Erik Burnham stops by and talks Transformers Beast Wars form IDW!

Erik Burnham – Interview

 

[00:00:00] Jeff: Hello listeners a sport our country today on the show, we had the fantastic Mr. Eric Burnham. How’s it going, sir? Oh, you know,

Erik Burnham: what’s going on right.

Jeff: Is with you. Everything’s going pretty well. So I was asked about Chromebook writers. I, I may just be assuming, but I assume you were writing, you’ve been reading comic books since you were a little, am I wrong

Erik Burnham: or right.

Oh no, you’re right. I have been reading them since. As long as I can remember reading. So age four or so is when I remember picking them up first. So

Jeff: any particular favorites that you remember?

Erik Burnham: Oh, yeah. Spiderman a hundred percent all the time. I I was initially I had a bunch of comics that my dad had passed down to me when I was, you know, like I said, a wee child.

And then they, they all went up in a fire when I was five years old, everything, everything gone. And I might’ve, you know, grown past comics at that point. But one of the first things, in fact, the first possession that I that I own, the first thing that I got after this fire, my grandpa gave me one of his comics from his, you know, his stash for the grandkids.

When they came over to read, it [00:01:00] was an Avengers annual. And that was my first possession after losing everything in a flyer. And that just kind of solidified my love for comics from there on out. And it just kept going. Yeah, I

Jeff: will say just like you, I’m actually a second generation comic book fan. My father was a combo fan when he was a kid.

He, you know, fell out of collecting, I think when he was maybe 18, 19, I think it was maybe 17 back in the sixties, you know, when I’m 17, you know, it would be a little too old for the comics that, and they made at that time. Yeah. And then I got back, I got, he got me into, and I was like nine or 10 and I kind of went in or out, but yeah, comics are something that’s just feels like it’s like genetics, like in your blood.

Oh yeah. Well, what Spiderman run was your favorite?

Erik Burnham: Oh, geez. You know, I, I have multiples, I, the stuff that I had first was a Ditko and Ramida, that’s what my dad had. And then of course few years later after that they were you know, doing the reprints. Well, not even a few years after that they were doing the reprints with marble tales.

So my my favorite spidey story that I remember earliest was spidey strikes back, which I think was amazing number 19. [00:02:00] And from there the the Ross Andrew stuff in the seventies, and then a little further in the eighties and nineties salvia, SEMA. Mispronounced that,

Jeff: but those are, those are the big names aren’t there.

But for me, Spider-Man was I started reading it at the maximum carnage run. If you know that run from, I guess it would be the mid nineties. Do you

Erik Burnham: remember that? I didn’t catch as many of those because at the time I was, I was living in rural Alaska and comics were a little spottier to come by. Do I do remember I do remember car carnage being introduced in some of the some of the maximum carnage stuff, but I didn’t catch the whole story.

So. Well, what, what the hell are you doing in

Jeff: Alaska?

Erik Burnham: My dad felt like he wanted to live there for a while. So off we went,

Jeff: well, you definitely want to get away from people as my

Erik Burnham: guests. You know, he just wanted to live in the wilderness. We certainly did that.

Jeff: I see. Well, as someone who lives in the Northeast, I guess I cannot complain about cold when you have lived in Alaska.

Erik Burnham: Well, I mean, it’s colder where I live now, [00:03:00] which has Minnesota, which is, I mean, that’s actually where I’m from and yeah, no, I’ve never had temperatures as cold in Alaska. We lived on the West coast, so we had nice Hawaiian updrafts. It never got any colder than I recall then, you know, like 25 30, whereas here, Hey windshield, it’s 45 below, outside, you know?

Jeff: So should I, should I not make the joke and ask him, can you see Russia from your house when you live in Alaska? Well, you know,

Erik Burnham: Not quite, although, you know, we had a, we had a thing we probably could have driven there a little amphibious. All-terrain vehicle. Yeah. I would want to be on the, on the on the ocean, the Northern, the Northern Pacific for, for the 70 hours.

It would’ve taken to drive. Yeah.

Jeff: So when did you decide I’m going to be a comic writer,

Erik Burnham: but you know, it’s funny, man. My mom has a story that she told me when I was four or five years old. I told her that I wanted to either be. Somebody who made comics or a magician. And I just, I don’t have manual [00:04:00] dexterity enough to be a magician.

I can’t do the card tricks or, or manipulation or anything like that. So I eventually fell back to comic books, switch, you know, who, who does what they think they’re going to do at four. Yeah. But yeah, no, apparently I’ve wanted to do it for the longest time. And I get a kick out of that story when, when she told it to me for the first time.

And yeah, no, it’s just, it’s something that I’ve always wanted to do. I bounce around different kinds of jobs. I had a lot of time in retail as many folks have. I did time in radio, which less folks have. And you know, then around 10 years ago, I started to do comics. You know, just, just for fun. I was I had been laid off from my job at a radio station and I was unemployed for about a year in change.

And so I was on the internet a lot more. Hanging out on message boards. This was before social media and I met, I met some folks. We were online. We were chatting on the old AOL instant messenger for those who remember that and the group chat, and they were complaining about what they didn’t like about the Marvel and DC events.

This sucks. That sucks. I don’t like how they did this. I [00:05:00] hate how they did that. Finally, one person said, well, could we do better? Just put our money where our mouth is. And we we did, we, we put together an anthology, a 80 page anthology came together in less than a year, which is ridiculously fast for publishing.

And I had an eight page story in that was my first. Comics work. And then the, a smaller group of the folks who put together the anthology decided to do a an indie comics company. And that was shooting star comics. We put out six anthologies, one two issue mini series, and a couple of one shots.

One of those one shots was the character that I debuted in that first anthology issue that Nick land to me, Nick land. Yes, exactly. Well, it’s upon, you know, nickel and dime. Gotcha. And so, yeah, and one of the, one of the folks who we put in an, a screw me who we put a mini series out by Tom waltz, we put his first workout, which was children of the grave.

Tom’s a San Diego guy, [00:06:00] Tom was talking with IDW about doing a collection of children to the grave, which they did. He got talking to them and eventually got hired on as an editor. And he liked nickel and dime. He liked my work and he asked me if I wanted to pitch to an anthology, they were doing a horror anthology gene Simmons.

Was it I can’t remember the name of the horror anthology now, but it was a gene Simmons thing. They were doing a license with gene Simmons, house of horrors or some such like that. I had a story accepted there that went fine. And I’m, I’m still working retail all this time now. After that, I, he asked me if I would like to do a mini series based on a tie into a toy that was in and out of stores in 2009.

I said, sure, I’ll do that. After that, he asked me if I liked the team and wanted to do, you know, a tie into the movie. I said, absolutely. Let me let me in there. And and then I got Ghostbusters at which point I became a full-time comics writer. So, I mean, that was the, the short version. I just, I kind of, I kind of lucked out chatting with chatting with friends about comics in [00:07:00] 2001 to 10 years later, writing writing an ongoing series.

Jeff: So you told me that your mom mentioned that you, your two plans was was either be a comic writer or a magician. How does she feel about you being a comic book writer?

Erik Burnham: You know, she is.

Surprised, but I think a little bit surprised. I’m surprised. I’m

Jeff: not surprised.

Erik Burnham: It’s just, you know, I mean, rural a rural family, a rural Midwestern family, it’s kind of just kind of a shock that I’m not doing something average. In fact, I worked for a long time, like I said, in, in retail and a thing where regular customers saw me regularly.

And after that store closed down, I was managing a video store. People had still see me and they say, what are you doing now? I said, Oh, I’m writing. And they said, Oh, that’s great. That’s fantastic. Walmart’s hiring. You could probably [00:08:00] get a job there. And I mean, so that’s, that’s kind of the mentality. And, and my mom has a little bit of that for the first five years.

She said, well, you know, What if this ends, what if you don’t get any more work? And of course, I mean, that’s, that’s a common, you know, problem and a fear for freelancers anyway, but she, she eventually, she eventually slacked off of of saying this could end at any time. No,

Jeff: I’m sure that it helps the anxiety, the freelancer, right.

I mean, as a freelancer, how, I mean, like mentally, because like I said, you do have that concern of working or not working or the project being ended and continue whatnot. Like how, how do you handle that from a psychological perspective? A

Erik Burnham: lot of denial helps and no, I mean, I, I just try to focus [00:09:00] on getting the next thing which I have to do anyway, because I, I have not been, I’m not particularly.

A gregarious person. A lot of writers are like that. So, you know, cold contacting editors or soliciting work is not as easy for me as it might be for someone else. So I have to focus on, on doing the thing. Otherwise I’ll lock up and just, you know, never work unless, you know, unless the work falls into my lap.

Jeff: Right. Right. So, so you wrote, as you mentioned, a very heralded run on Ghostbusters for IDW. Yes. W were you a fan of Ghostbusters prior to getting the gig?

Erik Burnham: Gosh, yes. No, I, I was a fan from go first time I saw the movie, you know, on video in, in 1986, I was a huge fan. And no, I just loved it and I love not just the Ghostbusters, but the general conglomeration of movies of, you know, the original Saturday night live guys.

So Dan Edward and bill Murray [00:10:00] and Harold Ramis from you know, other second city stuff loved all their work. And so, you know, it was a dream to be able to put their voices on paper and you know, it’s, it’s fun every time they get a chance to do so. I love it.

Jeff: Were you the fan of the cartoon as well, or just the movies

Erik Burnham: fan?

Anything? I get my hands on. So yes, it was a fan of the cartoon, but the movies obviously came first and it was just, you know, I liked the, well, I liked the wit of it and the older I got, the more jokes I got and the more, you know, illusions I caught in, the more things I noticed and it’s you know, watching the movie to catch up on A tone when I started doing the book again and seeing all kinds of things.

The first, th the thing that took me the longest to notice was the made in the background, spraying the fire out with Windex. And I don’t know. I mean, I watched the movie dozens of times, and I didn’t notice that until like 2011. So, I mean, that’s ridiculous, but it’s I, I catch something new every time and, you know, I’m big [00:11:00] fan of the property.

I just, I like the notion of dealing with fear through humor.

Jeff: Now, is it hard to write characters that are already pre-established because especially characters like the Ghostbusters, when you have bill Murray, Jane Akroyd, all those guys who had a very Pacific style and voice, and everyone kind of recognize it, is it hard to try to emulate those voices and those styles when you’re trying to write without making it sound like you’re just kind of like mimicking what they did instead of,

Erik Burnham: I know what you’re saying, and it’s strange the voice is.

Mimicking the voice I should say is kind of one of the talents I have in writing so much of the time, especially when somebody has such a clear speaking, voice, acting voices. These guys, it’s easier for me. It’s a little harder if there’s a clear voice, but it’s not something that I can hear. You know, it’s not like a, a something that I’ve, [00:12:00] that I’ve heard out loud via, you know, a movie or TV show that makes it a little bit trickier sometimes.

But no, no. Maintaining a consistency of tone is, is, you know, like one of the tools, the skills I have as a writer, which is really handy when it comes down to do licensed work,

Jeff: when you’re doing license off. So you have like, you’re working for IDW, you have the publishers, IDW, the editors. Then you have the company that owns the license who owns the Ghostbusters is Hasbro, or is it

Erik Burnham: Ghostbusters?

No, that’s Columbia,

Jeff: Sony. Okay. Sony. So you have Sony, you have the publisher IDW. Obviously you have editors for IDW. How much, is it difficult to have that many voices trying to all potentially share ideas pitch in common critique? Or is it, did you basically, were, were you able to write without any real interference from the outside?

Erik Burnham: I mean, that changes from project to project and story to story. The first ghost story I [00:13:00] did the infestation crossover in 2011, I was writing in 2010, but the first story there were no, there were more notes from Sony about what they wanted and didn’t want once you figure out the notes and you know, where the lines are, the notes, you know, the, the the stuff kind of can disappear a little bit, and then you can just, you know, get away with whatever you want because you know what your boundaries are.

I found those out pretty quick with Ghostbusters and for the most part, if I’m servicing the property properly, No, you know what I mean? The, the editors will come up with a suggestion if they think there’s something better for the story. And so will the licensers and 99% of the time, if they have a suggestion, it’s a good suggestion.

It should be added. It gets added and it makes everything better. But you know, the the time that they don’t have a suggestion yet, it’s, it’s all gone pretty smoothly with, I’d say the vast majority of comics I’ve written, I [00:14:00] haven’t gotten, I, I can only think of maybe three or four comics total where I’ve gotten heavy notes where I’d have to go back and do some rewriting, which is a fantastic streak of luck that I am knocking wood.

Continuous.

Jeff: That’s kind of fun because often when you like the joke, I gets a lot with studio notes is that they’re usually like, instead of making the shirt red, make it blue, but you’re saying these actually were substantial notes that you were receiving. Oh, no,

Erik Burnham: no. For the most part, I mean, I can’t speak for any of the artists I’ve worked with as far as the notes that they get.

But for the most part unless something was, I worked on, on a couple of comics for the Ninja turtles that tied in that didn’t tie in, they, they were from the, the 2012 cartoon the 3d one that was running on Nickelodeon. Now, when that show was on the air and I was writing comics for that, they were a little bit pickier because they didn’t want me to copy something.

That they had in the works that wasn’t going to come out for a year and a half that I would have no way to know about, you know? So it was just like you can’t do this story because, you know, in a, in a, like I said, a year and a half from now, [00:15:00] we have an episode that is very similar, so we don’t want you to do that.

And you know, then I would, I would rewrite and fix it. They, they decided that after I wrote the, a new comic book day or the free comic book day issue, the zero issue, and I came up with something, they decided to let it go through, but it was similar to something that happened in the episode that aired like two weeks after the free comic book day.

And people were like, Holy cow, this, somebody ripped somebody off, but I’m not sure who, and, you know, I mean, it’s all, it was all just a coincidence of the timing, but but yeah, they, they when, when there’s, when there’s multiple. Iterations going an active TV show or an active movie. They are a lot more specific about what they will and won’t do let you do.

I, I ran into that. I’m writing Godzilla now Friday w and they had stuff that they didn’t want me to do, just because it was, it, it came, it come up in the, I found out later it came up in [00:16:00] the new Congress has Godzilla movie. You know, I had a Godzilla breaching out of the water, which you see in the trailer, Godzilla breaching out of the water when he was going to fight Conn’s at one point.

And they wanted me to I, I had him the way I wrote in the script for him to land. They said, don’t have him land like that. He needs to land like this. Okay, cool. Well, that’s a fair note. I will rewrite that right now. And then these notes like that, the kind of stuff where I would have no way of knowing what it needs to be.

That’s the kind of notes I get more often. And I mean, you know, I appreciate that because then I don’t look stupid.

Jeff: Well, we don’t want to look at look stupid. So just out of curiosity, what the Ghostbusters you must be really looking forward to, I guess there are re the reboot or whatever they’re doing with the new Ghostbusters movie.

 

Erik Burnham: Yeah. Yeah. I can’t look I can’t wait to to see how it comes out. Yeah.

Jeff: I mean, I would assume that IDW would probably have a new ongoing for, you know, to coincide with this movie. I would imagine.

Erik Burnham: Yeah. I, you know, No, no, I hope so. I hope there’s. I hope there’s a new series to come out when the movie does, but I, I can’t comment.

All that stuff is, is above my pay grade

[00:17:00] Jeff: when you are doing licensed work for a property like ghost and you know, something’s coming out with them that you’ve written for before you get to like salivate a little bit, like here it comes. I’m about to get another request.

Erik Burnham: Yeah. Yeah. Well, I mean, I always hope that’s the, that’s the thing.

You always hope that that more work is coming. Yeah.

Jeff: So, another project that you’re working on is transformers beats Wars. How did this project happen? Okay,

Erik Burnham: well, actually this is, this is kind of funny. I was a year ago just before my birthday, last year in February, I was bored and flipping through to find something to watch on all the streaming channels.

I flipped over to one of the free ones. Tubi and I saw beast Wars on there and I said, well, I’ve never seen this. I think, I think a lot. I think we’ll check it out. And I, I got a kick out of it. I mean, you know, I mean, it was, it was a nineties cartoon. So the elements that were playing to a seven year old were pretty strong, but they got some stuff in there that I wasn’t expecting.

And legitimately made me laugh out loud. I thought it [00:18:00] was fun. So I I emailed Tom who was my editor on Ghostbusters. Tom Walton is also the editor on transformers. And I said, I don’t know, have you, have you are you guys ever thinking about doing this again? Because this was kind of fun. I looked up to pitch a one shot or a mini series.

If anything ever comes up, he goes funny. You should ask. And he told me that they were going to be doing a a new, a new series, a new ongoing series to tie into the 25th anniversary this year of beast Wars. And he asked me if I would like to pitch and yeah, absolutely. You know, and I threw together some ideas and my ideas were.

You know, at the time they had, they had something that they wanted to, and that was exactly like the cartoon, but tweaked just a little bit. So I pitched that and they liked that, but then they decided that they wanted, they wanted they wanted me to, to flavor a little bit more, change it a little bit more, be a little bit more me with it.

And, and, and I guess the, the approach that we, we came to was like, when Marvel did ultimate comics [00:19:00] and they started out more or less the same as the original Marvel, but then they tweaked things and the little tiny change would set things going further and further apart until Spider-Man starts with Peter Parker.

But then Peter Parker dies, you know, several years later and you have a new Spiderman and that’s obviously not happening with your original comics, but, you know, I mean, it was just one of those little things that One change led to another change, led to another change, very subtly. And that’s the kind of thing they were looking for.

Little, little tiny changes that can turn into big changes later. Okay. So

Jeff: you referenced Peter Parker dying in the Ascension of Michael miles Morales as the new Spider-Man should, we’ve now be concerned for the character of transformers that now you’re just hinting at a major character, does potentially get killed off.

Well,

Erik Burnham: I mean, you know, in the cartoon they decided, you know what, let’s just kill this guy. Or maybe they were not shy about killing characters in the cartoon. So, I mean, it is called beast Wars. Some characters, you [00:20:00] know, might or might not survive the entire run of the book. I can’t say for sure, who were, who will not, or, you know, maybe everybody else survive, you never know.

But the, the thing that we’re told is We can kill characters. We can add characters, new characters, which is something we did for the first. And we can you know, do that. A lot of things. There’s a lot of leeway. One of the only things they told me is that there’s a list of characters that I’m not allowed to use.

And, you know, I mean, they have their reasons for saying no. So, I mean, I have this list of characters that I can use in this list of characters that I can. And you know, I, I never, I never know if I’m supposed to say which ones I can’t use straight out or not. So I just don’t want it there, there, you know, there, there are characters and concepts that they just, you know, don’t do, don’t do this.

And that may be because they have plans for them down the line, or that may be because the. There there’s a, there’s legal reasons between a character that appeared in the Japanese content and the American content, or there may be, you know, somebody in charge just doesn’t like that character, any of [00:21:00] these reasons can be a reason to be told no on Ghostbusters for several years, for example, I was not allowed to use the characters, Dana and Louis, the ones that played by Sigourney Weaver and Rick Maraniss and the movie.

So I just, wasn’t straight up allowed to use them at all four and five years, four years, four years before they finally allowed me to use them. And they had their reasons for that. And I mean, so that kind of stuff can just, can just come up. We don’t want you to use these. Why? Because, so, so

Jeff: well, after watching some transformers beats Wars, did you continue into transformers beats machines?

Erik Burnham: I did not know. I I watched the I watched the beast Wars that were free on TV, but I didn’t go any further than that because I, I I got busy with some other things and just didn’t get back around to seeking it out. But yeah, no, I, I did do some reading up, but I haven’t, I haven’t got to be as machines yet.

And at this point, I don’t know that they would want me to do anything from these machines. Just for that same reason. I just mentioned it’s [00:22:00] it’s technically something different. Yeah.

Jeff: If my memory serves. I remember beef machines and obviously it continues after be sore. So my question was, what was their intent to make that also a destination of your series

Erik Burnham: essentially?

No, no, that’s, that’s not the intention. The the stuff that they wanted me to keep from beast Wars is, is a hard and fast. And that’s a, that’s a foundation that it can’t get around. So, I mean, you have to have, I was told I have to have the golden disc. I have to have time travel and so on. But the future is not something that they are going to hold me to and they may be changing that as well, because, you know, they have the new cartoon out and if they change where beast Wars is going by way of that new cartoon, which I have no idea about, I haven’t, you know, I, I don’t know their future plans, but if in their future plans, like with the Ninja turtles, you know, two years down the line, they’re, they’re heading towards this thing which might be something similar to beast machines, or it might be something completely different.

Then they would tell me, you [00:23:00] know, to leave off of that stuff. Cause if they’re going to do something similar, they don’t want me to do something, you know, along those lines, if they’re going to do something different, they definitely don’t want me to do something along those lines. So I imagine that I will just be playing in the sandbox of what is familiar to beast Wars for the foreseeable future.

And tell him basically told I don’t have to.

Jeff: The other thing that, as you mentioned, as well as about adding new characters, obviously one issue with time travel going with on the ship, going back in time is that I would seemingly you’re stuck with only the characters who are on that ship at that time.

Is that accurate? Or there goes, the ship is so potentially so large. It’s just a question of not having shown this character who happened to be on that ship

Erik Burnham: now. It’s it’s going to be, it is you see, in the first issue, the crews that are there and that’s it, but just like the cartoon, we have the the cargo in the the good guys shipped in the maximal ship, the proto form pod.

So they were going to send out to [00:24:00] explore strange new worlds. And those will become new characters as they, you know, as they go about just like they did in the shell pro to form pod opens, Hey, it’s a new character. Maybe it’s a good guy. Maybe it’s a bad guy, but it’s a new character. And you know, so that’s how we’ll introduce new stuff.

But as far as the folks who came back through time, it was just the ones that we saw in the first issue.

Jeff: Well, I’m also a big fan of Brian broccoli’s run of his transformers. Ongoing. Does your peace Wars combo connect at all to his rando transformers right

Erik Burnham: now? Not right now. That’s not to say that it won’t.

That’s not to say that it will, but right now we’re keeping them separate.

Jeff: Okay, good. Cause you know, companies love to do that, the crossover. So I’m just wondering

Erik Burnham: it’s, it’s something, it’s something. When the book was in its early stages, something that we considered I mean, it was something that we considered right, right away in the proposal.

But you know, that comes down to, is Hasbro ever going to do a crossover, you know, in a, in a cartoon or [00:25:00] in a movie or in something else? And I mean, I’ve seen hints on the internet that that’s probably the case. I mean, the movie part, I don’t know if it is, but if they are a planning that then I would be told don’t do that until we finish what we’re going to do.

And, and so, I mean, I haven’t, I haven’t been told that, but you know, that, that, that could be, if I, if I, if, if I decided to, to pitch something and they, they told me, no, right now I’ve been told to hold off on a crossover. It’s just because of the fact that they want to establish the book on its own.

And but you know, like I said, crossovers are good people, like crossovers, crossover sell, and they like seeing character, a meet with character B and have a little, little bit of fun. So it’s certainly could come up, but I don’t know that that it will, or if it will, or when it will, it’s not in the cards.

It’s not on the plate right now,

Jeff: but you’re saying though it exists within the same timeline and same universe.

Erik Burnham: Well, like I said, right now, it’s it could, or it could not because we, oops, [00:26:00] sorry about that. The the I lost my train of thought because of the phone. Yeah. No, no, right now it’s, it’s not established one way or the other.

So if we decide to do a crossover, then yes, we’ll, we’ll set it up so that it, that it meets nicely, but we’re not, we’re not going to tie it to Brian’s run just to make sure we both have leeway that he doesn’t have to do anything or you know, that nothing, he does ties our hands at any way until we’re sure that that’s what we want to do.

So it’s not a no, and it’s not a yes. And I sound, I know that sounds like kind of a Dodge, but we’re just, we’re keeping it. We’re, we’re keeping it loose right now. Just, just to keep all options open. Yeah.

Jeff: These ones, these ones kind of exists in kind of a weird place where it’s kind of in the future of.

Something that was in the same timeline as the transformers standard transformers, but also because it goes back into the past, it both exists before the trip, the original transformers, cartoon gene, one G one cartoon, but kind of also exists after it. So it’s kind of like this weird combination of both.

[00:27:00] Erik Burnham: Right. Right. And, and that’s the thing we we don’t want to, to tie anything into that. You know, I mean, us with the time travel element, something that we did, if the books were tied together might affect something that Brian plans to do. And anything that if we tied them together, that Brian does, could affect what we plan to do.

So right now we’re just gonna, you know, like I said, we’re not winning, not going to tie it in to close until, you know, until, until they decide that that’s the way it’s going to go. But yeah, until, until then it just keeps everybody’s story options open.

Jeff: Well, when you have a cast as big as transformers, is it hard to make each one feel distinct from the others?

Erik Burnham: Not distinct, but it is hard to get everybody in the spotlight when there’s only 20 pages and there’s over a dozen characters.

Jeff: So, but not only you had that many characters and you have that much time, but, but as you said, each one needs their own arc, the story arc to give them purpose. I mean, I assume it’s kind of like when you [00:28:00] watch a G one, it kind of feels like you have automatic prime and then you have his group, you know what I’m saying?

But basically abstinence prime. Is this going to be more of your insomnia or is this going to be optimist primal heavy?

Erik Burnham: I’m going to try to keep it as an ensemble, but let me, let me rephrase that. What I like to do is each story would have one character kind of taking the lead and you know, and then everybody else kind of, well, like any ensemble, they, they kind of fall back until it’s their turn in the spotlight.

And that’s what I’m hoping to do here in the first dark, just by the nature of how it’s set up dyno bot and Nick’s are kind of more on the spotlight than some of the other characters. And when I pitched the book, I sent like two or three years worth of stuff, excuse me, two or three years worth of stuff, in story ideas.

And everybody got a little bit of a spotlight. So, you know, I mean, as the book goes, hopefully it goes long enough to do all those stories and a few more, but yeah, everybody should get a turn in the spotlight. And the

Jeff: first issue definitely starts, I [00:29:00] would say immediate Rez. I mean, it starts off right off the bat with action was the goal.

And also obviously the research with the attack of the research center planned by a gala VAR, I believe is how you pronounce it. Calabar is the go-to Amelie set, a tone and style the first series?

Erik Burnham: Yeah, a little bit. I mean, the. Idea for the first issue obviously was to mimic the opening to the show, but we had a little bit more space and we wanted to show a little bit more than, okay, well now they’re crashing to earth right away in the first couple of minutes, you know?

So yeah, no, we, we, we had had a little bit of room to show, you know, the theft of the golden disc, the show, the hijack of the dark side to show why other ships weren’t chasing down Megatron after he had left Cybertron we had a little bit of room to do that. So, I mean, that’s why we did, but I mean, yeah, no, it was just to set the tone.

And also I use the ultimate example earlier to show you what was the same and then give you a little bit what was different, but to establish the tone and all the stuff that people [00:30:00] are familiar with, and then, you know, the, the seasoning, the pepper, the, the extra stuff that they weren’t.

Jeff: And one thing I really liked about that first issue is that The character gala VAR chooses to name himself Megatron.

And I do want to partly, I do wonder if Galvon is kind of also a, kind of a Gabba Tron nod as well, maybe,

Erik Burnham: A little bit. I mean, it was I knew from, from the old show that he had changed his name and I thought it would be fun to show what he had changed his name from. And you know, because I mean, he, he consciously did it before the show goes.

He he’s, you know, reaching for the legacy. And I liked that and I thought it would be funny to have something that sounded a little bit like Galvin Tron and go back towards a Megatron as opposed to, you know, the reverse. But but yeah, no, it was, it was, it was just a subtle, you know, it was, it was a hat tip.

Yes. To Galvin try. I think the

Jeff: cool thing about having the names of Megatron, it kind of gives the name Megatron. It kind of, sort of like a title, almost like a Caesar. A little bit. Yeah. You know, and it, it [00:31:00] kind of only does reach back to that legacy, but it does kind to insinuate a little bit about Megatron as in obviously whatever Megatron did in the past, he was only successful, but he was enough that his legacy always maintained remain strong.

That kind of what you

Erik Burnham: were also insinuating. Well, a little bit. I mean, you know, if you have a historical figure, which in this case, Megatron would be, you know, you’re going to have people and if you make the history books are going to inspire somebody, basically you might, you might not be, you know, somebody major, it might be somebody major.

It might be a minor inspiration. It might be, you know, huge. But yeah, if you’ve made the history books, if you’re remembered going forward, you know, hundreds of years down the line, you know, you’re going to inspire somebody at some point, just because piano. That’s how history works,

Jeff: but about say history definitely works in such a way that most people [00:32:00] Caesar named from Julius Caesar, who many people considered the great emperor of Rome, no one calls themselves like Hitler.

So Megatron by Neimans of Megatron is insinuating that Megatron the idea of him went through history in a very positive light, at least within that group. Well, no, I

Erik Burnham: mean, you know, when you say, you know, nobody calls himself Hitler. I, you know, there are certainly Neo Nazi groups all over the world that that admire Hitler and remember Hitler and say, you know, that guy was right.

So, I mean, and you know, I, I don’t think you would find the majority of the world thinking that Hitler was anything positive, but there are people who. Who do think so. And they have that, that, that skew. So, he is definitely inspiring them in the wrong way. On the other hand, you also have people going, well, we never want to go through that again.

And, and and, and, you know, that’s, that’s a positive, that’s a positive effect of Hitler. They, you, we don’t want to go through that horror again. So we will, you know, make [00:33:00] sure to avoid that, that, you know, I mean that that’s, you know, history working in a positive favor from up from a negative person, but no, there, there, there are bad people or, you know, let me rephrase that.

Let me fix that. There are people who just take different lessons from, from different folks. And I can’t say Hitler was a good person, but I can say that some people were inspired by him and there, and they’re not good people either. Well,

Jeff: that opens an interesting question about God LaVar. The question with, with him is.

Because once again, as my indication from reading, the first issue is that he was not the leader of his group until he moves into the past. So is he an inherent to Megatron who’s viewed by a minority as let’s say the Hitler type or does the group people belong to the larger group? Has Megatron made it to that level where he’s widely accepted by a large faction of [00:34:00] these Fox transformers,

Erik Burnham: me figure this out. So you have a large group look at any, look at any political group anywhere. No political group is all of one thing you’re going to have in, in, in the larger umbrella of a political group, which will take the maximalism Rubicon’s or Autobots is Decepticons all that will take them as two political groups for the sake of this point in that larger umbrella, you’re going to have these people who have an extreme belief.

These people who have a passive belief, these were aggressive. These who have, you know, a more conciliatory let’s make an agreement, move forward. Belief, you know, you’re going to have all this different stuff. I believe this, but not this. I am for this type of action, but not this type of action. All of that stuff together.

There is one core thread that runs between people have a political Stripe that keeps them under that umbrella. But you know, it’s, it’s not always the same one. It’s not always, you know, [00:35:00] It’s not always the, the extreme one. I mean, I guess I’d say look at you know, the real world right now. Look at Democrats.

You have everybody from say a West Virginia mansion in West Virginia, and then Bernie Sanders. Who’s not a Democrat, but caucuses with them. Those guys are fairly far apart, but they’re both, you know, technically under the liberal umbrella, you wouldn’t, you know, if you’ve sat down and we were chatting with those guys, you probably wouldn’t wouldn’t necessarily think that all the way.

And, and so, so, and so it is with fiction the characters, some of them are going to be more extreme and some of them are going to be less extreme. And and there you go.

Jeff: So, so would Megatron be the fanatic within his party or is the party itself the larger one kind of fanatic.

Erik Burnham: No, he he’s, he’s going to be closer to the fanatic side, as it goes in beast Wars, the, the maximum of the protocols are on the same planet.

Some of them don’t like each [00:36:00] other, some of them work together. Some of them, you know, they, they, they have a piece, but some of them are kind of, angling to in the. Social status school. And some are trying to do it subtly and sneakily and politically, and some are trying to blow stuff up and take over the planet, you know?

So, I mean, it’s, it’s it, you know, I mean, I understand it’s weird. These, these are toy robots that turn into animals. Let’s discuss political allegories, but no, I mean, it’s, it’s, I I’m, I, I know how weird it all sounds trying to try to work the process, but I mean, it’s, you know, sometimes it’s, it’s just an image in the head and you know, you try to explain it and it sounds closer to babbling.

Jeff: Well, you know what though? I mean, as, as someone, as myself is a self-professed key, that’s what it’s all about. Isn’t it, you take something that’s well made for kids and you blow it up to great proportions to debate the nuance of this thing as, as it is. As if it is far more [00:37:00] sophisticated than it was originally tended to

Erik Burnham: be well, you know, I mean, it was good guys and bad guys, as they, as a cartoon shows as toys and as people grow and their affection doesn’t diminish more depth is added to a story or, you know, I mean, that’s what we try to do.

And or just, you know, more depth is seen and people have a lot to, you know, there, there’s, there’s a big inner life with these characters that lives inside every fan of the property. And, you know, hopefully, you know, we try to, we try to capture that inner life and that the, the depth that a person has through their affection for a property, that’s what we try to bring to the stories.

All of the, everybody who works on them, you know, all the writers and artists across comics and movies and TV. That’s that’s the ultimate goal is, you know, here is a character that. Is as important in the story as they are in your head.

Jeff: So, so optimist primal is definitely at the start very different than his namesake, which [00:38:00] is, I assume first prime is as the namesake. He seems almost like hot rod in the transformers movie. I’ve seen that. You’ve seen it. Okay. Yep. So is it the 10th that he is similar to a hot rod now in the, in the part of his arc is going to be to grow into more of the admins primes style hero, but what you kind of like the hot rod are starting off.

Okay.

Erik Burnham: Yeah. You know, I mean, if you start off, I mean, optimist prime was great, but he didn’t have a whole lot of growing to do as a character. He was fully formed and the way he was was largely the way he stayed But but yeah, no, here, it just gives us an opportunity to show somebody’s making mistakes and growing in to more of a seasoned role growing up basically, and primal is definitely going to make mistakes.

He’s going to get excited and he’s going to say, let’s do this. And then five minutes later going maybe that was not the right call. There were consequences. I [00:39:00] didn’t foresee. I should probably never do that kind of thing again. And then maybe the next time he’ll be too cautious and find out that that was the wrong call.

I to learn the long, the wrong lesson, the first time I will integrate that into my experiences and, you know, going forward we’ll will judge things differently. And I mean, you know, that’s, that gives a lot of A lot of play, a lot of room to work with the character and, you know, hopefully, hopefully, you know, that’s the kind of character arc we’ll get and have a lot of fun doing so.

No.

Jeff: And I agree with you a hundred percent. I mean, I, as a kid, I loved out this prime, but yeah, you really had pretty much, no starts a story arc. He was perfect. When the show, you know, as a character, you know, he’s a perfect bot when it starts in the ends as a perfect bot, there, there really isn’t little growth.

I will say, and I, and I might get stoned by the transformers community, but I always preferred rock bottom is Brian. He actually had a story arc. He had it at some developed character development. I always thought he was the better character in my opinion.

Erik Burnham: Well, you know, I mean, [00:40:00] every time somebody new comes to a franchise and there there’s, you know, the, the characters laid out, you know, depending on the time you come in, if you came in right away at the beginning of the show beginning of the franchise, you’re not going to surround them as prime.

You’re going to attach to the characters that are there. And maybe you’ll accept a hot rod and maybe you won’t, maybe he’ll become a favorite and maybe he won’t because you had these characters. Now, if you come in later and all the characters are there and you know, nobody has, has more important just, you know, coming into the story.

I mean, It can go differently and it has gone differently. And I go back with, with those clusters to use this example, there are many fans of Ghostbusters who came into it with the cartoon, either the real Ghostbusters or the extreme Ghostbusters, and they have more affection for the cartoon than any of the movies, because that’s what they came to.

That’s what they know first. [00:41:00] That’s what they fell in love with. And it’s the same. It was the same with everything. There are beast Wars fans who are beasts Wars fans, because that’s what they came up with, an optimist prime and the original Megatron and all the G one stuff that’s okay. But this is the real transformers over here.

And, you know, I mean, so, I mean, it’s just the iteration that you came to the, the mix of characters, the way the characters were at that point in their their development in their life. The first one that you come to. Is most of the time going to be the one that you have the most affection for, that you fell in love with.

And, and, you know, I mean, it, it doesn’t always work that way, but on average, that’s how it does work and that’s, and that’s what it is. So, I mean, yeah, somebody somebody could absolutely come along and say, no, no hot rod is, is the one that steps, that transformers character, that was the depth. And it wouldn’t make any sense to somebody who fell in love with the optimist [00:42:00] prime from, from goal back in 1984.

But you know, so, I mean, it’s just, I’m, I’m babbling, but I think my point makes some kind of sense

Jeff: certainly makes sense. Yeah. And I always wonder about this too, because seemed like this was a pattern may not be a pattern, but I, it might’ve been, my brain just created a pattern, but the, all about autobody leaders including on is probable or characters that grow into the role of hero Ronald miss prime eventually takes a hot rod, takes over from office prime.

Prime was and grow into being a hero. Well, the Decepticon leaders seem to just become that guy. Like gravitron was Megatron the megatons, the gavel, Calabar in peace Wars, just announces that I am now Megatron the leader, which is like, is that saying something about the inherent differences between either the good guys?

Autobots maximum versus the protocols Decepticons about the nature of their leadership roles or by looking too deep

Erik Burnham: into it? Well, no, I, I think it’s slightly different in that, in the case of a beast Wars, Megatron, he is taking on the [00:43:00] name. I mean, he, he isn’t, he isn’t a G one Megatron turned to Galvin Tron turn to beast.

Where’s Megatron. He’s not the same person. He’s not the same robot. He’s just, excuse me. He’s just. Taking from the legacy in order to inspire the name is familiar. I’m going to use the name, people understand the name, they understand the banner, they understand the history. So I’m going to hype up the people or the predator to go the way I want by using this name, using this history using this you know, connection, you know, using, you know, so, I mean, if you hear, you know, Okay.

I, I, I, you know, we’ll, we’ll use star Trek. If you, if you’re, you’re, you’re, you’re a star Trek guy, if you’re in star fleet and you have, you know, captain, whoever that’s one thing, somebody comes along and they are coincidentally also named captain Kirk, what you’re going to have a different you’re going to have a different perspective just because [00:44:00] of the captain Kirk that existed you.

You’re going to have a train of thought you’re going to your mind is going to go from, well, this guy must be like this guy subconsciously, because he has the name, name, same name that doesn’t make any logical sense when you think about it on the surface. But subconscious has a lot of has a lot of power and, you know, just, just having some of the same name and work on the train of thought can go a long ways.

And I think that’s what Megatron is playing with. He is looking for greatness by association.

Jeff: Well, another great character in the series is rhinos. Now with his interactions with primal, would you say he’s more of an iron side or more like cut?

Erik Burnham: He’s not as crowded. He’s got, I’m going to go with iron side

Jeff: because Ironside is sort of the he, you know, he’s the, not an underlined, but you know, he works under Austin’s primary just gives advice, but a couple was more of the mentor, right?

Erik Burnham: No, fair enough. Yeah. Fair enough. No, I get what you’re saying.

I, I wouldn’t put that, put him as you know, a hundred percent. He is a friend. He is, he [00:45:00] is a mentor in some ways, but yeah, he’s also, he’s also still under primals command in this case. So he’s, it’s it’s yeah, it’s a little bit, I think, you know, I’ll, I’ll, I’ll take it back to one more time to star Trek.

And, and Kirk and McCoy and Spock, I mean, Spock and McCoy are definitely, you know, Kirk’s the captain there. They, you know, they’re the serving under the captain, but they, they do have advisory roles, mentorship roles in some cases. And, and, and that comes, and that comes through even though he’s technically in charge.

So, so we’ll put it that way.

Jeff: Well, the one thing I really liked about your Sarah is that I like the reason you give for why the transformers in this world has a techno organic art mode. And I, and I was wondering was that really, to answer our question, which is why would you need to disguise yourself in a world?

No. Of all animals, but that kind of a way to explain why this idea has to occur, why you do need animal art modes?

Erik Burnham: Well, I mean, yeah, that was. [00:46:00] I mean, the, the Aaron, John radiation was something sticking straight from the cartoon and because, yeah, there’s no vehicles on the planet. They do need alt modes and they do read just animals.

So, you know, that would be the thing to disguise them as, I mean, that’s, that’s the logic of the show. And I didn’t, I didn’t think too much past that. I said, okay, you know, that’s a good idea. It works. It’s also something that I absolutely have to do because it’s in the title of the book. Let’s run with it.

But I mean, you know, it’s fun to, Hmm. Well, I mean,

Jeff: there are some really wonderful designs. I mean, this is primal design, Rhino-Racks Nixon, they’re all really fun designs.

Erik Burnham: Oh yeah. And you know, I mean, that’s, that’s all on. Josh is, you know, Josh has played, he did a good job designing the characters to fit into the tone of what we’re doing.

Jeff: The other thing I was wondering about you mentioned in the issue that there’s like floating mountains is this too, I mean, I assume that this is not our, where the land, or is there something weird going on, but it’s still technically first. Well,

Erik Burnham: you know, I mean, [00:47:00] for a while we were talking about making it not earth and in the cartoon.

Well, they eventually discovered that it was earth. They had floating mountains as well. It’s a planet of experiments is we find out an issue too. That’s where a lot of things come from. That’s where certain animals on the planet come from. That’s where the floating mountains come from and anything that is weird, you know, a desert being side-by-side blending into a frozen Tundra.

All of that stuff happens. It’s confusing. It’s a scientific mystery. And I mean, th the reader understands what’s going on and why it’s going on. It’s a, it’s another alien race they’re using the planet as a laboratory to. See what happens when X meets Y cyber and the maximum is the protocol. They don’t know what’s going on necessarily.

They don’t know why the world is like it is. And they certainly don’t know that it’s, you know, the ancient an ancient planet that therefore bays forebears might have visited. [00:48:00] So we still have room where we might we might change that. We might not change that. I think it’s still I think one of the rules is that it has to be earth.

So until I’m told, no, it doesn’t have to be earth. We can go ahead and, and, and assume that it is, but any, any kind of twist could be on the table yet. Whether it’s something we’ve thought of or something we haven’t thought of.

Jeff: Well, like I said, I think he did such a good job with the first two issues. And I really liked as well.

How clearly you differentiated the leadership styles of Optus, primal and Megatron. Watson’s primal is, you know, when, when he’s talking to nix and he’s kind of. No telling them basically to go fly, go retcon and doing a, kind of a very supportive and kind of using the CA the people to their best of their abilities, their ability to do some shine versus Megatron.

Who’s very, not only the third authoritative, but he doesn’t see it multiple. It said, it seems to mention multiple times that he’s not fully engaged with what the other protocols are necessarily doing. He’s worried about what he’s [00:49:00] doing, what he wants at that moment. And I, and I, and I was wondering was it was, you know, by looking at it right.

Is that kind of like the major difference to how they lead?

Erik Burnham: Well, yeah. Megatron is a selfish character. He’s interested in his goals and the protocol, his other hand under him how they can serve his goals. Tarantula said that as well in, in what we’ve shown so far, they’re only working together. So long as their interests align.

And then, you know, I mean, if, if their interests don’t don’t coincide at some point, tarantulas could say I’m out or, you know, and, and so might so my terrorists or, or so might so my wife’s pronator and, you know, just, I mean, it, th they’re working together out of a shared, a shared goal, I guess, and, and which is, which is one way to do it, but, but it’s Megatron is kind of his goal is he has more, you know, selfish plans and he’s, he’s nudging it that way just through force of will.

[00:50:00] So, yeah, no, he’s, it’s, it’s, it’s definitely for my good as opposed to the good, well,

Jeff: that’s interesting because one of them, like trenches decides to walk away would make her try to ask you to let that happen. Like, are they, they think they’re kind of like oppor freelancers as it were. Or is Megatron, you know, if they ever were to do that, you know, you’re, you’re like a volunteer unless you walk away.

And then I tell

Erik Burnham: you kind of thing. Yeah. That’s I think I would come out come about it’s, you know, you are here to be useful to me and if you’re not useful to me, then I’ll get rid of you. But if you don’t want to be useful to me, you will be, or I’ll get rid of you. Yeah, that’s it. I, you know, it’s a selfish mentality and, but again Megatron is, is looking towards what he wants as opposed to, you know, what would be best, I guess, you know, overall for, for, for the vision that he has.

You know, I mean, he, he he’s looking for his own glory and, you know, if somebody else happens to get a little bit of what they want, that’s fine, but he needs to be taken care of [00:51:00] first. He wants to be, you know, the, the person with the glory for bringing the protocols back to prominence, he wants to be in charge and, you know, he wants to be important and He’s he’s, he’s going to, he’s going to see that through.

And, you know, I mean, if, if some good comes to some of the other protocols, fine, that’s okay. But that’s not his primary concern. Well,

Jeff: up to his primals style and leadership have to change, and the story continues as he, you, because he likes that he does seem, I mean, he’s obviously still the leader, but he does have a more a sense of comradery with his crew.

Will he find himself having to kind of weave this up a little bit from that area and become a little more distant and a little different of a leader, or is his style was going to blossom into something that’s a better version of

Erik Burnham: that? Hopefully it will blossom into something a little bit better.

He’s somebody who does care about the people who serve under him. And you know, that, that opens himself up to some rough luck. If anything were to happen to those people [00:52:00] now, What will he do then? Will he, you know, go too far and trying to keep everybody safe? Will he try to turn off his affection or, you know, his attachment because sometimes people do that, they try to shut themselves off.

That doesn’t work out so well. Hopefully, like I said, he’ll, he’ll just, he’ll mature and blossom into the type of person that can still care about have comradery, but you know, make, make the proper decisions with, you know, he, he just, he doesn’t have the experience yet the pool of experience to do that.

And hopefully the stories in his book will give him some of that experience. So

Jeff: what can readers expect in future issues of transformers? Peace

Erik Burnham: Wars? Well, the first six issues, these are mostly set up of the war concept. I would have done it a little bit differently. But the mandate was, yeah. You know, the, the, the first first six uses are roughly the first couple episodes of the cartoon extended.

Dynabox he will switch sides that happened in the [00:53:00] cartoon. I’m not going to, I’m not going to keep anybody in suspense. He does switch over to be a maximum, but he does do it in a different way than he did in the cartoon. There is a, a, a confrontation. Yes, there is a large fight that is coming. There is there is a confrontation with local wildlife that will be happening popping up here and there.

And we’ll find out that some of the animals can possibly be dangerous to our bots. And you know, so they’re, they’re in a, they’re in a hostile environment and they have to deal with not just each other, but they have to deal with the crazy stuff that’s going on in the world as well. I’m trying to try to be specific, but also be vague.

And that’s what I know. There’s, there’s there’s fighting there. It’s the, the thing about the cartoon is they, they have their half hour and you can get a lot more than a half an hour of animation and voice. Then you can get into 20 pages of a comic because, you know, think of all that you can say [00:54:00] in a minute, 60 seconds now, You can’t, you can’t, you can’t condense that down into the small scene in a comic because every word takes up page space, every word covers up a bit of the art.

So, you know, the more, the more talking, the more exposition, the less art we get the more art you get with less talking, the more deconstructed it feels. So it’s it’s, I mean, the different medium just has, it has a lot of different positives, but it has a lot of different constraints. So getting all that stuff in there.

Yeah. That took up six issues, but we will have a, we will have the fights going and then we have to figure out I’m circling back around to where I started this point. The half hour episodes were able to get stuff in there. Like, well, we’ll attack them and it’s over well, we’ll attack them. And now it’s over and it.

It was for a different audience and it had different rules in what you’re allowed to get away with. We can’t quite do that the [00:55:00] same in the comic and the stuff that is set up, let’s just like, well, why aren’t they doing this? Why aren’t they attacking this? Why aren’t they running from that? Why aren’t they doing this?

Why aren’t they doing that? These are obvious questions that come up. But at the same time, if it were to work like the cartoon, that would also be a point of, well, this is just a repetitive thing of the same thing happening over and over again. And why is that happening? Why, why did they just attack and reset and attack and reset?

So yeah, it’s, it’s, it’s trying to balance the needs of the medium with story momentum and also story logic. Why is, you know, I’ll, I’ll give one thing. If, if there’s the, the ship is covered in a force shield and the cons can’t get through the pore shield. What would they do? Would they continue to attack and just sit there and, and shoot and blast and not get through while they maximum wasn’t looking out the window going, Hey, they’re back.

[00:56:00] Or would they sit at a w would they, would they go, okay, well, we’re going to, we can’t hurt them. They won’t come after us because that’s just not what maximums do. So we’re going to continue. Megatron is like, I’m going to just continue to try to crack the golden disc, get the secrets because when I get the secrets that I want, those maximums won’t matter.

Anyway, I have the information. My ultimate goal is to get this information off the golden disc, get back to Cybertron and take over the planet. If the maximums aren’t attacking him, then you know, they, they, they aren’t getting in the way of his goal and he can ignore them until such time as, as he has to deal with them.

And. I mean, that’s, that’s, that’s the kind of, that’s the kind of point I’m getting at and it doesn’t, it doesn’t work. Isn’t as a TV show, but you get, you get in the comic it’s it’s just like, why, why are they keep going [00:57:00] after? Why are they doing this instead of this? You know what I mean? These are kind of it’s, it’s, it’s tough to, it’s tough to explain how fast, you know, there’s a lot of this you’re going to need to cut.

I tell ya.

Jeff: I think, no, you did a good job, so

Erik Burnham: yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, no, I mean, it’s just yeah. With, with, with the static nature of the images and it, it can when there’s not actual fighting action, it can feel like nothing is happening. And I understand that. I recognize that, but at the same time, if it’s all fighting that’s happening and there’s no story momentum, you know, then you’ve got the opposite problem.

It’s it’s action. Without. Meaning. Yeah.

Jeff: Well, like I said, I really liked what you did with the first two issues. I think you have a great story and I definitely look forward to reading. What tomorrow, what, what do you got going on?

Erik Burnham: Well, I hope, I hope, I hope you get a kick out of

Jeff: it, basically. I definitely, I have so far.

So it’s been great talking to you. Mr. Mr. Burnham like I said, great job with the series so far. Well, thank you much. All right. Have a very good night, sir. [00:58:00] Bye.