Sci-Fi Comic Writer Adam Rose chats with Syl!

SYL ABDUL – Adam Rose and SYL ABDUL – Adam Rose

Syl Abdul: [00:00:00] All right. Welcome to a special spoiler country. Addition of coffee break. I am your host of course, S AB dual and we have. Comic book writer, sci-fi comic book writer, Adam Rose as our guest today. Welcome .

Adam Rose: Thank

Syl Abdul: you, definitely. I really really appreciate again, you know, the team kind of, you know, connecting me with Adam to have this conversation, cuz it’s really delved into different types of comic writers and, and we’re gonna have some nice conversations now.

I always have this icebreaker question. When we started the interview my. Audiences are pretty big DC fans, Adam. And I think the first thing they wanna know is just in entertainment wise, what has been your favorite depiction of a DC character? It could be a movie TV show. What have you what would you say to that?

Adam Rose: My first response is I couldn’t have been happier with the justice league, unlimited animated series. I, [00:01:00] I loved. Microsecond of that. I mean, and you know, of course, yes. I love the Batman animated series prior to that. So I love Bruce, Tim, but I mean the justice league animated series, and especially when it went to the justice league unlimited, I was a kid in the candy store.

I was seeing every. Buddy that I wanted to see animated. I mean, I’m a big Dr. Fate fan. I mean, if you were ever to ask me Dr. Fate versus Dr. Strange, I would have to have a, I’d have a tough time giving you a winner, but I’d have some ideas

Syl Abdul: say fate I’m biased.

Adam Rose: So yeah, that would be my number.

Syl Abdul: Awesome. Awesome. I know there’s a lot of fans of that. And like you said, you kind of mentioned the Bruce Tim thing. I, I, I am that B and animated series. I lean towards that heavy too, but that’s definitely a good choice on yours as well. So, that that’s again, high on people’s list.

And so you are a DC fan, so [00:02:00] that’s good. So you, you fit right in with the audience here, but, but a little bit about you Adam you know, again, you’re a comic writer. I got a chance to kind of just look into things you did. Before just, I guess, what was your journey here? You know, I have a lot of people that ask me, you know, just like, you know, how is this person, you know, kind of get to this point, if they’re a writer artist.

So what was your journey, Adam with that?

Adam Rose: I mean, I have been a passionate comic book reader since I was like eight years old. Since I could hold a comic book since like my grandparents sent me one in the mail. And I, then I guess I’ve always had the collector bug. I think my theory behind that. My dad was a baseball card collector.

And back in the day for him, when he went off to school, his mom, my grandmother. Just gave all of his cards and tr and like die cast metal train set to the neighbors, cuz Hey, I want to clean out the clutter. So my dad went the opposite route with me. He’s like anything you wanna keep [00:03:00] he’s like my mom don’t don’t we don’t throw anything away.

So that was like, it was almost fostered to keep and collect. But. First and foremost comic books reading them is like every Wednesday is like Saturday morning cartoons for me. I mean, it is just a joy to get my comics. I still go for the, the floppy single issues. I’ve experimented with reading digitally.

I dig it and I, I want to explore it more like I’ve been, I hope this is okay to say I’ve been playing with the Marvel unlimited. That’s good digital

Syl Abdul: we, you know, we venture out a little bit once it

Adam Rose: was . So, but then as far as writing goes, I’ve been passionate about writing in, in a lot of different forms, short stories, novels, screenwriting for years.

I, did a lot of improvisation and sketch writing for many, many years. And then I just, I wanted to get into the comic book writing world. And about 15 years ago, I had the luck of getting to meet Adam Bechen, who’s a DC writer [00:04:00] Robin among other things. And he also does a lot of animating writing and he kind of unofficially took me on, he looked at scripts that I was making, he gave me scripts of some of his old comic books and it just was amazing the feedback he gave me.

And I, I wrote like my first kind of five issue comic and I, I managed to get This wonderful artist, Tony Gregory, to do like a 10 page pitch for that still, you know, that one’s still the one I really feel strongly about it’s called apotheosis. And it’s about like, what if Hercules met like the mortal half met the God half and they kind of had to go in a race against time to re accumulate the 12 labors in modern Greece.

But anyway, so then I met Charles Tofield out of Baltimore area. And he illustrated my middle grade comic called playground attack of the Geral bots, where this kid gets all the powers of the playground. Like if he plays freeze tag, it’s real. If he plays, Simon says you are compelled to do what he said.

So that [00:05:00] was like my, I feel like that was like my grad school experience of learning. Like from beginning to publishing, to marketing, to publicity all of that with him, it was like for four year span and we got it out through a small publisher out of England actually called Markoja entertainment. And that came out, I guess now like, like four or five years ago, actually.

And then, you know, this corollary was a script that I, I finished and partnered up with Rob AMA on about three and a half, four years ago. So, and here we are.

Syl Abdul: Call Laurie. Cause that’s, that’s kind of, what’s hot right now. When if people search, you know, your name, Adam Rose writer, comic Kohl, Laurie jumps out there right.

For, for Google. So that’s a good thing first off. And and it’s a pretty interesting take you have there. That whole twin element. If you wanna talk about that a little bit colo,

Adam Rose: why are you? Yeah, well, you know, it’s, it’s all boils down to, in a galaxy of twins of all shapes and sizes, alien beings of you name it [00:06:00] all the way up to like, planet size beings.

Most, if not all are born with a twin and in this galaxy, the rule is if your twin dies. So do. So that opens up all kinds of possibilities for different personalities. I mean, what if someone’s very concerned that they have a very clumsy twin, do they? And they have kind of a dark streak and they like lock them in a padded room to make sure they don’t like get hurt or something.

You know, like it came from the most innocent place. My daughter was like four at the time. And she, we had some friends that were about to have twins and she just said, as I was tucking her into bed, daddy, if, you know, if you tick a one twin will the other. And I took that and twisted it into this dark kind of morbid

and then yeah, the character captain Andromeda, I just, she came to me and I knew who she was and I knew what she was about. And it just took off and meeting Rob Ahmad as the artist he’s [00:07:00] by, by coincidence, he’s based out of England, but he’s done some books for like scout comics, action lab, others out here, and plenty of stuff in the UK and speaking back circle all the way back to Bruce, Tim.

I mean, his mm-hmm his vibe on this kind of has, I mean, there are elements that I think are in that genre and one big experimental payoff, I think for our. Is Rob hand. Watercolored the first three of issues. Oh,

Syl Abdul: awesome. Okay. Definitely. I’m gonna make sure I’m gonna get some images up when I, I do my clips.

Cause that’s interesting to see that art and I mean, Hey, it it’s like, it seems like this is what’s kind of hot for you right now. Cause now correct me if I’m wrong, you had like a, you know, a campaign to get this out. I think it was a Kickstarter

Adam Rose: or, or something. Oh no, no. This came out just straight through source point press.

Oh, okay. Gotcha. Yeah. And they are, if issue one comes out April twentie. And then it’s gonna be monthly. It’s four issues. I’m gonna be at the, if anyone’s in Los Angeles, I’m gonna be at the comic bug on [00:08:00] April 20th at their Culver city from 12 to three, and then Manhattan beach from four to seven signing and hopefully encouraging people to take a chance.

Syl Abdul: Awesome, man, I tell you, I love just unique takes and like you said you know, it is good. I mean, obviously I’m a big story person. It helps to have an awesome artist as well. So it seems you can do with that. So, Hey, that’s, what’s hot right now for you now. Of course. I mean, if you’re just in the moment with that, but do you have other plans going

Adam Rose: on or, you know, oh yeah.

Yeah. I mean, I have a couple things cooking. I, I am pretty excited about, I finished a script for, and this one’s gonna be a little more on the horror meets fantasy, detective war. And that one, I I’m partnering up with an artist who named magenta king, who if you’ve heard of Jenny zero out of dark horse, that’s magenta King’s work, beautiful book, beautiful series written by David wonk.

But so that’s, that’s, that’s the next thing that we’re gonna kind of get fired up with. He just sees [00:09:00] starting some pages on that. And I have a couple other things that I’m hoping they’re gonna take off. I, I got a meeting next week with another publisher about writing for them, and I may or may not have some really cool news about something affiliated with the Marvel film world.

But I’m not allowed to talk about it yet because of like non-disclosures and all that, but, you know, I’ll, I’ll definitely let you know when I’m allowed to talk about that. Yeah.

Syl Abdul: That, that’s interesting. Again, you know, there, that’s nice crossover with the artists. We you know, I’m looking forward to some Marvel stuff too, and that will be pretty awesome if You know, just we’ll, we’ll speculate you know, we’ll, you know, NDAs, you know, but so looking forward to that now, how how can we connect with you?

How can the viewers connect with you and you know, find your, even your, you know, I know you said your comic and, and things like that. Websites, social media.

Adam Rose: Yeah. Yeah. So, for me, Twitter, Adam Rose 74 and then Instagram at Shaza cap, C P. And [00:10:00] so there’s, there’s a shout out to DC. I, I did love the Shaza movie.

Okay. I loved that, that right there, that tone. That is what I think DC movies should be, in my opinion. Mm-hmm they there’s that light vibrant vibrancy to it. Mm-hmm and it’s got some serious stuff going on. But , mm-hmm, the last thing from my comic. You know, you can get it at your comic book stories. I think you can, you can reach out also just straight to source point, press.com and you know, like I said, issue one, April 20th, it’s monthly, it’s four issues.

Awesome.

Syl Abdul: I tell you, so definitely that’d be a way for people to connect and kind of follow what you’re doing. And I said, I’m looking forward to that secret project. He was teasy so we, we have to definitely have a follow up regarding that. And so you mentioned as far as You know, the Marvel universe and things like that and entertainment again, my viewers love the, the, you know, the entertainment.

I don’t judge too many people that don’t do the reading, the source material. So I understand some viewers don’t read everything, but [00:11:00] let’s talk about the entertainment. I just. What are you? What are you watching now? Like in this, the geek, superhero, genre entertainment. What, what catch what’s catching your eye right now at this

Adam Rose: time?

Well, I know I’m not in the minority on this one. I mean, I haven’t seen episode two, but moon night, I’m digging moon night quite a bit. I, I love how they’re taking, like. You know, quote unquote obscure characters and, you know, breathing life into them. And this one I’m excited about. I also think I love Oscar Isaac as an actor, so I think that’s, that’s pretty cool.

Mm-hmm, , let’s see. Other than that, I’ve been well, it’s not superhero, but as far as science fiction and I think some of the smartest high concept sci-fi, I’ve seen in years, As far as a TV show raised by wolves.

Syl Abdul: Oh yeah. Good choice. Good choice. A lot of people have been buzzing about that. And so you’ve been kinda keeping up with us in the second season now, right?

Yeah.

Adam Rose: Yeah. I’m not finished. It just finished, but I’m like halfway through the second season. It is so smart. It’s and it’s, you know, it’s Ridley Scott produced and [00:12:00] there’s, and you know, I do think you could argue there’s almost, I mean, some of the beings in this have that kind. Like sci-fi superhero quality to them.

Mm-hmm um, but you know, back to like your, what you were saying, like what else, like in the pure superhero form, I mean, I’ve been consuming any, any DC animated movies that I can get, you know, the new ones that are coming out. What is the last one I saw? Oh man. I, I think they haven’t kinda won too recently.

Yeah. Yes. It has been a minute. I mean, I know that that the new young justice series. I, I need to get back into that.

Syl Abdul: That’s a good choice. Yeah. Being just is pretty solid. And and it is very interesting too mean it is an overlap with like the sci-fi genre as well. You know, as far as we know superhero, sci-fi you mentioned raised by woos, which again, I mean, you know, I, I, I do love really Scott, how do you like this long form approach?

Just with all these, you know, streaming and, you know, do, do you see like kind of this, this wave of just like. I mean, you can consume [00:13:00] in either kind of way, but are you a fan of this long form storytelling now that we’re seeing, you know, a lot more in these genres?

Adam Rose: Yeah, I, I am as, I guess, as opposed to like one episode being, having its own complete story and like, yeah.

I mean, I think, I, I think we’re seeing a Renaissance in TV storytelling because of this like streaming bingeable content. I think we’re also overwhelmed with options. I mean, totally different element, but like, you know, I’ve had a million different people of all shapes and sizes say you have to watch Yellowstone.

And I don’t know if I’m, you know, I don’t know if I’m ready to get peacock plus to get you .

Syl Abdul: Yeah. I’m I’m like, you know, you have to. You gotta sell me a little better peacock. And just me personally saying that before I it’s so many different streamers, Adam,

Adam Rose: right? I have, I just recently am experimenting with [00:14:00] paramount plus, and I just started the first season of star Trek discovery.

It is good. And I’m a, I’m a, a Treky fan. And this feels like, like a show as good as up there for me as like the next generat.

Syl Abdul: Interesting. So star Trek friends. So I’m, I’m I guess in the category of like a, a casual star Trek, you know, star Trek fan. So I, I guess I can’t claim Treky Treky life. Like you probably can, but, but it’s been interesting conversations about just, you know, star Trek as a franchise.

There’s like a rumored new movie. Yeah. Where I think they’re making it or they’re not making, I don’t know what’s going on. We’ll see. And then you do have, you know, just different opinions about the streaming, you know, shows for star Trek. Where do you fall in that? Adam, since you’re fan of that just, are you seeing like.

I guess, do you agree with any of the, of the criticism or are you more like you, you know, you just got into discovery, so I maybe you’re liking it right now. What they’re [00:15:00] doing?

Adam Rose: Oh yeah. I mean, I guess I, I was thrown off by two things and I’ve only seen like the first five episodes of the first season. I was thrown off when a character said, fuck.

Syl Abdul: Right.

Adam Rose: I’ve never heard a star Trek character say an FBO ever so that threw me off. Yep. And what was the other thing? I mean, I guess maybe this is, they they’re kind of giving themselves permission because it is a streaming service mm-hmm so it’s not network TV, so they’re allowed to go further with swearing, with violence depicted mm-hmm so I think it’s.

You know, I’m still actually, I’m not, I’m not sure how I feel about the whole, like them, you know, swearing like that on the show. Not, I’m not like a prude about that. It’s more like, I just, you know how many, this is like hundreds of years in the future, would the, I mean, I don’t know.

Syl Abdul: no, I see where you’re [00:16:00] going with that.

Cuz I mean, you know, sometimes, you know, you know, if I swear it’s kind of like a word filler, it’s not. I can’t think, you know, maybe at that moment, I’m not thinking of what I wanna say. So it’s just like, you know, you just drop Fon, but it’s like, , like you said, they’re supposed to be like advanced you right.

More advanced than we are. And they can’t, you know, they’re getting tongue tied or I don’t know. Now I will say the languish didn’t throw me off. That much, but the vines was a little, little Jarry. I was like, yeah, like, you know,

Adam Rose: subtle or, yeah, they were like necks being broken left and right.

Syl Abdul: but Hey, they found their audience.

But again, there’s, you know, some purists, you know, and I don’t mean that like in a bad way, but there there’s some purists that’s just like, you know, turned, turned off by that. And

Adam Rose: well you, yeah. You know, and I’m wondering, cause I’ve seen the trailer for the next show, which takes place right before Kirk mm-hmm yeah, that’ll be interesting.

That might be you know, a flavor [00:17:00] that people are looking like a classic flavor.

Syl Abdul: Maybe they need to, to just balance it out. Like if you wanna do like, kinda like this weird shit with the, with the break in next, every like hour it’s like, okay, like I get it. Y’all can do that, but does it have to be like that every episode?

And then if they can match it with like, you know, some classic star Trek vibes Maybe that’s what it is now. Something that people thought was gonna be classic star Trek was Picard. Right. That’s a show. I’m be quite honest. I, I kind of tailed off personally, but again, I’m the casual star Trek guy up.

Have you been following that?

Adam Rose: I just tried it and I tried like the first two episodes and I dug that, you know, suddenly data’s in. But I, I gotta go back to it. I mean, I, I, I haven’t given it a fair shot cuz yeah. Next generation is my star Trek. I mean, I love Kirk and all that too, but, and all the movies back then too, but as far as like the TV series that I just kind of grew up with loving it.

Well [00:18:00] actually, I mean, I, I dug deep space nine too. Okay. I mean I’m thinking back then, the only one maybe I was mediocre about was. Well, no, actually Voyager. I liked a lot one enterprise with, with the quantum leap guy. Mm-hmm Scott, something, I didn’t really get into that one, even though I love quantum leap

Syl Abdul: everyone should love quantum leap.

That’s right. Yeah. I don’t wanna hear any cl quantum leap slander

Adam Rose: from, well, let me ask you if you could leap, but only in your lifetime, where’s the first place you’d leap.

Syl Abdul: Oh, man. Since I’m in Kentucky, you’ll be on the west coast somewhere. I think I , I’ll leave this over to the west coast cause Midwest is, it gets kind of wild.

But I mean that opens up the mind, right? The type of shows like that, you know, and you know, like I said, writers like yourself and you know, you just kind of see that imagination and.

Adam Rose: Oh, it’s inspiring.

Syl Abdul: Yeah. Yeah. What do you feel about, cause I think I, I, I want to be clear [00:19:00] when I say I’m not sure. I think I heard about a reboot for quantum leap actually.

Cause sometimes I get production info, you know, I put it on the channel. And what do you feel about it’s it’s like a, a wave of reboots, like, you as a creator, like I guess like is. Cause I don’t think it’s always a bad thing to, to, to re you know, redo something or reboot it, borrow elements. I guess, where do you land with that?

Like, if you had a choice, like for your favorite franchise, would, would you wanna redo what they did before or do something new? Like

Adam Rose: just, you know, your opinion. I mean, I guess I wish there was less rebooting and more new. However, back to what we were talking about before, about how. The amount of content.

Now, I, I feel like there’s room for both, because there’s so many services and everyone’s making their own stuff. I mean, you know, 15 years ago, if you told me apple was gonna make an Oscar win winning movie, I would’ve, I wouldn’t have, well, maybe I would, well, maybe. [00:20:00] Yeah, sure. That’s possible, but I would’ve been a little surprised.

So I guess there’s room for all of. I, I do like, you know, so like raised by wolves is so refreshing to me because it’s so new and it’s its own thing and it doesn’t have to follow the rules of something else. But then I also love the Mandalorian, you know, and, and, but I didn’t like the book of Bobba fit.

I’m sorry. So I hope. Well, there’s two episodes I liked in that. I liked the two Mandalorian episode. Exactly,

Syl Abdul: exactly. That’s kinda how that fell for me too, cause, oh my goodness. I, again, I’m kind of casual star war just well, but you know, if it’s cool catches my eye. Okay. Mandalorian was always good for me.

But Bobba fat. Oh man. That was a chore. For the first couple. I was so special. Yeah. That just, that wasn’t it for me. And I don’t know, maybe they was trying to do something so different from Mandalorian. They didn’t want, you know, I don’t know [00:21:00] they didn’t land, but like you said, it hit, it hit overdrive.

When Mandalorian shows up, get the dark saber. I’m like, okay. This is why this is why I stay up for 3:00 AM on Eastern standard time. You know, it comes out 3:00 AM. That’s what, you know, what I wanna watch. But you mentioned again, this, this new show as we round out with moon night has been you know, pretty exciting for some people.

I still gotta watch this new episode at the time. Yeah. I

Adam Rose: haven’t seen number two yet

Syl Abdul: either. Yeah. Oscar, Isaac was so wonderful that first episode, like he sells. , you know, it wasn’t a lot of, you know, they didn’t use a lot of like the, the suit. I mean, you barely saw the suit in the first one. Yeah. And he sold it like you pretty much on board for that series you know, going forward.

Yeah. I’m, I’m a

Adam Rose: big moon night fan. I’ve loved moon night since I was a kid, I don’t know. I’ve always been fascinated by the character. I mean, you know, he certain, you know, if, if, if someone were to try to say, oh, he’s just Marvel’s Batman. No, he is not. He’s a complicated character. [00:22:00] I think I’ll be curious to see how they play with his multiple personalities and all that and how if they take it?

Yeah, I mean, cuz mark specter, we barely have seen who is the main, well usually the main voice or controlling the body character. So yeah, no, I’m, I’m all in and I, I am, you know, the whole, it took me a minute to get used to the design of the suit. But I’m, I’m, I’m, I’m up for it. I think, you know, he, I always thought he was a little more conventional.

This is, they’re definitely upping the mystical. But I, I can get behind that.

Syl Abdul: I get it. Oh yeah. I’m definitely behind it. Ethan hog, he he’s wonder fool in that first episode. And you know, they, they, they keep you in the dark just a little bit, you know? So you, you know, you are like, man, like, you know, it’s gonna be, probably be some cool reveals by the time we get through this, this

Adam Rose: series.

Well, did you hear about the Easter egg of the comic, the digital comic? Yeah, right now you take a picture of that code. you get moon night and the www from like the late sixties or [00:23:00] seventies.

Syl Abdul: Yeah. Where will fight night? Yeah, which coincidentally, they’re doing a, a Halloween special on Disney plus.

So, I mean, I feel like the dead giveaway we’re gonna see where will fight night, you know, on this show. You know, stuff like that. That’s pretty creative. I was like, you know who thought of that? Right? Yeah. Yeah. Now I did. Here has to be like nearly a 4k screen to capture it. You got some people they may not have.

That resolution to catch that yeah, that code. But like I said, look like looking forward to that. I mean, again, anything that’s kind of cool. I, you know, I pretty much gravitate to it, so, oh yeah. So looking forward, but with, so with you, as we round out here, Adam again, you know, a lot really to take in as far as what you’re doing with your projects and waiting for.

Probably some cool news for you in the near future. Any last things you wanna kind of plug or you know, it could be some shoutouts. It could be whatever you wanna do

Adam Rose: as we oh yeah. I, I just want, thank the people at source point press like Josh weer is like the, [00:24:00] the, the main man there. And Cameron has been like my kind of helping me just.

See the, the route for this book. I’m gonna be at golden apple comics in Hollywood on free comic book day. So that’s, I think May 7th Saturday from 10, 11 to two, and there’s gonna be really good ice cream truck there. A friend of mine has a CVT. It’s like a. LA staple of soft serve ice cream, and that’s gonna be a blast.

So come out then, if you, if you wanna see, you know, get some more corollary and other, and then other comics will be there and yeah, DC Hopkins the letterer for my comic. He’s, he’s a pro like he’s been incredible for this book. He, you know, he’s done every publisher under the sun and was kind enough to work on my book and really.

Like the lettering is genius. I mean, he, each character, you can see who they are in some ways based on how he does that. So mm-hmm, , that’s everybody. And of course, yeah, back to Rob mod is like the amazing artist I got to work with and I hope [00:25:00] to continue to work with him if we ever get a chance to, cause I already have a, another idea for like, you know, a series part two.

Syl Abdul: All right. I’ll tell you thinking ahead. That’s the way that’s the way to do it. Definitely. Yeah. So it’s been an absolute pleasure talking to you, Adam Rose, and I’ve learned a lot just, you know, just how your approach and what you look at in the past. And again we’re excited. Your social media links, I’m sure will be attached to this video so people can find you and Hey, catch him at, out there on the west coast there.

You hit up those ComicCons. I personally, I’m going to Seattle for the ALD city. ComicCon

Adam Rose: and I’m planning on going, cause in source, point’s gonna have a booth I’m planning on go. We’ll have to

Syl Abdul: hook up. Oh, we have to hook up.

Adam Rose: Oh, great. That’s in or September or August? Yeah,

Syl Abdul: August. Yeah, middle August.

I I’m attached with some people in my team. Mikey Sutton is like pretty much like my business partner and he has his own comic book called dream Walker. And he launched it pretty successfully, you know, you know, he is trying to push [00:26:00] it internationally and he has a Filipino background and so that’s really been cool for him.

So he’s trying to get a booth set up in Seattle. Nice for that. ComicCon and I’m. He’s actually writing me into the comic oh, that’s cool. Pretty cool. Yeah. That’s gonna be pretty cool to see, so yeah, no, we’ll definitely hook up Adam and and I can’t wait to see, you know, like I say, your, your crew out there and hopefully you know, I’ll take a lot of pictures for everyone else.

Me and Adam hanging out this August, it’s been a lot of fun. definitely appreciate you again. This was a special spoiler country edition of coffee break. This is where we talk about geek, film entertainment. And sci-fi I gotta sneak that in there. We talk some sci-fi too. So appreciate y’all y’all take care.