S3E3 - Blue Moon Issue 1 with writer/artist Zach Cole

[00:00:00] Hello and welcome back to Kickstart My, A CrowdFunding Podcast.

[00:00:09] Today I talked with Zach from Blue Moon issue number one on Kickstarter.

[00:00:13] Zach has a Kickstarter for $5500 and he has 23 days to go.

[00:00:18] During my conversation with Zach we talked about his comic, some of his other rain works

[00:00:23] and why Kaju Monsters are just so damn awesome.

[00:00:26] So listen to the Udemyoo and then check them out by going to Kickstarter.com and searching

[00:00:30] Blue Moon issue number one take two or by following the link in our description.

[00:00:34] And now onto the episode.

[00:00:41] Hello and welcome to Kickstart My, the Kickstarter podcast,

[00:00:46] crowdfunding podcast. Sorry about that. I'm your host Sam Harper and this today we are

[00:00:53] meeting with Zach Cole of Blue Moon. How you doing Zach?

[00:00:58] Hello I'm doing all right.

[00:01:01] How was your day so far?

[00:01:04] It's been okay my son, I have a newborn son so it's been a little hard to

[00:01:10] go lately. I understand that well I don't have any kids in my own but I understand

[00:01:15] that. Yes, one of my sister's.

[00:01:17] Oh yeah. Just.

[00:01:18] Hector Hector's.

[00:01:19] Oh yeah.

[00:01:22] So let's just dive right into it. Can you tell us a little bit about the story?

[00:01:28] Story is about Jeremy Walker. He is attacked but he and his girlfriend are attacked by a

[00:01:35] werewolf and his girlfriend's killed. And then he the first, well I'm not going to get into that

[00:01:47] I guess but like the so basically he just goes on a hunt for that werewolf.

[00:01:54] Many counters like different monsters along the way.

[00:01:58] Yeah.

[00:02:01] It's inspired by the show Supernatural if you ever seen that?

[00:02:05] Oh no, I'm huge fan of it.

[00:02:08] Oh yeah. That was a big inspiration for this series.

[00:02:15] So it's a more of a revenge kind of thing.

[00:02:18] What about the first half is?

[00:02:20] Well, what made you think that this was the time to tell this story?

[00:02:26] I mean I know you've already written the story. Can you tell some people about that?

[00:02:31] Um yeah, I originally a while ago but like it was very early in my writing career and I just

[00:02:38] wanted to redo it and it was originally going to be a graphic novel series.

[00:02:43] So it's kind of fun just to get back into that, get it back to that format.

[00:02:48] Are you a fan of graphic novel series as a whole or is it just something that you just knew

[00:02:53] they had to be as a graphic novel series?

[00:02:56] Like comics and art and I used to draw comics when I was a kid.

[00:03:02] So yeah.

[00:03:06] Okay, what's your favorite comic book?

[00:03:10] Probably Project Nemesis.

[00:03:11] It's um, it's the one.

[00:03:15] Not familiar.

[00:03:16] Fortunately, I have written it though.

[00:03:19] It's based on a novel from Jerry Robinson.

[00:03:25] Okay.

[00:03:26] Cool.

[00:03:27] I'll tell you a little more about that.

[00:03:30] Yeah, it's a Kiju story.

[00:03:34] There's this monster called Nemesis.

[00:03:37] She's born from the DNA of some ancient monster that was found

[00:03:41] and a little girl that was murdered by her father.

[00:03:47] And she, it's basically in a revenge story so.

[00:03:50] All right, so I think you're noticing a revenge theme and some of the stuff.

[00:03:56] Yeah.

[00:03:59] I suppose I didn't really put that together subconsciously.

[00:04:02] I suppose I did that.

[00:04:06] That's fine.

[00:04:07] Yeah.

[00:04:07] A lot of things come together when you're subconscious and comes out in art.

[00:04:12] So earlier.

[00:04:15] Speaking of art, how was the creation process for this?

[00:04:20] Like it's pretty good.

[00:04:25] It's pretty cool, honestly, seeing it come to life from the page

[00:04:30] to the storyboards to like final art.

[00:04:36] We started with another group before this, so it's some of that's just going to be recreated

[00:04:43] in the new style.

[00:04:48] But it's been pretty cool.

[00:04:50] Like do you have any specifics you want to know?

[00:04:53] Well, no, I mean, as a, as a, I guess in general,

[00:04:57] how would you say the creation processes?

[00:04:59] Like from I have this thought for this character and this,

[00:05:04] this story that I want to tell too.

[00:05:06] I have a graphic novel that I want to show to the world.

[00:05:09] I'm pretty loose with like the way things are.

[00:05:13] Sometimes they don't turn out the way I think of them, but they turn out better somehow.

[00:05:19] So I'm pretty, I'm not like too picky, I guess, about how things should look.

[00:05:27] But they look, they turned out pretty cool though.

[00:05:31] Well, there are a lot of pretty cool stuff.

[00:05:33] Oh yeah, I like that we went with a more horror manga style.

[00:05:39] Yeah, I'm a big fan of horror and like I love horror comics or something that's

[00:05:43] fun to children's current one is one of my current favorites.

[00:05:46] So when I saw this, I was like, I gotta look more into it.

[00:05:50] Yeah, it's, I definitely inspired by anime with some of this stuff.

[00:05:54] Oh, you could tell.

[00:05:55] These are just an animal feel to it.

[00:05:58] Yeah, and that's what I wanted to first time they did more of the my previous artists.

[00:06:03] They did more of a just like horror comic style.

[00:06:06] But this one, I found them when I was doing the sequel series because I thought

[00:06:12] oh, the other ones in the works.

[00:06:14] So I'll try and start on the another one.

[00:06:19] Sometimes they work out that way.

[00:06:21] Yeah, but I'm glad that we're going back to Blue Moon so we can get more consistency.

[00:06:29] Oh, so any plans to adopt any of the previous stories?

[00:06:36] Um, yeah, like Blue Moon is just the start of what I have planned really.

[00:06:41] Can you elaborate more on this kind of my second series that I want to do is Kaiju

[00:06:47] epoch which basically takes, um,

[00:06:52] Blue Moon is more of a like a small scale story compared to that one.

[00:06:58] So as the name implies it just Kaiju and

[00:07:03] bunch of other stuff.

[00:07:05] Um, and it's a lot different than it's going to be a lot different than novels that I wrote.

[00:07:10] So if you had to say, you would, I mean, it's fair to say that you're a cardin fan, yeah?

[00:07:15] Oh yeah, a big Kaiju fan.

[00:07:18] I don't know if you said you would just depend out.

[00:07:19] What do you thought?

[00:07:20] So like, you know, Kaiju, this is pincon and like Pacific Rim and all that stuff.

[00:07:25] Love Pacific Rim the first one.

[00:07:26] The second one was alright.

[00:07:28] Um, like the monsterverse has been pretty cool.

[00:07:31] I like the monster stuff.

[00:07:33] I think they could do a little better with the human stuff.

[00:07:36] But

[00:07:39] I've, yeah, I've been a big fan of what's coming out so far.

[00:07:42] Cool.

[00:07:44] If you could have a crossover, would you have?

[00:07:46] Uh, I know the big ones Godzilla and Gamera.

[00:07:52] Uh, yeah, I would love the Gamera to come back.

[00:07:57] He's been going party log.

[00:08:00] And here I was thinking of just having the Pacific Rim no-bots on J. Yager's fighting events got zero.

[00:08:06] That would be cool too.

[00:08:07] That was my second pick.

[00:08:09] Oh, okay.

[00:08:11] So let's do a little more personal.

[00:08:14] What started you as a player?

[00:08:17] Uh, well, project nemesis.

[00:08:20] Um, I read that and I was like, hey, I want to make my own Kaiju story.

[00:08:25] Uh, so I wrote Suji Guamo.

[00:08:28] Uh, and yeah, that's where I went.

[00:08:31] So I went from there.

[00:08:33] Well, I was back in 2015.

[00:08:36] Yeah, so it was very, I mean, relatively recent.

[00:08:40] Yeah.

[00:08:41] Uh, and you said you've drove before like you do punks before.

[00:08:44] We got your started in art.

[00:08:46] We got to.

[00:08:50] Yeah.

[00:08:51] Yeah.

[00:08:52] All right.

[00:08:54] When did you start calling yourself all right now?

[00:08:55] When did you sit down and be like, okay, you know what?

[00:08:57] Yeah, I'm a writer.

[00:08:59] Probably after Suji Guamo, will he say it was pretty positive, positive, uh,

[00:09:05] like got positive reviews and stuff?

[00:09:07] Cool.

[00:09:11] So what was the, what was your favorite thing to work on?

[00:09:17] Hmm.

[00:09:19] I really love my Jeremy Walker series.

[00:09:23] Um, and on

[00:09:25] The final book

[00:09:27] that I'll probably ever write.

[00:09:29] Maybe not ever, but

[00:09:31] for a while at least.

[00:09:33] I think it's really good.

[00:09:35] I think it's really good.

[00:09:37] I like that series.

[00:09:39] I like that series and wrapping it up has been fun.

[00:09:43] How many books is it going to be?

[00:09:45] Five.

[00:09:47] Oh, most.

[00:09:49] Yeah. And this, this one

[00:09:51] there's a few books that are still

[00:09:53] I'm still like getting edited and stuff like that but like

[00:09:57] this last one's going to be a crossover between all of my books that I've written.

[00:10:01] Oh.

[00:10:03] Yeah. I don't have a PC rim style book that's coming out too.

[00:10:09] I love crossovers.

[00:10:11] Yeah. Crossovers are so fun.

[00:10:13] Yes.

[00:10:15] What's the hardest thing to do the work on?

[00:10:21] I don't know.

[00:10:23] Well, there was a story that I tried to write involving the Titanic and it just didn't work out well because

[00:10:29] you know, period pieces are as hard to write

[00:10:31] because you don't know how everything about them.

[00:10:35] You.

[00:10:37] Like Titanic Titanic?

[00:10:39] Yeah.

[00:10:41] Yeah.

[00:10:43] Yeah, and this one when it was supposed to be sunk by a monster.

[00:10:47] Oh.

[00:10:49] Okay. I can see that.

[00:10:51] So maybe I'll, I need to go back to that trying.

[00:10:53] I know my publisher wants to try and fix that one up.

[00:10:57] I can see that in the next folder.

[00:11:01] It would be so cool.

[00:11:03] It's like that there's a dark horse comic where Godzilla's something the Titanic is so fun.

[00:11:09] Oh, seriously?

[00:11:11] Yeah.

[00:11:13] I just recently read the 50 year war or oh yeah.

[00:11:17] That's good.

[00:11:19] I just finished that I think legal last month.

[00:11:21] Oh, half century.

[00:11:23] Yes.

[00:11:25] I don't know if you read it, but rulers of earth is really good.

[00:11:29] I like that's my list.

[00:11:31] Oh yeah.

[00:11:33] It's like the third in their main continuity.

[00:11:37] Because they have Godzilla.

[00:11:41] I have it over here was that kingdom of monsters.

[00:11:45] And then they have Godzilla worlds or yeah, world's greatest monster and then it's rulers of earth.

[00:11:53] Yeah, I'm actually, I wasn't super versed in the whole Godzilla comics.

[00:11:57] I read a lot of the movies, but around when Godzilla first came from was coming out and everyone's

[00:12:02] happening that up, somebody suggested half century one line

[00:12:05] and it looked interesting and then I had it on.

[00:12:07] Yeah, I had it on on comment.

[00:12:09] So I just read it and I loved it.

[00:12:11] So good.

[00:12:13] Oh yeah. Half century wars good.

[00:12:15] I need to go back and revisit that one.

[00:12:17] But like the one I do go back to the most of is rulers of earth is so good.

[00:12:21] I have to check that out next.

[00:12:23] Oh yeah.

[00:12:25] So I have a guess, but what's your favorite fictional character?

[00:12:29] Probably Nemesis.

[00:12:33] I guess.

[00:12:35] Favorite writer and artist?

[00:12:39] Jeremy Robinson, sorry, is my favorite writer.

[00:12:45] And artist is probably Matt Frank.

[00:12:49] Oh.

[00:12:51] And if you could write any mainstream comic, what would you love to take a shot at?

[00:12:59] Or a mainstream character or TV team, whatever?

[00:13:05] Probably Godzilla.

[00:13:07] It'd be fun to do something like with what first inspired me to do everything.

[00:13:13] You know, I don't really have any ideas, but if I was asked do I probably come up with some pretty quick?

[00:13:17] Yeah, no, don't want to let that up.

[00:13:21] See you go.

[00:13:23] Yeah.

[00:13:25] Okay, so in regards to your kickstarter, what's next?

[00:13:29] Well, if this one's successful issue two.

[00:13:33] There's I have six issues planned for the first series.

[00:13:39] And then like I mentioned before, Kaijuie pop.

[00:13:41] Like I have like six issues planned for three series so far.

[00:13:45] I have a written.

[00:13:49] One time.

[00:13:51] Any other any current type of operations with anyone else?

[00:13:55] Any of the any other writers or artists?

[00:13:59] Um, I'm working on a commission.

[00:14:01] I mean, I'm not working on it.

[00:14:03] Let me and a friend are getting the commission done.

[00:14:07] He's the right writer of primal warrior draft was all.

[00:14:13] Which is another cool Roblox comic.

[00:14:17] So I'm going to be on his podcast too.

[00:14:21] To talk about stuff.

[00:14:25] We'll put a link below in the bio if you guys want to check out the podcast.

[00:14:31] Yeah, it's not out yet, but I mean, who knows by the time this is out?

[00:14:37] Who knows of any spoilers for future content?

[00:14:41] Lots of monsters.

[00:14:47] That's a spoiler, but you okay?

[00:14:51] No, no, it's not a spoiler.

[00:14:53] I don't know what I can say for spoilers.

[00:14:57] I don't like spoilers.

[00:14:59] That's a good enough sign off on that.

[00:15:03] Anything else you want to say to the fans and other listeners out there?

[00:15:09] I'm really appreciate you guys helping me out and get this project funded so we can move forward with more.

[00:15:19] All right, well it was next talking to you.

[00:15:25] And I hope that your kick started as well.

[00:15:29] And we hope we get to see more of Blue Moon and more Tai Chi epoch and more of your other works in the future.

[00:15:36] Thanks. I hope so too, man.

[00:15:38] It's pretty exciting stuff.

[00:15:42] Yeah, it's just exciting stuff.

[00:15:46] Cool.

[00:15:48] All right.

[00:16:06] All right.