
I’m like, usually people say I’m going to go grab a coffee or a tea and it’s a hat.

Jerome Castro (03:08):
Yeah.

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (03:10):
I like to be different. Yeah.

Jerome Castro (03:12):
Well, yeah, I have a few questions for Nicole today. I mean, the last time we talk about Fox and Hound. So this time we’ll be talking about your other books because I was itching to ask you about the other books from the last time, but didn’t get a chance to do so.

Nicole Kane (03:29):
Yeah, yeah, exactly, exactly. We were really focused on Fox and Hound the first time. So yeah, ask me anything.

Jerome Castro (03:36):
Yep. Okay. Let’s start with one of your ledger awardee book, I guess with Chris Pit Care Health courtesan. So tell us something about Health Courtesan first. What is it about?

Nicole Kane (03:53):
Okay, so this book sort of came from nowhere. I’m really big into legends in general, so just fairytales, mythology, tales, folklore, things like that. And it doesn’t have to be just specifically from Japan. I kind of like them from around the world. And I did a stint of Japanese folklore for a while. I sort of just kind of fell into a rabbit hole of it. And then I found this really small story, which was of course about the hell cortisone, and it’s actually based off some old paintings. And then I tried to get my hands on as much as I could, but there was not a lot of information. But they gave me the general consensus story, which was basically a woman who had made a deal with the devil for eternal beauty and youth, but she could never see it herself. She would see a skeleton in a mirror and things like that.

(04:49)
And it was only when a monk came to visit her that she actually sort of was able to combat this demon or devil and actually get her soul back. So it’s in these really beautiful, beautiful silk paintings. And when I was sort of tossing around with this idea, and I pitched it to Chris because I’d seen his Japanese work in the past, and I thought, no, this is right up his alley. He was like, oh my God, I love this idea. I love the characters. And then we sort of expanded on this world a little bit more. We kind of pushed a little bit more of ourselves into it. We really expanded on the time period. We did a bit of research. We looked at the outfits and everything. And then from there, we actually, this was a pure miracle that’s happened. The exhibit with those exact artworks was in Sydney while we were doing this.

(05:45)
Oh, no way. We actually got to see the actual artworks up on the wall and to see them in person and then to be writing and doing this story, I think I’d written the script at this. We were doing the artwork was just incredible for the two of us. It was like a life-changing moment going, oh my God, this is something that is living right now. So I’ve actually got that in the back of the book as well. I’ve got a little blurb of us going to the museum, the museum pieces in there just to give people that history behind it as well is an actual story. Yes, it is fiction. Yes. We’ve made up a little bit more to the story, but it is an actual story and an actual folklore.

Jerome Castro (06:28):
Which of the art did you see? Is it the SAI one?

Nicole Kane (06:33):
I think it’s actually called The Hell Cortisone the piece. Yeah.

(06:38)
Yeah. There’s another one of just Jing Goku as well at the very end, I think when she’s ascended or something like that. And it’s this really beautiful piece where This’s halo behind her absolutely gorgeous. And we saw the one with the Monk iq, with the dancing skeletons, and I think Chris had just finished that page when we saw it. And then we saw the piece with the dancing skeletons and we just lost our mind because that was exactly what it was. He literally destroy it and we’re like, oh my God, that’s the piece. That’s the page I just wrote. So yeah, it was really amazing to see it in person. And I think the story was just, for me, the story kind of was this little thing that I was playing with, but as I sort of started writing it and as the picture started to come and everything like that, it evolved into something so much deeper and so much more grittier as a story in the end.

(07:38)
And I’m just incredibly proud of the piece at the moment. I can’t wait to bring it to Super Over Sydney. It hasn’t debuted any conventions yet, so we’re really excited to, of course, yeah, we’re really excited to see what people think of it when they see it in person on the table. And then we did the soft covers and we’ve got some of the hard covers actually left, and the hard covers are just spectacular. I think we’ve only got about nine of them left. We did them for the Kickstarter, and it’s just been amazing. And I think Chris really likes doing the graphic novels as well. It takes him a little bit longer, but I think there’s more meat to them at the end of the day. We’re going to try and now pump out one a year if we can sort of played to his strengths, especially with the Japanese stuff. I looked at his portfolio and I went, this is something that you love drawing. It’s something that you’re good at, it’s something that you enjoy researching. So we try and pair those up. But that was definitely the first one. It went spectacularly. Now we are looking at doing a second one that’s involving mermaids because that’s another one of his strengths. Oh, cool. That’s cool. Yeah, it’s really exciting. Super exciting. And of course he has to do, I’ve

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (08:55):
Seen some pictures from that. He’s put up on Instagram and stuff. Looks really, really cool.

Nicole Kane (09:00):
Yeah, he’s fantastic and he really, I’ve pushed him further than what a normal mermaid is as well. I’ve sort of gone, okay, I know you know how to draw a mermaid, but let’s think of it in this term, or let’s put this spin on it, or let’s push it that one step further so it’s not just plain old mermaids. So yeah, I’m trying to push him outside the box as well, as well as myself too. I want to write a story that people can sort of get behind and go, okay, I see where you’re going with this myth, but let’s flip the table here. Let’s put it on its head. Let’s really mess it up and see what crazy concoction we come out of this. I think of comic writing a bit like cooking, throw in a bunch of ingredients, see what you’re going to get.

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (09:41):
Nice. And do you want to, oh, sorry. Sorry, Joe. No problem. There. Any pictures from the comic at all, or you got anything that you’ve got ready or which one? The one we’re just talking about, the Hell’s Quarter. I can never pronounce word

Nicole Kane (09:57):
Hell’s Cortisone. Yeah, if you flick to my Instagram, you’ll find some pictures there, so you can go steal them from there if you like. Or on my Facebook, I put up credits. Okay. Unless you want me to send them to you now?

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (10:08):
Yeah, you can send ’em to me now. That’d probably be the easiest way. If you can do that quickly.

Nicole Kane (10:12):
Sure. I can get my phone and send ’em to you while I’m talking. See, I’m multitasking. I’m fantastic.

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (10:18):
I can only so

Nicole Kane (10:20):
No, that’s fine. One thing

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (10:21):
At a time.

Nicole Kane (10:22):
That’s fine. That’s fine. I’m used to doing this, so, but yeah, look, it was a really, really amazing project and I think it went better than Chris and I had expected in the end. And then he drew these really beautiful pieces, like these three matching artworks of the three main characters together. That just blew my mind. I’ll try and find those and send those two, because they are just spectacular. And then of course, we had a lot of people doing variant artworks and things like that for the Kickstarter that we were able to put in the back of the book as well and give people that little bit of an extra bonus when they got the book as well.

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (10:56):
Yeah, I remember those.

Nicole Kane (10:57):
Yeah, they were really, really pretty. So we were really, really excited and happy to have all that. But yeah, that’s just one of the pieces, and this sort of blossomed out of nothing. I met Chris on an actual fly, so at Free Comic Book day 2019, I think it was beginning of 2019, basically King’s had it out on that main road in Pitt Street. And if people don’t know where Pitt Street is in Sydney, it’s one of the main roads in Sydney, and they had a shop there for a while. Basically, his dad worked across the road, saw the line, came down, went, oh, what’s going on? What’s all this stuff? Saw Nicola’s artwork, bought a piece at the table and then went, oh yeah, my son draws so called his son, said, Chris, get your butt down here. Chris got down there, showed Nicola his work. Nicola went, huh, hang on. We have somebody that you might want to work with. Put him onto me. And that was it. After that just history was made, it was crazy. How awesome

Jerome Castro (12:05):
Was that? That’s se

Nicole Kane (12:08):
Yeah, it was absolute fate, and he has just been one of the best people to work with. I cannot explain to you how amazing he is as not only an artist, but a creator and a designer, and just an all around everything. We really collaborated on Hell Cortisone. It’s just about as much as my work as it’s his now. That’s how much we really collaborated on. That’s really awesome. We are very proud of it. So I’m finding you some photos now.

Jerome Castro (12:43):
It’s something, if I may add, it’s something that you should really be proud of because as an Asian myself, I’ve been reading on Japanese folklore for more than two decades now, and once I saw the PBF that you sent me, the soft copy that you sent over to me, it blew my mind because it was, and I immediately look for the piece online and I’m like, these guys are crazy.

Nicole Kane (13:15):
We really did put a lot of effort and thought into it behind, and there was some moments where Chris would actually pick up on me and go, that’s not what a Japanese person would do or say. And I was like, oh wait, hang on. And I think that was the best part too, is that we really did go into what it is in that Edo period and what would be correct for the time pieces and money and the overall aesthetic of what a Japanese whole house looked like and what the monk would look like and just everything about it. We really did try and make sure that it was sort of appropriate to that age. And then of course, the dialogue too when they say things and they’ve got the Japanese connotations on it as well. We tried to add that in and try to make it sound natural. We didn’t want to make it sound forced or stupid, or especially when you are reading somebody like Jen kus text versus the demons text. We wanted to have that balance of who was what character, and you could easily define their dialogue

Jerome Castro (14:29):
And what’s usually in a lot of stories and in a lot of stories, the usual things that adaptations get a problem of is how to make the entire feeling of the story feel like it’s pure, accurate. Yeah, absolutely. And you pinned that down and that’s why it was so crazy because it’s not just Chris’s art, it was also your writing. You pinned down the feeling from start to finish and it was crazy,

Nicole Kane (15:00):
And I really wanted to give it that really natural flow. I hate when stories jump between characters and it’s really harsh and there’s a cut in the time or something like that. I really try and make those transitions as smooth as possible to get that story from woe to go. I think that’s a really important thing when somebody’s reading a graphic novel, especially a graphic novel that’s a one shot contained in itself. That’s it. You don’t have the room to continue going with another book on top of that or on top of the next slide or whatever. You just have to tell the whole story really cleanly, and yet we’ve really tried to do that with this one. I think it’s been a huge success for us. So we are very, very proud.

Jerome Castro (15:42):
Yeah, and was it, yeah, was it Chris who suggested the art design or was it you who asked to follow the traditional style, the Japanese style that you use for the book?

Nicole Kane (16:01):
So I gave him a rough rundown of the characters, and then I of course showed him the old artworks and things like that, and I said, this is sort of what we’re going for. And then he started looking up artworks and things like that, and then we started looking up traditional painting from the time period and going, okay, we still want that comic book feel, which is how the panels are sort of laid out, but we wanted that painterly japanesey sort of brush effect to it, which he just absolutely nailed. So yeah, it was kind of a collaboration of both of us. And then he would throw me some of the sketches, some of the actual formatting of the book has his original sketches in it too, so you can see what some of his original first artworks were and things like that. So it took a few back and forth for us to sort of go, okay, well, we like that design, maybe that design. I think we had three designs for Bish in the beginning, and then we settled on finally this one. We had about four designs in the beginning, and then we sort of decided to make him look really spindly and really creepy. He really didn’t have a form. He was just like the mask basically. So yeah, we had a few design things that we were tossing up in the beginning, and then we kind of just settled on what we liked the best and what we thought suited the story the best.

Jerome Castro (17:25):
Okay. Yeah, because for context, for listeners who are not familiar with Japanese art, there’s a genre of the Japanese art they call, which is basically, it comes from wood blocks and silk screens and everything is done by hand. And you can imagine at the time, sourcing the sourcing the colours for that and pinning down that colour is usually something that a lot of artists get wrong. And Chris got it really nice.

Nicole Kane (17:59):
Yeah, we said we wanted red to be that main kind of colour, and then you see the really bright pages when she’s working versus the simpler pages when she’s not working, and then everybody’s kind of got their colour codes. IQs got his black and yellow because that’s what the monks used. Goku has got the red, and then bishop’s got the blue because he’s servant. So we really tried to keep everybody in their colour codes so that you could identify those characters really, really easily. The other thing is that Chris actually did a few of the pages by hand. So a couple of those pages are actually done in ink wash, and then he’s digitally coloured them.

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (18:42):
Oh, wow.

Jerome Castro (18:43):
Wow. That’s a lot

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (18:45):
Of work. We’ve just been asked to show the cover, which I’ve finally downloaded. My computer was going to be slow. You guys started cutting out, my computer was going so crap.

Nicole Kane (18:53):
Then, oh, you, that’s not good.

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (18:56):
So there’s the cover,

Nicole Kane (18:58):
So there’s the cover of the book. That’s what the book actually looks like in person. Got it. From the printers. Doug did all the printing. So very, very excited when I first saw it.

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (19:12):
Any picture in particular you want me to go to? No,

Nicole Kane (19:15):
Just flick through all of them.

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (19:16):
Just flick through them. Here we go. Then flick through.

Nicole Kane (19:18):
So that’s one of the inside pages. Chris had to do about 20 pages with rain on him, and he just went, if you do pages with rain on it again, I’ll kill you. And I went, sorry, sorry. Because they had this wet look to them and everything was wet and it had that sort of shine, and he’s just like every single page. And I’m like, I’m sorry, but it came out amazing in the end. So that’s Bish. He got a little taste of Jing Goku flaunting at that point. But yeah, we really tried to keep everything to that period. As you can see, his kimono is actually put on the wrong way in this panel. So people who know how kimono is put on, we’ll notice this is put on the wrong way as a humiliation. So yeah, these little nuances for people who understand Japanese culture, they’ll pick up on them, but the normal reader can see obviously he’s done something wrong in this panel.

Jerome Castro (20:32):
And even the red little flowers. Oh, sorry, there. Yeah, because in Japanese symbolism, red Lotus flowers are associated with hell and death. So it’s something nice. These are small things that gets me really excited. Yeah,

Nicole Kane (20:49):
We really tried to put in these little nuances for people who would understand them, but it’s still a pretty aesthetic for people who might not pick up on it as well. Yeah.

Jerome Castro (21:00):
So how long did it take you to make Health Cortisone, and what was the biggest challenge in working on it? That’s beautiful

Nicole Kane (21:10):
Art. Yeah, that’s one of the prints. So I think, yeah, that’s

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (21:13):
Really nice.

Nicole Kane (21:14):
It took us about four to five months, if my memory serves me correctly. The biggest challenge was doing the hardcover. Not only did they cost a fortune, but totally worth it. Mind you, they were really hard to format. So when you’re formatting a comic book, you have to think of the pages in four page blocks. You can’t think of them as 1, 2, 3, 4 sort of thing. So I actually ended up being two pages short for the printing, which stressed the hell out of me. So Chris actually had to draw in two pages extra on the fly. Oh, wow. 24 hours. We’ve got to draw these pages and put them into the format so that the double flash pages will all line up. So when you open the book, you get that beautiful double splash page.

(22:04)
So yeah, he ended up drawing two extra pages, which actually came out phenomenal. He was actually happier with them the most, I think. So yeah, that was a huge problem in the beginning, but it really did also, so teach us how to format things and how to be really conscious of that. When I was writing the scripts for Future Works, make sure that if you’ve got a double splash page, it has to be on the odd pages because you want to put extra stuff in the beginning or something like that. So yeah, these little design challenges that you sort of pick up along the way and go, okay, I didn’t know that, but now I do. So it’s all a learning curve at the end of the day

Jerome Castro (22:50):
And looking at these art. Yeah, look at this.

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (22:55):
That’s beautiful, isn’t it?

Nicole Kane (22:56):
Yeah. This was very much inspired by, I don’t know if you guys have seen it, but it’s an anime called Xxx Holic.

Jerome Castro (23:04):
Oh, yeah,

Nicole Kane (23:06):
Yeah. These things were very much designed and inspired by that because we absolutely love that anime. And I said, well, it’d be nice to have that sort of feel to these prints.

Jerome Castro (23:20):
It feels, yeah, and the colour of the skin too. It’s how Geisha painted their skins at the time.

Nicole Kane (23:28):
And you can see really clearly in that picture that there’s that sort of papery detail over the picture, so it feels like Japanese paper.

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (23:37):
Oh, yes. Now you pointed out, yeah,

Nicole Kane (23:41):
Yeah.

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (23:42):
I love this.

Nicole Kane (23:44):
So that was one of Chris’s fans for the Kickstarter that we did. So he actually drew every single fan for every single person who ordered one, and he custom painted them.

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (23:57):
Are you serious? Absolutely. That’s cool. Wow.

Nicole Kane (24:00):
Yeah.

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (24:03):
Oh, wow. That’s crazy.

Nicole Kane (24:05):
He did phenomenal work al damn great in the Kickstarter as well. We had some Inbook drawings, so he actually sat at my place and drew them in the books. And then we actually had just some beautiful prints, artwork things as well that he actually drew as well for the Kickstarter. So the people who managed to get those were really, really lucky. This was the double splash page in the book, and this one, actually, I think this one sold on the Kickstarter, if I’m not mistaken.

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (24:37):
Oh, okay.

Nicole Kane (24:38):
So this was one of the ones that he drew by hand and inked by hand, and then he put the colours on later.

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (24:46):
Oh, wow.

Jerome Castro (24:47):
Yeah, because the blacks are really good.

Nicole Kane (24:49):
Yeah, yeah. He’s fantastic.

Jerome Castro (24:55):
Well, I, I’ve got the chance to read Hell Cortisone, and there’s philosophical discussion in the story itself, and especially how you made it your own, how you made it specifically your own, because it’s a little bit different from the original story, from the original lore. So what was your mindset when you did the changes? I mean, were you trying to get a philosophical discussion out of it? Most writers usually are not, but what I got from it,

Nicole Kane (25:38):
Look, I really wanted to keep the initial essence of the story, but because there was so little to go off, I kind of was like, okay, look, when I write stuff, I do what I do, call it the human body when I write. So I start with the bones, and I already had the bones because this story was so small. So I kind of plotted exactly where these story occurrences would go, and then I went, okay, I got to put the muscles in next. So I basically did what I call a flesh run, which is literally doing each page, but you don’t break it down into panels or anything. You just write literally what you want on each page. So I just did that and I went, okay, well, this is how I want it to go. And then I think I did about six or seven of those draughts where I was just cutting or adding or this doesn’t make sense, or this doesn’t flow.

(26:33)
Then you actually do the rest of it, which is the skin and all the details, which is actually flushing out the script. So when I did this, I kind of went, well, I have these really huge gaps to fill with stuff. I went, okay, first off hall house, super easy to fill for me, no pun intended, really easy to fill. I know the context, I know the setting, I know the characters that would be in there. And I thought, okay, you have to show her the clients. You have to show her behind the scenes. You have to show the manager of the place. You have to introduce bi, who was sort of my villain of it all, because the original story really didn’t have a villain. It had the demon, and that was about it. So I’m like, okay, how am I going to put the demon to all of this?

(27:19)
And then of course, she had the coat that had the demon mask on it. That kind of moves. He moves everywhere. So I filled it with that. And then you get to the main point where of course you find the monk who comes. So her interaction with the monk, how long does it take him to sort of sway her over? It doesn’t happen overnight. Then you’ve got to show her transition from that, and you’ve got to show Ani getting angry and what’s he going to do? What would he do in this situation? And then of course, her sort of relapsing, but realising that the demon is wrong and that she’s got to do the right thing. So yeah, it was sort of a bit back and forward and going, okay, what would I like to read? What would somebody who’s reading this story to read? What are the key things that I like to put in? I don’t hold back at all. If a story needs, there’s one scene which is a little bit harsh where Bish gets beaten up. It didn’t hold back on it. I kind of went, well, that’s part of the time period. It’s part of the story. It’s part of the characters.

(28:25)
It gives them assault at the end of the day. And I think that sometimes people do hold back and they do go, okay, we don’t want to put that in because it’s politically incorrect or whatever. But if you’re writing for that time period, you’ve got to think of that time period.

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (28:38):
Yeah,

Jerome Castro (28:38):
Exactly. Yeah.

Nicole Kane (28:39):
True. Yes. So I did do a lot of research into things. I found some really cool little artworks and things like that and some images that I was kind of like, oh, I want to do that scene. I want to write that scene. And I kind of elaborated on it and just really filled those gaps out that would help the story flow at the end of the day, and still keeping that bone structure underneath, which is the important part of the story. It’s just one graphic novel.

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (29:08):
Yeah, so I’ll let you answer that one,

Nicole Kane (29:12):
Just one graphic novel. Yeah, Chris and I like doing these sort of one shots because once they’re done, that’s it. You get a really beautiful story. You get a really beautiful product that you can read over and over and over again. It’s like a story storybook of art. So yeah, we’ll be doing more of them, but in different genres, basically.

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (29:36):
Oh, yeah. Cool.

Nicole Kane (29:37):
Yeah.

Jerome Castro (29:38):
Yeah. And the book itself, it was, at the very least, in my opinion, it felt like a philosophical discourse. It was more a lot of things about humanity and existentialism.

Nicole Kane (29:52):
Yeah, I did a lot of researching into, what was the name of the, I can’t remember the monks sort of religion, but I went completely into that. I dove so far into that, and I was like, what am I reading here? It was almost like restarting Buddhism or something. I was like, oh my God, what have I gotten myself into? But you have to just filter through everything to get those really important and key little phrases that you want to build on. And especially when there’s a page in it where he’s drawing on Jingo Kus back with the brush ink. That conversation that’s going on was pretty much the entire of my research condensed down into one page. And it’s a really important page on showing how the monk views humanity versus how she views humanity. And especially when he’s having that conversation with the ani over the fish pond too, and it’s the first moment that he realises that he doesn’t completely have a full grip on her anymore. She’s like, I don’t need your treasures. I don’t need your trinkets anymore. And we really tried to show that it was a little bit deeper than just a normal graphic novel would be. It’s not a crime thriller. It’s not a sci-fi book. It was a historical journey really into this really old story that a lot of people may not know about and now get to relive in a more modern and you liked.

Jerome Castro (31:32):
Yeah, and more people should read it. Really. I cannot recommend this enough, Shane, I broke Shane’s ear from me talking about your book, really, but he’s been hearing it from me nonstop since the first day I read it. But people should really give this book a read because it’s not only a type of story that you tell on the fly and you read in an afternoon. It’s something that makes you think deeper

Nicole Kane (32:03):
If you read it over and over again. If you look at the artwork in the background after you’ve read it, so you read it once, you get the gist of it, you read it a second time, you start to get the nuances. You read it a third time, you really start to notice what we’ve hidden in the background of those pages. We specifically started to hide things in the back of these pages for those reasons, and it was,

Jerome Castro (32:24):
I better get to reading third time. Then.

Nicole Kane (32:26):
It was so much fun doing it. We just get all these little pictures and stuff like that, and sometimes you don’t look at it and then you suddenly see the ani in the back of this really tiny picture, and you’re like, wait, what’s he doing there? Sort of thing. So yeah, we really, really did enjoy doing that. And when the pages kept coming out, every time I saw them, I pretty much just wanted to cry. I was just like, it was so beautiful

Jerome Castro (32:52):
Personal legend

Nicole Kane (32:54):
To answer the question that was on screen before I had to do a lot of research, a lot of research. I’m not going to lie. If you want to be a good comic book writer, you need to do your research, especially if you’re going to write like I do, which is folklore and mythology and things like that. You really have to get it right, especially if you’re retelling something that’s already been told as well. If you’re telling something that’s been told for the first or second time, yeah, okay, fair enough. You can fudge a few of the details. If you’re telling something that has a really deep meaning, has a connection to a culture, you have to pay respect to that, and you have to do work, of

Jerome Castro (33:31):
Course, and especially for a lot of people, if someone got something that I’ve been reading for two decades wrong, it’ll rub me the wrong way. And I’m very happy that this went very, very right. It was so

Nicole Kane (33:52):
Good. We’ve put a lot of work into it. I think it’s about 90 pages. I think the book is like 120 all up because of the extra content we’ve put in the back of it. But I think the actual story is 90 pages, so it’s quite a hefty, chunky thing that you can pick up and read.

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (34:09):
Yeah, it’s good. Solid story.

Nicole Kane (34:12):
Yeah. Want to, I’m just seeing if

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (34:13):
It’s in front of me, but it’s not within reach.

Nicole Kane (34:16):
It’s over there, but I can’t see it.

Jerome Castro (34:20):
Well, what do you think makes hell court design uniquely nsca? How did you put your signature on it? I know it’s a different story from a different time, but what did you do to make it uniquely worse?

Nicole Kane (34:38):
This is really, really bad, but I’m going to say it.

(34:42)
I can’t help writing porn. It just makes everything that I do, sadly, sad, sad. I try and avoid it as best that I can, but it just sneaks its way in there. So I think people coming from reading Fox and Hound, they saw the similarities a little bit when they read Hell Cortisone and went, oh, first few pages, there’s sexy. But I think the thing that made it sort of uniquely me was the transitions in the story. One of the things that sits in the back of my mind after hearing quite a few writers talk and things like that is that transitions are really, really important and it can make or break a story. Getting that flow makes or breaks a story, and I really tried, especially coming from an arts background to depict these pages in that art form and really just even each page has that flow to it. Those panels sit where they’re supposed to. The dialogue sits where it’s supposed to, and I’ve tried to put that stamp on everything that I do now. I’m very much aware of it. I’m very invested in it, and I hope that it translates through each story that I write, especially with the changing genres. Fox and Hound is so completely different to hell, but if you read them and you look at that story flow of each of them, I hope both of them are on par with each other.

Jerome Castro (36:19):
They are. I’ll tell something when you say that you can’t help write porn, it’s not foreign. I’ll tell you straight up, it’s not Foreign

Nicole Kane (36:30):
Fox is, let’s just say that Foxen Hound is fan service, but health quarters aren’t elevated that a little bit.

Jerome Castro (36:39):
Yeah. Because in my opinion, it takes what’s this, porn is hard to make tasteful, and a lot of your work is very, very tasteful. It’s sexy and it has nudity in it, but it’s tasteful.

Nicole Kane (36:58):
One of the things that is sort of my go-to book is definitely Greg and I bring this up all the time. I’ve got it tattooed on my wrist. It’s my Bible. There is a piece in it where there’s sex scene going on over the top of a fight scene, and I love it because it is so tastefully done and it juxtaposes that fight scene so well, and I’m like, that is what I want to aspire to. That’s the work that I want to do. I don’t want to make it this gratuitous nude scene where somebody’s coming out of the shower or something like that. I want it to have a purpose. I want it to have meaning. I want it to give the book an elevation that it should have at the end of the day. It’s not just sex with sex, but it does sneak in all the time, whether I like it or not, it’s just there.

Jerome Castro (37:56):
It’s wanting to write sensual stories like that and have them be really, really meaningful.

Nicole Kane (38:03):
And look, if the story is going that way, I kind of just let it go that way. If I know that somebody’s going to get beaten up or somebody’s going to fall down a hole or whatever, the story is obviously pushing me towards that way. So I let the story go. If the story feels like it’s going that way, I’ll just let it go that way. And sometimes that’s the best thing you can do because the story is coming out of you naturally, and you’re not forcing it and going, gosh, what am I going to write in these next 10 pages?

Jerome Castro (38:31):
Yeah, makes sense. Yeah. And Dave, that was correct with what he said. Go to an art gallery and there’s nudity in it, so there’s no problem about it as long as it tells a story,

Nicole Kane (38:45):
As long as it’s pointing it to the story and not just cheesecake or beefcake.

Jerome Castro (38:49):
Yeah,

Nicole Kane (38:51):
Yeah. Except in Fox now. Then we’ll just leave it there.

Jerome Castro (38:59):
Well, okay. Well, then let’s move. Has a lot of fun story. Story of yours.

Nicole Kane (39:05):
Yes. Which one?

Jerome Castro (39:07):
Let’s talk about the circle. I’ve also seen the circle. Can you tell us quickly about the circle for those who haven’t seen it so far?

Nicole Kane (39:16):
Sure. So it’s what we call an ashcan. It’s only 10 pages long. I usually try and get artists who I’m working with for the first time to do one of these just to see how they go with the work. This was Chris’s first work with me, so we talked about it. I said, okay, look, his portfolio had fairies all over it. I went, cool, let’s do a fairy story. This wasn’t your average fairy story. This is really melancholy. It’s really sombre, but it has such a powerful message at the end of it, and the artwork is just smashing. Hello. So basically, he smashed it out really, really quickly, and when I saw the artwork, I was just completely blown away. I was like, okay, you know what you’re doing? You’re listening to what I’m saying in my scripts. You are reading them properly, and you are finding exactly what I’ve got in my head and pulling it out, which is exactly what you want out of your

Jerome Castro (40:18):
Eyes. Yeah, exactly. If

Nicole Kane (40:20):
Envision things the way that you kind of envision them wearing and you’re on the same wavelength, it doesn’t work. So yes, there is nothing wrong with cheese, beef, but yeah, with the circle, Chris did an amazing job of making this really, really sad little story. It’s about a grandma telling the story of why her mom left her, and basically you see that you follow the mom through the story, and she basically, unfortunately, has a drug problem, but the drug sort of puts her into this mythical fantasy fairy world where she’s taken away by the fairy king, but it’s not the fairy king. It’s actually the drug that kills her. So the grandmother’s trying to tell her in a really sweet way why her mother left. And yeah, it’s actually got a really, really sad ending to it. But the artwork is just spectacularly beautiful, and it compliments the work so well. So yeah, it’s just a little, we loved it. People were really, really excited when they first saw it. The cover was stunning. Yeah,

Jerome Castro (41:30):
And there was a sprinkle of Celtic mythology in it too, so yeah,

Nicole Kane (41:36):
Absolutely. Oh, nice. Absolutely. Yeah. Like I said before, I love my mythology. I love my folklore. I try and put it or try and write as much as I can. I just love researching it. I’ve been researching it since I was probably eight years old. I can remember having this gigantic thick encyclopaedia sort of thing of mythology as a kid. And yeah, I just kind of go from there. I’ve actually got two more pieces in the works at the moment with Chris that are based on mythology and folklore, so I kind of, I’m

Jerome Castro (42:08):
Looking forward to that

Nicole Kane (42:10):
It and even going draw this, draw this. Yeah.

Jerome Castro (42:15):
Excellent. Actually,

Nicole Kane (42:18):
I’ll send you, if I’ve got the cover, I will send it to you. Oh yes. My next pieces with Chris, and this will probably

Jerome Castro (42:26):
Be’s an exclusive

Nicole Kane (42:28):
Sneak peek of the cover for the next

Jerome Castro (42:30):
One. Sneak

Nicole Kane (42:30):
Peek. Yes. But yeah, it’s a really cute sombre story. What was the other one you wanted to talk about?

Jerome Castro (42:42):
Yeah, I’ve also gotten around reading some of the other ones I’ve seen Clockwork, which is another, yeah, that was my

Nicole Kane (42:54):
First book ever Clockwork.

Jerome Castro (42:57):
Oh, wow.

Nicole Kane (42:58):
Another 10 pager. So it was the first time I actually did any lettering on my own as well, and I did all the formatting on my own, and I just really, really learned from that experience, and it was a lot of fun to do. I love the Little Story again, really weird little sort of sombre story. The Apprentice Gets Revenge on the Clockmaker, really weird little twists on just a normal story and a lot of fun to do, a lot of fun to do.

Jerome Castro (43:34):
And these stories, the Circle Clockwork, they play on hope and despair a lot, and I’ve seen that pattern over there. And how do you balance those? How do you play with what you want your readers to feel when they’re reading your stories?

Nicole Kane (43:52):
Honestly, I just want the readers to enjoy the story at the end of the day, and I want to give them something that they usually wouldn’t read. I think that if you do something that’s basically the same thing over and over and over again, people are going to get bored of it. Superheroes, yes, I don’t mind writing them, but they are not the be all and end all of my world. I feel like thankfully, dime a dozen superhero stories. I’m trying to push the genre of comics to a whole new level as to where it should be and where it could be. I’ve seen some amazing works come out in the years, especially from Image From Vault. They’re my benchmarks where I want to be as a writer and where I want to be as a storyteller in general. And I think that people need to move away from what is traditional comics into what they can be or could be in the future, and what they can be and could be are something incredible. These things are pretty much story art books now. That’s why they’re called graphic novels. They’re story art books. So I think that that’s definitely something that we try and strive for at the end of the day.

Jerome Castro (45:16):
And these are what I mean, from what I’ve seen, some of your ash cans, is that correct?

Nicole Kane (45:26):
Yeah, little Ash cans. Yeah. I’ve got quite a few of them now,

Jerome Castro (45:29):
And what I’ve seen is that they’re akin to what I can consider as adult fairytales. They’re very adult in teams. They play on hope, despair, and this basically how people would think about how they exist, and the feeling is it’s very different. Yeah, you’re exactly correct. So do you intend these to happen, or do you make the direction of your stories to go there, or do they just develop naturally as you go with the stories?

Nicole Kane (46:11):
They kind of just happen naturally, really. I just kind of get an idea and then I kind of go, okay, can I elaborate on this idea or not? I think I have a huge folder just in my drive of basically just plot notes or images that could potentially become stories at the end of the day, and you just don’t know what’s going to happen with them. Sometimes I’ve got a story that’s sitting there for months on end or years on end, and I’m like, okay, I don’t know what I’m going to do with this. And then it just goes, bang, and you’re like, wow, okay. Where did that come from? Sort of thing. So yeah, it just depends on who you find, what you want to do, what you want to write, and then what comes to you that day. Sometimes I don’t even feel like writing.

(46:59)
Sometimes I’m sitting there going, well, that was a bad day. And then you read back on it and you go, oh God, what did I write? What was the garbage that I wrote today? But sometimes it works and it sits and it fits well, and you’re like, okay, this is fitting, this is working. I find that with Fox and Hound quite a lot that it just flows out of me. The girls just come from nothing. So yeah, basically I’ve just got so much stuff sitting in the background. You could me if it’s like, I don’t know, from gamers to witches to stories about bees. I’ve just got things everywhere. I’ve got something for everybody, basically. Right.

Jerome Castro (47:47):
Okay. Okay. So Tamir Gaylor is asking a lot of the stories that you tell are folklore, history of mythology. Are they inspired, but are they inspired by your own life? Good question. Really.

Nicole Kane (48:06):
I wish I had that life. I’m going to say that, right? I wish I had life. Yes. So this is one of the newer ones. This is a bit of a sneak peek of what the cover’s going to look like. It’s not really based on my life. I try and give the characters their own lives, if that makes sense. I kind of try and breathe something different into them. I really do try and think about what the character is and what they’re, oh, here comes my cat.

(48:39)
I knew who was going to interrupt at some point, so I’ll give you the example with these two. This is a story that means a lot to me. It’s very dear to my heart. I used to get read this story as a kid, and it’s, oh, wow, wow. This story is called Diamonds and Totes and it, it’s something that’s stuck in my mind ever since I was five years old, and I have now put my own spin on it, and I’ve brought this really old story. You say this to people, you go the story diamonds and toes, and people go, what? I’ve never heard of that, and I’m bringing it into a whole new century. These girls, some of their backstory, some of their attitude does come from me. I’ve put it in a European setting. My background is European, so I know where these girls are, I know what they’re doing.

(49:37)
I know their language, I know their terminology. I know the environment. I know the politics and things like that. So yeah, a lot of me has bled into this story. And then you’ve got something like Fox and Howard, which just has none of me in it whatsoever. It’s just purely them. So it is a bit of give and take of both. Sometimes you do find yourself as a writer, unfortunately, bleeding into things, and sometimes you’re like, well, this character is totally not me, but I’m dying to get this character who is not me out because I would never do something this crazy, or I would never do something this unexpected, but this would be so cool if I could. I’d never swim with sharks ever, ever. No way. I would hundred percent write a sharp swimming character because if it called for it, it calls for it. So me as a person, no, no, no, no, no, no. You won’t even get me near a beach. I hate the water.

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (50:44):
I’ve been like that since I was this high, and I watched Jaws.

Nicole Kane (50:47):
Yeah, my dad was watching the Megalodon movie the other day, and I was just like, I’m out. I’m out by, I’m not dealing with this

Jerome Castro (50:59):
Well. Well, I am an aspiring creative writer myself, I will admit. And I still have this one story that is still in fragments in my pc. So what is your advice to people like me who want to write comic book stories and are struggling at it?

Nicole Kane (51:21):
Okay, first thing, do your research. And that doesn’t mean just in story wise. That means as in writing wise, look at other writers, look at other comic books, find what you like. So my stuff, I love Greg Rucker. I love the guys who did Hext. I love the guys who did Heathen from Vault. Lowe is one of my favourite comics of all time. The artwork and the story is just magnificent, and use that as your benchmark go, okay, I’m not going to copy them, but this is where I aim to be. This is where I’m going to get to. And then start working. Once you tighten up that script, once you start getting a flow for it, start writing little things. Write two pages, five pages, 10 pages. You don’t have to write a 90 page graphic novel in one day. You can write these little tiny stories and just put them in a file somewhere on a back burner or hit up an artist and go, Hey, I’m looking for somebody to do or collaborate a project with me.

(52:28)
And then if you can successfully get that done, that shows that you’ve got the stamina, you’ve got the drive, you’ve got the guts to do it, and then you just keep doing that. You just keep putting out these little tiny things, have the big graphic novel to the side, but rewrite it a couple of times or write it and then put it down for a couple of years and go back to it. I have pieces that I wrote right at the very beginning of when I started that I’ve still got sitting back on a back burner, and I still know that I’m not ready to write them yet because they’re so massive a project, and I’m like, I’m not there yet. I’m not there in that skill level yet. So if you’re starting, start small, do your research into script writing, do your research into the comic books that you want to aspire to be, and then do your research into the story, whether it be fantasy sci-fi, historical drama, romance.

(53:26)
Just do all that research and then get yourself out there. And then again, don’t be afraid to just jump onto social media and go to the groups, go, Hey guys, I’m looking for somebody to do 10 pages with me who wants to collaborate and do something and see what happens And think. That’s the hardest part is finding somebody who will collaborate with you, as they always say, you break a couple of eggs to make an omelette. So yeah, it’s for people who want to do it. It’s really, really fun. The indie world’s picking up now really, really well. So if you’ve got ideas, don’t be afraid to get them out there. And comics is just a fantastic medium to be in at the moment. It’s just completely evolving and changing to what it used to be.

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (54:17):
Agreed. It’s just getting better and better, it seems, Andy.

Nicole Kane (54:20):
Yeah, absolutely. And the Australian talent scene is getting huge as well, which is fantastic. Awesome. We need more writers. We need more artists. We need more people creating down here so that America goes, oh crap, there’s talent down there. Let’s go steal it.

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (54:36):
No, don’t steal it. Well,

Nicole Kane (54:40):
Come and fund us. Come and fund us. Let’s

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (54:43):
Make yes, fund us. That’s even better. Make a

Nicole Kane (54:45):
Publishing house down here, please. So yeah, that is my advice. Even though I’ve only been doing this for five years, if you want to take it, take it if you don’t feel free to.

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (55:00):
You’ve been doing it successfully. If there’s anything to that very successfully

Nicole Kane (55:05):
Look, it’s a passion of mine, and I think that even though there is a success behind it, as some people can see or I can see, or whoever, at the end of the day seeing the books is what brings me the most joy. It’s not about the money. It’s not about getting a publishing deal. It’s not about any of that. It is literally seeing those books at the end of the day and going, wow, I created this. And I think that moment came when Hell Quarters Aren got put in King’s Comics in Sydney. I think I burst into tears when I got the email saying that it’s going to be put in the store, and I took it in the next day, and I was just so excited to see that go into a store.

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (55:45):
That’s awesome.

Nicole Kane (55:46):
When you get that moment, it’s an absolute blessing. So yeah, that’s what I live for. That’s why I do this. I do this to see people get the joy out of it, to see the book and to see it in stores.

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (56:02):
That’s awesome. Well, we could probably go into more, but I think we’ll leave it at that. We’re at the hour mark, almost, almost. Is there a link you want me to share with people or just whack it in the private chat if you want? If there is isn’t. Yeah, and I’ll send it out to everyone.

Nicole Kane (56:28):
Perfect, perfect. I’ll link the Instagram, I’ll link the Facebook page, and you guys can go and have a look and yeah, do the thing.

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (56:36):
Cool. Oh, we’ve got some comments. Hang on.

Nicole Kane (56:48):
Oh,

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (56:48):
Sure.

Nicole Kane (56:49):
I really hope you do. I really hope you do, because that’s the joy of it. I had somebody who found me a couple of years in Supernova, and then they came back the next time I was in Sydney, and they said, oh, do you have anything new because I really want more. And I was just like, oh, I have a fan. Fan. Yes, I’ll provide links where you can get all the books from as well in the chat. Awesome,

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (57:14):
Awesome. I’ll give you, are they the same ones in your profile? Out of curiosity, in the Comex profile, do you have links to your store in there? Do you know? I’ll just check. Rather than asking you, I could just check.

Nicole Kane (57:27):
Pretty sure it links to my website, which has a store in it.

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (57:30):
Yeah. Cool.

Nicole Kane (57:31):
Yeah. Or you can PM me on Facebook. I’m happy to send you out more than just the books. I’ve got heaps of merch still leftover, so yeah, hit me up anytime. I will send you out some freebies as well for being on the show.

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (57:48):
Google’s playing with my site. Oh, that’s new.

Nicole Kane (57:53):
Thank you. Internet.

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (57:56):
I set up something the other day to just try to find out what it did, and it’s just done it. That’s full on. I wasn’t expecting that. It’s this massive ad at the top of my page now. I wasn’t expecting that at all. It’s bigger than the Title I. Here you are. I’m back at you guys.

Nicole Kane (58:17):
I love technology. Isn’t technology great?

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (58:20):
Yeah. Especially when you’re not used to it.

Nicole Kane (58:21):
Yeah,

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (58:24):
Yeah. Just send it out to everyone, the link to there. It’s got your shop, it’s got your Instagram, it’s got all your links to everything. So I thought that’s probably the easiest one to send out.

Nicole Kane (58:33):
Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely.

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (58:35):
To the people in the group. In the group. You won’t be able to see this. Actually. I can’t post to groups for some reason, so I’ll have to create a banner, do an on the fly.

Jerome Castro (58:49):
Yeah. And as an advertisement to Nicole’s work, really, guys, wherever you see her work, grab a copy because

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (59:01):
Oh yeah, definitely.

Jerome Castro (59:03):
Yeah. Well,

Nicole Kane (59:04):
Like I said, I’m going to be at Supernova in June in Sydney, so if you’re in Sydney, absolutely stop by the booth. Come and say hi to me and Chris. We’ll have all the stock there. We’ll have extras there. We’re selling heaps and heaps of stuff, so come by, have a chat with us. Feel free to just hang out and have fun. So yeah, definitely in Sydney. Hit us up.

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (59:25):
Yeah, wish could be. Wish I could be. I’m Brisbane boy. Too far away.

Nicole Kane (59:30):
That’s all right. We’ll get there eventually again, maybe

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (59:32):
Next year. Maybe next year.

Nicole Kane (59:33):
Maybe when Covid finishes, we’ll be back. Yeah, so definitely.

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (59:38):
Cool. Well, thank you very much, Nicole. It was an absolute pleasure having you on. Again,

Nicole Kane (59:42):
Thank you for having me back.

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (59:44):
Oh, our pleasure. Definitely. Now that you’ve talked about some of the books, I haven’t read Slack me, I now have to read them. Now that I’ve heard about ’em, has gone about them, but he’s describing ’em a little better this time that I’m like, yep, okay. I need these. Need these in my life. I need these in my life. So thank you very much. Thank you. Yep. Have a great afternoon. Thank you to everyone who joined us and yeah, cool. I’m knocking things down off my shelf here. See you before I get tumbled in the technology. I will let everyone go. Okay, goodnight. See you guys.

Nicole Kane (01:00:23):
Thanks.

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (01:00:24):
See you. Bye. Bye.