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