Halloween Man meets Latex Avenger!

Dan Price – Video 1 and Dan Price – Part 1

Casey: [00:00:00] All right, everybody. Welcome again, to another episode of spoiler country today on the show, we have a treat for you guys. We have my buddy Dan price. We have my buddy drew Edwards and we have P Jay Hernandez and these guys have a book coming up on Indigogo and it is Halloween man meets latex Avenger.

So two great tastes come together. We got the peanut butter of Halloween man and the chocolate of latex Avenger. And we’re getting the peanut butter in the chocolate. How did that happen?

Dan Price: I nagged Dan and, and tell he, he broke, I broke down his defense. I, I really like the latex Avenger. I, I like absurd absurdity, you know, I’m a big, I’m a big fan of the tick.

I’m a big fan of flaming carrot. And I feel like the latex Ave. Is, you know, he he’s [00:01:00] from that evolutionary line in comments, he’s like the tick

Casey: with the boner. Yes, exactly. Like in that same, like a very horny

Dan Price: tick. Yes. And so, I, I, so, so back way back several years ago, I, I was. This is back when I saw a day job.

I, I used to work for boars head, the deli meat company, and oh, nice. And I, I was, I was refilling a, a deli case at, at a grocery chain here in Austin and I, I saw. Dan with this kid out of the corner of my eye. And I, I, you know, maybe it’s just cuz I was bored at work or whatever, but I , I, I was like, Hey man, let’s do a crossover.

And I, I, you know, I, I think I I’ve said this on every interview that we’ve done recently, I’ve said, I don’t think Dan knew how serious I was until I started sending him script pages. .

Casey: So, so you, you, you were, [00:02:00] you were in it to win it from, from the get go. Oh, I, I,

Dan Price: I pursued, I pursued this. You know, I, I think, I think Dan, you know, wasn’t really correct me if I’m wrong, if I’m not getting the timeline.

Right. But you weren’t really thinking about comics when, when I started nagging you about this.

Dan Price – Part 1.output: No. I had. You know, I’d done a run of comics from 20 2007 to 2014 and, you know, latex Avenger, masters of the obvious and Excel, the uphill adventures of a boy named Stanley. And after all of that, I was exhausted.

I was exhausted my My girlfriend had just become my wife, the the, you know, there was a family to raise and unfortunately something sad had happened, which was my artist, creative partner and little brother, so to speak passed away. His name was Bon Dami. He’s a great guy and miss him every day.

So I was, I, I. You know, cop to walk, so to speak. You know, I, I would [00:03:00] just had dipped from comics and really wasn’t doing much, but I had taught myself how to draw digitally with a mouse. I can’t believe I was drawing with a mouse. I mean, all that stuff that you and I were working on drew was with a mouse.

And I drew the, I, I was, I was just drawing for fun on Instagram and that was about it. And I was sending drew drawings. Actually, I was sending you stuff every once in a while. Like, Hey, look at this, critique it, whatever. And that’s when we started talking about this crossover, like for real, like he’d mentioned it in the grocery store and we talked about it a little bit, but yeah, he’s sending me script pages and then I’m you know, and it was a cool writing process too, because He wrote the plot, you know, he wrote the script and basically said, okay, now taking eraser to the latex Avenger and spermicidal foam lab parts, and then all, and then write them, write the same messaging in, you know, the same story in their speak.

And that was really my con my contribution to the script was just really scripting those characters and. Damn, it’s [00:04:00] funny because it’s like the Drew’s, you know, you know, vernacular for his characters versus how my guys act. It’s a, it’s just, it’s hilarious. And it’s just, like, Drew’s mentioned another podcast, it’s oil and water in the, in the funniest best way possible in the worst way possible.

And it’s pretty great.

Casey: So there, there was a mutual respect between you guys for a while. How, how long had you known each other? Ooh. How long was, was Dan the the cute girl on the other side of the room,

Dan Price: if you wanted to get ? Um, no, I think at that point, I think I had known Dan for again, I hope I’m getting the timeline, right. Seven.

Dan Price – Part 1.output: Yeah. Six, seven years at that point we’ve been friends. Yeah. The three of us have all been friends now for about 10 years. So, or at least known each other, you know, like, you know what I mean?

Like, and then over time we’ve all become, especially since about 2018, for sure. I would say 20 17, 20 18. We’ve really all started hanging out and doing things and working on stuff. So it’s, it’s, [00:05:00] it’s, you know, hanging out with your buddies, you know, they live 15 minutes down the road for me. You know what I mean?

It’s yeah. You’re all lost

Dan Price: nights, correct? Yeah. We’re all lost nights.

Casey: Oh yeah. That’s CRA like, so Austin apparently has a really good indie comic scene. Portland, you know, same thing, throw, throw rock, and you hit an indie comic guy. Where I live like Birmingham, like is, is a, a void of, so I’m always jealous when I talk to people from, from cities that have that scene.

How instrumental is it? For you guys, you know, when it, when it comes to doing what you do is it is it easier to get those stories out and, and have that community because you have that community there?

Dan Price: Community is extremely important. And, and you know, the thing about Austin is it’s a, it’s a big old, small town.

Like everybody knows everybody, like, even even the, the, [00:06:00] the, the, the sort of overinflated, you know, ever growing version of Austin, people still seem to. Communities within, within the city. And, you know, like Dan was saying, like, that’s, that’s sort of what we’ve done. Like there is of course the larger network of comic book creators, but like we have, we’ve created our own little group within the group that, you know, we work with each other, we support each other, you know, we go to barbecues with each other You know, it’s it’s and it’s a, it’s a nice feeling you know, to have that because you know, a lot of the times when you’re creating, especially small press comics You don’t you’ll, you don’t get that instantaneous feedback or support.

So that to have, you know, these guys that I can talk to it’s, it’s a fabulous resource and, you know, a wonderful, warm, fuzzy feeling. Oh yeah.

Dan Price – Part 1.output: You know, cause I mean, there’s the three of us and then there’s another gentleman, Shane Campos and another dude, Jeremy [00:07:00] Martinez, AKA Jeremy, the artist, AKA the love of Paula’s life.

And the the the, you know, it’s the five of us, you know, we tend to just kind of gel really well with each other, you know? And it’s it’s fantastic. I mean, it really is. And really grateful for this group of friends. yeah, really, really happy that we get

Dan Price: work together. We did do some hazing, some mild hazing on Paul.

Casey: Really really? How was that? I’m still recovering, man. My I’m walking a little sideways, but it’s, it was worth it. It was worth

Dan Price – Part 1.output: it. It reminds me of when I was in my fraternity days in college, we’re gonna make college bat spins in the parking lot. So anyway, thank

Dan Price: you, sir. May I another? Yeah, exactly.

Dan Price – Part 1.output: Chug a beer run around, spin around a baseball bat, run back, UG, another beer spin around. Yeah. Anyway, we won’t do that to you that Paula, we like you. Paula’s great. Matt Paula at a 24 hour comic day. Oh, so many years ago. I mean, have you ever done a 24? You know, y’all have heard a [00:08:00] 24-hour comic day and yeah, we’re out there gutting it out 24 pages and 24 hours.

And he’s a beast man. Liz, my motherboard told me that was Paula’s first spoke out. Wasn’t it? Oh yeah. Yeah,

Casey: that was, that was, yeah, that was great. That was my first. Yeah, it was good. It was fun. Yeah. So you, you guys met you guys have all known each other for a while. Do you guys ever play like seven degrees to, to Kevin?

Or to ? Alex Jones.

You ever think like maybe one of your like weirder storylines might be like, oh, he, he just read the title of this Halloween book. And I, I

Dan Price: actually do know somebody that is tangently related to Alex Jones and he’s, he’s told me some. So surprising stuff, but some stuff. So, and I’ll just, I’ll just leave it at there.

So we don’t get, you know, slapped with a lawsuit or [00:09:00]

Casey: something. Yeah. Oh man. He, I hear that. Guy’s litigious. that? Guy’s Good. God, that guy, it used to be funny. And then it’s like, this is not funny anymore, dude. yeah. You lost your rocker. We’re not here to talk about Alex Jones. Are we, we though,

Dan Price: I mean, we, I wanna talk about how the, how the, the government made the frogs gay though.

Casey: You have to say it like with of yes.

Made a, we’re making the frogs game. He

Dan Price – Part 1.output: he’s he’s litigious. So we’re gonna have to redact this section of the of the interview. the university’s

Casey: lot of and stuff. A really good professional wrestler. Like he could have done the best intros oh, golden. Like what was his name? The, the guy, the ultimate

Dan Price – Part 1.output: ultimate lawyer.

Yes.

Casey: Ultimate lawyer. He has that attitude except he has. That [00:10:00] shit. So , and, and, you know, I think it’s actually an act

Dan Price – Part 1.output: has to be an

Dan Price: according to what I have heard it is it is largely an act. Yeah, it has to be so,

Casey: He’s gotta make his money. Oh yeah. Yeah. Times are tough times are tough. So. You guys got together.

You, you started doing this Halloween man and meets latex adventure, but let’s get into like, tell me about Halloween man to begin with.

Dan Price: So Halloween man is best described as the weird adventures of a zombie superhero and a sexy, mad scientist girlfriend. I always tell people that it’s the a, a good.

Mix between it’s it’s it’s fantastic. Four meets evil dead too. It’s what happens when a six? That’s a combination. Thank you. Thank you. It’s what happens when a silver age comic book in an eighties, horror film mash up against each other. It’s a beauty in the beast story. It’s [00:11:00] it’s. All these things. You know, I’ve been doing Halloween man for 22 years, if you can believe that.

You know, and it’s, it’s, it’s been a, a labor of, of love throughout that. I, when I first came up with the character It. I, I, I was actually just like right out of high school. I, you know, I, I was 18 and you know, I didn’t, I didn’t publish and for, for another few years in there, but The thing that that happened with the character is while I was between, when I was developing, developing it.

And when it actually initially started coming out as a web comic I’m a twin and I unfortunately. Was in a car accident that, that killed my my, my twin. And as, as you can imagine, that was in incredibly traumatic and oh yes. I, I needed something to. Get me out of bed every day, I needed something to give me focus [00:12:00] and, you know, Halloween man became that.

Like it was this thing that I could put my, my feelings into it was this thing I could, I could explore my, my trauma, but in a more like, shall we say humorous fashion? And you know, I, I, I. Able to just make it through my twenties because of doing this comic. Like, I, I often say like, I wouldn’t have made it without this comic.

It’s, it’s been such an important therapeutic tool for me. And that’s amazing. You know, the, and I’ve been lucky enough to see the universe grow and, and, you know, people people embrace, you know, the character and, you know, other characters in the universe and, you know, get some, get some ACC claim. For that, you know, like, you know, it was one of those things where I had to really stick it in for, you know, the long haul, because like, yeah, I know what I just said.

I saw that [00:13:00] look on your

Casey: face day. Was it? Oh, was it gonna say anything?

Dan Price: Oh, you didn’t Dan, Dan had that sly look on his face. But You know, I comics are, are a tough business. And if I hadn’t had that will to stick with it, I, I wouldn’t be where I I am today. And I’m, I’m glad that I have stuck with it because, you know, I, I, it took 20 years, but I finally started getting some, some recognition for doing this dang thing.

And you know, I’m, I’m happy to, to be here because this comic saved my life.

Casey: That’s amazing. I mean, some there’s so many different ways that people. Cope over or, or, and find ways to deal with trauma. And a lot of the time it’s the most unhealthy way possible. Well, I,

Dan Price: I did, I did do some and you know, some of that in my twenties as well, but thankfully, a lot of it, I, I got out [00:14:00] through making comments.

Casey: That’s that? That’s amazing. And I’m so glad that you had that outlet because I mean, All four of us. We, we are creators. We do stuff that, it, it, you know, it expresses things that we’re not able to really get out. Otherwise. If I wasn’t writing comics, I’d be doing something I’d be playing music. I’d be, you know, I don’t drawing on the wall with my own poop.

I don’t, I don’t know something because there’s.

There’s just such a heavy burden of not being able to create and not be able to it. Nobody has to see what I do. It’s just. Getting it out. You have stories inside that you need to get out to kind of express yourself. Exactly. I totally get what you’re saying. Yeah. I feel the same way when it comes to like stories that I wanna put [00:15:00] out there and stuff like my own projects, but I also get a lot of that.

From the drawings that I make, like, when I’m drawing somebody else’s character, I put a little bit of myself in those characters as well, or in those stories. So I, I manage a way, a way to put myself in those. Put myself in those drawings of the other characters that I draw. So that’s why I liked drawing late sticks, Avenger and, and Halloween man is because I put a little bit of myself into them.

And so every time I see that comic, that’s what I’m gonna see. It’s like, wow. Like I, there’s a little bit of me in that comic, you know, that’s, that’s awesome. I I’ve always wondered about that. Because, you know, art is Y comics art, especially you’re, you’re taking, you’re translating what’s on the script onto the page.

And when you do characters that are, you know, somebody else’s concept or whatever, and you’re translating that script, how [00:16:00] much is what, you know, came from the author, came from the writer versus, you know, how much. Was, you know, from your mind, from your heart, from your head onto the page, because it, it still has to be strained through your talents onto the page.

And that’s the thing. Sometimes I, I I’ll see a comic where it looks like it was just manufactured and the artist didn’t put any heart or their own soul into it. And. Like, I don’t like that. Like you can tell when somebody is putting their all into that comic and is, is splashing it on that page.

And that’s what I really like to do. So I, I try to put myself into it because I know that I’ll put the passion of my own art into it. You know, as much as the writers have put their passion art in the writing. That’s awesome. So drew and Dan can’t hear us right now. How big of an asshole are these [00:17:00] guys?

When it comes to I’m joking.

how hard are these guys? They have been on my as, as, oh my God. I can’t take either of them. One’s lanky and the other one’s strong as hell. I’m sure. Dan has that reach. Dan’s got, Dan’s got that reach. He’s got that. A Lincoln reach. Drew’s he’s got that strength. Yeah.

Dan Price – Part 1.output: The I’m the, I’m the bigger, I’m the bigger prick than drew.

Drew’s nice. Much nicer than I am. I mean, to be honest

Dan Price: with you, you’ve never seen me fight hos I fight dirty.

Dan Price – Part 1.output: Oh no. But in the world of professional business and comics, no, you’re much nicer than I am. That is.

Dan Price: Probably true. Right? Yeah. Casey

Dan Price – Part 1.output: knows. Casey knows I’m I’m a Dick, but you know, Apollo, you know, I, I often say, you know this about Paul and about Casey, like the nicest people in comic, seriously, they’re always smiling, you know?

And you know, but I know yeah. Drew, if you get ’em right, he’ll just headbutt you and kick you while you’re down. So, you know, ,

Dan Price: [00:18:00] it’s the highest punk rocking, right? It’s it’s clever time. I love it. I

Dan Price – Part 1.output: love it. Fr about, we’re

Casey: talking about comics. Man love it. In, in your stories drew, you have kind of Dallas or not Dallas, Houston, Dallas, solar city,

Dan Price: Dallas, Dallas, Dallas, Dallas or where Dallas used to be.

So how,

Casey: how important is that to the story? Is, is that the, is solar city, the Texas that you want to.

Dan Price: Well, I, I, I think yes and no, I don’t know how people would feel about all the monsters running around. You know, I, I like alternate history stuff. So when, when I, when I started coming up with the Halloween man universe, first of all, the name solar city actually comes from something that when, when.

My, my twin and I were teenagers. And we first started coming up with our own superheroes. Like, like you do when you’re a comic book nerd solar city was the name of the city that we use. Wow. So there’s, there’s some, some history there, [00:19:00] but within the, the lore of Halloween, man I like alternate history stuff.

And the idea is that because you have all these, you know, Characters with superpowers and supernatural abilities and things like that. World war II. Did actually spill out onto American soil. And one of the things that happened was, was DF. The DFW area was basically demolished in, in a, in a, in a fight between access and allied.

Super humans and solar city was, was what was built on the top of it. And, you know, I, I wanted to do something that had some design to it and, and in particular, I, I really. Like what they call Raygun, Gothic, that sort of future of yesterday year vibe and, you know, giving this sort of alternate history backstory to it was, was [00:20:00] ultimately mostly an excuse to do that.

Like, I, I just wanted to throw in everything. I like which, which, you know, that retro sci-fi aspect of it was a big thing to me. And the, the juxtaposition of that. Between, you know, the sort of retro futurism and the, the horror elements, which, you know, there’s a lot of you know, classic monsters and, you know, dinosaurs and, you know, zombies and all these sort of more F.

Horror, you know, or EC comics kinds of, of tropes. So, you know, you, you take things that are seemingly alike and smash them up against to each other. I, I love Texas, like, so, I, I don’t always like what our, our politicians do, but you know, the, the actual state itself, I, I do, I, I think it’d be hard pressed to meet is someone as, as proud of being from Texas as I am, but So, I don’t know if I can fully say it’s the [00:21:00] Texas that I would like to see.

But you know, there, I guess there is a degree of you know, on some level wish, wish fulfillment.

Casey: That’s awesome. And, and I, I love that you, I love that you’re proud of Texas and you want to put that into your comment, you know, a, a fictional version of. Texas, but it’s still there. Like I’m, I’m not gonna be putting Alabama in, into any of my comics interview soon.

I don’t think,

Dan Price: well, you know, like Texas has a lot of interesting, you know, texture to it in of itself. It’s, it’s both Southern and Southwestern. It’s got a lot of different kinds of geography. There’s a lot of, you know, lore, either pop cultural or historical that that’s fun to play with. And Like, I think this is best described.

I have a script. It hasn’t been drawn yet, but I have a script called Phantom of the Opry. And , I, [00:22:00] I, a buddy of mine named park Cooper who was also a writer. He, he said, when he, when he heard the name of that, he was like, You know, if, if they could do a police line up of story titles, I would pick that one out as the most drew Edwards story title.

because it’s got all the things I like associate with you. And that’s, that’s kind of the thing I’m trying. I’m trying to, you know, keep it a little bit country, a little bit rock and roll and a whole lot of pulp insanity.

Casey: That’s awesome. Can, can I ask you about Lucy Chaplin?

Dan Price: Sure. I’ve

Casey: yeah. So, so Lucy Chaplin, Dr.

Lucy Chaplin is a character from Halloween man. Yes. And you, based off her off of someone, you love very much you based her off of your wife. Is it hard to write a character, you know, this ostensibly, you know, based off of your wife and stay true to the story when, you know, she’s put in danger or, [00:23:00] you know, stuff like that.

Is it hard to like write her true as a character?

Dan Price: Well, here, here’s the thing. First of all, you know, it’s, it’s kind of a comp complex thing because Lucy actually. Was not initially the Lucy character predates Jamie, believe it or not. Yeah. But when I met her, you know, it was, it was like meeting Lucy and you know, because Jamie, here’s the thing like, like Lucy is this polymath genius.

Who’s, who’s sort of good at everything. Jamie is good at everything. so, is it hard to write? No, actually I think she’s a tremendous resource to me because like a lot of her dialogue is stuff that Jamie has, has said. You know, or if, you know, I, I’m trying to think of like how she will behave. I can refer back to that.

Much of her clothing is just stuff that Jamie, you know, I, I can send artists. [00:24:00] You know, pictures of Jamie and be like, draw, draw this. So I, I actually think in some ways it makes it it makes it easier. Does, does Jamie have her own opinions about things? Yes, absolutely. Like sometimes. You know, she sees dialogue or she sees artwork or she hears about a storyline and she, she, you know, she has strong opinions about that.

But for overall, I think it’s, it’s definitely more helpful than a hindrance because, you know, I can, I always have that person that I can observe when I’m looking for inspiration.

Casey: That’s awesome. And, and one thing that I’ve, I’ve gotten from just seeing you on Twitter, seeing things that you’ve posted on Twitter.

You post pictures of your wife, often she has a style. She has an aesthetic. And that’s so cool that you you’re, you’ve been able to kind of bring that into the comic for for Lucy Chaplin when I mean, it, it is kind of like a, a hole in one [00:25:00] because I mean, she has such it for people that don’t know Drew’s wife, slings, the bass, she plays bass in a rock Billy rock, Billy band.

Yeah. Yeah. She plays it upright badass chick and she’s in the comic. So I think that’s so cool. I I don’t know that I’ll be able to put my wife in, in my comics anytime soon. Unless she wants to be turned into a zombie or something. She , I brought, I brought that up to her one day and she was like, Make me a witch make me a badass witch.

I was like, all right, I’ll away. Be cool.

Dan Price: you know, I, I, I did luck out with Jamie, you know, like I, and I know I’m, I’m acutely aware of that. You know, she’s, she’s. Very put together. And that’s actually one of the things that initially drew me to her, cuz she was, she was in another band when I met her a band called punk blues review.

They did punk covers of blues songs and oh, that’s awesome. I, I did, I was there to see that [00:26:00] band. But I didn’t know she was the lead senior. I just started talking to her because she had this like great outfit on, she had like a pencil skirt with like high heels and a, a green sat and blouse. And her, her hair was up in one of those, like Amy Winehouse.

Beehives. And I just thought she seemed like the, the coolest chick there. And then after a second or two of, of talking, she gets up on stage and starts doing sound check. And I’m like, oh my gosh, I’m a, I’m a groupie. And you know, she, she went back to New York. And we ended up talking on the phone for like five hours a day for several months until she moved down here.

And, you know, it’s, it’s, it’s was just this great whirlwind love story. That I’m just that I just was lucky to, to find the woman of my dreams. Like how many, how many people can say that. I, I am, I’m just. I’m I’m still smitten with her every day. Like she’s just so

Casey: wonderful. That’s that’s [00:27:00] awesome. Was her old band able to turn Texas flood into like a song less than 20 fucking minutes?

Because that is a very long song.

Dan Price: They, they never did any, they never did Texas flood. They did. They did another Stevie rayon song. And now I I’m blanking on it.

Casey: I have a friend that was a DJ in, in college. And if he ever had to use the bathroom, that would be the one that he’d throw on. he’s like I got time would be Mark Moon by television.

If, if I had to pick, cuz that song goes on forever. Love it, but, oh my gosh. Yeah. So, let’s get into, we kind of talked about your impetus to, to work with Dan. Was it hard for you guys to, to mesh like the horror and the comedy and is there like a sweet spot there?

Dan Price: I’ll let Dan take that.

Dan Price – Part 2.output: [00:00:00] Binder. We’re recording is now in progress. Casey. Awesome. So, so in, in the little break came up with some new questions. So Paula, where were you on January 6th, 2020 6, 20 20. I was in the bathroom taking a long greasy shit. Nice. And I remember thinking that this was gonna be the end of the world.

actually, that was 20, 21, 21. Yeah. So what were you doing? What were you doing the years before that still taking aasy still taking really, really long Longy. The amount of toilet paper he used was Al it was just economical. It had some taco bell the night before and. I created the the cor coronavirus.

So with that shit. So I apologize for that. You did in the world, you, you blew it all up. I blew it all up. Speaking of like, have you guys been able to, like, how has creating been [00:01:00] during all? Cuz this is a crazy time right now for creators, for comic people, for, you know, everybody, but especially people that, that.

Part of their creative process involves, you know, bringing their stuff out to other people so they can see it. How has Corona kind of affected how you guys go about your day and how, how you go about creating and getting stuff done, man, I gotta be honest with you on that one. This is the most screwed up thing I can possibly say, but you know, you, you have to, the pandemic is terrible.

Okay. But you saw a lot of creativity come out of it. Okay. People had time at home, they started thinking, collecting their ideas and creating things. It, for me, personally, this is where for, I. You know, I mean, big foot knows karate grew out of this, you know what I mean, out of this mess and got me back into doing comics and stuff like that.

So, I’m grateful for, you [00:02:00] know, the creativity the time, the, the time to make connections over Instagram and Twitter and parlay that into, you know, a rather successful Kickstarter, you know, it. It was the worst of times, but I tried to make the best of the times of the worst of the times, you know what I mean?

And, oh yeah. So it’s we lost a lot of great folks. A lot of people are sick, you know, and they’re not gonna come out of it in some cases, you know, but we, we do the best we can with a bad situation. And I’m glad for the creativity that’s happened over the last year and a half, two years, whatever it’s been.

Yeah. So, and now, you know, Big foot karate now, you know, was we did that and now it’s you know, big foot karate casing. And now know I do. Yeah. And now you know, re you know, coming together with, you know, drew and Paulo to take, you know, these legacy characters, Halloween man, and, you know, 14, 15 year old latex [00:03:00] Avenger and bring those two together.

I mean, Yeah. I mean, I’m excited for what we’re doing here. I’m excited what we’re gonna come up with in the future too. Cause I mean, I can’t see us not doing something again. The three of us, you know? Yeah. Who knows. Yeah. You know, echoing what Dan said. Of course, a lot of the aspects of the, the pandemic were, were terrible.

And I, you know, like everyone, I, I know people that, that passed because of this terrible disease, but at the, the same time, like, I don’t think I would’ve ever left my, my day job to do comics full time. Be I hadn’t been doing comics full time since, since my, my early mid twenties, you know, I, I, I got into working I got into working with meat via being hired as a butcher for whole foods.

And I kind of bounced around that industry and you get complacent on, on, you know, by the time that. 2018 came [00:04:00] around and, you know, I you know, the first inklings of, of. You know, talking about doing this thing the, the latex crossover, I, I don’t think I realized how much I had grown to hate my day job.

And you know, it took a, it took a pandemic for me to realize that because, you know, the moment that the, you know, the, the first of all the company didn’t treat me very well or any of its others employees very well in the pandemic was going on. And secondly You know, because of some of the resources that the government created, I was able to take that time to.

Recreate my professional life and, you know, turn that into a more successful comic book career. And I’m, I’m happier professionally than I, than I ever been. You know, I’m not saying that there hasn’t been some, some hiccups. I definitely have had some, some problems with, with Comicology over the last year, not the [00:05:00] derail.

Oh my gosh. But yeah. But You know, overall I’m in a good place and yeah. Working with these two knuckleheads is one of been one of the great joys of the last year or so. So drew like you specifically, cuz like I, I, I don’t know Paula’s situation. I know Dan has, has a job a day job and he loves, but he works really, really hard at.

You do comics professionally full time now? Yeah, it was that like jumping off of a cliff, like how bad did you shoot your pants and how did you, when were you able to go? Like, all right, I can do this. Like, this is a comfortable thing that I can do, and I’m not scared. Well, the thing is, is I was too busy being scared of COVID to be scared of the, the, the possibility of, of.

You know, like, like Boris said, didn’t really give me a, a, a whole lot of choice. Like they, they, they cut back [00:06:00] everybody’s hours to nothing for two weeks. And then they when we came back, they were only offering like 20, 20 an hour. And it just didn’t make sense for, or 20, 20 hours a week. And oh yeah.

You know, it just did, you know, I’m a, I’m a blue collar guy. I’m a hard worker, but like, I. It didn’t make any sense for me to stick my neck out for, for them not, not when they’re gonna treat you like that. And, you know, because of, you know, some of the small business grants and the fact that I was also able to, you know, I, I won a best of Austin award a few years ago.

I was able to take that and get some it’s gotta be gratifying. Yeah. Thank you. And I was able to take that and get some city grants as well. So like, you know, I, I felt more secure about that than I did. You know, anything else? Because the thing that I had, you know, the comic, once again, saved my life, you know, like it, it like the stuff that was like bringing in money at that point was the [00:07:00] comic.

Whereas like the day job, which was the thing that I thought was gonna be stable was not. So that was like a life lesson is like, you know, if you’re gonna put your blood, sweat and tears in anything, don’t put it, you know, put it behind some, you know, some rich guy behind a desk, you know, you, if you’re a working man, you work for yourself and you know, that’s a much more satisfying thing.

Yeah, man, 2020. Overall was just such a weird year professionally for so many people. So like, I, I work in medical devices. Oh, wow. And I’m, I’m an idiot. I like, I just welled shit under microscope all day, but I

There would be like weeks where I would be getting paid to not work. They just paid us to sit home because they were like alternating between like one shop would come in and do their thing. And the other shop would come in and do their thing cuz they wanted to spread people out as much as possible.

Cuz they, [00:08:00] nobody had a playbook for this. Like, and it’s kind of messed up. Like maybe we need to think about having a playbook now. Hopefully we do. But at then we didn’t. And we were flying by the seat of our pants. And yeah, it was weird. It was so weird. I’m so glad that you were able to utilize that and, and kind of turn it to your advantage.

Paul you’re, you’re an artist you you write and do other stuff as well. I assume that you have at least a little bit of income from when you go to like conventions and stuff, maybe do artist alley stuff. Did that kind of take a bite out of you during during peak COVID time? I’m gonna be honest with you.

A lot of the times when I did the conventions I didn’t really make much because I had to spend a lot on like, it’s still on, over end my hotels. And so it. More than anything I would always end up losing or breaking even at conventions. So when I didn’t do conventions, I, I, I [00:09:00] knew I can rely on my day job.

And my day job is bus driver. So school bus driver. Oh, wow. Yeah. So my, my job was secured. So, and during that whole pandemic thing we couldn’t work, but because we couldn’t work, they still had an obligation to pay us. So I was still getting paid while not working. So that was great. That was a load off my mind.

My wife is a public school teacher and she’s like, Trying to convince me to get a job at the school in some capacity, and then do work as a bus driver as well, because they get like, at least at her school, they get like a little bit extra money to drive the bus. And I have exp I used to drive cross country when I work for a moving company.

So I, you know, sweat your balls off, loading a truck up. Then drive into Texas. Yeah. Or, you know, wherever else it needed to go. And man, maybe pay good, but you have to deal with a lot of kids. Oh [00:10:00] man. You have to deal with all that stuff. Yeah. Yeah. I, so I have two. Oh, that you know, can be a handful. I can’t imagine having 60 or however many fit on a school.

I don’t know how many, a little bus can fit on a school bus. I know that it can be a bit, much be up to like 70, 70, 72, 70. Oh, Lord. Something like that. Yeah, it’s ridiculous. But yeah, you, you get a lot of patience driving a school bus. I bet you a lot of that patience. I go into it. It kind of flows. The patients come, I get so much patience that gets.

Channeled in every other aspect of my life. So, so how long does it take for your hand to stop shaking for you to be able to draw on the evening when you get home? Yeah, sometimes it’s a little much, you know, when you got high schoolers wanting to fight you on the bus for no reason, other than man, they’re just being annoyed is the worst, but yeah.

But it, it teaches you patience. A lot of patience. And I take that into my drawing a lot of [00:11:00] times, like if I get frustrated on not being able to draw something, I like, I don’t go crazy. Like before I would go like crazy, like, oh, why am I in the Ru? But now I’m like, I’ll take a deep breath. Like, all right, just relax, put it down for a second, do something else and come back to it.

And I, I feel like I can do that easier now being a bus driver. So. That’s awesome. And it is, it’s so instrumental in, in just kind of, kind of growing as a person. Yeah. Just being able to separate yourself from a situation so that you can achieve balance so that you can get beyond the situation. So did, did you guys ever butt heads by Dan and drew?

Did you guys ever butt heads while you were co-writing this on like any particular lines or anything? Was there ever any give me the hot GOs guys. I’m I’m I’m trying to actually think, I don’t think there [00:12:00] was anything that dramatic. I did put heads withdrew a little bit. Yeah, really? Yeah. Cause I would draw Lucy and every time I I’d send it to him, he’d always come back to me with, I need you to draw the boobs a little bit bigger.

They’re they’re gonna need to be bigger. Who’s your

hot? I can’t draw them bigger than that. I have a problem. okay. I know I have a problem. This is a well documented problem. But I problems with Dan. I didn’t really have, and didn’t really have problems with Paul. Like, I don’t know, Dan, you look like you’re, you’re what? Yeah, no, no, no. I mean, I think the I don’t think we, we didn’t have any problems for sure.

You know, I mean, this is a Halloween man book, not a latex Avenger book. Okay. So I wanted to be real respectful to look. I mean, Drew’s got 20 plus years invested into this book. He’s been a ring in nominee. He’s done the best of Austin, you know, [00:13:00] thing. And You know, when you’ve got a shit heel, like latex, Avenger and I mean, cuz I’ve, you know, I haven’t done my little stick yet, but I mean, you know, the, the, the elevator pitches, it’s latex Avenger and spermicidal foam LA and together they repel crime 99.9% of the time.

And when you’ve got such a. Toxic toxic masculine character that is thinks he’s the world’s greatest sex. God slash superhero to ever grace. The town of get on top of this. Okay. When you’ve got this type of character and he sees the, the, the beautiful Dr. Lucy Chaplin, what do you expect would happen? OK.

what do you think the language would look like if you had this. Moron in a latex uniform, wearing a rubber on his head with a reservoir tip of freedom. Okay. On the top, what do you think that would be like? And, [00:14:00] and Lucy is such a great character cause she’s like alpha female, right? She’s not gonna put up with that shit.

So the, the comeuppance is wonderful. And, you know, I try to be as respectful to those characters as my characters would allow me to be, because I know my characters, I know latex Avenger, I know spermicide foam lab written these characters for a lot of years and they don’t, I don’t write the characters, the characters write the story writes itself because I sit down and start writing and they, I know what they’re gonna say.

And it just kind of comes outta my fingers. And then afterwards I, you know, go back and edit, but it’s. You know, the, you know, the Jamie was actually did, you know, history said she looks over scripts and whatever else, she’s real respectful. You know, a real, not respectful kid protective of the, of the, of the Lucy care protective is the right, the right word.

Yeah. And with good reason. And so when it came time, [00:15:00] To hand the script over my section of the scripts over to drew in turn, you know, Jamie did read the script and she had a few, you know, notes for me in terms of how. Brash, you know, the the latex Avenger character was, was communicating with Lucy. And, you know, obviously I was happy to oblige because again, it’s not my book, it’s Drew’s book, you know what I mean?

And yeah. You know, so, and he works some more of a PG 13 format. So the F bombs were out the window, you know, again, not a big deal. I’m a good enough writer. To where I can communicate that con you know, the same concept without having to get blue. You know what I mean? Or at least not four letter word blue.

And so, and that’s the choice I’ve made in different latex Avenger books. Some have no cussing, some have a bunch of cussing, and it’s just, you know, just where I’m going that day. Well in, so go. You know, the thing about the Lucy character versus latex Avenger like this, [00:16:00] this, despite the, the, the, the boob jokes that we were just cracking.

Like, I consider myself like a, a, a feminist and, you know, my wife is, is she runs, you know, outside of being a successful musician, she runs a feminist non-profit here in, in Austin. And you know, I, I. The, the thing is about latex, Avengers, behavior. And this is, we are in no way trying to glamorize this a guy.

Oh, he is now a jackass. Like, we’re not trying to say this dude is cool. B he is the, yeah, he’s the, and you know, Lucy judo throws him around the room and, you know, and if you look at. You know, again, points to Paul cuz Paul is great characters. Oh man. if you look at like Halloween man’s like facial expressions with him is like, he’s just, you know, Halloween man is kind of a cantankerous guy to [00:17:00] begin with.

I always say he like owes a lot to, to Ben grim and, and cliff steel. But like he’s particularly annoyed with , you know, cause he’s, he’s a, you know, he’s a. He’s a blue collar, you know, you know, crank he’s got a good heart, even though it doesn’t beat, but like he, he, latex Avenger, you know, is a jackass and he rightfully gets under his, his skin.

And that’s, that’s where the comedy lies. I think. Was it hard making those two worlds meet, cuz I mean, you have get on top of list in, in solar city and you know, it doesn’t seem like there there’s much that’s similar between those two places. Well I’m, it was well, and Drew’s described this before. It was like an old school.

Crossover, you know, like, you know, Hey, I’m just walking into a scene. Hey, there you are. You know, Hey, let’s have a thing, you know, very much like that. It’s it, you know, As much as Halloween man is steeped in the [00:18:00] silver age, you know, that influence that was the initial thing for me with latex Avenger.

Very much the original issues were very much Adam West, like, Batman and, you know, and I love old silver age comics. So a lot of the vernacular and stuff like that would be switched up to be as goofy as you would get in. Sixties comics, except there was just a bunch of Dick and fart jokes. But the but a lot of alliteration and stuff like that.

So for me, actually, I did not see that much of a difference between the two books. You know, because there are so many Odd characters in Halloween, man. And you know, there’s a man goat, there’s the Avengers, which I still love the Avengers. You know, there’s just so many amazing characters. Paul and drew did a story one time that had.

A that it was a Robotica, you know, this you know, pinup robot lady and, you know, that was an evil despot, [00:19:00] whatever, however you pronounce that word a real, so the And latex Avenger has a ton of strange characters. I mean, from Zel to pimp and wizard to sexy nurse America, to kosher the pig, man, the Kaji pot monster do puff marshmallow, man.

I mean, I can keep going and it’s just. Terribly weird concepts turned up to 11 on steroids. And so to me, I did not see that much of a difference really between the two of ’em except one of ’em is, you know, high powered horse shit on, you know, like with, you know, and then there’s Halloween, man, you know?

I mean, so I just not that I’m calling latex offender, horse shit. I’m just saying he’s full of it, you know? And there’s a lot more of a. Pure hero in Halloween, man. Whereas latex Avenger is far more I’m just in this to get in the, in the paper, [00:20:00] you know, you know, I’m, I just look in the suit, you know, that kind of thing.

So, well, that’s the, that’s the thing about Halloween man, as a character? I, you know, I always say that like, he’s, he’s, his universe is garbage, man. You know, it’s kind of like a thankless. Job, but he, you know, he he’s, he he’ll do it, you know, and it’s that, that, you know, working class aspect of it that I think is really.

Important to it because you know, nobody, Solomon is ugly. You know, he, he, you know, he’s not gonna ever be the most popular superhero or anything, but he’s, he’s, he’s got that, that heart. And I think you know, that’s the difference between the two characters is like maybe, you know, Halloween man is a hedge more serious, but they have this commonality of like off the wall.

Weirdness and, you know, I, I’m gonna throw the ball over the Apollo for a second, but like, you know, what, how, how [00:21:00] did. I’m I’m asking a question of my own. I’m sorry. I’m hijacking this thing. How did you feel, how did you feel about like the meeting of the, like, was that weird for you? Or did you think that they, they worked well together?

Tonally, I guess I, first of all, I was honored to draw both of these characters completely. And cuz I, I loved both of these uh, both of these worlds. I thought they were hilarious and awesome. And I didn’t. I didn’t think it was that weird of an idea when you first, when you guys first came up to me about it, but then as I read the script, I was like, yeah, yeah, this is, this is perfect.

Like, it, it, it didn’t seem like a, like, like that far fetched of an idea. And as I read the script, it just got better and better and better is just hilarious. And that’s why I, I, I loved having to read the script and. like, it made me wanna draw it like right away. Cuz it was, it was hilarious. [00:22:00] And I think it works because latex Avenger is like, it’s it’s what is it?

In comedy you have a straight guy that you play the silliness off of. And that’s what makes it funny. Like that’s what, that’s what Solomon is to latex Avenger. And it makes the comedy just like hit so much harder because of it. I think. Paula two things. Yeah. One because of your mic, I keep thinking you have a curly Q mustache, which looks very dapper.

Two , was it, was it hard to kind of marry those two S styles together? Because I mean, they both have a they both have a sty aesthetic to the the characters. Was it hard to put them in the same place? It, it, the only thing that would, I had a tough time with is that. I was trying to like with latex Avenger I, I, I did my own, he he’s sort of like a cartoon.

So I drew him sort of like a cartoon, which [00:23:00] helped me with his expressions and his overall silliness. And but with Halloween man, I knew I had to bring him down from the horror aspect just above. Where that that cartoon level is I had to bring him down a little bit because he is very like I mean, I’ve seen Halloween man stories where he’s freaking scary.

He’s, he’s a scary motherfucker. And so I had to bring him down just, just enough to where they can meet, you know, and it’d be realistically where they can be in the same world. But overall I think I made it. That’s awesome. So, so Dan, I’m sorry, go ahead, drew. I just was gonna pat Paul on the back.

I definitely think he made it work. He was very much channeling. I think Kevin McGuire, because the, the, the facial expressions in this are like chefs kiss, like they’re, they’re so good. Awesome. For folks who haven’t seen Paula’s art. It, it is fantastic. I I’ve, I’ve seen a little bit of your stuff on the internet [00:24:00] and.

Maybe a cover to to this comic and it is fantastic. Thank you. Thank you. He captured the comedy so well, I mean, oh yeah, he really did the expressions, the body language, the camera choices, you know, the camera angle choices. He, he hid it so well, Apollo, I mean, seriously, I am proud as hell of you, dude.

I mean, you did such a damn good job on this book. Thank you, man. Thank you, Dan. I have a question for you. Sure. So, you and I have a book called big foot nose karate and heard of it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, now you’re working with this fucker drew. Don’t get all comic jealous dude. He’s got a comic envy.

Is we OK now? Yeah, we’re good. Okay, good. Good. I just wanted, just wanted to double check, make sure. Oh dude, come on brother. So love you, man. oh, love you, dude. Seriously, you guys gotta understand Casey and I talk like five times a week. I mean, it’s ridiculous. [00:25:00] You know, like every afternoon we’re on the phone with each other, talking about the comic or talking about our kids.

We’re talking about stuff. Did you hear that? Drew? You hear that drew and they’re always talking. Can you believe this? God. Everyone talk, the bullshit walks yeah. Okay, dude. Well, you know what, we’re, we’re talking it’s it’s like therapy, sometimes it really is. And yeah, it’s, it’s good. Like as far as like getting the story out, like I’ll, I’ll walk my dog and you know, we’ll go through the woods and as my dog, you know, takes his little stroll to make a poo we’ll we’ll talk story and, you know, get stuff done and yep.

Map stuff out. It’s great. It’s been hot as shit lately though. Oh my God. It was 107 today, so that’s so good. I’m sure it’s even worse. So good for anyone, Austin. Definitely not good for the creative process. No. Oh yeah. So, but yeah. What were you saying about Bigfoot? Yeah. Yeah. I, I just, I just wanted to make sure that we’re, we’re still good.

Oh, come on brother. Make sure things are good.[00:26:00] So, There is like a, a, a question though, like in terms of writing withdrew you, you said that, you know, most of what you did was just kinda handle dialogue for mm-hmm for, for your characters. And was it how was that process? What did you just like, you know, I loved it in.

I absolutely loved it, dude. I, I, it was such, I mean, to be honest with you, this is, was freaking easy for me. Like, I mean, Paula had the, he, we got like 10 minutes, just so you know. Paula did the heavy lifting on the artwork. Drew did the heavy lifting on the story. I wrote some lines co I did a variant cover colored.

Polo’s cover. Mic drop. I mean, that was the, you know, I mean, that that’s, that was my, and you know, my, my contribution to this now, obviously, I mean, we’ve all been talking and getting together and working on it and stuff like that. And, you know, helping out with, you know, the IndyGoGo and trying to promote this thing and all of that, but like, this was, this was like, [00:27:00] This was summer vacation, dude.

This was fun. And, you know, to see latex Avenger back in the pages of a comic again, man, that that was cool. I mean, I was hesitant about it. Drew knows. I mean, that was probably, probably a lot of the dragon of the feet of this whole thing was, does this, does this character who’s so out of fashion in the modern lens need to be out in the universe again, we’re all cancelable now kids.

The so, You know, if you read the comic and you keep it in context, you’ll understand what’s going on. If you want to take a line out and just blow it up. Fine. Fine. Yeah. And the key to know that the joke is the joke is the, is the main character. That is the thing. Yeah. And I mean, you gotta understand, like, I’m like.

It’s just, I mean, like for me, the, the the, the character with any sort of real head, you know, real strong, a real strong head, got his head [00:28:00] on his shoulders is really spermicide foam lab. You know, which is the 12 year old kid running around with, with foam throwing, you know, guns and phone throwers.

And so the If you can, if you can wrap your head around that. And, and then the real, the real genius of the damn group is not in this issue, but kosher the pig. Oh man. Like that’s, that’s the, that’s like the Don Corleone of this whole situation. so if you can really, you know, if you can put that all into perspective, then you understand what we’re doing here.

It’s been a great experience. I mean, to get, to get to work with these guys and to watch Paul doing his work and, and just killing it and always delivers, you know, always delivers. So speaking of, yeah, delivering. You guys have an IndyGoGo. Yes, we do. So tell me how to get to the IndyGoGo when it drops and fill me in on the information, cuz like I want people to go out and [00:29:00] get this book.

So, the Indigogo starts on July 6th. It’s gonna run for approximately six weeks. We’re gonna be putting the link everywhere, all over our various different social medias. So it’s not gonna be hard to find, but if you do just wanna go directly to Indiegogo, you just look up Halloween, man meets the latex Avenger.

It’ll take you right to it. There is a right now because we’re a few, you know, weeks away from that. When we’re recording this, there is a. Pre-sign up sheet that you will get updates when it goes live. But we’re gonna have a lot of cool perks. You’re gonna be able to buy a lot of the old Halloween man comics, if you’re not familiar with Halloween, man, but you want to be you’re we’re gonna offer up some, some, some big foot nose.

Karate is as well. And some latex Avenger is well, and you know, a bunch of. Cool perks like, you know, you’ll be able to be a guest star in a comic if you want. . That is that’s awesome. That is, that is a perk I have done with every [00:30:00] crowdfund that I have. And it’s, it’s been, it’s been fun. Actually Paul just drew some of our, some of our past backers into this very issue that we’re talking.

That’s amazing. That’s amazing. We’re also gonna do a deluxe edition as well, you know, is that gonna be the variant will be the deluxe or is that how that’s gonna work? Okay. So yeah, we’re gonna do that. And originally I was gonna draw this book years ago. Okay. And so there’s like, Six seven pages of this book that I drew, I had that I, that are all done.

So we’re actually gonna throw those in the back of the deluxe edition so people can, you know, laugh and point and go, eh, what was this guy thinking? But You know, and then they can, and then they, you know, they’ll send, you know, they’ll send hate tweets. But it’ll be alright, dude. You know, we’re gonna do that.

And you know, there’ll be some pinups in there too. Jeremy, the artist, our good, P’s gonna be doing something for this. And I’m sure we got a couple other folks who are gonna do a couple things, so we’ll see. It’ll be, it’ll be a good book. Nice. Nice. So it, it [00:31:00] looks like an exciting thing. I really want everybody to go out there and get it.

We will get information from you guys and we’ll just kind of be posting as the campaign goes. You said it starts July 6th, July 6th, just a couple of days after you. You’ve been roasting hot dogs and hamburgers for, so take your lobster ass back inside. Yeah, we’ll do it. Look up the campaign and, and get your ass an amazing comic.

And we’re gonna do the launch that in an evening, similar to what we do with big foot karate, we’re gonna do a live. We’re gonna do a live launch. We’ll do it on Instagram. And we’ll, we’ll get people in the room and hanging out. And so hopefully have a good showing that night. It’s gonna be a good time.

And really, you know, I mean, Let’s make an event out of it. Let’s make a par, let’s have a party online and enjoy ourselves and you know, what would be cool. And I’m sorry to like go, go into planning, but you know, maybe the three of us can be at the same place, you know, doing the [00:32:00] live together that night or something like that, you know?

I mean, that could be really neat. Anyway, I’m sorry to get into all that right now, but I’m just thinking. Yeah. Yeah. But this is gonna be a lot of fun and hell of a comic. Great, great plot, great story by drew and Paula killed it and and April Guana is doing our colors and she’s incredible.

Like the, the colors on the interiors are just outstanding and strong crew, real strong crew. Awesome. Well, you guys, I’m so excited for this comic and Halloween man meets latex Avenger. You guys, please go out and pick this up. Dan price, drew Edwards poll, Jay Hernandez. You guys have been a treat I’ve really enjoyed getting to meet you guys.

And hopefully this is the time we, we get to chat. And anytime y’all have a project that y’all wanna talk about come back to spoil the country because we’d love to have. Sounds great. Thank you so much for having that coming to case. When I actually feel terrible about, we were supposed to have an interview for big [00:33:00] footnotes karate on spoiler country.

And we were so busy with doing other podcast in shows and other stuff like that. We, we never got one scheduled, so this is the first time Dan’s been on the show. I feel like I know, man, I got the, I got the Shane on the on the first, on the. Campaign, I should have just recorded one of our phone calls while I’m like, yeah, no doubt dog.

Charlie, you gotta poop, man. Hurry up. Yeah, exactly. My dog’s named Charlie now case. Thanks for doing this for us, man. We really appreciate room. It was, it was a great time talking to you and y’all have a good one. Enjoy the rest of your evening.