In this episode Caleb Goellner talks Turtles and tablets.
Topics include the benefits of 5-Hour, free comic anthologies, dream teams, Foot Clan pool parties, why the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles are the unbreakable concept, that TMNT Christmas special, Turtle in-jokes, basically everything TMNT because TMNT is the best, quality animation, and what he’s reading.
Links:
Books mentioned on this show!
Sign up for our boss newsletter!
the comiXologist > iTunes + RSS feed
comiXology: Conversations > iTunes + SoundCloud
Read that Foot Clan pool party fan comic by Moody/Goellner here
Transcription:
Matt: Kara.
Kara: Matt.
Matt: Welcome back to our…
Kara: …podcast pit.
Matt: Our lush pit of despair.
Kara: It’s not despair, there’s comics everywhere. We’re in a Mecca.
Matt: There’s boxes. If this box pile falls over, I’m dead.
Kara: We’re surrounded by all of these gorgeous variant covers.
Matt: Don’t let it get out that they’re all back here.
We’re here with Eisner Award winning-
Caleb: Oh, you.
Matt: -Caleb Goellner.
Kara: Welcome.
Matt: Welcome to the show, which I should’ve asked how to pronounce that, but I think I got it.
Caleb: Yeah. That was totally aced, man.
Matt: OK. Great.
Caleb: Thank you.
Matt: Now, we have a bunch of things to talk about. You have edited the Wacom Pressure Sensitivity anthology that hit comiXology for free, which is awesome. The main thing that we need to talk about is…I was looking at your social feeds and I saw that you also have a love affair with “5-Hour Energy,” like myself.
Kara: Oh, no. Come on.
Caleb: It’s funny. I’m here at this show for Wacom of course, promoting our wonderful tablet products that artists use to make comics, but I’ve talked to just as many people about 5-hour Energy.
Unpaid, of course, I’m not sponsored. 5-Hour, if you’re listening, you can call me. I’m- yeah man, it’s like having one cup of coffee, but it doesn’t make you poop and it’s an even burn for five hours and your D vitamins. I talked to the cab driver who took me home at 3:00 in the morning last night about it. He was, “Yeah, 5-Hour’s good man. I don’t drink Red Bull anymore. 5-Hour’s the way to go. I know.”
Matt: I like how that could be the pitch, a picture of you on the back of 5-Hour like, “It doesn’t make me poop,” and then you’re giving the thumbs up.
Caleb: I have a sensitive constitution when it comes to caffeine. What can I say? Most Americans do my friend.
Matt: You’re absolutely right. Now, Wacom is…you helped put together this book, which was created all on the tablet devices using that technology, which was, I thought, amazing and what better way to help talk about that technology than a free anthology on comiXology.
Caleb: I was really happy when comiXology agreed to host it for free. It was really my first and only choice. If they couldn’t do it, I was going to be really bummed out. I was like, I guess I’ll put a PDF that you can right click save as on a blog post. I don’t know.
Yeah. ComiXology, I knew about Submit from submitting my own stuff and fortunately from my time at Comics Alliance I knew they were the right folks to ask. Everyone was very amenable and it’s had a ton of downloads. It’s got really good reviews. All the creators, Giannis, Milano Giannis, Ming Doyle, Meredith Gran, Mike Holmes…
Matt: It’s a huge cast…
Caleb: …and Ulises Farinas, and Ryan Hill. I think that’s everybody. They all made awesome eight-page shorts. We got to put it in a book. It was a really easy thing to promote. “Hey, do you like neat things?-
Matt: For free.
Kara: That are free.
Caleb: -Download this comic everyone. Thank you,” and then they did.
Matt: Mission accomplished.
Caleb: Thank you comiXology for hosting it for free.
Matt: How do you even put together an anthology? As an editor, what is your job, and that process?
Caleb: Well, I was pretty lucky because my background’s in being an editor for a news site, and stuff like that, I knew how to reach out to people, and work with their schedules, and give them deadlines, and assign things. I’ve never edited a comic, other than my own stuff of course. It’s a little bit of a different process. People need a lot of lead time.
One of our caveats is that they used our technology. That wasn’t actually very hard, fortunately, because a lot of comic book creators use it in at least one step. I started out, if I was interested in someone, I advanced, searched their Twitter feed and saw if they ever mentioned using a tablet because you don’t want to just cold email people, like “Hey, do you use our stuff?”
People are always mentioning it, it was pretty easy. Ulises [Farinas] I’d known for a while, I really wanted him to do the cover because he had really fun style, and he’s got a lot of attention to detail. Since it’s an anthology, I wanted a lot of elements to play up what might be in here in a thematic deal. Ming Doyle, I had known for a while and love her work.
Matt: Legend.
Caleb: She’d made a super beautiful comic, that’s very…kind of hits you like a ton of bricks.
Matt: In your heart and soul. That’s where it hit me when I read it.
Caleb: It’s like beautiful mythology that makes you cry but is also awesome, and violent.
Meredith Gran, I had been reading “Octopus Pie” for a long time. I knew she would make something…I didn’t give anybody any rules. It was like eight pages…
Matt: Do whatever you want.
Caleb: …no naked people, or curse words please, and everybody turned in something totally unique, and different. Giannis did this awesome battle angel jam. Meredith did this really cute, sweet chicken comic.
Matt: That was amazing. I think that was my favorite one.
Caleb: Her and Mike Holmes did an awesome job. Ben Sears, I was actually down to the wire on the anthology, and I needed one person, and I think he turned it in, in like five days. He just jammed it out. Ben Sears is on the rise. He’s awesome. Who did I miss? No, that’s everybody.
Matt: Yeah, that was everybody.
Caleb: I just tried to pick people who I knew would make something unique, and could really nail the eight-page format, people who are just spilling with ideas because I didn’t really want to coach too much. I just really wanted them. I made a short list of people who I thought could do it within the time constraints. I had a nice budget, I could just go after who I wanted, so it was great. Everybody did an awesome job. I’m really grateful.
Matt: Came together really well.
Caleb: Thank you.
Kara: Very cool. In your role as editor for the book, aside from assembling the dream team, what was your role in guiding the process?
Caleb: Really just giving everybody and money and a deadline.
I knew what I wanted the title to be, and since I knew what the creators would do, I said, “Can you do eight pages, self-contained, tight little story.” It’s all creator owned, so people didn’t have to worry about giving me their D+ idea. I can’t use it later. No, give me your A+ idea.
I even told people, “If you want to take this, and use this as your opportunity to pitch something, like a publisher, do it,” because the thing…We wanted to make it free. Wacom didn’t want to make money off of it. We wanted it to be something that celebrated our artists and the community, so it had to be free. Totally creator owned. I really just gave people money, and a deadline. Dillon Todd did the design for it…
Matt: He does great work.
Caleb: …I didn’t even have to think about that. I had some parameters, just like we need a logo, and we have brand guidelines for how we use our logo. I just sent him those, and I asked for certain checks, like the legal copy. The hardest part was getting the legal copyright stuff, and the contracts approved.
Fortunately, Wacom has a really smart lawyer, and I had done work for hire, I was like, “Here’s an example of a good comic book contract for creators. What do we do?” He was like, “I don’t really think about comics contracts. Let me look at you,” and he helped me out, our lawyer Tom, who’s awesome.
It was a really cut and dry, awesome, simple process. It was just like planting a seed, and being patient, and watching it grow into like a California redwood that has like eggplants, or fruit or something. I like eggplant.
Matt: The Task Force Rad Squad that you do, and hopefully one day we will have that on comiXology…
Caleb: It’s coming. We just got to scan number one.
Matt: …very soon.
Caleb: Our files are screwed up.
Matt: Maybe by the time this is out we’ll have it, and we’ll link to it. What was an interesting story about you, you’ve done Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles online. You’ve done your own version of it, not licensed, or whatever, and it was great.
Caleb: We did a fan comic because we wanted to do the real comic.
Matt: This was your pitch?
Caleb: Sort of. My goal, Buster Moody and I do Task Force Rad Squad. He’s the artist. He’s awesome. We were just talking at a table during a con, and we were just chatting in between customers stuff, and “What do you want to work on? What kind of licensed work do you want to work on?” and we’re both like, “I don’t know. All I really care about right now is the Ninja Turtles.”
There’s some other things, sure, but that’s the only book that’s coming out that like…I wanted to do Turtles more than…Some people want to do Batman, some people want to do Spider-Man. Turtles is like, that’s it. Maybe Power Rangers, or something, but Turtles is it. Buster…I was a new comic book writer, and I’d just come off of being journalist, it wasn’t the place to pitch people, and bother people, like, “Hey, I interviewed you last week, can I pitch you now?”
You don’t want to be that guy or that gal. Buster’s like, “Let’s do like a fan comic.” He just wanted to draw. I go, “OK.” I thought about it, and one day I was on my way to go snowboarding. I live in Portland, Oregon, Mt. Hood is like 45 minutes away, well it’s like an hour, I was just in the car, and I had a Google Doc on my phone, and I just wrote this really silly script about the Turtles crashing a Foot Clan pool party, the dumbest thing, just so Buster would have the opportunity to draw all the action figures that he likes.
Matt: Plus Shredder wearing the cook outfit while it was happening.
Caleb: Most of the craziest, funniest details are all Buster. That’s why I love collaborating with him, is I’ll give him some basic script, and all the key details are there, like “Well, it’s noon, so the sun…” I’ll put in stuff like that if I got to, but he just goes wild. We made that comic, and we threw it on Tumblr.
The intention for me was to get Buster illustration work of the Turtles in some capacity. Almost right away he got a variant cover. For me, some time passed, and I was actually at San Diego last year. I ran into the Turtles editor, Bobby Curnow. We just had a quick conversation. He was busy, like all people are at the show, and he’s like, “Yeah, man, like, you know Turtle stuff’s cool, email me some time,” and he left.
Matt: You just fell over at that point.
Caleb: I played it cool, and I was like, “Yeah, yeah, that sounds good buddy,” and I immediately put in my phone, “Email Bobby, oh my god,” and I totally did. We had some more conversations, and I started writing the backups in the Animated Adventures comic, which has been rebranded Amazing Adventures. It comes out soon.
Matt: I thought that was a great story when I read that you’d done the fan story, and then eventually you’re writing legit Ninja Turtles comics. I thought that was pretty cool.
Caleb: It’s been a while. I had my first signing ever for, you know, a publisher, and it was here on Friday in the morning. I sat down, and I’m next to all these awesome people, whose work I’d been reading for a while. I sat in the corner and like “Hi everybody. I’m Caleb,” and they’re like, “Oh, hey guy. Hey man. What’s up.” Everybody was cool. The Turtles books have a really awesome team. Everybody’s super nice. Everybody gets along. It’s cool. It’s a really good environment.
Kara: What is the version of the Turtles that is your favorite, and that’s the one that you consider the definitive Turtles?
Caleb: The ones I write.
No, I’m kidding. What I like about the Turtles is you can’t break them. They’re this indestructible thing, and as long as you have four turtles, and Splinter, and Splinter could be their mom in a version. You could do anything to them. You could make all the Turtles sisters, like, you could do that. It’s like a family of monsters, but they’re nice monsters, and then they fight evil ninjas. You can’t screw it up.
That’s the beauty of it. The ‘80s cartoon is nothing like the comic, except for it had turtles in it, but it was charming in its way, and the toys are fantastic. The toy sculptor is actually here at this show. He’s done a lot of that work and I always geek out with him because he has a Wacom tablet, and it’s always a nice excuse.
Kara: Look at that synergy right there.
Caleb: I think his name’s Steve Garner. I love the toys, even the weird bad versions of the Turtles are charming. There’s like this weird Turtles Christmas special that was live action.
Matt: I saw that.
Caleb: Have you ever seen this?
Matt: I have seen that on YouTube.
Caleb: They sing “We Wish You a Merry Christmas” in a Rasta style. It’s like so…It’s about pizza. I don’t know. It’s weird.
Matt: Those were wild times back then. Anything goes.
Caleb: I think the original comics I love for the brash tonality. It’s pure indie comics, and I think it’s just a lot of energy in there. Everybody’s done cool stuff with them. The 2013 cartoon was important to me.
Kara: My brother and I watched that.
Caleb: I just graduated high school, and I was still watching Turtles, just like, “Yeah, this is good. This is just like the old comics,” munch, eating cereal. The new Nickelodeon show, they just picked the ball up and started running with it, and it’s awesome. I thought it was really fun for me to like…I didn’t have to struggle to match what they were doing. I’ve never gotten dialogue notes. It’s awesome. I love all the turtles. That’s my long-winded answer.
Matt: I remember watching some of those episodes with my son. I think it was like season two or three of the new one, where they had…I don’t think it was Rafael, a turtle was injured in that abandoned house, and it was just like the movie, where they had to hide out for a while. I thought that was like a crazy, hilarious little silent homage, that who else would get that besides the Turtle writers, and other fans of the movies.
Caleb: That’s the fun thing, is you can really dig. I like the Turtles because they always reboot, but in a good way because you can go into maybe, I don’t know, your own esteem for a second, and I think it’s good to refresh the premise for all the new generations because now the turtles have an iPhone basically, you know, like instead of the Turtle Comm. You just keep making it relevant.
The reboots don’t hurt anything. They don’t break anything, and they don’t dismiss the past. The new shows really…it really looks at what came before, and uses it, and goes there, and honors this tradition of…this really, honestly, simple story that gets really bizarre and weird. That’s why Turtles works so well. I love all the in jokes, and all the voice actors they bring from past versions of the Turtles. It’s a really good production.
Matt: What’s on the top of your read list right now?
Caleb: Aw man. That always screws me up. I read Shonen Jump every week, and I read a bunch of manga. I read all my friends’ comics that they just put out.
Kara: That’s really supportive of you.
Caleb: This is like the worst question in the world. I love everyone’s comic, so be my friend, and we’ll all work together. Let’s do that.
Matt: Send me your comps.
Caleb: Except for the bad ones. Don’t talk to me. No, I’m just kidding.
Matt: What’s your all time favorite comic book? What’s the hot…like the top of your list that maybe you have like, you’d want to get pages from?
Caleb: Dragonball kind of is like that. If I look at my shelf…I’m in a situation where I’ve got a studio apartment with my wife and our dog, and I have only so many shelves now, and I don’t really want to become a hoarder, I don’t have any long boxes and stuff anymore. My parents do. They have some. Every month I got to clear out like 15 graphic novels for like the 30 new ones I buy, and it’s getting ridiculous, the stuff that stays on my shelf.
It’s a lot of people. It’s like, there’s all the Akira hardcovers. There’s all the Dragonball deluxe additions. Berserk is a manga that I really like. It’s really screwed up. You could write a lot of think pieces about some of the stuff in Berserk, but it’s got a ton of energy, and you can’t stop reading. It’s a super action packed manga. It’s all that kind of stuff.
Of course I read everything that came out ever. I worked at a library for nine years, from like teenager through college, so I read everything. Love and Rockets is in there, like, all the cool stuff you’re supposed to like, that wins Eisners, that’s all on my shelf, but mostly it’s stuff like Dragonball. Every comic I make is totally gut, gag, manga stuff, plus action. Shonen Jump stuff is pretty much my jam.
Kara: You read One Punch Man?
Caleb: Huh?
Kara: Have you read One Punch Man?
Caleb: Yeah. I love One Punch Man.
Kara: You’re saying your list, I’m like “I bet. I bet you have.”
Caleb: The creator, One, he has a manga called Mob Psycho 100. Mobu Psycho 100 in Japan is how I think you pronounce it. I’ve just been importing those through the Japanese bookstore in Portland. I can’t read them. I just look at them. That manga is awesome. I was trying to hire him to do this, and the Wacom anthology. He was too busy because One Punch Man’s being made into an anime, and all kinds of stuff.
I had to work with a colleague at Wacom Japan, my buddy John to just email them, and it was so hard to just find his email because most manga authors are very private. We come to Comicon, like comics people are rock stars. It’s like that at Comiket and stuff in Japan. We get on Twitter, and we just bother these people, all these awesome comic creators, and sometimes they respond, and it’s very nice of them. In Japan, people are very polite. They don’t bother the manga crowd. They just let them do their thing, I had to really dig, and I reached out to One. He was a super nice guy, or is he a guy?
He’s a pen name. No, I think he’s a fellow. He is. I really wanted to work with him. One Punch Man’s one of my favorite comics. Yusuke Murata is the artists I believe. I think I’m pronouncing that right. He draws on Cintiq. I know because he drew himself drawing on one…on the intro to like the fourth graphic novel. I love that team. I love everything One does. He was nominated for an Eisner this year. I had his email, I hit him up on Skype one day, and I was like “Congratulations on the Eisner nomination,” through Google Translate, I probably sound like an idiot. He was very nice. He was like, “You too.” One Punch Man’s my jam. I love that manga.
Matt: How high up is Bartkira on your list?
Caleb: Bartkira is awesome. I bought one of the first print versions, collecting parts of it, at Floating World Comics in Portland about a year and a half ago I think, and I got to meet a lot of the creators, a lot of folks from out of town. It’s a lot of people in Portland. It’s a lot of people I know. Everybody signed up on a Tumblr.
Matt: I know. It’s amazing.
Caleb: They got some pages, they went wild. That’s an anthology that’s hard to top. I saw somebody made a trailer from the Bartman clips.
Matt: Trailer? It’s pretty amazing.
Caleb: I haven’t watched it yet because it happened while I was here, or something because when I saw the link. It’s on my feedly save for later thing, with 5,000 other things from the past year that I’ve saved, I’ll watch it eventually. “Do the Bartman” though, I’ve never seen that. This is a tangent. You can edit this out, but I finally watched the video for Do the Bartman like six months ago.
I remember hearing that song on the radio, but it was like two years too late, and I was in some B market town on vacation with my family. This is why I work in marketing because I remember stupid stuff like this. I finally watched, and I was like, “Yeah, the animation values in this are pretty good. This is cinematic quality animation, not the TV stuff.” The song is whatever. Bartkira is great.
Matt: Caleb, I appreciate you taking the time out. I think everyone should check out “Pressure Sensitivity.” It’s free. You have no reason not to. Thanks to you, and thanks to Wacom for making it available for people.
Caleb: Thank you.
Matt: Have a good con.
Caleb: Thank you so much. You guys have an awesome con.
Matt: Thanks.