Commentary Track: No Heroine with Frank Gogol

Frank Gogol is back to talk about his new book, No Heroine! He sit's down with Casey and they, as always, have a good ol' time.

Find No Heroine online:
https://www.previewsworld.com/Catalog/APR202048
http://www.frankgogol.com/

"Drinks and Comics with Spoiler Country!"
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC25ZJLg6vL4jjRgC1ebshCA

Did you know we have a YouTube channel?
https://youtube.com/channel/UCstl1UHQVUC85DrCagF-wuQ

Follow us on Social Media:
http://facebook.com/spoilercountry/
http://twitter.com/spoiler_country
http://instagram.com/spoilercountry/

Kenric:
http://twitter.com/XKenricX

John:
http://twitter.com/y2cl
http://instagram.com/y2cl/
http://y2cl.net
http://eynesanthology.com

Casey:
https://twitter.com/robotseatguitar
https://thecomicjam.com/

Buy John’s Comics!
http://y2cl.net/the-store/

Support us on Patreon:
http://patreon.com/spoilercountry

Theme music by Joey Edsall
https://linktr.ee/joeyedsall

[bg_collapse view="button-blue" color="#4a4949" expand_text="Transcript" collapse_text="Show Less" ]

Frank Gogol - No Heroine Commentary Track

[00:00:00] Casey: all right, everybody. Welcome again, to another episode of spoiler country today on the show we have the one, the only Frank Gogel, Frank, how you doing man?
Frank Gogol: I'm doing all right, but I've got to correct you early on. I am not the only Frank Ogle that, and that is, that's a hundred percent why my email is not Frank over there.
Casey: This interview is over.
Frank Gogol: I want it as badly as you want for me to have Frank Google gmail.com is my email address. Like nobody wants it more than me, but some other asshole with my name has that name.
So I'm not the only, but I am probably the better of the two.
Casey: I I'm curious for you.
Frank Gogol: I haven't changed.org petition and everything.
Casey: Let's just, you know, you know, the end of Jay and silent Bob strike back where they go and find all the names of the kids that made fun of them on the internet. Just beat the shit out of them.
You and me buddy. Go fine. Let's go find those other Frank Googles out there. [00:01:00] We'll get all your like web stuff. So if you need Frank Ogle at Hotmail done, I think Google on my space done. Geo cities got that for you too.
Frank Gogol: Ooh, angle fire. I go fire.
Casey: Yeah, let's do it.
Frank Gogol: Alright. Yeah. Yeah. No, that sounds good. I'm all for that.
And honestly, let's kill them with kindness. Like let's convert them in so that I get my email address and their money.
Casey: That sounds good, man. You, you got, you could tempt them with your new comic. No heroin.
Frank Gogol: Oh, I think I see tempting and about a book that's about drugs. I dunno. I don't know that that's, that seems along the nose,
Casey: but really, I mean, it's a good way to get people into it.
That's awesome.
Frank Gogol: That's a good book, allegedly. It's when it's sort of here
Casey: and apparently they're like, A ton of different covers you can get and they're selling [00:02:00] out and preorders and all this other stuff, you post a lot of stuff that I have no idea for the context of, because I'm an idiot. So, but I know what's good because it's numbers behind it.
And you're saying, Oh, this is selling this for this thing. And I'm like, Oh, good.
Frank Gogol: Yeah, we can definitely get into some of that. Some of that's probably pretty relevant to what we're about to do here. What are we about to do here in case
Casey: we're gonna go through issue one of no heroin.
Frank Gogol: Nice, nice. I know that.
So I'm glad, I'm glad I'm here. Now Kevin, I mean,
Casey: who else? Who better to show me? So
Frank Gogol: this time around maybe Chris and Shada, they did excellent, excellent work on the colors and letters and this, I mean, had I drawn this book, it would be like a little check with like, Stick in her hand and some needles that also like sticks.
I, they they've done a much better job than me.
Casey: I saw your initial draft of the, [00:03:00] with the stigma and, and I mean, there are some people on the internet who have made careers out of stigma in action, you know, comics, and you're not one of them. So I'm glad that, that Chris Madden and in Shada and have come to your aid.
Frank Gogol: Yeah, listen, you, you, you you're kidding, but I actually do mock up a lot of stuff. and I am not. Even close to somebody who would call themselves an artist, but like all my cover designs that I hand off to the artists, like I give them sort of an initial version of it that I mock up in Photoshop and just, I do do a lot of art that never gets seen and should never be seen as well.
Casey: You're saving, you're saving source point some, some dollars man, because. I see, I see, I see the page don't you design the P the interstitial pages and like the credits [00:04:00] pages and stuff like that.
Frank Gogol: Yeah, we talked about this a couple of times now. I think I'm, I'm just a huge Jonathan Ekman fan. I think a good strong design from cover to cover is, is important.
At least to me, when I pick up a book, it makes it feel kind of substantial. It makes it feel like a whole thing. And then when you can look at it across all the issues, like I always think of like East of West, those covers were not very complicated, but they were immediately recognizable and had like a really strong visual.
Stand out from the crowd, kind of feel to them. And that went all the way through, through the credit's page. And the design page is in the back pages and in the trades, like, I mean, so I that's, that's something I always go for and grief was the same way in debt and kids with the same way, you know, heroin is the same way and everything I ever do until somebody tells me I'm not allowed to will be that way.
Like, I'll be the guy at the Marvel or treat like getting fired because I won't. I won't let them not let me design the back cover for my Hawkeye book.
Casey: That's that's [00:05:00] awesome. So, so speaking of covers, I'm ed the artists from, dead end kids actually designed the cover for this.
Frank Gogol: You're going to want to cut that.
so named ed drew dead and kids, Ahmed did a, he did a certain, yeah, but we can cut that.
Casey: It's the, leave it in. I'm an idiot.
Frank Gogol: Yeah. Yeah. Your red state have shown, man, just cause. Aaronson names now. I'm a, did a series of covers for dead end kids. He did the Nawar covers the black and white ones with the nineties gimmicks, like the kids with the supersoaker, the switchblade, that's a comb, the super Nintendo.
So you're one of you team me back up for that and jump in, so. Okay.
Casey: Let me just,
Frank Gogol: Hmm, start over.
Casey: Let's just start over. We were just like five minutes into it. So we'll just go right into, like, we'll just go right into, it
[00:06:00] Frank Gogol: works for me. Alright
Casey: right at 2225. All right, everybody. Welcome again, to another episode of spoiler country today on the show, we have one of the many Franco.
Yeah, but Google is the only Frank Google that has been on the show. The only Frank Google, their rise comics were. So at this point, The only Frank Google that has a book called no heroin coming out. So Frank, tell, tell us a little bit about no heroin, man.
Frank Gogol: well, excuse me. I know heroin is, it's kinda my, my love letter to Buffy the vampire Slayer.
It was a big Buffy fan growing up. just loved the writing on the show, even though it seemingly hasn't aged well in the public eye based on its creator, but, a, it was there for me when I was a kid and when I needed a show like that, and I was appreciated the storytelling that they did. and I knew I wanted to do a story like that one day.
Didn't have any plans for [00:07:00] it. And I'm sure I'll talk about this at some point tonight, the opportunity presented itself to do a sort of vampire Slayer monster Hunter type story. and we kinda did a mashup of the, the, the monster Hunter genre with, sort of, a recovery story on addiction or cover story.
and I think, I think we got a pretty good book out of it. Like I'm pretty excited to, to dig into, to some of them. Nuts and bolts here. Cause I wasn't able to talk about a whole lot of that while we were promoting it.
Casey: So let's get into that now. So, I'm specifically wondering right away, the, the coverage is really, It stands out.
it's black and white for the most part. There's, there's a few tones in it, but, you, you had an artist from dead end kids. He was a, cover artist for that book. Do you want to do the first cover for a book one? And, can you tell us a little bit about that? And did you give him any direction on that? [00:08:00]
Frank Gogol: yeah. So, I'm better off it. Did the art for the, the cover Ahmet is, it's an incredibly talented Egyptian artist, living in London. he and I worked together before on a set of dead end kids, variants that you mentioned, he did our Nawara covers. we did a series of convention exclusive covers one for each issue that were black and white.
and, Ahmed has a really. Strong Nawar sensibility to his art. And he does really well with black and white and like, I always wanted to work with him and that seemed like a good opportunity. and I loved that experience a lot, so much so that he and I have for a while now behind the scenes of working on a full length book that he's drawing, that isn't announced yet.
But, when I was sort of conceiving the. Concert for the covers and like what they would look like for the series. I knew I wanted something kind of simplified. I knew I wanted like a lot of stark, white space on it. I knew I wanted sort of like these single tone colors [00:09:00] or, or, or like, you know, color families.
So like pinks on the first cover aren't as on the second coverage green on the third cover, I knew what the logo would look like at the time. So it was just, it was kind of like a very quick, Oh, Ahmed's the guy for this. I know that I, that he draws. I know that he, you know, Level's up everything I throw his way.
and I know that he's a good fit for the style I'm thinking. so it was, it was a real quick like Facebook message. I was like, Hey, I got three covers for this new book I'm doing, you want to get it on? And I told him the pitch for the book and he like drew the first cover before I said, okay, you're hired.
He's a go getter. No, I'm kidding. But he is, he was very quick and he is, he was very talented and, and he brings a lot to the table. for this cover in particular, I did have the concept of, you know, Kayla. Sort of standing facing the camera with this sort of colored. Backdrop behind her. and in one hand she'd be holding a stake and in one hand should be holding the needles.
I wanted this since it was the [00:10:00] first issue. It's kind of like the window dressing for the whole series too, to really in one image, sell everything you need to know about the book, vampires, drugs, monsters, punk rock, like it's it's all right there. It's. You don't need words. You don't need anyone to pitch it to you.
You can look at this cover and say, Oh, I think I know what this book's about. And that was kinda what I was hoping for. So I pitched that idea to Ahmed. He did a couple versions of it, tweak some things, but really this is, I mean, I think we got this in one go off of me giving him a verbal pitch.
Casey: That's awesome.
And it really kind of. Shows how intuitive he is. And he has such a solid design sense. I love this cover, but not only this cover is, you know, amazing. You, you have, How many variants do you have on this?
Frank Gogol: Oh, I don't even know. So, so many that there had to be internal conversations at the publisher about women.
[00:11:00] So it's a, it's not my fault. All right. Like I. I, when I did cover us for a dead end case, we do quite a bit for that serious too. Cause it went to a couple of printings and there was some retail exclusives and a lot of convention exclusives. like back then I was hustling. I was like, Hey, who wants to cover let's let's let's let's market this book and like make you a little money.
this time around. It was everybody reaching out to me and like me turning people away left and right. I, I guess there's, there's some stuff gas left in the tank from dead end kids and retailers have a lot of faith in my ability to do that. Very good book. I apologize. So that meant advance. but, yeah, so there, there were people who, who.
Th the, the retailers were Jones and Fort, I wanted a couple that specific artists to do covers for me. so we ended up with quite a few. And as of this recording, they're not at all. It's insane. It's, it's, it's over there top in the sand, you know, the even crazier [00:12:00] part is I can name. At least 10 people who I talked to today that I know for sure about every single cover.
Oh wow. People who've, I've never met people. I've never met people who didn't read that. And kids like there's, there's a, this seems like guys to behind this book now and like, people are just like, they're, there are brand fans for this book and the book hasn't released yet. Like they have no idea what they're buying.
which thank you. Thank you all so much. but yeah, so there are a lot of covers, I, I couldn't even count them more right now, but I know personally I did. One cover for myself, with art by Chris Callahan, who did, art for her, he wrote and drew a book for source point called the misplaced. And he's got a real Dave McKean style.
And I, and I, I love this. and he's, he's just a buddy of mine. I like working. so he, he did a cover for us is like, sort of almost like a lost boys kind of homage to like, you know, the, the red, black, and white poster. They're really fun. So it was, it was, it was playing on [00:13:00] that and like it came out awesome.
And Chris's style was really good for me. You, I did that one for myself. and then we, that was the announcement variant. And then we use that same art for a retailer relief. Very interesting money for shops, that will close during the pandemic. So, yeah, I mean, there, there are crazy amount of covers and like I'll die.
Don't we know one retailer hive comics did a set of peach Momoko covers and they got them right before peach like blew up like a nuclear bomb. Like, I mean, she's everywhere now. And we had three straight covers from her and they're all. Baller like 500 drones sold out in minutes. Oh, wow. Yeah. Incredible.
There they did a metal version of it. and one sold a graded nine, eight copy of that metal cover version sold on eBay like a night or two ago for $1,100, I think is the highest selling peach cover ever. That isn't an original sketch.
Casey: It's just wild,
Frank Gogol: you know, I wish [00:14:00] I had that, that peach Momoko money.
Casey: So like where were you also have Paul Smith?
Frank Gogol: I totally forgot about that too. So many. yeah, so we did a,
Casey: we did a window. Well,
Frank Gogol: hive comics that the guys over there used to be part of a retailer group called anomaly comics. And they were my. First ever retailer exclusive on debt and kids, and they got better to do a really cool ghostly, awesome debt and kids covered that.
I love so much. I actually own the original art. and, and I was able to connect with Ben through that. And yeah, and I, you know, we hang out at cons every once in a while, and then we go out for drinks and he's a really cool guy. And when I, I knew I was doing a vampire book, I knew I was going to do a Ben temple Smith cover a few.
If, if he had time, I was gonna pay him whatever he asks, because. He's the fucking King of empire comics. Like why wouldn't you, especially if you could. Oh
Casey: yeah, [00:15:00] yeah.
Frank Gogol: And, yeah, I wanted to try and do like something special for it and something that would like really make it worthwhile to pay Ben his, his.
Not indie fee. but, I remembered all the retailers from dead-on kids who, who backed that book and canceled it and like made it such a huge success last year, like sold like 15,000 copies across all the issues and printings variance. and that was all them. And I wanted to do something to help them kind of bring some dollars into the store and, and to, to, you know, Maybe sell a few more copies in their shop and bring in a little more money.
so we made it an incentive area. So, it was a one in five, any shop that ordered five copies of the regular cover, would be okay, order one copy of the temple Smith cover, and it know multiplied by fives, right? If you bought 10, you can get two 15, three and so on. and incentive covers it.
Slippery. A lot of, a lot of the publishers kind of use them as a way to just sell a bunch of copies that will never move like a one in 500 variant is. [00:16:00] Absolutely useless to anyone except like the person that buys it. so we, we, we wanted to kind of toe that line very carefully and we, I made the threshold as low as diamond would let us, you know, for every five copies.
Yeah. Essentially I wanted to say, Hey, picking up five copies, grabbed this one too, because you know, five copies, isn't an unreasonable amount of copies for a shop to get. and yeah, just, we ended up printing. Like 12 or 1300 of that one in five variants. So you can do the math on that and that'll tell you how many copies of the actual book we sold.
I mean, it's, it was it's six, 7,000 on the first issue. Yeah. It's, it's crazy, but yeah, that covers awesome. I love it. I love working with Ben now that I've got to do it like directly with him and know for a second time. and that was the Oh gee, Varian cover. I was the first one before for everyone.
Got very. Cover crazy on me.
Casey: So, let's, let's move [00:17:00] on to the, the interstitial page or
Frank Gogol: I never know. I never know what to call these. Like I file our name, my files pretty pretty. Normally and inconsistently, but I never know what to call this page when I name it. but called the credits page. It's got the credits on it.
so yeah, this is, for the people who aren't seeing it in front of them. Like I am, it's a. It's a black page with a sort of like a crumpled paper kind of texture going on. that was from the back cover, which we'll get to later, and then sampling some of the art from the outside cover. and then it's got the credits.
this is another one I designed, I learned some lessons, designing the dead end kids credit page, especially with all the variants. And, you know, you gotta leave space for the credits for the artists who does the cover. And I didn't on the dead end, kids cover at all. And it was such a pain. Every cause there was like 25 covers had to make a new, we went every single time and like, it just didn't plan for it.
so you can kind of see like a stack [00:18:00] act, the credits on the left and left. Yeah. If you take out, we're looking at, the Ben temple Smith credit here, but you could take that off and swap it out with something else. And it made things a hell of a lot easier fun fact though, these credits like the IndyCar and all the, the source point press publishing information.
those had to be updated on every single version of this because I had the old source point press web store I'm like on there for the longest.
Casey: So I'm on the book you have have obviously Frank Goble writer,
Frank Gogol: art by Chris
Casey: mad colors by Shauna mad letters by Sean Reinhart and, cover by Ahmed. Rafot I hope I said that. Right. And, you know, then your alternate cover up in typical Smith or, Ad, you know, however many
Frank Gogol: I got, I got artists in different area codes.
Yeah. I can't even anymore.
[00:19:00] Casey: So all talented
Frank Gogol: and way more talented than me. They don't need me.
Casey: And you know, obviously Travis McIntyre and Josh Warner, the source point guys, and, man source point they're, they're treating you. Right. And, It seems like some good guys to work with.
Frank Gogol: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's been, it's been fun.
Like I love working with them. We've talked about them a bunch for it's like a family this year has been kind of weird with no cons. but, I think we've talked a bit about this. I, I work in the tech field in San Francisco doing financial technology stuff and marketing. and like a big thing that you do in tech is, is sort of like disrupt, do that disruption stuff like, like you, when they're.
It's like a new technology emerges. Like you go in and try to find as many ways to take advantage of it until it gets regulated and there are laws and then people tell you now, like, you know, you kind of try it. Exploit's not the right word, but you know, you take advantage of that grace period and like source points, pretty young [00:20:00] company.
And they're, they're growing a bunch real fast. And like, I keep seeing all these opportunities to do things and like, The key of having to add new rules, because they're like, Frank, we can't let you do that again.
Same time that speaks to the level of freedom and, and, and, and the quality of the relationship. They're so good to me. They pay the royalties on time that, you know, they, I can talk to everyone at the company through Facebook messenger whenever I need to, like, I mean, they're incredibly accessible. and they, they kind of just let me do my own thing.
Like, I think we talked about that in kids. I. Cool. I pitched it done. Like, I didn't want anyone fucking with it or editing it or telling me I couldn't do something. And they were like, that's cool. this was a verbal pitch. I didn't have any art. I didn't have an artists. I had Chris, I didn't have any art.
I didn't really, I, I didn't know what the story was. Pest issue one. and Travis. The energy, if there's just like, yeah, if you make it, we'll publish it. Like you, you, you go to bat and you, you hustle and you want to make a [00:21:00] books and we trust you, to this day. I'm pretty sure knowing the source of my presses, right?
Yeah. The issues of this. And I dunno if that's a good thing for business or a bad thing for business, but they, they certainly trust me. And, and I think that relationships worked out. Like I said, I'm going to be that guy who gets fired from Marvel, because I want my cover to, to have the logo in a certain spot.
And they won't let me plenty of press so far has been very kind about letting me make the books I want the way I want. And I think that it's working out for both of us.
Casey: That's awesome. So, let's move on into page, I guess this would be page one.
Frank Gogol: Yeah. Yeah, this is, this is where we got fucked up. Last time, we're looking at a PDF PDF.
Doesn't have all the pages in the same place. Like there some space for pages in the physical books, and there'll be ads in the end of the book to run random out. so for everyone listening at home, just keep up. Yeah. Yeah. So this, this is page one, to set the scene, it's a it's [00:22:00] night. We're we're in sort of a, like a park, and some kids are hanging around a pick a table like teenagers do in a park at night.
and it's a drug deal. And, some, some care to try to buy some drugs from, from the sky skin might be a little paler than the average gentleman's skin. Yeah. I mean, this is a, this is the page I was telling you about earlier. This is the first page I've ever gotten from this book. I got the, this page in two years ago today.
just so for perspective, on how long this book's been in the making, longer than two years. Cause I had to write it first. but yeah, this is, this is a fun page and it really, I think it sets the tone. I think it's, it's dynamic, Chris Kristin. Excellent job. I love that first panel that it's kind of off kilter, like just a little bit.
Not, not just like a straight yeah. It's almost like, like a dog is running wild at the camera. You're seeing it. Dog's point of view. and this is the first page where I was like, you know what? Chris's imagination is going to carry this book in a way that [00:23:00] I wasn't expecting. Cause the drugs you can see, it's got three bags of heroin in his hand.
and, and there there's like a sticker on them. It says bitten, but just like a really corny, cheesy name for a vampire's drugs that he sells. But it's also. Kind of cheeky and fun, and Chris did that on his own and, and we, you will see throughout the rest of this issue that Chris likes to do things on his own and sometimes not tell me, but it's, but it's, it's fun.
so yeah, that's, that's kind of the scene, fun fact. This is a little bit of a spoiler, but not really. the bottom panel on this, this page is sort of a silhouette with like the light from the street lamp kind of back illuminating everybody. we found a cool way to, to work something. Like a callback to that back into the third issue and people will definitely realize that.
Yeah. But yeah, no, that's, that's, that's kind of cool thing about working with Chris and Shauna and Sean and everybody like we're, we're in such close communication. We've worked on this over such a long period of time. And there was a such a gap between when I wrote [00:24:00] the first issue, the third issue that like, we were able to really kind of mind the continuity of the book too, to make it feel really.
Like seated and, and, and, and cohesive, which is really. Good because it's essentially like three, one shots. There's one story across all three of them, but you could kind of read all of them on their own and, and get most of what's going on. And that was by design. We want to do sort of like a, like a TV season format, more so than like a, Oh, that's cool.
Three-ish comics. so like, you know, like I said, it was, it's a buffet homage, so we were trying to. Do do something a little more different and a little more Romaji. but yes, so that's, that's the first page first page over. Got, got it. Two years ago. It still looks awesome today. the next page is much better because incredible.
It's probably probably the best page in the whole series, so everyone should buy the book and then not read past page two. and that's not a slight against Chris. Chris just, he went super and, and just, hasn't gotten to power level 9000 cents. no, I'm kidding. but the next page is a [00:25:00] splash. I have.
Written exactly one splash before this. And it was on page two of dead end kids. Not, it's not on purpose, but it just kind of the cadence. that's a completely useless fact, but I thought it was fun. but yeah, this, this, this is kind of like the money shot. Like I figure. People who pick up this book in the store and open the cover because the cover looks cool.
They'll they'll read page one. If they've turned to page two and see this incredible vampire punk rocks splash that Chris just absolutely nailed it on. And Shawna absolutely nailed it on. They're going to pick up this book without anyone hand selling. Cause cause I would, and I have an insanely high standards, like everything.
I always think. Is is, is barely enough, is always way too much when it comes to like what I put into things. So I felt pretty good after we saw this page. this page is pretty simple. It's a splash. again, Chris, I got a really great angle. I mean, this, this face, this face org is just stunning. I love it.
and sort of behind the scenes fun fact, there is a moon on the [00:26:00] page. Really cool moon. It's behind the, the word balloon, because that was the only place we could put the word balloons. So we had to make, to work with them a little bigger to cover the moon. And it's got kind of a cool glow behind it now, so yeah.
Yeah. You can't win them all, so yeah, that's kind, kinda like the, the, The cold open for the issue like that. The two page like stinger that kind of gives you a sense of what's going to happen. and it was kind of a ballsy move because you don't meet the, the main character Kayla until the third page.
And I, at that point, I was like, I've got to do a little work to like retroactively, make people care about this character now that they're, you know, One one eighth of the way through the book already. and I, and I did the same fucking thing to myself with dead-on kids. I killed, I killed Ben on page two, and then I spend the rest of the first issue making you care about the fact that he's dead.
Luckily I think seems like we stuck the landing on that.
Casey: Oh yeah, yeah.
Frank Gogol: Right. But you know what, the reason for that, and this was all set up so I could [00:27:00] tell like the story of this, I wrote no heroin before it was done in kids. Yeah. I wrote issue one of her, no heroin, and then they're all dead and kids.
And then I wrote the rest of no heroin. So it was a. Honestly, I was probably going for the same gimmick and just didn't realize it. I'm a much, I'm a little bit better of a writer now. and I probably won't do that too many more times, except for in the next two books that are on their way. Cause I wrote those while ago too.
It's what happens. Anyway, page three, page three is where we really kind of get into the meat of the story. we meet Kayla for the first time. and I remember seeing these images come into my inbox and seeing Kayla for the first time we had, we had done one mockup of Kayla, sort of like a, a design turnaround, and, and not a whole lot has changed between now and then, but, Yeah, seeing her on the page and inaction for the first time, it was pretty cool.
It's always pretty cool to see your characters for the first time. and this is where we're going to start getting into the spoiler territory. So if you've been foolish and listened to this before you bought the book [00:28:00] stop, but, this is where we meet Kayla. Kayla is a, she's a recovering drug addict, heroin addict.
She's at this point, when the story kicks off, about 90 days sober, it's the, the Eve of her 90th day of sobriety, and, We learned a little bit about Kayla on this page. She's got some, some baggage and she's done some, some terrible things specifically to her mother. and yeah, your night, every chance she gets, she gives her mom a call and let her know she's doing okay.
And she always gets the answer machine or she always gets hung up on it. It's it's it's it's present. Kalos. Kale is an interesting character because she's done a lot of horrible things and she's sorry for them and wants to do better. but she's got some pretty crazy ideas about. How much effort that's going to take.
And that's very much this, the story of this first issue. She she's about to get some cold water about, you know, being off drugs the first step. It's not the whole journey. Like you have got a lot to make up for and, and, and. You know, [00:29:00] it's, it's not a light switch. You don't turn on you turn it off so that this, this phone calls kind of illustrates the relationships that's up.
Kayla's kinda her, her character arc, like where she's trying to go, you know, and, and also kind of starts to at the, the, the, the arc of this issue with, her mentioning that Sid's missing, Wherever that is, I don't ever want to send it gets in the fourth panel. and then you get the last words as she's walked away from it, the darkened phone booth, this, this dialogue caption, you know, I can come my home, which is like the mission statement of the book.
Like, will Kayla ever get to go home? Does she get to go home? Does, does do things work out for her? And I was proofing. The letters for the last issue today. And, and like that phrase couple different ways comes back a few times. And like, again, that's just another example of being able to take the long view and mine, our own continuity across a pretty small comic book space.
It's only through issues, but, I [00:30:00] appreciate when books do that, like there are definitely series I read where like it was clearly written and in one draft and then like, Yeah, cleaned up and edited a bit, but not like, and things aren't like, yeah, really play it off and played off of one another and this kind of way.
And I tried to do that with my books. So that way, you know, it, it makes for a better reread. You, you, you notice that. In issue one after you've read issue three and you go back for a reread. I don't know that that kind of stuff matters to me.
Casey: I read, read recently that, Steve Ditco would write his central theme for the book that he's writing or the issue that he was writing.
He would write that fame on the top of every page.
Frank Gogol: I 100% do that too.
Casey: Yeah, it makes
Frank Gogol: sense with different. so for every issue in my script, I use Google, Google docs, and I'll, I'll put the issue title up in the, the header. So it's on every page at the [00:31:00] top. and. It doesn't always end up being the official, you know, last final version of the title, but most of the time it does.
So like for dead end, kids issued to that title is called or that issue is titled holes. H O L E S. and, and that was like very much something that inspired the way I wrote this. I mean, the story was. Spoilers, but, it's, it, it was a bunch of flashbacks to all the characters and like how they got their damage and their trauma, and sort of showed us visually how they got their scars and their holes.
the, it was a play on the idea of that. You know, there's a children's book called holes. You know, all the issues with that in kids, except for the last one are named after sort of why a books that was a happy accident. But I like to say. and then the, the ending of the book, somebody gets a literal hole put in them.
and like that, that's very much part of my process, with this issue, the title, which we will get to on the next page, is, is Kayla Strong, which [00:32:00] has become more thematic over the, the creation of the series. and we'll, we'll play out. Really well in the last couple of pages of the book. but this is an example of a time I didn't do that.
after, after I wrote the issue, I was like this. This book has to be called this for these reasons. And people will find out when they finish reading. but generally speaking, I do up in the open, the header, put the title like that. The last issue of the, of this series is called the choice. And I wanted to make sure that the idea of choices and options and, and, you know, reaping what you saw was a big part of that issue.
so yeah, Steve smart guy, I bet he'd make a great comic creator.
Casey: Yeah, maybe
Frank Gogol: who do you, would you say his last name was Dicko?
Casey: I mean, he might have to change that. I don't think anybody would really latch onto that. Yeah.
Frank Gogol: I'll look them up. I'll look them up. Maybe he'll do something for me. but, so yeah, that's, that's, what's going on page three, down at the bottom, we've got a little lettering job that says source point press probably presents.
[00:33:00] and when we read that and kids might remember that from dead-on kids, I did the same thing on the. Page leading into the huddle page of data and kids. it's for me, that's, again, it's just a little thing that makes the comic book experience, like feel grander and, and, and, and cooler and, and, and, you know, like it's part of something larger.
Like this is a source point press book. I want people to fucking know that these are the kinds of books source my press puts out and lets me put out, So funnily enough, my wife for the first time ever read data and kids when we were in bed last night and I went to bed and she woke me up like 20 minutes after I fell asleep and she was like crying and she was like, Oh my God, this is the best thing I've ever read.
Her opinions aside. after she calms down, she, she looks over to me and she says the only thing I didn't like. And then she turns back to that splash page. She's like, why did you put this, this lettering down there? It's a source. My breast probably presents. And I was like, you were literally the only person who's ever said that to me.
[00:34:00] Okay. so there's at least one person out there who doesn't agree with me. That that is a cool thing to do.
Casey: It's a callback to, you know, they used to do that with Marvel comics,
Frank Gogol: comics, proudly presents. Yeah. DC did it too. I, I met Tom King a couple of times and he came up to San Francisco to do a Q and a and signing at one of my local shops, comics experience.
and I got to talk to him for a decent amount of time sort of one-on-one and, and I asked him why he did that. and he just said, you know, it's, it's, it's part of a long tradition. Like why, why would you not. Do that little thing that can add like a sense of nostalgia and, and, and, and wait, you know, and, and, and build on, on everything that came before.
And like, it really stuck with me and I like it, so I'm gonna fucking do it. so let me. But, yeah, so that, that leads us into the title page. Every, every book I write has a title page, they all look about the same. They're all, they're all white with the title of the book and the chapter title. I like to have chapter titles for all my [00:35:00] issues.
Cause I feel like that it helps. I don't know. I don't think enough comic book issues stand well on their own whole arcs are awesome, but very few series. Can I, can I tell you what happened in the individual issues? And I'm not saying that people remember what I write, but I like to try and make sure they do.
and I like each issue to have its own sort of flavor and feel while building the larger narrative. so. Again, this, this title doesn't add as much as some of the other titles I've used, but Kayla Strong is something that means a lot by the end of this issue and by the end of the series. and just like I said, I like, I like a good black lip.
We'll go on a stark white. I think it really pops. I think it doesn't distract when it's on a page next to each other. So like when people see this in real life, Page three in the title page will be left and right page, isn't it, you know, they'll be next to each other. And that it will not hurt the eyes as much as if we had done like a black with a white logo page, which was heinously ugly.
but, yeah. So title page, And [00:36:00] then we get right into it on the next page. Like we just full steam ahead. This, this is a very lean story. Like there's not there's, you know, there, there are some quiet moments, but they're incredibly important, quiet moments, but there's like, I think most of the scenes are one page, two pages, max, except for like the, the, the sort of finale of the issue.
and, and we get right into it. So Kayla's on the search. Sid, I'm a little more background on Sid. sit as a character is somebody who is. Also a recovering addict. He's homeless as well. He lives in the park where Kayla lives. but he's a little bit further along in his journey. He's been clean for a while.
He's, he's got like his, his routine and his discipline and he's, he's living a better life than he was. and, and Kayla sorta relies on him to, to help her stay on the straight now sort of almost like a mentorship kind of thing. Yeah. For lack of a better word. Like he takes care of her cause he, he can and that's that's, I mean, that's very much part of the punk community that the punk community gets such a [00:37:00] shitty rep for being like the riotous dirty kids.
But I'll tell you what I I've been to hip hop shows. I've been to punk shows and the punk kids pick each other up. They have all the kids don't don't look down on the ground when somebody falls. I don't know, like. What the difference there is, but, that I bet I bet hip hop. It would piggy each other up.
I mean, that was a bad example. We should cut that anyway. So we're on page four. and Kayla's on the search for Sid. and it's her kind of, I thought of this page in my head. Yeah. As like, what would punk rock Batman be like? Like how it, how would punk rock Batman be like looking for, for a person with, with no resources, no Batmobile and the money.
and I was like, she would just go ask, ask her around. Yeah. Rely on the community. See, see, who knows what? So she's asking around and we're going sort of through the people.
Casey: Yeah.
Frank Gogol: And as, as sort of asking around and getting sort of little bits here and there, you're also getting more of the story about what happened [00:38:00] between them and what before he went missing.
and you find out that they had a fight and, and it had to do with her sort of. Taking advantage of people and, and, and not, not really knowing the difference between asking for help and taking advantage. Like, you know, it's a fine line to, to borrow 10 bucks cause you needed it. But to keep borrowing money because you know, you can get it from somebody kind of thing.
So, yeah. And it's, it's sort of sets up the moral argument of the story. Not that there's like, I got a moral argument, but if there was one sort of like what, what, what the drama between them is, you know, he's really levelheaded good person with a good head on his shoulders who believes in doing the right thing.
And. Helping others. And, and she is, she's not that person, honestly, like, and I've said this pretty painfully, like Kayla's kind of a piece of shit. Like she means, well, she wants to do well, but she can't help, but hurt people. And, and, and she lacks the understanding that that's what she's doing. And, and like, [00:39:00] it's, she was a fun character, right.
For a lot of reasons, but like that kinda. Sir at odds with yourself, worst enemy kind of approach that it was. I made a really interesting character. It reminded me a lot of Murphy from end kids. he was, he was a straight up dickhead, but you couldn't help, but, and he wanted to do better. Except for one, except for one who's torturing people.
that's the pitch for dead end kids? No, one's read it. It's about a kid who's a jerk off and he tortures people. but yeah, so that's, that's pitch five, towards the, towards the bottom. We, we, she, she kind of gets her first lead from this kind of creepy looking guy in a hoodie. I think I just called him, Thug Saguan maybe in the script.
He's not, he's not that important. but, yeah, so he, he says that he might know something about where CIT is and then Kayla's yes. Like w what do you know, let's go. And then he's kinda kind of looking for, for a little something to return. And, he makes a mistake that. He's not the last person in the series to me, they [00:40:00] make this mistake, but he puts his hand on her and, wow.
He gets a face full of Kayla's fists in the next panel. And she walks away in pretty good shape. this was sort of a functional scene in a lot of ways. Like I need, we wanted to move the story along and like give her a lead. Right. It's something to track down. but also. Since this is a book about a, not chosen one type of person like Buffy.
It's just like a regular person who goes out and fights like these incredibly dangerous fan Pires and wearables and shit. I wanted to sort of establish early on that she, she knew her way around a fight. so that, so that was kind of like a double reason for this scene in particular, but also because, you know, I wanted a lot of action.
one of the things I. I promised myself I would do it. This series is really stretched my legs on action. Dead end kids was a slow burn and, and pretty, pretty drama heavy. and I wanted to fucking break some teeth in this one. So, there we go right on page five. and the context. Yup. And the [00:41:00] context for the lead that she gets from him for, since nobody can see, this is, the thug one is telling her that can't be what I call there.
Maybe it was bomb one. but, he tells her that, that he saw said hanging out with vamps, the, the, the, the, the drug dealing vampire crew, who, who lives in the neighborhood near them. one of whom we saw on the first page, and, and, you know, part of the reason she fights back. So ferociously. In this scene is because she's pissed off.
Like, yeah. She just found out that her unofficial sponsor of her drug recovery is, is hanging out with the dealers for, for some reason, all of a sudden. so yeah, and then Kayla kind of walks off. after knocking the shit out of the sky. and, and you know what, now that I'm thinking back on it, this is there, there are so many shots of Kayla just walking away from the camera and the series,
Casey: like
Frank Gogol: to the point of abuse, I think I was younger.
I didn't know about it, but, but they're all a little bit different. I bet nobody would have made that connection without me. So [00:42:00] cut that too. so on the next page, we, we get, a cool one page scene that I like a lot. This, this is a, it's a four panel page, and it's got flashbacks to, Kayla getting a tattoo and, It's it's like one of the important visuals of the story it's it becomes kind of like a symbol by the end of all of it.
it's a machete, and, and, and written on the blade, going down her arm is the word dura on D URA, which is a Spanish word for strong. Yeah. Kalos kills a Puerto Rican woman, so she's got her tattoo in Spanish. and, and I should take this opportunity to thank, a couple of people in Mariana, Sarah, the college with, and, Kate Sanchez, who is the editor in chief of, but why though, both of whom helped me with translations for this book to help me make sure that it was super authentic and, and, and that I wasn't.
Yeah. Abe and other people's culture to make a buck without, you know, do giving due diligence and actually making the story. It means something and have it be important. So thank you to them. but yeah, this is a cool page. I like [00:43:00] this page a lot. It's it's too flashy, five panels and two panels of Kayla kind of processing what she just learned about Sid.
and, and this, I like this page a lot because like the juxtaposition between the, the two scenes that are playing out, you see this, like you get to see Sid on camera for the first time in the flashback and, and you. Yeah, I'll get a sense of like that. It's a good guy. He's an encouraging guy. And that he really means well, which just kind of begs the question of like, if he is running around with the vamps, like what happened?
and, and you get a little more history of Kayla, and kinda see like her mindset and like why she thinks yeah, he would do it. And you know, at first she's like, now I'm fuck that guy. I'm not, he's an asshole, but then she kinda, in spite of herself, ends up. Doing the right thing and, and deciding that she should go save him if she can.
I don't know. I just think that there's a lot of really good character work on here. And there's, you know, given that it's four panels and maybe 15 or 16 wording elements, like we really fit a lot of story in [00:44:00] that. And this is one where, where Chris really did some heavy lifting. I haven't talked enough about Chris yet.
but in the flashbacks, like Kayla's. Probably just clean. Like I don't, I don't know exactly what it was, but it's prior a couple months, at least. and she's like a lot more gaunt and like more, more bony looking. Her neck is very thin or hair shorter. I mean, there's, there's a lot of good continuity in the art and, and, and Chris really just nailed it.
And Shawn on the color is like, we, we did some flashbacks in the second issue and didn't go for the CBA. because it was, it was more. A larger part of the story, but, the CPD here really works. And, and Sean. Yeah, I, I mean, I, I, we could talk for an action two hours about all that, Sean. I will only say what I need to, but she's an incredible colorist.
This is probably the last book I'll be able to afford her on because she's about to be on everything. When this book goes. Out in Marvel Caesar. So enjoy, enjoy Frank and Shawna this one time guys. but yeah, that's, that's the same. She she's processing the [00:45:00] information. She's kind of resisting her call to action and then, you know, realizes that she, she has to do that the right thing.
so moving on to the next page, and this is where the story kind of starts to get fun. this was like, All right. If, if the, the investigations, what if, what, what punk rock Batman be like? This is like, what would punk rock MacGyver be like? Like she, she knows that she's about to go up against the gang of vamps.
and there's, there's five or six, so them, and she's just one chick and she can fight. She can, she knows her way around a fight, but she's not going to beat six people with, you know, enhanced speed and fangs and shit. So she's, she's kinda doing a little, the guy ring and finding what she can in her local surroundings.
And there's, there's some really cool stuff going on here.
Casey: Do you mind if I pointed out something in panel one?
Frank Gogol: Is it the homeless guy in the dumpster?
Casey: No. No, no. Not, not that at all. Is the dumpster.
Frank Gogol: The mirror, right?
Casey: Yeah. And was clearly not in the mirror
Frank Gogol: now, now you're looking for [00:46:00] something that's not there.
It's just
Casey: real.
Frank Gogol: It's just the angle.
Casey: Okay.
Frank Gogol: And Kayla's not a vampire. Not yet. At least we haven't told the
Casey: whole.
Frank Gogol: But no. but this is the first panel where, where I realized that I had to, had to watch Chris a little harder than I thought I did. Cause if you look up in the upper right hand corner, there's a dumpster and there's a random homeless man popping out and he's not
Casey: Southern, loves it
Frank Gogol: in the dumpster.
He's like popping out at it, almost like fucking Looney tune.
Casey: Hitler,
Frank Gogol: but I love this panel because the homeless guy obviously is great. The composition is awesome. That that color work on the mirror is maybe the only mirror surface in a comic that I've looked at that looked actually like a mirror
Casey: fucking mirror.
Right.
Frank Gogol: And it's like, it's crystal. It's awesome. But, yeah, so this, this is kind of the prep montage. She's about to go to war. So she's looking for, for a little bit, she can, she can find and use and [00:47:00] yeah. And by the last panel, you see her lay out everything that she's collected and she's got a bag of food from a place.
In the script at the bag was supposed to say garlic town, but we decided that was a little too corny. So now it's just got a picture of a piece of art on it. she's got some syringes, she's got some broken mirrors that chain, you know, just kinda like I said, MacGyver and like what, what, what, what a junkies are small look like?
Like what would they have access to? So this was kind of fun to think about and, and plot out how these things would, would work. When we got to the fight scene later, which was probably the most fun and hard time I've ever had writing a comic. but we'll get there. the next scene you get to what is probably tied for my favorite scene with it's one, the scene or another scene in the, in another issue.
but this is just a really. Great quiet scene. Carol walks into a church and she, she, she goes and prays before she goes on her suicide mission, but there's just, we were able to [00:48:00] get like a lot of really great stuff in it. you know, she, she talks about how. prayer is encouraged and an, a alcoholics anonymous narcotics anonymous, as, as sort of like a, a coping mechanism and a way for looking for strength from without, and, and, you know, I'm not particularly religious, but I.
When I was a kid, my mom would go to any meetings. I would go with her and they're always in church basements. And, and like, I've always really associated addiction with the church for, for that reason. and, and I, I wanted to work the scene in and, and find some really cool ways to, to make it matter. and there's just like, you start to get shades of, of, of the story here too.
you see, Kayla go to. Do the sign of the cross with the Holy water. And then she, she backs away from, from touching the Holy water, which is again, not a hint that she has of this, this case is convinced that she's a vampire. She was out during the day.
Casey: Hey man, I'm just, I'm right in my own head cannon story until, until issue two comes out and I can [00:49:00] read that.
Frank Gogol: Okay, Kayla medium. Is that what it's called? but yeah, so, but I, I liked the scene a lot. It's it's quiet. There's no, No dialogue. it's just, you see her walking into the church does the thing with the Holy water backs away, and then she pops a squat and a Pew. And, and, and, and does the, the hail Mary, just, and, and, you know, it like script it.
I called it the hail Mary, like the football play. Like, like that was my stupid inside joke to myself. But like, this is her saying, like, I'm, I'm so fucking outmatched in what I'm about to do. And like, yeah. Like I'll take all the help I can get. but, yeah, so, but I just, I really enjoy it. Like the scene, especially the second page of the composition.
And I've lost count of what page we're on. I think we're on like nine, it's 12 of the PDF. So maybe that's yeah, it's nine. but yeah, Chris, just like this, this was another one where, or
Casey: for this one?
Frank Gogol: Yeah. Yeah. Chris, I mean, I had the idea for the composition [00:50:00] and the tracking shot that we did across the panels, but like what he delivered and what, what he brought.
But this was the first page I felt like we really collaborated on, because what I had was a lot, it was looked alike and read a lot like this, but he was like, now it's, let's get a stained glass S in the back, like, let's, let's really like, Have some opportunity to make beautiful and do something different.
And then, then he came back and he was like, let's also make it the, the image of the last temptation of Christ and like just the magically like that, that idea of temptation. And, you know, it'd be this being in a church like that made so much sense to me. And like this, this would not be what it is without Chris.
Like this is a hundred percent him. I just put the dumb words on the page. They go with it. Although, this was also the page where I realized I had to, had to really pay attention to Chris because Chris, Chris is a practical jokester and, and, and you know what, there's a time and a place. Chris, there's a time and a place.
he. When so far [00:51:00] with a practical joke on this page that he actually drew two versions of an inked, two versions of it scanned the two versions of it, and two versions of it colored and sent me the second version. And if you look at the depiction of Jesus Christ and the picture you might say, Hey, he kind of looks like buddy Christ from dogma
Casey: a little bit,
Frank Gogol: but like only.
So the verse, the first version of the page I saw it was fucking buddy Christ. And, and I didn't notice. No, not. I was like, Oh, I can trust him. I don't need to look that hard. I learned a hard lesson that day.
Casey: but,
Frank Gogol: but like, there's, there's layers to the joke beyond that. you don't find out until the last issue of the book that the book is set in red bank, New Jersey, which is where Jane Salud, Bob seeker sashes.
And that's about a mile away from Leonardo New Jersey where Kevin Smith grew up. and that's about a mile away from where I grew up in union beach, New Jersey. and like, it's just Chris playing on me, like a, [00:52:00] like a jackass. but yeah, it was, it was a while before it was, it was, it was probably two weeks before, like I took a look at the page and was like, this doesn't look, this doesn't look right.
but yeah, so Chris Cruz, this is a really fun guy to collaborate with. he's. And it's just
Casey: on the page.
Frank Gogol: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, like, it was just like, it was almost offensive because like of what this page is and like how quiet it is. And like, like it's like dead center and it's right in the center of like this, this tier of panels that are so beautiful.
I mean, you got me, you got me, you, I looked at every page after this with a fucking microscope though. Yeah. So this is, this is Kayla's literal and figurative hail Mary she's at the church. and, and the scene ends with her stopping by the Holy water bowl. One more time. And then we cut away to the next scene.
We don't. We don't know if she signs the cross or not. [00:53:00] We don't know what happens. and then you get a nice little, a sort of narration carry over with the, the amen from the prayer carrying over to the next page, which has some, that's not some nice juxtaposition right there. Like you, you, you see what she was praying for as she, she walks up to this vamp nest.
and this is, this is where the action kicks off. I mean, this, this, this, these next few pages are just. Honestly a little bit brutal and I'm just noticing things on the page now for the first time, like I never noticed the people in the background running away
Casey: or
Frank Gogol: up on the, up on the right side, there's a dude hanging out on a balcony.
Like I never saw him before.
Casey: I love how it's,
Frank Gogol: microscope my
Casey: ass. He's mostly in the streetlight. So you just catch the, just, you know, what, what is illuminated of him by the streetlight? I love that.
Frank Gogol: Yeah. Yeah, no, this is great. Yes. I had a lot of fun writing the scene. Like usually I'm very preoccupied with exact dialogue and exact narration and like order of events, like when it comes to action scenes, like you can, you get to be [00:54:00] so much more loose.
So I just opened the scene, like, like I just was like, well, what would I say if I was about to roll up into somebody's house and like fight them. And she goes to Sam, Hey fuck faces. And then they see her over on the porch. Like, Oh man, this is some drunk chick. And then she, you see her throwing a bottle.
And for a second, I don't know if this display is off, but the idea was that you would think it's a Molotov cocktail and then it, then it hits one of the vamps. And about a second later in the next panel, he starts to, to dust away. Cause it was full Holy water. See the Holy water came back. It was, it was on purpose, but it was also thematic.
It worked out really nice. I think. Oh, yeah. So fun story about this. we're gonna skip to the next page real quick. When, when Cassius, the, the main vampire, the guy from the, the first couple of pages comes out, both the vampires and the other page. Dustin, if you go back to the other page, Kayla only kills one of them, right?
It was in the script. It was just kind of [00:55:00] something that got overlooked when the art was finally happening and. in that last panel, you'll see a second bottle flying across the panel that was added in post as, as film people would say, digitally too, to the art and with the assumption that the reader would understand that between the two pages that vampire got dusted too.
and we added the sound effect path to that first panel. And the next page they're really driving home. path is a. Is my favorite, side effect that I've ever come up with because I didn't come up with it. It's a fun story. originally it was supposed to say poof, every time a vampire got dusted.
but like that sounds, that sounds real soft. Like that's not the setup. but we needed something that kind of sounded like Pat, like we were like, w what is the, what is the sound of vampires getting dusted on Buffy? Like, what is, how do you, how would you spell that? and I had like, like a 45 minute conversation with David pepper, who a dispenser unlock and, and go into the chapel over at, action lab.
He's a good buddy of [00:56:00] mine. and we came up with this and I thought that it was. It's actually, I think that's probably the right spelling. and then when I was talking to Sean, who we haven't talked about much yet either when we're doing the lettering, I was like, let's, let's add a second a in there and, and like really kind of make the word look and sound whole longer.
And like that, that really. Kind of brought it all together. so listen, this book could have been a hit. It could have not been a hit, but if it had proofing, it definitely would have not been had. So that was sometimes you should listen to your friends
Casey: that that is a Walt Simonton award for creative on a monopod mix.
Frank Gogol: Yeah, I am the worst sound effects. Like every time I write a script, I just put like brackets and then I write what the sound is supposed to be like, like card or slamming sound. And then I just either ask somebody else to help me or, or hope to God. Sean knows it. I I've, as I've gotten a little further, along in my career, I've gotten much better at figuring out the sounds, but it's, it's honest to God, but always the last thing I do.
And it's the hardest [00:57:00] thing for me to do. so that's, that's it. so yeah. so on the next page, Cassius runs out of the house, you know, he hears a fucking commotion. It's like, what the hell is going on? And, he sees Kayla and he sees his friends or her piles of dust on the porch. So he calls the rest of the gang to come out.
that's a pretty straightforward page. yes. Just kind of moving the story along. Next page is one of my favorites. First panel got Kayla staying at odds with, with two more vamps she's outnumbered again, she just flips them. The birds as subpages. She's she's all hot air. She is. She is so. Outnumbered.
She knows it's in the narration and she's just, she's doing like the classic Spiderman. Like you're, you're so nervous and worried that you can't stop quipping. And, and I, I don't know that, that I think this was the one piece of dialogue that really like launched her, her sort of voice tone and like how she sounded to me as a character.
I think if you look back at the stuff before this, like she doesn't say it quite as much, and it's not really [00:58:00] like. Anything, that's got a lot of flare to it from here on out and through the rest of the issues. Like she sounds like somebody who would say stuff, bitches to anyone, she was about to fight.
I got a two on one fight and then Kayla's now she's throwing her bottles. She she's, she's got a switch tactics and she goes in for the fistfight approach and she starts getting her ass whooped. She's immediately slammed to the ground. but our girl is incredibly resourceful and has, has planned for these things.
So she, she drops her hand in her pocket on the next page and turns around and does kind of like a Spiderman pose, whips, a handful of crushed mirror glass, and his eyes just thought that was
Casey: Oh yeah, yeah.
Frank Gogol: Yeah. And like, now you can kind of see like that, that, yeah. That MacGyver page is starting to pay off like.
And the, and the Holy water too. And like ways that you don't expect. Yeah. The, the, the Molotov cocktails of, of Holy water.
Casey: And this one is a defensive move.
Frank Gogol: Yeah. Yeah.
[00:59:00] Casey: She's Hey kills, best friend,
Frank Gogol: Dale,
Casey: Dale in his pocket, sand.
Frank Gogol: Yeah, but also this, this is somebody who knows that, like there's a incredibly high chance that she's going to lose this fight.
So like she's not taking any chances,
Casey: like all that syrup.
Frank Gogol: And there's like a smaller added benefit, not benefit, but like slight little Easter egg type thing that, yeah. She started a mirror at him. Like, you know, vampires, no, no reflection. Like, yeah. It's, it's kind of one of those things where you think about it, you can get more out of it.
It wasn't on purpose. I'll admit. Okay. Yeah. So she, she was able to throw him off balance and, and, you know, get the upper hand and knock them both down on top of one another. And, and this I'm going to read the dialogue on this page because this is probably probably the finest dialogue I've ever written.
so on, on the previous page, the vamp has got her corner. It says, you know, you got any last words and she says, well, I've got a question. [01:00:00] You, did you see that movie? The one with the sparkly of amps? I did fucking hated it. Emo stalker of amp. No, thanks that Wolf guy though, preteen, Kayla could not get enough of him.
And then you transitioned to the next page, which is a splash for stomping, a stake through both of them, killing them, both and her just. Delivering the one liner of the serious. It was a dark time in my life on a man. That, that to me is poetry.
Casey: That's a baller ass move too.
Frank Gogol: Yeah, no, I love that page. And Chris absolutely nailed that.
No lettering works so well there and, and like, I know again, like, I feel like every time Kayla and a new panel, like you, you get to see who she is. And like, again, least this scene was a ton of funder, right? Like creative. I got the flex muscles that I've never flexed before. And I honestly got to like, say, fuck it a lot.
Like, I can just tell jokes and, and, and like, Have a lot of fun like that in kids was not fun to write. I liked the story. I think it came out great. I enjoy the story, but I, I was [01:01:00] never, I was never looking forward to like sitting down to write it because it was a good time here.
Yeah. So, but at this point Kayla's successfully so far dusted all, but one of the vamps and we roll onto the next page and we've got another great. Detailed from Chris here on, on the lamp. There's there's a couple moths, like not in script. Totally, totally decorative, but like just a really cool little thing.
And you see it at the top, so it doesn't distract you away from like going down the panel and seeing everything. So, yeah. Scale is face to face with, the big bat, Cassius he's, he's the leader of the vamps. and, and she's, she's feeling pretty good. I mean, she's, it's been two, one, one, two times, and now it's finally a one-on-one fight and, and now she's, she's on the next panel, you know, you see like peeking out, coming out from behind her.
She's about to drop that change. She's still, and like, she's, she's going into [01:02:00] this, like with, with. 10 pound balls at this point, she's so cocky. And then she goes in there and she tries to whip him with the chain and he just grabs it and wastes or just drags or Ray to the ground, flips her over, gets on top of her and is ready to bite her.
And, and it's just, I mean, It, it turned around on her in an instant. and it's, it's about to, it's about to go down and she's getting the weapons she's done. And then, he's about the biter. He doesn't bite her and that's important cause she's not a vampire Casey. but, and then on the next page we get the page turned reveal that those syringes that she had and that garlic, dinner, she, she stole from the trash.
She was able to make these kinds of makeshift, Garlic syringes and stab them right in the neck and the sequence. There is just so good of, of, of his eyes going crazy. And then him exploding from the neck going down to like the arms kind of hanging mid-air. I mean, that is, it is a money shot [01:03:00] right there.
Chris fi you said it was firing on all cylinders earlier. That's right. That's the one though, that last panel on this, what is this page? 17. So, so, so good. And like, Yeah, we, we, we knew that she's the kind of person to repairs for anything. Like she had those that, that, that dust. And like, she was ready. She got lucky though.
That was, that was close. I was nervous for her and I knew what happened. So, on the next page, we kicked off sort of like the last real big important scene. and, and this is one of those times where Chris tried to play a joke and I honestly couldn't talk him out of changing or changing the art. so we're inside the house.
Kayla's. Found said he's in the house, he's standing in the house. and, and off to the side on the wall is a poster and it is the cover for dead and kids. Number two. like I said, Chris likes to play jokes. I caught this one, obviously it's very obvious. but Chris wouldn't change it.
actually, actually I w I'm going to go back, we're going to go back to, the MacGyver scene. so everyone turned their books back to the [01:04:00] MacGyver page. because there's, there's some hysterics. I forgot there. If you look very closely at the table where she's laid out all her gear, there's just all kinds of Easter eggs, cartons, a table, and there's a little SPP carved
Casey: in the table.
Frank Gogol: Yeah. For source point press. On the other side of her, there's a dove carved in the table for my first book grief. my eyes are getting bad as they get older. Let's see what's on the top.
Casey: New Jersey mush. Patrol.
Frank Gogol: Yeah. Yeah. Monster patrolman. I don't know. and then like the little, little skank dance guy and a little skull.
I mean, like just stupid fun details that nobody asked for. Certainly not me in the script. but yeah. so that in kid's poster, Chris is a wise ass. so, so Kayla successfully wastes all the maps. She, she gets in the house and, and sits there. He's okay. Or, or Izzy. It turns out a since it's of app now he gave up, he gave in, and this, [01:05:00] this turns into kind of a, I fight between them a verbal fight, where they kind of argue the merits of, of.
Of being a vampire and, and why he would go and do that, you know? And he said, he sits her down and hits her with the cold water. Again, says, listen, I was doing okay until I met you. And then you just fucking took and took and took away from me and wore me down until I didn't care about living anymore. and, and, and you're selfish like that.
And yeah, she sort of starts to have this realization yeah. About herself and that this is the truth and in a weird way, like you've got the bad guy who's, who's not. Actually the bad guy in the scene, and I kind of liked that, and that was kind of what we were going for. but also just this realization that she's doing this rescue mission for all the wrong reasons.
She's not there to save Sid. She's there to make sure it sits there for her in the morning. Like, and, and like, it's all sort of starting to come out and yeah, you see this as well. I was talking about earlier. [01:06:00] Kayla is not a good person. She wants to do the right thing. She wants to be clean. She wants to go home.
She wants to stop hurting people, but the way she goes about it just continues to hurt people and keep her further from home. And, and she's her own worst enemy. And that all starts. So it's come out here. so on the next page, Sid, who is now a vampire, and is for the vampire cause obviously, cause that's how the vampires role, sort of makes her a choice, gives her a choice, you know, he says you can.
You could become a vampire. Yeah. You can't die for a vampire. You can do heroin every day and never Odie. And your mom never asked to find her body on the couch again. And, you know, it's, he makes her what would be a, a pretty compelling choice to, to a junkie who, who. Would maybe want to be able to get away with all that with of the consequences.
And this is very much I mentioned earlier that the title of the third issue is the choice. And, and this is kind of tying back, or this is tying forward to the end of this [01:07:00] series and in a lot of ways, and like, again, we were able to just really find some great stuff to call back to as we were going further in the series.
And, and, you know, so he, he gives Kayla the choice and they sit and they think about it. And like, I wanted this to be a, like a sort of anticlimactic scene as it's, as it's playing out or, or, or just sort of low key. Like it's just two people sitting and talking. There's no fight like the fights inside her right now.
So it's, it's not like I didn't wanna like, overdo that. so on the next page she says, do it. She says, fuck it. And he goes in and he bites her and he breaks skin and then his eyes go wide and he starts to fucking blow away. and, and without spelling it out for the reader. Cause I have a lot of faith in Raiders.
the implication here is it's just enough information. I hope on the page to sell the idea that. Kyla drank Holy water. And it is coursing through her body and her veins right now. And that was her last line yeah. Of [01:08:00] defense. and, and when she's saying, I'm sorry, in that last panel, it's it's for, for so many reasons and so many different reasons, and I'm hoping that yeah.
For people who aren't me, who don't all of this, that, that plays out, for the people who have read it. And I've have talked to me about the book so far. Yeah. It seems like most of that lands for most people. So that's, that's a good thing. But again, this is another one where Chris, just now that like this, this.
Sort of bird's eye view of, of his exploding body. Again, exploding down from the top. It was just such a great thing. And Shawna did an awesome job with the colors and like catching, like the dust and the senders, like blowing
Casey: it. Yeah. I like that touch.
Frank Gogol: Yeah. It's just, it's just awesome. Like I remember seeing that page two for the first time and it just.
Like, cause, cause this is, this is the real climate. So the book is, it's not the, the, the page of Cassius exploding. Like that's kinda like the false ending. this is, this is the money shot. This is the important page. And I, and I think like we were [01:09:00] able to really tie the whole issue. Like if this was just a one shot, like, I feel like it would have been a really successful one shot.
so on the next page, It's the next morning, it's day 90 of Kayla sobriety, which for people who don't know is, is like a real big milestone for, for addiction recovery, you know, your first 90 days for supposed to be the hardest and on her 89th night, she, she went through all of that and, and with the strength inside of her was able to make the right choice and make it to the 90th day.
Yeah. At the cost of realizing what a piece of shit she is. so it's, it's bittersweet, but like we've got this really beautiful scene of, of the sun sort of rising over the park where the book started. for, for people who are familiar with, the red bank area, you might recognize some of the architecture and Marine park and, and the, the runway near the water.
And it's just, yeah, it's, it's very
Casey: idealic.
Frank Gogol: Yeah, yeah. A little bit. and as this scene is playing out, sort of like a cinematic of coming in [01:10:00] on the park and seeing little parts of the parking, like little details, like the, the, the. Patrol officer client is, what do they call it? Nightsticks. Nice stick on the trash can to wake up the homeless kids who are sleeping in the park and you know, people out for a morning run.
and throughout all this, we get this narration, of Kayla calling her mom again to an, and she she's talking about, you know, Oh, and her more apologies for things she didn't realize she had done. And, and that were problems. And, and saying that she gets it now and. That she's sorry. And that she's gonna, she's gonna make amends for it.
and on the next page, she's, she's gone into a little more detail saying that, you know, she wants to come home, but, but right now she can't like, she's not ready. She's, she's got some soul searching to do. And she's got a nice panel of her looking down at her tattoo, which I'm just now realizing. We found a way to tie that in for the third issue too, without, without doing it on purpose.
but, Yeah. And, and you find out that, you know, as, as [01:11:00] I second, hang on a second. Oh yeah. And in that same panel, you get the, the, the electronic bubble from, from the payphone saying, you know, if you'd like to make a call, please put in some money and you realize that she's not actually talking to anybody.
She's kinda just saying it into the universe. And she hangs up the phone. And then the last page is her heading off on the beginning of her journey to, to do her thing and, and, and try and be a better person based on what she's learned here. and then we get, a little teaser in the last panel of, of some smoky looking gentlemen in a hoodie watching her walk off and.
Kind of a little bit of threatening dialogue from him, teasing what might be coming next. And that's, that's the issue? one more Easter egg from Chris on this page. Kayla's backpack has a dead end sign on it for dead end kids. Right. And it's like right in the middle of the page, there's no way when's it going to like, be like, [01:12:00] Oh, okay.
but yeah, that's it. I know I rambled a lot and kind of repeated myself a bunch, but I don't know. Overall, like, I am incredibly proud of how this book came out. I think there's a ton of emotion, a ton of really just great strong art and storytelling. Like I know I sound like I'm tooting my own horn one.
I, I say that, but like to look back two years or two and a half years now, since I wrote the script and like really still like what I w what I created with my friends like that, that that's like one of the greatest feelings in the world, because like, so many people look back on their, their work and say, Oh, This was wrong.
That was wrong. Yeah. I wish I'd done this differently. I'd never do that now. And I can say like with full honesty, I would do this issue exactly the same, because it's, it's just a good comic. Like I'm very proud of this comic and I'm excited to tell her to be able to check it out.
Yeah,
Casey: I dunno. It's it's nuts. And, ju just to get it out there, it's been delayed [01:13:00] just due to COVID. but you guys are, are doing it like for real next week, right?
Frank Gogol: Yeah. So we're recording this on Tuesday, the 14th of July, and it's set to come out on the 22nd of July originally. It was, it was on the schedule for June 24th.
and then the April catalog, which is the catalog that was in was like a total, no one had any idea what was going on with it. but, Diamond was shut down for a while. And shops, a lot of shops are closed for a couple of, it was, it was pretty touch and go like what was gonna happen. but all told, we ended up getting delayed three weeks, two weeks because of cost and then diamond asked for an additional week.
Cause they're still kind of getting their shit together and figuring out like how to make things work right now. and. W that is like, I know they're going to get a lot of flack for all the delays that people are having with books right now. But it's just, it's just so small. Like there's, there's like a worldwide [01:14:00] millions of people dead, like pandemic happening.
It's it's if you're excited about a book and I know a lot of people were excited about this book and a lot of the other books, I'm excited for a lot of the other books coming out, just take a breath, take a beat and say, you know what? It'll be awesome when it comes out and, and a couple of weeks, isn't, isn't that big of a deal
Casey: books to stores when the stores are not open to
Frank Gogol: customers.
It's it's it's. It's no one's fault. Like pointing fingers is, is that's not going to make you feel better. That's something Kayla would do at the beginning of this issue. We'd be like, end of the issue.
Casey: and you, you, one thing that's, you know, is important in storytelling is you see that the character grow or, if they don't grow that it's apparent they're not growing.
Yeah. It's like a
Frank Gogol: tragedy, like, like you set somebody up to make the choice and they make the wrong one. And [01:15:00] like it's a tragedy that they didn't grow. It's not that they just didn't learn anything it's that they chose and choice is very much a part of the serious for that reason. Like, I mean, P P poor addicts of, of a disease.
Yeah. Part of it is something that's beyond their control and part of it's something that is in their control. And this is very much a story about. Doing doing the right thing because you choose to not because it's easy or because it benefits you some way. It's just, it's, it's about becoming a better person.
And like, that's kinda like the universal theme of the book, right? Like not, everybody's been a drug addict, like not everybody knows that experience though. A lot more people than you would believe, understand it either through personal experience or like one degree of separation. Like it, it is an epidemic.
but. This is really a book about a girl who goes to sleep at night and before she goes to sleep, you know, hopes that she wakes up a better person. And who among us, hasn't had that, like [01:16:00] who hasn't gone to the gym and said, I hope that scale numbers have gone down a little bit tomorrow, you know, or, or, or they hope that they're a better writer.
I know that I go to sleep every night, hoping I'm a fucking better writer. we all know what it's like to feel like we want to be better. Today than we were yesterday. And I think that's a big part of why Kayla's story is so compelling. It's why I wanted to tell it. we can't really put it any more like succinctly or poetically than that.
Like, it's just, we all get it.
Casey: That's awesome, man. And dude, I'm, I'm so glad that, You're you're getting this out into the world and people are able to see it. And, I cannot wait to, to see the chatter about it, when it comes out officially because, that's gonna make my day seeing that.
Frank Gogol: I hope so.
And, you know, I just realized we didn't talk about the last page, the back page. It's not a lot to say, but every, every series I do, I designed the Backpage, this [01:17:00] time almond and I designed it together cause I wanted it to be aesthetically similar to the cover he did. and, and essentially he came up with what the back page for the series looks like.
and I mentioned, I sampled this for the interior credits page, but, Ahmed made this, this awesome logo, for no heroin. It's a skull and crossbones, but the skulls of empire school. So it's got these. Gnarly fangs, and set of crossbones, it's got crossed syringes. and then there's a banner go on beneath it that says no heroin.
this was an idea I had, I had mocked it up and realized I'm not a fucking artist. So I said, Hey, go nuts with this Ahmed. He did. He absolutely nailed it. and then it's over these, Across each issue, the front cover color is sampled for the back cover. and they're all kind of the colors of like printer papers, like, like the neon printed papers, like the penguin.
Yeah. The highlighted green and the orange, like the kinds of things you would see, like. Flyers for punk shows printed on them and like stapled to like a Bolton boarder fucking out in [01:18:00] like a telephone pole. and like, so it's like one, one more time, the level of thought that we put into it. and we sort of templatized it and made it uniform across all three issues and he added this like awesome.
Just crumbled paper, kind of. Filter over and it looks, it looks awesome. And like really gives every issue, like a holistic feel, cover to cover like, like I was talking about earlier, I think maybe that was one of the, the version of this that we have boarded and restarted, but yeah, that, that's the kind of, stuff's important to me.
I think, I think it pays off. Well,
Casey: one time when we get a chance to just like, just, I would really like to just talk about that because a lot of your books, it's not a lot, all of your books that you've done, there has been a
Frank Gogol: M
Casey: a really strong design element to where you're not just getting a story that that's really good to read.
And really nice to look at, but the product itself, like the idea of the book as a [01:19:00] product, you have a nice looking product. You have a nice, like when it's on a shelf, it will look good as hell when it's next to another book, it will look better than that book because they're better place that, make it more appealing.
And, so, so you have a punk rock, a punk rock aesthetic throughout the book, not just with the covers, but through,
Frank Gogol: through
Casey: Christmas dart. but, you know, like the back cover design, Evoke being evocative of the punk rock flyers, and you know, flyers from how shows, which I used to have a ton of those.
Now they, you know, they might be in the basement with the, the main room stuff, but it's probably thrown out by now. But man, I used to have so many flyers from punk shows that I've gone too. [01:20:00] And, you know, Little venues that may be 10 people like to see.
Frank Gogol: Yeah. I bet I've been there. Most of the vans I listened to played in those places and they're all closed now, so, Oh
Casey: man.
Yeah. It's a bummer. So bummer.
Frank Gogol: Yeah. But, but I think, I think for me, it's, it's important that the book feel. But like every inch of it matters like that the comics are expensive for what they are like, they're really expensive for what they are. So if somebody is going to give me the $4, I'm going to give them the best.
$4 worth that I can. And, and if it's, I mean, it, wasn't hard for us to put this together. Like I paid almost a little bit for the design work and, and, but like now that that little bit of extra is going to go an extra way. And honestly, like one of my big pet peeves about most comics, and this is more sure of like big two or big five comics is like individual books don't really have visual identities.
Like I, you could lay out. [01:21:00] 10 issues of Spiderman from, from five different writers over the last five years. And like, they all kind of look the same, like, I mean, sweater man's had like thousands of covers at this point. but like, I, I just, I don't know what the visual identity of a Marvel book is.
That's not to say the books are bad or that I don't like them, but like, I, I look at like, I feel like the eczema line at, under John Hickman and the current crew is like, better about it, but even there's, they're still really, yeah. Really, really push it. The trades for the excellent books are all very uniform and have a visual identity.
And like, that's been really cool to watch happen. Like I think that, like I got this idea from Jonathan and from listening to him and reading him and I think that he's pushing it into the mainstream and I'm certainly trying to back them up over here. Cause I think that it's, it helps. I think that if you can create a, a brand.
Image, not the subtle marketing, but for your book, like something that's recognizable, it's that much easier to appeal to pick up another one.
Casey: Yeah,
[01:22:00] Frank Gogol: the guy, I wonder how many issues of Spiderman didn't get bought because the person couldn't tell what series of Spiderman it belonged to and if it was the next one they needed.
Yeah.
Casey: Yeah, totally. And also the, the idea that, it's kind of a war of two different ideologies in regards to comics and in their place in the world, because you have, people that literally, you know, just roll up, A comic, put it in their back pocket and walk with it. And people that, you know, will make sure it's bagged and boarded or, or whatever.
And so it's, you know, disposable art, disposable stories, or, you know, these, these are stories that, you know, I want to keep, I want to put, you know, I'm a bookshelf. so it's two schools of thought. Right. And I don't know, man, it's, it seems like the, The nice packaging and you know, the smart, design choices are finally starting to get their due [01:23:00] and starting to win out.
cause I mean, it, it just aesthetically it's pleasing and they're catering it to, to a more refined eye and a, you know, it's not just a 10 year old with his mom at the grocery store getting something off of a spin Iraq.
Frank Gogol: Sure. I mean, there's, there's a lot to be said for, for design and packaging and like, let me backtrack and say like, I don't like nothing against Marvel or DC.
Like what they're doing is a different animal. Like they're putting out. One or two issues of a book every month. And they're just, they're trying to get shit done. I had. Two and a half years to make this book. So like to compare the two, it would be fair. that said, I wish they did. And it seems like that the direction is going also back on like Hawkeye by David.
Yeah. And Matt fraction, like that was a book. Yeah. That had to covers with visual identity. Like you could tell a Hawk eye book by looking at it. Every single time. so it's not like it's for lack of trying or, or, or that they don't ever do it. but like my, like not to sound like a [01:24:00] greedy son of a bitch about it.
Cause I really don't care about the money of comics, but I do care about selling more comics. Cause I want more comics in people's hands. I want more people to be reading my stories. Yes, I get paid more that way, but yeah, that's, that's a, that's a silver lining. It's not the point. but my take is comics have not really almost ever been taken seriously by most people.
Right. It's, it's considered a children's medium. it's considered like a disposable media where you were talking about some people roll in love and put 'em in their back fucking pocket. but, and, and part of that has to do with presentation, like yeah. But think of something like a, like a Toyota and Alexis, right?
Two different car brands that are really owned by the same company. And they're essentially the same car, right? Like,
Casey: Oh yeah.
Frank Gogol: Shades, shades of gray between the two, like slightly better interiors and whatnot, but they're essentially the same car, but one cost twice as much. And people are willing to pay twice as much for almost the same thing.
So if you can make comics. [01:25:00] I feel premium and like they're worth the money and worth being protected. And it's little things like this and little things that I probably haven't thought of, or won't think of like, it's that much better. Like people will take comics more seriously if you make more serious comics.
And that means using good paper and, and, and, you know, Making putting effort into the way they look and feel and the way they read and stuff like that. this is just my personal philosophy of Marvel is making hundreds of millions, if not billions of dollars a year, not doing this all the time, so maybe I'm wrong, but that's just, that's just what I think goes new good comics.
That goes, those are the things that, yeah. Make me pick up a comic, like, like the power Rangers books over it. But we've talked about those before. I was going to buy them and read them. I was going to buy them and read them anyway. Like they're there, it's one of my favorite franchises. They're good. But they get me on the variant covers.
Like I'm not a variant cover guy at all, except for on my own books. Cause everyone should buy all the covers from my books, but I've bought so many fucking power Rangers covers [01:26:00] and it's because they're so fucking smart about it. Like they, they get a good artist. They, they do a series of covers and they're, they're all like clearly part of a series, like a, they've got a great one that they launched the book with, which it's a digital painted version by Joe Montez.
And it's each ranger sort of mid waist shot and it's them holding their helmet. And it's seven covers of that. And of course I want every fucking one of them because somebody put thought into the design. Also, if you flip those books over. The the, the, the back cover has a design aspect to it. And the colors are coordinated to the characters Telmate on the front.
I mean, like it's just little things that are literally for the people making the books clicks on, on Photoshop. Like it doesn't cost anything to make seven versions of the same back cover if you're just changing the color. And it's, it's just, I mean, I don't know why more people don't do it.
[01:27:00] Casey: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
So, man, that's, that's a lot to think about and thank you for, for coming on and talking about no heroin number one, dude.
Frank Gogol: Absolutely. I love doing this when we did it for data and kids last year, and I'm looking forward to talking about the next issue and. The last issue, which I just approved today, today was a big fucking day, two year anniversary of getting the first art, got all of dead and kids.
Number two are in today, approved the last issue. Now, heroine, this, I got to Mark this day down in my calendar. I have to talk to my buddy Casey for like two hours.
Casey: Good day. I know it's always great catching up, man.
Frank Gogol: But, yeah, thanks for having me. I had a blast, obviously, again, I apologize for rambling and sounding arrogant at times.
I didn't mean to, but, I, I'm not, sorry, it doesn't matter.
Casey: Anytime I get a chance to talk to you. I enjoy.
Frank Gogol: Yeah. Well, I'm working on being the most featured guests. I know I'm still behind some people who I think have inflated numbers, but I'm not going to call anybody out.
[01:28:00] Casey: You're you're, you're getting there and, who knows, man, maybe next time. we'll be able to meet up at the, the Arctic club and, do it the right way.
Frank Gogol: I'll be there if you let me know when
Casey: the, the mythical Arctic club, in downtown Seattle, Washington. So
Frank Gogol: if it's, if it's still there,
Casey: If it's still there.
Yes. And
Frank Gogol: also if it exists,
Casey: who knows, man, who knows? Dude, thank you again for coming on. And I cannot wait to see the reviews on this and, actually I can't wait. I can't wait to read issue two. So, hurry up with that.
Frank Gogol: No, in the box right now, number three will be in on Friday. I got you.
Casey: Dude, wear a mask, wash your hands.
We love you. And, we'll talk to you soon. Okay.
Frank Gogol: Take it easy, bro.
Casey: Alright, take [01:29:00] these to me. By
Frank Gogol: duty duty tolerant, 50 minutes, man.

[/bg_collapse]