Storycraft

Black Jack Ketchum and Ultrasylvania writer/creator Brian Schirmer returns with an amazing breakdown of how he built a 3-peat success on kickstarter, as well as how each campaign evolved and how he survived them. We also get into his great work behind the scenes and in the classroom as a leading figure in the comic book curriculum at the Academy of Art in San Francisco, our habits that keep us creatively fresh, what we watch or read while we are on a project, and some very literal keys to the gates of a comic book career. It is a massively insightful episode that gets better with time, since it was recorded as a part of the original show, but is still one of the most informative episodes I've ever recorded- and now the editing doesn't suck!

Speaking of San Francisco, The Storycraft Podcast and Bitch Talk are performing a LIVE! Podcast Tag-Team at the Lost Church on Capp St, SF, NEXT FRIDAY June 2nd, featuring two incredible Bay Area specific guests! Listen to this episode to find out who!!

Get tickets now at ticketfly.com. $15 early bird tickets are going fast. After tht it's $20 and $20 at the door. Join us SF!

http://www.ticketfly.com/event/1483305-bitch-talk-storycraft-live-san-francisco/

Follow Brian Schirmer on twitter @brianschirmer, and on his site brianschirmer.com. Get his latest book Black Jack Ketchum, from Image Comics (beautifully drawn by Claudia Balboni), at your local comic shop or on Amazon.

Follow this podcast on twitter @storycraftpod, and support the show by subscribing, sharing, rating & reviewing on iTunes, and by visiting patreon.com/monkeygong or monkeygong.com/shop.

Follow me on twitter and instagram @kraigcomx.

In a slightly unconventional episode, Mike Dubisch and I use a handful of segments to garner our art-hustle-scattered minds and make sure we talked about something specific. We discuss particular breakthroughs we've recently had in storytelling, discuss who we are stealing from, get deeper into comics history while equating it to media being created now, and close out on surprise inspirations and a small shout out. Somewhere in there, Mike talks about some low level anxiety/hustle he is feeling about upcoming travel, and he reveals an interesting way he is going to experience his trip. A very practical episode, full of particulars about art and story, with plenty of us being dorks along the way!

Don't forget that the LIVE! Podcast Tag-Team is happening in San Francisco on Friday, June 2nd at the Lost Church on Capp Street. Please come out and join us for deep talks and lots of silly! Get $15 early-bird tix now at ticketfly.com:

http://www.ticketfly.com/event/1483305-bitch-talk-story-craft-live-san-francisco/

Follow Mike on instagram & twitter @mikedubisch but since he hates twitter you should just also follow him on Facebook where he posts a lot of art daily!!

Follow this show on twitter @storycraftpod and support the show by becoming a patron at patreon.com/monkeygong or by visiting and shopping at monkeygong.com.

Please subscribe, rate & review on iTunes, and share with your community to help spread the word!

Follow me on twitter and instagram @kraigcomx.

Or: How to make a micro budget film into a masterpiece! Producer of the superb film Electric Heart, and also very longtime friend, Scott Little talks about the long road bringing this film to life, his incredible army of talented collaborators, why this film is so unique in the way it uses an emotionally & pumping powerful EDM soundtrack, and why it is the first of it's kind. We also detail the ins & outs of almost every facet of production on the feature, including both pre & post production talk, and some downright exciting news about the near future of the project. Scott also gets into the future of his FilmDM/LifeFlip Empire and what is next on the horizon. This is a lexicon of what it takes to build your film once you have the story, and it delivers a boatload of specifics that left me miles more inspired to jump into directing than I already was. I'm very proud to be in the extended family of this excellent project, and equally proud of the detail and laughs this episode provides!

Keep up with Electric Heart on Instagram @electricheart, on twitter @_electric_heart, get involved and help bring, or find out about a screening in your city by visiting Electric Heart Movie Facebook. You can also see the terrific trailer there or on YouTube.

Follow this show on twitter @storycraftpod and support the show by becoming a patron at patreon.com/monkeygong or by visiting and shopping at monkeygong.com.

Please subscribe, rate & review on iTunes, and share with your community to help spread the word!

Follow me on twitter and instagram @kraigcomx.

Join us!! Get your tickets now for the LIVE! Podcast Tag-Team w the Bitch Talk Podcast and the Storycraft Podcast, on Friday, June 2nd at the Lost Church in San Francisco:

http://www.ticketfly.com/event/1483305-bitch-talk-story-craft-live-san-francisco/

The Black Monday Murders illustrator Tomm Coker chats with me in a familiar and somewhat noisy Hollywood motel room, about following your heart as an artist, navigating an idiosyncratic career, the flaw of superhero soap operas, and some strange perspectives on our work. Tomm shares an awesome story about a high profile portfolio gut punch that even I felt as he recounted it, along with some excellent inside peaks into early Image Comics as a company. We also talk around a strange connection we share from Sacramento, our mutual tendency toward Destructive Perfectionism (I'm soaking in it), tips about cover design, building your creative confidence, and how drawing comics makes you be the best version of yourself because drawing like someone else makes the job a lot harder. We also take a deep dive through Tomm's long career while we check off the list of his many, and mostly shared, influences. I think we manage to make the comic nerd talk fit into our larger chat about our work and the fundamentals of design.

Follow Tomm Coker on Instagram @tommcoker or on Facebook. The first trade of Black Monday Murders, written by Jonathan Hickman and gorgeous art by Tomm, as well as issue 5+, are available now at your local comic shop or online.

Go to http://www.ticketfly.com/event/1483305-bitch-talk-story-craft-live-san-francisco/ to get your $15 early bird tickets for the LIVE! Podcast Tag-Team at the Lost Church in San Francisco, Friday, June 2nd, 7:30pm.

Follow this podcast on twitter @storycraftpod and help support the show at patreon.com/monkeygong. You can also support the show by subscribing, rating and reviewing on iTunes, as well as by sharing with your friends.

Follow me on twitter & instagram @kraigcomx.

Last episode's guest, curator and art historian Tierney Hamilton returns for a short chat about what she's up to now at the Marin Cultural Association and how things have shifted, or rather been reinforced by national events. We kept things much more SFW this time, focusing on the absolute importance of communicating the importance of culture in times like these, parallels between now and the Summer of Love in 1967, some great insight about the psychedelic poster art of that time, a few historical tidbits, news about the related show she's building for the Marin County Fair (from June 30-July 4th), and we bring our talk of a certain photographer full circle. As rowdy as we got last episode, we get equally socio-political in this one. And the parallels in art history with modern times are endless.

Follow the Marin Cultural Center/Association on twitter & instagram @marincultural, on Facebook at Marin Cultural Association, and on their snazzy new site marinccultural.org.

Follow Tierney on twitter @tiernoodle and expect her to return in the future to discuss specific artists in much greater detail!

Get $15 early bird pre-sale ticket for the POdcast Tag-Team now at

http://www.ticketfly.com/event/1483305-bitch-talk-story-craft-live-san-francisco/

Follow this show on twitter @storycraftpod and help support the show at petreon.com/monkeygong, but also by subscribing, rating and reviewing it on iTunes. Then please share with your friends!

Follow me on twitter & instagram @kraigcomx and keep up with me at the above patreon or my site monkeygong.com

Art curator and art historian Tierney Hamilton sat with me for a deep, silly, and possibly naughty episode that went to some very surprising places. We chat about the story of art in society, how that story is presented in museums both in the U.S. and abroad, the value of art in modern times, how our connection to it has changed in the last century or so, and the destruction of Palmyra by ISIS being a sign of the times. We also delve into Bay Area changes, the mysteries of porn (yep), then (naturally) plastic surgery, before we take a hard turn into political correctness, satire, dating and stories about making fools of ourselves. It's an eye opening look at art from the daily perspective, which has more value to us as creators every day.

This episode was such a blast to record and I hope to make more like it.

Follow Tierney Hamilton on twitter @tiernoodle and visit her hard work at the Marin Cultural Center.

Follow this podcast on twitter @storycraftpod and help support the show at patreon.com/monkeygong or by subscribing on iTunes (or wherever you listen), then rating and reviewing the show to help increase the reach. Your ears are appreciated!

Follow me on twitter and instagram @kraigcomx. Support me at the above patreon, or by visiting and shopping at monkeygong.com.

After our last co-hosting adventure, I realized that Mike and I had made a grievous oversight in our initial Storyteller Bio roster picks, which shined a light on an unfortunate truth about 20th century comics that I somehow never admitted to myself. HINT: like almost everything else in America right now, it has do with race and gender. We take great pains to recognize the problem for what it is/was, and discover that for us it may not really be a problem, because it opens all kinds of intriguing doors for exploration. In the middle of it all, I shift gears to apologize for a slightly body shaming, careless statement I made during the previous episode with Jim Mahfood - a statement which has now been edited out. Yes, it's a correction-cast extraordinaire, but we manage to pack it with laughs, a few fun social discoveries, talk about the role critics have historically held in society, and how hard it is NOT to put your foot/feet in your mouth these days. These extra episodes are starting to be a total blast every time, which bodes well for the quality and entertainment value of the upcoming Storyteller Bio episodes. Stay tuned!

Follow Mike Dubisch on twitter @mikedubisch, follow him on facebook, and grab a copy of Mystery Meat Comics from dubisch.com or mystermeatcomics.com.

Follow this podcast on twitter @Storycraftpod and help support the show at patreon.com/monkeygong, by rating, reviewing and subscribing on iTunes, or by sharing with your pals.

Follow me on twitter and instagram @kraigcomx and keep up with my work and the show at monkeygong.com.

Jim Mahfood, (Grrl Scouts, Tank Girl, Clerks, Stupid Comics,) an iconoclastic, imagination powerhouse of a comic book artist, was my first guest on the original run of the Storycraft Podcast, and this is a much buttered-up-through-the-magic-of- editing re-release of that original episode. You would scarcely know it from how much better it sounds! The conversation remains as true today as it was then, in which we cover managing a 21st century art career in very specific ways, how superheroes do not represent all comics, but how they certainly created our love affair with the medium, and how that may be from frustration over industry trends, or just how certain people grow from reader to artist, and the shift in interests that ensue. We also talk a lot about diversifying as a creator to make a living, some of our influences who did the same, and the unique voice that comes along with innovation based on the rigors of a very challenging art form. I'm very pleased to present this again, and am delighted to find it as full of takeaways as any episode I might record today.

Celebrate Jim's return to where it all started, and pick up the new 6 issue limited series Grrl Scouts: Magic Socks, starting May 17th from Image Comics!!

Stay tuned for more info about the upcoming Live Storycraft/Bitch Talk crossover podcast in San Francisco, Friday June 2nd!

Follow Jim Mahfood on twitter @jimmahfood and keep up with his many exploits and live events at jimmahfood.com.

Follow this podcast on twotter @storycraftpod and support the show at patreon.com/monkeygong or by subscribing, rating, reviewing on iTunes, and/or sharing it on social media.

Follow me on twitter and instagram @kraigcomx and help support my work or follow me at the above patreon or at monkeygong.com.

Mike Dubisch and I sat in the car to have a quick talk about our plan for a very cool series of Storyteller Bio episodes, as the podcast expands to bi-weekly (because we are clearly not busy enough.) We share our reasons for mutually wanting to do this series, including our feelings about digital vs. traditional media and techniques, our love of highly influential and/or [recently] departed creators, and the exciting mysteries of unearthing semi-forgotten storytellers or works. Then I lump in my obsession with great history and true crime podcasts, (shout out to previous guests Gareth Reynolds, Jimmie Whisman & James Pietragallo,) which all comes together to inspire a deep dive into the history of story makers and personal influences. This was a blast to record, as you can tell from all the laughing.

The first Storyteller Bio drops next week, as we discuss our recently departed friend, Berni Wrightson.

Follow this podcast on twitter @storycraftpod, and support the show by joining the monkey army at patreon.com/monkeygong.

You can also support the show by subscribing, rating & reviewing on iTunes, and by sharing with your friends!

Follow me on twitter and instagram @kraigcomx, and help support my work and (again) this show by visiting monkeygong.com and listening, reading or shopping there!

Prolific, mystically imaginative and, dare I say, iconic comic book writer, television writer & novelist J.M. DeMatteis (Spider-man: Kraven's Last Hunt, Green Lantern: Willworld, Seekers: Into the Mystery, JL Dark, Scooby-Doo Apocalypse... whew!) joined me via a relatively well-behaved Skype connection for a terrific new episode!! We talk about the metaphysical underpinnings of his work, how I'm unabashedly in love with Willworld, how much it inspired/inspires me, as well as the legacy of that book and J.M.'s collaboration with the late, great Seth Fisher. We discuss our uncanny variety of shared themes, our similar lifetime obsession with metaphysics and the human mystery, including the inner journey in our work, sustaining a creative career and a helluva lot more. Top notch talk from one of my favorite guests to date, and full of more takeaways than one listen will provide.

Be sure to stay through the end to hear an AMAZING piece of comics history!

Find J.M.'s various works online or wherever you buy comics, including the new Vol. 2 collection of "the Adventures of Augusta Wind", and definitely pick up Willworld used (or on comixology) if you've never read it.

Follow J.M. DeMatteis on twitter @JMDeMatteis. Keep up with his site jmdematteis.com, where you can join his Imagination 101 workshops.

Folllow this show on twitter @storycraftpod and help support the show at patreon.com/monkeygong or by sharing, rating and reviewing on iTunes.

Follow me and my comics work on twitter and instgram @kraigcomx, and follow my upcoming webcomic on my site monkeygong.com, where you can also shop in the on-demand store!