In this AusComX special I’ll be chatting with Tad Pietrzykowski, Dave De Vries and Shane Foley about what is bound to prove to be a smash hit…
The Dark Nebula/Southern Squadron REBIRTH.
Support the Kickstarter at http://kck.st/3XBmhGz
Now join me while we chat to the creators of these characters and the artist behind the gorgeous art inside.
TRANSCRIPTION (there may be errors in the following text)
Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (00:00:11):
Welcome to a special edition of the OS Comic Show. Tonight we are talking about this Kickstarter and the gentleman behind it, at least some of them, the Dark Nebula and the Southern Scor Rebirth. So without any further ado, let’s get on with the show. Welcome gentlemen.
Tad Pietrzykowski (00:00:51):
Hello, Shane.
Shane Foley (00:00:53):
Hey mate. Well, how are you, Dave? Great.
Tad Pietrzykowski (00:00:57):
Yeah, good, good, good.
Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (00:01:01):
Well what I thought we might start with is just so some people out there who might not know you guys. So we’ll just go through one at a time, just a little about yourself. We’ll start with you, Shane just
Shane Foley (00:01:12):
Start with
Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (00:01:13):
Me. Tell us about you and how you are part of this project.
Shane Foley (00:01:21):
Comic Reader from way back started with the Phantom, became a marble fan in the sixties, red Comics pretty well all my life. Still love the sixties, seventies, some of the eighties stuff most, I vaguely remember being introduced to Cyclone with the Southern Squadron in it and Dark Nebula in it and sending some stuff to Tad. Pretty much sent it to Tad first. My version of Dark Nebula was much more marbled at the times. So yeah, my influences really are Jack Kirby, John Emer, a lot of other stuff as well. But I liked that more sort of mainstream look. And I did some work and the first work I actually had published in Australia in Index was an Aurora presents. Oh, okay. Where I think the first one I did was one the Dave, right? Wasn’t it was Squadron and Bodi Dean’s characters. The Wew Off. That’s right. Yeah. Remember that
Tad Pietrzykowski (00:02:29):
Curse? Yeah.
Shane Foley (00:02:30):
Yeah. So these guys are involved all the time. I got the script from Tad, but David had written it. I did the second part of it, I think. Yeah. Oh yeah. And then I did NEB show for a long and Bits and Bit ever since <laugh>. Yeah, think I started about half years. I ran a short a month in Crash Magazine that was called The Saga of Charoo Words, but well over 15 years ago. You, is that enough? Is that what you wanna know?
Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (00:03:11):
Yeah, yeah. Just a little bit yourself so people can, and you are the artist on this, aren’t you?
Shane Foley (00:03:18):
Yes, much to my surprise. Yes,
Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (00:03:21):
Yes. That’s awesome. I guess. We’ll Dave, you can go next.
Dave de Vries (00:03:28):
Okay. I started doing comics actually by creating a bunch of superheroes called the SU Squad. This was almost 40 years ago. In fact, in about 31, 32 days time, it’ll come around for its 40th anniversary. Yeah, so it was in 1983 and that they first appeared in Cyclone, sorry, in Oz Comics which was published in Sydney. It appeared in Oz Comics one and Two. Then about four years late, no, three years later Gary Chalan got in touch and we ended up publishing a southern squadron in the pages of Cyclone. It was part of a four part anthology or four title anthology. There was a Dark Nebula. Dark Nebula had already appeared in its own title in 1982, so it’d be Southern Squadron by a year. And then we had the Southern Squadron, the Jackaroo which was part of a broader concept called Harry and the New Heroes.
(00:04:37):
And then there was also the original Golden Age Southern Cross. I had a Southern cross in the Southern Squadron storyline. And so there was some talk about maybe changing the character’s name to the Southern Star. And I said, no, the characters are not going to be confused because one set in the 1940s, the other set in the 19 back then 1980s, why don’t we leave them in? And one can be inspired by the other. And so we’ve actually had a bit of fun with that over the years. Within fairly short time the Gary Chand storyline started to introduce some of the Southern Squadron characters. This is by issue three. I then introduced some of Gary’s characters into the Southern Squadron storyline. And then we introduced one of Ted’s characters, which was the Grand Standard, which was a villa which appeared on the first of the Ular stories.
(00:05:32):
And so by that stage we started to get something that was resembling what became known as the Cyclone Universe characters and story shorts that sort of blew up, expanded until the point where we ended up with the Southern Squadron. Then being exported to America did very well there. We had Dark Nebula also bringing out its own title. The Southern Squadron took over the cyclone mainstream title, so with issue nine called Cyclone and suddenly became called Southern Squadron. So there is no Southern Squadron number one. There was Cyclone eight and then Southern Squadron nine. That’s like the way we did. I did it with Spiderman like Shane. We were very heavily influenced by Jack Kirby and Stan Lee. And so a lot of their approach to the early marble sort of was done by us. Interestingly the Dark Nebula was set in the future of the Cyclone Universe and was I think dark Nebula’s origin story happened about the time that I ceased publishing Southern Squadron.
(00:06:37):
So this became something that TA and I thought we could maybe create a story which sort of chronologically continued the Southern Squadron storyline. And then was the bridge between the Southern Squadron series of comics and the dark nebulous series of comics. And the Southern squadron had popped up in the back in comics, but there’d never been a storyline where the two had merged together. So when we talk about the Southern squadron and the dark nebulous story being together to together for the very first time, we are having a little bit of a cheap wink. But the reality is that in the chronology of these characters, this story is designed to be the first time that the Southern Squadron and the Dark Meet. Even though in publishing history, I’ve met many, many times over the years. Yeah. So I ended up doing a lot of stuff for Marlon DC comics back in the late eighties, early nineties.
(00:07:32):
Then I moved into film and television and it always kept a bit of a hand on what I was doing with comics. We brought the Southern squadron back with a sort newer look, many of the elements of which have been retained since. And that was woven into a horror comic, which was sort of a look back at that Bronze age. And that was with In Decay. So there was a sudden Squadron story, horror, horror story. There was the dark one, I think it was Stump, but not much. It was really fun. And so I’d always been thinking of bringing the characters back at some point. And then when Covid hit as Shane, a lot of us started to meet up in and net. We had the <inaudible> Club Reconnect, which was a group of a virtual version of basically a Thursday night pub evening that we used to catch up with in back in the eighties in Sydney.
(00:08:31):
And during that time Chad and I were looking at stuff that we’d done in the past and we also had guys like Gary D showing up. Gary Every Is as old as Southern Squadron and Dark Nebula that goes back to 19 80, 83 or 82 or 83 as well. Oh yeah. And it just seemed to make sense. And Gary D was as doing torn. I really loved what he was doing there. And we started talking about doing a torn crossover. And I were talking about doing a southern squadron crossover with dark Nebula. Long story short, we’ve all kind of got together and we’ve got this idea of a torn Southern Squadron crossover series, a southern squadron maybe crossover series. And there’s also in the works of Darkula and torn crossover series. So these will end up with three series of three books, nine books all up where these characters all come together. And we’re not exactly, we’re not inventing the term the Aussie superhero Renaissance, but we’re sort of definitely giving it a really good check along. And so that’s probably enough from me. Yeah.
Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (00:09:39):
Cool. Thanks Dave. Well Chad, I saved you for last because this is an important year for you and especially for Dark Nebula. So tell us why is this year an important year?
Tad Pietrzykowski (00:09:51):
Well, it’s important because Dark Nebula has turned 40 this year. And as Dave was saying, next year is the squadron’s 40th. And the main reason why we are doing this crossover is to celebrate both anniversaries. I know it’s leaking into the 40th birthday of the squadron more, but the truth of the matter is it really doesn’t matter where when it all comes out. I mean, it is literally starting in dark nebulous 40th birthday and does spill over into the squadron’s 40th. And as far as I’m concerned, I think if dark nebulous 40th does in fact spill over into the next year, but then mores the better. But it’s gonna be a joint celebration. And that’s why with this project, it’s very important that people realize this is the dark Nebula and the Southern Squadron, not the dark nebula with special guest stars or strategic guest stars, a southern squadron.
(00:11:04):
When I first approached Dave with this idea, I’d had this one brewing in my mind for quite a few years because back when Dark Nebula turned 25, and Shane, you were there for this, we reinvented the origin of the dark Nebula with what became the graphic novel origins. And it was a retelling. But what I realized was important was we needed, if I was just gonna tell the story verbatim the way it was before, where’s the mystery? What new information is there? People needed new information in that. And so I approached the dark nebulous origin then with providing information that simply wasn’t in the first one. Not saying that I’ve just decided to check this stuff in, but to give them the information they didn’t get the first time around. And it was a golden opportunity to really explore aspects of it. And without word of a lie, a couple of years before this was released, and in fact while I was convalescing from this, I actually had a near death experience in a car accident with a horse.
(00:12:32):
And oddly enough, that gives you a greater understanding of your own intellectual property, who the dark, he becomes the dark nebula after he dies and he is brought back Now when you have a near death experience, I’d say I had an unique perspective for it and I appreciated that, I guess in a way that was a coping mechanism because people can wallow in their grief, they can have survivors guilt or anything like that. We can use it. And that’s what I did. I used it. But after doing that origin, like I said for a while, I had the idea that if I was going to do the origin again, I would love to have the squadron with the scenes in between. And I pitched that to Dave and Dave took that and he ran with it. And boy did he run with it. And it made it exactly what I wanted it to be, a joint exercise so that every character got their moment that there are scenes that will be seen in issues two and three.
(00:13:43):
And we bounced ideas around about things like, well, where’s the dingos place in all of this from the squadron? And we talked about those things. Cause if these characters are there and all they’re doing is showing up, well what’s the bloody point? So everyone has their moment and that’s the important thing. And so when people pick it up and read it, they can embrace it and go, yes, these are the characters we love. And it’s great to see them interacting like this mean. When we look at how all the Cyclone crossovers worked back in the day literally everything built up to something. And as Dave was saying, having the squadron and Gary’s characters interact to do the Southern Squadron crossover story where it was a story of two southern crosses, one in the golden age, one in the present day the one thing that was missing in the mix was Dark Nebula and the Southern Squadron.
(00:14:58):
And we peppered that for argument’s sake, pardon me in Dark Nebula two, he meets the Modern Age Dave’s Southern Cross for the first time. And then that literally led to the big payoff, which was the dark nebulous Southern squadron crossover in dark nebulous seven and eight, which Dave and I co-wrote and Paul from here about the Hippo Fame Illustrated cuz he was the series artist on that at the time. And I have to say, between my putting a rocket under the distributors at the time and the fact that we put all the winning elements in those two issues, they were two of the best selling books out of the Cyclone Line. I was very proud about that and it resonated with us. And not only that, and Dave didn’t know about this till I shared it with him years later, I kept all the fan mail from Dark Nebulous seven and eight, which included a shit ton of a fan art.
(00:16:12):
And so actually in Dark Nebulas 11 and 12 a lot of that fan art is finally seeing the light of day in what I would call a soft resurrection of the letters page being Dark secrets and all these things. It all comes together. So when we came to talk about doing the dark Nebula in the Southern Squadron, again with the tagline together again for the first time, it was just something that it just seemed to organically come together. And I could only see this working one way that it was Dave, myself, and Shane. That’s a team as I see it. And we pull out all stops on it. So I’m very proud with what we are doing with this crossover. The Kickstarter is already reflecting that in terms of initial backers and we would hope that continues during the course of the month. So we wanna make sure that we remind people just how great these characters are and how great they can be.
(00:17:36):
And the most important thing, as I’ve been saying up till now, whenever something is reinvigorated decades later, it’s usually someone who’s come along later with no emotional tie to it. And so they decide, oh look, I’m going to make these changes. I’m gonna make those changes. Uhuh, no, it’s us. It’s the creators and any red conning and any MCing for want of a better term, we’re doing it because they’re our characters. We love them. And we don’t want to people to think that we’re doing something tired because it’s gonna serve two purposes. One, it’s going to resonate with people who’ve been there all along. But most importantly, and this always happens, even though it’s hard for us to see new people are coming along, new people want to pick up something now and read it, rather than go, oh, hang on a moment. I’ve gotta find 40 years of history so I can catch up. They don’t want to have to take, get Master’s degree in Dark Nebula in the Southern squadron. They wanna be able to read this and enjoy it and know that it’s rather than, oh hang on, I’ve gotta find this book and that book and these other books. No, no, no. Again, twos
Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (00:18:58):
Person’s mind.
Tad Pietrzykowski (00:18:59):
One person a person can read this and say, and literally this is like, you are here. That’s it. This is where we start. This is the launchpad for the future. And if people want to go back and get the old stuff, fine, we’re not stopping ’em from doing that. But at least they’re not going to hurt themselves trying to figure out who these characters are and what they’re all about. It’s all there for them to see day one for them.
Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (00:19:31):
Awesome. So a great jumping on point. Yeah.
Dave de Vries (00:19:34):
If I could jump in cuz I noticed somebody has just asked, will the first time readers understand the characters without needing an origin Baxter? And the answer is absolutely. One of the great joys of working with Cyclone was that every time we went to press what was common with comics was that you would bring out a number one and then whatever the sales were for number one, that would be the biggest you’d ever get for the series. And then the sales are number two would be slightly less and the size are number three, slightly less again. And it would sort of slightly trail off until it found its equilibrium not So with Cyclone, we actually started and with issue two, we actually had a bigger cell than issue issue one. Issue three was bigger again. And it was always constantly growing. And so we became very consciously aware of that.
(00:20:16):
And what we tried to do was we always wrote stories with the assumption that at least some, if not most of the people who were coming in were new to the characters. So we would always look after the real characters, those people who had been with us from the start and had been a previous relationship with us. But in addition, we would also be looking at the new people and we’d always have those two demographics very firmly in mind. So as a result of that, we talk, and this is why the start of the writing was very the Stanley Lee approach, cuz Stan Lee had a similar attitude back in the early sixties. So we would actually time out, we would break the fourth wall and we would actually say, okay dear reader, if you’re wondering who that person is over there, that character appeared three issues ago, don’t worry, all you need to know to make sense of this story is blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
(00:21:09):
So we’re kind of breaking the story up. But then we were a little editor note that people could get okay. And that gave them comfort. So yes we will be adopting the same approach with this particular series. If you’ve never read the Southern Squadron of the Dark Nebula doesn’t matter. This will be like as if you, you’re meeting them for the first time. On the other hand if you do know them, there’ll be a lot of in jokes and a lot of things in there that will be exciting that will, I guess reward those who have been loyal to the characters all along. The other thing I’d also like to just tap in here is that one thing that we did with Cyclone was we never begged for people to be involved.
(00:21:53):
I get people saying, oh, can you support my Kickstarter because you’re a mate or because of this or that? I support Kickstarters because I generally believe that the content is going to be enjoyable to read. I don’t believe in actually backing something out of loyalty. I really think if that’s what this series needs to succeed, then it’s gonna fail. I mean, I want people to read these comic stories because they’re bloody fun, they’re good. And there’s another reason I have a huge stack of vinyl from the sixties and seventies. I never got rid of it. My kids are clamoring to get hold of it and when I die, I’m sure they’ll be picking through it very quickly. What was really cool about if you had bought Led Zeppelin four, you don’t just have a piece of history, but you were part of the reason why that album was successful.
(00:22:41):
Your little purchase was part of the success of that album. And there are people, if you’ve managed to pick up a copy of Cyclone from the eighties that you, you’ve picked up in retrospect, look, thank you, that’s great. I’m glad you’ve got an artifact from the past. But I really think that those people who actually there back then who actually Shane bought them and read them and were part of our success. Shane, you were as a reader, let alone as a creator, you are one of the reasons of why we succeeded. It was that same ownership. The same goes for those people who are going to pick up these comics. Now, if you buy this comic, you are going to be part of this renaissance. You will be as much a part of. This is we are. And don’t bite because you want to help us out. We’re big, big enough and ugly enough. What we want you to do is bite because you generally think this is something you want to be a part of. You wanna be history that you personally want to make this
Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (00:23:44):
Thing a reality. Well said Shane. Sorry, I was gonna say
Shane Foley (00:23:54):
As I remember, sorry.
Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (00:23:57):
No, no, you go Shane.
Shane Foley (00:24:00):
I was just gonna say, I remember when I bought them off the Newent, I think it was number Cyclone five, would that have been the first one? <affirmative> went to the new. It was widely the would’ve definitely. And I’m pretty sure, if I remember rightly, five came out, I bought six off the stands after seven, or was it five after six? Two in Queensland came the wrong way. You see that? Yeah. But I was always really interested in that. I thought the heroes are sort of good, but they were so Aussie <laugh> and the sense of humor was really, really on the edge. And it made me laugh on the one hand and think, oh, what am I reading here on the other? It was really, really very clever. I was very impressed. I really <laugh> liked it dark there. Oh, look at that. That’s an old drawing now, <laugh>.
Tad Pietrzykowski (00:24:55):
I know. And I wonder if this holds the Guinness record for being the oldest what do you call ’em the oldest
Shane Foley (00:25:10):
Held in reserve.
Tad Pietrzykowski (00:25:12):
<laugh>. Yeah, the longest held in reserve. I I’ve actually APHAs Shelf. Yeah. Well yeah. But yeah, having sat on the shelf for the longest time without waiting to be published, I find. So yeah,
Shane Foley (00:25:29):
I find it really interesting because I drew that story Dinosaurs in Tasmania when I had started it and I was still drawing it when I got my job in the ambulance in 1991. The year I retire from the ambulance is the year it’s published 30 years later, <laugh>. So I think, I’m pretty sure I finished it in 1992 and it came out in 2022. So my whole ambulance career, 30 years, that book was sitting shelf <laugh>.
Tad Pietrzykowski (00:26:01):
Yeah. 30 years as you know, sitting on the shelf. But that tagline, I’ve used 65 million years in the making or 30 years depending on your point of view. Almost
Shane Foley (00:26:13):
Little
Tad Pietrzykowski (00:26:14):
Honestly. But I’ll be honest when I left it to the last moment to lay down the final script because I wanted it to be as contemporary as possible. And oddly enough, there not one moment of it seemed dated. So it held up pretty well because it’s meant to be a comment on the human condition. But anyway, enough about Dark Nebula 10, I’ll put that back to one side. We’re here about Dark Nebula and the Southern Squadron <laugh>
Dave de Vries (00:26:49):
Can, do you mind if I share the screen with a few of those? Yeah, yeah. Share screen.
Tad Pietrzykowski (00:26:55):
Go ahead.
Dave de Vries (00:26:56):
I’ll bring it up. So as well as the can you all see that? There we go.
Tad Pietrzykowski (00:27:07):
No. Hey, there we are.
Dave de Vries (00:27:10):
We go. So as well as so Aussie’s superhero Renaissance as well as the Rebirth storyline, which you can see there in the third and the fourth covers as we spoke about I’ve also been working with working with Rob Lyle who I think might even be in the chat at the moment on another comic, which is the torn Southern Squadron crossover. So you can see a couple of the covers there. Beautifully drawn by Ben Sullivan. And there’s another book that’s going to be part of the Southern Squadron and Dark Nebula Rebirth book. And that is the Southern Squadron Dark. And maybe we should just talk a little bit about this since it’s part of the Kickstarter campaign as well. This gentleman here, Boin Beaumont Jin Weam is Boin America. Would’ve been great if he’d been on tonight, but unfortunately we seem to have some internet problems there.
(00:28:15):
But Bo is he was part of the fantastic group. A fantastic was a book that came out A horror comic was banned in a lot of states. I don’t think it got its way up to Queensland, Shane <laugh>. It was hugely successful because it was funded by the New South Wales government as one of these campaigns to encourage people to get out there and have a go. And interestingly, it was almost like the Comic Cyclone. It was a sort spinoff of Oz comics. And in fact a lot of the Cyclone guys worked on fantastic and some of the fantastic Goes Fantastic guys worked on Cyclone as well. So there was a very close relationship. Bo was he always liked to do these sort really dark fantasy stuff, which sort of crossed the superhero horror genres together. And so as a result of that Bo came to me a couple of years ago and said, sorry, say again.
(00:29:28):
No, sorry. You dropped out. Yeah, so what did was he came to me and said he would very much like to do a dark evil version of the Southern Squadron. And I said, okay, well then go for your life. Let’s see what you can come up with. So I can give you a little bit of an idea of B’S art style. These are some poster images if you like, that are going to be used as part of the promotion. So you can see here his version of the Southern Squadron and Southern Cross Night fighter in Southern Cross. This is a dwarf Nebula character little I think it’s a se. So you can see it’s beautiful artwork. The actual series itself is going to be in black and white but Southern Squadron Dark, that’s the series. And so that’s Southern Squadron Dark is one of the titles which, sorry <laugh> Southern Squadron Dark is one of the titles, which is included in that group.
(00:30:35):
And so you can see here, this is getting a bit into the advertising stuff if you want to actually pick up, there are lots of different combinations on the Kickstarter where you can get one cover. Another, we’ve got the Ash Mattie version of the cover. We’re building a backstory relationship between Mark Madula, the Dark Nebula and Lieutenant Smith, that they have a romantic backstory that when he was training to be an astronaut, she was actually I think one of her mentors when she was going through opposite cadet training. So we are celebrating that with that cover. We have the main cover, of course, drawn by Shane the which just oozes Jack Kirby. And then you can see Bo Dean’s work. He’s got two covers the, I guess a cover one where the characters are sort of there in green is sort of, I guess a reasonably traditional superhero look.
(00:31:35):
But BS actually also come up with another cover, which is about topia, which is the place that the story is set in kind of an alternate reality. And in this location how the Watchman Series starts off with the first image of the story being on the cover. Bo wanted to do that with this series as well. So we’ve gone with two versions of the cover one, which is of I guess, narrative and the other one, which is sort like there to sell. So that’s the mega pack for those who want to get all four. And we’ve actually Gary Dell was actually saying we’re probably being a little bit too generous because we’ve actually tried to create it so that if you get all four F Floppies and both the PDFs you’re gonna be able to pick them up for the price of three comics. So that was something we really wanted to do just to make sure that everybody who wanted to have a chance that both could have that and very cool.
(00:32:33):
Got everybody doing that. I could give you a little bit of a tease of some of the artwork that’s worked on. I’ve been doing the color art on this. This was one that I think you nailed right from the start Shane. And yes, there’s an element of Mad Max coming through here. The Southern squadron always had their squadron reveal being like an FJ Holden. So we’re sort of combined that with a desert approach. And this is, as you can see, the storyline is centered around an alien probe coming to worth up in the Pilborough actually, and the Southern squadron going investigate. Meanwhile, up in space mark Madula goes onto the threshold, which is a spacecraft to find to his horror that it’s now overcome by zombies. I’m not gonna spoil the story by telling any more than that, but that should be enough of a tease to give you a bit of an idea of what it’s like.
(00:33:34):
And just so people get a little bit of a taste of what’s coming, cuz Gary der will kill me if I at least show you this <laugh>, the amazing Ben Sullivan art of the story that Edy and I put together Rob Lyle. And you can see there’s some little fantasy characters in this. Who are the villains? This is the dingo, this is where the dingo suddenly interacts with torn and the fighting begins. I’m jumping around a little bit here. This is torn or rather red gum going up against the Southern cross as I guess everybody would expect to see. We see them battling. Lieutenant Smith is obviously going to be very much in the center of the storyline with torn, somewhat smitten by her beauty and this character on the second panel is a guy called Vulgar Tongue, and we’re not gonna tell you too much about that, but there’s a little bit of a fantasy steam punky feel about this as well.
(00:34:35):
So yeah, should all be a lot of fun. That series will start promoting after the Rebirth series. So once again, the idea is that rebirth is, yes, it’s a standalone storyline, but it’s very much for one of a better term, the first story where we are actually going to see the Southern squadron and the dark nebula and the torn concepts all coming together to create a new universe. Probably called the universe if you like, but it’s basically, as I said, it’s the rebirth of superhero comics. And yeah, we’re very proud about it and I do believe that there’s a little touch of history and that people want to get involved and be there, say so that you can say, well, I wasn’t there back in the Cy days, but I was there right at the start of this time round. Then we really want to have you on the team. Actually
Tad Pietrzykowski (00:35:37):
Having seen some more of those pages of Southern Squadron torn reminds me that Ben Sullivan’s also doing the art for Dark Nebula torn. And none of that’s been colored yet, but I’ve seen most of the artwork for the first issue. And that’s a story that Hayden Sparrow and myself have crafted between us. And really it’s doing the scripting and also Ben Sullivan’s doing the art to that. And I have to say that the artwork I’ve seen for part one of that three parter is breathtaking. We’ve got torn in dark nebulous playground, which is outer space and it’s just say that it’s taking torn places he’s never been. And that what we’re doing with that is something completely different with Torn because yeah, it starts off with in a no-win situation for him. And that’s all there is to that. But that’s all I’m gonna say about that.
(00:36:46):
But I would like to point out for that crossover when it launches, I really think that that’s gonna be a story where Hayden and Ben will really shine. I mean really I was mainly in the plotting phase of it and signing off on everything. And to see this stuff, it’s like, you know, raise your kids up to a certain point, they gotta go to college and they come back and all of a sudden you’re looking at a different person and it’s like my kids have grown up so to speak and it’s nice. And for me there’s all the glories to be had in creating the dark nebula. But I also like to see the spotlight shine on other people. And I think it’s great that we’re all able to share the spotlight, not just in dark nebulous southern squadron, but also in torn southern squadron and dark nebula torn because it means that we’re getting the young Turks involved.
(00:37:51):
And that’s the important thing here. When we do our Yuel club of a Thursday night, it’s open sla. If people who’ve only been in comics a few years wanna be involved in that, join us in that, that’s great because it’s not, oh, no old farts only it’s there for anyone who’s an Aussie creator. And I encourage anyone who is doing anything in Australian comics just to join us and share mainly we do a lot of piss faring about and jokes and all the rest of that, but that’s the camaraderie that we’ve got. But it’s something for everyone who’s an Australian creator. And that’s the important thing. And like I say with these crossovers, it’s great that we are getting young blood involved in them because let’s face it, we all know that from the moment we’re on this earth, we all have a used by date. We dunno when it’s gonna be, but it’s nice to know that there’s gonna be torch bearers once we go the way of the earth. And the other thing too, about 40, I’ll just wrap, sorry.
Dave de Vries (00:39:07):
In about 30 or 40 years.
Tad Pietrzykowski (00:39:08):
Yeah, I know. In about 30 or 40 years. Don’t worry, haven’t we’re not ready to kick the bucket anyway. But no, when all said and done, our stuff is in the National Library in Canberra, so we’re already a part of history and I mean I’ve just sent off copies of my latest books to the National Library to keep the legal deposit going there as well. And so once we go the way of all things flesh and blood, our stuff’s gonna endure. And that’s all there is to it. Yeah. Anyway. But yeah, like you said, Dave <laugh>, we still, we’ve still got plenty of time to party <laugh>
Dave de Vries (00:39:53):
Shane, I’ve put up a share screen, I dunno if you can, there we go. You’ll probably, if you are picking up any of these books, you’ll see this on the inside front cover and this kind of gives you a little bit of a mud map of what’s going to come. So we’ve, we’re calling this TDS three to the third, or if you like we it’s called Three to the Third Power, basically three mini series three team up, three superhero sensations. The first step is torn teaming up with Southern Squadron, which is the first idea that was proposed Close on its heels is the Australian own super troubleshoot of Southern Squadron teaming up with the dark Nebula and then Dark, dark Nebula teaming up with Torn. So you can read each set of three as a unique book in its own right but you can also read all nine.
(00:40:50):
And if you read the nine together, then it gives you a full sense of what’s going on. And so as it says, the issues one and four coming soon to Reveries. So issue four will actually be, I know it sounds weird, but issue four is the first one that comes out, that’s the dark near Southern Squadron book rebirth torn Southern Squadron is coming out in, I think the Kickstarter will be in sort of, basically we’re waiting until one Kickstarter is completed and then we move on to the next one. And one thing that anybody who’s interested in, I know one of the most frustrating things is that you back it and then you wait a year before you get the book. Gary Della is really dead against that. So one of the things that we’ve been working on these off and on for probably the last two years putting them all together, tying them in with what Tad’s been doing with the 40th celebration, 40th anniversary celebration.
(00:41:47):
So the material exists and the moment they go to the Kickstarter, we are going to the Kickstarter with everything ready to go to press. So the moment the Kickstarter is complete, the printer will be cranking out the numbers that have been ordered and they will appear be appearing within the month. So it’s not like you’ll be waiting and waiting and waiting. That’s awesome. And ta Yeah. And Tad has also been doing a heck of a lot of work with he’s already shown you dark Nebula 10, there’s also dark N 11 and 12, which are coming out when Ted,
Tad Pietrzykowski (00:42:19):
Well 11 is currently being offered around the Grail Hunters group on Facebook. It will go to comic shops and also the owner indie site. Very soon there’s the replica edition of Dark Nebula One or should say Dark Nebula one remastered, which by the way was remastered by Dave. Dave is the unsung hero in this one because I’ve been getting a lot of people who’ve been bugging the hell outta me for copies of Dark Nebula One. Well, the fact of the matter is if I fulfilled all those requests they’d, I’d have run out of Dark Nebula ones ages ago and I’d still have people bugging me. So it just made sense to reissue Dark Nebula one, a proper replica edition different enough so people can’t get confused, get that confused with the original but the fact of the matter is it’ll be a nice placeholder for them.
(00:43:20):
And most importantly, this in time will be rarer than the original because the original had something like a 10,000 print run. This, I’ve only done a couple of hundred. So in time this is gonna be the collectible to have and issue 12 of Dark Nebula, which is well let’s just say that it won’t be far off from there. It is from Dark Nebula 11 because it’s part two of a two part story. And the one thing I hate is for people to be waiting nearly a year for the second part of a two-parter. No, it’s coming out a couple of months after Dark Nebula 11. And there’s one of the covers, actually, Dave, if you’ve got the CLLs cover there for Dark Nebula 12, there he is. No, actually no, that’s you Shane, isn’t it C? Looking like you <laugh>.
Dave de Vries (00:44:19):
Yeah.
Tad Pietrzykowski (00:44:20):
Yeah. And actually there is another version of this one, the point, there we are. That’s your artwork, Shane. The point of that cover,
Dave de Vries (00:44:31):
This is a Lee Chalker, which is,
Tad Pietrzykowski (00:44:33):
Yeah, that’s Lee Chalker and Lee’s Over the Moon with being a part of the 40th birthday. I think we’re
Dave de Vries (00:44:42):
All over the moon with Lee being a part of it.
Tad Pietrzykowski (00:44:45):
Well he’s one of those many people who’ve said to me they got into comics because of Dark Nebula. Now when they tell me that, that gives me a fair idea of how new to the scene or relatively new to the scene they were compared to me. But it also reminds me how bloody old I am, because 40 years ago I was 22. Well, here I am 62 and still breaking wind and all the rest of that, but still doing Dark Nebula. This is
Dave de Vries (00:45:16):
That Peter Lane who I, he, yes, you did actually see that correctly, Peter. So I just thought I’d share that one
Tad Pietrzykowski (00:45:23):
Again. Yeah, yeah. But the, oh yeah. Oh by the way one of our audience happened to share the saying Dark Greetings of the Night. Good day Bo <laugh>. Yeah. Yeah. So Bo’s tuned in for this. Yeah, there he is. Dark Greetings of the Night yet again. Yeah. But anyway, the point of that Cires cover was that in Dark Nebula four, there was a very, very similar looking image of Mark Medulla with that green background. And considering that was the second part of the two part chaos war, and this is the sequel, the Chaos Theory, I thought, wouldn’t it be great 30 something years later, bookend, bookend the cover with a CLLs cover. And I will say this, awesome. The real star of dark nebulous is CLLs. And that’s all I’m gonna say about that. Yeah. But yeah, no, we’ve been busy with all these other projects and again, COVID has been the opportunity that we’ve a <crosstalk>, sorry, you right.
Dave de Vries (00:46:33):
This is, can you see it? It’s sorry, the
Tad Pietrzykowski (00:46:37):
Bit shine there. Hang on.
Dave de Vries (00:46:39):
Maybe that’s, oh gee, you can get a bit of a sense of it. There it is there.
Tad Pietrzykowski (00:46:45):
Yeah, that’s right. <laugh>. Yeah, mark MedU. And so the book end to that is the CLLs cover you just saw,
Dave de Vries (00:46:53):
Oh, light’s coming very hot off the screen. Yeah. But yeah, the color has matched the same idea. So yeah,
Tad Pietrzykowski (00:47:06):
We’ve been busy beavers over this last couple of years while everyone’s been locked down with Covid and everything like that. Yeah, sounds like it. Again, like what I was saying earlier, you know, can moan and groan and piss and moan and all the rest of that. Or you can get busy and like I said, after my car accident I used that to forge ahead with everything else rather than let it get on top of me. And the rest of us really, the Australian comics community has really seen the lockdown as an opportunity to do what we do best. I mean, when I attended a ledgers award a couple of few years back with Gary Chow and a few other people, I looked around the room and I thought, by definition we’re a pack of hermits. This is a gathering of hermits. Now how is that possible? And I wondered what a collective term for hermits would be. And there is actually a collective term for hermits. I can’t believe it because it, it’s such a contradiction in terms, but the, it’s called an observance of hermits
Dave de Vries (00:48:24):
Thought
Tad Pietrzykowski (00:48:26):
I would’ve call. Yeah, exactly. Well I would’ve thought that it’d be like a distance of hermits or whatever. Who knows, honestly. But by definition, being creators, we’re often our own little corner doing our own little thing on our own. You put us all together in a room, it’s like getting a whole lot of people who’ve socially stunted to socialize with each other. Anyway, that’s just me looking at the fun side of it all. Yeah.
Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (00:49:05):
Well we should let people know how to find the Kickstarter. The Kickstarter link itself is a bit long for me to put up on the screen, but what I can put up is if I go to the right screen here, I have a special link that takes you to the latest Kickstarters in Australian comics and you’ll find the dark nebulous Southern Squadron Kickstarter on the top row of that page. So that’s a good link to go find it. Another way is just simply going to the search box, dark Nebula Southern Squadron. And I’m pretty sure I did that today and it worked. And that will take you to the Kickstarter as well.
Tad Pietrzykowski (00:49:46):
Actually, while you’re there, if I can just click you the short link Shane and see if you can’t share that with I
Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (00:49:56):
Put it in the private chat, put it in the private chat,
Tad Pietrzykowski (00:49:59):
Put it in the private chat.
Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (00:50:01):
Can you see that? Or just put it in Messenger, one or the other?
Tad Pietrzykowski (00:50:04):
I’ll put it in Messenger because I dunno how to use this. Bear with me actually.
Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (00:50:14):
Omni Road.
Dave de Vries (00:50:16):
And if you are on Facebook if you just Google Southern Squadron or sorry use the what do they call it? It’s the search on Facebook there’s a Southern Squadron page. You’ll find the link in there. Gary and Tad and Bo have been spamming everybody relentlessly with the links. And if you think they think they’re gonna keep doing that, you’re absolutely right. They’re gonna drive you nuts by the end of the month. I promise you. You’re gonna absolutely get overwhelmed with the stuff. We’ve got a whole bunch of other, actually, can I share screen just one more time Shane? Yeah, of course. There is a few add-ons, which we’ve actually moved these forward a little bit because we had such a fast hit to the first target. So we’ve escalated this. So as well as the various different versions that cover versions Tad’s also got available the Dark Nebula 10.
(00:51:24):
So there’s a hundred copies of those. We’ve also got the Dark Nebula Southern Squadron cover B, which will be a metallic virgin variant and there’s 20 copies of those. And this is kind of cool. It says signed by four that’s the dark Nebula number two. And it is signed by the four creators who are involved in it being Glenn Lumps myself and Gary Cha. So there’s 20 of those available and those are the original printing. So that’s kind of cool. That’s the first time that mean in publishing history that the Southern Squadron and Dark Nebular characters actually interacted. Actually that was a cover that Glenn Pencil and I painted so that that’s going back quite some distance and there will be additional add-ons released over the next two to three weeks. So for those of you who are sort following this and you wanna see what else is available, I know Ted’s got quite a few little snippets that will be coming up over the next couple of weeks. So just if this is something that you find appealing yeah, just keep an eye out for it. There will be other little blast from the past coming through as well.
Tad Pietrzykowski (00:52:45):
Actually on the signed books, I have to point out that this is the only time that all four foundation members of Cyclone effectively we’ve got the band back together so to speak have signed post. Oh yes. Great. Well that’s your care package. I sent Dave his care package of these books that he’s been working on for me. And I have to, well actually I’ll get back to that in a moment. But this is the first time that the four foundation members of Cyclone have got together and co-signed any one book together. I mean there are books that people have got that Dave and Glen have signed and that I’ve signed and that Gary have signed and whatever. But the four of us together, no doesn’t, has never happened until now. And we are doing it with this Kickstarter and that Dark Nebula two is not the only one.
(00:53:44):
There are some other surprises we’ve got during the course of it, but I wanted to get that one out early for the simple reason that it has a definite connection with the Kickstarter itself. I wanna circle back to the package that Dave’s just shown with all these comics. Dave has been basically the glue for the dark nebula because my skills take me only so far and it’s great that two of the Foundation Cyclone team are able to work together today, 30 something years on and keep this material at its apex. I’d hate to think that I’m putting out books that people might say, oh yeah, this used to be good 30 years ago, but it just doesn’t quite seem to hold together. No, no. With Dave being the final filter and Ming it up, you wouldn’t believe it’s, we’ve taken it to a whole new level and for that I’m so grateful for everything you’ve done for me Dave. And to be able and as it goes, one hand washes the other and we work together as a team. What helps one of us helps all of us. And that’s really how I see it. Rather than, oh look, this is my comic and isn’t it good? And all the rest of that. No, no, no, I created the Dark Nebula, but where it is now is with the help of a lot of great friends and for that I’m grateful.
Dave de Vries (00:55:24):
Well since we’re having a love in, I want thank Shane for the fantastic work he’s done in this. I am a huge Kirby fan that I’ve actually got a signed print that I, Glen and I were lucky enough to meet Jack one afternoon in his home in Oh yeah, really in LA we had Dave Ulbrich who ran Malibu Graphics, was a friend of Jack and I had been pestering him for years. And then not long before Jack died he actually agreed to meet with us. Jim Hudnell actually joined us and we spent probably about three or four hours at Jack’s house and it was like a museum and that’s a memory that I’ll treasure. But just as we were leaving, he actually said, oh we’ve got something for you. And it, he’d done a pre-signed print for me and one for Glen. Glen’s was a Bucky and Captain America mine was basically all the characters he created, which was almost all of the marble ones.
(00:56:28):
And I finally got around to getting that framed just before Jack died. And so if Brossa came under fire, that would be the thing I’d thrown under my arm more than anything else and get out the door. So I love the Kirby esque approach to comics, the dynamism and there’s a couple of guys working in the Australian scene right now that I think really capture the essence of it. I think you, Shane more than anyone else, you really have nailed his aesthetic and I love it. And it’s that dynamic. Look there’s a bit of a shout out too to Peter Lawson who I think has one of, he captures the spirit of Kirby in, he has these amazing dynamic covers and I think Pete should ultimately specialize in cover art because I think that’s something that he really does well and he really has captured that sort of B esque look.
(00:57:23):
So look, I, I’ve sort of found some stuff in comics getting a little bit losing its way and there’s sometimes going back to basics and getting back to the greats guys like Kirby who really weren’t necessarily the most realistic of artists but that wasn’t his thing. He understood comics as a medium. It wasn’t just doing art in comic format, he was a comic book artist. And Shane, I think that you have taken the essence of that and woven it into your own stuff. I love the stuff you do on the Phantom and I’m so proud to be working with you. I mean it’s great to have your work that you did with Tad on 11 and 12 coming out simultaneously, but this new stuff that you are doing where we’re seeing the southern squadron and the dark Nebula sort of woven into this really interesting blend of what Tad was doing, what I’m doing and then you are just sort of pulling it all together to me you are the glue and it’s an honor to work on your art. So thank you for being part of the team. Well
Shane Foley (00:58:31):
You here, what can I say <laugh> that is really, really nice cause being an artist, your own biggest critic and usually what I see is what I haven’t got and you are right about the Kirby thing. I try to, but my other favorite artist being John Emer, but then Emer had the more realistic, he had anatomy and that sort of stuff and even he recognized that Kirby was the prime comic artist cause he knew how to emotionally tell a story and all that and that’s what we go for. But I’m really gratified that thinks of it because I can always look at some of my own stuff and see how I could have done it better or different And it’s nice it’s really nice to be part of the team. I’m enjoying it. In fact, I’d intimidated I look at some of the stuff cuz oh I shouldn’t say that. Cause like I say, you just keep looking at your own weak points and look at the dynamics that other people have got. I love the quirkiness, you’ve got this, I’m talking about the old stuff now. The real quirkiness in a lot of it and it was <laugh> and sometimes I wonder if I can match that because I go for more,
(00:59:47):
It’s not really realistic but different sort of style. I love the old quirkiness that was there and I hope I get a little bit, I was really happy when TA said he love, I think it was TA said, I loved the picture of the dingo and he was laughing his head off and he is driving the
Tad Pietrzykowski (01:00:02):
Howling at the
Dave de Vries (01:00:03):
Moon. Yeah, <laugh>, can I share that again?
Tad Pietrzykowski (01:00:07):
Yeah,
(01:00:08):
Go for it.
Shane Foley (01:00:10):
I dunno. It seemed to work. I was very happy with that.
Tad Pietrzykowski (01:00:14):
So actually circling back to Dark NEB 10, just very briefly and by the way the word I was looking for was inventory. The world’s longest inventory story. The fact that you did that artwork 30 years ago and it’s being seen finally by most people 30 years later, it still stands up, you know can be as critical as you like about it. I love it. And it’s not dated, it is just as contemporary as it was the day it was first you first drew it. So that’s me raising my objection but in a nice way <laugh> and for the right reasons too. S powering up the moon
Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (01:01:05):
<laugh>.
Tad Pietrzykowski (01:01:06):
Yeah,
Shane Foley (01:01:07):
Well thanks. So it’s
(01:01:11):
With you. Sorry I cuz Phantom, most of the phantom material I do, I write my own stuff, which is good because you can get your own things. This stretches me something incredible because <laugh>, I probably wouldn’t write scenarios like what you’re doing and it really gets you outta your comfort zone. But actually Tad, it was really nice. I’ve seen the early copies of 11 and 12 and I look at them and I haven’t seen that artwork for years and I can look at it a little bit more freshly and I was happy with most of it too, I think. Oh good. You’re not looking at it so critically or it’s not so familiar. But no, it’s wonderful to be part of the team and doing it. And I’m onto book two now. I’m drawing the sixth page, which according to Dave script is page four, <laugh>
(01:02:00):
Two pages. You Dave wanted me to do this in one page.
(01:02:10):
So we’re already 50% of our page count. I’m pretty sure going, yeah, it’s always like a dynamic scene. 25 characters and a spaceship and it’s panel six. You go <laugh>, that happened. I think that happened a couple of times in the other issue too, didn’t it? But you on the space net. But no, it’s great. Funny. It
Dave de Vries (01:02:37):
Grew a little
Tad Pietrzykowski (01:02:39):
Bit, he got you confused with George Perez there.
Shane Foley (01:02:44):
Yeah.
Tad Pietrzykowski (01:02:46):
Now he could draw people in a panel <laugh>
Shane Foley (01:02:53):
And then the poor scripter has to find a place, put a word come.
Dave de Vries (01:02:57):
That’s my fault though. I end up having to pay that penalty anyway. So yeah, we found a way to make it.
Shane Foley (01:03:03):
That’s fine. Yeah, that’s good. I get on there and say, hey I’m making this two pages and the answer’s always. Yeah, go for it <laugh>.
Dave de Vries (01:03:12):
Well that’s one of the advantages of
Shane Foley (01:03:16):
It’s,
Dave de Vries (01:03:17):
Well it’s one of the advantages of being the letter and the colorist. I can
(01:03:23):
Pull it together at the end if I’ve sort of stretched it too far. No, look, I love what you’ve been doing and for those listening and what we’re talking about is there are a couple of pages where Shane said, look, I can draw it in this number of panels, but wouldn’t it be cool? And then he’d send through the layouts and you go, screw it, we’re gonna add a couple of pages, <laugh>. And that’s what half the fun of collaboration is that he sees something in the story and he thinks, I think we can take this a little bit further. And then when he explores that and bounces it back, you go, yeah, wow. That is taking this to a level that we didn’t originally intend. And that’s great. What makes it fun? So there’s a lot of love in this series. It really
Shane Foley (01:04:13):
Is. It’s good.
Tad Pietrzykowski (01:04:14):
And we give people more bang for their buck with more pages.
Shane Foley (01:04:21):
<laugh>.
Dave de Vries (01:04:23):
So have we gone over time sizzle? I think we might have,
Shane Foley (01:04:27):
Yeah.
Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (01:04:28):
Okay. It’s just around about an hour. Is there anything you wanna say to everyone to just to say about the Kickstarter itself?
Dave de Vries (01:04:38):
Look, I guess I just reinforce what we’ve already spoken about that for me, I want people to come on board because they wanna be a part of something new. This is not going to be a one off series. This is part of three part series. The Southern Squadron, the Dark Nula is already doing an ongoing series. I’m working with Gary Della to bring out a standalone southern squadron series, which will then flow out from the southern squadron torn story. Oh yeah, the dark Nebula ones kind of set a little bit back in the past. So we’re all be jumping about three or so. This is almost like the backstory that sets up the foundation once the southern squadron and torn storyline gets rolling. That’s where a lot of the new direction of the Southern squadron is really gonna take off. And we’re sort how they do this in comics, basically.
(01:05:40):
It’s gonna be about five years into the future from when we last saw them is probably the best way to describe it. So they’re a little bit older, a little bit wiser but not really. But we are gonna start to see a lot of fun things coming up. They’re gonna have different bases in every Australian city. One’s based on a pub. Another one’s based on, in Adelaide, the city of churches, it’s a refurnished cathedral. So we have a lot of fun with this stuff. They’re gonna have different uniforms fit for different purposes. There’ll be stories set in space in other dimensions fighting different villains and so forth. Lots of crossovers. The version that of Southern Squadron Dark is kind of an alternate reality set of characters, but the Southern Squadron will meet them in that series as well. So there’s a lot of new stuff coming through this and I’m really hoping that people come on board and enjoy the journey.
(01:06:39):
This feels as close to what we were doing when we started out doing the cyclone, but back then we were, I won’t say we were fumbling, but it was new. We didn’t never done anything like this. There’s something about going through the motions again and knowing where the journey’s gonna take you and knowing what’s gonna work and what’s not, because we’ve walked the path before. There’s a real familiarity about it. I know there’s a lot of people out there who have wanted to see these characters come back for a long time, and I know that, cause I’ve been peed about it probably for the last 10 years, and I just wasn’t personally ready to do it. But then over the last two to three years with the conversations with Tad, the conversations with Gary der, with Shane, all these amazing talented people that were sort, it’s just happening.
(01:07:29):
And if you want to, this is, to me, it feels like the Beatles are getting back together. It really does. And mm-hmm. <affirmative> wanna be a part of something that is a standalone, something that’s new and exciting. I mean, sizzle, you and Gary have done a lot to effectively create this renaissance period of, I dunno, what age are we in now? It’s the modern age. I don’t know. We had the bronze agents <laugh>, but somebody’s gotta come up with a name because there was something very unique about this period. You’ve got the Kru with Darren Close that’s sort part of the, and Darren and I, we are talking about a Kru crossover storyline and that’s, that’s gonna weave very tightly into the main mainstream story as well. There’s just so we are building the foundation of what will be a superhero universe. That gonna be, when we were starting out, there was this idea of marble down under, and this is as close as I’ve seen to something along those lines.
(01:08:36):
So that’s so awesome. And we are at that stage in our careers where it’s not a sprint, it’s a marathon. We can take our time. We’re not in a rush to get anywhere and hurry. Failure isn’t an option because we’re all successful. I don’t care if I make money out of this, I really don’t give a shit. It’s not about that, it’s it. Ted sort of summed it up, but he said, it’s a legacy. I’m doing this because I want people to come on board. I so love working with Spy on the Script for the Duck Ninja torn, Gary said, I could just do it on my own. I said, no, no, I wanna work with other people. Wanna, and he knows that if he wants to just the toilet age, he knows that if I <laugh>, he wants to take the characters and have a run with them.
(01:09:25):
That’s great. I want to think that when TA and I do 40, 50 years from now, we’re no longer around that people will still be having fun with our characters, playing with them. And there is a legacy. 40 years is a bloody long time. When we started just, I have to keep putting this in to me, Stan and Jack were with a masters, and yet when we started, we were only 25 years after they had begun Marvel. So we are actually going back and revisiting our stuff. And the gap between what we were doing back then is 40 years, that’s like 15 years further back than when we were doing in the Cyclone and comparing that to the beginning of the Marvel age. So there’s been a lot of water under the bridge. Australia does have this really rich superhero history which sprung up, I guess first off with Brain Master and Vix and the vampire stuff that Gerald Carr was doing.
(01:10:24):
And then Tad came out 40 years ago with Dark Nebula Southern Squadron soon after. And then Bodine and all these other people started to bring stuff out. We saw here about the Hippo. There was such a vitality, such an excitement that happened in the eighties and the early nineties and then it, let’s say it just sort of went into a little bit of a slumber and it’s all waking up again and it’s really exciting. And so for those people who missed out the first time round because you were a little bit too young or whatever here’s your chance to be a part of it and we really want you to be part of it and become on board.
Tad Pietrzykowski (01:11:06):
Couldn’t have said it better myself. Actually, my perspective is that we’re having a party and your invite is by clicking that Kickstarter and you get to be involved in that way. It’s the only way I can describe it.
Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (01:11:25):
<laugh>. So yeah, get on board people.
Tad Pietrzykowski (01:11:29):
Oh, did you get that link that I flicked to
Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (01:11:32):
Send the link out everywhere that it lets me send it out to?
Tad Pietrzykowski (01:11:35):
So yeah. Oh, wonderful. Okay. That’s the abbreviated version which Gary der flicked across to me, which means that people don’t have to hurt themselves trying to remember what it is. Kinda like people trying to pronounce my surname. I say to them, don’t hurt
Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (01:11:53):
Yourself. <laugh> easy to pronounce. It’s P tad p. It’s easy. Yeah, that’s right. <laugh>,
Dave de Vries (01:12:02):
If we’re signing off, can I just say, I just wanna thank yous, not just for what you’re doing with this podcast, but just with the drink and draw with everything that you’ve done to become a conduit for all of the comic creators in Australia. And what Gary Dell’s doing with Reve is fantastic, but you are sort going beyond that. You are not just creating comics, you’re actually sort of creating a network. And that’s amazing. And I can’t thank you enough for that. I mean, you influence over the comic scene at the moment is so central and so important and it can’t be overstated. Yeah. I want to thank all of the people who’ve sort encouraged tat and myself and others to come back and do this. As I said, I’ve already mentioned Spy Hayden, all of the Peter George, all of the people who working at Reary who are letting us, either they’re playing with us or letting us play in their space. Shane, to come back after, I mean, you were there back in the early days, maybe not 40 years ago, but gee, 30 five’s not bad. So I mean that’s been there right from the start.
Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (01:13:18):
Me <laugh>. Yeah.
Dave de Vries (01:13:20):
And then even guys like Gary Cha, who there is still that connection. He’s doing his own thing with Cyclone, but the cyclone universe that Gary’s playing with what we are doing all sort of grew out of the same sort of source. Yes, the Southern Squadron are part of the Flash Domingo universe that’ll never, ever be separated out. It can’t be. And so what Gary is doing, that’s part of what we are doing as well. And then you’ve got Tim McEwen who’s part of that world now. So it’s such an exciting world. I’m hoping over time we see bug and stump, we see Headbutt, we see all these characters of coming into these stories and
Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (01:14:04):
That’d be amazing. So
Dave de Vries (01:14:05):
I just wanna thank everybody who’s doing it now, everybody who’s done it in the past, everybody. Anybody who wants to get involved and do it going forward, this is a very exciting time for the Australian comic scene. And if you are even just the slightest bit of this, even if you are just buying comics because you want to be a part of it, I just want, you want to thank you. Whether you buy our comics or buy the Devil’s Toilet, I don’t care. It doesn’t matter. You’re buying Australian comics, you’re part of what makes this Renaissance happen. And so even if you’re just watching this podcast, you are part of it because the fact that you give a shit. And we’re back to the Devil’s Toilet.
Shane Foley (01:14:46):
Yeah. <laugh>.
Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (01:14:54):
Well thank you guys very much for coming on tonight. I really appreciate it. This, it’s been really good show. I’ve really loved learning a bit more about you guys. So even though I get to talk to you like most weeks I’ve learned a little bit more tonight. So that’s been really cool to anyone who wants to support, we’ve given out the links, I gave the short link on the page as well. Just go to Kickstarter, just put in Dark Nebula or Southern Squadron, it’ll come up. Support this. It is the start of something huge, I reckon something epic. So get in there on the ground floor as they say. And yeah, just check out the magic that these guys have created.
Tad Pietrzykowski (01:15:37):
And it is magic
Shane Foley (01:15:40):
<laugh>. Excellent. Excellent. Thanks guys. That’s great.
Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (01:15:44):
Yep. Thank you very much. Thank you everyone who watched. And thank you everyone who watches the replays. And don’t forget to the video and to subscribe to the channel.
Tad Pietrzykowski (01:16:00):
There we go.
Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (01:16:02):
That’d be awesome. You could do that so you don’t miss out any our future videos. And on that note, thank you very much. Have a great night and see you on the next show. See you as all. Thanks
Tad Pietrzykowski (01:16:13):
Mate. Catch your
Shane Foley (01:16:14):
Light. Thanks guys. Thank you. Jazz
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