Ed Brisson talks about his comic career!

Ed Brisson Video intertview

 

[00:00:00] Casey: All right, everybody. Welcome again, to another episode of spoiler country today on the show, we have a tree for you guys. We have writer from the aftershock comics beyond the breach. Number one, ed Brisson, ed, how you doing, man?

Ed Brisson: I’m doing all right. Doing okay. I’m surviving. So that’s something.

Casey: Yeah. Yeah. And that’s all you can do right now.

So, I say beyond the breach, but man, you stay busy. You have a ton of projects. So I want to get into that. I want to get into how you got started in comics to begin with. And eventually I want to work our way around to beyond the breach and what people can expect from that. And we’ll, we’ll just we’ll go from there.

So you’re, you’re a comics writer, man. How long have you been in comedy?

Ed Brisson: So professionally, I guess since my first page sort of comics Nine years now, I guess my first thing that came out through a publisher was a comeback and Jordy Bel [00:01:00] air. And that came out in 2012, but I had been sort of doing comics and self publishing since about 1994.

I started out. I want it to be a comic book. You know, anyone who’s heard me on a podcast before it’s probably would ever be talking about this, but I, when I started, I want to be accomplished artists back in the nineties and this sort of like early days internet. So for all intensive purposes where I live.

No internet. And so I didn’t have access to writers. And so I didn’t have access to scripts with things to draw from. And I did manage to meet one local guy who was a writer, but he was kind of, I don’t know, it was a weird experience to have. He had no experience, but also wanted to own everything.

So he was going to bring me on to draw this thing and not pay me. And then he was going to own everything. And I think he was offering me 10% of back end or something crazy. And his writing wasn’t very good. So I decided, you know, that if, if I was looking for. And this is sort of the only available option.

[00:02:00] And I would just write for myself. So back in 93, 94, I started just writing comics sort of, as it was meant to just be like a short-term thing. And so I could hopefully meet a writer and keep up with them but it ended up being a thing that lasted. God, I guess I was writing and drama and stuff for about 16 years, 2010, and around 2010, I realized that I actually really, really enjoyed writing and really hate the drawing.

And so I stopped drawing and I just focused on writing and. No, I did that. I started a series called murder book, which was this fun series of short crimes stories that are posted online for free that I wrote. And I would sort of rub some friends into draw. And, and from that, I sort of started to get a little bit of attention.

I met with Michael Walsh and we put together a comeback, which I think was a third or fourth, pitched me. We’d sent it to image, which get that picture. And then as soon as I got one book in its [00:03:00] image, I just kind of. You know, I think I’ve been working so long to get to that point. I’ve been 18 years. I think at that point, since it started self publishing that I just started like pushing my PR.

I put as many projects as I could. I had a bunch of projects that I had been working on over the years, script wise that I sort of drugged dusted off and fixed up, or we don’t want to, if I teamed up with our artists and we would sit down and figure out an edit together. So yeah, it was 2012. What was my first name in each book?

I think 2013, I did my first couple of things or Marvel and felt like, you know, that’s 2013 from Marvel. And then there was almost like a three-year gap before I get into for Marvel. I get some stuff for DC, but yeah, essentially since 2012 I’ve been working pretty consistent.

Casey: That’s awesome. That’s how it, it blows my mind that you started and you don’t look old enough to have started in like the mid nineties.

So, and, and it took you, you know, to, to [00:04:00] 2012 to put out the book at image actually had somebody ask me a question about murder book. So, I run a group called The the comic jam and we’re kind of an online workshop where we get artists and writers together. To do one page shorts. And that’s all about learning how to work with, you know, somebody else that, you know, has the same drive as you do.

And also experimenting with different styles, learning how to write, learning, how to cut the fat on a page. And It’s you know, to help build portfolios and all that other fun stuff. Anyway, they wanted me to ask how you basically how you got everything together for murder book. Did you grab all these artists and writers or excuse me, did you grab all these artists and pay them to do the shorts for you?

Or was this just, you know, buddies that you. Did they work in trade how’d you find it?

Ed Brisson: So I was lucky enough in that because I, I had been self publishing for so long. I had a ton of friends in [00:05:00] comics, you know, we were all kind of same levels of publishing and wanting to sort of break in and. So I was lucky enough that I had friends who I could turn to and say like, Hey, I’ve got this five page script.

Or if you have this 10 page script you know, would you be interested in doing it? And you know, a lot of them were still building up portfolios. And so this is like a, in an opportunity to build a portfolio for them. I know that I was very lucky in that situation, you know, it did obviously take me 18 years.

Of self-publishing the sort of have this or 16 years, sorry to, to sort of build this, this group of friends around me. But yeah, I was lucky enough that I had people I could turn to and we largely did it. Nobody was being paid. I wasn’t being paid there. Aren’t big was just a thing that we were doing.

When it came at, like when the books came out, I would give them a portion of what, 10 print books. Obviously we split it when somebody started coming in, but for all of us, it was more or less. For us to put something out there and sort of prove ourselves, I

Casey: guess [00:06:00] that’s basically what, what calming cam is doing, which is awesome.

Ed Brisson: And like, you know, I lucked out and had like, almost everyone I worked on murder book with, ended up going on to do other stuff. I’m not saying that that’s anything to do with me. They were just super talented people that I happen to know, but, you know, Simon,

Casey: Roy gave him that.

Ed Brisson: I was excited. Roy Johnny Christmas, I’m like Walsh.

Johnny is awesome. You know, $10, you know, who, who went on to do all their stuff. Actually, funny enough originally Decklin Charlene was supposed to do one of the first murder books, but then I got swept up by Marvel and it just couldn’t make the timing work. He did one later on when I could serve a suit, dark horse presents for it.

But yeah, you know, the, the short answer is I was lucky enough to know these people The thing. I usually tell people the benefit of doing short stories like that is that, you know, she can hire on, like, if you’re not lucky enough to have a friend, who’s an artist who wants to work together and [00:07:00] is happy to do that.

You know, she’s trying to, if you’re doing like a five page story, it’s a lot easier to put together that amount of money to hire an artist. To to drive versus a lot of people will sort of come out and try and do a 200 issue, epic, which you run into all the time. And I don’t understand it, but it’s it’s just much easier to sort of get stuff out there and you don’t do the short stories.

There’s a lot of, you know, there’s a lot of benefits to doing shorts and stuff. Like you said earlier, you don’t have a trim that, that. Pretty easily learn how to tell a story concisely. You learn how to work with an artist. The biggest thing I think is that there’s that sense of accomplishment.

Once you finish the story, even if it’s, even if it’s just like one or one page or five pages, 10 pages, there’s a real sense of accomplishment. And then. I think there’s that learning experience as well, putting it out there in the wild for, for the public to consume. And from through feedback, you’d learn all sorts of other stuff.

And I it’s much [00:08:00] easier to do a bunch of those and learn throughout it than it is to do one, even like, you know, I used to let her conflicts as well, and I’d always run across people who are doing like six issue miniseries that they’re funding by themselves. And I think of all of those that are. You know, less than 10% of them finished because it’s a very expensive proposition.

Whereas if you’re just doing very short stories and putting them out on the web or whatever, it’s much easier to complete, it’s much easier to get your name out there and all that sort of jazz.

Casey: Oh yeah, yeah. In the middle of the second Kickstarter for A or the second issue Kickstarter for a series that I’m doing.

And it’s it’s expensive making comics.

Ed Brisson: I’m just in the process of like putting together the Well, I ran a Kickstarter a little late last year, early this year. Time means nothing anymore, but we’re, we’re sending it off to the printer right now. And I’m like, it’s such a learning experience. And I have, you know, after using [00:09:00] self publishing, even just doing this Kickstarter is such a different experience.

So yeah, it’s, it’s a lot of work and a lot of money.

Casey: Oh yeah. Yeah. So we the first Kickstarter for issue one. We got done in my artists realized that he hated his colors. So we just invested all of our profits from issue one in the hiring, a new colorist to recolor the entire 24 pages. And then also do the second issue.

So now we upped our funding goal, cause it was like bare bones. We upped our funding goal to like maybe hopefully. Turn a profit at this time a little bit, but yeah, the, the, the main thing though, is just getting out there because it’s sure it’s a fun story. But yeah. Yeah. So, you’ve done, you did murder book and then you’ve done like the sons of anarchy thing, which is, you know, keeping in.

Time with like a lot of the crime stuff that you do. How did you end up working for Marvel? How was, how [00:10:00] was your experience doing the Cape and the Cape in spandex?

Ed Brisson: So my experience, how I started working with Marvel is kind of a weird story and not something that I think anyone could duplicate. And that was, I was at two in 2013.

It was a few months after come back and come out. And I was packing up at the end of the show and I would print copies of murder book to bring the shows. And I had three copies of issue, two and three copies of issue three left or issue one issue, two, whatever it was. If I had three copies of each one lap, and I just didn’t want to pack them and take them back with me.

So as I was leaving the show floor, The first three people I saw, I was like, Hey, do you want some three crank comments? I just gave them away. And I didn’t think anything about it. And then about two or three months later, I got a phone call and it turned out that one of [00:11:00] the people I’d given those two murder books to was a Marvel legendary.

I didn’t know that at the

Casey: time you essentially handed him a business card

Ed Brisson: without knowing the thing is I have a lot of like, Not a terribly one person, a fairly anxious person. So if I had known that it was marble at a dairy, I never would have handed them my books. I just, I’m not that way. So it was a, it was just a great experience where, you know, like it just so happened that the person who handy too, was a Marvel editor.

And Laura said that you then brought me on to fill in a couple of issues for Nick’s answer on secret wars. That’s the sort of secret Avengers and yeah, it was a weird thing to go over and do the Cape stuff. I’ve been reading Marvel movies entire life. So I grew up on it, but you know, the thing I had been working on for years at that point was crying.

Cause it was kind of, yeah. Quite a shift and I tend to be like a lot of the stuff I write tends to be pretty dark or pretty depressing. And so like, I do remember her handing [00:12:00] you my first outline and like marble, just being like, no, you can’t kill, you. Can’t have the character kill 10,000 people and then try and redeem them afterwards.

It just didn’t happen. But, you know, so it was a, it was a bit of a. A learning curve. There’s I think I don’t think that those issues I wrote are particularly the great I think I was really nervous writing them and you could kind of see that I there’s a lot of stuff I wish I could go back and redo, but you know, that’s just the process you just learn.

And I don’t think Marvel thought they were great either because they didn’t hire me back for another three years. Yeah, it was, it was it was definitely an experience doing that. And I think, you know, doing that and do another Marvel stuff over the years, I, I think I’ve learned that I either have to turn down projects that I’m not excited about initially.

Yeah. Or if I can’t find it, there’s something I was offered fairly recently that thought, you know, on a surface level, it’s not something I would ever want to write. But then I found like a really interesting twist [00:13:00] that, that felt like it was a me story. Right. Like, and that’s the thing is I think when I’m writing marble bloods, I want them to feel like it’s me writing.

You know, it’s a story that could only come from me rather than

Ed Brisson RX.output: yeah.

Casey: I mean, that’s why they hired you. They, they, and they’d written story

Ed Brisson: for sure. But like, I think there is sometimes, especially when you start a Marvel, the tendency to sort of like trying to figure out what it is that they’ve done and what like.

How does sort of lead into that, which is, which is a mistake. I think a lot of people do and I, I have to make them, they started. So that was just one of the lessons I’ve learned to just sort of lean into the V rather than leaning into the

Casey: Marvel of it. If that makes sense. Yeah, it is. It, is it hard to find, because like you said yourself, you, you, you know, you, you prefer doing like the darker, the crime stuff.

When it comes to like what people would say, it’s like traditional, like Western comics, you know, the, the spandex and the, the punch mops and stuff like that. Is it hard to find that twist? Is there anything [00:14:00] that you do to kind of get you into the zone to go, like, how can I make this mine?

Ed Brisson: Yeah, I think, yes.

It can be hard. I think there are just some characters, like, I don’t think. Ever really connect with that. I don’t think, you know, and I’m going to say this and then, you know, regret saying it when like three years down the road, I have a great idea for this character, but like I say, off the top of my head right now, I can’t imagine writing an Ironman story.

I just don’t have an Ironman story in me. It’s just not, it just doesn’t appeal to me. And I know that there’s a million other people that appeals to the two that I just. It’s just not for me. I think then there’s a few characters like that, that I just don’t think I can find a way in, but again, like things just changed.

So maybe like three, four or five years from now, maybe six months from now who knows, I might have an idea for that character. But yeah, I don’t know. I [00:15:00] think it varies from project to project. Sometimes it’s really easy to find a way in, and sometimes it’s just like beating your head against the wall and sometimes, you know, I have.

No on a couple occasions, sort of just turned down projects, just cause it does. I don’t think that there’s any forming. I just can’t come up with something that feels right for me. And the, on the other side is, you know, when I started out, I would take projects, hoping I could find a way. And, and, and I never found satisfying way.

And for me, and, you know, I, those are projects where I can’t. I hate looking at the map. Every time someone breaks them up just fine. I’m like, God damn, I wish I got to turn this book down.

Casey: Has there, has there been anything that you’ve written that surprised you, that you went like, holy shit, I didn’t think this was going to be my jam, but this is kind of a jam.

Ed Brisson: You know what? There was a project that pitched and I’m not going to say what it is because it didn’t happen. It’s not going to happen, [00:16:00] but it was a team book, which I’m usually pretty. Not that into doing teen books, the general rule, there are some teams that I will, but there’s a teen book that I got pregnant.

I was like, I don’t think so. Just think about it. I can’t say there was one hook in there that they knew I would be really into. So they knew they could get me with that. And I put together a pitch that I, to this day, it’s a weird thing. Cause I can’t talk about what it is, but it doesn’t say, I think is one of the best pitches I’ve ever written.

And it ended up knocked on anywhere. And I think, cause it was, it was pretty far out there from what I think they were expecting for this team. But I still think it would have been maybe one of the best things I’ve ever written had a gun for it. So yeah, it, you know, you will get projects. That may be on first blush.

Don’t feel like they have built it, but you know, it’s all about, it’s all about [00:17:00] kind of playing with it a little bit and sort of seeing what sort of shape you can make a take and see if you can make it work. And I don’t know, it’s a tough thing to find, to figure out whether or not you can make it work and whether or not it’s just worth leaving, living alone.

And some writers can do everything. Some writers can take on any projects and make at work. Right. I’m not one of those. I’m not one of those writers. I think I have my, my particular interests and you know, I might expand on it, but I, I, there’s just a subset that will never work.

Casey: Is there a genre that you, you have yet to try that you, you want to, you want to get into?

Ed Brisson: I, I don’t know. Cause I’ve done a lot of. I have written a lot of stuff that I’ve done like crime. I haven’t done much cosmic stuff at Marvel which I wouldn’t mind trying. The conflict stuff is stuff I was never really into growing up, but, you know, I’m also like a huge Sort of Saifai film [00:18:00] there, I’m a big film nerd in general, but like stuff in horror stuff I love.

So I would like to find a place to land with some constantly stuff. See a way that I could take cosmic, but every time I’m handed a cosmic, you know, idea, I find that my, my instinct is how can I ground this as quickly as, how could I take them out of space and like put them, I don’t care if they’re on a different planet, but I think the part that loses me in a lot of time with the cosmic stuff is when I went, just flooding around in ships and stuff.

And it’s the same with like, Films and such our stories all set on boats. Like I, for some reason, if they’re just on vessels the entire time I lose it, but like I love Allianz and I love all the alien movies and those all take dozens.

Casey: We’re got colored by Galactus, his forces for black man, Ron LIMS, silver surfer.

When I was a kid like that. Oh, my gosh, I loved it. And when I think it was like [00:19:00] Starlin was riding and then Ron Mars, that whole that storyline was fan flippant. Tastic. Yeah. Yeah. I would love to see some stuff like that again.

Ed Brisson: See, I don’t know, but yeah, I think most genres are kinda, can I have an opportunity to do I think.

You know, the one thing that I enjoyed doing a lot, I wrote a series that’s part of age of X-Men called next gen, which is kind of like a team X book, glob and armor and everything, but that’s something I would want to do. I think I want to do more. I had a lot of fun writing that book. I was really happy with Ella came up.

So I think stuff like that. And I think the one book that a lot people are surprised to hear, I want to ride is I’d love to write a power pack book. I love power back from my childhood, which is completely the opposite. Of anything else that I normally write. And you know, I, as I’ve said a million times before I’m the biggest speedball fan and [00:20:00] one

Casey: day one of the, he got done dirty, man.

Somebody needs to write that wrong.

Ed Brisson: I, you know, I wanna, I wanna make them cool, man. When I was 13 years old was when they, when they, they viewed speedball and he was supposed to be the next Spiderman, he was supposed to be like the next big thing. And 13 year old head. Fully. And I just, you know, I think that it never, obviously never really lived up to it.

And he’s kind of been a bit of a Marvel, a joke in the Marvel universe over the last, you know, 30 years or whatever. And I’d love to do a speed ball book and just do something that’s really fun. Not dark, not dark. Like, I

Casey: don’t know. He must be both.

Ed Brisson: It’s just a really fun speed speedball book and

Casey: done with that character.

Like cause, cause he wasn’t like the weird light pokey suit because he, yeah, yeah,

Ed Brisson: yeah. He was teaching at Avengers academy for awhile and then he is part of cradle right now. I’m not sure if credo the [00:21:00] soul going on or has wrapped, but it’s part of that whole. Outlawed series that’s going on with champions and everything.

So these, these around, but obviously not, not very prominently.

Casey: So how was your experience writing in, in an under the X wing of Marvel? I guess? Yeah, I

Ed Brisson: was, well, I was like, it’s weird for me cause I was there before, like the Donna stuff and then after, and I think the ACS office has probably worked on most of my work since getting there.

Yeah, it was great. It was fun. Like I grew up X-Men was my book growing up. And so it was kind of cool to be part of all of that, you know? And the Donna X stuff was, yeah, it was one of those things where you’re working out with 40 even launching new, it was going to be big and it was going to be popular.

So it was, it was just really exciting times. It was a lot of real like just sort of visceral energy in the room. Well, while we’re talking about the books and working on the books. Yeah, it was cool. It was a [00:22:00] lot of that. It was really exciting and it was really cool to be part of that and sort of see how it will be received.

And yeah, it was great.

Casey: Yeah. Yeah, yeah. That whole, like, I was a fan of what they were doing before. I can’t think of his name right now. The, the guy that kind of is. Hickman. Yeah. Sorry. My brain is shot. I’ve been in business for, so I was a fan before Hickman came onto the title and really appreciated what they were, what they were doing.

And it seems like. They’ve doubled down on the crazy one. Once, once the the initial Hickman, you know, the plot line started kind of settling down. It’s a really, really fun stuff. And it’s interesting where they’re taking it. So, I I’ve really been looking forward to seeing, you know, what, what, they’re, what they’re up to.

I got some great editors in that in that department. [00:23:00] So as a guy who does a lot of his stuff on his own, but also is working for the big two. Is it, is it hard to get into the swing of things when you’re doing things, you know, as you know, a ed Brisson title. Versus working under the Marvel umbrella or the DC umbrella.

Ed Brisson: Before I answer, I’m just going to turn my fan cause it’s sweltering in

Casey: here. Do what you gotta do, man. Fan.

Ed Brisson: If the fan interfuse with the mic, just let me know.

No, no, I just

it’s pretty humid here. Can you hear

Casey: that? No.

Ed Brisson: All right. Perfect. We’re good. Okay. So yeah, I dunno. I think what’s the, like the crater on something that I do is a much longer just say certain period on it because do usually I’ll have the germ of an idea for a thing and I’ll turn it. I’ll just turn it over in my head for.

[00:24:00] Until I have a chance to scan to it. So sometimes so sometimes, you know, it’s six months later before I can actually sit down and really start thinking about it. Sometimes it’s a year later. I just started outlining a project right now that I’ve been kicking around since about 2011. Oh my gosh. 10 years, you know?

Because you know, when you do the creator on, especially, you know, before they, before with the sense of going sort of like. Let an idea germinate for so much longer. And, and so I think that for me, by the time I go to write it so much of it, it’s already been thought over that it tends to come fairly easily.

A lot of things changes and just start writing page. But, you know, I think I have a fuller sense of a lot of times when I sit down, whereas the big two stuff it’s usually like come to you with an idea. I just would [00:25:00] like to know.

A book about collectives joining the fantastic four after eating the thing or whatever, then they’ll have some sort of idea, you know, not necessarily you didn’t that much an idea. Like sometimes they’ll just be like, Hey, do you have an idea for.

So for our team, you have an idea for the champions. Did you have an idea for splat around or whatever, or sometimes, you know, they have like a situation that the character has to be in. And so every time with that, you starting fresh and you don’t have nearly as much time to sort of sit on the idea that you’re doing with the greater ones.

So I find it, it feels like a lot more work for me with a big two book to get it off the ground. And also like with creator owned, it’s usually so far up my interest dally. Like the things I’m working on, that it’s already a thing, you know, subjects that I know a lot [00:26:00] about, or like the research part of that process is.

It’s fun. It’s enjoyable because I’m usually researching a topic I’m already interested in. And then, you know, it’s a big too, it’s like just a lot of like having to deep dive on back issues and sort of get a sense of the history of that character. If I’m not already aware of my memory lately, it’s been real really shit.

So I’ve had to like, no, I’ll have to go back and re read and just make sure and So, yeah, like beyond the prep time, I think once, once I get to be on that stage, just kind of the same we’ve got moving forward. Obviously with, with big two stuff, I have to get ideas past the editors, whereas I don’t have to do it as depends.

Sometimes they’ll bring in editors and they’ll try and stop some of my darker impulses. But yeah, it’s a feeling that is kind of just.

Casey: Do you ever keep up with the title after you’ve left? [00:27:00] Like, is it hard to see what other people do with you?

Ed Brisson: Yeah, I don’t and it’s not anything against anyone who has come out a book after me.

But it’s just sometimes you’ll leave a book before being able to sort of, you know, sometimes you’re working on a book and you have like a DNA slasher from yours and then, you know, It’s sometimes it’s canceled prematurely or we know you have to leave it’s for work on something else. It’s really hard to look at what someone else is doing with that after, after you.

So don’t think so far. No, I don’t think there’s a single book where I’ve gone back and read, read it after. Someone else has taken it over, which for like, if they’re three launched it under a new, you know, with a new number one and a new creative team which sounds dickish it’s I swear. It’s not, you only have

Casey: so many times, so it Foundry on the day though,

Ed Brisson: like, it feels like, you know, it would be like breaking [00:28:00] up with someone.

But then still hanging out with them when they’re dating someone else, you know, like just this third person there,

Casey: if that makes sense.

Ed Brisson: But yeah, I, I think that with enough distance, I’ll probably go back and look at some stuff. And I think there are some books where if it’s just like a media series or whatever, where it was meant to just.

So wrap after five issues that I don’t have that same sort of attachment, but if it’s something where I had some glimmer of a hope, that’s going to go on, you know, you always hope it’s going to go on for a hundred nations. And if I ever had that sort of glimmer of hope and then the book ends or, or the switch, it’s a little bit more difficult, this sounds really petty and it’s not meant to be.

It’s just, it’s just the way I’m built.

Casey: So you’re doing this book right now and beyond the breach and it’s, it’s more, a horror based title is that

Ed Brisson: yeah. [00:29:00] Sort of core. We’ll get a bit more into the Saifai of it in the second issue. The first issue is really just kind of throwing you, throwing it to the chaos.

And then the second issue you sort of get back a little bit to, so little bit of what’s happening, you know, Let’s try and make some sense of that, but you know, there’s a lot of chaos, but yeah, definitely for Saifai.

Casey: Awesome. Awesome. Well, what was your inspiration for, for this title beyond the breach is from aftershock comics, by the way,

Ed Brisson: right?

Yeah. I don’t know. This is like just one of those ideas that was kind of. That was kinda just sitting there. You know, Damien and I had talked about doing a book deviant and I have worked on and off since around 2005, without a bunch of books together. The cluster over at boom did a bunch of stuff with Marvel, the booklet, big idea.

We did a Merkel story [00:30:00] on sons of anarchy. I think we’ve done like over 500 pages stuck together, but Yeah, he and I had just been talking like at the beginning of the pandemic about projects to do together, he really wanted to do a horror book. And this was an idea that I had probably about a year prior that I was kind of trying to work out and I’m like, I don’t, hopefully I don’t think this is going to spoil anything, but yeah, don’t,

Casey: don’t recall it’s fuller country, but yeah, we want people to buy the book.

Ed Brisson: The idea, I wanted to do a book that was set down on earth. Well, where different regions of earth would be sort of rewritten to feel like they were almost different planets. So, so, so whether we could travel from planet to planet without leading others. And so that’s sort of like what is happening there in the breaching beginning, we get more of an explanation as we go forward, how that happens.

[00:31:00] What, if anything could be done about it, but it was, yeah, it was just a thing where like, we wanted to sort of build this world world Damien. I could theoretically just tell stories forever because you know, if we got sick one location, so to the next, and that’s a whole other set of. Dangers and threats and preachers and allies and all that sort of stuff.

And then it was just kind of built out of that. It was built out of a way that we wanted Steve world for John stories. And then we started building the story. Around to allow us to sort of tell that type of story. And yeah, it went through like a million iterations. I remember when I first started working on it, I was 100% convinced that the first issue would be one will be completely silent.

It was to be no dial, no nothing. I got talked that. But thankfully I don’t think it would’ve worked. Yeah. So it was just an idea that we were batting back and forth until we [00:32:00] kind of shifted to the new, we want it to be. And yeah, I just want us to think the dark book could also be fun and it could be almost anything Damien and I want it to be from it.

Shouldn’t she? That’s awesome.

Casey: That’s awesome. It may, an aftershock has been putting out some amazing titles floating. I’m really a fan of what they’re doing and the people they’ve gotten on board with them. So, yeah, I can’t wait to check this out. It looks fantastic. The art in it is, is really, really well done.

So how long is this projected together?

Ed Brisson: It’s right now, it’s just finding issues. We’re hoping that itself can come back and do another RFP more arcs, but right now just publishes it to go. But yeah, we’ll see. Hopefully the people pick it up. Pick up one, if not pick up one and two, then sure. We’ll be.

Because I don’t, I don’t, I don’t want to promise anything. I do. I know that after shop was really happy with the [00:33:00] number one sales, so awesome. Hopefully that continues.

Casey: So, You’re a writer. How do you get into amen. So what, when you’re, you’re, you know, getting into your work, like, do you, do you have a set routine?

Do you like sit down at your desk and go like, oh, it’s eight o’clock time to start the running machine? Or do you just write when you get to the opportunity? Like how, how do you make it happen?

Ed Brisson: So I used to be they’re routine based. And I think the thing that helped is my, when my daughter was younger, I’d have to walk her to school morning and pick her up from school afterwards and we have to move.

And so my routine was always like Walker to the school, like come home and I’d sit down and write I’d stop at noon. I would. Have lunch and watch a half hour show. And then I’ve worked until that three o’clock and don’t get her. And that would kind of be it for me for the day. It’s like I would [00:34:00] just write and then six, seven hours a day, six hours a day.

And then like the rest of my time, if you don’t kind of, don’t switch off and just trying to figure out story for the next day, but my in front of the computer, about six hours. Oh

Casey: wow.

Ed Brisson: Now I am all over the place. I have, like, I wish I had a routine. But I don’t find the sleep is all over the place. And so I just kind of work like I can, and I, I kind of, I’ll sit down and I’ll write three pages and get up and walk, take the dogs for a walk, maybe think about things and we’ll come back to, you know, every time I sit down to write, I try and write three pages.

So, you know, I’ll come back and write some more and I’ll get up and I’ll walk around. But as long as I’m always kind of moving the ball forward. So, no, like I said, when I sit down first time, I try and read three pages. By the end of the day, I try to have five pages [00:35:00] and I try to just keep going over those pages to make sure that they’re great.

Hopefully. But I, the one thing I have been doing care about up until a year up until the world went to shit I was thinking too much, too much, and I think it, it kind of burnt me out a little bit. So now I cut back drastically. And so I’m taking on less and trying to put more into this As much, as much as I can, especially like you can’t dictate my own schedules sometimes, you know, sometimes just don’t have a choice involved piles up, but I’m trying to get back to a place where I have that tendency to  haven’t turned things around in three days.

And so that 10 days where I can get up and walk around. Up to five pages a day. Then when that script is done, sometimes what I do is I’ll put this for the way we move on to the next [00:36:00] script and just kind of do it. And then come, when that script is done, I’ll come back to the first script and spend another few days on it because theoretically writing for these, but the first draft, and then I’ll put it away.

You get a little bit of distance, a bit, write something else for four minutes and then come back to that first script. And then spending another few days kind of trying to find tune and change things up. And sometimes, you know, come back to it. Like I just finished the script where I put it away. And then when I came back to it, I threw 10 pages aren’t working anymore.

And I just regret this time. Maybe it’s no uncertain a couple of days, 10 pages, and then like another day or so to fudge around. But it doesn’t seem very structured, but it seems like I’m kind of all over the place, but I just find that that’s the way I work best is just kind of being able to write a few things and get up and walk around.

I think I do my best [00:37:00] thinking about things when I’m walking. And so that’s why I’m trying to walk as much as possible.

Casey: Yeah. Are you a listener? Like what, while you write, do you listen to anything or do you just have to,

Ed Brisson: so, you know, for like, Credibility. I tell people, I listen to film soundtracks, like morphing soundtracks and stuff, which I do a lot.

I’ll listen to a lot of, for photon tracks for like stuff by Warren Ellis and Nick, Nick cave or

Casey: Ross or whatever atmospheric stuff. Yeah. Cornelis is fantastic. Musician.

Ed Brisson: It’s incredible to listen to what you’re writing, but I’ll be honest. The stuff that relaxes me the most that lets me be the most productive is like Spotify, you know, governances.

I don’t know why I, I just stumbled across him one day and [00:38:00] I just put them on and it’s just weird stuff. I would never listen to under any other circumstances.

Casey: Johnny track is fire, man.

Ed Brisson: It just gets me there. It just gets me where I need to be like mentally. It it’s just not right. Sort of, Level of like being there and atmosphere, but also stuff like that too.

Now

Casey: I hear you, man. I, I went through a phase where I would write while the Senate. You, you mentioned that Kevin Warren Ellis, her I went through a Nikkei phase while I was writing and it was the darkest shit ever. Everything was super dark. And then I went into a nuts. Trying to think that doom doom metal band.

I can’t think of their name right now, but it is mostly like atmospherics and. It was, yeah, it took me to some dark places, man. [00:39:00] Gotta admit. Maybe I should have been listening to yoga,

Ed Brisson: go there, but it’s just like, I don’t know what it is. It’s just it’s just, it’s just there. I need something. That’s just at the edges that I can, I know is there, but I can ignore.

Casey: What’s inspiring you now.

Ed Brisson: Right now, I don’t know. I’ve been reading a lot of, sort of just like crime books lately. There’s an author or just sort of discovered and devoured three books back to back and I

always forget it’s there. Okay.

Googling

writer. That’s correct. Just bring up

Casey: the movie then. Sorry. Sorry. I asked you the hard question.

Ed Brisson: This is like, he’s a really [00:40:00] good author. His name’s Donald Paul. And he wrote the devil all the time, which has been to film.

Casey: Okay. So that movie was filmed two miles away from my house. Yes. Yes. So I, I live, I said, I live in Birmingham.

I’m actually like 20 minutes outside of Birmingham. And the there’s like the, the scene where they’re at the house. That was down the road from my house like his house where he grew up. And then there’s the murder scene where they would, the, the couple would take you know, hitchhikers or whatever.

I’m like, awesome. That is a place I have taken my daughter several times to go camping. They will never see that. Because it was, you know, obviously they’re teaching now, but that will taint that place for ever. We were watching it and my wife was like that sort of mountain. I said, [00:41:00] yeah, that’s right by the, at Oak mountain.

Holy shit. So, yeah.

Ed Brisson: Yeah. It’s wild. Yeah. His stuff was Brent and he’s a weirdly like, Inspiring sort of, he’s really kind of inspiring. Cause he was, he was a factory. The often was a factory worker still. He was 50 something. Oh wow. And he was one of the school and he got an assignment and started writing.

He’s got three books out, double the time flux source called knock and stiff. This is a town called topics. It’s from. And the other was called the hidden table and all three books, all three of those books are just incredible. So we’re reading that, we’re reading a lot more Leonard.

Casey: He’s amazing.

Ed Brisson: And I was reading Frank bill as a collection.

I should have all this stuff in front of me.

[00:42:00] revenue,

short stories, very dark, but yeah, mostly it’s just kind of going back to the

You know, comic wise from taking what, what,

one of the genes and stuff with it.

Casey: Oh, he’s, he’s good. He’s solid.

Ed Brisson: Yeah, the legs and it’s killing children and there’s other one do apartment of truth.

Casey: Yes. That one is nuts. That title is easy.

Ed Brisson: So we joined that it just seems from sick pilots, which are really done a lot of response and just looking around my office.

[00:43:00] I don’t know that that’s terrible when you put me on spot trying to remember, but yeah, I’ve been rereading fractions talk on it and

Reading reread banning. You’re wondering, which is one of my favorite

Casey: books. I recently did that and yeah. Yeah. It still holds up. It’s amazing

Ed Brisson: also, and city since it is one I haven’t read in years and I’ve just been revisiting that, and that was like sort of a transforming. Serious for me when I was 18 came out that and sort of sincerely those two things, which is if you’ve read my prime motion, it’s probably like syncing straight bullets are huge.

Casey: I was about to mention stray bullets. Yeah. Yeah. So, what, what’s next for you after you’re doing, you know, you said five issues of beyond the breach.

Ed Brisson: At least five issues, hopefully more what’s next. I don’t know for sure. I’m in a weird place right now. So I’m working on [00:44:00] creditors still. I’m not sure when it’s coming out, but we’re like, I’m honest, your fiber artist is just sorry to shoot for.

So, you know, we’re, we’re pushing forward on it and you know, it’s been delayed. Not anything to do with our, on our end, in terms of productivity, it’s just trying to line up for COVID

Casey: screwed everything up. So, yeah. Yeah.

Ed Brisson: At, beyond that, I was just talking to someone about it. Currently. I have

six things waiting, seven things I’m waiting to hear back on. And obviously I won’t be able to take all seven, if everything was agreed, you know, it goes forward. So right now I know I’m going to be starting on something soon, probably in the next couple of weeks, but I’m not a hundred percent sure what it is for that.

So. I don’t know, there’ll be an adventure you guys can tag along. And by that I am ready actually running out this week. I guess this [00:45:00] has been announced there. I just realized I hadn’t been, but I’m, co-writing an issue of Batman suit files with James Timon. Oh, cool. Which is not why I plugged this stuff and stuff.

That’s great. That’s thankfully working with him and Josh fixins drawing it and it’s for a peacekeeper one who’s like this news or a Batman batty that has been in the most recent missions. We got to see the first big reveal of basketball last month, or so I’m always woefully block behind I’m reading in September two months ago.

But I think it’s just in the last month, so I’m running that and that’s sober.

Casey: Oh, nice. Nice. So that that’s awesome. And that’s exciting.

Ed Brisson: It is. It’s pretty cool. Like, James had like, he’d sent me an outline that sort of building a script around. Yeah. It’s a great outline. Really, really interesting story.

I think we can [00:46:00] survive the really fun stuff in the background with this character. Yeah. And then like the second set I’m just sitting here waiting on so I can sort of just find out the rest of the year. See what happens.

Casey: I hear you. I hear you. Well, is there anything else you want to shout out before we before we land the plane?

Ed Brisson: No, I think just check out the beyond breach friends, Tony shop. It’s an October checkouts and also, I guess, I wrote that earlier this year. So I forgot. I forgot that. It’s awesome.

Casey: And as, as a tack this onto it, where could, where would you recommend somebody to go pick that up at, do you have a local store that you you’re really into or just a shop that

Ed Brisson: you’re yeah, my shop here in in Halifax, I, I shop with straight insurance.

So the.

[00:47:00] Outback seem to know it. So it’s fairly well-known story, I guess, but yeah, that’s my, that’s my local spot down there once a week.

Casey: Nice, nice. So, you guys hit up strange ventures and go and buy it beyond the breach. So, I said, please do. Yeah. Oh yeah. Edison. Thank you so much for coming on. Anytime you want to come back by all means, hit us up.

I enjoy talking to, and shoot, man. I can’t wait to see where beyond the breach goes. Cause I’m.

Ed Brisson: Yeah, number two. I think people really get addicted to a lot of cool stuff. One of my favorite characters comes in.

Casey: Nice. Nice. And take it easy brother. Stay cool, man.

Ed Brisson: All right, bye.