Speaker 1: Thanks so much for downloading the show. A very special
Speaker 1: episode today in which I bring you a brief conversation
Speaker 1: with Campbell Walker, also known as s Truthless. He's an artist,
Speaker 1: he's a YouTuber, he's an author, he's a dad, he's
Speaker 1: a former tattoo artist, once upon an ad guy and
Speaker 1: a wonderful man. Cam has a new book out now.
Speaker 1: It's called Doom and Bloom. You can hear him chatting
Speaker 1: about that on the Imperfect podcast in a couple weeks
Speaker 1: from now. He was in town chatting with those guys,
Speaker 1: and while he was in town, we took the opportunity
Speaker 1: to take fifteen minutes to grab a couple photos for
Speaker 1: some long lead hard copy press that's coming out, and
Speaker 1: jump on the podcast really quickly on my show to
Speaker 1: talk about working together on my brand new book, which
Speaker 1: is out on the fifth of August. It's called So
Speaker 1: What Now What. In this conversation, Cam and I talk
Speaker 1: about the process that we use. We talk about the
Speaker 1: main character of the book, which at this point has
Speaker 1: been completely secret, and we'll get to that right after this.
Speaker 1: Good day, Welcome to the show. This is better than yesterday.
Speaker 1: Practical tools and useful conversations to help you make today
Speaker 1: better every single week since twenty thirteen. My name is
Speaker 1: Zosha Ginsburg, and I'm grateful that you are here. I'm
Speaker 1: thrilled to tell you that you can pre order my
Speaker 1: brand new book. So what now, what? Right? Now? There's
Speaker 1: a link in the show notes pre order it and
Speaker 1: it doesn't cost much. And if you do pre order it,
Speaker 1: email me a screenshot of your receipt. Send Usher email
Speaker 1: at gmail dot com. Email me a screenshot of your receipt,
Speaker 1: and I will send you a little something to say
Speaker 1: thank you, a coloring in poster of your very own
Speaker 1: featuring the main character of the story. Now, my first book,
Speaker 1: which came out in twenty eighteen, is a memoir and
Speaker 1: it is being rereleased, So if you don't have a
Speaker 1: hard copy of that, it's altum still an ebook an audiobook,
Speaker 1: But if you don't have hard copies, coming back into
Speaker 1: the shops. But when it came to doing a second book,
Speaker 1: I haven't really lived much since I've put that one out.
Speaker 1: I've put some extra bits into a second edition around
Speaker 1: twenty twenty, but I couldn't really write another memoir based
Speaker 1: on five years, so instead I wrote the very book
Speaker 1: that I wish I had on the days where I
Speaker 1: was not doing very well with my mental health. Much
Speaker 1: like the reason I started this podcast, I wanted to
Speaker 1: hear the kind of conversations that I needed to hear
Speaker 1: when I was struggling. I wrote so what now What?
Speaker 1: Because when I was not doing very well with my
Speaker 1: mental health, I needed to read a book like this,
Speaker 1: but I couldn't find anything like it, and so I
Speaker 1: made it. It's the kind of book you would grab
Speaker 1: when you tried everything else, but you still feel a
Speaker 1: bit stuck, or you might be trying to understand how
Speaker 1: someone that you really care about keeps going in circles
Speaker 1: and things only seem to be getting worse for them,
Speaker 1: and you can't understand why they won't stop doing what
Speaker 1: they're doing. It's specifically written for the kind of people
Speaker 1: who aren't really used to asking for help, or I
Speaker 1: might be a little bit concerned that if they do
Speaker 1: ask for help, it might impact them negatively. Now, I
Speaker 1: wanted this book to be as powerful as possible, so
Speaker 1: I'm made absolutely sure that I worked hand in glove
Speaker 1: with an eminent Australian psychologist, and they made absolutely sure
Speaker 1: that all the messages or the metaphors, all the techniques.
Speaker 1: Everything I talk about in this book, everything we show
Speaker 1: in this book absolutely legit. Because some of the stuff
Speaker 1: in the book can be quite complicated. So to make
Speaker 1: some of the concepts and the tools easier to understand,
Speaker 1: I wanted to use illustrations to explain everything. Now, I'm
Speaker 1: not bad at sketching, I'm okay, but I am not
Speaker 1: an artist. So I need an artist. And there's only
Speaker 1: one artist that I wanted to make this book with,
Speaker 1: only one person who could understand what it is that
Speaker 1: I was trying to do. Only one person who could
Speaker 1: get exactly the kind of concepts that I wanted to
Speaker 1: put on the page. And that person is Campbell Walker.
Speaker 1: Cam Walker also known as Struthless sixty nine on Instagram.
Speaker 1: He's Truthless on YouTube.
Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 1: Cam Walker and I have been friends for quite a while.
Speaker 1: He made the if you saw my first live show,
Speaker 1: there was a video that played before the show that said, Hey,
Speaker 1: by the way, there's going to be some pretty rankshit
Speaker 1: coming up, so just hold your head because it's going
Speaker 1: to be on the way. So he made the warning
Speaker 1: video that played at the start of the show. And
Speaker 1: he's incredibly talented human being, he's a fantastic communicator, a
Speaker 1: brilliant dad, hilarious and even though he is supremely busy
Speaker 1: doing all of those things and launching his own book,
Speaker 1: Doom and Bloom, which you can get right now, he
Speaker 1: said yes when I asked him to illustrate this book
Speaker 1: now for one of a better word. So what now?
Speaker 1: What is a graphic novel? It is a conversation between
Speaker 1: the book itself and the main character of the book,
Speaker 1: which Cam and I will talk about in just a moment.
Speaker 1: And I am incredibly proud of it. Like I said,
Speaker 1: you can pre order it right now. If you do,
Speaker 1: you're helping me help other people because pre orders play
Speaker 1: a really huge role in publishing. The level of demand
Speaker 1: for pre orders gives booksellers and the publishers a bit
Speaker 1: of an idea of how hard they can push this
Speaker 1: and where they should push it and how many, say,
Speaker 1: for example, books a bookshop will order knowing that they
Speaker 1: won't be stuck with them on the shelves. So ideally,
Speaker 1: I want to help as many people as possibly can
Speaker 1: with this book because not very long, it doesn't cost much.
Speaker 1: But the last time I did I put out a book,
Speaker 1: I did a sold out national tour. It was super fun.
Speaker 1: We are locking in the final venues right now because
Speaker 1: I am going to tour again, and you'll hear me
Speaker 1: talking about what I want to do in the tour
Speaker 1: in a moment. This show is going to be like something,
Speaker 1: something like no one's ever seen before. I really hope
Speaker 1: I can make it happen. I'm so proud of this book.
Speaker 1: I'm so grateful I got to make it with Cam.
Speaker 1: This book is, if anything, it's more like a tool
Speaker 1: that you can come back to every time you might
Speaker 1: need it. So here's a little bit of a conversation
Speaker 1: that I had with my dear friend, the incredible artist
Speaker 1: Cam Walker. And if you like what you're here, get
Speaker 1: into the show notes. You'll find a link to pre
Speaker 1: order a copy of So What Now What, and possibly
Speaker 1: some details about a live tour as well. Enjoy this
Speaker 1: catch up with the artist of So What Now What,
Speaker 1: Cam Walker. We talked about the kind of year you've
Speaker 1: had to if you've been through a fucking ton of
Speaker 1: shit and in the middle of that, I call you
Speaker 1: up and say, hey, Cam, I know that you've just
Speaker 1: done all this wild stuff and you are hanging on
Speaker 1: to the World's most Dangerous World road in the world
Speaker 1: with your fingernails. Would you like to dedicate a couple
Speaker 1: months of your life to illustrating a book for me? Yeah?
Speaker 2: And I said, yeah sure. And then you said, and
Speaker 2: the main characters are hand which if you don't draw,
Speaker 2: that's annoying.
Speaker 3: Hands are hard.
Speaker 1: There's a reason most cartoon characters have gloves. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: then three fingers and three fingers or no, no, no
Speaker 1: opposable thumb. Their hands are really hard. As you once
Speaker 1: said to me, and I quote to everybody, the hand
Speaker 1: is the eye of the arm. That's true.
Speaker 2: And honestly, like, no shade on Finding Nemo. But they
Speaker 2: kind of had it easy. No hands, bro, think about it.
Speaker 1: If you're just doing eyes and answer more vised facial expressions.
Speaker 2: I take that back. Yeah, they had to put in
Speaker 2: way more. I don't need to have these thoughts out loud.
Speaker 1: I just agree. I'm going back to watch Finding Nemo.
Speaker 1: I've dived on the actual dive site that inspired the
Speaker 1: opening scene.
Speaker 3: That's sick.
Speaker 1: It's in Fiji, It's fucking that's sick. Yeah. The people
Speaker 1: from picture one of them, we're like, this is the place,
Speaker 1: this is where we're on the film.
Speaker 3: Oh that's so cool.
Speaker 1: It's whether there's this big kind of ridge line that ends,
Speaker 1: it goes down like I don't know kilometer, and so
Speaker 1: you get a big pelagic cold water fish that mix
Speaker 1: with the tropical fish right at the top of it.
Speaker 1: Oh wow, thanks for rescuing me. Great, it's a long
Speaker 1: way down, but it's yeah, it's really good.
Speaker 3: So, yes, we drew a hand character.
Speaker 1: We drew a hand character, and so I ask you, like,
Speaker 1: can you can you do this for me? Because adore
Speaker 1: the work, you know, adore the the way that you communicate,
Speaker 1: And there was no one else so I ever would
Speaker 1: wanted to illustrate this book. And I was just so
Speaker 1: grateful with the robustness that you just launched into it,
Speaker 1: even though I gave you all main carrige. It's a
Speaker 1: fucking hand. One of the hardest things ever to draw
Speaker 1: and make look expressive. Like the hand's got to be sad,
Speaker 1: the hand's got to be excited, the hand's got to
Speaker 1: be running.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, which is really fun.
Speaker 2: And then even you'd sort of like broken the rules
Speaker 2: of hands as well, because you're like, okay, I want
Speaker 2: the pinky to have like four more joints in it,
Speaker 2: so it can do like all of this kind of
Speaker 2: like sassy stuff.
Speaker 1: With occasionally the hands hand goes on a hip. So
Speaker 1: I think I do remember going to school with a
Speaker 1: kid that could do some cool shit with his little
Speaker 1: finger like that, and it would make people vomit. He's
Speaker 1: in jail now, probably if your trick is to make
Speaker 1: your knuckles bend backwards. Yeah, dude, you're already on a list.
Speaker 1: Iay watch this.
Speaker 3: Yeah that guy.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but you said yes, yeah, it was real fun
Speaker 2: and then like when you're like, okay, I want it running,
Speaker 2: and then I was like, okay, I just watched Fantasia.
Speaker 2: You got to rewatch it every year, especially part with
Speaker 2: like whatever, and so I was like, oh, I can
Speaker 2: like Sorcerer's Apprentice the Glove and have the glove like
Speaker 2: sort of running and running and running. And that was
Speaker 2: really fun because it gave it like so much personality.
Speaker 2: And then we yeah, ended up kind of.
Speaker 3: Making the face a little bit rubber hosey, which is
Speaker 3: real fun.
Speaker 1: That's kind of old stylee.
Speaker 2: Mickey Mouse, which by the way, you can absolutely use
Speaker 2: it is copyright free. Yeah as of two years ago. Really,
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, man, put steamboat Willie on a shirt. Do
Speaker 2: it make some money? It's public domain, baby.
Speaker 1: Oh wow. I asked you to do some pretty wild stuff.
Speaker 1: And one of the reasons that I wanted you and
Speaker 1: only you to do this is because I knew that
Speaker 1: when I said to you, I'm going to need a
Speaker 1: metaphor for this, but it involves a whole and a
Speaker 1: labrador and a typographic monster with two shovels. You went,
Speaker 1: no problem, Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, dude, Yeah for sure. I mean you were super
Speaker 2: specific with the brief, and it made total sense to me.
Speaker 2: You know, when you get like to a point of
Speaker 2: like telepathy because someone's communicating quite clearly, and you're like, yeah,
Speaker 2: I know exactly what's in your head. You don't need
Speaker 2: to say the rest of the words, but I can
Speaker 2: do it, and you're trying to get it out of
Speaker 2: your head into mind so my hands can put it
Speaker 2: onto the paper.
Speaker 1: That's probably how I.
Speaker 2: Felt then, But now as you say it out loud,
Speaker 2: I'm like, yeah, that was that was pretty fucking weird, dude.
Speaker 1: But that's also why I wanted you to do it,
Speaker 1: because because they when I first got the book deal,
Speaker 1: they said, oh, we could get this out of so
Speaker 1: that I still we could just you know, get someone.
Speaker 1: I'm like, nah, I won't be able to communicate this
Speaker 1: to anybody except camp.
Speaker 2: It was really it was such a such a pleasure
Speaker 2: to draw as well, because I think the thing that
Speaker 2: really helped with that process was when I also, you know,
Speaker 2: when they when they will put me forward to do
Speaker 2: the layouts as well. So it's like I've done the illustration,
Speaker 2: and in my head I had this sort of idea
Speaker 2: of how I wanted the text to play with all
Speaker 2: of the things, and how I wanted all the backgrounds,
Speaker 2: and how I wanted each page to look like it's
Speaker 2: own artwork, because I feel like the book you wrote,
Speaker 2: you know, it's the one hundred and something pages, and
Speaker 2: each page has its own lesson, and I wanted I
Speaker 2: don't know, in my head, I had it like envisioned
Speaker 2: it's sitting on somebody's stand, on one of those open
Speaker 2: bookshelfy things where it could be there, and I'm like, okay,
Speaker 2: I want to make each page worthy of that position in.
Speaker 1: A room that it exists by itself.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, And so I was going from that
Speaker 2: as my starting point, and I don't know, maybe it's
Speaker 2: what we're talking about before the fixation.
Speaker 3: Just like just cap going and it was so much fun.
Speaker 1: You absolutely nail that. You've got to do the layout.
Speaker 1: And for people that don't know what layout is is
Speaker 1: I don't know, a picture of magazine you know you'll
Speaker 1: see or maybe a website, right, you see there's a
Speaker 1: headline at the top, there's usually some boulder font something
Speaker 1: in italics, with a byline. There's a photo, usually some
Speaker 1: metallica to make that, and then a couple of paragraphs
Speaker 1: and then an ad for some depending on who you are,
Speaker 1: either nine out of ten people over fifty can't believe
Speaker 1: they missed out on this, and then the rest of
Speaker 1: the article all right, yeah, which is me. So that's layout, yay.
Speaker 1: But that can tell the story, it can detract from
Speaker 1: the story, Like anytime you've sat. If I ever use
Speaker 1: a web breas that doesn't have ad blockers on it,
Speaker 1: I'm like, how the fuck do people deal with all
Speaker 1: this flashing shit? So I have everything locked down? The
Speaker 1: layout can I either detract or really amplify? And what
Speaker 1: the fact that you got to do the layout just
Speaker 1: amplified so much of it, even things like colored choices
Speaker 1: of backgrounds in converse to you know, the antithesis of
Speaker 1: that point twenty pages ago. It's unbelievably well thought out.
Speaker 2: Man.
Speaker 3: Oh thanks, man, I appreciate it.
Speaker 1: It was so cool.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's really cool. And like got to denim my
Speaker 2: own font for it, which.
Speaker 3: Was really fine.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So, I don't know, just like putting everything on
Speaker 2: the page and just feeling this holistic sense of like
Speaker 2: aesthetic ownership.
Speaker 1: It was beautiful, just taking a moment away from cam
Speaker 1: Walker play some ads back in a sec. What I
Speaker 1: really liked as well is that when I was trying
Speaker 1: to picture something that wasn't working, or you were doing
Speaker 1: something that wasn't quite mixing the mark, missing the mark,
Speaker 1: I don't think. I don't think we ever had a
Speaker 1: moment where I was like, fuck you, it's going to happen.
Speaker 1: It was like okay, man, sure, yeah absolutely, If that
Speaker 1: doesn't land take it away, Yeah I was. I was
Speaker 1: so wonderfully detached from like I just wanted to do this.
Speaker 1: How do I get it to do this? I'm not
Speaker 1: attached to I love that we were able to do that.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Thanks. I haven't had a working relationship like that for
Speaker 1: a while, and really, well, I mean I have really
Speaker 1: created working relationships. But it was very It was a
Speaker 1: really positive thing because we're both creating this thing. It's
Speaker 1: no longer just mine, it's ours. We have to both
Speaker 1: be cool with it, and both our names are going
Speaker 1: on it. Yeah, and I really really liked that we
Speaker 1: were able to do that. This is act. This is
Speaker 1: the very iPad that I did a lot of that
Speaker 1: sketching on.
Speaker 2: True, I'd like to bring him one point of tension
Speaker 2: and take your handwriting.
Speaker 1: I'm terrible. It's so bad the work.
Speaker 2: It is like you'd make it like obviously your parents' adopters.
Speaker 1: You know that's true. I'm gonna I'm gonna bring up
Speaker 1: for I've got someone probably got some so.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, I want everyone to just bring up an original.
Speaker 1: I'm going to bring up an original, one of my
Speaker 1: original sketches. A lot of these were done on the plane.
Speaker 3: Your sketches are good.
Speaker 1: Thank you, you're very good at drawing. And then thank you.
Speaker 2: And then it's just these like it's like reading shorthand
Speaker 2: and like like you know when you read like old
Speaker 2: court documents and there's someone who would like do like
Speaker 2: the squiggles and stuff.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's the one.
Speaker 1: I've got one of the original sketches here. It's about
Speaker 1: the one regarding cognitive fusion, which is a very difficult
Speaker 1: thing to talk about, but it's one of the things
Speaker 1: that really distracted me.
Speaker 3: That's that one.
Speaker 1: Yes, and the idea was that you have this thought,
Speaker 1: and the thought is so intense and so visceral that
Speaker 1: it's like you're getting sucked into the horror movie and
Speaker 1: suddenly you're there. I don't know if you remember that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, this is exactly what I mean.
Speaker 2: And it's like, these are super legible sketches in my opinion,
Speaker 2: like I completely understood what you were talking about. It's like, yeah,
Speaker 2: Glovey's watching a horror movie. Then that horror movie feels
Speaker 2: like it's alive, and then it's like, yeah, here's the Runes.
Speaker 2: You know, Yeah, you're decidh for those genius.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I listened to a lot of Viking metal.
Speaker 2: You're like, yeah, here's my impression of every language at once.
Speaker 1: There was a couple of a couple A couple of
Speaker 1: the sketches were which I'm stoked about. A couple of
Speaker 1: the sketches were my actual hand because I would be
Speaker 1: I was like, how do I draw the hand? I
Speaker 1: want to do that and so I would hold the
Speaker 1: iPad like this and take a photo of my hand
Speaker 1: in the position I wanted it, and then sketch over
Speaker 1: it and then put the face on it, and a
Speaker 1: couple of them made it into the book, see, which
Speaker 1: I'm stped for.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I definitely made it left so I could, like,
Speaker 2: you know, do it lifetime.
Speaker 1: And I'm glad you did because the live show. So
Speaker 1: the next live show, you wanted me to make a puppet,
Speaker 1: like a giant, life sized puppet that I inhabit. Yeah,
Speaker 1: inhabit yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, analogue and you're like, nah, dude.
Speaker 1: So I'm working with a guy who's the professor at
Speaker 1: one of the art schools here in Sydney, and with
Speaker 1: another mate who worked on the Minecraft movie, and to
Speaker 1: live motion capture my actual hand are using a hacked
Speaker 1: VR headset wearing a head band with an iPhone twelve
Speaker 1: on the front that captures my face. And I'm glad
Speaker 1: you made at the left hand. This is why I'm
Speaker 1: glad you made at left hand, because then my right
Speaker 1: hand can bring it and bring out the layers. And
Speaker 1: so the live show is me with that projected behind me,
Speaker 1: using all the InDesign layers and bringing them up on
Speaker 1: the screen and like doing the show.
Speaker 2: Love.
Speaker 1: You're looking at me like a coykup right now?
Speaker 2: Is it?
Speaker 3: Because what's awesome?
Speaker 2: I think, like because I knew you wanted to do
Speaker 2: a moke cap, but I think in my head there
Speaker 2: was somebody else doing it and so you could interact
Speaker 2: with them. But the fact that you're doing it all
Speaker 2: day yourself, you're like Beardy Man or something.
Speaker 1: It'll be man.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, yeah, you're like just doing it all at once.
Speaker 1: Well, because you know, Reggie Watts, it's not the eighties, man,
Speaker 1: you can't take twelve piece funk bands on the road anymore.
Speaker 1: You've got to do it by yourself, like every other
Speaker 1: person i'd take on the road, Like ah you imaginet
Speaker 1: start to get out the window. So it's like, how
Speaker 1: can I do this with as little few people as possible?
Speaker 1: And yes, so pretty much. So I've yet to figure out.
Speaker 1: I yet to do the proof of concept, but I
Speaker 1: think that's going to be it. I think that's going
Speaker 1: to be the show, and that it's so we because
Speaker 1: it's a conversation between a book and a glove.
Speaker 3: Yeah, this is normal, this is normal.
Speaker 1: So the book is the whole book is a conversation. Okay,
Speaker 1: So I'm thinking the live show will be Glovey, which
Speaker 1: we call Bookie and Glovey. We'll called it Glovey will
Speaker 1: be reading it in their voice because I couldn't figure
Speaker 1: out how to turn the mo cap off off and
Speaker 1: be the voice of the book and I didn't want
Speaker 1: to be overly cranky or have the pathos really get
Speaker 1: in there from the book voice. I want a glove
Speaker 1: to be curious and go, huh, how would you know?
Speaker 1: Like it's reading the text as it comes up. Oh, well,
Speaker 1: I guess, And they're responding. Glove is responding to the
Speaker 1: text that comes up. The other characters are simply the
Speaker 1: text coming on the screen. So ambitious.
Speaker 2: I love it.
Speaker 3: I love it so much so I keep swearing, but like, yeah, dude,
Speaker 3: that is awesome.
Speaker 1: Are you kidding me? What's the name of that? I
Speaker 1: can't remember. Here's the fucking unbelievable. Is the greatest baseball
Speaker 1: player that's ever lived as a Japanese guys playing for
Speaker 1: the LA Dodgers. And on the night you know how
Speaker 1: they have the bubble head nights and stuff like that,
Speaker 1: every literally every child wins a baseball bat. Some nights
Speaker 1: it's amazing, it's incredible. Merch is brilliant. But on his
Speaker 1: bubble head night, he walks out to the plate and
Speaker 1: he points at the fence and goes pink hits this
Speaker 1: fucking tater and goes straight over exactly where he wants.
Speaker 1: Mad Homer like, you've got a point for the fence
Speaker 1: and you got to hit. You might not get it,
Speaker 1: but you've got to go for it. You've got to
Speaker 1: go for it.
Speaker 3: That's sick.
Speaker 1: That was Campbell Walker, also known as Struthless on YouTube,
Speaker 1: Struthless sixty nine on Instagram. Of course, his new book
Speaker 1: is called Doom and Bloom and the book that we
Speaker 1: worked on together, the book we've just been talking about,
Speaker 1: is called So What Now? What is my new book,
Speaker 1: and you can pre order it right now. If you
Speaker 1: pre order it, you're helping me, you're helping other people
Speaker 1: who don't know yet that this book exists by pumping
Speaker 1: it up in whatever kind of messaging that the publishers
Speaker 1: and bookstores need to know. It really helps us and
Speaker 1: helps people you don't know, because somebody who cares about
Speaker 1: them will hopefully buy it for them and give it
Speaker 1: to them. If they're struggling, and that's the whole idea.
Speaker 1: You can pre order the book right now. There's a
Speaker 1: link in the show notes. If you do, screenshot your invoice,
Speaker 1: your receipt, you proof of purchase, whatever you want to
Speaker 1: call it, Send it to me, send usher email at
Speaker 1: gmail dot com is my email address, or DM it
Speaker 1: to me and I'll send you something to say thank you.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much for listening, but thanks to Adam
Speaker 1: Buncher who worked late to get this one together. Back
Speaker 1: here on Wednesday, Merck Watts is coming to join us.
Speaker 1: Have a great day.