WEBVTT
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[SPEAKER_01]: What's going on, everybody?
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[SPEAKER_01]: This is James Bremis, effects boys and you're here for another Facts Project.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Please, everybody, thank you for being here.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Today, I have Chris Robinson, editor for a lot of Marvel Projects, a lot of comic projects whatsoever, but today we're talking about a very special, very special comic.
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[SPEAKER_01]: It is the 70-Fitth Anniversary of Manufacturing, I think it's like the 70-Fitth Six.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Anniversary.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Yes.
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[SPEAKER_00]: But a few years now.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
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[SPEAKER_01]: I think it was actually, if I'm completely incorrect, it's about the 78th anniversary edition of All Negro Comics.
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[SPEAKER_01]: As of last week, it has now been remastered and distributed through Image Comics.
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[SPEAKER_01]: So thank you Chris Robinson for being here.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you, James, appreciate the time.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Absolutely, man.
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[SPEAKER_01]: So, let's talk about this in context because it is very important.
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[SPEAKER_01]: What initially drew you to the project of curating a book like this in the Anniversary Format in this edition of all Negro Comics?
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[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, well, I am a huge fan of comics, very deep in the comics and in about 2012
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[SPEAKER_00]: I stumbled upon it, purely by chance, that there was the existence of this, of this kind of called Balmy Girl Comics.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And I did more, you know, I had to really dig around and do some reading and there weren't that many resources about it, but it was fascinating that it was essentially the first black comic book, right?
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[SPEAKER_00]: It was the first time a black owned publishing company came together to create their own black characters.
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[SPEAKER_00]: uh, for the express purpose of, you know, uh, working against stereotypes at the time, a lot of, you know, uh, there are a lot of terrible, uh, you know, golden age, uh, black characters that were created by white folks that are, uh, you know, uh, not do a do a disservice to us, right?
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[SPEAKER_00]: Right.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And I was fascinated by it because I had, you know, I've heard of, you've heard of, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh,
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[SPEAKER_00]: All the comics that came out around the time of this book, you know, I'm talking about, you know, action comics, number one Batman number one, you know, third 39, you know, the 40s, like this, all new comics comes out 1947, then you have, you know, a couple of a decade plus later, you have fantastic four, you know, the first issue of Black Panther, like we know all these comics that came out around.
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[SPEAKER_00]: This comic, all Negro comics number one, and it's, but had never heard of all Negro comics number one.
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[SPEAKER_00]: So, when I found out about it, and the importance of it to history, I was shocked at, I was a little...
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[SPEAKER_00]: Well, sad, and that somebody wasn't being held to the same import and brought to the masses as this piece of history.
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[SPEAKER_00]: So I took it apart myself, like in 2012, I was just trying to get into comics.
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[SPEAKER_00]: In by 2015, I started working in Marvel Comics, and I worked there for like six years, and then around the pandemic.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I, you know, went independent and I started doing my own stuff and and I remembered this, this, you know, only your comics and I was a project that I wanted to, you know, resurrect it a bit in a certain way and so I threw my all my effort towards that, you know, creating a.
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[SPEAKER_00]: You know, like I said, there weren't that many resources, you know, about it.
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[SPEAKER_00]: So I wanted to create a resource that people could have access to the book, the history of the book, and then have some fun with the characters beyond that, because that's always important to me as well.
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[SPEAKER_00]: So that's where I started, and that's where we landed, and then by 2022, that's when I did a Kickstarter, and we put the book out.
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[SPEAKER_00]: independently.
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[SPEAKER_00]: We did a hard cover version and that one was titled Only Go Comics 75th Anniversary Edition was the hardback version and then sold really well and it continues to sell.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I sold through that stock very quickly and I was able to work at a deal with image comics where they would publish a soft cover version under the title on the Go Comics colon America's first black comic book.
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[SPEAKER_00]: and so now that is a soft cover so it's much cheaper and it's has you know a wide distribution through Simon and Schuster so it's like even more accessible because you know if the game plan was like how do I get how do I get this project this 1947 golden age piece of trivia in front of people this was the next step and getting it into
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[SPEAKER_00]: You know, stores, libraries, et cetera, through wide distribution, that way.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Definitely.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Now, would you be in the editor of this edition?
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[SPEAKER_01]: We'll be like some of the biggest challenges that you've probably faced and remastering and basically contextualizing an archive work like this.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I mean, I, you know, I'm not a, I wouldn't call myself a historian by any, you know, any, any stretch.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I rely on a lot of great people.
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[SPEAKER_00]: That's that's what good editors do they find the best people to work with them.
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[SPEAKER_00]: So I got to give so on the restoration front Tony Washington who's an incredible colorist and actually, you know, illustrator and his own right.
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[SPEAKER_00]: So.
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[SPEAKER_00]: He had worked for Wild Storm back in the day, if you remember them, part of the part of the image crew, and then, so he did the restoration.
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[SPEAKER_00]: He took the, we had some scans, and he sort of re-colored them, but kept the old flavor of how, you know, he didn't try to make it look like new or totally cleaned up.
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[SPEAKER_00]: It still has some of the noise and cracks of age,
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[SPEAKER_00]: much more readable and complete, you know, a lot of the scans out there, a lot of copies out there, like damage, water damage, or just straight up just rift and half, you know, so he was able to put together, you know, some really pristine looking pages that are, you know, we didn't, again, like I don't want to overstate like he didn't add anything or change anything or draw anything new, like it's taking what they existed and just sort of like sprucing it up and putting it together.
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[SPEAKER_00]: So it's sort of, you know, it has a little bit more, you know, you're not fighting to read it, okay?
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[SPEAKER_00]: So that's that part of it.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And then the in terms of the history part, I worked with Dr. Keanu witted, who is a comic scholar, who, you know, her book, desegregating comics, is very, also talks about the golden age of comics and race and like, you know, how we got into,
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[SPEAKER_00]: the industry in that time, you know.
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[SPEAKER_00]: So she is the name in terms of comic historians who focus on that era.
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[SPEAKER_00]: That specifically that 40s era.
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[SPEAKER_00]: She also has another book called,
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[SPEAKER_00]: about race and easy comics, which is also super fast today.
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[SPEAKER_00]: So I would, anybody who reads only your comics or is intrigued by this conversation, I told them they should also seek out those other books.
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[SPEAKER_00]: But she has an essay that talks that has the full history of like the all the folks that worked on it and you know, where it started, you know, started in Philadelphia, Warren C. Evans, like all the details,
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[SPEAKER_00]: um to write like a school paper on the book, right?
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[SPEAKER_00]: So it's that's it's a it's a it's very functional that way and so she handled that essay and then there are a couple other essays in there and then we did some new stories that you know it's just for fun.
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[SPEAKER_00]: But again, like I got a, I shot out, you know, if you're asking me how it's got done, I got, I got, you got done with the help of some really, really talented other folks helping me along the way.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Byrd, and I am, I'm actually familiar with you on a way to because the geographically speak great, because rockers, rockers University is basically where she compiled at most of most of those two books and everything from that area.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And then also just the book itself,
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[SPEAKER_01]: Um, originally the team that that put that together was a part of the Philadelphia record, which was, which I could think when the funked in like 1947 and ultimately became the number of the inquire, which is our new newspaper now.
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[SPEAKER_01]: I live in South Jersey.
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[SPEAKER_01]: So we're more okay.
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[SPEAKER_01]: We're more correlated to Philly than we are to New York.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, yeah, that's a cool thing.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Like you roughly speak in this kind of like it melds in because we're all very familiar with it, but the more that it's come out and more it's being reintroduced as it is right now.
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[SPEAKER_01]: It's always like a big thing.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Now the new addition, what we're talking about like the featured essays, which we just talked about with Keanu wetted and the new story is by a lot of these,
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[SPEAKER_01]: great black creators and the digitally remastered version of the original issue.
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[SPEAKER_01]: How did you decide which new creators to include?
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[SPEAKER_00]: That is interesting.
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[SPEAKER_00]: So was there with a lot of people?
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[SPEAKER_01]: Was there a criteria?
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[SPEAKER_00]: The criteria is I, you know, I wanted to work with you.
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[SPEAKER_00]: So you see a lot of people
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[SPEAKER_00]: Uh, he and I had to, you know, back to my Marvel days.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I, he had done a bunch of issues of, uh, moon girl double dinosaur, you know, a few other things here and there over the years.
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[SPEAKER_00]: So he was an easy call to make.
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[SPEAKER_00]: There, you know, there were just some other folks that I had seen, you know, on on Instagram, you know, that I just, I like their work.
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[SPEAKER_00]: They fit the criteria.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, part of the criteria is you had to be black on some level, right?
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[SPEAKER_00]: That's a good criteria to start with, right?
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[SPEAKER_00]: But after that, that is just like, I got to like you or, you know, and then also, you know, you have to be enthusiastic about, yet to be, you know, I wanted to get people who believed in the, and what we were doing, you know, wholesale, you know, just from the, you know,
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[SPEAKER_00]: reintroduction, I guess you would say of these characters back in the the spotlight, you know, they're because they're super cool characters, even though they're from 1947, I mean, you know, Superman is from the, you know, the, you know, the 30s, right?
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[SPEAKER_00]: And then he's super cool, too.
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[SPEAKER_00]: So, but, um,
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[SPEAKER_00]: You'd be surprised for a comic written in 1947 and you know other than a few few things here and there like it still reads pretty modern, you know, it's not it's not a hard read at all.
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[SPEAKER_01]: So yep.
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[SPEAKER_01]: I actually had like a podcast earlier this month with David brothers who has, right there.
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[SPEAKER_01]: I love that guy.
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[UNKNOWN]: Yeah.
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[SPEAKER_01]: So who has an essay in the new remastering of the book?
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[SPEAKER_01]: And one of the things we were almost done our podcast and towards the end, it was like, hold on.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Before we finish, I have to shout this out.
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[SPEAKER_01]: He talked about all Negro comics, like, in full detail.
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[SPEAKER_01]: He talked about the essay that basically he put forth in this particular volume.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And how much it meant to him?
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[SPEAKER_01]: So just, I'm for one unplugging my, like he's like, I'm plugging my book already, but look.
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[SPEAKER_01]: you really got to see this.
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[SPEAKER_01]: If you are either a creator in this space or a fan in this space, it's almost something that you need to have.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And if you want to understand the cultural significance of black folks in comics, isn't it?
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[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, absolutely.
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[SPEAKER_00]: It's a puzzle piece, like without it, you do not have a full picture of the industry as it is, you know?
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[SPEAKER_00]: And then I, you know, I got a, David is incredible.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I was always been a fan of his back to his, you know, critics days on fourth letter, comics Alliance, like I was always always a fan of his.
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[SPEAKER_00]: We never.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And never had a chance to really work with him.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And so, you know, when I was putting this together, I was thinking about, you know, who, you know, again, who do I like, who fits that criteria, but also, you know, he jumped out immediately, you know, and he was like immediately like, oh, here's, here's, finally, here's an opportunity where I can give this guy a call and see if we can do something.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And I'm really lucky that he, he agreed.
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[SPEAKER_00]: He was, he was available.
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[SPEAKER_01]: That was great.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And now how much the original character's ace Harlem line man, stories that you could preserve, where they unchanged, like how how much the adaptation was required.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, you know, the full, the full on-eagram number one is in there on touch, like cover to cover.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, that's in there.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Nothing, nothing's been cut, nothing's been altered.
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[SPEAKER_00]: That's in there.
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[SPEAKER_00]: The new stories, we tried to do it.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I would call it like Batman, the animated series style, where it's definitely has modern sensibilities, but nobody has a cell phone or something.
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[SPEAKER_00]: It's kind of more timeless than it's supposed to be.
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[SPEAKER_00]: We didn't update them, I would say.
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[SPEAKER_00]: It was just like, hey, let's just tell another story with these characters.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And
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[SPEAKER_00]: You know, could that it take place in 1947 or did it take place last week?
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[SPEAKER_00]: It could go either way.
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[SPEAKER_00]: It's like, you know, it's just it's just, uh, it's just, you know, open, uh, it's open to interpretation.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I guess you could say, um, but, uh, but yeah, I mean, you know,
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[SPEAKER_00]: I don't, they don't really need an update.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, they are a public domain.
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[SPEAKER_00]: So folks want to go out and do their own take on a character, that's type of thing, go for it.
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[SPEAKER_00]: But I think, you know, the character, the looks and the designs and the names and all that stuff, I think that's super cool stuff, you know, I'm for it.
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[SPEAKER_01]: that is definitely now the original publisher on Evans of course the trailblazer of this and basically was the the personate ultimately just put this group together to make make this first first particular issue what do you feel like his greatest legacy is like what is to be honest like if there was something that's held him about man putting this together both in his
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[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Well, he orncy ovens is a fascinating character on his own, even if he never made this book, right, this comic book, he would be fascinating because he was like the first journalist to break the color barrier.
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[SPEAKER_00]: So he was, you know, a black reporter writing for white newspaper is like truly like he has a NAACP or like he's truly like on his own super
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[SPEAKER_00]: Right.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Um, and he, uh, I guess what I would tell him is like, it worked.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Cause so, so in the beginning of at the, the very start of the issue, the Omigo comes to number one from 47.
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[SPEAKER_00]: He, he gives, uh, he writes like a letter from the editor, uh, where he talks about, you know, what, or his aspirations with this project, you know, that, you know, and it's everything that we've been talking about in terms of like
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[SPEAKER_00]: positive stereotypes or positive portrayals of black folks in media and, you know, sort of fighting the negative stereotypes that were out there at that time.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And, you know, teaching, teaching, having something for the whole family, because it's a, it's a, it's a comic book, but it's like, it's not just a superhero story.
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[SPEAKER_00]: There's a, there's a, there's a crime story.
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[SPEAKER_00]: for babies essentially like it's you know very very young uh... there's pro stories so like he created something that's for the whole family and i guess i would you know one him to know that like a we still remember the book thank you thanks for making it used to be you know with still around we're doing our uh... we're we're keeping keeping it uh... as you know as public as putting a spotlight as much as we can but also you know
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[SPEAKER_00]: We as a community have like grown beyond like I tell him about milestone comics.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I would probably blow his mind right.
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[SPEAKER_00]: That was, you know, 20 something 20 something years after he passed right so to he didn't he never, you know, a milestone would be something he would I'm sure be fascinated to hear more about and
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[SPEAKER_00]: You know, just the impact that we, you know, that we have on culture, you know, that would probably blow his mind.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, that would be a real fascinating conversation that was like one of the other things that like I connected with right because every project, especially this project, but every project you're always trying to find what you.
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[SPEAKER_00]: what what makes it mean more to you like what where's what are your what are your touch stones on it and you know him is obviously you know I didn't break the color barrier in comics but like I'm very used to going into publishers and being one of either the only or you know one of two black folks working in comics at a winning one time and so in that way like I sort of
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[SPEAKER_00]: I want, like, I don't want to over, I don't want to overstate, but I feel like that meant a lot to me that he was, he was making a space for us, even back then.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And then, you know, you have my own son in the 90s making a space for us again.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And then, you know, Fitzgerald publishing in the 70s also making, that's another black on publisher that's not a lot of people know about that I'm interested in getting more attention on as well.
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[SPEAKER_00]: We're here.
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[SPEAKER_00]: We've been here.
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[SPEAKER_00]: We're persisting and that made that made me feel
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[SPEAKER_01]: And it just gave me like a little bit more gas in the tank, you know, yeah, yeah, now every achievement of course is met with its own challenges, even with this particular book, the original print run.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And if it literally, as it was put up in the description with through image comics, one of those put out, it says that the original print run was quickly removed from new stands and faded into security.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Why was all Negro comics inaccessible for years?
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[SPEAKER_00]: Well, I mean, that's a good question.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I think there's two, there's a couple of things about that.
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[SPEAKER_00]: So why was it, what happened was they did the number one, they did the, and this is all covered in the book.
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[SPEAKER_00]: So I'm just going to give you the quick version.
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[SPEAKER_00]: But they did the book, they did not, only go kind of number one.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And it's not like,
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[SPEAKER_00]: They just made it to stands and then once it was on stands, then news stand owners and the printer and all these folks figured like found out essentially what that book is right because I assume I assume that when they were when they got the orders, you know, the, the, the, you know,
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[SPEAKER_00]: They wasn't a catalog back then, but when they would found out like, okay, we have this week all Negro kind of summer one is coming.
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[SPEAKER_00]: They probably imagines something much different and much more, you know, um
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[SPEAKER_00]: Uh, full of, um, you know, picking any characters, that type of thing.
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[SPEAKER_00]: It's something stereotypes characters.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, it's stuff that we would, you know, that's probably what they imagine.
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[SPEAKER_00]: But what they got was a book that celebrates, uh, black folks shows a, a very wide variety of black characters, um, you know, just something just something that,
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[SPEAKER_00]: was for the uplifting, which I literally is a quote from Oran's letter in the beginning of the book, for the uplifting of black culture, right?
20:40.008 --> 20:44.433
[SPEAKER_00]: And so they started taking copies down, destroying copies, getting rid of it.
20:44.894 --> 20:48.598
[SPEAKER_00]: And then the paper mill refused to...
20:48.578 --> 20:51.522
[SPEAKER_00]: you know, cell copies for issue 2, which where they were already working on.
20:51.902 --> 20:57.910
[SPEAKER_00]: And the back of the number one, ANC number one, there's an ad for number 2, right?
20:58.030 --> 21:00.093
[SPEAKER_00]: Because it was supposed to be a monthly book.
21:00.554 --> 21:03.658
[SPEAKER_00]: And then that doesn't happen because they couldn't get the paper to do it.
21:03.678 --> 21:09.826
[SPEAKER_00]: So it's like, you know, that's so that's why it goes the way so quickly, right?
21:10.286 --> 21:14.772
[SPEAKER_00]: And then at the time to, you know,
21:15.528 --> 21:19.954
[SPEAKER_00]: And up until a certain period, like, how much folks are very disposable?
21:19.974 --> 21:26.444
[SPEAKER_00]: They're not meant to, you know, they're not thought of as IP and like, hey, we gotta, you know, we can make money off this forever.
21:26.464 --> 21:26.924
[SPEAKER_00]: That's everything.
21:27.084 --> 21:30.950
[SPEAKER_00]: That's more of a more modern thought process, right?
21:32.212 --> 21:33.293
[SPEAKER_00]: They're not as good as I.
21:33.894 --> 21:35.396
[SPEAKER_01]: They're like comic strips for the next year.
21:35.416 --> 21:36.658
[SPEAKER_01]: But they're the funnies.
21:37.499 --> 21:48.994
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, yeah, yeah, their thought of is a thing you read once laugh or not, and then forget about right, so another reason I think too why these characters are sort of not.
21:49.767 --> 21:56.657
[SPEAKER_00]: you know, protected or uplifted the way, you know, Superman, Batman, you know, whoever, or ours, like nobody owns them, right?
21:56.677 --> 22:04.368
[SPEAKER_00]: They're, you can't really, you can't quite make money with them the same way that you can with those other characters, because they have like a corporation.
22:04.408 --> 22:08.434
[SPEAKER_00]: That is, that is, trying to, you know,
22:08.414 --> 22:12.122
[SPEAKER_00]: extract funds from it, right.
22:13.204 --> 22:19.017
[SPEAKER_00]: So these characters, since since they're in public domain, it's harder, it's much harder to make money with them.
22:19.057 --> 22:24.448
[SPEAKER_00]: So no one's like mining the store, and I, and you know, everyone that worked on it, too, like,
22:24.428 --> 22:28.673
[SPEAKER_00]: again, like I said, like at the time, this is, it's a very disposable medium.
22:29.093 --> 22:35.000
[SPEAKER_00]: So they did these, and then forgot about it and worked, you know, they started thinking about, you know, where's the next check coming from?
22:35.020 --> 22:35.481
[SPEAKER_00]: You know what I mean?
22:35.501 --> 22:42.429
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, it's not, they didn't think of it is like, oh, I've created Ace Harlem, you know what I mean?
22:43.170 --> 22:47.635
[SPEAKER_00]: They did, they, you know, they did a detective story, and then, you know, they were doing a, um,
22:48.475 --> 22:52.941
[SPEAKER_00]: you know, drawing a news paper ad the next week, you know what I mean, that's something.
22:53.802 --> 23:02.673
[SPEAKER_00]: So yeah, so, you know, it's it's like it's both a money thing, but it's also a time, you know, the time of their creation thing.
23:03.534 --> 23:09.261
[SPEAKER_00]: And but at the end of the day, you know, it doesn't matter that that stuff doesn't matter to me.
23:09.281 --> 23:13.547
[SPEAKER_00]: And like I just wanted, I just wanted to make sure that it wasn't forgotten about.
23:13.627 --> 23:16.170
[SPEAKER_00]: So in the only the only way I knew how I was to make it.
23:16.994 --> 23:21.823
[SPEAKER_00]: available again in a way that is
23:22.563 --> 23:23.724
[SPEAKER_00]: functional, do you know what I mean?
23:23.784 --> 23:52.536
[SPEAKER_00]: I talked about it already in terms of like, you know, that's what the essay, that's why the essay is there, that's why the new stories are there, that's why it's there, whether it's why we're remastered it, it's like, you know, making it a functional thing that people can refer to, like, it's kind of boring to call it a reference book, but it is kind of more of a reference book than anything else, you know.
23:52.516 --> 23:55.339
[SPEAKER_01]: create a comics and even creators.
23:56.620 --> 24:04.329
[SPEAKER_01]: What would you say, is there a connection that's in terms of like the industry access, the audience themes?
24:06.051 --> 24:06.931
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, absolutely.
24:06.992 --> 24:14.399
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, it's unfortunate, you know, I would, I would love to say that, you know, things are a lot different than 1947.
24:15.300 --> 24:16.802
[SPEAKER_00]: They're not that different.
24:17.255 --> 24:20.658
[SPEAKER_00]: out, but I think they can be different.
24:20.678 --> 24:41.980
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think, you know, they're planning a folks out there doing books, you know, if not literally, like, I don't know how many people are saying, like, I'm just, I'm doing it just like, like Warren would, but like, you know, it definitely in the same spirit in terms of getting, you know, putting ourselves on the page in a way that is,
24:42.162 --> 24:43.823
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, we can feel good about, you know what I mean?
24:43.843 --> 24:56.094
[SPEAKER_00]: I would say like, you know, I love what I love with like Cody Ziggler has been doing on Miles Morales, the Spider-Man, you know, for almost like 50 issues now, right?
24:56.134 --> 25:03.920
[SPEAKER_00]: So like, that's pretty cool and especially, especially cool to see a Miles that is obsessed with anime, right?
25:03.940 --> 25:11.747
[SPEAKER_00]: Because I feel like I know so many guys that are huge
25:11.727 --> 25:19.675
[SPEAKER_00]: So yeah, like, and then, you know, is Cody writing is thinking like, man, this is just like that.
25:19.775 --> 25:22.558
[SPEAKER_00]: Probably not, but I see the spirit.
25:22.618 --> 25:23.920
[SPEAKER_00]: I see the connection, you know.
25:24.941 --> 25:30.106
[SPEAKER_01]: Now, now you talked about this being like a close to a reference book, even though you didn't want it to be that.
25:30.867 --> 25:41.498
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, this edition includes like a discussion guide and a resource list.
25:42.440 --> 25:45.703
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, it was baked in from the jump.
25:45.743 --> 26:02.761
[SPEAKER_00]: Like when I did the Kickstarter, part of one of the best things I did there was create a donation, essentially a donation program where people could pay a little more and have a book sent to schools libraries, that type of thing.
26:03.161 --> 26:11.890
[SPEAKER_00]: So we donated like 500 copies of the run, of the print run to schools libraries.
26:12.224 --> 26:27.744
[SPEAKER_00]: you know, to to make sure to so that it's just to make it totally easy and every every place that got a don't got a donation copy also got a separate discussion guide that now appears in the soft cover on the on the last page.
26:28.465 --> 26:28.825
[SPEAKER_00]: Wow.
26:29.026 --> 26:37.236
[SPEAKER_00]: So this this the they it would just it seems,
26:38.178 --> 26:48.292
[SPEAKER_00]: people laughed about it and somebody who were interested in it that it was just like makes it makes, you know, it made a lot easier to just put it in the book for the mass mass market edition, you know.
26:48.312 --> 26:48.792
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
26:48.812 --> 26:52.217
[SPEAKER_01]: Now, you talked about Tony Washington of course being in the book.
26:52.277 --> 26:53.899
[SPEAKER_01]: These are all like newly added stories.
26:54.540 --> 26:55.201
[SPEAKER_01]: Mike a Peters.
26:55.281 --> 26:56.363
[SPEAKER_01]: We talked about David Brothers.
26:56.963 --> 27:07.678
[SPEAKER_01]: Um, I mean, the adding all of these creators, uh, it provides new directions, the re-interpretations, uh, did those start to emerge
27:10.915 --> 27:13.178
[SPEAKER_00]: Uh, I don't, I'm not sure.
27:13.198 --> 27:16.962
[SPEAKER_00]: I think, uh, you know, everyone, like I said, I went to folks.
27:17.182 --> 27:21.828
[SPEAKER_00]: It's not like they had, um, burning, you know, they, it wasn't, this wasn't on their bucket list, right?
27:21.848 --> 27:28.355
[SPEAKER_00]: It was just like, I, I proposed like, oh, would you, you know, would you ever considered writing a, you know, doing a story with this character?
27:28.375 --> 27:28.916
[SPEAKER_00]: That's everything.
27:28.936 --> 27:31.319
[SPEAKER_00]: And when they heard, when they heard about it, they were like, oh, that's, that's dope.
27:31.339 --> 27:31.699
[SPEAKER_00]: Let's do that.
27:32.039 --> 27:32.540
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
27:32.560 --> 27:32.620
[SPEAKER_00]: Um,
27:33.443 --> 27:46.947
[SPEAKER_00]: But I mean, they can, and I'll tell you what, in the promotion and the discussion of the book, when people find out about these characters, I'd run into a ton of, you know,
27:48.395 --> 27:53.744
[SPEAKER_00]: I run into a ton of black talent, either writers or artists who are like, oh, this is really cool.
27:53.764 --> 27:57.971
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm gonna do my own story with a Starlem or whoever, right?
27:58.352 --> 28:13.457
[SPEAKER_00]: And that's like, you know, if you wanna see, if we're tracing the effects of the 47 book to say that, hey, that's a pretty good, you know, ripple effect, you know, to the present, right?
28:13.437 --> 28:24.628
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, because I believe what was at one kickstarter, Troy Jeffery Allen, a good friend of ours, actually did a reinterpretation of Ace Harlem for his Afro Futures book.
28:24.727 --> 28:27.031
[SPEAKER_00]: That's right, on the gross squad, it's super cool.
28:27.051 --> 28:31.497
[SPEAKER_00]: He's been showing me pages as they get done and I can't wait to read the whole thing.
28:32.339 --> 28:42.093
[SPEAKER_00]: But truly, like, that's the type of thing that I'm talking about where people, either, you know, find out about these characters or saw what I was doing and get inspired to actually do their version.
28:42.154 --> 28:48.463
[SPEAKER_00]: Or, and they, like I said, it's all public, how many different interpretations of Frank is lying on there, right?
28:48.864 --> 28:50.987
[SPEAKER_00]: Everybody can do, like,
28:50.967 --> 28:52.188
[SPEAKER_00]: and it's hard on if they want.
28:52.248 --> 28:53.850
[SPEAKER_00]: Everybody can do a line if they want.
28:54.030 --> 29:19.354
[SPEAKER_00]: Everybody can do a do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do
29:19.553 --> 29:25.940
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, it's all, it's a little bit positive, like I have not seen, you know, I mean, I have very few negative interactions really to the book.
29:26.901 --> 29:43.080
[SPEAKER_00]: Most of the thing that I guess I'm most happy about is when I get emails or calls from librarians, yeah, you know, I'll send them a bunch of copies, they'll get it out there and then they'll write me back a couple weeks later saying we can't keep it in.
29:43.060 --> 29:44.321
[SPEAKER_00]: We can't keep it on the shelf.
29:44.382 --> 29:47.345
[SPEAKER_00]: People keep taking the book out, you know, and that's great.
29:47.625 --> 29:48.626
[SPEAKER_00]: That's exactly what I wanted.
29:48.646 --> 29:55.975
[SPEAKER_00]: I wanted it to be super accessible and there's nothing more accessible than, you know, public libraries or school, you know, public school libraries.
29:55.995 --> 29:56.535
[SPEAKER_00]: That's type of thing.
29:56.555 --> 29:57.537
[SPEAKER_01]: So yeah.
29:57.557 --> 30:04.805
[SPEAKER_01]: Now, somebody who's, who's edited major titles, you talk about, uh, you work on Black Panther, Moon Girl, and Devil Time, dinosaur.
30:05.205 --> 30:10.131
[SPEAKER_01]: What is this project meant for you professionally, or even personally to you?
30:11.073 --> 30:24.390
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, it's definitely very, very personal, like I said, like it was, say, it was interesting for me to like tie back to, you know, the first black editor, right?
30:24.877 --> 30:29.223
[SPEAKER_00]: And there have been lots of great black editors since then, right?
30:29.243 --> 30:37.995
[SPEAKER_00]: And then I think I talk about this in my forward of the book, but like Christopher Priest, who's an writer, used to be an editor at Marvel.
30:38.776 --> 30:46.146
[SPEAKER_00]: And of course, the late-grade Dwayne McDuffie, very important guy, editor, turn writer.
30:46.246 --> 30:50.412
[SPEAKER_00]: And yeah, so personally it feels really great.
30:50.432 --> 30:53.736
[SPEAKER_00]: But professionally, it's been, you know,
30:54.695 --> 31:24.246
[SPEAKER_00]: I worked on a lot of great stuff at Marvel Comics and other places and some of that stuff is one of words too, but I can't really lay clay or I can't, I don't own those the way I own this one, not to say that I own only your comics because I don't, but I in terms of like this book definitely would not have existed without me, you know what I mean?
31:24.496 --> 31:32.970
[SPEAKER_00]: But yeah, it's, it's, you know, it is taking me, you know, it's definitely taking,
31:33.203 --> 31:36.027
[SPEAKER_00]: given me more than I ever ever thought.
31:36.067 --> 31:40.452
[SPEAKER_00]: So I mean, and more than I ever thought, I also thought nothing, right?
31:40.472 --> 31:50.305
[SPEAKER_00]: Because I didn't get into it because I'm like, oh, great, here's, you know, I let me let me see what I can squeeze out of this 75 or a little another notch on my belt.
31:50.865 --> 31:54.850
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, yeah, that's that's the wrong way to go into any sort of creative project.
31:55.251 --> 31:55.732
[SPEAKER_00]: Yep.
31:56.252 --> 32:02.400
[SPEAKER_00]: I this this I wanted to this because I was like, this is so important and I and I and I feel like
32:05.300 --> 32:17.807
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, a little embarrassed that I don't know about it and I want to make it easier for for like everybody should know about it, you know what I mean even if even if even if you don't read it.
32:18.158 --> 32:23.404
[SPEAKER_00]: the fact that it's like available in onshails like that I can walk into a comic ship chop right now.
32:23.765 --> 32:24.826
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, and see it up there.
32:24.866 --> 32:26.048
[SPEAKER_00]: That's great.
32:26.228 --> 32:28.791
[SPEAKER_00]: That's like that's that was what I was hoping for, you know?
32:29.172 --> 32:29.912
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
32:29.933 --> 32:32.416
[SPEAKER_01]: Now, upon reading for the very first time.
32:33.317 --> 32:45.752
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, Betty, yeah, when you were putting this together for the remastering, was there any like one story that you had in red or Betty get or something from the remastering that was kind of like
32:45.732 --> 32:54.947
[SPEAKER_01]: or something that was like a emotional about a particular story, letter SA, or fragment of this book.
32:55.469 --> 32:56.232
[SPEAKER_01]: That's it.
32:58.456 --> 33:01.100
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, the whole thing is emotional though.
33:01.240 --> 33:03.464
[SPEAKER_00]: It is really like a package, like it does.
33:03.825 --> 33:14.081
[SPEAKER_00]: I would know, although people do like to pull out like Lyon, Lyon Man, and it is Harlem like the most two most popular shorts of it.
33:15.804 --> 33:16.465
[SPEAKER_00]: I think,
33:18.115 --> 33:44.848
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, orange, orange letter to the editor to be or, you know, letter from the editor at the beginning was very impactful to me and in fact, and in fact, that was so I had to do my own version that is the forward and in the printed and the, and the, and the, and the, and the, and the, and the, and the, and the, and the, and the, and the, and the, and the, and the, and the, and the, and the, and the, and the, and the, and the, and the, and the, and the, and the, and the, and the, and the, and the, and the, and the, and the, and the, and the, and the, and the, and the, and the, and the, and the, and the, and the, and the, and the, and the, and the, and the, and the, and the, and the, and the, and the, and the, and the, and the,
33:46.735 --> 34:08.980
[SPEAKER_00]: I can imagine a different world where, you know, they get to keep doing issues or he finds a way to do more issues and, you know, those characters are, you know, we're walking into into the 3D Lion Man movie, you know, on Friday at, you know, that type of thing.
34:09.230 --> 34:26.479
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, it's, it all, you know, it was all very emotional to me, you know, yeah, now even in that context, my first reading it, the correlation in reading the line man comic for the first time.
34:26.459 --> 34:41.697
[SPEAKER_01]: Someone who worked for the U.N. and was guarding an area in Africa where there was a bunch of uranium that he was withholding of the rest of the world that could cause destruction, almost sounded Wakanda Esk to me.
34:41.717 --> 34:43.039
[SPEAKER_00]: Right, right, right.
34:44.200 --> 34:47.404
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, and like I think I mentioned this earlier, it is
34:47.941 --> 34:54.674
[SPEAKER_00]: like 15 or 16 years before Black Panther for real in the pages of Marvel Comics.
34:55.115 --> 35:01.308
[SPEAKER_00]: So yeah, that is, again, no one involved is alive to know, right?
35:01.428 --> 35:05.055
[SPEAKER_00]: But it is a little peculiar how
35:05.812 --> 35:10.258
[SPEAKER_00]: close, those two characters are very like extremely close.
35:10.298 --> 35:10.579
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
35:11.019 --> 35:11.901
[SPEAKER_01]: For sure, man.
35:12.321 --> 35:29.146
[SPEAKER_01]: Now, what advice would you kind of like give to somebody from your experience of working on this project that are like aspiring comic editors, creators from underrepresented backgrounds that would want it to get in, that wanted to start to start themselves.
35:29.706 --> 35:31.549
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
35:32.660 --> 35:42.045
[SPEAKER_00]: I would say do you should, I give this advice to a lot of people like, if you want to get into the comics as anything.
35:42.548 --> 35:45.752
[SPEAKER_00]: just you have to start, you have to start doing, you have to do it, right?
35:46.793 --> 35:57.445
[SPEAKER_00]: And if you want to get into editing, so editing is like it's own little special thing where it's like, you're not the star of the show, you're coordinating, you know what I mean?
35:57.465 --> 35:58.566
[SPEAKER_00]: You're sort of helping everybody.
35:59.227 --> 36:05.433
[SPEAKER_00]: And so you know, the question people would ask is like, okay, well, what do you mean do it myself?
36:05.494 --> 36:07.896
[SPEAKER_00]: Like I don't do anything, I get other people to do things, right?
36:08.337 --> 36:09.518
[SPEAKER_00]: And like, well, yeah.
36:09.903 --> 36:12.987
[SPEAKER_00]: do what you do is get other people.
36:13.047 --> 36:27.023
[SPEAKER_00]: So you would just find the creators in your area or on your Facebook group or on the group chat, wherever you have friends that want to do stuff, want to do comics, and put them together.
36:27.223 --> 36:39.758
[SPEAKER_00]: And what you're bringing to the table is coordination, but also making it real, you're getting it to the finish line, whatever that finish line is.
36:40.953 --> 36:46.665
[SPEAKER_00]: Uh, you know, hey, we, we started a new Instagram handle and we're just going to post it to there.
36:47.166 --> 36:52.917
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, every, every Friday you'll get a new page or a new panel of this thing that we're all doing together, right?
36:53.198 --> 36:54.581
[SPEAKER_00]: That's, that's where I sort of started.
36:54.601 --> 36:55.603
[SPEAKER_00]: I didn't do an Instagram page.
36:55.623 --> 37:01.054
[SPEAKER_00]: I did the, I printed an anthology comment, but I did a sign section anthology that I was the editor of.
37:01.912 --> 37:08.141
[SPEAKER_00]: And I just called or emailed or texted people who I either knew or knew friends of her friends, that's everything.
37:08.922 --> 37:12.107
[SPEAKER_00]: And I was like, hey, let's do, here's the theme.
37:12.648 --> 37:15.171
[SPEAKER_00]: And you'd be surprised, like, people want to do comics.
37:15.211 --> 37:18.636
[SPEAKER_00]: So if you tell people, hey, here's a game plan.
37:18.656 --> 37:21.260
[SPEAKER_00]: And we're all going to contribute something.
37:21.280 --> 37:26.147
[SPEAKER_00]: We're all going to put something out and have a thing at the end, even if it's just a PDF or whatever.
37:26.397 --> 37:56.033
[SPEAKER_00]: You'd be surprised how many people are like, okay, let's do that, you know, so that's that's my advice on that is like just do it and then you know in terms of the underrepresented part will now that's a different question right because now we're talking about actually in the industry right so I would say do the first part you know start making the thing start start making it even if it's on a very small scale and then I would say take that and go to
37:57.008 --> 38:15.732
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, either creators or editors who who's work resonates with you or you feel like have meant something to you in the past, that type of thing and getting front of them, whether it's tagging them or emailing them if you can find out how to get in touch with them.
38:16.033 --> 38:19.337
[SPEAKER_00]: But just reach out to folks and
38:20.380 --> 38:24.006
[SPEAKER_00]: be vocal about needing help or wanting help, you know?
38:24.106 --> 38:26.891
[SPEAKER_00]: And if you have the goods, they'll want to help you.
38:26.911 --> 38:36.046
[SPEAKER_00]: They can't, nobody, it's, you know, very free, and if you still need to do work, then you still need to do work, and there's nothing they can do for you.
38:36.086 --> 38:40.633
[SPEAKER_00]: But if you got it, and you were like, you know, hey, I put together,
38:41.052 --> 38:58.827
[SPEAKER_00]: this anthology project, or it was a Valentine's Day project, and we had 25 creators from 20 different countries, and we put together this Instagram handle where you can all read it for free, and I'm trying to get into this industry, do you have any advice for me?
38:58.847 --> 39:08.616
[SPEAKER_00]: That type of thing, be vocal about it because you never know who could, people get asked all the time, like, hey, we're looking for engines, do you know anybody?
39:08.636 --> 39:10.317
[SPEAKER_00]: That type of thing.
39:10.600 --> 39:26.770
[SPEAKER_00]: We're hiring that type of thing, you know, and, you know, is, and they're probably not going to don't expect like it's not expecting to, to hook you up like that day, but you plant the seed and then who knows in six months they say, oh, yeah, my, my editor on.
39:27.408 --> 39:44.767
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, blue beetle or whatever the book is is was complaining about needing interns and I got, you know, I had this kid were, you know, I had this person, this aspiring editor reach out to me and I can maybe I can connect you on york and just chat, you know, that's up at there.
39:46.069 --> 39:48.271
[SPEAKER_01]: Now, now what's next for Chris Robinson.
39:50.033 --> 39:54.158
[SPEAKER_00]: Boy, what is next so much, I, I just.
39:55.268 --> 40:12.296
[SPEAKER_00]: I just finished the second issue of my monster comic where we'll Frankenstein, which is a monster mashup comic where I take my two favorite monsters, Frankenstein on the Wolfman, and it's like what if Frankenstein was the Wolfman.
40:12.316 --> 40:17.544
[SPEAKER_00]: So we just finished issue two, which is the bride of where we'll Frankenstein continuing that story.
40:17.584 --> 40:20.449
[SPEAKER_00]: Definitely going to do more with that character.
40:20.429 --> 40:23.457
[SPEAKER_00]: definitely going to do a third issue, going to keep it going.
40:23.577 --> 40:24.479
[SPEAKER_00]: I love working on it.
40:24.499 --> 40:31.758
[SPEAKER_00]: And the Kickstarter community I built around it has been very positive.
40:32.600 --> 40:33.763
[SPEAKER_00]: And then...
40:34.098 --> 40:52.275
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, after that, I mean, you know, I'm looking for more things similar to oligarchomics, you know, these in the collection points of, you know, examples of black creators and in the from the past and like spotlighting them and making sure that
40:52.255 --> 41:12.964
[SPEAKER_00]: they're they're written about and talked about even if you know there's not a big corporation looking after their their legacy like I can I can you know reprint something or or get something you know get some folks together to write essays about what a certain character meant to them that's
41:13.248 --> 41:23.405
[SPEAKER_01]: Is there any, uh, is there any new young creators out there that that basically like stick out the page when you see that they're writing something that you that you that you that you look forward to?
41:23.445 --> 41:35.205
[SPEAKER_00]: There you know, okay, here's here's a.
41:36.350 --> 41:37.654
[SPEAKER_00]: blanking on his name.
41:37.674 --> 41:38.636
[SPEAKER_00]: His name is Mark.
41:38.676 --> 41:42.266
[SPEAKER_00]: I forget I'm missing his last name, but he does a comic called Sion.
41:42.327 --> 41:48.925
[SPEAKER_00]: PSI-O-N. And I happen to pick up his comic at
41:49.208 --> 42:10.141
[SPEAKER_00]: Um, and Arizona Comic Con, uh, we're counting, you know, comics, but still a couple of years ago, or maybe it was last year, um, but he seems to be really, he's, he's like a writer editor, um, and, and he seems to be putting in a lot of work, um, on the front and, and I, I'm excited about what he, whatever he's got going on.
42:10.161 --> 42:11.824
[SPEAKER_00]: And then, you know, you know, uh, but, uh,
42:11.804 --> 42:24.365
[SPEAKER_00]: I wish I, you know, I'm excited, but I'm blanking on his last name, but right right right right you know mark and then is the comic is a sign on so if you're if you're watching this, definitely seek that out.
42:24.385 --> 42:25.307
[SPEAKER_00]: He's very findable.
42:25.327 --> 42:29.814
[SPEAKER_00]: He's like, I believe it's studios like crimson sleeper studio something like that.
42:31.077 --> 42:37.828
[SPEAKER_00]: But yeah, seek to seek this room brother out because he's got I feel like I see us as sparking the stuff he's doing for sure.
42:37.808 --> 42:39.964
[SPEAKER_01]: Definitely Chris this was amazing.
42:40.266 --> 42:40.629
[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you.
42:40.871 --> 42:42.503
[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you for joining me
42:42.736 --> 42:45.479
[SPEAKER_01]: glad to hear so much about this project.
42:46.180 --> 42:51.646
[SPEAKER_01]: For those who hadn't had a chance to know about the project or better yet, even had a chance to even read.
42:51.947 --> 42:56.212
[SPEAKER_01]: It's now in distribution through image comics, it's now in distribution through Simon and Schuster.
42:56.592 --> 43:00.617
[SPEAKER_01]: So it's a very now easily accessible item for a lot of people.
43:00.757 --> 43:01.257
[SPEAKER_00]: So easy.
43:01.297 --> 43:02.098
[SPEAKER_01]: So easy.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Definitely, man.
43:03.580 --> 43:04.801
[SPEAKER_01]: So this was great.
43:06.323 --> 43:09.587
[SPEAKER_01]: I look forward to what's the
43:09.567 --> 43:15.696
[SPEAKER_01]: as well as the talks more talks about all Negro comics because I feel like more talks need to be head.
43:15.716 --> 43:17.218
[SPEAKER_00]: 100%.
43:17.498 --> 43:20.282
[SPEAKER_00]: This is not the end of the journey.
43:20.302 --> 43:21.524
[SPEAKER_00]: This is the start of the journey.
43:21.784 --> 43:24.408
[SPEAKER_00]: We did the Kickstarter for the hard cover.
43:26.591 --> 43:34.141
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm going to keep banging the drum for this project or for all Negro comics in as many different forms as the let me.
43:34.201 --> 43:38.207
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, so expect to keep here and more about it.
43:38.474 --> 43:39.758
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, sure.
43:39.859 --> 43:41.564
[SPEAKER_01]: So Chris Robinson.
43:41.885 --> 43:44.012
[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you everybody for joining us today.
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[SPEAKER_01]: We will see you guys next time on the facts project.
43:47.142 --> 43:49.530
[SPEAKER_01]: We are out.
00:05.212 --> 00:06.093
[SPEAKER_01]: What's going on, everybody?
00:06.113 --> 00:09.078
[SPEAKER_01]: This is James Bremis, effects boys and you're here for another Facts Project.
00:09.399 --> 00:11.602
[SPEAKER_01]: Please, everybody, thank you for being here.
00:12.123 --> 00:23.381
[SPEAKER_01]: Today, I have Chris Robinson, editor for a lot of Marvel Projects, a lot of comic projects whatsoever, but today we're talking about a very special, very special comic.
00:23.401 --> 00:28.249
[SPEAKER_01]: It is the 70-Fitth Anniversary of Manufacturing, I think it's like the 70-Fitth Six.
00:28.229 --> 00:29.010
[SPEAKER_01]: Anniversary.
00:29.030 --> 00:29.270
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes.
00:29.771 --> 00:30.352
[SPEAKER_00]: But a few years now.
00:30.652 --> 00:31.033
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
00:31.133 --> 00:31.413
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
00:31.453 --> 00:40.225
[SPEAKER_01]: I think it was actually, if I'm completely incorrect, it's about the 78th anniversary edition of All Negro Comics.
00:40.766 --> 00:47.255
[SPEAKER_01]: As of last week, it has now been remastered and distributed through Image Comics.
00:47.275 --> 00:49.478
[SPEAKER_01]: So thank you Chris Robinson for being here.
00:50.572 --> 00:51.893
[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you, James, appreciate the time.
00:52.354 --> 00:53.295
[SPEAKER_01]: Absolutely, man.
00:53.675 --> 00:57.159
[SPEAKER_01]: So, let's talk about this in context because it is very important.
00:58.380 --> 01:08.610
[SPEAKER_01]: What initially drew you to the project of curating a book like this in the Anniversary Format in this edition of all Negro Comics?
01:09.832 --> 01:17.980
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, well, I am a huge fan of comics, very deep in the comics and in about 2012
01:19.073 --> 01:25.762
[SPEAKER_00]: I stumbled upon it, purely by chance, that there was the existence of this, of this kind of called Balmy Girl Comics.
01:26.543 --> 01:37.417
[SPEAKER_00]: And I did more, you know, I had to really dig around and do some reading and there weren't that many resources about it, but it was fascinating that it was essentially the first black comic book, right?
01:37.497 --> 01:43.765
[SPEAKER_00]: It was the first time a black owned publishing company came together to create their own black characters.
01:43.745 --> 02:02.109
[SPEAKER_00]: uh, for the express purpose of, you know, uh, working against stereotypes at the time, a lot of, you know, uh, there are a lot of terrible, uh, you know, golden age, uh, black characters that were created by white folks that are, uh, you know, uh, not do a do a disservice to us, right?
02:02.569 --> 02:02.789
[SPEAKER_00]: Right.
02:03.510 --> 02:07.896
[SPEAKER_00]: And I was fascinated by it because I had, you know, I've heard of, you've heard of, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh,
02:07.876 --> 02:37.883
[SPEAKER_00]: All the comics that came out around the time of this book, you know, I'm talking about, you know, action comics, number one Batman number one, you know, third 39, you know, the 40s, like this, all new comics comes out 1947, then you have, you know, a couple of a decade plus later, you have fantastic four, you know, the first issue of Black Panther, like we know all these comics that came out around.
02:37.863 --> 02:44.995
[SPEAKER_00]: This comic, all Negro comics number one, and it's, but had never heard of all Negro comics number one.
02:45.055 --> 02:53.188
[SPEAKER_00]: So, when I found out about it, and the importance of it to history, I was shocked at, I was a little...
02:53.320 --> 03:04.195
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, sad, and that somebody wasn't being held to the same import and brought to the masses as this piece of history.
03:04.275 --> 03:10.604
[SPEAKER_00]: So I took it apart myself, like in 2012, I was just trying to get into comics.
03:12.326 --> 03:19.716
[SPEAKER_00]: In by 2015, I started working in Marvel Comics, and I worked there for like six years, and then around the pandemic.
03:20.489 --> 03:38.447
[SPEAKER_00]: I, you know, went independent and I started doing my own stuff and and I remembered this, this, you know, only your comics and I was a project that I wanted to, you know, resurrect it a bit in a certain way and so I threw my all my effort towards that, you know, creating a.
03:39.473 --> 03:43.777
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, like I said, there weren't that many resources, you know, about it.
03:44.078 --> 03:55.108
[SPEAKER_00]: So I wanted to create a resource that people could have access to the book, the history of the book, and then have some fun with the characters beyond that, because that's always important to me as well.
03:55.909 --> 04:07.000
[SPEAKER_00]: So that's where I started, and that's where we landed, and then by 2022, that's when I did a Kickstarter, and we put the book out.
04:07.385 --> 04:08.086
[SPEAKER_00]: independently.
04:08.126 --> 04:20.601
[SPEAKER_00]: We did a hard cover version and that one was titled Only Go Comics 75th Anniversary Edition was the hardback version and then sold really well and it continues to sell.
04:20.621 --> 04:34.438
[SPEAKER_00]: I sold through that stock very quickly and I was able to work at a deal with image comics where they would publish a soft cover version under the title on the Go Comics colon America's first black comic book.
04:34.418 --> 04:59.143
[SPEAKER_00]: and so now that is a soft cover so it's much cheaper and it's has you know a wide distribution through Simon and Schuster so it's like even more accessible because you know if the game plan was like how do I get how do I get this project this 1947 golden age piece of trivia in front of people this was the next step and getting it into
04:59.123 --> 05:04.556
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, stores, libraries, et cetera, through wide distribution, that way.
05:05.278 --> 05:05.759
[SPEAKER_01]: Definitely.
05:05.979 --> 05:08.766
[SPEAKER_01]: Now, would you be in the editor of this edition?
05:08.786 --> 05:17.807
[SPEAKER_01]: We'll be like some of the biggest challenges that you've probably faced and remastering and basically contextualizing an archive work like this.
05:18.395 --> 05:24.846
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I mean, I, you know, I'm not a, I wouldn't call myself a historian by any, you know, any, any stretch.
05:25.827 --> 05:27.370
[SPEAKER_00]: I rely on a lot of great people.
05:27.891 --> 05:32.438
[SPEAKER_00]: That's that's what good editors do they find the best people to work with them.
05:32.518 --> 05:42.294
[SPEAKER_00]: So I got to give so on the restoration front Tony Washington who's an incredible colorist and actually, you know, illustrator and his own right.
05:42.394 --> 05:43.356
[SPEAKER_00]: So.
05:43.623 --> 05:52.893
[SPEAKER_00]: He had worked for Wild Storm back in the day, if you remember them, part of the part of the image crew, and then, so he did the restoration.
05:53.053 --> 06:06.387
[SPEAKER_00]: He took the, we had some scans, and he sort of re-colored them, but kept the old flavor of how, you know, he didn't try to make it look like new or totally cleaned up.
06:06.467 --> 06:13.495
[SPEAKER_00]: It still has some of the noise and cracks of age,
06:13.475 --> 06:41.524
[SPEAKER_00]: much more readable and complete, you know, a lot of the scans out there, a lot of copies out there, like damage, water damage, or just straight up just rift and half, you know, so he was able to put together, you know, some really pristine looking pages that are, you know, we didn't, again, like I don't want to overstate like he didn't add anything or change anything or draw anything new, like it's taking what they existed and just sort of like sprucing it up and putting it together.
06:42.449 --> 06:51.398
[SPEAKER_00]: So it's sort of, you know, it has a little bit more, you know, you're not fighting to read it, okay?
06:51.958 --> 06:52.939
[SPEAKER_00]: So that's that part of it.
06:53.019 --> 07:11.157
[SPEAKER_00]: And then the in terms of the history part, I worked with Dr. Keanu witted, who is a comic scholar, who, you know, her book, desegregating comics, is very, also talks about the golden age of comics and race and like, you know, how we got into,
07:11.137 --> 07:14.524
[SPEAKER_00]: the industry in that time, you know.
07:15.626 --> 07:26.347
[SPEAKER_00]: So she is the name in terms of comic historians who focus on that era.
07:26.387 --> 07:29.413
[SPEAKER_00]: That specifically that 40s era.
07:29.453 --> 07:31.677
[SPEAKER_00]: She also has another book called,
07:31.657 --> 07:36.243
[SPEAKER_00]: about race and easy comics, which is also super fast today.
07:36.263 --> 07:43.211
[SPEAKER_00]: So I would, anybody who reads only your comics or is intrigued by this conversation, I told them they should also seek out those other books.
07:43.231 --> 08:01.613
[SPEAKER_00]: But she has an essay that talks that has the full history of like the all the folks that worked on it and you know, where it started, you know, started in Philadelphia, Warren C. Evans, like all the details,
08:01.593 --> 08:05.201
[SPEAKER_00]: um to write like a school paper on the book, right?
08:05.222 --> 08:16.969
[SPEAKER_00]: So it's that's it's a it's a it's very functional that way and so she handled that essay and then there are a couple other essays in there and then we did some new stories that you know it's just for fun.
08:17.692 --> 08:27.425
[SPEAKER_00]: But again, like I got a, I shot out, you know, if you're asking me how it's got done, I got, I got, you got done with the help of some really, really talented other folks helping me along the way.
08:27.785 --> 08:40.682
[SPEAKER_01]: Byrd, and I am, I'm actually familiar with you on a way to because the geographically speak great, because rockers, rockers University is basically where she compiled at most of most of those two books and everything from that area.
08:40.702 --> 08:43.125
[SPEAKER_01]: And then also just the book itself,
08:43.207 --> 08:57.714
[SPEAKER_01]: Um, originally the team that that put that together was a part of the Philadelphia record, which was, which I could think when the funked in like 1947 and ultimately became the number of the inquire, which is our new newspaper now.
08:57.794 --> 08:58.756
[SPEAKER_01]: I live in South Jersey.
08:58.796 --> 09:00.499
[SPEAKER_01]: So we're more okay.
09:00.519 --> 09:03.645
[SPEAKER_01]: We're more correlated to Philly than we are to New York.
09:03.625 --> 09:06.368
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, yeah, that's a cool thing.
09:06.408 --> 09:17.622
[SPEAKER_01]: Like you roughly speak in this kind of like it melds in because we're all very familiar with it, but the more that it's come out and more it's being reintroduced as it is right now.
09:18.143 --> 09:19.304
[SPEAKER_01]: It's always like a big thing.
09:19.805 --> 09:30.898
[SPEAKER_01]: Now the new addition, what we're talking about like the featured essays, which we just talked about with Keanu wetted and the new story is by a lot of these,
09:30.878 --> 09:36.083
[SPEAKER_01]: great black creators and the digitally remastered version of the original issue.
09:36.563 --> 09:39.766
[SPEAKER_01]: How did you decide which new creators to include?
09:42.449 --> 09:43.370
[SPEAKER_00]: That is interesting.
09:43.430 --> 09:45.131
[SPEAKER_00]: So was there with a lot of people?
09:45.432 --> 09:46.292
[SPEAKER_01]: Was there a criteria?
09:48.134 --> 09:52.818
[SPEAKER_00]: The criteria is I, you know, I wanted to work with you.
09:52.859 --> 09:59.805
[SPEAKER_00]: So you see a lot of people
10:00.038 --> 10:02.802
[SPEAKER_00]: Uh, he and I had to, you know, back to my Marvel days.
10:02.902 --> 10:09.250
[SPEAKER_00]: I, he had done a bunch of issues of, uh, moon girl double dinosaur, you know, a few other things here and there over the years.
10:09.691 --> 10:11.012
[SPEAKER_00]: So he was an easy call to make.
10:11.113 --> 10:19.043
[SPEAKER_00]: There, you know, there were just some other folks that I had seen, you know, on on Instagram, you know, that I just, I like their work.
10:19.546 --> 10:20.327
[SPEAKER_00]: They fit the criteria.
10:20.347 --> 10:23.793
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, part of the criteria is you had to be black on some level, right?
10:24.173 --> 10:26.056
[SPEAKER_00]: That's a good criteria to start with, right?
10:27.739 --> 10:47.089
[SPEAKER_00]: But after that, that is just like, I got to like you or, you know, and then also, you know, you have to be enthusiastic about, yet to be, you know, I wanted to get people who believed in the, and what we were doing, you know, wholesale, you know, just from the, you know,
10:47.221 --> 10:59.533
[SPEAKER_00]: reintroduction, I guess you would say of these characters back in the the spotlight, you know, they're because they're super cool characters, even though they're from 1947, I mean, you know, Superman is from the, you know, the, you know, the 30s, right?
10:59.593 --> 11:00.656
[SPEAKER_00]: And then he's super cool, too.
11:00.676 --> 11:02.260
[SPEAKER_00]: So, but, um,
11:02.864 --> 11:13.547
[SPEAKER_00]: You'd be surprised for a comic written in 1947 and you know other than a few few things here and there like it still reads pretty modern, you know, it's not it's not a hard read at all.
11:13.587 --> 11:14.869
[SPEAKER_01]: So yep.
11:15.130 --> 11:21.684
[SPEAKER_01]: I actually had like a podcast earlier this month with David brothers who has, right there.
11:21.724 --> 11:22.385
[SPEAKER_01]: I love that guy.
11:22.646 --> 11:22.746
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah.
11:23.030 --> 11:26.815
[SPEAKER_01]: So who has an essay in the new remastering of the book?
11:26.835 --> 11:32.623
[SPEAKER_01]: And one of the things we were almost done our podcast and towards the end, it was like, hold on.
11:33.063 --> 11:35.867
[SPEAKER_01]: Before we finish, I have to shout this out.
11:35.987 --> 11:38.891
[SPEAKER_01]: He talked about all Negro comics, like, in full detail.
11:39.171 --> 11:42.636
[SPEAKER_01]: He talked about the essay that basically he put forth in this particular volume.
11:43.397 --> 11:45.380
[SPEAKER_01]: And how much it meant to him?
11:46.000 --> 11:50.927
[SPEAKER_01]: So just, I'm for one unplugging my, like he's like, I'm plugging my book already, but look.
11:50.907 --> 11:52.148
[SPEAKER_01]: you really got to see this.
11:52.208 --> 12:00.898
[SPEAKER_01]: If you are either a creator in this space or a fan in this space, it's almost something that you need to have.
12:01.198 --> 12:08.146
[SPEAKER_01]: And if you want to understand the cultural significance of black folks in comics, isn't it?
12:08.166 --> 12:09.648
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, absolutely.
12:09.688 --> 12:18.197
[SPEAKER_00]: It's a puzzle piece, like without it, you do not have a full picture of the industry as it is, you know?
12:18.920 --> 12:22.409
[SPEAKER_00]: And then I, you know, I got a, David is incredible.
12:22.469 --> 12:30.630
[SPEAKER_00]: I was always been a fan of his back to his, you know, critics days on fourth letter, comics Alliance, like I was always always a fan of his.
12:30.910 --> 12:31.933
[SPEAKER_00]: We never.
12:32.572 --> 12:34.354
[SPEAKER_00]: And never had a chance to really work with him.
12:34.374 --> 12:53.059
[SPEAKER_00]: And so, you know, when I was putting this together, I was thinking about, you know, who, you know, again, who do I like, who fits that criteria, but also, you know, he jumped out immediately, you know, and he was like immediately like, oh, here's, here's, finally, here's an opportunity where I can give this guy a call and see if we can do something.
12:53.079 --> 12:55.302
[SPEAKER_00]: And I'm really lucky that he, he agreed.
12:55.422 --> 12:56.824
[SPEAKER_00]: He was, he was available.
12:56.804 --> 12:57.845
[SPEAKER_01]: That was great.
12:57.865 --> 13:10.917
[SPEAKER_01]: And now how much the original character's ace Harlem line man, stories that you could preserve, where they unchanged, like how how much the adaptation was required.
13:12.518 --> 13:20.025
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, you know, the full, the full on-eagram number one is in there on touch, like cover to cover.
13:20.105 --> 13:20.926
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, that's in there.
13:21.206 --> 13:23.148
[SPEAKER_00]: Nothing, nothing's been cut, nothing's been altered.
13:23.468 --> 13:25.630
[SPEAKER_00]: That's in there.
13:25.964 --> 13:29.149
[SPEAKER_00]: The new stories, we tried to do it.
13:29.709 --> 13:41.326
[SPEAKER_00]: I would call it like Batman, the animated series style, where it's definitely has modern sensibilities, but nobody has a cell phone or something.
13:41.386 --> 13:43.669
[SPEAKER_00]: It's kind of more timeless than it's supposed to be.
13:44.651 --> 13:45.832
[SPEAKER_00]: We didn't update them, I would say.
13:45.932 --> 13:49.918
[SPEAKER_00]: It was just like, hey, let's just tell another story with these characters.
13:50.479 --> 13:51.280
[SPEAKER_00]: And
13:51.260 --> 13:55.769
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, could that it take place in 1947 or did it take place last week?
13:55.809 --> 13:56.591
[SPEAKER_00]: It could go either way.
13:56.611 --> 14:03.926
[SPEAKER_00]: It's like, you know, it's just it's just, uh, it's just, you know, open, uh, it's open to interpretation.
14:04.026 --> 14:08.475
[SPEAKER_00]: I guess you could say, um, but, uh, but yeah, I mean, you know,
14:09.383 --> 14:11.185
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't, they don't really need an update.
14:11.205 --> 14:12.928
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, they are a public domain.
14:12.948 --> 14:18.775
[SPEAKER_00]: So folks want to go out and do their own take on a character, that's type of thing, go for it.
14:19.115 --> 14:28.928
[SPEAKER_00]: But I think, you know, the character, the looks and the designs and the names and all that stuff, I think that's super cool stuff, you know, I'm for it.
14:29.093 --> 14:55.422
[SPEAKER_01]: that is definitely now the original publisher on Evans of course the trailblazer of this and basically was the the personate ultimately just put this group together to make make this first first particular issue what do you feel like his greatest legacy is like what is to be honest like if there was something that's held him about man putting this together both in his
14:55.925 --> 14:56.265
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
14:56.666 --> 15:11.166
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, he orncy ovens is a fascinating character on his own, even if he never made this book, right, this comic book, he would be fascinating because he was like the first journalist to break the color barrier.
15:11.267 --> 15:24.345
[SPEAKER_00]: So he was, you know, a black reporter writing for white newspaper is like truly like he has a NAACP or like he's truly like on his own super
15:24.325 --> 15:24.966
[SPEAKER_00]: Right.
15:24.986 --> 15:31.311
[SPEAKER_00]: Um, and he, uh, I guess what I would tell him is like, it worked.
15:31.351 --> 15:37.197
[SPEAKER_00]: Cause so, so in the beginning of at the, the very start of the issue, the Omigo comes to number one from 47.
15:37.277 --> 15:53.792
[SPEAKER_00]: He, he gives, uh, he writes like a letter from the editor, uh, where he talks about, you know, what, or his aspirations with this project, you know, that, you know, and it's everything that we've been talking about in terms of like
15:53.772 --> 16:05.062
[SPEAKER_00]: positive stereotypes or positive portrayals of black folks in media and, you know, sort of fighting the negative stereotypes that were out there at that time.
16:05.763 --> 16:16.592
[SPEAKER_00]: And, you know, teaching, teaching, having something for the whole family, because it's a, it's a, it's a comic book, but it's like, it's not just a superhero story.
16:16.612 --> 16:22.277
[SPEAKER_00]: There's a, there's a, there's a crime story.
16:22.578 --> 16:46.189
[SPEAKER_00]: for babies essentially like it's you know very very young uh... there's pro stories so like he created something that's for the whole family and i guess i would you know one him to know that like a we still remember the book thank you thanks for making it used to be you know with still around we're doing our uh... we're we're keeping keeping it uh... as you know as public as putting a spotlight as much as we can but also you know
16:46.237 --> 16:50.825
[SPEAKER_00]: We as a community have like grown beyond like I tell him about milestone comics.
16:50.845 --> 16:52.128
[SPEAKER_00]: I would probably blow his mind right.
16:53.130 --> 17:08.177
[SPEAKER_00]: That was, you know, 20 something 20 something years after he passed right so to he didn't he never, you know, a milestone would be something he would I'm sure be fascinated to hear more about and
17:09.322 --> 17:17.953
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, just the impact that we, you know, that we have on culture, you know, that would probably blow his mind.
17:18.013 --> 17:30.570
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, that would be a real fascinating conversation that was like one of the other things that like I connected with right because every project, especially this project, but every project you're always trying to find what you.
17:31.006 --> 17:58.701
[SPEAKER_00]: what what makes it mean more to you like what where's what are your what are your touch stones on it and you know him is obviously you know I didn't break the color barrier in comics but like I'm very used to going into publishers and being one of either the only or you know one of two black folks working in comics at a winning one time and so in that way like I sort of
17:59.828 --> 18:09.620
[SPEAKER_00]: I want, like, I don't want to over, I don't want to overstate, but I feel like that meant a lot to me that he was, he was making a space for us, even back then.
18:09.660 --> 18:13.225
[SPEAKER_00]: And then, you know, you have my own son in the 90s making a space for us again.
18:13.245 --> 18:29.025
[SPEAKER_00]: And then, you know, Fitzgerald publishing in the 70s also making, that's another black on publisher that's not a lot of people know about that I'm interested in getting more attention on as well.
18:29.849 --> 18:30.632
[SPEAKER_00]: We're here.
18:30.672 --> 18:31.274
[SPEAKER_00]: We've been here.
18:31.334 --> 18:39.420
[SPEAKER_00]: We're persisting and that made that made me feel
18:40.345 --> 18:50.703
[SPEAKER_01]: And it just gave me like a little bit more gas in the tank, you know, yeah, yeah, now every achievement of course is met with its own challenges, even with this particular book, the original print run.
18:51.324 --> 19:01.301
[SPEAKER_01]: And if it literally, as it was put up in the description with through image comics, one of those put out, it says that the original print run was quickly removed from new stands and faded into security.
19:01.782 --> 19:06.049
[SPEAKER_01]: Why was all Negro comics inaccessible for years?
19:07.784 --> 19:10.429
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, I mean, that's a good question.
19:10.469 --> 19:14.096
[SPEAKER_00]: I think there's two, there's a couple of things about that.
19:14.156 --> 19:20.008
[SPEAKER_00]: So why was it, what happened was they did the number one, they did the, and this is all covered in the book.
19:20.028 --> 19:21.891
[SPEAKER_00]: So I'm just going to give you the quick version.
19:21.911 --> 19:25.658
[SPEAKER_00]: But they did the book, they did not, only go kind of number one.
19:25.719 --> 19:30.147
[SPEAKER_00]: And it's not like,
19:30.565 --> 19:50.785
[SPEAKER_00]: They just made it to stands and then once it was on stands, then news stand owners and the printer and all these folks figured like found out essentially what that book is right because I assume I assume that when they were when they got the orders, you know, the, the, the, you know,
19:50.765 --> 19:56.341
[SPEAKER_00]: They wasn't a catalog back then, but when they would found out like, okay, we have this week all Negro kind of summer one is coming.
19:56.381 --> 20:02.158
[SPEAKER_00]: They probably imagines something much different and much more, you know, um
20:02.797 --> 20:07.562
[SPEAKER_00]: Uh, full of, um, you know, picking any characters, that type of thing.
20:07.582 --> 20:09.464
[SPEAKER_00]: It's something stereotypes characters.
20:09.484 --> 20:12.308
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, it's stuff that we would, you know, that's probably what they imagine.
20:12.328 --> 20:25.142
[SPEAKER_00]: But what they got was a book that celebrates, uh, black folks shows a, a very wide variety of black characters, um, you know, just something just something that,
20:25.831 --> 20:39.387
[SPEAKER_00]: was for the uplifting, which I literally is a quote from Oran's letter in the beginning of the book, for the uplifting of black culture, right?
20:40.008 --> 20:44.433
[SPEAKER_00]: And so they started taking copies down, destroying copies, getting rid of it.
20:44.894 --> 20:48.598
[SPEAKER_00]: And then the paper mill refused to...
20:48.578 --> 20:51.522
[SPEAKER_00]: you know, cell copies for issue 2, which where they were already working on.
20:51.902 --> 20:57.910
[SPEAKER_00]: And the back of the number one, ANC number one, there's an ad for number 2, right?
20:58.030 --> 21:00.093
[SPEAKER_00]: Because it was supposed to be a monthly book.
21:00.554 --> 21:03.658
[SPEAKER_00]: And then that doesn't happen because they couldn't get the paper to do it.
21:03.678 --> 21:09.826
[SPEAKER_00]: So it's like, you know, that's so that's why it goes the way so quickly, right?
21:10.286 --> 21:14.772
[SPEAKER_00]: And then at the time to, you know,
21:15.528 --> 21:19.954
[SPEAKER_00]: And up until a certain period, like, how much folks are very disposable?
21:19.974 --> 21:26.444
[SPEAKER_00]: They're not meant to, you know, they're not thought of as IP and like, hey, we gotta, you know, we can make money off this forever.
21:26.464 --> 21:26.924
[SPEAKER_00]: That's everything.
21:27.084 --> 21:30.950
[SPEAKER_00]: That's more of a more modern thought process, right?
21:32.212 --> 21:33.293
[SPEAKER_00]: They're not as good as I.
21:33.894 --> 21:35.396
[SPEAKER_01]: They're like comic strips for the next year.
21:35.416 --> 21:36.658
[SPEAKER_01]: But they're the funnies.
21:37.499 --> 21:48.994
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, yeah, yeah, their thought of is a thing you read once laugh or not, and then forget about right, so another reason I think too why these characters are sort of not.
21:49.767 --> 21:56.657
[SPEAKER_00]: you know, protected or uplifted the way, you know, Superman, Batman, you know, whoever, or ours, like nobody owns them, right?
21:56.677 --> 22:04.368
[SPEAKER_00]: They're, you can't really, you can't quite make money with them the same way that you can with those other characters, because they have like a corporation.
22:04.408 --> 22:08.434
[SPEAKER_00]: That is, that is, trying to, you know,
22:08.414 --> 22:12.122
[SPEAKER_00]: extract funds from it, right.
22:13.204 --> 22:19.017
[SPEAKER_00]: So these characters, since since they're in public domain, it's harder, it's much harder to make money with them.
22:19.057 --> 22:24.448
[SPEAKER_00]: So no one's like mining the store, and I, and you know, everyone that worked on it, too, like,
22:24.428 --> 22:28.673
[SPEAKER_00]: again, like I said, like at the time, this is, it's a very disposable medium.
22:29.093 --> 22:35.000
[SPEAKER_00]: So they did these, and then forgot about it and worked, you know, they started thinking about, you know, where's the next check coming from?
22:35.020 --> 22:35.481
[SPEAKER_00]: You know what I mean?
22:35.501 --> 22:42.429
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, it's not, they didn't think of it is like, oh, I've created Ace Harlem, you know what I mean?
22:43.170 --> 22:47.635
[SPEAKER_00]: They did, they, you know, they did a detective story, and then, you know, they were doing a, um,
22:48.475 --> 22:52.941
[SPEAKER_00]: you know, drawing a news paper ad the next week, you know what I mean, that's something.
22:53.802 --> 23:02.673
[SPEAKER_00]: So yeah, so, you know, it's it's like it's both a money thing, but it's also a time, you know, the time of their creation thing.
23:03.534 --> 23:09.261
[SPEAKER_00]: And but at the end of the day, you know, it doesn't matter that that stuff doesn't matter to me.
23:09.281 --> 23:13.547
[SPEAKER_00]: And like I just wanted, I just wanted to make sure that it wasn't forgotten about.
23:13.627 --> 23:16.170
[SPEAKER_00]: So in the only the only way I knew how I was to make it.
23:16.994 --> 23:21.823
[SPEAKER_00]: available again in a way that is
23:22.563 --> 23:23.724
[SPEAKER_00]: functional, do you know what I mean?
23:23.784 --> 23:52.536
[SPEAKER_00]: I talked about it already in terms of like, you know, that's what the essay, that's why the essay is there, that's why the new stories are there, that's why it's there, whether it's why we're remastered it, it's like, you know, making it a functional thing that people can refer to, like, it's kind of boring to call it a reference book, but it is kind of more of a reference book than anything else, you know.
23:52.516 --> 23:55.339
[SPEAKER_01]: create a comics and even creators.
23:56.620 --> 24:04.329
[SPEAKER_01]: What would you say, is there a connection that's in terms of like the industry access, the audience themes?
24:06.051 --> 24:06.931
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, absolutely.
24:06.992 --> 24:14.399
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, it's unfortunate, you know, I would, I would love to say that, you know, things are a lot different than 1947.
24:15.300 --> 24:16.802
[SPEAKER_00]: They're not that different.
24:17.255 --> 24:20.658
[SPEAKER_00]: out, but I think they can be different.
24:20.678 --> 24:41.980
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think, you know, they're planning a folks out there doing books, you know, if not literally, like, I don't know how many people are saying, like, I'm just, I'm doing it just like, like Warren would, but like, you know, it definitely in the same spirit in terms of getting, you know, putting ourselves on the page in a way that is,
24:42.162 --> 24:43.823
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, we can feel good about, you know what I mean?
24:43.843 --> 24:56.094
[SPEAKER_00]: I would say like, you know, I love what I love with like Cody Ziggler has been doing on Miles Morales, the Spider-Man, you know, for almost like 50 issues now, right?
24:56.134 --> 25:03.920
[SPEAKER_00]: So like, that's pretty cool and especially, especially cool to see a Miles that is obsessed with anime, right?
25:03.940 --> 25:11.747
[SPEAKER_00]: Because I feel like I know so many guys that are huge
25:11.727 --> 25:19.675
[SPEAKER_00]: So yeah, like, and then, you know, is Cody writing is thinking like, man, this is just like that.
25:19.775 --> 25:22.558
[SPEAKER_00]: Probably not, but I see the spirit.
25:22.618 --> 25:23.920
[SPEAKER_00]: I see the connection, you know.
25:24.941 --> 25:30.106
[SPEAKER_01]: Now, now you talked about this being like a close to a reference book, even though you didn't want it to be that.
25:30.867 --> 25:41.498
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, this edition includes like a discussion guide and a resource list.
25:42.440 --> 25:45.703
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, it was baked in from the jump.
25:45.743 --> 26:02.761
[SPEAKER_00]: Like when I did the Kickstarter, part of one of the best things I did there was create a donation, essentially a donation program where people could pay a little more and have a book sent to schools libraries, that type of thing.
26:03.161 --> 26:11.890
[SPEAKER_00]: So we donated like 500 copies of the run, of the print run to schools libraries.
26:12.224 --> 26:27.744
[SPEAKER_00]: you know, to to make sure to so that it's just to make it totally easy and every every place that got a don't got a donation copy also got a separate discussion guide that now appears in the soft cover on the on the last page.
26:28.465 --> 26:28.825
[SPEAKER_00]: Wow.
26:29.026 --> 26:37.236
[SPEAKER_00]: So this this the they it would just it seems,
26:38.178 --> 26:48.292
[SPEAKER_00]: people laughed about it and somebody who were interested in it that it was just like makes it makes, you know, it made a lot easier to just put it in the book for the mass mass market edition, you know.
26:48.312 --> 26:48.792
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
26:48.812 --> 26:52.217
[SPEAKER_01]: Now, you talked about Tony Washington of course being in the book.
26:52.277 --> 26:53.899
[SPEAKER_01]: These are all like newly added stories.
26:54.540 --> 26:55.201
[SPEAKER_01]: Mike a Peters.
26:55.281 --> 26:56.363
[SPEAKER_01]: We talked about David Brothers.
26:56.963 --> 27:07.678
[SPEAKER_01]: Um, I mean, the adding all of these creators, uh, it provides new directions, the re-interpretations, uh, did those start to emerge
27:10.915 --> 27:13.178
[SPEAKER_00]: Uh, I don't, I'm not sure.
27:13.198 --> 27:16.962
[SPEAKER_00]: I think, uh, you know, everyone, like I said, I went to folks.
27:17.182 --> 27:21.828
[SPEAKER_00]: It's not like they had, um, burning, you know, they, it wasn't, this wasn't on their bucket list, right?
27:21.848 --> 27:28.355
[SPEAKER_00]: It was just like, I, I proposed like, oh, would you, you know, would you ever considered writing a, you know, doing a story with this character?
27:28.375 --> 27:28.916
[SPEAKER_00]: That's everything.
27:28.936 --> 27:31.319
[SPEAKER_00]: And when they heard, when they heard about it, they were like, oh, that's, that's dope.
27:31.339 --> 27:31.699
[SPEAKER_00]: Let's do that.
27:32.039 --> 27:32.540
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
27:32.560 --> 27:32.620
[SPEAKER_00]: Um,
27:33.443 --> 27:46.947
[SPEAKER_00]: But I mean, they can, and I'll tell you what, in the promotion and the discussion of the book, when people find out about these characters, I'd run into a ton of, you know,
27:48.395 --> 27:53.744
[SPEAKER_00]: I run into a ton of black talent, either writers or artists who are like, oh, this is really cool.
27:53.764 --> 27:57.971
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm gonna do my own story with a Starlem or whoever, right?
27:58.352 --> 28:13.457
[SPEAKER_00]: And that's like, you know, if you wanna see, if we're tracing the effects of the 47 book to say that, hey, that's a pretty good, you know, ripple effect, you know, to the present, right?
28:13.437 --> 28:24.628
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, because I believe what was at one kickstarter, Troy Jeffery Allen, a good friend of ours, actually did a reinterpretation of Ace Harlem for his Afro Futures book.
28:24.727 --> 28:27.031
[SPEAKER_00]: That's right, on the gross squad, it's super cool.
28:27.051 --> 28:31.497
[SPEAKER_00]: He's been showing me pages as they get done and I can't wait to read the whole thing.
28:32.339 --> 28:42.093
[SPEAKER_00]: But truly, like, that's the type of thing that I'm talking about where people, either, you know, find out about these characters or saw what I was doing and get inspired to actually do their version.
28:42.154 --> 28:48.463
[SPEAKER_00]: Or, and they, like I said, it's all public, how many different interpretations of Frank is lying on there, right?
28:48.864 --> 28:50.987
[SPEAKER_00]: Everybody can do, like,
28:50.967 --> 28:52.188
[SPEAKER_00]: and it's hard on if they want.
28:52.248 --> 28:53.850
[SPEAKER_00]: Everybody can do a line if they want.
28:54.030 --> 29:19.354
[SPEAKER_00]: Everybody can do a do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do
29:19.553 --> 29:25.940
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, it's all, it's a little bit positive, like I have not seen, you know, I mean, I have very few negative interactions really to the book.
29:26.901 --> 29:43.080
[SPEAKER_00]: Most of the thing that I guess I'm most happy about is when I get emails or calls from librarians, yeah, you know, I'll send them a bunch of copies, they'll get it out there and then they'll write me back a couple weeks later saying we can't keep it in.
29:43.060 --> 29:44.321
[SPEAKER_00]: We can't keep it on the shelf.
29:44.382 --> 29:47.345
[SPEAKER_00]: People keep taking the book out, you know, and that's great.
29:47.625 --> 29:48.626
[SPEAKER_00]: That's exactly what I wanted.
29:48.646 --> 29:55.975
[SPEAKER_00]: I wanted it to be super accessible and there's nothing more accessible than, you know, public libraries or school, you know, public school libraries.
29:55.995 --> 29:56.535
[SPEAKER_00]: That's type of thing.
29:56.555 --> 29:57.537
[SPEAKER_01]: So yeah.
29:57.557 --> 30:04.805
[SPEAKER_01]: Now, somebody who's, who's edited major titles, you talk about, uh, you work on Black Panther, Moon Girl, and Devil Time, dinosaur.
30:05.205 --> 30:10.131
[SPEAKER_01]: What is this project meant for you professionally, or even personally to you?
30:11.073 --> 30:24.390
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, it's definitely very, very personal, like I said, like it was, say, it was interesting for me to like tie back to, you know, the first black editor, right?
30:24.877 --> 30:29.223
[SPEAKER_00]: And there have been lots of great black editors since then, right?
30:29.243 --> 30:37.995
[SPEAKER_00]: And then I think I talk about this in my forward of the book, but like Christopher Priest, who's an writer, used to be an editor at Marvel.
30:38.776 --> 30:46.146
[SPEAKER_00]: And of course, the late-grade Dwayne McDuffie, very important guy, editor, turn writer.
30:46.246 --> 30:50.412
[SPEAKER_00]: And yeah, so personally it feels really great.
30:50.432 --> 30:53.736
[SPEAKER_00]: But professionally, it's been, you know,
30:54.695 --> 31:24.246
[SPEAKER_00]: I worked on a lot of great stuff at Marvel Comics and other places and some of that stuff is one of words too, but I can't really lay clay or I can't, I don't own those the way I own this one, not to say that I own only your comics because I don't, but I in terms of like this book definitely would not have existed without me, you know what I mean?
31:24.496 --> 31:32.970
[SPEAKER_00]: But yeah, it's, it's, you know, it is taking me, you know, it's definitely taking,
31:33.203 --> 31:36.027
[SPEAKER_00]: given me more than I ever ever thought.
31:36.067 --> 31:40.452
[SPEAKER_00]: So I mean, and more than I ever thought, I also thought nothing, right?
31:40.472 --> 31:50.305
[SPEAKER_00]: Because I didn't get into it because I'm like, oh, great, here's, you know, I let me let me see what I can squeeze out of this 75 or a little another notch on my belt.
31:50.865 --> 31:54.850
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, yeah, that's that's the wrong way to go into any sort of creative project.
31:55.251 --> 31:55.732
[SPEAKER_00]: Yep.
31:56.252 --> 32:02.400
[SPEAKER_00]: I this this I wanted to this because I was like, this is so important and I and I and I feel like
32:05.300 --> 32:17.807
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, a little embarrassed that I don't know about it and I want to make it easier for for like everybody should know about it, you know what I mean even if even if even if you don't read it.
32:18.158 --> 32:23.404
[SPEAKER_00]: the fact that it's like available in onshails like that I can walk into a comic ship chop right now.
32:23.765 --> 32:24.826
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, and see it up there.
32:24.866 --> 32:26.048
[SPEAKER_00]: That's great.
32:26.228 --> 32:28.791
[SPEAKER_00]: That's like that's that was what I was hoping for, you know?
32:29.172 --> 32:29.912
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
32:29.933 --> 32:32.416
[SPEAKER_01]: Now, upon reading for the very first time.
32:33.317 --> 32:45.752
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, Betty, yeah, when you were putting this together for the remastering, was there any like one story that you had in red or Betty get or something from the remastering that was kind of like
32:45.732 --> 32:54.947
[SPEAKER_01]: or something that was like a emotional about a particular story, letter SA, or fragment of this book.
32:55.469 --> 32:56.232
[SPEAKER_01]: That's it.
32:58.456 --> 33:01.100
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, the whole thing is emotional though.
33:01.240 --> 33:03.464
[SPEAKER_00]: It is really like a package, like it does.
33:03.825 --> 33:14.081
[SPEAKER_00]: I would know, although people do like to pull out like Lyon, Lyon Man, and it is Harlem like the most two most popular shorts of it.
33:15.804 --> 33:16.465
[SPEAKER_00]: I think,
33:18.115 --> 33:44.848
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, orange, orange letter to the editor to be or, you know, letter from the editor at the beginning was very impactful to me and in fact, and in fact, that was so I had to do my own version that is the forward and in the printed and the, and the, and the, and the, and the, and the, and the, and the, and the, and the, and the, and the, and the, and the, and the, and the, and the, and the, and the, and the, and the, and the, and the, and the, and the, and the, and the, and the, and the, and the, and the, and the, and the, and the, and the, and the, and the, and the, and the, and the, and the, and the, and the, and the, and the, and the, and the, and the, and the, and the, and the, and the, and the, and the, and the, and the,
33:46.735 --> 34:08.980
[SPEAKER_00]: I can imagine a different world where, you know, they get to keep doing issues or he finds a way to do more issues and, you know, those characters are, you know, we're walking into into the 3D Lion Man movie, you know, on Friday at, you know, that type of thing.
34:09.230 --> 34:26.479
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, it's, it all, you know, it was all very emotional to me, you know, yeah, now even in that context, my first reading it, the correlation in reading the line man comic for the first time.
34:26.459 --> 34:41.697
[SPEAKER_01]: Someone who worked for the U.N. and was guarding an area in Africa where there was a bunch of uranium that he was withholding of the rest of the world that could cause destruction, almost sounded Wakanda Esk to me.
34:41.717 --> 34:43.039
[SPEAKER_00]: Right, right, right.
34:44.200 --> 34:47.404
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, and like I think I mentioned this earlier, it is
34:47.941 --> 34:54.674
[SPEAKER_00]: like 15 or 16 years before Black Panther for real in the pages of Marvel Comics.
34:55.115 --> 35:01.308
[SPEAKER_00]: So yeah, that is, again, no one involved is alive to know, right?
35:01.428 --> 35:05.055
[SPEAKER_00]: But it is a little peculiar how
35:05.812 --> 35:10.258
[SPEAKER_00]: close, those two characters are very like extremely close.
35:10.298 --> 35:10.579
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
35:11.019 --> 35:11.901
[SPEAKER_01]: For sure, man.
35:12.321 --> 35:29.146
[SPEAKER_01]: Now, what advice would you kind of like give to somebody from your experience of working on this project that are like aspiring comic editors, creators from underrepresented backgrounds that would want it to get in, that wanted to start to start themselves.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I would say do you should, I give this advice to a lot of people like, if you want to get into the comics as anything.
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[SPEAKER_00]: just you have to start, you have to start doing, you have to do it, right?
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[SPEAKER_00]: And if you want to get into editing, so editing is like it's own little special thing where it's like, you're not the star of the show, you're coordinating, you know what I mean?
35:57.465 --> 35:58.566
[SPEAKER_00]: You're sort of helping everybody.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And so you know, the question people would ask is like, okay, well, what do you mean do it myself?
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[SPEAKER_00]: Like I don't do anything, I get other people to do things, right?
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[SPEAKER_00]: And like, well, yeah.
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[SPEAKER_00]: do what you do is get other people.
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[SPEAKER_00]: So you would just find the creators in your area or on your Facebook group or on the group chat, wherever you have friends that want to do stuff, want to do comics, and put them together.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And what you're bringing to the table is coordination, but also making it real, you're getting it to the finish line, whatever that finish line is.
36:40.953 --> 36:46.665
[SPEAKER_00]: Uh, you know, hey, we, we started a new Instagram handle and we're just going to post it to there.
36:47.166 --> 36:52.917
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, every, every Friday you'll get a new page or a new panel of this thing that we're all doing together, right?
36:53.198 --> 36:54.581
[SPEAKER_00]: That's, that's where I sort of started.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I didn't do an Instagram page.
36:55.623 --> 37:01.054
[SPEAKER_00]: I did the, I printed an anthology comment, but I did a sign section anthology that I was the editor of.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And I just called or emailed or texted people who I either knew or knew friends of her friends, that's everything.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And I was like, hey, let's do, here's the theme.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And you'd be surprised, like, people want to do comics.
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[SPEAKER_00]: So if you tell people, hey, here's a game plan.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And we're all going to contribute something.
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[SPEAKER_00]: We're all going to put something out and have a thing at the end, even if it's just a PDF or whatever.
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[SPEAKER_00]: You'd be surprised how many people are like, okay, let's do that, you know, so that's that's my advice on that is like just do it and then you know in terms of the underrepresented part will now that's a different question right because now we're talking about actually in the industry right so I would say do the first part you know start making the thing start start making it even if it's on a very small scale and then I would say take that and go to
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[SPEAKER_00]: You know, either creators or editors who who's work resonates with you or you feel like have meant something to you in the past, that type of thing and getting front of them, whether it's tagging them or emailing them if you can find out how to get in touch with them.
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[SPEAKER_00]: But just reach out to folks and
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[SPEAKER_00]: be vocal about needing help or wanting help, you know?
38:24.106 --> 38:26.891
[SPEAKER_00]: And if you have the goods, they'll want to help you.
38:26.911 --> 38:36.046
[SPEAKER_00]: They can't, nobody, it's, you know, very free, and if you still need to do work, then you still need to do work, and there's nothing they can do for you.
38:36.086 --> 38:40.633
[SPEAKER_00]: But if you got it, and you were like, you know, hey, I put together,
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[SPEAKER_00]: this anthology project, or it was a Valentine's Day project, and we had 25 creators from 20 different countries, and we put together this Instagram handle where you can all read it for free, and I'm trying to get into this industry, do you have any advice for me?
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[SPEAKER_00]: That type of thing, be vocal about it because you never know who could, people get asked all the time, like, hey, we're looking for engines, do you know anybody?
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[SPEAKER_00]: That type of thing.
39:10.600 --> 39:26.770
[SPEAKER_00]: We're hiring that type of thing, you know, and, you know, is, and they're probably not going to don't expect like it's not expecting to, to hook you up like that day, but you plant the seed and then who knows in six months they say, oh, yeah, my, my editor on.
39:27.408 --> 39:44.767
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, blue beetle or whatever the book is is was complaining about needing interns and I got, you know, I had this kid were, you know, I had this person, this aspiring editor reach out to me and I can maybe I can connect you on york and just chat, you know, that's up at there.
39:46.069 --> 39:48.271
[SPEAKER_01]: Now, now what's next for Chris Robinson.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Boy, what is next so much, I, I just.
39:55.268 --> 40:12.296
[SPEAKER_00]: I just finished the second issue of my monster comic where we'll Frankenstein, which is a monster mashup comic where I take my two favorite monsters, Frankenstein on the Wolfman, and it's like what if Frankenstein was the Wolfman.
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[SPEAKER_00]: So we just finished issue two, which is the bride of where we'll Frankenstein continuing that story.
40:17.584 --> 40:20.449
[SPEAKER_00]: Definitely going to do more with that character.
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[SPEAKER_00]: definitely going to do a third issue, going to keep it going.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I love working on it.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And the Kickstarter community I built around it has been very positive.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And then...
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[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, after that, I mean, you know, I'm looking for more things similar to oligarchomics, you know, these in the collection points of, you know, examples of black creators and in the from the past and like spotlighting them and making sure that
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[SPEAKER_00]: they're they're written about and talked about even if you know there's not a big corporation looking after their their legacy like I can I can you know reprint something or or get something you know get some folks together to write essays about what a certain character meant to them that's
41:13.248 --> 41:23.405
[SPEAKER_01]: Is there any, uh, is there any new young creators out there that that basically like stick out the page when you see that they're writing something that you that you that you that you look forward to?
41:23.445 --> 41:35.205
[SPEAKER_00]: There you know, okay, here's here's a.
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[SPEAKER_00]: blanking on his name.
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[SPEAKER_00]: His name is Mark.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I forget I'm missing his last name, but he does a comic called Sion.
41:42.327 --> 41:48.925
[SPEAKER_00]: PSI-O-N. And I happen to pick up his comic at
41:49.208 --> 42:10.141
[SPEAKER_00]: Um, and Arizona Comic Con, uh, we're counting, you know, comics, but still a couple of years ago, or maybe it was last year, um, but he seems to be really, he's, he's like a writer editor, um, and, and he seems to be putting in a lot of work, um, on the front and, and I, I'm excited about what he, whatever he's got going on.
42:10.161 --> 42:11.824
[SPEAKER_00]: And then, you know, you know, uh, but, uh,
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[SPEAKER_00]: I wish I, you know, I'm excited, but I'm blanking on his last name, but right right right right you know mark and then is the comic is a sign on so if you're if you're watching this, definitely seek that out.
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[SPEAKER_00]: He's very findable.
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[SPEAKER_00]: He's like, I believe it's studios like crimson sleeper studio something like that.
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[SPEAKER_00]: But yeah, seek to seek this room brother out because he's got I feel like I see us as sparking the stuff he's doing for sure.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Definitely Chris this was amazing.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you for joining me
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[SPEAKER_01]: glad to hear so much about this project.
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[SPEAKER_01]: For those who hadn't had a chance to know about the project or better yet, even had a chance to even read.
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[SPEAKER_01]: It's now in distribution through image comics, it's now in distribution through Simon and Schuster.
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[SPEAKER_01]: So it's a very now easily accessible item for a lot of people.
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[SPEAKER_00]: So easy.
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[SPEAKER_01]: So easy.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Definitely, man.
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[SPEAKER_01]: So this was great.
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[SPEAKER_01]: I look forward to what's the
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[SPEAKER_01]: as well as the talks more talks about all Negro comics because I feel like more talks need to be head.
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[SPEAKER_00]: 100%.
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[SPEAKER_00]: This is not the end of the journey.
43:20.302 --> 43:21.524
[SPEAKER_00]: This is the start of the journey.
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[SPEAKER_00]: We did the Kickstarter for the hard cover.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I'm going to keep banging the drum for this project or for all Negro comics in as many different forms as the let me.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, so expect to keep here and more about it.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, sure.
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[SPEAKER_01]: So Chris Robinson.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you everybody for joining us today.
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[SPEAKER_01]: We will see you guys next time on the facts project.
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[SPEAKER_01]: We are out.
