Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind. My name
Speaker 2: is Robert Lamb. In today's episode, I chat with author
Speaker 2: and illustrator George O'Connor, creator of the twelve volume Olympians
Speaker 2: comics series. His new book, Odin is his first venture
Speaker 2: in a new As Guardians graphic novel series, and it
Speaker 2: is out today in all fourmats. I'd spoken with George
Speaker 2: a couple of years back and decided at that point
Speaker 2: that he would make for a great guest here on
Speaker 2: Stuff to Blow Your Mind, you know, given our general
Speaker 2: interest on the show here in Global myths. So it
Speaker 2: was a real treat to get to chat with him here. Plus,
Speaker 2: he is one of my son's favorite authors, so hopefully
Speaker 2: I'm still scoring a few cool dad points here and there.
Speaker 2: So without further ado, let's jump right in to the interview. Hi, George,
Speaker 2: welcome to the show.
Speaker 3: Thanks thanks for having me.
Speaker 2: So, the new graphic novel is Odin, the first in
Speaker 2: your brand new as Guardians series, and this comes on
Speaker 2: the heels of your what twelve volume Olympian series about
Speaker 2: the gods of Greek mythology. Yeah, so, how did the
Speaker 2: Olympians come together, and then how did that lead into
Speaker 2: this new venture?
Speaker 4: Oh, I mean it's it's kind of a long story
Speaker 4: and there's almost like multiple different versions I could tell,
Speaker 4: but you know, as a fan of your podcast, I
Speaker 4: know some of the spots I should really hit. So
Speaker 4: Olympians was a lifelong love. Right when I was in
Speaker 4: third grade, I was involved in a special school program
Speaker 4: where we kind of did project based learning where the
Speaker 4: teacher who's headed it up, hi missus stimili if you're listening,
Speaker 4: She would do these big project based things. We would study,
Speaker 4: like say, we studied like Rube Goldberg for instance, as
Speaker 4: a way of studying the history of comics and at
Speaker 4: the same time studying like simple machines and stuff. And
Speaker 4: we did a whole section on Greek mythology, and it
Speaker 4: was the thing that really clicked with me. I was
Speaker 4: the kid who drew. A lot of kids drew back then,
Speaker 4: but that was definitely my identity. I was the kid
Speaker 4: who drew. I like to draw like monsters and muscle
Speaker 4: men and stuff. This is the age of like he
Speaker 4: Man and things. I think the original Clash of the Titans,
Speaker 4: the Ray Harryhausen was just out in theaters or had
Speaker 4: been out, so there was a lot of young Greek
Speaker 4: in the air. And it was a big thing for me,
Speaker 4: partially because the stories were so not the sort of
Speaker 4: thing you would be exposed to as a kid normally.
Speaker 4: They were full of like, you know, violence and sexy
Speaker 4: stuff and things that like as a third grade you
Speaker 4: were normally not allowed to look at. But because it
Speaker 4: was like this Greek mythology thing, it was condoned. And
Speaker 4: I was also the kid who hated being talked down
Speaker 4: to the second I could tell an adult was like
Speaker 4: talking down to me, I'm like, this person's an idiot,
Speaker 4: and I don't know why I'm talking to them. So
Speaker 4: this all just came together in this perfect mix for me,
Speaker 4: and it just became a lie flowing love. And I
Speaker 4: read a lot of books, like all the books I
Speaker 4: could find about Greek mythology, and then I branched out
Speaker 4: to other mythologies after I kind of exhausted everything in
Speaker 4: my library, and one of the things I got into
Speaker 4: was Norse mythology, and by that point, I think I
Speaker 4: was induced to Greeks about like third grade. By Norse
Speaker 4: mythology got into about sixth grade, and at that time,
Speaker 4: I also discovered superhero comics. My mom bought me an
Speaker 4: issue of The Mighty Thor one day when I was
Speaker 4: home sick from school. Both my parents read comics, but
Speaker 4: not They weren't like Wednesday Warriors. They didn't run to
Speaker 4: the shops, but we just had a lot of comics
Speaker 4: in the house, and my mom bought.
Speaker 3: Me this Thor.
Speaker 4: It was during the creator Walt Simonson's run, And if
Speaker 4: you know your Marvel comics, you know Walt Simonson he
Speaker 4: took you know, the Marvel comics of Thor is mythologically
Speaker 4: not particularly accurate. You know, it was created by Stanley
Speaker 4: and Jack Kirby and Journey to Mystery in the sixties.
Speaker 4: But during the eighties Walt Simonson took over this book
Speaker 4: as writer and and illustrator the cartoonist for it, and
Speaker 4: he really brought the mythology back in a very accurate way.
Speaker 4: So basically, as I was reading these mythological stories for
Speaker 4: the first times, I'm also being exposed to these comics
Speaker 4: that are retelling the mythology in a way that makes
Speaker 4: sense to me. And so it plays this big role
Speaker 4: the whole idea behind Olympians and now as Guardians is
Speaker 4: it's classic superhero retellings of mythology that sounds maybe more
Speaker 4: crass the one. I hope they come out as like,
Speaker 4: it's not just all bam pao stuff. It's just using
Speaker 4: the kind of storytelling techniques to like make the way
Speaker 4: the stories came alive in my brain as a kid
Speaker 4: seeing all these big long names and big long words
Speaker 4: and stuff like. They came to life in a very
Speaker 4: exciting way for me, both mythologies Greek and Norse, and
Speaker 4: being introduced to Thor and then through that just becoming
Speaker 4: a comic book fiend, particularly old Marvel comics and such.
Speaker 4: The two were very inextra linked. Of the two mythologies,
Speaker 4: Greek mythology was always my favor. It was my first love,
Speaker 4: and so I've you know, that was it made sense
Speaker 4: for that to be the first series I brought to
Speaker 4: life with Olympians, which was like a twelve volume series.
Speaker 4: Each one was centered on a different Olympian God. Not exhaustive.
Speaker 4: There's too much Greek mythology to tell every myth, but
Speaker 4: just enough to give a portrait of the goddess or
Speaker 4: god the book was about. And I wrapped it up
Speaker 4: with twelve books because that seemed like a good number.
Speaker 4: And then I was like, I'm going to do the
Speaker 4: Norse because you know, after twelve years of doing Olympians
Speaker 4: one book a year, essentially, you know, Greek gods are
Speaker 4: very beautiful and you know perfect that way, I wanted
Speaker 4: to dress something like a little bit grittier and like
Speaker 4: the Norse mythology.
Speaker 3: It's like that those gods.
Speaker 4: Are not renowned for their beauty, with a few exceptions,
Speaker 4: like you know the stories like those gods as a spoiler,
Speaker 4: they get old, they die, they get maimed, not the perfect,
Speaker 4: all powerful beings. So it's a real exciting, fun change
Speaker 4: of pace after over a decade working on one style mythology,
Speaker 4: to dip my fingers into tell this other style.
Speaker 2: Now the Yeah, the Olympian series. I was introduced to
Speaker 2: these because my son, who's about to turn twelve, he
Speaker 2: got really into them during the pandemic. I think maybe
Speaker 2: he got him. We got him initially through the library system,
Speaker 2: but then eventually we just had to buy them all
Speaker 2: because he needed to read them over and over again. Yeah,
Speaker 2: he was a he wasn't is a huge fan because
Speaker 2: I think they fed his curiosity about Greek mythology. Well
Speaker 2: also ultimately I think pushing pushing him more into other
Speaker 2: global myths and getting him into other things like like
Speaker 2: the novels of Rick Ryerdan and the various authors under
Speaker 2: that Rick uired and presents Spanner. Yeah and yeah, I
Speaker 2: wish I'd had some of these resources growing up, because
Speaker 2: I feel like I had the what is it, the
Speaker 2: d d Alari's Book of Greek Myths?
Speaker 3: Oh, Delaria's Book of Greek Myths?
Speaker 2: Yes, yeah, yeah, I had that one, and I had
Speaker 2: some like really stuffy old books of my aunts and
Speaker 2: then just Clash the Titans, and those are like the
Speaker 2: main initial resources I had for Greek mythology.
Speaker 4: I think we probably pulled on exactly the same resources.
Speaker 4: So I have a huge soft spot for Delaire's Book
Speaker 4: of Greek Myths. And if you're listening at home, you
Speaker 4: don't know this book, you probably do. It was an
Speaker 4: oversized yellow and orange cover of like a sun God.
Speaker 4: Every library had it, every classroom should have it. And
Speaker 4: it was this husband wife team, the de Laires who
Speaker 4: retold Greek mythology and the illustrations, like I'm obsessed with
Speaker 4: this book, Like you can.
Speaker 3: Even look online.
Speaker 4: There's a comic I did for The New York Times
Speaker 4: about Dolaires because I love this book so much and
Speaker 4: like the illustrations are some of them are so cool
Speaker 4: and some of them are so.
Speaker 3: Weird.
Speaker 4: And as a kid, it was something I grappled with.
Speaker 4: I'm like, I don't know what to make of this imagery,
Speaker 4: and so I would redraw the myths in my own style.
Speaker 4: And that's such a cornerstone of what Olympians grew out
Speaker 4: of what the Delairs did that was amazing, I think,
Speaker 4: is taking all the disparate threads of Greek mythology, all
Speaker 4: these different versions of stories written over the entire Mediterranean
Speaker 4: world over hundreds of years, no real connection, there's no Bible,
Speaker 4: but they took it and worked it into a really
Speaker 4: nice cohesive narrative. And that's something that I've tried to
Speaker 4: do with both as Guardians and Olympians, to take all
Speaker 4: these disparate stories and like it's that superhero mentality, like
Speaker 4: if this is all in continuity, how do we make
Speaker 4: this work? One of my pet peeves though growing up
Speaker 4: it was those stuffy old mythology books, Like I appreciate
Speaker 4: it as a sophisticate, a relatively sophisticated adult when you
Speaker 4: read a Greek mythology book that's illustrated with like faux
Speaker 4: like you know, vase painting drawings and stuff. But as
Speaker 4: a kid, that doesn't grab you, and it's already Sometimes
Speaker 4: for some people it's a real uphill battle when you
Speaker 4: see like Hefestos or Persephone or all these long names.
Speaker 4: Some people it just it's an impenetrable wall of texts.
Speaker 3: They just get blocked. They never get into it.
Speaker 4: And that's such a key part of like what the
Speaker 4: myths were to me was like bringing them to life
Speaker 4: the way I saw them in my head, doing that
Speaker 4: in my books that way, and of course Clash of
Speaker 4: the Titans, seeing that it was just like that was
Speaker 4: pretty mind blowing. Oh yeah, yeah, although I do have
Speaker 4: a huge problem with the cracking.
Speaker 3: Oh yes, because he's not from Greek mythology.
Speaker 4: I was that kid. I still am that guy, clearly,
Speaker 4: I'm mentioning it now.
Speaker 2: Yeah. My son actually points to your Olympian series often
Speaker 2: it's like this is the real stuff, this is the
Speaker 2: accurate stuff. It took me a long time to get
Speaker 2: him into the mcu thor movies because he would criticize it.
Speaker 2: Constantly it's like, this is not actually the way the
Speaker 2: mythology works, This is not what Thor is about. I
Speaker 2: had to like kind of just gently bring him into
Speaker 2: it more and be like, well, you know, this is
Speaker 2: a different version. This is a like a science fiction
Speaker 2: using those characters.
Speaker 4: Yeah, part of my original pitch for as guardians, Like
Speaker 4: I think the first line is Thor is not Loki's brother.
Speaker 4: Loki is Odin's blood brother. If anything, Loki is his uncle,
Speaker 4: and that's always describes attention. Like the Marvel versions of
Speaker 4: Thor and Loki and Odin all Norse mythology have so
Speaker 4: firmly supplanted in the public consciousness any idea that people
Speaker 4: have of the original, like you could just kind that's
Speaker 4: like a controversial statement, like yeah, they're not brothers, they're
Speaker 4: like what and just the depictions of the gods are
Speaker 4: so different, especially Thor. So my book Odin is coming
Speaker 4: out soon, Thor comes out later in the year. It's
Speaker 4: already done, and like the Thor of myth is such
Speaker 4: like a delightful lummis and like that was such a
Speaker 4: fun book to do, probably the most fun I've ever
Speaker 4: had doing a book. Is just he's this big dumb,
Speaker 4: muscle bound brute who just like you know, he just
Speaker 4: lives to smash things with his hammer, which I mean,
Speaker 4: I guess some of that is similar to the mcu version.
Speaker 4: But he's also he's no Chris Hemsworth. He's not like
Speaker 4: this gorgeous blode. He's an overly muscled, like briskly haired,
Speaker 4: redheaded guy with a beard like covered with body hair.
Speaker 4: It's just he's just a fun dude to draw who
Speaker 4: just delights in smashing.
Speaker 2: That's going to be a fun follow up to this,
Speaker 2: to this Odin book, which was we'll talk about like
Speaker 2: this is a This is like a in many respects,
Speaker 2: like a deeply weird grim tale. Not to say there's
Speaker 2: no humor in it, but it leans more towards the
Speaker 2: weird and the grim.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it does.
Speaker 4: I don't know if that reflects anything about my life
Speaker 4: or just like the actual storytelling. But what I've tried
Speaker 4: to do with each of these books is to paint
Speaker 4: a portrait of the deity that's being featured. And the
Speaker 4: thing that becomes very apparent when you read a series
Speaker 4: of Norse myths is that Odin's overall arc, very consistent
Speaker 4: is his obsession with knowledge. He's obsessed with finding out more.
Speaker 4: And some of that is he has a sense of
Speaker 4: like the doom that awaits all the gods, Ragnarrok coming
Speaker 4: and he's trying to stave that off. But virtually every
Speaker 4: myth of him is him trying to learn more and
Speaker 4: the sacrifices he makes. This is a god who literally
Speaker 4: plucks out his own eye for an opportunity to learn
Speaker 4: more knowledge. You know, he famously hangs himself on the
Speaker 4: tree Ignitosil in order like achieves like an out of
Speaker 4: body experience, in order to learn more about what is
Speaker 4: to come. The story ends up being very like dark
Speaker 4: in a way, like exploration of like this this man
Speaker 4: who is obsessed with finding out his fate so he
Speaker 4: could try to stop it, and you know, spoilers, he's
Speaker 4: not going to be able to.
Speaker 2: In working with some of these wild ideas settings and
Speaker 2: events for Odin, did you ever feel like you were
Speaker 2: writing like a Jodorowski comic, because you know, it's pretty
Speaker 2: it's pretty surreal and weird almost from the get go.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it really that's a great way, but it's kind
Speaker 4: of true, Like I was just lamenting this to my
Speaker 4: partner the other day, Like some elements of Norse mythology,
Speaker 4: they'll just drop a line that's just so weird. You're like,
Speaker 4: how do I interpret this? Like, for the Norse creation
Speaker 4: myth involves a giant hermaphroditic creature named Emir who exists
Speaker 4: in this void between worlds, and he kind of starts
Speaker 4: butting living beings out of his armpits and stuff, and
Speaker 4: these beings eventually give birth to Odin and his brothers,
Speaker 4: who then they murder Emir and builds like the entire
Speaker 4: cosmos out of his body. And so I'm able to
Speaker 4: say that is one thing, and it's pretty weird saying that,
Speaker 4: but then having to craft the visual imagery to go
Speaker 4: with that. I spent a long time trying to strike
Speaker 4: the right balance between gruesome and realistic and absurd. I'll say,
Speaker 4: my Emir kind of looks like the Staypuff marshmallow Man
Speaker 4: a little bit, just floating their naked in the void.
Speaker 4: But I mean, I feel like that's the best way
Speaker 4: to handle it.
Speaker 2: And I have to say I was really impressed with
Speaker 2: how Odin comes together as a story as opposed to
Speaker 2: just like a sequence of strange tellings and half tellings.
Speaker 2: You know, like it really you really do bring it
Speaker 2: together and it isn't just this like surreal you know,
Speaker 2: procession of images.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 4: One of the things that I actually tried to structure
Speaker 4: the episodes that start off more outlandish and bring it
Speaker 4: more into the like the progression of the stories get
Speaker 4: a little bit less insane in order to tell the
Speaker 4: story of Odin sacrificing everything he can for more wisdom.
Speaker 4: Another thing I tried to do with this is so
Speaker 4: a little history of Norse mythology, frustratingly, as opposed to
Speaker 4: Greek mythology, where there is enough material that has survived
Speaker 4: from antiquity that I could probably do a book a
Speaker 4: year for rest of my life and never run even
Speaker 4: close to dry. Norse mythology, there's very little that survived
Speaker 4: to us, and virtually every thing that did survive was
Speaker 4: recorded in the Christian era after people stopped believing in
Speaker 4: these gods for the most part. So you basically have
Speaker 4: the poetic Eda, which is a collection of various scaldic poems,
Speaker 4: and you have the prose Etta, which was written by
Speaker 4: this guy named Snorri Sterlinsson, which is the best name ever.
Speaker 4: And it's just this is kind of all that you
Speaker 4: get from these two things, like there's not even much
Speaker 4: art that survived. And with Snorri, he's retelling Snorri Sterlissen,
Speaker 4: the guy who wrote the Prosetta. He's retelling some of
Speaker 4: these scaldic poems that he was aware of and putting
Speaker 4: his own spin on them, as you should as a storyteller.
Speaker 4: And I find that's such a part of the experience
Speaker 4: of reading Norse mythology that I've never seen reflected in
Speaker 4: any other readtellings before. So, for instance, in the book Odin,
Speaker 4: the main character in a sense is you the reader.
Speaker 4: There is actually someone who is you're being. It's you know,
Speaker 4: a rare case of second person narration, where somebody is
Speaker 4: describing to everything you're seeing. And you walk into you
Speaker 4: basically awake on a battlefield, and all around you see
Speaker 4: all these dead norsemen who'd been slaughtered, and there's literally
Speaker 4: carrying crows eating them. And then these these women in
Speaker 4: silver come riding out of the sky on horses and
Speaker 4: it's the Valkyries, and they're picking their spirits up, taking
Speaker 4: them to Valhalla, and all this stuff sounds kind of familiar,
Speaker 4: and we all know, like I mean, or maybe we don't,
Speaker 4: but Valhalla was like the Viking equivalent of heaven. It
Speaker 4: was a place that you went to and that was
Speaker 4: your goal. You would die valiantly in battle, and that
Speaker 4: was your reward. You'd go to Valhalla, this great feast
Speaker 4: hall where there would be just like they'd give you
Speaker 4: like mead and pork, and you'd like party all day.
Speaker 4: And in the original pros Eda, there is a poem, no,
Speaker 4: not a poem, it's like a piece of writing called
Speaker 4: the guildf Beginning, which is this description of how the
Speaker 4: gods came to be and who Odin was, and some
Speaker 4: of the most famous myths. And it's only our really
Speaker 4: account that we have of it. And it's structured in
Speaker 4: this very odd way where it is this Swedish king
Speaker 4: named Guildfy who has come to Valhalla, and he's being
Speaker 4: addressed by these three kings who are seated in thrones,
Speaker 4: one atop each other, and their names are High, just
Speaker 4: as High and Third, and there's it's such a weird element.
Speaker 4: And I'm like, when you read these stories, you get
Speaker 4: to know these guys. I've never seen them include in
Speaker 4: this So I wanted Odin to be narrated by High
Speaker 4: just as High and Third to give you a feel
Speaker 4: of this original text. And of course High, just as
Speaker 4: High and Third are more than you know, and like
Speaker 4: by the I won't reveal the spoilers when they're revealed
Speaker 4: to be who they really are.
Speaker 2: I loved High, just as High and Third, and I
Speaker 2: have to say they reminded me quite a bit in
Speaker 2: the book of the various like EC comics characters that
Speaker 2: you would have YES storytellers like Crip Keeper and Old Witch,
Speaker 2: or DC storytellers like canaan Abel.
Speaker 4: Yeah, that was absolutely an influence of that. You know,
Speaker 4: you go to the original version and they're a little
Speaker 4: bit more into changeable, you don't really get a sense
Speaker 4: of their personalities. But because I was having these three
Speaker 4: narrators appear on frame, I wanted them to show different
Speaker 4: aspects of the stories being told, and so you like,
Speaker 4: for instance, I feel like the names themselves are hilarious.
Speaker 4: First one is named High, He's a high king. That
Speaker 4: makes sense. Second one is just as High. It's like, Okay,
Speaker 4: I see you're going for a theme here. You're all equal.
Speaker 4: Third guys, just like I'm third, It's like, what are
Speaker 4: you doing? But just as High. I felt like he
Speaker 4: was more snarky. He was the middle one, and I
Speaker 4: gave him an appearance. If you look at old illuminated manuscripts,
Speaker 4: that would be the place that we rescued these stories from.
Speaker 4: That's the only way they were recorded. Like sometimes there's
Speaker 4: drawings of Odin and Loki in the in the borders
Speaker 4: that look like this, where he's almost like a clownish figure.
Speaker 4: And then the character of High the first narrator to
Speaker 4: meet his mask. They're all masked, I should say, is
Speaker 4: based on a burial mask of an actual Viking chieftain.
Speaker 4: And the third one he's kind of based on another
Speaker 4: different that was recovered. He's more of a traveler figure.
Speaker 4: They're all like giving different aspects of the personality of
Speaker 4: the god who's being featured in this book, which is Odin.
Speaker 2: Now you you touched on the issue with the sources.
Speaker 2: The two ducks, right, they are sometimes described as ducks.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's really obscure that you found that one.
Speaker 2: But yes, but yeah, I guess I was. I was
Speaker 2: curious to hear a little bit more about the creative
Speaker 2: challenges of of not only stitching together some of these
Speaker 2: like various mysteries and the text and things that are missing,
Speaker 2: like for instance, Odin's brothers that come up and the
Speaker 2: just vanish. But then also, I know you you discussed
Speaker 2: this in the Norse Code section of the book, some
Speaker 2: of the choices you had to make visually, and you
Speaker 2: know that where you know it's it's more about like
Speaker 2: what can you do that is different with and like
Speaker 2: your own visual storytelling, even going back through Olympians.
Speaker 4: Yeah, so for those Norse Code is a section that
Speaker 4: I have at the back of each of the As Guardians.
Speaker 4: The kind of it's almost like the DVD extras or
Speaker 4: the director's commentary for the book. I kind of go
Speaker 4: in there. Sometimes I use to make cheap jokes, but
Speaker 4: sometimes you just explain some of the processes behind the
Speaker 4: different choices I made in depicting the stories. This way,
Speaker 4: it's the answer to an Olympians. We had it as
Speaker 4: the Geek Notes with it was spelled Greek with an
Speaker 4: R crossed out, just kind of a way of kind
Speaker 4: of like sharing a little bit more of the details
Speaker 4: of like just the utter geekery that I find in
Speaker 4: these stories. And with the challenge in doing something like
Speaker 4: As Guardians is it's both a challenge and sometimes an
Speaker 4: aid right, there is so many gaps in our knowledge
Speaker 4: and it can be very frustrating. I was just you know,
Speaker 4: there's the concept. Here's my favorite example, the concept of
Speaker 4: the nine worlds of Norse mythology. So the central like
Speaker 4: you know, image of like the way that the cosmos
Speaker 4: was assembled in the Norse worldview was there was a
Speaker 4: world tree called Ignita Sail. It was a giant ash
Speaker 4: tree that had spread out over the cosmos and had
Speaker 4: roots in three different worlds and had the other worlds
Speaker 4: assembled around its branches. It's mentioned in multiple sources these
Speaker 4: nine worlds, but nothing that survives tells us exactly what
Speaker 4: the nine worlds are. We just know that there are nine.
Speaker 4: So one of the first things you have to do
Speaker 4: whenever you're working on a series like as Guardians or
Speaker 4: any retelling is decide am I going to address this
Speaker 4: concept that appears it's important? How am I going to
Speaker 4: do this? Like I had to go and do my
Speaker 4: own research and decision making as to what these nine
Speaker 4: worlds would be, which ones would they be because we
Speaker 4: never really know. There's other stuff. Like you mentioned, Odin
Speaker 4: has two brothers who figure very proper in the creation.
Speaker 4: It's Villie and VI who just kind of disappear. We
Speaker 4: don't know, and it's probable if I was somebody who
Speaker 4: believed in these gods who worship them, there's probably a
Speaker 4: story that explains that you probably understand completely, but it
Speaker 4: just drops. So from a modern storytelling sensibility, it can
Speaker 4: be very difficult to be like, how am I going
Speaker 4: to address this just weird thread where we have characters
Speaker 4: who are shaping up to be I mean, they're co
Speaker 4: creators of the universe, but the main god who then
Speaker 4: just absolutely one hundred percent disappear from the narrative. That
Speaker 4: could be tricky. It also is nice and that it
Speaker 4: does give you room to play in. This is across
Speaker 4: both series as Guardians and Olympians, there's been instances where
Speaker 4: I have roomed well, not just that. As a storyteller,
Speaker 4: like the delayres before me, it's absolutely imperative that you
Speaker 4: put your own spin on any story. Otherwise, what are
Speaker 4: you doing there? You're interpreting it, You're focusing it through
Speaker 4: your own experiences, your own point of views. You're telling
Speaker 4: a story and that's your job. And sometimes it's nice
Speaker 4: to have those gaps. And sometimes when the gaps are
Speaker 4: as big as like, we don't know who this can
Speaker 4: We don't even know one hundred percent if the goddess
Speaker 4: is Freya and Frig are the same person or not.
Speaker 4: Like that's annoying. Like, so it was a lot of
Speaker 4: this going back and forth about like the nature of
Speaker 4: the world, the nature of the story is going to
Speaker 4: tell it had to make some fundamental decisions right off
Speaker 4: the bat. Actually, this is kind of fun. So in
Speaker 4: Norse mythology, one of the key events in the history
Speaker 4: of the world is the First War, and it's a
Speaker 4: war between the Asir and the Vaniir. The Asir are
Speaker 4: the gods who occupy Asgard. Asgard literally means stronghold of
Speaker 4: the Scir and their number Odin is their chieftain. Frig
Speaker 4: is one of the Asir thor ham dials. Normally, a
Speaker 4: lot of the gods you know, are the Asir, and
Speaker 4: at some point in their history, early on, they encounter
Speaker 4: gods from another world from Vanaheim.
Speaker 3: It's one of most people count as well. The Nine
Speaker 3: Worlds and.
Speaker 4: The Veneer are different gods and we never really learn
Speaker 4: all that much about them. We know they're gifted and prophecy.
Speaker 4: There may be less warlike than the User. They seem
Speaker 4: to maybe be associated with agriculture, and there's this battle
Speaker 4: that they have, and at the end of the battle
Speaker 4: which seems like the Veneer actually win because they, you know,
Speaker 4: they could see what's coming. There is an exchange of hostages,
Speaker 4: which doesn't mean the same thing. Back then it was
Speaker 4: more like, think of distinguished guests. In order to keep
Speaker 4: the peace. Two as Guardians went to Vanier Honer and
Speaker 4: Momir Memir, and then three of the Vanier come to Asgard, Freya,
Speaker 4: her twin brother Frey, and their father Innured. Now this
Speaker 4: is where it gets interesting, to be like this whole
Speaker 4: idea of these gaps, right I mentioned offhand, we're not
Speaker 4: even sure Freya and frig are distinct goddesses. Frig is
Speaker 4: the queen of Odin of the Ausser. She is one
Speaker 4: of my favorite characters. There's this amazing line about her.
Speaker 3: I think I have it.
Speaker 4: Oh open her up to it in the Guilt beginning,
Speaker 4: where Frig is Odin's wife. She knows the fates of men,
Speaker 4: even though she pronounces no prophecies, like she knows all
Speaker 4: that's going to happen. She's actually smarter than Odin, and
Speaker 4: Odin's whole struggle for knowledge is partially because he could
Speaker 4: sense this grief in her and he's trying to It
Speaker 4: drives him nuts that she knows the stuff and she
Speaker 4: won't say she is somebody who understands the way fate works,
Speaker 4: even though she does attempt to buckle it in some ways.
Speaker 4: Now among the goddesses that come over from the Veneer
Speaker 4: is Freya, very famous goddess. Freya also has the ability
Speaker 4: to see the future. Freya has a husband named Ode,
Speaker 4: like Odin, Odin Frey and like people like this is
Speaker 4: the same thing, and it's it's very odd, And my
Speaker 4: take on it is I think the user Vener war
Speaker 4: is probably a myth that came about when the group
Speaker 4: of ancient Norse people or Icelandic people Scandinavians will say,
Speaker 4: who worshiped the Usir met a related group of people
Speaker 4: who worshiped the pretty much the same pantheon under slightly
Speaker 4: different names. Think of like the way the Greeks and
Speaker 4: the Romans worshiped the same gods.
Speaker 3: They had a fight.
Speaker 4: They kind of came together as a group of people exchanged,
Speaker 4: you know, people intermarried, but for whatever reason, instead of
Speaker 4: the gods becoming fully assimilated. They kept them as two
Speaker 4: separate gods because Freya and frig are clearly the same
Speaker 4: goddess Odin Odin are definitely the same god, and there's
Speaker 4: other similarities, and so I kind of treat it without
Speaker 4: ever saying it using my superhero logic. I feel like
Speaker 4: Vanaheim is kind of like the Earth Too version of Asgard,
Speaker 4: where it's like an alternate dimension version where like these
Speaker 4: are like the like you know, the multiverse type stuff,
Speaker 4: like this is the version of the guy, and like
Speaker 4: it's using that superhero comics logic to kind of explain
Speaker 4: these these bigger mythologies.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I absolutely love love the way you handle it. Yeah,
Speaker 2: it and and at the same time, like I know,
Speaker 2: I know you're explaining like the superhero logic of it,
Speaker 2: and all I don't want to I don't want to
Speaker 2: give the impression to the listeners that it that it
Speaker 2: is like one like old timey Marvel comics and its
Speaker 2: presentations is because the way you present it it does
Speaker 2: come off as is very surreal and uh and an
Speaker 2: alien in a way that that I feel like a
Speaker 2: lot of the Norse mythology feels to me when I
Speaker 2: encounter it's it's yeah, it's details like it. It's it's
Speaker 2: a you know, a religion and a in a mythology
Speaker 2: that is, it is so distant from from what I know,
Speaker 2: and and yet it has this richness to it.
Speaker 3: Thanks.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, it's there's a superhio logic underlying it, but
Speaker 4: it's definitely not. It doesn't mean like a superhero story.
Speaker 4: That is interesting what you hit on there. There is
Speaker 4: something about the Norse mythology and is one of things
Speaker 4: that interests me so much Greek mythology. Having done the
Speaker 4: whole series in Olympians, there's some big differences between the
Speaker 4: way we think and the way ancient Greeks think, but
Speaker 4: there's an underlying familial similarity. Like I would say the
Speaker 4: reason we love the Olympians still is they are just
Speaker 4: an abstraction of a big, crazy family. Like even though
Speaker 4: they're gods and they behave terribly, they're very relatable in
Speaker 4: a way. Like there is some stuff that happens in
Speaker 4: the Norse. There is just a basic underlying thing that's
Speaker 4: just it is a bit more alien. I think if
Speaker 4: you just look at their their idea of the ideal afterlife.
Speaker 4: I mentioned Valhalla. If you die of old age, of
Speaker 4: sickness any other ways in battle, you don't get to
Speaker 4: go to valhalla. Valhalla was like the reward you would
Speaker 4: get for dying in battle. And moreover, you would go
Speaker 4: to valhalla, and like I said, you would be fed
Speaker 4: on pork and drink meat all day, which maybe sounds
Speaker 4: pretty nice and day out. But every night these warriors
Speaker 4: would get up and hack each other to pieces, like
Speaker 4: and like that was your eternal battle, was your reward,
Speaker 4: and that you would be like, yay, that was great battle.
Speaker 4: Could they would be reborn in the morning, and so
Speaker 4: you wake up and you'd be like that was great.
Speaker 4: The way I cut that guy into pieces the night
Speaker 4: before and then my head was lopped off, Like this
Speaker 4: was like the idea, Like that's most people would not
Speaker 4: find that to be the idea of heaven. And I
Speaker 4: feel like that just says like how very different Norse
Speaker 4: mythology is from our standard, like our way of being.
Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 4: I'm working in a book now, the third book in
Speaker 4: the series. I'm currently writing it, and there is a character,
Speaker 4: a mythological character who previously had been blinded, and the
Speaker 4: gods talk about that like this is a shame, like
Speaker 4: he lost his eyesight in battle, but like that's something
Speaker 4: that's just like it's too bad you weren't killed, like,
Speaker 4: and that's not the.
Speaker 3: Way that we would view this.
Speaker 4: And like there's also the story of the god Tyr,
Speaker 4: the god of war, who when they bind Fenri of
Speaker 4: the Wolf, he actually sacrifices his hand so that in
Speaker 4: order to get this wolf, like the wolf's like you're
Speaker 4: obviously trying to bind me, and they're like, oh no, look,
Speaker 4: Tyr will stick his hand in your mouth, and if
Speaker 4: you can't break the chain, we'll let you go. And
Speaker 4: if we don't, you could bite his hand off. And
Speaker 4: he can't break the chain, they don't let him go.
Speaker 4: So he bites off Tyr's hand and when you realize
Speaker 4: Tyr is their god of war, for him to lose
Speaker 4: his sword arm like that that's an amazing sacrifice. And
Speaker 4: it's it's interesting you see this character like these these
Speaker 4: themes of like just like what did that mean to them?
Speaker 4: Come up with these stories and I'm trying to use
Speaker 4: as guardians to kind of explore more than just like
Speaker 4: just the event of a god getting his hand bit
Speaker 4: off or another god getting blinded, Like what did that mean?
Speaker 4: In the larger family of the gods. What did that
Speaker 4: mean if you were an ancient Scandinavian who these were
Speaker 4: your deities? What did it mean that your god of
Speaker 4: war was suddenly without his sword arm?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Yeah, And speaking of you know, some of these
Speaker 2: examples of bloodshed and violence, I want to mention one
Speaker 2: of things that I really love about Odin and also
Speaker 2: the Olympian series, and is that So these are books
Speaker 2: that I think if you like look him up on Amazon.
Speaker 2: They say nine years to fourteen years is like the
Speaker 2: reading range. And of course I would stress that, Yeah,
Speaker 2: I read them and I richly enjoyed them, so you
Speaker 2: don't need to stop reading them at fourteen. But my
Speaker 2: son read them very much in that in that frame
Speaker 2: of ages, and I'd really appreciated the way that you were.
Speaker 2: You didn't sugarcoat anything, you know, like the gods of
Speaker 2: the Greek pantheon are are still problematic in your in
Speaker 2: your work, and you explore that. You you know, you
Speaker 2: get into this realm of not only like heroes, but
Speaker 2: anti heroes in partiction, but potentially villains in the guise
Speaker 2: of heroes.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 4: What you and I had spoke previously one time about
Speaker 4: my take of theseus the hero of the quote unquote
Speaker 4: hero of the Minotaur story, who you know he kills
Speaker 4: the minotaur, and my taken him as I wrote him
Speaker 4: as a villain, like the sugar coating of stories of
Speaker 4: Greek mythology. I feel like there could be no greater
Speaker 4: disservice or mistake that you do to mythology to do that.
Speaker 4: These stories often are produced for a younger audience in
Speaker 4: our day and age, but they were meant These were
Speaker 4: not just stories meant as entertainment for the ancient peoples
Speaker 4: that believed in them. These are stories that explain the
Speaker 4: world around them. And like, if you're removing an element
Speaker 4: that is problematic by today's standards, you're kind of inextricably
Speaker 4: altering the story in a way that's you might as
Speaker 4: well not be telling that particular story. The way I've
Speaker 4: always handled it is I try it's all in there.
Speaker 4: I just try not to be explicit about it. You know,
Speaker 4: if there's a horrible dismemberment, I might not show it
Speaker 4: as much as much as like, you know, kind of
Speaker 4: artfully showing a bit of it in the shadow or
Speaker 4: off panel or with gruesome sound effects. I think it's
Speaker 4: from growing up watching a movie like Alien where you
Speaker 4: never actually see the creature.
Speaker 3: Much more scary that way. Like, I really do believe that.
Speaker 4: I know it's almost hackneyed to say it, but like
Speaker 4: your imagination is going to concoct something so much more
Speaker 4: gruesome than even the most talented and gifted artist. Like so, storytelling,
Speaker 4: especially comics, I strongly believe, is a very collaborative effort,
Speaker 4: not just in the fact that many comics are produced
Speaker 4: by many people, but it's very much a collaboration with
Speaker 4: the audience. It's a series of illustrations and words placed
Speaker 4: around the illustrations, and if you do the magic right,
Speaker 4: it comes together in the alchemy that it should. The
Speaker 4: reader brings the story to life in their brain like
Speaker 4: it plays like a movie, and they'll read extra stuff
Speaker 4: into it. They'll feel in cracks that you don't even
Speaker 4: have there. And it also makes for comics to be
Speaker 4: such an amazingly versatile storytelling medium, like you were saying
Speaker 4: these were you know, Amazon says these are nine to four,
Speaker 4: but you know a lot of adults read them too,
Speaker 4: because you can write on so many different levels with comics.
Speaker 4: It's like, you know, you tell one story at the words,
Speaker 4: one story at the pictures, they come together. Depending what
Speaker 4: you bring as a reader, you're going to bring all
Speaker 4: different levels. I could write some very adult stuff in
Speaker 4: nas Guardians or Olympians, and just by phrasing it in
Speaker 4: the right way, no kid will ever get exactly what
Speaker 4: I'm saying, but an adult picks up on it immediately like,
Speaker 4: oh okay, I see what's going on there, and that's
Speaker 4: I think that's when the magic's about comics And as
Speaker 4: somebody who grew up reading comics and you would read
Speaker 4: them over and over again, as a good comic is designed,
Speaker 4: in my opinion, to be read multiple times because of
Speaker 4: those different elements that make up the page. Like the
Speaker 4: first time you read it, you probably focus mostly on
Speaker 4: the words, because you know, why wouldn't you. But then
Speaker 4: you read it a second time and you're going to
Speaker 4: already have a general sense of what those words say,
Speaker 4: and you're going to pay more attention to the illustrations
Speaker 4: that the words are embedded in. And like the third
Speaker 4: and fourth time you read it, it's when that that
Speaker 4: real magic starts happening, when like everything starts coming together
Speaker 4: and swirling. You're noticing little details you never noticed before,
Speaker 4: and it's it's one of the things I think makes
Speaker 4: comics so wonderful.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I remember when when my son was first reading
Speaker 2: your Olympians books, he would actually the first pass through
Speaker 2: the book, he would just look at the pictures and
Speaker 2: then he will and then he would do the text.
Speaker 2: And I think now it's it's more of a normal
Speaker 2: or not normal. There's no normal way, I guess to
Speaker 2: read comic book, but I think now it's more of
Speaker 2: a balanced way where he's reading through it with images
Speaker 2: and the text, and then I don't know what the
Speaker 2: subsequent re reads are.
Speaker 4: Like, Yeah, I mean, it's just it's probably different each
Speaker 4: time because you have the two different pillars coming together
Speaker 4: to make a third. You know now that you mention it.
Speaker 4: When I was a kid and I got a comic,
Speaker 4: especially with someone who's waiting for like part two or
Speaker 4: part three of a story, first time would just be
Speaker 4: a frantic flip through to see the pictures.
Speaker 3: Like, what's good on, what's going on? Oh my god,
Speaker 3: what's happening there?
Speaker 4: And then you would go back and read it again
Speaker 4: and just you got to hope that the story matches
Speaker 4: what you made up in your head and that first
Speaker 4: pass through.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Yeah, I'm in my own experience. I find that. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Sometimes I'll be reading a comic book and I don't
Speaker 2: read as many as I imagine a lot of folks
Speaker 2: out there, but occasionally dip into the comic books, and
Speaker 2: you know, there'll be times where I feel like it's
Speaker 2: more the text pulling me along than the images. Sometimes
Speaker 2: the detriment of the images, which are often like really great,
Speaker 2: Like I think back to the Alan Moore Swamp things books, like,
Speaker 2: sometimes yeah, the pros is so good, Like that's what's
Speaker 2: pulling me, and I have to either like sort of
Speaker 2: slow down or go back and reread it so I
Speaker 2: can appreciate the visuals as well.
Speaker 4: Alan Moore is a prime example of somebody whose books
Speaker 4: you need to multiple times. I think he very often
Speaker 4: writes an opposite text from what's being depicted in the pictures.
Speaker 4: You know, his famous graphic novel Watchmen. There's so much
Speaker 4: of that where if you were only to read Watchmen,
Speaker 4: you would definitely not get the entire story, because so
Speaker 4: often what Dave Gibbons is doing in the art is
Speaker 4: showing something very different than what's being just in the words,
Speaker 4: and that's you know, there's not really too many art
Speaker 4: forms that have that, especially in the printed word.
Speaker 3: Comics are that's kind of a.
Speaker 4: Storytelling style that they have a lockdown that no one
Speaker 4: else can really touch. You can't really do that with
Speaker 4: just pros.
Speaker 2: I really liked your point about the two pillars coming
Speaker 2: together in a third because it's like, I know this
Speaker 2: is the kay, I know that there. You know, there's
Speaker 2: the with just an unillustrated book that there is of
Speaker 2: course the text, and there's the image that forms in
Speaker 2: my mind, and then recollection of all of this. And
Speaker 2: then with a film too, we can often find ourselves
Speaker 2: misremembering or re capitulating things that happened or didn't happen
Speaker 2: in the film. But with comics it's kind of like
Speaker 2: I'd never really thought about that third, that third pillar
Speaker 2: coming together based on the images and the because it's
Speaker 2: almost like, well, it's all there. You have a perfect
Speaker 2: record of what you should be thinking and visualizing, but
Speaker 2: it's not quite the case.
Speaker 4: The one thing I've heard about comics too, and I
Speaker 4: agree with this, that you could do that makes them
Speaker 4: very different than say movie, because movies words and pictures
Speaker 4: coming together too. Comics it is there all at once,
Speaker 4: Like you know, you could flip through like one at
Speaker 4: a time and a panel on an e reader, but
Speaker 4: often it's just you're if the way it's presented, you're
Speaker 4: seeing like an entire page or entire spread laid out
Speaker 4: at once.
Speaker 3: And there's things as a creator I could do.
Speaker 4: I try to keep big reveals for page turns, so
Speaker 4: that if like a character reveals their identity, you don't
Speaker 4: see in the middle of the page. It's like you
Speaker 4: turn the page just to keep that secret a little
Speaker 4: bit longer, because yeah, you flip that page and you
Speaker 4: get a weird sense and you can move back and
Speaker 4: forth in time so easy in comics like oh what
Speaker 4: is this reference? To let me flip back a couple
Speaker 4: of pages? I mean, you could watch a movie that way,
Speaker 4: but it's gonna be unpleasant by Bady sitting there with
Speaker 4: you watching it.
Speaker 2: So coming back to odin, yeah, there's again there's a
Speaker 2: lot of weird, wonderful things and terrifying things that happen
Speaker 2: on the page here that you adapted from the Norse sources.
Speaker 2: Were what was the weirdest and most challenging odentic myth
Speaker 2: that you had to tackle here?
Speaker 4: Whooh, Wow, that's like a good question. We talked a
Speaker 4: little bit about like just the creation of the world
Speaker 4: aspect can be pretty weird because it's just like where
Speaker 4: are you like the elements coming onto that are just
Speaker 4: so odd. But I think probably for my money, the
Speaker 4: one that was the most challenging in a way is
Speaker 4: when Odin sacrifices himself on the tree igdocil So in
Speaker 4: his ongoing attempts for knowledge through his encounter in the
Speaker 4: Asir Vanir War, through his encounters, what he perceives in Frig,
Speaker 4: what he has picked up from talking to Freya, who
Speaker 4: shows him just a little bit, he knows there is
Speaker 4: a great doom coming upon the gods. It's a very
Speaker 4: personal doom for him too, and he wants to find
Speaker 4: a way to learn more, and so he hangs himself
Speaker 4: on the tree like literally the gallows sort of stuff.
Speaker 4: One of his titles, by the way, like a cultic
Speaker 4: title for him, was the Gallows God. He was very
Speaker 4: much associated with the hanged, the hanged figure. Sometimes that
Speaker 4: people would actually think the Norse would actually sacrifice to
Speaker 4: Odin by hanging a person like that was it was
Speaker 4: a thing they did. Odin subjects us to himself in
Speaker 4: a way to sort of have the hidden language of
Speaker 4: the universe revealed to.
Speaker 3: Him, which is the runes.
Speaker 4: We all know what runs are, we've seen them, and
Speaker 4: it comes to him in kind of like a spirit quest.
Speaker 4: So me talking about that, that doesn't sound like it's
Speaker 4: maybe that hard, but for somebody, I'm crafting something I
Speaker 4: want someone to be entertained by, and it's gonna it's
Speaker 4: like seven or eight pages of just a man being
Speaker 4: hanged by the neck and what he's seeing. What is
Speaker 4: that famous? There's that famous Twilight Zone episode where the
Speaker 4: guy is just being hanged the entire time and at
Speaker 4: the end it reveals spoilers that he like everything he
Speaker 4: dreams like he dreams. He breaks down off the noose
Speaker 4: and he goes back to his family and at the
Speaker 4: end he dies. It's like Odin having this out of
Speaker 4: body experience the entire time where he's just seeing stuff
Speaker 4: like I actually have him see the Norns, who are
Speaker 4: the equivalent of the fates from Greek mythology. They were
Speaker 4: figures that would tell you the future, and they reveal
Speaker 4: the secret of the Norns to him. And so the
Speaker 4: imagery for this is actually for the most part straightforward.
Speaker 4: It's just it's finding a way to show such a
Speaker 4: static scene for so long and have it still be interesting.
Speaker 4: And yeah, this is an example of using those two
Speaker 4: pillars the words in the pictures. Sometimes you could just
Speaker 4: pull back and hold on a dramatic shot of him,
Speaker 4: a lot of extreme close ups showing some of the
Speaker 4: acting of what he's going through through his facial features
Speaker 4: some of it, and what's being in his internal monologue,
Speaker 4: some of what's being said by the people who are
Speaker 4: observing him. That was actually a tricky scene I remember
Speaker 4: playing with because it could become a real boring slog
Speaker 4: for reader if you're not careful, and it ends up
Speaker 4: being having just re read the book myself recently, which
Speaker 4: is always weird. I'm always in a bit of a
Speaker 4: fugue state when I make these things, so I'm always like, oh,
Speaker 4: that's interesting. I was quite pleased with the way that
Speaker 4: sequence came out.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and you have capturing everything you just said, but
Speaker 2: on top of that not being overtly grim or anything
Speaker 2: as well. It despite being like a grim sequence.
Speaker 4: In this text, it's driven by that curiosity. Like I
Speaker 4: find Odin to be a very relatable and interesting character
Speaker 4: that way, because his whole thing is like, it doesn't
Speaker 4: matter what knowledge will cost him, he will do anything
Speaker 4: for knowledge.
Speaker 3: I did have some fun with the visuals in that.
Speaker 4: So in my previous series Olympians, I mentioned there's the characters,
Speaker 4: the more the fates, who we know, you know, if
Speaker 4: the fates allow sort of thing.
Speaker 3: And in Greek mythology they.
Speaker 4: Were depicted as typically as three women wearing robes, three
Speaker 4: young women. That's the way you'd see and that's pretty
Speaker 4: much I did too. You never see their faces, they're
Speaker 4: just you see, like the bob half their faces and
Speaker 4: the norns from Norse mythology are often depicted exactly the same.
Speaker 4: It's a good time to mention there's a lot of
Speaker 4: overlap between Norse and Greek mythology, and especially because we
Speaker 4: got Norse mythology in such an incomplete state, I think
Speaker 4: a lot of what was well known in the world
Speaker 4: about Greek mythology was imprinted on Norse mythology. So I
Speaker 4: didn't want to just repeat the same character designs that
Speaker 4: did occur to me, like how fun would that be?
Speaker 4: It's like, hey, look it's the fates from as Guardian
Speaker 4: from Olympians. I actually designed them to look like the
Speaker 4: bog people, you know, throughout Europe, specifically you know, in
Speaker 4: the more pdy areas there have been. They just found
Speaker 4: it really cool. On the other day, where there are
Speaker 4: preserved bodies, ancient bodies that were like preserved in peat
Speaker 4: moss because of the high acidic content of the swamps,
Speaker 4: and the bodies will still have their skin intact. They'll
Speaker 4: have like a somewhat skeletal appearance, but like they'll still
Speaker 4: have skin that look like they're made of like tanned leather,
Speaker 4: and elements like their clothing will still be preserved, tattoos,
Speaker 4: sometimes facial features depending And that was such an interesting
Speaker 4: European idea that like, I actually made my norns look
Speaker 4: like they were.
Speaker 3: The bog people.
Speaker 4: Just thought was something that helps to extinguish, extinguish, helps
Speaker 4: it to distinguish them from their Grecian counterparts.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, absolutely, I love that detail. Now here's another
Speaker 2: just sort of I don't know, technical and or creative
Speaker 2: question about putting together comic book. How does like color
Speaker 2: palette factor into your choices, like in specific color choices,
Speaker 2: but just sort of like the overall like color scheme
Speaker 2: for a given work.
Speaker 4: Oh wow, I want to say, I feel like color
Speaker 4: is super important and at points in the history of
Speaker 4: comics was an undervalued part to the actual feel of
Speaker 4: a comic. With Olympians, I did all the colors myself.
Speaker 4: Olympians was such a near and dear project in my heart,
Speaker 4: and I was so I joke about being in control
Speaker 4: freak and that there was such specific ways I wanted
Speaker 4: to depict things that I colored that myself, and that
Speaker 4: did take a lot of time. And with as guardians,
Speaker 4: I wanted to be able to branch out. I wanted
Speaker 4: to be able to share like I wanted to be
Speaker 4: able to do other things. I wanted not to be
Speaker 4: like breaking myself creating these books. And I also I
Speaker 4: kind of realized I'm not maybe the best colorist in
Speaker 4: the world. I had some good ideas about color theory,
Speaker 4: but sometimes my execution I felt could be a little
Speaker 4: bit flat. So for Odin, we actually, for the first
Speaker 4: time I worked with an outside colorist on one of
Speaker 4: these books. It was this very talented cartoonist named Norm Grock.
Speaker 4: You could look him up Grock. He does his own
Speaker 4: stuff and he worked. I would write him such long
Speaker 4: notes about like what the color should be because it
Speaker 4: did mean a lot the specific ideas behind each scene,
Speaker 4: and one of the things I had told him in
Speaker 4: establishing this world is I never want to see a
Speaker 4: blue sky in as Guardians. It's always either overcast, magic
Speaker 4: hour or night. And that's the only encounters we have
Speaker 4: because that reflects the world that the Norse lived in.
Speaker 4: I mean, there are blue skies, to be sure in
Speaker 4: Norway occasionally, but that's not the image I wanted to
Speaker 4: depict here, right. Sometimes I would do rough colors just
Speaker 4: to show him, like in the instance of the marshmallow
Speaker 4: Man Emir hermaphroditic giant, that was he was like, I
Speaker 4: have no idea heaw to color this. I'm like, this
Speaker 4: is he should look like this? And it was specifics,
Speaker 4: like I wanted certain things that were very important to
Speaker 4: me in the myths. I wanted Thor to have red hair.
Speaker 4: I wanted oh and to have brown hair with gray streaks.
Speaker 4: And we use that actually to show his age because
Speaker 4: a big difference between Greek gods and as Guardian gods
Speaker 4: is they the Norse gods do age at a slower rate.
Speaker 4: But there was so many you could use the color
Speaker 4: in so many different ways. Just about the mood.
Speaker 3: I don't know.
Speaker 4: That is a fun question. I'm glad we actually got
Speaker 4: to mention that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm glad you brought up the Giant because he
Speaker 2: had the coloration that you end up going with here.
Speaker 2: It is, you know, it's pale but a little bit
Speaker 2: like pink, but like so it doesn't feel like a corpse,
Speaker 2: but it doesn't feel completely alive. Like there's a nice,
Speaker 2: wonderful inter zone that is created here with the colors game.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I was trying to go for a few things
Speaker 4: with Emir, Like, I wanted him to look half formed,
Speaker 4: like you picked up on. He's also kind of created
Speaker 4: from ice, so I wanted to tell the ice thing
Speaker 4: I'm saying he I should be saying they emir Is
Speaker 4: is both hermaphroditic. I wanted them to appear like a
Speaker 4: like a grub or something. Yeah, and all those features
Speaker 4: came in there. I should mention this also. Unfortunately, Norm,
Speaker 4: because of his own career taking off, was not able
Speaker 4: to color the second book in the series, which is
Speaker 4: Thor and that is being done by s. J.
Speaker 3: Miller.
Speaker 2: Well, George, once again, thanks for coming on the show.
Speaker 2: My son and I both really enjoyed Odin. I just
Speaker 2: had it sitting out of my desk after the review
Speaker 2: copy came in for a few days, and he grabbed it,
Speaker 2: I think, read it in one setting, like right there
Speaker 2: on the floor, and gave his approval. He was a
Speaker 2: fan of this one, so Grayley enjoyed Odin. I'm gonna
Speaker 2: have to read it again and maybe another time, and
Speaker 2: then we're excited for Thor when that comes out.
Speaker 3: Excellent.
Speaker 2: Thanks again to George O'Connor for chatting with me here.
Speaker 2: The book again is as Guardians Odin out now in
Speaker 2: all fourmats. You can learn more about George and his
Speaker 2: works at George O'Connor books dot com. That's George O'Connor
Speaker 2: c O N N o R books dot com and hey,
Speaker 2: if you're not familiar with stuff to blow your mind here.
Speaker 2: While we are primarily a science and culture podcast with
Speaker 2: core episodes on Tuesdays and Thursdays, on Mondays we do
Speaker 2: some listener mail, so Friday in we'd love to hear
Speaker 2: from you. On Wednesdays we do a short form episode,
Speaker 2: and on Fridays we set aside most serious concerns to
Speaker 2: just talk about a weird movie on Weird House Cinema.
Speaker 2: Thanks as always to the excellent Jjpossway for producing this show,
Speaker 2: and if you would like to reach out, you could
Speaker 2: email us at contact at stuff to Blow Your Mind
Speaker 2: dot com.
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