Space Bastards with Eric Peterson and Joe Aubrey

Jeff Haas: [00:00:00] Hello listeners, a spoiler country today on the show we had the fantastic Eric Peterson and Joe Aubrey. How’s it going? Both of you. Real good.

[00:00:12] Aubrey: [00:00:12] Good, good.

[00:00:14] Jeff Haas: [00:00:14] No, I, I did get to read space bastards. I must say that was a really, really high octane fun comic book.

[00:00:20] Peterson: [00:00:20] Oh, that’s great. Thank you for checking it out.

[00:00:22] Aubrey: [00:00:22] No

[00:00:22] Jeff Haas: [00:00:22] worries. So for both of you guys have you guys always been lovers or comic books, or is this something that you kind of fell into later in life?

[00:00:32]Peterson: [00:00:32] This is Eric. I, I have always become, I’ve always been obsessed with comics, for sure. I, I grew up just really kind of I was born in 1983, so I’m kind of a child of like the late eighties and nineties.

[00:00:45] And so I was along for like all the Jim Lee X-Men stuff and all that. And then Somewhere around like 13 or 14, I started finding like 2008 D and vertigo comics and all the books that I probably shouldn’t have been reading at that age. And that kind of stuck with me through the rest of my life.

[00:01:02] Aubrey: [00:01:02] And I read them as I was when I was younger and kind of hit the pause button during the, during the nineties.

[00:01:08]The kind of that Spiderman and clone saga kind of kicked me off the kick me out of it, you know, and I really resumed reading them again. After I started working with Eric on this and he kind of gave me some reading materials and things to get back up to

[00:01:21] Jeff Haas: [00:01:21] speed. You know, I find that really funny.

[00:01:23] What both of you said could be because this clone Sega’s, it’s something that used to read in the nineties and that I hadn’t, I’ve not bought a Spider-Man comic books since it’s literally now, what is it? Almost 20 years since I bought experiment combo because of the club and say, go.

[00:01:39] Aubrey: [00:01:39] Yeah, that was a, that was a stain that, that did not wash out easily.

[00:01:42] And I mean, I, I, I read a lot of Spider-Man before that, a lot of, I mean, I went through multiple you know, different books and that, that pretty much killed it for me. I not, I’m not saying it’s all bad. I just, I just didn’t, I just didn’t get into it. And it was hard to get back into it. And the stuff that Eric reintroduced me to then was, you know you know, a lot more independent stuff, the 2008 D stuff and vertigo and, you know, very different.

[00:02:05] I really haven’t gone

[00:02:05] Peterson: [00:02:05] back to super heroes.

[00:02:07] Jeff Haas: [00:02:07] Yeah. I will admit I actually enjoyed the clone Sega for quite some time. And then after a while I had just tired of it, but it also with Eric, you mentioned Jim Lee’s X-Men and I still remember the first time I saw. X-Men number one in school at when one of my friends brought it into class, I hadn’t Bacom books in some years and I looked at it and I was just floored.

[00:02:28] It was such a tremendous comic book. The art was tremendous. It, that one really got me re reignited a love for combo for quite some time. But that comment it’s

[00:02:37] Peterson: [00:02:37] one of those weird things. I was just at that age where everybody was trading, like the X-Men collectible cards. Like those were really big when I was in elementary school.

[00:02:44] And so Exxon was just around, it was around everywhere. And then we had the cartoon and all that, even though ultimately I became a much larger Batman, the animated series fan that Bruce, Tim DCU thing is like, that changed my life. But but yeah, like you couldn’t really avoid it. I think. If you were like my age and like reading and stuff that Jim Lee, Chris Claremont run.

[00:03:04] And then also too even though it was before that the John beer and Superman or man of steel stuff. I remember like getting that from the library when I was really young as well. Like again, that late eighties, early nineties was kind of the thing that at that age, I think shepherded me into reading comics.

[00:03:18] Jeff Haas: [00:03:18] You know, that’s, what I love about comic books is that it really does bring people together. And it creates common experiences for a lot of people of a certain age group. Because like I said, I remember man of steel, John Byrne likes. I remember the X-Men. I remember the clone Sega vertical. I did not get to till I was actually old enough apparently to understand it.

[00:03:37]Sammy, I think I bumped into, I think like the year 2000, I think it was,

[00:03:42] Peterson: [00:03:42] yeah, that makes sense. I mean, like I, for me around like 2000 or 99, I was sitting like. Preacher and trans metropolitan and stuff. And, and at that time I was going into college and actually around that time space bastards originally started as a, as a series of short films.

[00:03:57] I was in film school and the Davey proton was a character. I drew in my notebooks when I was in like junior high. And even though he be bears, no resemblance to the Derrick Robertson, you know, the issue that’s hitting stands now. But when I was at film school, that’s, that’s kinda how I met Joe was I was super into like trans, metropolitan and preacher.

[00:04:16] And at the same time, the idea of space bastards and David proton kept kind of re-introducing him reintroducing itself to me. And so we would build these spaceships sets in my backyard and we would make these pretty amateur, pretty bad space bastards movies. And then, you know, eventually that turned into the comic book.

[00:04:35] Aubrey: [00:04:35] So

[00:04:36] Jeff Haas: [00:04:36] how did Joe then get involved with a space fast space bastards?

[00:04:43] Aubrey: [00:04:43] I was trying to figure this out. You know, I think Eric was a coworker of the brother of a guy that I worked with. So and he was like, Hey, we need some help with, you know, with the, I got this buddy that filmed, it makes these movies or something.

[00:04:58] And I kind of got in there and I was trying to guide the prop guy or a problem solver in terms of like, we needed a place to film something or we needed they needed a guy like to put on a leotard and. Walk around or, you know, or, or just you know, you know, just, just some guy to be in the background.

[00:05:14] And I kinda got involved in it that way, and it was a nice way to spend the weekend. I’d be at work all week and then like on the weekend I could, you know, carry heavy stuff or like, you know, build stuff or, you know, run around and being the, kind of

[00:05:27] Peterson: [00:05:27] behind the scenes, they were, they were pretty outlandish movies too.

[00:05:30] So, I mean, that was kind of the thing that we always. I think valued about Joe is that I definitely had a circle of friends that were always helping me out. And still to this day, I’m super thankful for that. But like at the same time, Joe was the one who always stayed late. And Joe was the one who was always like calling me up at 2:00 AM days after the shoot going, you know you know, we’re going to be crazy if we did this, you know, and kind of always bringing new ideas to the stage and ultimately eventually helped craft the rules of the intergalactic postal service.

[00:05:55]Which made its way into the comic book as well. All of those kind of totems of, of Ray Sharpton’s, intergalactic, postal service translated completely into the comic book.

[00:06:07] Jeff Haas: [00:06:07] That’s really cool. And then how did Derek Robinson didn’t get involved?

[00:06:12] Peterson: [00:06:12] I met Derek through a mutual friend at the time.

[00:06:15] I ran kind of an application company, a mobile application company. Kind of a media company, we did a lot of marketing and I geared a lot of the marketing towards comic book companies, because that was my interest. And at the time I was kind of doing some independent comics and I realized that I think I was going to find more success doing that rather than making like really, really low budget movies.

[00:06:35] So at the same time that we were making those low budget movies, I was kind of interfacing with different artists and meeting different people and all that. And I met, I met Derek and him and I hit it off quite well. And then years later Joe asked me, you know, if we could have any artists draw space pastors and play a role in kind of creating the visual, you look at that university, would it be, and I think back to trans metropolitan even though I’m a gigantic fan of everything Derek’s done happy, the boys, everything else trans metropolitan has always been kind of just those, one of those that I’ll buy every edition of that book that comes out.

[00:07:06] And, and luckily Derek said, yes, Derek jumped on board and then it was kinda like a dream come true. Like they couldn’t believe it. You know, it was. Definitely the most important thing I’ve done in my career on the comic book side and my entire life, you know? So a couple of,

[00:07:20] Jeff Haas: [00:07:20] so what, what happened to those short movies you are making?

[00:07:23] Are these, do they exist somewhere? Like, are they able to be like shown as like a Kickstarter issued two special bonus thing? People can look at the berries.

[00:07:32] Aubrey: [00:07:32] No human, no human would want to watch.

[00:07:37] Jeff Haas: [00:07:37] Are they that rough?

[00:07:38] Aubrey: [00:07:38] They’re they’re pretty rough. I mean, we, we, we had like, I like the best of the best real that we made that has like the best things that we accomplished on film.

[00:07:48] Yeah. And, and that has been assembled. And if you get the issue one from humanoids there’s a there’s a code. If you look for it, there’s a code in the back. You can scan that. You can watch that if it’s like the star Wars holiday special, it’s like, you’re not going to, you’re not going to be better after

[00:08:08] Peterson: [00:08:08] you’ve seen the only

[00:08:10] Aubrey: [00:08:10] person we’ve made better use of our time than these two guys did.

[00:08:14] That’s what you’ll be thinking. It might make you feel

[00:08:16] Peterson: [00:08:16] better about yourself yeah. For your career. Yeah. It was definitely like a cathartic thing in my twenties and it was a lot of fun to make those movies, but, you know, Joe and I think always kind of hit that wall of like, You know, this just doesn’t. I mean, if you read the script, you understand what we’re going for, but like, ultimately it looks like Edward tried to make the script, you know, versus, and that’s not really what we’re trying to do.

[00:08:37] I mean, we, on film, we could only, we could always let go. We could always steer campy or we can steal steer like corny or something because we didn’t have the money or the, I think the, the experience to really make it to sell itself serious. Whereas our dream was always to make it, you know, like a, it was always for the idea, just kind of stand on its two feet.

[00:08:56] Visually take us places. We really kind of wanted it to go. So, so

[00:09:00] Jeff Haas: [00:09:00] Eleanor is not Netflix ready? Where does that could be a space pastor’s early Netflix series coming out that we can watch one day. It’d be like,

[00:09:09] Aubrey: [00:09:09] yeah, not even, not even YouTube ready. I mean, not even ticked off. I mean, there’s not even animated gift ready, really, but, but you, there is about five minutes.

[00:09:18] How long has that thing, Erik, that you can scan in. If you buy the comic it’s in there, you can, you can. Bring up your phone and you can watch it. Some of it, yeah.

[00:09:27] Peterson: [00:09:27] Yeah. It’s a few minutes. It kind of just gives you kind of like a quick chronology of the Joe Eric relationship and we’re space bastards was kind of born out of.

[00:09:36] Jeff Haas: [00:09:36] So for our listeners, please find it. And for nothing, no other reason you can blackmail both writers.

[00:09:44] Aubrey: [00:09:44] Oh God.

[00:09:45] Jeff Haas: [00:09:45] As far as Derek Robinson goes, when you said you met him, was this pre, the boy’s pre transplant transmit palliative with this early in his career. Or had you already it, by that point?

[00:09:54] Peterson: [00:09:54] No, he was developing at that point. I want to say the first time I ever met Derek was like 2011 or something. I met him twice.

[00:10:02] I had a short conversation with them at WonderCon one year, and then I had a longer, like an actual, like you know like we went out together in San Diego a few, like a year later or something. So yeah, but it would have been like 2010 and 2011. It definitely would have been, I think, after the boys.

[00:10:17] Well,

[00:10:18] Jeff Haas: [00:10:18] Derek is definitely he’s a friend of the show he’s been on the show. I think he was on the show last month. I think he came on.

[00:10:23] Aubrey: [00:10:23] That was a great intro. Yeah,

[00:10:25] Jeff Haas: [00:10:25] I think it was Melissa. She, she does fantastic jobs with, with her interviews. Has he seen these special face bastards videos?

[00:10:34]Peterson: [00:10:34] He’s seen, he’s seen still frames cause there’s actually there’s props.

[00:10:38] Like there’s a, there’s a few like moments in the series in your one where I thought it was cool to be like, you know, like Davey’s spaceship. It’d be cool to actually have it be the same as the model that we built back when we were making those movies. John Fry built that model. And John, if John’s out there listening to this, there’s thumbs up to him.

[00:10:58] But that, that that’s in the book like there’s props and stuff from the movies that we kind of, that, that Derek kind of elevated and, and put in the comic. And so in order to do that, like, I would kind of have to like, Cringe and rewatch some of them and pull still frames from it. We

[00:11:14] Aubrey: [00:11:14] really tried to put our best foot forward to get Eric involved.

[00:11:18] You know, we, we, we flew to California and we took some booze. You know, it, it was,

[00:11:26] it was like,

[00:11:27] Peterson: [00:11:27] I mean, we, we

[00:11:28] Aubrey: [00:11:28] really were, we, you know, slick their hair back, went over there. We were burying it. We, and we sure as hell did not show him. These videos that would not be to get him to agree to work with us. This is not something you show somebody who you want to collaborate with. They would be

[00:11:44] Peterson: [00:11:44] like, Nope.

[00:11:46] I don’t think

[00:11:46] Aubrey: [00:11:46] that.

[00:11:47] Jeff Haas: [00:11:47] Yeah. One of the cool things that this combo space bastards was funded through Kickstarter now, as someone who has dabbled myself with Kickstarter a little bit it’s not every campaign and Kickstarter hits. It’s gold. Your campaign did, what is, what was the key to making it a successful Kickstarter?

[00:12:08] And is there anything you can give the rest of us who has failed Kickstarter or collection of failed Kickstarters on how to make our stand out the way, the way you guys did

[00:12:21] Aubrey: [00:12:21] Jody on it, hit it off? Yeah, he said it was like the only advantage we had, you know, particularly with the, with the. Second one. I mean, you, you know, you can’t promise anything that, that you can’t keep, you know, you gotta be honest and you gotta follow through for the, for the pleasure of, you know, your backers.

[00:12:39] What we had was we made sure we had the book done and printed before, you know, and we used it kind of as a preorder mechanism so we could hold up the book, show it to people. It had a tangible. Product and, you know, not ever, you can’t always do that. You know, you can’t always do that. We, that, that gave us a huge advantage, you know, and then, you know, having Derek involved gave us a huge advantage.

[00:13:00]But I think we had one, we had a Kickstarter before that that was also successful, but the, you know, the thing we learned from both of them really, and what

[00:13:08] Peterson: [00:13:08] people appreciate is just

[00:13:09] Aubrey: [00:13:09] honesty. You know, you’ve got to be honest about what you can produce. And you, and you really got a, it’s better to under promise and over deliver with a Kickstarter from my experience.

[00:13:19] I mean, you know, what, what, how, how have things gone when you’ve done it?

[00:13:23]Jeff Haas: [00:13:23] For me I’ve had difficulty breaking about 50, 60%, I think of goal. My, my, I had two comics where I tried one was I think a $10,000 goal. One was a $4,000 goal. And like, I think I hit maybe 50%.

[00:13:38] Aubrey: [00:13:38] Yeah, that’s still a lot of money, but it’s, yeah, it’s tough though.

[00:13:41] Peterson: [00:13:41] God, because I’ve got friends in the UK that have tried to do like, like individual issues. And they’ve always had to, I think they’ve done a really good job. Their books called the 77 and they’ve always done a really good job. I think of. Setting the goals at like the absolute bare minimum that they needed just for the thing to exist.

[00:13:58]And at the same time, you know, I’ve had Kickstarters. And so my, my other non-space bastards independent comic work where I set a goal at like $2,000 and haven’t broken it. And that was even after like, we got a little bit of viral activity and stuff. It’s hard. The other thing too, is that like, I dunno when Joe and I are kind of in a weird spot with Kickstarter because we, and we also aren’t using it.

[00:14:21] The way that I think most people use it like our products. I mean, pretty much the entirety of your one is, is there. And so it’s like one of the things we had to deal with a lot on, on that volume, one Kickstarter from over a year ago was like people constantly asking, like, even though we’re holding up the book and we’re flipping through the book in front of them, we would still have to put up with like comments asking, like, I don’t know if they’re going to hit the goal.

[00:14:48] I don’t know if this thing’s going to really exist and. You know, we’re trying to explain the whole time that we’re like looking at it, like, Hey, look, we just want to do Kickstarter because it’s like the best launch pad that’s out there. And what you guys are actually funding is not the book that you’re receiving.

[00:15:02] That’s already made you’re funding, more stories down the line. You’re helping us. Ascertain whether or not there’s an audience out there for this book. So that way we can make more space sponsored stories down the road, not recoup costs also. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. So yeah, it’s kind of, it’s been a, I don’t know, we’ve, we’ve come a Kickstarter for, I think from it kind of a unique vantage point and certainly I think Joe and myself have, yeah, we’ve learned a lot of lessons.

[00:15:27] I’ll put it that way.

[00:15:29] Aubrey: [00:15:29] So

[00:15:29] Jeff Haas: [00:15:29] how did you promote the Kickstarter campaign? Did you use social media? Did you buy ad space somewhere?

[00:15:38] Aubrey: [00:15:38] Well I mean, kind of late in the game, we were, we knew we were going to Comic-Con. We were going to actually have the book. There are common con. So we told people about the kickstart. We ran it simultaneously. Parents had Comicon and Eric went to a couple of

[00:15:50] Peterson: [00:15:50] conventions earlier that year. Or was it later that year?

[00:15:54] I’m sure. A few months earlier. Yeah.

[00:15:57] Aubrey: [00:15:57] That year where we kind of got some buzz built up about the book, I tried to get it out to reviewers, you know, where, where people would read it. Cause I think that’s the other thing is people see something that’s unknown, even if it’s drawn by Derrick and they think, is this any good?

[00:16:09] You know, it’s, doesn’t have captain America in it. What what’s this what’s should I even buy this? Why am I paying this thing? And I think if you can get regular people who, you know, who don’t have any kind of. Attachment to it saying, you know, Hey, it’s, you know, it actually reads pretty well. And it’s, it’s more than you think it is.

[00:16:24] And it’s worth the value and worth of money. You can get a couple of those reviews in there. And we did that a little bit too late last time. But that was, that was

[00:16:32] Peterson: [00:16:32] really helpful.

[00:16:33] Aubrey: [00:16:33] And it, you know, it just, it made it all go down a lot easier and people, people got that, but I still don’t think that’s where the bang for the buck came.

[00:16:40] I think that was just Facebook advertisement.

[00:16:42] Peterson: [00:16:42] Right? Eric, is that? Yeah, we did. We did that first time around. We did a lot of Facebook ads. And again, to even that I would kind of, it’s harder to quantify it because we definitely did get some donors or some pledges out of that. But I don’t think that that’s necessarily like the entire key to success.

[00:17:00] In my opinion, it, it tends to be kind of like sales in general. It’s always like five different pistons firing at once. And the success kind of comes out of the sum of those parts. You know, I think it was the Facebook ads. I think it was Joe really tackling the reviews really hard. And then for us, I think during that campaign, one of the big one of the best memories I have is that like during the last third of the campaign or during the home stretch where we had already passed the goal, that was really when we started seeing another surge of interest as well.

[00:17:28] So I do think setting that goal appropriately is a big deal.

[00:17:33] Jeff Haas: [00:17:33] How do you guys feel about when larger companies get involved with Kickstarter, such as when McFarland did it, or some of these other larger. Company. Do you think that’s a, a good use of Kickstarter or no?

[00:17:47] Peterson: [00:17:47] Yeah, I do. I think I do. I think, I think Kickstarter, I think there’s a misnomer sometimes with Kickstarter that like it’s only for the independent or that it’s only for.

[00:17:58] A certain type of project. I can tell you with space bastards, we kind of play in a weird area there ourselves, simply because while we do have a publisher, the creation of the art and all that stuff involves a lot of our finance and it involves a lot of our personal investment as well. And so, you know, that’s why we do it, but in terms of like these bigger names that sometimes do it as well, I still think, you know, A project is a project, right?

[00:18:23] If, if, if I had to like have my background checked, you know, before I did every project or whatever, I mean, I still, I still will do it, but like, you know, that’s not really, that’s not really how Kickstarter works. I mean, Kickstarter, I think is a, is a, is a great forum, I think for any projects, you know? I dunno why,

[00:18:40] Aubrey: [00:18:40] I dunno why those guys do that.

[00:18:41] You know, I don’t know why they don’t step around website. Do you think Farland would have enough, you know, just buzz on his own, but yeah. But, but still, I mean, we’re not, I’m not a Kickstarter purist. I mean, I understand that that there’s kind of Kickstarter itself has a different audience and a different user base and people, you know, will buy comics maybe through Kickstarters because they’re Kickstarter comics.

[00:19:01] They’re not, not because they’re comics, you know, they, they, it’s a different audience. And so I can see where those people might get offended. You know, it’s something small and, and, you know, it gets, it gets pressed when things get really heavily funded. But I think if people are out there looking for cool, you know, Smaller projects or more obscure projects, they’ll find it and it’s out there.

[00:19:20] And I think if those guys want to kind of take the easy road and take a 10% cut on, you know 10% haircut on, on, you know, on their bottom line, you know, at the end, when, you know, when Kickstarter takes their money from them, they can do it that way. I mean, I don’t understand it, but they it must, it must be easy for them

[00:19:36] Jeff Haas: [00:19:36] also.

[00:19:37] And from for phone, it sounded like when Eric was talking, it sounds like you guys already had approval with humanoids prior to Kickstarter. So you already had a publisher.

[00:19:47] Peterson: [00:19:47] No. So not on the, I it’s a good question because the whole thing is rather confusing, but we, we didn’t have a publisher when we did that first Kickstarter.

[00:19:56]When we entered into a partnership with humanoids, we specifically were looking for that. I think because we definitely wanted a help. I mean, you know, I think after years and years of, of making this stuff, I think Joe and I were kind of at a point where. We really wanted more partners. As long as those partners saw eye to eye with what we wanted and, and and the project, you know, I mean, that’s the big one.

[00:20:20] It’s just making sure that those partners, that we have the right partner and humanoids really stuck out immediately to us. And one of the interesting things to kind of come out of that as well was that like us telling them the background and saying, yeah, you know, we made this thing and this is all the content we’ve made and we want to make more, you know, but I think if we want to make more, we really need.

[00:20:39]A strong partner in the publishing industry to really kind of get us out there in a time when the comic industry is, is a little bit disparate. You have so many different types of readers. It’s not really the same way it was in the nineties or, or even the, you know, the, whatever you call it. The, the first decade of 2000, you know, and we really lucked out there with humanoids and they fully support these hardcovers that we’re, that we’re continuing to offer through, through a Kickstarter.

[00:21:04] Aubrey: [00:21:04] This, this the Kickstarter too. I mean, for anybody, I mean, I think it’s worth running again campaign. And even if, even if it doesn’t, you know, you set a goal or whatever, that doesn’t, you don’t quite get there. If you, if you can create something and you can present it out there. I mean, what, what the cake that initial Kickstarter that one in 2019, we wouldn’t have the deal.

[00:21:23] I don’t think with humanoids, if we had not done the Kickstarter and I’m not even sure it mattered so much that we were successful, but I think it was a. It was, it was proof that we could execute that we could, that we could make a book that we could, the end that people because of the review is. And because people bought it that they knew that there was a kernel of a viable product there.

[00:21:41] And what we really needed, you know, to really round this out was, was marketing assistance. And some of the other stuff Eric was mentioning and, and, and so, and, and it, you know, that was. Allowed us to make a much more dedicated and specific search for either a publisher or a marketing arm or someone who could help us with what we needed and we could show them the product and we can show them, you know, early response, you know, just like a, just like a test screening or something, you know, it, it really, we kind of thought of it that way.

[00:22:11] Yeah. And, and that

[00:22:12] Peterson: [00:22:12] opened

[00:22:12] Aubrey: [00:22:12] doors for us. I think we got, we got it in the hands of a lot of creators because of that. And, and really Kickstarter was responsible or allowed us to do that

[00:22:20] Jeff Haas: [00:22:20] for casual combo. Fans may not be aware that humanize is a publisher that’s been around for about 40 years. If memory serves, I mean, they’ve been around for a long time.

[00:22:31]I mean, I trying to remember the British publishing company, if memory serves. French French French company. Okay. So, so why humanoids then as your publisher, like what brought you to them as opposed to somebody else?

[00:22:49] Peterson: [00:22:49] well, so now they have, I mean, they do really have a big American presence right now. The other thing too, is that the, the type of books that they do and the quality of the books they do is, is I think really kind of unique. Yeah. It’s unique. And I think it’s, it’s, it’s up, it’s up Joe and mys Allie, I think like it’s not that we see eye to eye with, you know and it looked to us.

[00:23:10]It looked just like on point, like it really did look to us like space bastards would fit in along the line up there,

[00:23:17] Aubrey: [00:23:17] we had a hard time finding, you know, we, we, we sent out a, we cast a wide net and we got some interest from other publishers, but you know, vertigo dissolved and, you know, we, we needed, we needed to mature readers, you know, a company that was comfortable with our mature readers book and that would get behind it.

[00:23:34] You know, and in the last couple of years, I think, you know, the young adult books and some of the other stuff has been stressed more and and editorial teams have changed and, you know, the whole labels have dissolved. And so they’ve held pretty steadfast and their, their specialty is just transgressive material, you know, and they’ve got a weird, you know, just haddock of, of books, you know, under their under their.

[00:23:58] Control and it’s, it’s a, it’s a strange, it’s a strange assortment and they, they’re just kind of looking for anything that kind of pushes the boundaries. And and it, it it’s, it’s like a perfect fit. And the, and the guys that are working there it’s, you know, they, they got it immediately and it just, we clicked and it was just, it was just the right

[00:24:15] Peterson: [00:24:15] fit.

[00:24:16] And we had a kickoff meeting with Mark Wade, the publisher, and the rest of the team, everybody else that’s involved and, and I didn’t know what to expect. And it was like, yeah, I don’t know. It was just like the best, like, you know, blind date ever. I mean, not really flying, but I mean, I mean, cause we knew what we were kind of entering into, but it was just like that, that first meeting between all of us, I felt like.

[00:24:35] Hey space bastards is home. You know, I mean, like we, we, we really did see eye to eye with everybody and, and and I think, you know, they could feel that way about a lot of books, but kind of what I thought was really peculiar and interesting was the fact that, you know, we didn’t make space bastards once we were at humanoids.

[00:24:51] I mean, a lot of that content, you know, all previously existed. So that to me was the the match made in heaven aspect of it, or like the weird kismet part of it was like, Oh, wow. Like we actually, like, we’re operating kind of as an Island ourselves here, but actually we, we made something that’s pretty on point with everything else they’re doing, you know?

[00:25:10] And they like it so

[00:25:12] Jeff Haas: [00:25:12] well, what I will say, I did read the first issue and I thought it was fantastic and no problem. I really enjoyed it. It felt very Garth Ennis, like a little bit in, in its style a little bit. Yeah. You’re both credited on the combo as right as writers. So how does this partnership work?

[00:25:29] I mean, what’s, how do you guys, what’s the division of labor? Like how do you guys, I mean, do you one write in ones? You know, it takes a second peek out of it. How does it work?

[00:25:39] Aubrey: [00:25:39] We take off our pants. When we go into a room,

[00:25:47] Peterson: [00:25:47] Joe, Joe’s got a meta answer there in a way simply because, I mean, it is a lot of laughing between myself and Joe. I mean, it is when we’re working, we’re. I think Joe and I are pretty good at like isolating ourselves from the imaginary audience out there. And we kind of make ourselves the, our audience.

[00:26:04] Like I try to make Joe laugh or Joe tries to make me laugh, or if we’re outlining a story or something, we’ll try really hard to, I we’re, we’re our own worst critics in the fact that I think we will craft an entire issue and then literally. One of us will come up with like some left turn or something that changes the, you know, two thirds of the issue.

[00:26:23] And based on the rate, you just present that because you know, the reaction you’re going to get from the other guy. And then, you know, in that, in that scenario, it’s kind of like, yeah, I mean, how can we not rewrite this whole thing? I mean, it’s so much better now. And typically for us, we’ve been pretty fortunate in the fact that whether it’s because of us or whether it’s just, I don’t know, our obsessive compulsive issues or whatever.

[00:26:45]Pretty much every issue of space passengers has been that there’s been like something in there where we’ve just been like, Oh yeah, this here is kind of the the icing on the cake, or this is the, this is the meat of the matter. You know, this is the thing that kind of really makes that issue. We will we’ll write

[00:26:58] Aubrey: [00:26:58] it.

[00:26:59] We, you know, we write an outline, a very detailed outline and then get, we get one of one or the other of us will work on the first draft of this. The script and we just, we just hand it back and forth

[00:27:08] Peterson: [00:27:08] until, you know, there’s this, we’re

[00:27:10] just

[00:27:10] Aubrey: [00:27:10] getting down to punctuation. You know, we get it down to just a really good format.

[00:27:14] And then we think about what artists we want to draw. I, we approach these guys and then we kind of figure out, okay, do we need to tailor the story to, to match this artist’s style and to really allow them to have fun and really go nuts with it. And so then it kind of goes through a revision there and you know, it’s gone bizarrely smooth.

[00:27:33]For the last whatever, eight years or however long, it was

[00:27:37] Peterson: [00:27:37] seven years.

[00:27:39] Aubrey: [00:27:39] Yeah. I’ve been strangely know

[00:27:41] Peterson: [00:27:41] effective. We’ll say that real quick. Is that like, I think that is something that I really appreciate about our, our, our methodology and, and I don’t know. I really, I don’t talk to enough writers out there to know whether or not we’re unique in this or not.

[00:27:52] I don’t think we are, but Joe and I are like, Zealots, when it comes to outlining like a 28 page comic for us might be like a 12 page outline. And typically that outline will involve like back and forth, back and forth, back and forth, just like Joe said. I think that makes it pretty unique. The fact that we’re, we’re kind of thinking the spine of the story has to be that intricate.

[00:28:11] And like, we kind of really want to know everything about it. The other thing too, is that like, once we choose an artist to go with that story, and sometimes in that process, we’ll completely revise the story. We’ll say, Hey, Simon, Bisley, he’s working on this one. So. You know, this doesn’t, this almost seems like assignment Bisley story, but we’re not quite there yet.

[00:28:27] Let’s, let’s dig deep again. But after we get past that point, the other thing is, is that like Joe and I will kind of like consume like a, like a solitary diet of whatever that artist’s work is. So again, do use assignment Bisley example, right? It would be like, I’ll go read a bunch of Lobo and I’ll read slain and judge dread and stuff.

[00:28:46] So that hopefully when we’re writing the script for that particular artist, We’re very specifically thinking in terms of their visual eye and kind of historically where they’ve, how they’ve told their sequential stories or there’s a bunch of art. And, and that’s kind of, I think like our second value, I think that’s the other thing that we do that, that kind of helps us quite a bit.

[00:29:05] Jeff Haas: [00:29:05] So as you mentioned, so Simon Beasley is going to join the project Clint, Langley’s going to be joining the project. How does that work? Is Derek Robinson off after the first issue? Are they doing story arcs?

[00:29:20] Peterson: [00:29:20] Well, no, Derrick’s, Derek’s definitely around Derrick’s I think we’ve got him for a number of issues coming up. I don’t want to spoil it all, so I don’t want to say how many, but get used to Derrick Derrick’s they’re served for a while and he’s awesome. We’re more than more than 200 pages. Yes.

[00:29:33] And then at the same time too, we have kind of something unique happening with some of the other characters in the series. And again, I don’t want to spoil too much here, but yeah, that’s, that’s you have a lot of stories by other artists there, including Clint Langley, Simon Bisley column McNeil as well, a book hook.

[00:29:47]Yeah, a lot of great stuff out there.

[00:29:50] Jeff Haas: [00:29:50] You know, it’s kinda funny. You talked about Simon Beasley, who is well-known for Lobo. And I was reading the, as I was reading the first issue, Manny corns kind of reminds me a lot of him. Is that an accident? Was that intentional connected feeling cause it’s time with Simon Beasley coming on board.

[00:30:12] Peterson: [00:30:12] Yeah. Oh, Joe, do you want to take that

[00:30:14] Aubrey: [00:30:14] one? And he came way before. I mean, like Manny was, we had we had his character, you know, long, long before we thought we could even get an assignment busily on board. And, and so th you know, that,

[00:30:25] Peterson: [00:30:25] that initial incarnation of him you see is,

[00:30:27]Aubrey: [00:30:27] Is, is, is Derrick, you know, as Derek and you know, kind of just the three of us and you know, an earlier artist who, that we kind of worked with you know, and anytime you got a guy who, you know, Yeah, it just, just doesn’t take any shit and travels through space and, you know, squashes is competition, you know, you’re going to think about Lobo.

[00:30:43] There’s just, no, there’s no getting around that.  Think there’s, there’s some he’s, you know, he’s not quite the the, the character isn’t the same. I mean, it might evoke that and I think that helps us, but Even when we’ve had the Bisley we’ve, we’ve talked with Bisley about a man of corn the way he was even the way Bisley has worked with him.

[00:31:01]Peterson: [00:31:01] It seems very different

[00:31:02] Aubrey: [00:31:02] than a Lobo to me. I don’t know Eric. Yeah,

[00:31:04] Peterson: [00:31:04] I agree. I think there’s some, there’s some stuff I think, to stick around the series long enough and you’ll see some major differences. I, I certainly totally get it. Like, I, I, I hear about Lobo a lot and I’m a gigantic Bisley fan. So of course I know Lobo and I’m, and I’m a big Keith Giffen fan as well.

[00:31:20] So but I don’t think, I don’t know if that was really intentional, at least on our part for the writing aspect. You’d have to ask Derek to, I’m always curious whether or not Derek, how he feels about kind of his design and man of corn and everything. Cause I really love it. I love what he did with them, but I also know too that like, like that’s another thing I really value about working with Derek.

[00:31:38] Cause I think. I think when we talk about work or we talk about creating it, Derek, I find myself and Derek and Joe kind of sharing a lot of similarities in terms of language. So would it surprise me if obviously, Derek, Sarah shares a lot of the same influences that we do as well, you know

Jeff Haas – Aubey and Peterson.output

Jeff Haas: [00:00:00] hello? Hello? Hello.

[00:00:30] Yeah, sorry for the pain, the ass method that the Lake said, I don’t actually pay for zoom because I’m apparently a cheap bastard and we had to set it up anyway. So I’m just going to do a quick pause. Start off with the question and we’ll just edit it through to make, to pretend this never happened.

[00:00:46] Okay.

[00:00:52] The thing, one thing I really like about but many corns is that he definitely is a very bad ass character. He put, he has a very Pacific seeming moral code. Is he more in the series of gonna play a part of the villain or is he more of a likable antihero?

[00:01:14] Peterson: [00:01:14] I think neither, sorry. I started to be so coy about it, but you know, in our series, Emily is an ensemble cast and, and I think a lot of the, we could say this about a lot of the different space bastards cast members, which is, yeah. Maybe there’s an antihero kind of thing there, but I think similar maybe to like, Tarantino film or, or the Cohen brothers or some of the other stuff that I, I, I think Joe and I have kind of grown up watching, like I think they call him an anti-hero or a hero either way would kind of be too strong.

[00:01:49] Maybe I think structurally

[00:01:51] Aubrey: [00:01:51] in, in some of the individual issues, you know, he is the antagonist and then, and, and then. You know, maybe in some of the other stories he will serve as the, as, as you know, the only guy you can really root for. And I think some people will, I I’m, I fall a little bit on the side side of the anti-hero.

[00:02:08] I think he will. I think he will ultimately

[00:02:10] Peterson: [00:02:10] he, he, you know, he’s not

[00:02:11] Aubrey: [00:02:11] going to change too much of the world, you know, either has to bend to him or. Yeah, he’s just, he’s just not going to change without something incredible happening. I guess spoiling everything. Already in that era. Do you think it’s more of just

[00:02:27] Peterson: [00:02:27] either way?

[00:02:29] I think, I think, I think man, like a lot of our characters kind of serves this structural purpose of being a character for first and foremost. And, and certainly a lot of ours play in this like weird kind of gray area. I think structurally in terms of like antagonist protagonist, foil, or, or what exactly do they mean to the plot and whatnot?

[00:02:46] The cool thing about space bastards is that there’s so much. Ambiguity with that and freedom there with that as well, is that the characters really do kind of. I think in a lot of cases take on a life of their own. And then Joe and I are kind of along for the ride as it were.

[00:03:01] Jeff Haas: [00:03:01] So for our listeners who may not be familiar with base passers yet the story kind of centers around a futuristic inter intergalactic post office.

[00:03:10] But the spin is that. The delivery. People are actually in competition to accomplish the delivery and including potentially killing their coworkers. And with each delivery each time the delivery package or parcel changes hands the feed to the customer increases. Is that right? Am I summarizing correctly.

[00:03:33] Now the company then benefits by the killing of their employees? Correct. All right. So, and I was thinking about reading it, that it felt like an allegory for how corporations view employees, you know less of actual employees, but more of a, almost like cogs in Weber machine. They’re trying to create to increase their revenue.

[00:03:56] I was wondering if that an intentional. Al Gore you were making with this calm comic book or is that just a happy connection?

[00:04:09] that’s,

[00:04:10] Aubrey: [00:04:10] that’s what we were I mean, that’s

[00:04:12] Peterson: [00:04:12] what

[00:04:13] Aubrey: [00:04:13] it developed into for sure. And then, you know, as you go along in a series, you see some other ways that the company profits off of this the, the life lifecycle of a postal worker you know, it’s not, they don’t all die. You know, some are incapacitated or, you know, gravely wounded, and you know, the postal service has been kind of refitted and redesigned to, to profit off of every.

[00:04:33]You know, every, every condition that can happen to these guys and, and they’re just, yeah, they’re just they’re, they really are more like the boxes that the packages are, are riding around in, you know, even though there is a physical box, they’re, they’re more like, just

[00:04:44] Peterson: [00:04:44] the means

[00:04:46] Aubrey: [00:04:46] of getting the packages from one place to the other.

[00:04:47] They’re, you know, they’re, they’re completely you know, dehumanized really

[00:04:51] Peterson: [00:04:51] It’s pretty cool that you bring it, you bring up a really good point there. Jeff, in terms of like just the the idea of like, if Davey at the, when he’s an accountant, maybe thinks that, you know, he works a lot and you know, maybe the rewards aren’t quite there, he now has this other, you know this other climate where the rewards are certainly there, but you’re going to work way harder for it.

[00:05:11] And there’s just a lot less BS in the way, you know, it’s, it’s a lot more cut and dry it’s. It is. I think the way you phrased it actually is like, is really smart, which is kind of it’s this like Like a high octane version of, or parody. I think of a lot of different jobs out there, you know,

[00:05:30] Jeff Haas: [00:05:30] because when I was reading it, the part that popped into my mind is the idea of, or at least the phrase that accompany will work you to death.

[00:05:37] And I felt like most people who work, especially for a corporation of any kind feels like you’re being worked to death and your story and space passes with the. Your galactic post office is just to me, it literally, you know, it’s just there to be more open with the fact that they’re doing that with you, as opposed to when you work your regular job in our, in our real lives, that they’re just slowly doing it.

[00:06:03] Peterson: [00:06:03] The hook is more freedom. I mean, that’s, that’s the big difference is that, you know, they, they hook you with that is that you are your own boss here at the intergalactic postal service for sure.

[00:06:15] Jeff Haas: [00:06:15] And the main character is David proton of the first issue. What makes him a great audience surrogate for you guys?

[00:06:26] Peterson: [00:06:26] I can certainly relate to him. My first job out of college. I mean, I worked like retail jobs and stuff, but my first real big job was being a TV producer for an internationally syndicated show. And that’s actually where I met the person who introduced me to Joe, Joe Aubrey here. And, but when I was there, I was sleeping underneath my desk two nights a week slowly doing worse and worse at college just because it’s like, it’s a big daddy job.

[00:06:48] I mean, I was working like. 60 hours a week, trying to get this thing out. And I was like, because of my age, I felt like I was pretty underpaid, you know? And I was always kind of like worried about like, dude, if I get, if I get like, go like next week, for some reason I’m really screwed. I’m never making enough money to.

[00:07:03] You know, carve a life for myself at this age, I’m, I’m totally doing this for the experience and living paycheck to paycheck. And so for, and then like, there were other jobs in my twenties as well, where I was like and certainly I’ve been laid off before as well. So I think Davey Davey for me, I mean, even way back to the films, Davey was always a guy who was in between a rock and a hard place in terms of his employment.

[00:07:27] And I think that’s kind of what. Eventually you ended up kind of becoming the, the groundwork for the IPS for what we’re doing in the conduct with the space bastards. But, but yeah, I think he works as like a, like a lens for people to enter this world and everything simply because of that is like, I he’s the most normal of the characters relatable.

[00:07:47] I think for myself, just out of like true life experiences, you know,

[00:07:54] That’s for myself.

[00:07:56] Aubrey: [00:07:56] I mean, yeah. It, it, an every man he’s, you know, he’s got a very conventional job and you know, he’s horrified by the things going on around him. And I think he reacts the way people might initially react. And, you know, you kind of he’s, he’s, that’s what we needed. We needed a guy, a character like that, that you can, I mean, there’s other characters you could join the story with You know, for your first read, but his requires the least amount of, you know, for knowledge, you can just come right into it and, and, and see all the things he’s experiencing.

[00:08:21] And he’s, you know, he’s in, he’s in it. He’s afraid for his life. And I probably is the closest to what an actual audience member, you know, an actual reader would experience if they were placed in the same situation.

[00:08:36] Jeff Haas: [00:08:36] One other thing I really like about the comic book is the inclusion of the details. For instance you have the, I’m going to probably pronounce this wrong.

[00:08:43] The hiccupy tri tribes casino. And this location that you’ve got the postal service is that the casino, the symbol for the risk being taken by those or the gamble being taken by those involved. Is it, was that like, was that intentional? Like, Hey, you know, this is like risking everything out you know, putting all hands, all hands in on a bed or something.

[00:09:08] There’s some theme

[00:09:09] Peterson: [00:09:09] work there. I don’t know if we should say for about a month there’s teamwork there for sure. But I think a lot of other story, or a lot of other aspects of the universe kind of play a role in that as well, but you’re, you’re just certainly.

[00:09:25] Aubrey: [00:09:25] What? That was a good catch though. Nobody’s really boring.

[00:09:28] Peterson: [00:09:28] Yeah, exactly. That’s exactly it. It’s like, I think you, you, you really? Yeah. You’re close. Close. You’re getting there.

[00:09:36] Jeff Haas: [00:09:36] Well, it’s going to have to take a second read. I’m gonna, I’m gonna, I’m going to figure it out. I’m going to pull it apart and figure it out. The other cool inclusion that you did was only, I think when panel, but you mentioned Roy’s, we’re in a reptile world and show some reptiles.

[00:09:48] Are we going to get more images from this adventure park or that’s something that you just do think it was kind of clever.

[00:09:57] No, we,

[00:09:58] Aubrey: [00:09:58] we, we talked about this many years ago when Eric and I were hashing that out and we were like, you know, any of these rich eccentrics everybody from what like hearse and Michael Jackson to, you know, these guys always seem to have these exotic zoos. They always seem to have giraffes and zebras and stuff like that on the property.

[00:10:15] Peterson: [00:10:15] It just

[00:10:15] Aubrey: [00:10:15] seems like something you do when you make a certain amount of money, you know, And you’re off kilter, you know, so initially, you know, we, we put it in there because of that, it just seemed like that was the, that was the best way to, you know, kind of round out Roy’s character and get a good glimpse as to how he lives.

[00:10:35] Peterson: [00:10:35] But yeah, I mean, there’s, we, we, there’s some callbacks

[00:10:37] Aubrey: [00:10:37] to that later on in this series, I’ll say it that,

[00:10:40] Jeff Haas: [00:10:40] so something gonna get eaten by a reptile, a mutant reptile.

[00:10:45] Aubrey: [00:10:45] I would love to

[00:10:45] Peterson: [00:10:45] see it.

[00:10:48]Jeff Haas: [00:10:48] Okay. So one of the major questions that I had. Okay. With Manny corns obviously he’s a, bad-ass obviously he has killed a lot of people.

[00:10:57]What in the world are they thinking? Making him a mentor? I’m just curious about.

[00:11:03] Peterson: [00:11:03] I think a lot of that free, I think in the case of Manny taking on Davey, I think that’s pretty, the mentor thing is something that every postal worker has to go through on their first foray out. Right. They have to do a ride along.

[00:11:15] And so I think a lot of that is pretty pretty automated and will be to the person who just happens to be saddled with Manny.

[00:11:24] Aubrey: [00:11:24] Yeah, it’s just part of the lottery system, you know, you would, they be, could have followed another postal worker that, you know, it’s just, you, you get brought in and you get paired up with somebody and you’ve got to survive for 24 hours.

[00:11:35] You’ve got survived. The first delivery. Yeah.

[00:11:38] Jeff Haas: [00:11:38] And, and, and like I said, I, I thought it was beautifully handled the growth of David proton throughout the issue without giving any way, any spoilers. There’s a moment that, so where something occurs to David, to David during one of the deliveries where he, I’m not gonna go into, don’t go to ruin anything, but it’s his, how he deals with that incident.

[00:11:57] That seems to be the turning point in his growth as a delivery person was that. When that incident occurs, is it that he realizes the danger? Is it that he finally kind of realizes the way of the universe? I mean, what was your thought process around that moment? If you’d probably can think of about the one I’m thinking about.

[00:12:21] Peterson: [00:12:21] Yeah. So I think, I think for me at least, and I’d be curious to hear Joe’s answer as well. For me, it was definitely no way out it was. I think. I think when you’re an adult, I think it takes a certain amount of trauma and desperation to truly exhibit character change and, and really kind of leap into something uncomfortable.

[00:12:41] And certainly I think throughout that issue, we kind of play with that quite a bit. I think th I think the first half of the issue, I don’t think this isn’t a spoiler. I think this is pretty clear to everybody who gets about 16 pages in, and I think Davey is Dave is going to have to learn very, very quickly about kind of the, the, the laws of the jungle in terms of the laws of the postal service and, and all of that.

[00:13:04] And, and it’s sink or swim and not everybody can swim, you know, that’s for sure. Joe, what do you

[00:13:11] Aubrey: [00:13:11] think in front of me? Give away anything if I can go further with it, but he No, that’s a, I don’t know, there’s this, there’s this points where you’re, where you’re, you know, tested and you have to figure out what, what skills that you have that you can bring to a situation to you know, what, what have you learned in your life up to a certain point that that’ll get you through a situation, you know, do you, do you rely on your.

[00:13:35] No on your, on your Wednesday, early on your Braun, do you do you cheat, do you steal, do you give up, you know, or do you coward, you know, that’s, you know, come to have that, that fork in the road and you know, and to see what happens,

[00:13:49] Peterson: [00:13:49] I will do literally, if there’s something that I’m supposed to stop in terms of my behavior or change about my behavior.

[00:13:55] I will do anything to avoid that. I’m just speaking myself as like any excuse to be like, well, no, I had to go do that thing. Cause you know, and then book, I had to do it or whatever. I mean, it takes getting rid of all that stuff and, and yeah.

[00:14:12] Jeff Haas: [00:14:12] So another character that gets introduced is going to be powers of power industries.

[00:14:16]What role is he going to play in upcoming issues or that’s spiraling too much as well.

[00:14:27] Aubrey: [00:14:27] You’re asking all the hard questions, man. Nice to

[00:14:32] Peterson: [00:14:32] talk about the book though. I finally got it. That’s great. It’s amazing. Yeah. Appreciate it. We’ve waited years for this. It is, is that like, I, you know Wayne Powers empowers industries

[00:14:42] Aubrey: [00:14:42] Yeah, history, you know, there’s a lot, they go way back, you know, with, with Roy sharpen, who’s the postmaster general. And so that’s, that’s a, that’s a rivalry or a, a, you know, a relationship that has already been going on for awhile. When did, by the time issue one hits and that, that continues on in remainder of the series in this series.

[00:15:05] Jeff Haas: [00:15:05] The concept also kind of brought another question to my mind. So obviously when, as we discussed the more packages times and exchanges hands, the more expensive the fee is correct. So at some point, though, the customer is probably passing the point of potentially affordability. Is, would that be a possibility?

[00:15:22] And is there any, and what is the impact of that happening where the, the customer can no longer or chooses no longer to pay for? The delivery after it exchanges hands, who knows how many times

[00:15:37] Joe we’ll take it first. Well,

[00:15:39] Aubrey: [00:15:39] I mean, you know, I mean, you’ve probably bought stuff on Amazon. You want to get it there immediately and you’ve paid three times or on eBay, maybe you pay three times the shipping just to get it to your, into your house. You know, I, I guess what I envisioned in this universe is that there’s some sort of automatic payment plan that goes in there and to have sent a, you know, a widget to your aunt or to you, maybe a fruit cake to your, to your, to your to your mother or something, you know, around Christmas time, you may end up spending.

[00:16:04]Hundreds of thousands of credits and it just it just gets tacked on and small amounts of it get deducted, like any debt. And you, you know, you’re in trouble

[00:16:13] Peterson: [00:16:13] would be surprised if there’s somebody out there or many people out there who have had to file bankruptcy or have gone through major financial upheaval, because they are surprised that the bill, I don’t think it’s that frequent in the universe, but it would not surprise me if that was like a real life thing where.

[00:16:30] You know, so many people died, unfortunately, that and the package changed hands so many times that yeah, like This is like a college tuition bill. I’m going to be paying this for the rest of, you know, for the next 20 years. The natural, the natural

[00:16:42] Aubrey: [00:16:42] selection, these postal workers is, is, is pretty potent.

[00:16:45] You know, I mean, if you think about it, you know, they’re the ones who are going to be really successful, you know, hanging around, you know, the average life span. And one of these guys is probably just a few hours to a few days, but eventually it’s going to get down to where a successful postal worker gets hold of it or one that maybe is isolated and, you know, the fees are going to S you’re going to slow down, but But yeah, it’s gonna, it’s gonna be expensive and it’s going to be passed onto the consumer.

[00:17:07] Yeah, sure.

[00:17:09] Jeff Haas: [00:17:09] Cause I was, I was reading, I was seeing myself, Dan, those are some very unlucky customers. Sometimes

[00:17:16] Peterson: [00:17:16] it’s a, it’s a, it’s a weird universe. And I think in future issues, we’ll definitely, well, you know, you’ll get a chance to kind of read more about it and stuff, but it’s definitely a universe where The features are catching up with function as it were, or vice versa.

[00:17:29] I’m trying to think of the right way to say that like stuff needs to get done. Right. And the impact that it has on people’s livelihoods or, or, or their lives, you know, sometimes doesn’t necessarily equal that.

[00:17:43] Jeff Haas: [00:17:43] So where will future issues take the reader?

[00:17:50] I

[00:17:50] Peterson: [00:17:50] think the unexpected places is the best answer I can give. I think we do a good job in terms of like settling the reader up for a story that, that that they expect to see and expect to feel resolution with and expect. But I would, I would say for sure, expect some twists and turns and expect expect the unexpected there a little bit.

[00:18:10]And then also too, it isn’t an ensemble cast. I mean, there’s a lot more. Really interesting. I think, and, and, and funny characters and people from all sorts of walks of all walks of life that readers will get to experience here very soon.

[00:18:27] Jeff Haas: [00:18:27] So how about you, Joe?

[00:18:30] Aubrey: [00:18:30] I mean, lots and lots of mailmen are gonna die.

[00:18:32]What else can I say about what’s going to happen? We, we kind of make a promise on the first page of the issue one, you know, so the very first page you’re going to see something happened there and we’re going to, we’re going to catch up to that. And and that’s, you know, that that’s going to make sense.

[00:18:47]And, and we’re going to go into some of the, to the more uncharted neighborhoods, you know, little, little, little off ramps into smaller parts of the universe with some of these other artists. And you’re going to learn a lot more about individual characters who. I actually have a lot of relevance to the overall story.

[00:19:03] And hopefully it all fits together well and you know, people enjoy it, but it’s, you know, it’s funny and it’ll be violent and it will be it’s gonna be great art all the way through

[00:19:13] Peterson: [00:19:13] one thing is that no, no issue comes out that Joe and I ourselves don’t. Kind of swear by her love ourselves. I mean, we purposefully try to make each other laugh with every issue or get kind of like a guided reaction out of each other before it ever, you know, before it ever gets finished.

[00:19:30] Jeff Haas: [00:19:30] So how many issues is it expected to run and where can our listeners find it? Find the issues.

[00:19:40] Aubrey: [00:19:40] Yeah. So there’s two different, there’s two different ways. I mean, I would always encourage

[00:19:43] Peterson: [00:19:43] readers who, who liked buying variant covers. And I like reading, you know, singular issue you know, monthly periodicals to go to their local comic shop, make sure that space bastards is ordered in terms of how long it will run.

[00:19:55]You know, this is a surprise. I can tell you that there’s, there’s a lot of space faster’s already completed. I can promise you that. And so. I would encourage readers to go out there and pick that up for their local retailers every month by humanoids or publisher humanoids at the same time, humanoids allows us to do these kinds of director’s cut hard covers that come out on Kickstarter.

[00:20:13] In fact, January 18th volume two comes out on Kickstarter and we also have in, in certain tiers there as well, we have volume one bundled with it as well. I think that’s kind of unique about these hardcovers is that they’re a super limited edition. Like they don’t get sold in stores. There’s no way to get them other than through the creators.

[00:20:33] And then what we do, like we talked about earlier is that we use, we use the money that’s raised from this to really fund future future space bastards stories as well. And those hard covers actually tell the stories in a really unique way. It’s kind of different than reading it through the monthly periodical way.

[00:20:48] In fact, I’ve always wanted, like this is gold. Number one is getting out of podcast here and being asked so many wonderful questions by somebody that’s read issue one, that’s amazing. I’ve waited forever for that number. Goal number two for me as well is trying to get somebody who reads the hardcover and somebody who reads the monthly issues to sit in a room together and then hear what questions they have and like how they hashed that out.

[00:21:09] Because that to me would blow my mind because they’re seeing different aspects of the story. And they’re saying things kind of portrayed in different ways. So, so there’s, that is that I think diehard super fans of space festers might want to check out the hard covers but certainly on a really broad level, I would encourage everybody to go every month and pick up space.

[00:21:25] Fasters including. Space by issue one which had stores January 13th, a Wednesday.

[00:21:32] Jeff Haas: [00:21:32] Okay. Well, the first issue was fantastic. It’s a lot of fun, very high, a very high octane, a lot of great action, great visuals and entertaining characters. And I do encourage our listeners to definitely check out space bastards.

[00:21:48] It will be dev it’ll be worth the read. And I want to thank both of you for stopping by the show you guys are fantastic. And I enjoy talking with you.

[00:21:56] Peterson: [00:21:56] Likewise, man, this was a real treat. Thank you so much.