The Corner Box S1Ep34 - The Kyle Starks Interview: Adapt to Survive

[00:00] Intro: Welcome to The Corner Box, where we talk about comics as an industry and an art form. You never know where the discussion will go or who will show up to join host David Hedgecock and John Barber. Between them, they've spent decades writing, drawing, lettering, coloring, editing, editor-in-chiefing, and publishing comics. If you want to know the behind-the-scenes secrets, the highs and lows, the ins and outs of the best artistic medium in the world, then listen in and join us on The Corner Box.

[00:30] John Barber: All right, and welcome back to The Comics Chasm, or whatever we are. No, we're The Corner Box. I'm just kidding. That was a joke. There was a joke about us getting the name wrong every once in a while. This is The Corner Box with John barber and David Hedgecock. We're back with regular guest, Dave Baker, who was very special to us, but he's been on the show a lot, and special guest, Kyle Starks, for part two of his interview. The first part’s already out, if you missed one. So, check that out. It came out a couple days ago, and here we are, with no further ado, part two, Mr. Kyle Starks.

On the Big 2 stuff, or on the IP stuff, I guess, aside from maybe Rick and Morty where it's got a real distinct look to it, have you had a chance to work with an artist long enough to get into a rhythm with them? Or have they all been 3/4/5/6 issues?

[01:16] Kyle: They've all been pretty one and done. I worked with Artyom for 10 issues, then I figured out how to work with Artyom in a way that optimized. Also, they were very young, and it was our first book. I will tell you, coming in as a cartoonist, collaboration is absolutely the hardest thing, period, for me to learn, because when I started, I wrote, I drew, I lettered, I colored, which I did. I published. I distributed. I did everything. So, it's very difficult. I edited it myself. The hardest thing for me to learn is working with other people, and I will say now, Again, seven years in, I think I'm pretty good at it. I think I'm getting there. I think I'm much closer than I was seven years ago, when I could never understand why people wouldn't do it the obvious way. I don't mean aesthetically or compositionally. Professionally, I never understood. Just do the thing. Just do it the way it is, and we'll be done. Don't make it harder. Don't be like “Sorry, I'm late. I fell asleep at the drawing board.” They go your dog ate your homework. That's insane. That's crazy that you're an adult and your dog at your homework. There’s no homework. Little things like that, but collaboration is the hardest, probably.

I finally figured out how to deal with artists. I've worked with Piotr Kowalski. I'm working on another project with Piotr Kowalski. There's almost no one who I've worked with, to date, that I was not 100% happy. I've been, again, super lucky. Marc Ellerby, who did Rock Candy Mountain, Rick and Morty, they all have R’s in them, he did Rick and Morty, was great to work with. He got a joke and elevated it. He never tried to change things or add on. Steve Pugh, obviously, we're on the same level. We just work together. I’d work with Steve Pugh again. Piotr is very professional. Probably the most professional guy I've ever worked with. The guy who did Wild Dog, Fernando Pasarín, is so unbelievably good. Everything looks real, and it was effortless, and Fran Galán, who's doing Pine and Merrimac, I think, is visually the best. Him and Schweitzer are the two. If we were making a movie, who am I and who is the artist? Am I the director, writer? Who's what? It's an interesting argument.

Some people are DPs, their job isn't coming in to shoot it. Their job is just to come in and shoot the script. Fran Galán is a director. The choices he makes off my script only improve it. He takes things out. That book, Pine and Merrimac, which I think is a great story and a fun story, is worth it for how good Fran Galán is. I don't know who Fran quietly worked with at first, but this guy’s going to be working with Marvel next year. I mean, he's going to be stolen away from me, but I would work with Fran. I mean, I wish we were doing Brubaker. It was just me and him doing cute little cozy crime comics for the rest of my life, honestly. He's so good, but I've been lucky. There are very few people where I'd be like, “not my favorite.” I don't think I do that again. There's very few, and that's good luck. I mean, that really is good luck. I can't think, in this moment, of someone I'd be like “they were so unprofessional. I can, but if it was a one-shot, who cares? You know what I mean? They just didn't need it. I get that, but no one who I did a full issue with, there's only a couple that I wouldn't work with again, and that's because I think we weren't a good fit, for different reasons. We just didn't meld the way I’d want to, but I've been very lucky.

These are just this last year. This is last year just like Pasarín, Fran Galán, Piotr, Steve Pugh. I would work with all four of them in a heartbeat. I’d work with them again, and I hope I do. I hope I honestly do. Schweitzer, I'd love to. We've done two books together. He's my best friend. I'd love to do another book with him. Erica Henderson, one of my best friends. She doesn’t need to work with me anymore. I'd love to work with Erica again. I've been super lucky. As Dave said early on, sometimes you just have to take jobs, and the artist also just had to take the job, and they're not professional, because it's a creative field. You know what I mean? But I've been very lucky. I've been lucky over and over, and over, and over.

[05:10] David: One of the projects we haven't really touched on yet, that I'm curious about, is we talked a lot about Kickstarter, Kickstarter programs, stuff like that, and just all modes of distribution and sales. I think it's something I'm really fascinated by. I think, John has a passing fascination with it as well, and so tell us a little bit about Alpha Betas, the WhatNot Publishing. What is that about? How did that come about? And what is that all about?

[05:35] Kyle: I don't know how much I can speak to this. I will say, first of all, this is the job that I took over the pandemic that I probably wouldn't have taken. I had no idea who they were. At the time, it wasn't WhatNot. It was Starburns, and Starburns was, at one point in time, an offshoot of Dan Harmon, who created Rick and Morty, so it was Rick and Morty adjacent. At that time, it was Starburns, and so they came to me, they didn't come to me, someone recommended them because someone else got asked to do it, and they didn't have time, and frankly, I had lined up some books with a publisher, and when the pandemic happened, that was going to carry me through that year, and they completely backed out on me. So, I was in a spot. No conventions. I was doing doing 24 to 30-something conventions a year, because the Rick and Morty stuff was so great at conventions. Not having conventions was a big hit. Not having jobs I had line up was a big hit. So, I got offered Alpha Beta, which is extremely Rick and Morty adjacent, in terms of its aesthetics and its temperament, or whatever. So, at the time, it was Starburns. So, I did it. I watched a bunch of videos of these guys, these internet streamers, to learn who they were, because the only thing that existed was a 20-minute pilot that was very thin, it was very expository, and clearly setting up the universe. So, I did it. I think it's a good book. I think I made a good four books.

What happened after I made those four books, was WhatNot happened. One, Starburns was done. They were falling. They were out. So, I think Starburns wasn't able to. Again, I'm speaking a little out of school. I don't know all the details, but I don't think that publisher exists anymore, and so someone was smart enough to get WhatNot involved, and it turned into what it turned into, and certainly, their first three or four runs sold super good, because at the time, WhatNot was really behind it, and it's really interesting. They can also sell books on their site at a higher price, basically, because they're collectible, then we would benefit, which is the deal. If they sell a book for $100, I get some percentage of that, in theory. I don't think it ever happened, but I think I'm supposed to. Neither here nor there, but it was interesting, at the time, because it was, I do think, and this is another longer conversation, is that the current distribution model for direct market comics is not great. Before the pandemic, there's 2500 stores, and now there's 1500 stores. That's a big loss of people who are selling your book.

[07:51] David: Where are you hearing that number?

[07:52] Kyle: I don't know. I can't remember. I remember because there was a mailing list before the pandemic was 2500, and now it's the number I here is 1500. So, that could be inaccurate, but sales are down. There's less places to buy the book. It only makes sense that this is a pretty distinct factor, but we did New York Comic Con, there's no publishers, manga and anime, and I think, manga and anime have figured out how to distribute in a way that's accessible. I really am leaning into accessibility as being more important, and this wraps around where we started. Where did I get my first book? At a gas station. You know what I mean? We used to get spinner rack stuff at the grocery store. Comic books were everywhere, and they were cheap. That's a big factor. If you want to shut a kid up when you're driving home from the grocery store, you got an Amethyst #1. That's where I got my Blue Devil #1, at the grocery store. It's 50 cents and 60 cents, and they’ll be quiet for an hour, and I think that accessibility has gone away, and I think that's important because, as I said, I think there's something inside people, that one in however many go, “I love this,” and that just hasn't happened for, how long do you think? 20 years? 30 years?

[09:00] John: One of the things that's funny, too, is that seems to be the thing that most other media have decided to copy from the comics distribution system, was to try to limit the accessibility. You don't run into shows anymore. You select the show you're watching. You don't run into music anymore.

[09:14] Kyle: Well, you know what? I don't know if that's entirely true, because I still do, but I do it through the Spotify algorithm. Yeah, it's choosing for me, to what I can find. I manipulate the algorithm because I'm like, “I wish there's more stuff like the Replacements or whatever.” I love where I'm at. So, I'll listen to Replacements for a couple of days, and then it changes in a way. Here's some new stuff and you hope that one song by the band that they play is a good song for them or else you never listen to them ever again, but I think that the thing is that the radio is different now. I don't know. Accessibility is so important. I think the radio carried music for so long, but that was how you sold albums. Well, now you don't sell albums anymore. Now, it's a different thing. Spotify is not making it so that you wont be able to go to concerts for these experiences, and arguably that's comic conventions, but we're dealing with the number of music fans vs comic fans is so low, and you think it's in the long run, where the exclusivity of you can only see X on HBO Max or whatever. I mean, people sign up for a month, just to watch it. That's $10 that they didn’t have before. I don't know. That's an interesting take.

[10:17] David: I think, we’ve, as media, continued to bifurcate. We're all falling into these tribes, so it is somewhat about building your tribe, building the tribe around whatever the thing is that you're interested in, or that you're doing, but I do mourn the days of seemingly easier access, and I do think, Kyle, you're right, that manga, in particular, has solved a lot of those problems in a way that traditional superhero/direct market books, seemingly, have not.

[10:51] Kyle: I think they're all thinking about it now, which is good. People are trying things, which is good. I just think we need to reconsider how people get things, because I don't think comics will ever go away. I think a lot of people in direct market American comics are butthurt over the success of manga, but you go, “kids love reading comics.” What's the most important thing to me? There's more people reading sequential storytelling, which means that they might read I Hate This Place, because I think if you like Chainsaw Man, maybe not that, but I think you'd like I Hate This Place. I think the audiences are still there. I think for Big 2 stuff, it's got to be tough. How do you bring people in when you’ve chosen not to for the last 20 years? Lore Olympus has, the last time I looked, 1.7 million readers. Something insane, and the thing is, you go “well, it's free, though.” She's selling books left and right, but she had a Patreon, and the Patreon was making, listen, that webcomic, Lore Olympus, is dope. That helps. It's good, but you're like, “well, webtoons, there’s advertisements,” but they had a Patreon. You know what I mean? Their Patreon had a bunch of people in it, and that's money. There's just different ways to do it, and I'm not saying there's one good way or one bad way. I love publishing. I love the direct market. I love stores. I do.

[12:01] David: But I do think that if we're going to go down this particular rabbit hole, I do think that the system exists, and so actually, one of the ways to make things better is to just improve that system. The direct market system worked pretty well for 30 years, and if we collectively were pouring our energy back into the direct market in meaningful ways, and expanding the direct market out from what it is right now, helping it to grow once again, I do think that that is probably literally the path of least resistance, but that requires a lot of disparate people and a lot of disparate businesses all coming together to focus on a singular problem, and I don't think that that can happen. As an example, one of the ways to improve things, in my opinion, is to get the biggest name creators on the biggest property, and then do that book, and do that book for three years, 36 issues, 48 issues of that book, with a super high-powered creative team on a X Men, or Batman, or Avengers, whatever it is, and everybody points to it, and that singular book, it's the rising tide lifts all ships, and if you can get that going again, I think that would improve the direct market and direct market sales, thereby bringing in more stores, creating more opportunity for everybody else in the marketplace, but that's not going to happen.

That's not going to happen in 2024, because if you become the biggest star in comic books, the last thing you're going to do is work on someone else's property. You're going to work on your own. You want to know why Transformers is blowing up right now and why it's doing so well? It's not because it's Transformers. It’s because Daniel Warren Johnson made a conscious decision not to put his eggs in his basket, and put those eggs in somebody else's basket. I don't know what the incentives are for him, but I've got to hope they're great, because he is doing some of the best work, he's in the prime of his career, at the top of the game, and he's working in somebody else's IP, and God bless him, because it is helping the industry. I don’t know if that’s the best thing for him.

[14:08] Kyle: I'll tell you the answer, and I think Daniel Warren Johnson has the same perspective I do about any job you take on. I think that you just make the best thing that you can, and there's no reason to do it if you’re not. Here's the thing. A lot of retailers are saying exactly what you said, is that what's hurting direct market is that we don't have these long runs with big-name creator. I would also argue, probably, something that hurts is that in 1985, if you wanted to write comics, and were very good at it, you were working for Marvel or DC, and now you don't have to. There's better places and more money. I think these are all factors. I know a lot of retailers are saying we need long runs with the same creative team, and I say this humbly, they can't sell an issue 6. How are you going to sell an issue 36? What's the argument for that?

[14:47] David: I'm not saying multiples of those. I'm saying one.

[14:51] Kyle: Who’s the guy? What’s the creative team? Batman or Superman?

[15:57] David: Those creative talent might not even be in the industry right now because the money in the industry is so low right now. I think a lot of people that we would have had working in comics for the last 10/15 years, that would have been escalating and accelerating and really growing into positions of big-time power, Top 10 guys, they move out of the industry because why would I do that work when I'm not getting compensated fairly for all the work that I'm doing?

[15:21] Kyle: Which is a vicious circle. You know what I mean? I agree. That's 100% the retail angle. I will tell you that DC will probably announce something this year, which is a response to that, which you didn't hear from me. DC, more than Marvel, is trying. They did the $9 smaller version, then you can get the classic all stars Superman Watchmen. They’re. at least looking and they’re trying, which I think is interesting. I would say this. I think what comics, as a direct market, needs to do, is to look at how people actually consume things now, because I'll tell you what a 17-year-old kid who likes manga doesn't want to do. That’s drive to one specific store to get something. They just don't want to do that, because manga has found out how to make it accessible to those kids. You don't have to drive to one place to get it, and I think nothing survives that way anymore. There's record stores, but record stores are a collectible niche things that are back. They were gone for years, too. You know what I mean? Do we want to be a niche industry? I don't think we do. I think that's the wrong way to look at it, that we want to be a niche industry. We should be wanting people to read this on their phone, on their lunch breaks. You know what I mean?

So, I think it's, how do you find things to be ubiquitous? How do you find them to be accessible to everyone? I am optimistic. I think that we've reached a point. I worked at Comic Stop in the 90s when Diamond took over. I was literally working at a shop when that happened, and we were like, “this will be better with only one shipment.” Man, that was wrong. In the long run, that was wrong, and I also think, Diamond affected the industry in a specific way that was negative, because they would play retailers against publishers, like, “Digital's bad. Digital’s so bad.” Digital saved the music industry, guys. You know what I mean? They'll look at and be like, “Well, maybe it's not so great now,” but listen, I think it's probably worked out for most people, but I think, figuring out how to make comics accessible again, how to make it ubiquitous, is the secret, and I think the distributed market does not affect retail. It doesn't change retail. There's another way to get it that's easier and cheaper.

The thing is, you, me, all people who love weekly floppies, the one-day warriors, we're still going to get those books. You know what I mean? My mom still gets a newspaper subscription. We want to have things, and we like to have collectible thing. We like to have the weekly interaction, but not everyone does, and we're pushing those people out. This is a conversation that has been since New York Comic Con in October. I'm semi-obsessed over it. I don't know the answer. I am not saying I do. Probably, most of my angles are wrong, but I think the perspective of something needs to be tried. Vault did that thing where they gave away #1 if you ordered 25 copies. I think that's great. How do you get people to read a comic? We need more readers, and how do you get the people who aren't here now, in? That's what everyone needs to be thinking about. How do we get the manga people in? Because they like reading comics. I don't know the answer to that, but that would be the number one thing I'd be fixated on.

[18:02] David: That’s why things like WhatNot doing a publishing initiative or Kickstarter, Indiegogo, things like that, that's why I found those distribution models so fascinating, because they’re new modes of distribution, and in the direct-to-consumer distribution models, which I think is pretty fascinating. I love that idea, and yeah, to your point, accessibility is key, and what is the one thing that seemingly everyone has access to? It's the internet. So, I love thinking about these other distribution channels, but if we're talking about mass, I agree, digital is a way to go. I think leaning into collectability is another thing that we can and should be doing, because in a world where not a lot of stuff’s collectible, and people aren't really that interested in collecting, if there's this one thing called comic books that's collectible, I think there's some power behind that, and if it's readable, too, fantastic. That's the bonus, but the print medium has to have something tangible to it in order to keep it going, and I think the viability of the comic book shop is relying, obviously, on the print, and so the print has to still matter.

[19:07] Kyle: That's exactly what I'd say is, their solution to that was variant covers, and it's been great for making money. It hasn't benefited comic book stories or comic book characters, in my opinion.

[19:19] Dave: That's a hot take. A hot Kyle Starks take.

[19:23] John: I mean, another thing is, if you're going back, this might just be restating the same thing, but if you went back to the 80s, not only if you were writing good comics were you going to Marvel or DC. If you were reading comics, you were going to a comic bookstore. Now, we're in a world where it is so separated. A lot of people that probably go to Comic bookstores have never heard of Lore Olympus. 

[19:44] Kyle: 100%. Probably the people who work at the comic shop have never heard of Lore Olympus, too.

[19:47] John: Yeah, that would have not been possible in the 80s or 90s, to have a comic shop that sold that much. I mean, it would have just been literally not possible. What do you mean? It's not a comic book then? You said you have a 14-year-old daughter?

[20:00] Kyle: Our oldest daughter just turned 16 and my youngest will turn 14 this year. 

[20:03] John: They’ve probably read graphic novels or read graphic novels.

[20:07] Kyle: They read manga.

[20:08] John: My daughter was really into, I've gone on about this a lot on the show, but reading a zillion Babysitters Clubs.

[20:16] Kyle: Dog Man. My youngest likes Dog Man.

[20:18] John: Yeah, my son’s super into Dog Man. The idea that there's a transition that we try to trick them into reading Superboy is absurd. That’s a separate path.

[20:30] Kyle: I have a hot take on this, too.

[20:31] John: Okay, I'm interested.

[20:32] Kyle: All things that will make people mad at Kyle Starks. There was a point when the YA market was so strong, let's say four or five years ago, where it was great, they just started making only the same book over and over again. They started making the same thematic book over and over again. I had a call four or five years ago, to talk with someone about a pitch, and they're like, “we don't like it, because of this rule we have. All these story rules,” and I'm like, “What are you doing? That's crazy. You're making cheeseburgers. You're not making stories,” and now what happened is, all those people who love those books are at the point where they go, “it's now the same book over and over, and I guess I still like it,” but all of those kids, they went to manga. All of those kids went to manga because they're 15/16. It's a comic that's 20 years ago, and again, hot take, speaking out of class. We did the opposite of what Camel cigarettes did. We want the 15 to 18-year-olds. You should be obsessed with the 15 to 18-year-old. The older the audience gets, the thinner it gets. You want to keep growing the audience. I feel like we failed.

[21:31] David: I agree. I'm angry that there's still so many comic books that appeal specifically to me. No, that is not where we should get it now. There should be some things for me, but the majority of things should be exactly for the age group that you you're talking about.

[21:45] Kyle: The thing about the X Men, which I was reading when I was 12. It has an adult sexy thing that I never recognized. You know what I mean? Older you go, this guy has some fetish stuff, but the thing I think is worrisome is that when the pandemic happened, I think, is when manga, because everyone was watching the cartoons. It's “free.” Hulu’s not free but for your kid it is, is that manga benefited, and now that sales are down, it was 200% up, 250% up, and now it's not quite that high anymore, because people aren't trapped. You're not trapped, looking for something to do, obviously, but we had that moment with those early MCU movies, and we did nothing. We did nothing to make it any more inviting or easier, or engaging, and I don't understand that. It’s just hubris to me. I'm sure you guys have spoken to this. Why would you not put a QR code in the credits? You know what I mean? Why not just give away the five issues of Infinity Gauntlet? Why not just give it away? It doesn't make any sense to me. Except if you're like, “we’ve really got to sell these trades,” but growing makes money, and someone can email me and be like, “listen, they've done the research and your argument that some people just like comics isn’t real,” but I think it is real. I think at some point, again, everyone bumped into them, and you go “well, what was the age? What percentage of people?” It was a small. Listen, it was really small. There was a small percentage of people in my high school that were reading comics and enjoying superhero comics, but almost everyone in that school probably read one comic before then. I bet that's not true today. I bet, my kids, how many of you have ever read a superhero comic? I bet it’s a really small group that just read. Not enjoyed. Not got addicted. Just read.

[23:19] John: Yeah, but I bet the percentage of the kids that have read a comic book in some form.

[23:25] Kyle: Dog Man, for sure. There isn’t anything like it. That's the thing.

[23:29] John: And that's the thing. One of the things that I think is super interesting is, you have two things happening at the same time. The rise of middle grade graphic novels, and the second rise of manga, the post-2004, but you had all of that coming out at the same time that you had this world where all of a sudden everybody knew who Thanos was and what the Infinity Stones are. The stuff that was super geeky 15 years earlier, that was impossible, and that inability to connect the two was strange, but at the same time, I've entered into a phase where there is more Marvel Cinematic Universe content that exists now than I will ever watch. I don't have time to watch all the stuff I missed, and that’s crazy. If I watch a Captain America movie, the thing that drives me to go watch is the next Captain America movie, not go buy a Captain America comic because we don’t have enough Captain America product. No, I've got too much. Same thing with The Flash TV show. I love the WB Flash shows, or Arrow, all that stuff, but it never drove me to want to read a comic. It drove me to want to watch the next episode or watch the other show. That's where it's gotten weird with some of the superhero stuff, is that all of a sudden, you had mediums, like video games and films that could do the superheroes as well as comics could, which they couldn't. I've forgotten where I'm going with that. I'm just driving that car. I don't know where it’s going.

[24:55] Kyle: I think, when people love something, they want to own a piece of it, and certainly I think that's partially why anime is so popular, and manga is doing so well, is because you go get it and it's one-to-one. It is literally the thing you just watched, and that's the thing is, how do you do that with the history of Captain America? What's the book? Where do you start? My argument is, why didn't anyone try? Why wasn't there a Captain American Starter book? Oh, listen, we should just do the thing, call it the Starter's Guide to Captain America or whatever, and it's five good stories. Maybe they don't even align, and you just hope people think it's a cool cover. You know what I mean? It's so weird that we're like, “they'll come. It'll be fine.” Man, it's $6 or whatever, to get a comic book. That movie was $6, and it was two hours. What's the better deal? What are we selling here? So, they'll just buy a statue in a year? It just would be fine if whomever the movies story was based on was getting a percentage of that statue, but they aren’t. So, it's really interesting.

I firmly believe the industry is going to change more over the next three or four years. I think it has to. I'm really excited about it. I think people are going to start trying things. Maybe, I don't know what I'm talking about, but I feel like Diamond made it so it's hard for anyone to try anything because you're worried you're going to upset the retailers, and the retailers are worried about the publisher. Listen. All hands on deck. Let's throw some crazy stuff out there and see what happened. Let's just do it, and I think that there's a case in point in this whole thing is, because book talk’s a real thing, manga talk’s a real thing. They are driving sales for those mediums. There is no Comic Con. There is no comic influence.

[26:30] David: Kyle, this Podcast.

[26:32] Kyle: Here's the thing. The closest you get on the podcast, which there are, again, hundreds of them. You’ve got to find the one, which is great, because to me, there's only three forms of marketing in comics. There's me on social media, yelling, which means I'm just talking to the people who already listen to me. Useless. Two, there's previews, and retailers, which I'm putting together, which isn't fair because the retailer is their own thing, but getting a retailer to speak for you is not a thing you can get. I can't make that happen. I pray for that, and please retailers. I love you so much. Take care. I love you. All my books are so good. We love you, but it's previews, which is a paragraph synopsis in a 5000-page book that comes out every month, and you're lost in it, and number three is podcasts. I think podcasts are crucial, because today, someone's going to hear me talk, who's never heard me talk, and again, it's like going to a convention. You hope they like me, and hope they go “I'm interested. This guy seems interesting. I would check out his books. They're fun and they're funny.” They'll mostly only talk about industry and how hard it is to be a comic creator or something shitty, and probably sound like an asshole, which I don't love. So, the advertising is rough, and think about it, even in the influencers, there's so much right now that we have such a proof. James Gunn mentioned three books and they sold out. Obviously, we live in a world where if people were selling, it has to be James Gunn. I don't know. Maybe it does. That sucks, because it’s only one guy.

[27:53] David: James Gunn, Savior of Comics.

[27:56] Kyle: It shows you that if someone who people respect, and who they like, we're going, but it shows you that we can still sell comics. Comics can still be sold to an average passerby. Why aren't we trying? I think we're going to try a lot. I think I'm really optimistic in comics, which has never given me any reason to be optimistic. We have to do something smart or try something daring, but I really do believe that there's less stores. If our only form of distribution is stores, and there's less than there were three years ago, by whatever number that is, that's bad. Sales will be down. There is no solution to that, as is. If there's fewer gas stations, less gas is being sold. That's just how math works. So, I think it'll be interesting, and especially, you guys seem to be really interested in all the different things. I am, too, so I'm thrilled about it. I'm excited about it. I think, within reason, if a publisher was like “hey, we're going to do something stupid,” I'd be like, “let's do it. I'm here for it. What is it?”

[28:49] David: I do think that when these cycles come into play, there's opportunity for change, in ways that you don't always get. If it ain't broke, don't fix it, but I'm excited about, for one, Diamond not being the only distributor, only game in town. I think it is a huge game changer. That's a big deal, having more than one distributor again. I think diamond did serve a purpose in certain moments, to help things stay afloat at times when maybe it wouldn't. I mean, on the back end, on the down low, Diamond floated a lot of stores with a lot of credit. Thank God we had a single distributor that could do that. So, I think Diamond’s not the villain that sometimes they get painted to be, but it's also a singular voice and if they choose not to publish, if they choose not to carry you, you're dead in the water. So, having more distributors and more ways to distribute to stores is, I think, key. It's one of the big ingredients for growth, and we've got that now. Lunar seems to be figuring it out, in terms of distribution, and when you’ve got Penguin Random House in the room, those guys are huge heavy hitters. So, I think we're in a good spot there, and then again, we've got places like Kickstarter, Indiegogo, and Zoop, and all these other places to do distribution. So, I agree with you. I think it's a good time. I think what we need now is we need publishers to do some really heavy investing in talent. We need to pay talent, and we need to bring in big-name talent, and we need to put them on the big books, and I think we're going to see more money coming into the industry with that, not because we've got 30 different covers, but because you've got to stand with the people who you want to see and art that people really want to see.

[30:30] Kyle: The amount of times that I go to a convention, and no one's talking about the story. It's always about, “did you see that Peach Momoko cover?” You know what I mean? It's just a crazy time, and it's clearly a time of adjustment, in my opinion, and between yesterday, today, and whenever that happens, I'm just going to keep doing what I'm doing, which is trying to make stories people want to read and that people will enjoy.

[30:53] David: You’ve done a great job at it.

[30:54] John: We should talk more about that.

[30:58] Kyle: I'm trying. I think that's all you can do with that. What am I in this for? Like I said, repeatedly, I'm just trying to entertain people. Life sucks. I just want to entertain people. Sometimes, it's not funny. Sometimes, I think college should be fun, and that's what I aspire to do, and I think that's all you can do is, that I don't want people to talk about my cover. I want people to talk about my stories. Not that those covers aren't great. Those artists are doing good work. Love them. Love them so much, but what are comics? It’s characters and it’s stories, to me, and obviously, it's art. It's all those three things together, but when, collectively, there's 100 comics fans and they’re more excited about covers than a story, that’s very crazy to me.

[31:39] David: I think we solved comics. I think we did it.

[31:42] John: Another episode where we’ve solved comics.

[31:44] David: We solved everything. It's incredible how we keep doing this, John. Thank God, we wield the power that we do with this podcast, because I mean, I think the industry was worth 500 million, 750 million last year, but just this podcast alone, we’ve probably generated at least an extra quarter of a million worth of revenue for everybody. So, congratulations, John Barber. You are the Savior of Comics, and Kyle, thank you for also being as amazing as you are. Should we start calling you Jesus Starks?

[32:14] Kyle: No, don’t. Let's do this again, and next time we'll talk about my book.

[32:23] David: I really enjoyed reading through all of your work for the last couple years but specifically preparing for this podcast, I just had such a good time revisiting some stuff, but also reading some new stuff, and I have to say, man, I Hate This Place is not my jam, and it was my favorite thing. Some of the twists and turns in that book, it really caught me off guard, but it's all there. As a care careful reader, you laid everything out. You show it all.  There's no deus ex machina coming in at the last second or anything like that. You lay it all out, but even though you're showing your hand, the magic is still there. I'm still surprised and delighted. So, kudos to just everything. That piece, in particular, I Hate This Place, was just really good, and Artyom Toplin just did a bang-up job on the art. I feel like he really started coming to his own with that second volume. You said, it was one of his first professional?

[33:21] Kyle: His first ongoing series. It’s the second thing he did in America. He did an anthology story for Ice Cream Man. That's all he'd done before.

[33:31] David: You can see his growth through the issues, for sure, and by the end of it, I thought he had really started to come into his own with some of the visuals. Kyle, thank you so much for joining us today. Really appreciate it. What a pleasure it is to chat with you, and I am really looking forward to Pine and Merrimac and everything else you’ve got coming down the pike.

[33:51] Kyle: So many things coming out this year.

[33:53] David: Yeah. Is there anything in particular you'd like to talk about?

[33:56] Kyle: Nothing's been announced yet. There's going to be a lot of things announced, I think, over the next couple of months that I'm really excited about. I was doing seven books at the end of 2023. Seven books. The only thing is Pine and Merrimac’s coming on now. I think issue 3 comes out very soon. Issue 1 sold out. Unbelievable. Karate Prom, which is exactly what it sounds like, and I don't think I'd get in trouble, but they haven't announced yet, they're going to do a collective version of Rock Candy Mountain that comes out also, I think, in May or June. That's going to be a compendium. I'm very excited about that. My biggest comic regret probably is that it was two books. I just didn't know any better. It should have been one book, and I think it would have done it. SexCastle has sold steadily for me. Since it came out, stores championed it and it's easy to give someone if you want them to read something funny, I think. Rock Candy Mountain should have been the same thing. It's one of my biggest regrets. Rock Candy Mountain, I think, has benefited the most from Peacemaker and I Hate This Place. It's the one prior book of mine that people are really buying on mass. So, I know that's happening. I think I announced that. Image will not be mad because that book already came out. I mean, it already came out once. They won't be mad if I spoil the second time it's coming out. I’ve got a lot of exciting things coming out. Just this week, more exciting thing happening. So, it's a crazy busy time, and I'm trying to make sure I don't ruin anything by not being able to focus on it. That's what I've learned from last year. That's too many books. You have to say no to some things, and again, it's a ladder. Each stage, there's new problems. Old problems are replaced with new problems. That's never good, but I guess, it gets safer. The opposite of a real ladder, you get safer, the higher you go up, at least. A lot of good stuff coming up. It will be announced soon. I think things will be announced within the next three months. So, I'm very excited about it.

[35:31] David: Nice. I think your voice is refreshing at a time where comic books still tend to get a little grim and gritty. This nice refreshing spin and refreshing voice is nice to have. Bring a little bit more of the humor.

[35:47] Kyle: I think comics should be fun. I Hate This Place, to me, isn't very funny at all, but it's fun. I don't know. I think it should be fun, but that doesn't mean they're funny. Sometimes, they're not funny at all, and they're still fun.

[35:59] David: Fun is the correct word.

[36:00] Kyle: I want my entertainment to be fun, and I'm getting older. So, it's like, “Did you see that movie? That’s the best movie.” I'm like, “I don't have time. My day’s suck. I have teenage daughters. I just want to be distracted and laugh.” You know what I mean? I feel like comics used to really serve that function. Look at these guys fight each other in giant robot suits, and they're fighting gods, and that's my goal. That's my goal is that comics should be fun, and that’s what I’m trying to do, man. So, I appreciate that someone's getting that. Bring me back with the next big announcement. Bring me back.

[36:27] David: David Baker. We don't know when he does come on. He's just always there, lately. I just know that, by contract, we have to call him Eisner Nominated Dave Baker. That’s all I know. For Kyle, we can just say three-time Eisner Nominated. My big takeaway from this conversation is that your uncle's name is Tony Stark, and I think that you should really put that in your bio, at least, because saying that your uncle's Tony Stark, I think, can carry you a long way in this industry. I know you're just up-and-coming and you're just getting your feet wet, but I think Tony Stark's name can open some doors for you.

[37:02] Kyle: I've known him my whole life. It didn't do me a lot of good.

[37:07] David: Well, I think that's probably where we should wrap it. Thanks, everybody, for listening. We've been enjoying our chat with Kyle Starks. We will see you all really soon. Thanks, everybody. Bye.

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