https://youtubetranscript.com/?v=DvVx3s10vUY
So what you’re about to see is a conversation that I had with Jason Brubaker. Jason Brubaker is a graphic novelist. He’s an artist who worked for several years in Hollywood for DreamWorks. He worked on projects like Blade. He also worked on Kung Fu Panda. And he finally decided to leave LA and leave Hollywood, which didn’t fit with his own values, and decided to go on his own and create his own projects. Since then he’s put out two series of graphic novels. One is called Remind and the other is Sithra. I’ve read both series and really enjoyed them. My kids also enjoyed them as well. It is very beautiful art and very dramatic storytelling. Very much worth your effort if you’re into that kind of thing. So we talk about his creative process, how he inserts symbolism into his work. We also talk about graphic novels in general, my own project, God’s Dog, which is in the process. So there’s a lot of great stuff and I was really excited to talk about him because I really enjoy his work. And so I think you’ll feel that excitement and you’ll enjoy this conversation as well. This is Jonathan Peugeot. Welcome to the symbolic world. So will you be doing any editing after, you know, once you get the video? I might edit in some pictures of your work. But I usually don’t edit a lot of the actual content. Yeah, okay. Unless you say something really… I’m always so hesitant to say weird things. You’re not at all… I’ve watched quite a few of your videos and you’re not at all… You’re not the edgy… you don’t seem like the edgy type who’s looking to create controversy. It just keeps me up at night too long, you know? I don’t want to go there. Yeah, I understand. I’ll leave it for my books. I think I’m kind of the same too. I don’t like… I mean, I will… If I need to go somewhere, I will, but I don’t like to provoke… I don’t call people out. I don’t do all that stuff that a lot of people do on the YouTube world. So we’re kind of… I think that’s probably why… one of the reasons why I like your channel too is it was straightforward talking about comics, the world of comic books, and how to do it, how to make it work. And there’s a generosity about your approach. And even in your books, there’s such a generosity in terms of having a lot of your stuff even free online for people to access. I think there’s… that approach is… I think it’s exciting. It’s an exciting approach to see that happen, to see it be possible. And it seems like you’re still making a living with this. I don’t know if I’m wrong. Yeah. It’s still going, you know? I’ve been doing it for four years full-time now. And it pays all the bills. And so I figure, hey, you know, I might as well keep doing what I’m doing. There’s something working that I’m doing, you know? And yeah, that excitement about putting stuff online was because I saw other people do it. Back in the day, like in 2009, I saw people doing that. And there wasn’t really any money in it, but it was just so exciting to see that, wow, people are sharing this information and they’re getting their stuff out there and they’re passionate about it. And it’s better than this other stuff that’s professional, you know? So it was just… it kind of just changed my whole perspective on it because I was really pursuing agents and publishers at the time. And wow, I just jumped right into the conversation. Sorry. Yeah, no, that’s… I’m recording. I’m recording, so this is going to be it. I think it’s exciting when I see… one of the things that the online space seems to have provided too is a way for people to be direct in contact with your base. You know, when you’re going through a publisher and you’re publishing books and they’re going out and, you know, it’s a deadline and all of this, you know, you have to actually physically go to comic shops or whatever to get any form of a return from your readers. But I guess on the online space, it must be way more satisfying because of this immediate connection. Yeah, yeah, you get… I like to say that I have online editors. You know, I’ll post my stuff online and then I’ll get a bunch of people responding to it. And then I know what to edit. And they’ll even call out like spelling errors and grammar. I think you should say it this way. And then I’ll use that for the editing purposes before I actually publish the book. So it’s really helpful to really test the product as well just by putting it online. And yeah, it’s great. And it is kind of a double-edged sword because I do like to step back away from this kind of being this public face that is always communicating because that’s really tiring and it really fractures my time. And then I can’t get into that deep focus that I need to make the thing really good. And it takes, you know, a year of deep focus to be able to do that kind of thing. So jumping on and off of line is really just really fractured my brain. And I kind of have to pull away from it and unplug from everything. And like I don’t like to do social media much anymore because of it. You know, it’s just too much. And it doesn’t give me any… it doesn’t give me very much, you know. I feel like social media is more like something I can just share with my friends. But not people that I don’t know, even though I know it’s marketed to everybody that social media is the way to share with the world and you get famous that way. Yeah. But for me, it’s just like, no, it drives me nuts. And then I don’t get anything done. And then I’m focusing on the wrong things. And then, you know… Yeah, I know. I think I know exactly what you mean. What I’ve been trying to do is I start really early. So I try to start work at six in the morning. So I get up, try to get up at like 530, whatever, start to do my prayers and kind of beginning of the day stuff. And then at six, I try to work and just carve. So from six to ten, that’s it. Like it’s just carving and listening to podcasts while I’m carving, you know, not engaging with anybody. And then I come back and I eat breakfast and I do my… I start the more email stuff and the online stuff. So by the time I’m online, I feel like, OK, I’ve actually accomplished something. I don’t feel like I’ve lost… wasted my whole day, you know, on social media, which can totally happen. Even before breakfast, you put in that work. Well, it just depends on people. Like for me, it’s the best time. You know, I’m just… I haven’t eaten. I just have a cup of coffee and I’m just… I’m there in the carving. And then that’s it, you know. That’s cool. That reminds me, when I was working at DreamWorks, I worked at DreamWorks for about seven years. And that’s when I was working on my first graphic novel. And I finished it and I just couldn’t put in the time to make the next one, which was the conclusion. And so I found myself getting up at five and working for about two hours before I went into work. And yeah, I would go in, I’d be like, yeah, it was just super satisfied. And like, it doesn’t matter if I don’t get anything done here at work, you know. Like I’ve done my thing, you know. And I was able to get that second graphic novel done by just getting up really early. And it was a stressful time in the family, like just had kids, wife was having postpartum depression. So there’s a lot of things going on, but yet I still was able to block out that time. And, you know, help with the family. When everyone woke up, I was serving breakfast and taking kids to school. And I had already gotten in my two hours, you know. Yeah, to me that has been the only solution, really. And so what I try to do is I start, so I start really early. I get my first four hours of carving done. Then after that, if I don’t get back to carving, I don’t feel totally guilty. If I’m doing online stuff, answering emails, doing these kind of conversations. And then at five, that’s it, I’m done. Like I’m finished. And then I’m with the family, I’m helping with dinner with the kids. And so it’s like you can, getting up early is like the solution to so many problems. Yeah. If you can do it. I’m not, I’m such a night person, you know, in college. I was the guy who would go around the clock. Like I would stay up so late at some points. And it was like, oh, there’s no point in going to bed again. Might as well stay up until late afternoon the next day because, you know, it’s like five in the morning. I’ve just been staying up, just kept staying up later and later and later until it kind of cycles back. Yeah, until I had kids, I was a night person. And then now it’s like I’ve been forced to be a morning person. And I really like it. I mean, I love being up before the sun comes up. But sometimes, you know, I just can’t do it. But yeah, but I, what I do is I have a really late lunch. So I have a lunch at like two or three o’clock. I’ll try to work from the time I get into the office all the way to lunch. And then after that, it’s just, you know, hit and miss. Yeah, then not that much happens. It’s tough. It’s tough. Especially when you’re doing the kind of work you’re doing. You know, you just need that ultra focus or else, man, you’re just going to get sucked in. So I want to talk about, I want to talk about your work. I’ve read two of your series. I read the Remind series and also Sithra. First of all, my kids, my kids just swallowed it up. Like they just loved it so much. My son was 14. He read it twice. And my daughter, you know, she’s not as good in English, but she read the whole thing on her own once. And now she’s she started reading it again. And so there’s something about and I think I was trying to figure out what it is about the books that is so compelling. And I think I mean, I’m going to speak. I’m speaking also because I’m not objective in this, you know, I have my own my own perception. But I do think that there is in both books, there is a deep symbolic intuition. So the way the world is structured, you know, even before the actual story, it’s like the way that you structure the world is so intuitively right, even though it’s even though it’s fantastical that I think that it just connects right away with people. You know, this in your Remind story, you have this underwater world where there is these kind of like lizard type preachers. Then you have an above water world that isn’t aware of what’s going on underneath. And then connection with that underwater world leads to a disjunction between mind and body, a kind of confusion where like mind and body don’t fit and then they try to fit them back and it doesn’t work. And so there’s like crazy adventure about, you know, you know, the whole like, you know, different persons in different bodies, which is exactly the experience of death. You know, it’s exactly that experience of being underwater, whether it’s dreaming or dying. All of that is all about disconnecting mind and body. And so it just it just because you wouldn’t think about it, but it just makes sense that that’s what happened if you go underwater. And so it all it’s crazy and it’s wild and it just keeps getting crazy and crazier as it goes. But it’s still the basic logical symbolic structure makes sense. So you you you gobble it up no matter what, you know. Yeah, that’s that’s awesome to hear you describe my stories because I’ve heard you describe so many other stories. That’s great. I love it. That’s cool. This is something that I’m curious about is that in terms of your process, do you so like let’s say I describe I described it that way for you. Was it just like an intuition in terms of this story just makes sense? Or do you feel like you actually worked at making it? I don’t know how to say it. Like, did you use your kind of rational mind to make it make sense? Or was it just like, no, this is just an intuitive process where like a songwriter I’ve heard songs where it’s obvious that the songwriter didn’t totally understand what they were doing. But they tapped into some reality and they were just they’re just laying it out, even though they don’t it’s not rational. Yeah, I don’t think I ever went into it like knowing what I was doing. And I mean, part of the part of the reasons I I like to kind of stretch into like these different worlds is because I’ve realized that in retrospect, it is because it kind of like nullify it like stops people from having presuppositions when they start reading your thing. And, you know, if I start talking about a story that has to do with my past religious experiences, suddenly people have these, you know, they they they might put up roadblocks because they don’t want to hear about religion. And yet I can I can talk about that all through these these metaphors and allegories and all that stuff. And, you know, also, I read the Bible my whole life. And so it’s it’s just kind of like, I think it’s ingrained in how I think about stories and the structure of the world and how life is. And so to me, that’s, I think, just kind of a natural way that I look at storytelling is what’s the the hidden meaning of all this, you know. And then also, I look at it like parables, like I feel like our stories that we write are are like parables and they’re not meant to be understood the same to people who have the knowledge to understand them versus the people who don’t, you know, like, like, if someone really wants to dig into the parables, they can find a lot of different hidden meanings versus, you know, and even Jesus himself said, you know, like, if you have eyes to see and ears to hear, then you can understand what this means. If not, then, you know, maybe I’m understanding that wrong. But so so he was saying them to everybody. But there was a certain group of people that could understand the deeper meaning. And so that’s kind of the way I look at my storytelling to like, like, yeah, most people will probably interpret this wrong. But, you know, but I would like to think that there’s a certain group of people that will really get it. Yeah. And and they’ll be really obvious. Yeah. You know, well, in terms of like, if you in terms of symbolic structure, at some point, it’s not it’s not even about interpreting it right or wrong. Because the structure is there and the structure is making the story happen. And so there is like, especially in Scythra, in your second series that I that I read, there was more of that, let’s say, kind of parable sense where you could feel that certain characters are pointing to certain things kind of like you see in CS Lewis where you have Aslan. Like Aslan is Jesus. It’s not as explicit to that in that story. But you have certain things which seem to be pointing to some Christian aspects, let’s say. But the best type of symbolism, I think the place where it works the best in your stories is where it’s the actual structure of the story. It’s like the structure of the story is laying out reality in a way that helps you to, you know, that is so is fantastical. But it also feels so right. You know, like in Scythra, you know, why why does it feel right that there is a there’s this desert with all these like kind of parasite creatures that are there and that will come out and kind of attach themselves to you. It’s like, why does that feel right? Because that doesn’t it’s not that’s not a reality. But when you read it and how and you see how it’s related to to to sin to a certain extent and it’s related to passions and being kind of sucked into something, some some kind of desire that you have. And it all makes sense. And my 14 year old son, he was reading, he was reading the books and he said, he said, Oh, yeah, I really love how he made the these these, I forget what they’re called these like parasitic creatures, how he made them like demons like he made them like your passions. And there’s like a visible version and an invisible one and they kind of mirror each other. So it’s like all of that makes makes sense, even though when you think about it, in terms of reasonable world, it doesn’t it doesn’t connect anything in the in the way does but it not directly it is really structural. Yeah. And I don’t think I like to just let do like CS Lewis does where it’s like, it’s a metaphor like this character equals Jesus or whatever. I, I, you know, acknowledge that exists. But but yeah, I like to kind of like trick people like if there is a character that’s a deceiver. I don’t want to make it obvious, you know, because he’ll deceive the audience, you know. And, yeah, so. Yeah, I don’t I don’t really know if there’s an you know, I wasn’t trained in it necessarily. I just absorbed a lot. You know, as a kid and storytelling and I just knew what I loved and didn’t love. And, and so when it came time to write and finish my first story, which was remind that the first graphic novel that you finished. That’s like the first thing ever like really finished. That was a big story. And so I kind of just put it out there going, Man, I hope I finished this right. You know, I hope people like it because I don’t know how to tell stories. But, but, you know, the thing I’ve learned through working in Hollywood is like, it’s, it’s more about as an artist just like your your interpretation of how you see things and, and, and, you know, telling a story in a unique way is kind of like a way to kind of like, you know, kind of the is kind of like what I’m trying to do like, like Miyazaki stuff is a great example of it. Like it’s a different culture, different worlds, different fans, fantastical things. But it’s just a window into this other world. There’s a lot of times not even a real good middle beginning and end to his stuff. It’s just kind of like opening the curtains. Here you go. There’s this weird land, you know, and a lot and I hear he doesn’t even know how they’re going to end when he starts on it. He’s just waiting for him to story. And that’s how I work. You know, a lot of times, I have these loose structures in place. But but I kind of just I mean, honestly, I just pray about it a lot that that God will help me to like, right, you know, figure out what this is supposed to mean, you know, and, and so a lot of times like, with Scythra, a lot of it really evolved as it went. It started out just as a story of the little girl and the kid was the kind of the side character, the boy, but but as it ended, the boy kind of got more dominant in the story. So Yeah, and the character of the little girl is great. It’s such a wonderful character. I think that’s one of the reasons why kids like it so much because the characters so has that kind of, it’s kind of forthright and buoyant, you know, she’s really is the best like the best of what a little girl can be. So you really get that in her. And I think that’s probably one of the reasons why the kids like it so much is that character. But the other thing that I really, really was impressed by the way you were putting things together in the book is how you use you really you really take your time to tell the story, especially in the first books of Scythra, you kind of just take your time and you’re using page turning as a as a dramatic, dramatic tool. And I’m wondering if you can kind of explain that to us. I mean, I don’t know if I’ve seen that as much in other comics. I’m not I haven’t followed comics in a very long time. But there are some times when you get to a point, and you know that on the next page, it’s going to kind of reveal some secret. And then sometimes you turn the page and there’s almost nothing on the other page. It’s like this moment of weight. So it’s a you know, it’s just like a, it’s just a breeze of wind that goes by and you’re you’re expecting to find the solution to the problem that’s being set up. But it’s like, no, this little pause and it’s like, oh, you know, and it’s just like, you know, you’re pulling apart, and you turn the other page and then you finally get the the payback, you know, and I really appreciate that I was really surprised at how effective that that can be. I never I never thought about it so much. Like when I remember being a kid and reading some comics where you you’re having something being set up and your I can’t stop from going to the last, you know, your I can’t stop from jumping ahead. And so you’re you’re ruining the surprise for yourself as you’re as you’re reading it because you can’t stop from but if you have to turn the page, then this whole dramatic sequence is being set up. Yeah. And I think I started thinking that way because I would put it out as a webcomic. So it would be one page a week. And I was really I mean, a spread one spread away for remind. And I was really trying to just make sure that people came back. So I was really trying to set up those pages to where, you know, you would you just want to turn that page and you want to wait for the next week. Right. And another thing I was thinking about was, you know, when you pause a film, you you you pause that that mood and the color palette and all that stuff. And I was always turned off by the comics that every panel would be a different mood and tone and color palette and scene and location. Yeah. And it’s just like flying all over. And every panel is competing for your attention. And I really wanted to be like, when you when you have the book open on a spread, it’s, it’s almost like you’ve hit that pause button and you can absorb that mood, one scene at a time. And then you turn the page and it, it can go into a new scene and a new mood, you know, so those are some of the things I was I was actively thinking about in when I was designing it. But yeah, the I had a lot of people talk about the page turning. And how I do it well. And I didn’t realize I was doing it that well, I guess, until so many people started mentioning it. Yeah. So well, for kids, it was great because it was also because the first time I read it, my nine year old daughter, she doesn’t read in English. She just she reads only in French. And so I read it to them. So we sat there with the book open and we would read and I would read and I would point to the to the bubbles like where where where I am and reading it. And then at some point, we’d have to stop. Right, because it was too late or we had to just you know, and it was always this it was so frustrating for them because obviously it was so easy to stop at the end of a page and they’re like, No, no, you have to turn the page. No, you know, we’re shutting it down now and we’ll start we’ll start tomorrow. So it was a lot of fun. It was actually quite pleasant to read that to my kids. And also, it’s it’s it’s great to read. I mean, it’s also great to read a story that you can read to your kids and you don’t have to worry what’s going to be there. It’s almost seems impossible that that happens now. You know, your kids are watching something on Netflix and it’s supposed to be for kids and then you get a glimpse of it. And you’re like, What? Yeah, what are they? What is this? You know, or the same you get a book from the library and you’re like, What is this monstrosity? Like how how is it that they’re marketing this to, you know, 10 year olds? Yeah, yeah. And the themes do get pretty heavy and dark. But, you know, I’m curious how parents are going to take that. But so far, no one’s said anything really bad about it. I mean, that’s the nature of reality, though. Like, yeah, evil is evil. Yeah, you know, you know, I’m really against the whole concept of, of kids stories being like, I want to go to this grocery store and get some bubble gum. That’s my goal. Yay, I did it. You know, it’s like, No, let’s we got to we got to shut down. Show the show the evil and how you can resist it, or whatever it is. It’s all it’s mostly about subversion is the problem in a lot of kids stories today. It’s that it’s not it’s not that they show evil and good or that they show something playing out is that they really try to show something upside down. Like they just they just really want because it’s also because of the desire to to surprise and the desire to shock. Yeah, well, if I’m going to write a book and I want to get attention, then I might as well write a book where vampires are the good guys, you know, and human beings are the bad guys, because how am I going to get attention if I don’t do something that is shocking and surprising? Yeah. So so it’s almost like it’s a it’s a strange revolutionary process. You know, just because we need to get attention, we tend to want to do these upside down things. Yeah, yeah. And it’s really good. Now, we’re gonna get we’re in a good space now because everything is so upside down, that all we need to do is tell real, real stories. And then like, we’re the ones are going to get attention. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. Suddenly, wow, you you’re really thinking outside of the box. Here’s a normal world and a normal story like a normal hierarchy and a normal relationship between people. And it’s like, wow, you’re you’re just so creative. I can’t believe you. How did you think of this? But you still you know, but now it’s the trick is to mask that that to mask that it’s not going to be go down that path, go down the wrong path. I don’t know how to say it. You know, you almost have to set it up so that people think that it’s going to Yeah, continue inverting it when really it doesn’t. Well, If you’re not like That’s, you know, I think you know that I that I’m working on a graphic novel with an artist court. And that’s exactly the strategy that we had my brother and I when we wrote this was let’s create a story that at first glance when you look at it in terms of the terms of the story you think, oh, this is going to be Everything is going to be upside down and then just turn everything back in the story and just put everything back in place. So it’s like, let’s have it. Let’s have the main character be like a dog headed monster. You know who who’s a saint. So it’s like this dog headed saint. Oh, that’s going to be subversive, but then it just everything kind of turns back I think it’s possible to do it. I think it’s, I think it’s possible to do it. Yeah, that’s kind of what I I’m thinking. I actually want to talk to you about my next story some sometime later, and it kind of has that same thing. I know when I launch it. It’s going to be something that people are going to immediately go, oh, you’re talking about this. Yeah, I’m on board. But then when they get to the end of the story, they’ll be like, oh, you weren’t you weren’t Raising the same flag as us. Yeah, exactly. It wasn’t the same thing. But I’m curious, though, like who, what is your, what have you seen to be the people that are following you like who what type of people are buying your books. Do you have a sense of it. Um, it’s a lot older people than I thought it would be. I, you know, I’ve always kind of thought, well, it’s comics. So it’s going to be kids, but there’s a lot of my age group is like 30 to 40 year old men, you know, there’s a there’s a lot of women in there too. But I realize it’s just kind of me. It’s like I’m my demographic is me, you know, Not my it’s mainly the age, you know, and so I’m trying for my next books to try to hit a younger audience by by by making it a little bit easier for them to embrace not not necessarily by making it more kitty, you know, Scyther is already a pretty young story. Yeah, that everyone can embrace but But like, for instance, my next my next book is that I’m going to be working on is this thing called phobos is to spoof on the classic horror. And so I’m trying to make it more teen friendly, like having a cute girl on the cover. Instead of instead of a little girl, you know, obviously, 40 year old guys are have little girls. And so they’re going to be like, oh, it’s a little girl, you know, whereas a teenage boy is gonna be like, yeah, there’s a cute girl on the cover. But I’ll try not I still you know, my goal is not to make it like sexual eyes and all that stuff, you know. There’s plenty of comics that do that for us. So Yeah, it’s not it’s a yeah, you just be dropped one more drop in the in the ocean. Yeah, let’s do the same thing everyone else is doing. That’s right. And so what about the like so you’re using you’re using Patreon, you’re using crowdfunding mostly do you use Indiegogo which which platform are you mostly using I’ve used Kickstarter mostly okay I used Indiegogo this last time for crowdfunding and it works really well. I still am not sure which one to do going forward. So I like both Kickstarter and Indiegogo as far as Patreon I do like to use the platform. I do like it. I just I don’t I’m not convinced it’s the business model I want to have. Mainly because you know my product is not necessarily me and my behind the scenes and all that stuff and yeah and my how to content. My product is my books. And so I want I want the books to to be the business model and to sell and to make enough money to support the business. I feel like you know if Apple were to say, hey, support us on Patreon so we can keep making computers, then there’s something wrong with their computers. You know, Yeah, makes sense. That’s just how I think if I wasn’t if I was selling myself as an artist who was given classes and teaching and stuff like that, then then I think patron would be perfect, you know. Yeah, but the strategy I’ve been using with it that’s been working is almost treating it like a Kickstarter campaign. So every so many months, I’ll have a pledge drive where people who are $5 and up will get a free copy of my next little floppy book. And it’s only for patrons and but it’s a physical reward. And so that drains a lot of the money from Patreon as well. Right. It makes it almost like you’re pre-selling the books themselves. And then eventually I will launch a Kickstarter for that next book and it will be like a hardcover graphic novel, you know, that the public will be able to consume. And so this is I guess in terms of just ideas. So when you move from your, let’s say, crowdfunding to the market, how because now you’re on your own. This is the biggest thing I’ve always wondered about self-publishing is, you know, you have your real fan base and you’re doing your crowdfunding, you get the book done through crowdfunding, then you put it out on the market. So then how do you get like you how do you get do that other step? Like, are you doing distribution yourself? Are you doing all that on your own? The first book I was and I was shipping out books every day and sending boxes to Amazon and boxes to, you know, libraries and And it worked. It was successful, but it was just it became a full-time thing after work. And so, so eventually I realized like this is I’m going to go crazy doing this and I don’t have time to actually do the next book. So a friend of mine had a distributor he was using, which was an independent distributor called SCB distributors and they just do like art books and little comics and graphic novels. And I pitched him my book and because it won the first one won the Zerat grant, which was an old award back in the day before Kickstarter was big. It won this grant. And so they said, well, we like books that go through this grant and and since you’re selling so many of them will pick you up, you know, so I signed a contract with this distributor and they’ve been handling Amazon and all the bookstores and diamond. So they’ll do the comic shops as well. And and it’s a full service distributor. So that’s really helped. And they also have like the doors into the bigger distributors so they can get into all the bigger bookstores. At least people can order the books through the bookstores, but it doesn’t mean they’re on the front shelves, you know. And so that’s taken a big load off of my back. And then I’ve kind of pulled the plug on my online stores because that’s just too much work to keep getting orders and fulfilling. You know, and, you know, I know some people are like, what are you, what are you complaining about? This is great. You know, it’s great to get orders, but it’s just it’s just that fracturing that time that makes it so difficult for me, you know. And I at the end of the day and at the end of the year, I really wanted to get that next thing done because that’s the biggest thing that sells my last book is the book. Is the new book. And so, so yeah, I found the best strategy for me is, is unload all the distribution on my distributor as much as I can. Don’t sell anything online until I have a Kickstarter or an Indiegogo campaign. And then I can fulfill it all at once, like one time a year. And, and maybe during a Black Friday type sale, I can do a sale. But then beyond that, this is lock myself in my room, you know, work on the books. Yeah. Do the things that I need to do to get the actual project done. So I’m curious about because you said that you your stories you you don’t necessarily know the ending when you start. Is that is that what you mentioned? I think I do have a general idea of the ending. I just don’t know how I’m going to do it. You know, I don’t know the the how the how those pages are going to look or how the maybe how that last character will look like the like the the the character in Scythra at the end, the reveal that was that came to me right when I was drawing those pages. I didn’t know. I didn’t even know. I don’t want to give it away for people. There’s a lot of things I didn’t know until I got to those pages. Okay. And so, but I did have that, like a like a bullet point list kind of written out like, okay, now there’s the confrontation with this character and blah, blah, blah. Yeah, but I didn’t realize it unfold the way it did. And that it would be that I would design it that way. And so there’s a lot of unanswered questions. And I think I like that because I think it’s a lot of things that I didn’t know until I got to those pages. And so I think I like that because it keeps me excited about it in the process. You know, when I discovered I’m like, oh, yes, I want to draw that now, you know, like, let’s get this part going. And I’m obsessed over it. But if I thought about it two years ago, then, and now it’s time to execute those final pages that I’ve already figured out all the details of then it’s suddenly just a job. Just kind of have to put it out there. Yeah. And so do you think do you when you’re thinking about your stories or when you think about your, your thinking about your process? Do you think imageistically? Or is it you think of story? Like in a linear man, you see images first? Yeah, it’s usually starts out with, if I can just if there’s a mood that I’m feeling for a certain subject, and it kind of there’s an image associated with it, then I really want to try to figure out how to preserve that that image with that mood that I that feeling that I felt when I was thinking about it. And transcribing that into a story somehow is, is kind of the most critical thing for my storytelling. And if I can string together enough of these and convey those moods, then I think I can do that. And if I can just try to do that, then I feel like I’m just, I’m just trying to do that. And if I can just try to do that, then I feel like I’m just trying to do that. And if I can just try to do that, then I feel like I’m just trying to do that. And if I can just try to do that, then I feel like I’m just trying to do that. And if I can just try to do that, then I feel like I’m just trying to do that. And if I can just try to do that, then I feel like I’m just trying to do that. And if I can just try to do that, then I feel like I’m just trying to do that. And if I can just try to do that, then I feel like I’m just trying to do that. And if I can just try to do that, then I feel like I’m just trying to do that. And if I can just try to do that, then I feel like I’m just trying to Yeah, I can understand. Because like, Sithra really feels like this bubbly, like the whole thing is bubbling in terms of moods and colors and you can just feel the joy of exploring, you know, even just these moments where you just see the sand, you know, in the desert kind of coming up and there’s this whole, so it’s like, you know, I’m going to do it, and I’m just like, this is just going to be a whole different experience. up and there’s this whole, so there really is this exploration of mood and through color and everything. And I think that that, like you said, a story wouldn’t have to be that way. You could tell a different type of story. But in that context, especially with the character, that little girl, it almost feels like that. Like you’re a 10 year old girl again. You know, you’re, again, I’m just never a 10 year old girl. Turn things upside down. Oh yeah, exactly. You’re a 10 year old again. And it’s like you’re just, you’re discovering you’re on this adventure with her. And the actual drawings make you feel like you’re on this adventure with her. It’s not just, it doesn’t feel as much from the outside where you’re just kind of looking in this story that’s happening. The setup of mood and these color panels that are just kind of streaks of color kind of bring you in as if you’re experiencing it. Yeah, yeah. And that’s kind of what I wanted. I have trouble doing like the history stories where it’s, let’s just imitate what’s been done and try to get it right. Because it’s, because I really like to have these worlds that are not really our world is kind of like a parallel world. Because that way, you don’t know what to expect from page to page. And so you’re always wondering, okay, is there going to be a spaceship in the next scene? I don’t know. Is that part of this world or not? I don’t know. And so I really, I just love those kind of stories. And I think that’s how all of my stories are. Like, I have, you know, another three stories that I’ve have in line to do next. And they’re all the same, you know, none of them are just like, okay, let’s do a history period piece now. You know, I do like reading period pieces. But as far as investing the time and creating it, it’s like, it sucks a little bit of the creativity out of it, if I’m just imitating what’s been what what history was like, you know? Yeah, yeah. So tell me a little bit about because I don’t know anything about your own. Because I know you’re a you’re a Christian, it seems like you’re a Christian. What is your like, what is your journey? Like, where Where are you in that sense? Like, are you Protestant? Are you Catholic? I have no idea. I have no idea. Well, we go to a Nazarene church. So I consider myself a non denominational. Right? Yeah. My parents were missionaries in Africa and Switzerland. So when I was like, two to five, we were there. So I knew French, but I don’t know it anymore. Yeah, I know what to am I saying it right? No, not at all. You’re not saying it right. No. So that’s the only word I remember. I know a couple. But I’m anyway. So, yeah, they were missionaries. And then when we came back when I was five, and I just loved drawing ever since I was a kid. So that was my goal was just to draw. Started my career when I was 20. I went to Hollywood, worked in storyboards and, and concept designs and then transitioned into animation. About a 20 year career, and I just never really felt fulfilled with it. It wasn’t until I kind of went back to my parents house and saw all these old drawings that I made, which were all stories, surprisingly, all my little stick figures were stories, it nothing was a drawing just for the sake of drawing. Right. And so I realized that I want to tell stories with drawing. That’s what inspired me to draw was to, to the drawing should accompany a story. And so I started to kind of at the age of 30, trying to just do my own stories again. And that’s when I started to kind of enjoying art again, you know. And so I just started making animation and started working on graphic novels on the side of work. And then then I eventually moved back here because I just felt like LA was I was beautifying the wrong message. And it just became really clear to me. And, you know, it came down to this point where I woke up and I don’t know if it was just a dream or whatever. But I woke up and I and I heard over a repeating in my head, out of her my people. You know, that line from Revelation before, before the Babylon gets destroyed. And, you know, at one point, I was just like, you know, I’ve always felt like my art and my storytelling is, it’s a gift from God to do something with it, you know, and I, I didn’t ever know what it was. But I always knew there would be something that I could do with it, you know. And but I just never felt like I was doing that. I was I was being trained in art in my career. But I was always just, yeah, beautifying the the wrong message. Yeah, beautiful that I don’t believe in at all. And so, so it really bothered me and just got to where it’s like, I don’t want to do art anymore. If that’s what it’s going to be about, you know, I don’t feel like that’s what I should do with my gifts. And so, so that kind of drove me to move out of LA, I moved back home to Idaho, convinced my wife of it, we made a one year plan and everything worked out and she loves it here now. Okay, great. And it’s relaxing, and I’m actually getting stuff done. And, you know, I’ve been able to pay the bills, because it’s a lot cheaper here than it is in LA. Imagine. And yeah, so, so I mean, I kind of have the same, I have the same faith all my life, you know, I can’t really name a point when I feel like I became a Christian, because I’ve just always grown up in that environment. I’ve always believed and, and it’s just more of a wrestling with, with how I believe and, and, and if I’m living my life in a way that’s, that’s, you know, all here, well done, good and faithful servant. So I guess, and that’s kind of the reason I do what I’m doing is like, I just want to make stories that that means something to me and to God and, you know, that will make him happy. You know what I’m saying? And that that that when I’m gone, like it can, it can keep, can keep reflecting some sort of light into the world, you know? Yeah. So anyway, so I’m curious about what your like what your inspirations are, or at least like what, because one of the things that I mean, I’m putting what you’re saying through the lens of my own experience, which is that, as when I grew up, I grew up in the Protestant Church is more not to non dumb, it was a Baptist Church kind of conservative Baptist. And I always felt, especially as when I got a little older, when I was young, I didn’t feel it as much as maybe very is underneath the surface. But in my 20s, I started to really feel like there was a tension between me making visual art and wanting to to use visual symbolism and use visual representations and this kind of Baptist tradition that I was part of. Yeah. And so it was like this tension that I struggled to, to get to get through because there weren’t that many inspirations from let’s say, the Christian tradition that I could pull from. And I was like, so where am I pulling my my influences from? And I was and it was this like, it was it was a difficult time for me at least, to try to figure all that out. So I don’t know if that’s something that you’ve experienced or that you’ve kind of had to think about or deal with. Yeah, I never you know, when I moved to LA, and when I was pursuing like getting the career started, my parents were really encouraging. And so that kind of gave me the the feeling that, okay, that, you know, God’s got my back. If my parents have my back, then, then, you know, then this there’s some good in this. But I never did see the connection between God and art. And it was always just make money and make a living and make a living and do, you know, do the things that sell and stuff. And there was there was moments in the career when I’d be like, I can’t I’m sorry, I’m not going to draw that, you know, I just thought that’s just not me. And so you know, I wouldn’t get the job or I’d get fired from the job. There’s one job where this guy was like, make it as satanic as you can. Like it needs to be satanic. And I was trying and trying and finally fired me. He’s like, I’m sorry, you just can’t do it. I’m like, I don’t know. I don’t know how to draw stuff that looks really satanic. So anyway, you know, I’m drawing chains and stuff, but it still has like a cartoony look. Anyway, I totally lost my train of thought there. Yeah. Um, but yeah, I remember having conversations with other artists and just saying, well, you know, they’re artists just aren’t they don’t have they don’t have like, I don’t know what I said exactly, like they don’t have faith, like, they’re not thinking about things. And they’re like, and this art is like, well, yeah, they’re they’re they’re the more faithful ones. Like, you know, so it was just kind of a strange, like, what kind of faith are they? Are the artists thinking about are they kind of making up a faith? You know, is it just about feeling spiritual? You know? So So anyway, I was always kind of confused that just like, where did my art fit into this? And I think it was when I was in my 30s. That’s when I really started realizing like, like, there, you know, you can beautify, you know, we can beautify things with our art, and we can beautify the wrong things. And I don’t want to be a contributor to that anymore. And so I really felt like, God put me there to train me, and to give me that ability to tell stories to learn from all these directors, to learn deadlines. And then he said, Okay, now it’s time to leave. And now it’s time to, to do something else, you know, now that you’ve been trained, and you can beautify anything that’s been given to you. Start start start beautifying this. Yeah. So do you know? Yeah, makes sense. So what are your what do you feel like are your influences? Have you identified some of the things that you that really kind of when you were younger, it kind of got you excited? Well, I loved the newspaper comics, like Garfield, the far side in Calvin and Hobbes. So that was kind of what I wanted to do at first. Yeah, Calvin Hobbes, I can kind of see that a little bit in the work. Yeah, especially with Sither, because I used inks, like, like he did. So that was a big influence. And then, and then I started getting into Japanese animation, kind of in my teen years. And that’s when I moved to LA. So things like Akira, you know, the animation, and and all the Miyazaki stuff, all the like spirited away, like really influenced me when I was in Hollywood. And the story telling that I wanted to do, I just wanted to do a Christian or a Western version of a Miyazaki film, you know, because it’s very much rooted in what he believes. And, and yet it’s so anyone can anyone can absorb it. Yeah. Which is so neat about it. No, I think you’re I think that your approach is great. And I think that looking at Miyazaki as a way to because one of the problems and I’m sure you had this same experience as I have is that a lot of the problems with Christian art and Christian storytelling is that it’s so shallow. It’s just, yeah, it’s so message driven. And it’s and it’s so shallow that it doesn’t resonate with anybody, or it resonates with people who are so like, that’s all they’ll read. And so they won’t read anything really good. They won’t have the problem of having to compare them. Yeah, I have a real big problem with a lot of Christian art and Christian music and stuff. It’s like to me, the the ones that really rise up are the ones who are not following the mainstream paths that are done. And they’re just they’re brilliant artists. Like, as far as musicians goes, there’s this guy named Josh Garrel’s, who is just an independent musician and his he does music, but and it’s not really labeled Christian, but it’s definitely Christian. And it’s some of the most amazing music I’ve heard, you know, and it’s so anyway, there’s that kind of thing. And yeah, you know, it’s like, I know people’s hearts are in the right place. But it’s kind of like that. It’s like that zeal without knowledge, like, you got to have the knowledge of the art and of the craft and storytelling to really be able to tell the stories you want to tell in a meaningful way that will impact people. Yeah, you know, and the strange thing is, we have the best stories, like, about the Bible stories are there. They’re amazing, you know, in terms of, of how profound the story of Christ is, is you can never reach the end of it. You know, you always every time I read the gospel, I’m always surprised. Even sometimes I’m like, wait, this detail, let’s say it’s like, how is it that I’ve read? No, they read this story my whole life. And then this one detail I’ve never noticed. And so so yeah, we have the we have the best story. The thing is that we have to be able to see the Bible stories as stories again, without feeling threatened by that, you know, without us thinking that the fact that these are stories is somehow threatening to our faith, you know, and that’s what a lot of the kind of American evangelical Christianity has struggled with, which is like, either it’s a literal telling of something in a, I don’t even know how I can, I’m really struggling even now to think that way anymore. But it’s like, this is just a description of something that happened. And it doesn’t actually have a story structure. Like, yeah, it does have a story structure. And so does your life. Yeah, like, so does everything you go through also has a story structure. You know, your day has a story structure. If it doesn’t have a story structure, then then it’s a miracle that it was written the way it was written, because it’s so, so much more dense than any of the other things that can be written today. Yeah, and it’s also who would care? Like, no one is interested in in, you know, me, I don’t know, like, describing me tying my shoe for five pages. It’s like, no one is interested in that, unless I can make it into a story, which is not impossible. But yeah. Yeah. So yeah. Yeah, I kind of worry that after so many stories that I’ve written, people be like, hmm, this is kind of the same story as remind. Oh, this kind of the same story is Sitra. Oh, this kind of the same story as that. Yeah, you know what, I don’t want to be condescending to your readers, but it’s all the same story. So don’t worry about it. Yeah. That’s what it comes down to, really. Yeah. I mean, you can see how all the stories have a have a basic pattern. You’re not going to be worried so much about telling the same story. You’re just going to be worried about telling the same story in a way that we’ll be able to get get people’s attention and get them excited about it. But it’s not going to be a different story. It’s just going to have a different different clothing, you could say something like that. Yeah, yeah. So I’m curious about your graphic novel. When are you going to have that thing out? Well, we’re in the same situation you were when you were working at DreamWorks, which is that Cord, he just had a baby a few months ago, and he’s doing this in his spare time as a graphic designer. So he tries to get up early and get at least an hour out, you know, an hour in the morning to be able to illustrate it. We finished we it’s going to be about five, four or five books. I think we’re hoping for a book, there might be more. And we’ve we’ve done the thumbnailing of the first the first book is completely thumbnail. And now he’s drawing it out. And so I think he’s inked about 1516 pages. And the book is, I think it’s a it’s like 120. So it’s going to be so it’s still going to be a while before he gets and he’s really putting the effort in. For those who have seen some of the art, he’s not he’s really wanting to make it beautiful and take his time. And I’m fine with that. Like, I’d rather it be a quality product. And we put it out. And so what we’re hoping is that is that we can put out the first book, and then the there’ll be enough excitement that we can crowdfund the second book. And then he can quit his job and just do this full time. Like if we could do that, that would be amazing. Because then we could just speed it up and and start putting the books out, you know, once a year or something or less if we can. Could you crowdfund once you get enough pages done? Could you crowdfund that first book and then get enough money to? I think I was hoping to but I mean, Cord is he has a family he’s got, you know, it’s like I think he doesn’t want to risk everything right now. And I can understand that. If I was in a situation, I might think the same. Like he doesn’t want to risk everything. So we’re probably going to to wait until it’s almost done before we start the crowdfunding for the event. Yeah, got it. Okay. But it looks I mean, I don’t know if you’ve seen some of the images, but I’m really excited. I think it looks great. Yeah, I’ve I was actually you know, he was he submitted it to my to my art review. Board forum Reddit thing when I was doing that. And and the pages looked really good. And I was like, interesting. And then I saw a lecture you did and you showed the same page as like what? What? So then I looked again. It’s really strong stuff. It’s not it doesn’t look amateur at all. It looks really strong, really well done. And it’s something that I would definitely want to consume. So and then and the story I mean, that we worked my brother and I worked on that story for years, like four years. We wrote it as a screenplay. And we hired even like a like a reviewer to kind of go over each draft to get it really set up. And so I feel like the story is really is is tight, like I’m not worried about the story. And so I’m excited to see how it’s going to do because in a way when we wrote it, you know, in 2010, it’s almost like 10 years ago, we finished it in 2009. I think even it was almost as if the world wasn’t ready to be ready for this story. The references were so weird, you know, it’s like the St. Christopher character with a dog head and the like a pillar saints and, and all these these like warrior saints and giants and dragons and it was just so strange. But now it’s like I’ve been talking about this stuff for like four years. And so by the time it’s out, I think there’ll be enough people who will kind of at least understand the references that for them to get excited I hope. Yeah. Well, that’s cool. I didn’t realize it was about the St. Christopher and the dog head. I remember you talking about that in one of your videos and I looked into that because I was like that would make an interesting comic. Man, don’t don’t go there. So I won’t go there now. Well, you can try. I’m glad I found that out. Exactly. Well, I bet it’s funny because that I had the same experience. I found out about St. Christopher after like 2002, I think or 2001. And, and there is a book called I forget what it was called the myth of the dog man written by some scholar and a really subversive book, but a lot of good information in it. And I was reading it. I was like, man, why isn’t this not as wise? No one made a character out of this story. And so I even the first time I thought about the story, I actually thought about it as a, as a joke, as a, as a, as a comic book. At first I thought about it as a comic book, but as a joke. So I was like, oh, so we could have St. Christopher and St. George, like the two monster killers, the monster and the monster killer fighting together. And it was kind of like making fun of almost like these movies that make fun of Christianity. I kind of thought about it that way. And then after a while, like, no, I could flip this. Like I could, I could turn it back so that it becomes a becomes actually something that is, that is showing, that is showing truth, but it has a, has an, the imagery seems subversive at first glance. And so just slowly working on the story forever. But it’s a, it has an epic background. Like it, the idea was to try to, I don’t know if you read, it was Neil Gaiman’s season of mists was part of my, my influence for writing this. He wrote this graphic novel, Sandman graphic novel that had, he used Milton’s paradise as the basic structure for his world building. And so he created this world where there’s like the, the Satan is in hell and you have this hierarchy of angels. And then in this hierarchy of angels, you also have all the pagan gods and everything. Obviously he’s a, you know, whatever he’s Neil Gaiman. And then, and then, and so it’s like, he tells this story that’s inside the story of Paradise Lost and he has Cain enable his characters. And then he has the devil, the devil decide that he’s quitting his job and he’s giving, he’s like, he’s giving hell over to whoever wants the keys to it. And he, he leaves. So that’s the basic, the base of the story. I thought, man, he’s Neil Gaiman is so subversive, but he can write, he’s using a Christian structure, which is Paradise Lost, which is based on Dante’s structure. And he’s able to tell a story inside that structure. And I thought, can you imagine if we could do that? But it wouldn’t be to like, it wouldn’t be to upheave everything, but it would actually be to kind of show the power of this structure. And I’m like, okay, yes. All right, Gaiman, I’m taking you on. It’s like, I’m going to try to outdo you here. I probably not. He’s the, he’s an amazing storyteller, but at least that was my impetus. Try to outdo Neil Gaiman. Yeah, I saw the Amazon version of his Good Omens, where it’s kind of a similar thing where he takes, you know, the biblical structure, but he really just, yeah, he just twists it, tweaks it, does everything. Yeah. No, I agree. I agree that I watched the, I had read Good Omens, because he wrote it with Terry Pratchett. And then I, I watched a series too. And I had the same feeling again. I’m like, Oh, man, it’s like, there’s so much of it that’s interesting. And there’s so much of it that is just obviously just being subversive to be subversive. And so it’s like, why can’t, why don’t we have storytellers like that? Yeah, exactly. I mean, oh, my goodness, it would be so amazing, the kind of stuff that could come out. Because it’s not like you have to destroy it to make it good. No, you know, there’s, there’s so much there, like if he would have done his research a little bit more into the roots of all this stuff, it could have been even better. Yeah, but he, he, I mean, he’s, he’s, he is who he is. And he represents what he represents. It’s like, yeah, he’s not, he’s not, you know, we had a bunch of people like that. It would be better to me, but it probably wouldn’t be better to his audience. It’s like, this is the thing that happened. And this is the thing that happened. And I think that, that we need to be the answer to is that in, in the 60s, 70s and 80s, let’s say, even maybe in the 90s, the people who understood symbolism were the revolutionary types. Like, they were the ones who understood symbolism. And the Christians and the more traditionally minded people, they didn’t understand symbolism. And so they didn’t have any of the tools, you know, and so in the comics world, like if you have, you have the British invasion, yeah, Alan Moore and Gaiman and what’s his name? The other one. Anyways, you have these guys coming in and they had such a grasp of symbolic structure. But they were all chaos magicians. They were all, they were all like, you know, they’re all witches and they were, you know, they’re all, that’s what they were. And, and they were, they were putting it out there, but their, their grasp of structure was so powerful that their stories ended up being convincing. And so it’s like, yeah, man, we need to flip that back. Just take it back because the imagery is ours anyways, like the imagery is, it’s, it’s this, you know, Alan Moore wrote Constantine and it’s, he’s using a Christian structure. He’s just so twisted, you know, you have Hellboy, you have all these stories that you, that are in the Christian mythological structure, but Christians have, have been so wary of seeing their worldview as a mythic structure that they don’t, they don’t dare go there. Like they don’t dare do it. It was like, no, let’s jump in. Let’s do it. Like this is the best mythological structure, you know? And so let’s just use it. And anyways, we’ll see what happens. So, so it kind of reminds me, it makes me think that my story Phobos that I’m working on this next year, it’s kind of a reverse of that. It’s like, I’m trying to take all the classic horror characters, which I’ve always looked at as an escape from God. Like these stories are all presented so that you can, so that people can not have to think about if God was present in that universe, right? At least that’s one of the reasons, you know, Harry Potter, where’s God in that? No one, no one knows. But all these stories are kind of an escape mechanism. Yeah. And so, but I was always fascinated with them, with them growing up. So, so I made the story back when I was a teenager, but I infused God into it. Like, Frankenstein actually meets God. He’s having nightmares when he sleeps. And he’s experiencing the afterlives of all the characters that he’s made up of. And so he eventually meets God and Peter and, and he gets his own soul, you know, and that’s what I wrote when I was a teenager. But I realized when I was rewriting it now, that I want to take all these, these, these classic horror characters and stories and say, Okay, what if God was in the picture here? You know, how would that, how would that story go? You know, and the general theme is every knee shall bow, you know, meaning it doesn’t kind of really matter what you are. You know, you can’t escape because you’re not in the category. Yeah. But anyway, it’s that’s the great idea in terms of monsters, monster stories, monster stories have an underlying, even a horror movies, a lot of horror movies actually have an underlying traditional structure, like they have an underlying, most horror movies are actually very conservative. If you if you if you look past the gore and the killing, you know, and they kind of deconstruct that in the recent horror movies where they show that a lot of the stories always have a kind of break of morality, like you they break someone breaks a taboo, and then the killings actually end up being a retribution for that break of the taboo, which gets resolved in the end by like a virgin or whatever some kind of character that’s innocent. And so they’re in the horror structure, there’s something that is that is actually close to a kind of fall redemption story. It’s just that it’s it’s out of whack. And obviously, it’s it’s appealing to all our lower, all our all our lower passions and everything. And so I think there definitely could be a way to, you know, to knowing it, instead of deconstructing it, just flipping it back, you know, not like the screen movies would just want to show how smart they are and how they can they can figure it out. But actually just dive into that structure and make it as potent as possible into a redemption or a like into a redemption story. Yeah, I’m telling the one story that has to be written that no one has written yet. And I’m giving this to anybody who wants to do it, because I don’t have time to do it is a story about a zombie that wakes up. That story has to happen. No one seems to be able to write that story. That wakes up and is not a zombie anymore? That he’s that he’s that he’s a zombie, but then all of a sudden he becomes self conscious. And then what does that mean? Like, what would happen if a zombie became self conscious? Because that that would be the redemption story right there. I think it would be the redemption story. It would be like it would be like a flip, you know. And so there’s a little bit of that in what’s that? What’s this? I forget the name of the story. So people are gonna kill me for not remembering the story. The one they made a movie with Will Smith about what’s the name of that story? I am legend. Yeah, I’m legend in the in the original novels are a little bit of that where novels good, where they everything kind of become missed. They missed the whole point of the novel. I know. Which is there’s a flip. There’s a you know, I know it’s so weird. I watched a movie. I’m like, what’s really what is this even about? I don’t even know what it’s about. It’s like it’s supposed to be a flip where, you know, they become society and you become the monster. It’s like that’s what it’s supposed to be. Anyways, but but there was a little bit of that where there’s like an awakening of this of the zombie creatures that awake and become an actually self organized society. But I think a zombie story of the zombie that wakes up. I think that would be great. Anyways, that’s my Maybe I can work that into Phobos. I don’t have any zombies in there. And it’s only because I do. But it’s saved for later as an afterthought because I there’s so many zombie things I just like, yeah, but that’s the one story the one zombie story that no one’s told. And anyways, if you do it, yeah, I have a zombie story that I think no one’s told off to tell you about later. All right, yeah. All right. There is something that I, I just I don’t know how to present it to the public yet. So maybe that will save for a private conversation. All right. All right. All right. Well, now everybody knows that we’re, we’re going to be having private conversations about the future of Christian storytelling. All right. We’ve been going for a while, Jason. I think, I think we should probably call it quits for, for this conversation, but I, it’s been a lot of fun and I, and I’m hoping we can, we can do it again. Yeah, definitely. I really appreciate you having me on your show. All right. I I’m really happy. I really like your work and, uh, and I’ll point everybody to it. I’ll put links to your, your webpage and to your, your different projects. And so everybody, yeah. Jason, thanks for coming on and I will talk to everybody else very soon. If you enjoy the symbolic world content, there’s a lot of things you can do to help us out. If you’re not subscribed, please do go ahead and share this to all your friends. If you can get involved in the discussion, we have a Facebook group in which people can talk about these subjects. I will put all those links in the description. And also if you can, please support us financially by going to my website, www.thesymbolicworld.com slash support. And I also have a Patreon and a subscribe star. So thanks again, and I will see you soon.