MB:123 with Dustin Garcia

Gill hangs out with Dustin Garcia, T' (The Dark Prince of Comics), Artist, MFA in Comics, ✒️Artist & Art Educator🖌️. Illustrator for @walocomic #communityisart 🇳🇮🇨🇺

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"King without a Throne" is performed by Bad Hombres

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fNhxTYU8kUs

King without a Throne
https://open.spotify.com/track/7tdoz0W9gr3ubetdW4ThZ8?si=9a95947f58bf416e

Transcript

foreign this is the Dark Prince of comics T also
0:07
known in the mortal world as Dustin Garcia we are here in the buzz of the
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Mind the Mind Buzz The Hive of all hives the world and the elements together in
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the great void to which stares back at you sequential art and comic books I'm
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so excited ah Dustin what's up man oh you know up and
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down here and there everywhere um but I'm here I'm here and it's a pleasure to be here with everyone and um
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so just want to thank you for having me first yeah no worries thanks for coming on and doing this dude appreciatively
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it's an honor we're finally here we're doing it yeah it feels good yeah thanks for coming out dude uh we've been
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talking about this for a minute so it's been anticipation from both sides
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anticipation my favorite verb we're a little bit before we were uh hit
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the record button we're talking about how um we fact check and I had to fact check okay so Amber was telling me about
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somebody that had a master's degree in comic books and that's something we have
1:16
to just look up what kind of jerk would say that without meaning it I mean yeah right it's like so off the wall that
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it's not even in somebody's imagination I mean comics and mfas I mean come on
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the two just don't mix so what's a what's a MFA an MFA is an abbreviation
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for masters of Fine Arts so if you liked going to college you can go to college again for four more years and get more
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credentials about your legitimacy and Academia and that's what a masters does it also increases your chances of
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getting particular jobs in the education field and other opportunities probably by a marginal percentage so yeah else
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I'm going to talk like that when I talk about academics marginal we we need to get him a um a pipe and and oh my God a
2:03
fireplace where did the fireplace come from I don't know he just came in and there was an automatic fireplace I mean
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fireplace makes sense with that voice I mean all I need is a robe and some you know like sock guards with like going up
2:14
to my knees and stuff with my pretentious accent yeah my New England accent yes I did not know that you can
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get a master's degree in comic books I didn't is it comic or comic books can't
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explain it yeah explain it to me so yeah no um so the way that it went about is one of my friends uh shout out to Brina
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Nunez and my very good friend uh Lawrence Lindell who just recently got included to uh one of the biggest and
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one of the first lgtbq uh comic book documentaries um no straight lines
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um so we were living all in the Bay Area at the time I was living in Berkeley and uh I had known about the California
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College of the Arts but two of my friends uh both listed into the school around 2017 and I was very interested in
3:01
going and uh you know a former partner of mine had really pushed me to do it and I was so reluctant at first but I
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went and I found out that you can get an MFA in comics and I always was like interested in getting an MFA since I
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have a bachelor's degree in it too um but when I found out you could get an MFA and doing research on what you know
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some MFA programs look like um you know I was able to really get a really great opportunity to like get a
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chance to focus the school is called CCA California College of the Arts and their comics division program is very special
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and unique uh since it has a lot of people who are also established artists but also establish academics in the
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field scholar research of comic books graphic novels and a new field that's emerging in the comic book studies World
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which is graphic medicine so um yeah and I was there for two years because they have a really great
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Residency program there that's low residency so you go for a summer and then you go uh for the rest of the year
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remotely wherever you are so you have that kind of space to create but also interact with professionals and giving you mentoring and stuff so it's an
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excellent program so yeah that's how I got into it and uh it was a life-changing experience quite honestly
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I mean I was able to really for the first time in my life like Focus full time on creating the stories and
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exploring the art that I wanted to create um since like you know my BFA program at the time was a little bit complex art
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school has I have a very love-hate relationship with it and this totally redeemed it so it was a really great
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experience yeah so you said graphic medical graphic graphic medicine graphic medicine yeah
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so so graphic medicine uh is a new field of study that is being recognized in the
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Academia world uh comic books have kind of been seen as this kind of you know like throwaway 99 Cents trash you know
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type of art form by you know most masses until most recently it's kind of fluctuated as an art form but it's never
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been really recognized until recently in the last I would say like 10 years in you know Academia it's been put out
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there and talked about but it hasn't been really respected at to the level because now there's direct evidence
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showing that comic books have uh not only mental health benefits but also benefits to which
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um you know doctors and medical workers with their direct relationships with patients and having patients draw and
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articulate their experiences in the hospital or whatever what they're experiencing medically to have more of
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an empathetic approach and direct connection with their patients so they better understand what's going on in their mind what their experience rinsing
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and there's a book on this too that anyone can read online it's on Amazon graphic medicine Manifesto uh highly
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recommend it can you pull that up what do you have up there what do you have up right there right now so I have um the
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California College of Arts right yeah the program this is the school uh the MFA program uh is the comics program for
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CCA so the MFA in comics which is great though because they're starting to have a BFA program uh for Comics as well
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since the MFA program was so successful since I would say about if not all but like 90 of the people that I went to
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school with have all been published or established somehow including myself wow so yeah it's pretty sweet there it is
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right there so yeah though and it's cool our pamphlet was drawn by one of our former students and so the the pamphlets
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actually fully Illustrated and tells you all the information when you get there oh that's awesome dude and yeah and
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there's like a Showcase of all the work that's been done my homie Lawrence is on the very right right there yeah that one
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right there um shout out to him that's a brother of mine known since uh our we went to school together actually we
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graduated in the same class so yeah we've been we graduated the same year too when we were in our bachelor's
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program so yeah but yeah it's there's such a variety of stuff in this program it's very much
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centered on personal expression really experimental stuff we even learned how
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to do coding and you know doing digital approaches techniques and stuff to kind of just find out new experimental ways
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of telling stories online or telling stories through you know current media since Comics are able to be translated
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in most any platform technologically outside of print you know though I still love print I do think that there's so
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much room for digital Comics though yeah uh the book is called graphic medicine
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yes so yeah as I said it's an Incredible Book uh they're definitely deep in the
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academic jargon um but if you're able to see past that I really encourage anyone
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who like to know a little bit more about what comic books are doing for a lot of
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people in the mental health and medical field and why I think it's relevant so it's a you know it's relatively small
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but growing uh movement of artists and intellectuals really trying to you know
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put comics in a place to which they can become more you know culturally recognized as a very powerful art form
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since they've had a very fluctuated troubled history as in our form especially United States so
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yeah I hope this proves to you that I have an MFA
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we're getting there oh I love it I love it stay skeptical
8:07
folks dude so uh through this program did you learn like the history of comics
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yeah no um so I'm a big nerd in general as you probably would have guessed um
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and just you know doing the art thing for so long but Comics are you know a history that I've been studying
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independently uh since I you know started you know getting into them deeply and more personally in you know
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high school so like high school was the year the years to which I really started recognizing it as a important medium for
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me to like really express my my not just my creative ideas but my kind of
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creating a a reflection of my inner experiences emotionally and kind of
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putting that in a story so when I became interested in art form like anything I get interested in I want to dissect it
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as much as possible learn as much as possible absolutely I've been studying comic history since I was like 16 years
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old just on my own okay and when I went to college uh I was able to really like they had a great library because the
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people at the time who were running the library in my undergrad program um you know had a really good long
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collection of comics but not just like mainstream Marvel DC superhero stuff they had like independent stuff graphic
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novels historical stuff just a grid variety of stuff from even Japan and Europe and uh there's been more
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documentaries and books uh you know studying the field of the history of comics and its relevance because it's
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had such a cultural impact uh not only uh in the art form in the creative
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spaces but also culturally as you know American culture has you know has evolved over the last century so yeah
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but um to answer the question yeah I we did get a really good Deep dive into
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Comic history in the MFA program um and I was really nerding out because I was able to add like little footnotes
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with my professor since like oh did you know that this artist also did this you know this guy also did this so I was like an unofficial assistant professor
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so I mean I was just totally nerding out and it was great because we did a little
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um action where at the end of our first semester somebody writes like a compliment to you with a drawing and someone told me I can't believe how much
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you know about comic book history oh that's awesome so that would be my credential I suppose
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what was the first comic that you picked up do you remember that see that that
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question is always hard for me to answer because I don't remember I can go back
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as far as when I was an infant and wearing Batman underwear and Spider-Man t-shirts um because you got you know I'm
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sure you might remember too like in the 90s it was a it was a huge like you know
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speculation industry at that time you know independent comic books were becoming more mainstream with you know
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companies like image you know leaving uh DC and you know you got Mark Silvestri and you know all the you know big boys
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of that early era doing all this wild stuff with Image Comics and that would turn into top cow comics and then you
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know there was just all these smaller like bigger company like smaller companies that becoming huge and making tons of money because the speculative
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Market until the crash in you know around 94 I would say um but wait what crash uh well there was
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a comic book crash in the 90s because of the speculative bubble because there was just you know so much content being made
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different types of content and what ends up happening so I go uh yeah Comics
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books got oversaturated yeah yeah because uh there was a time where you
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know I remember very distinctly when I was getting into Comics a lot of it was going on around the time where they were
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everywhere I mean comic books around the 80s had kind of this you know Revival because of you know uh what was called
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the the comics code which you know made comic books really crummy for about like half a century United States
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um you know but by the time you hit the 80s people stopped caring and you get a more you know variety of you know
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different types of you know um you know availability of comic books
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that was unprecedented you know so comic books were literally in markets you know like grocery stores you know 7-Elevens
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uh there's more comic book shops popping up and you know as a kid you would see those things all the time and I would
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just pick them up you know what I mean and um you know and you know in another funnier uh aspect of that being raised
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in a religious family I also read religious comic books really they have those oh yeah I'm sure you've seen them
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um so Veggie Tales there's all those things yeah of them calls so the only one that matters to me is one of the
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most problematic ones so there's this is my main man uh Jack Chick so Jack Chick
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is uh very fascinating but extremely problematic Creator so he was this lunatic that was born in the United
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States but he was an extreme uh uh he was part of this very like weird
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subsidiary extremist uh Fringe uh form of religious Comics uh based on his like
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unshakable faith and very you know binary way of seeing morality I mean this guy anything that wasn't anything
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he liked he put it in his books and made it part of a conspiracy but you've probably seen under these like little
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comic books that a lot of uh Christians passed out during you know Halloween and they have like warning you know the
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Halloween's a demonic uh type of really you know event or religious type of thing but the fascinating thing about
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these Comics is though they're they've been recognized by the Southern Poverty Law Center as being a hate group because they absolutely yeah they're hated they
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but the thing that's fascinating about these books the creators long passed and so did his assistant but he he he had a
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very interesting life though because one of my favorite things about reading about him because I did a presentation for him when I was in my MFA program
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just about like you know because these were comic books I was only allowed to read at the time you know I was allowed
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to read a lot of stuff but like things like spawn were like considered demonic yeah so I had to like read these but these are far worse because in my
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opinion they showcase a lot of these narratives that the guy creates as being real things that happen to people like
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their true events or something so they're very they're very well made but
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they're just the worst problematic hateful religious comics and and I've
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ever seen but what's crazy is they're translating hundreds of different languages they're wow one of the most most popular comic books out there and
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have made a lot of money and a lot of churches still use them which is very interesting but yeah but like those were
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like early memories I had of reading comics and that's what got me interested in Comics but
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um I would say you know there's two moments that I would say are probably the most pivotal for me so around the
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time when I was in sixth grade in the early 2000s um bookstores like Barnes and Noble started doing Mass purchases and you
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know Imports of manga from Japan oh okay and at this time too there was a lot of uh archival books of like past popular
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comic books of the 50s and 60s coming out um things like Garfield I read very prominently and things like Calvin and
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Hobbes were like a huge deal for me in the Sunday strips were something I dived into a lot in the Sunday newspaper since
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like you know they were big paper and stuff but when I started reading manga in sixth grade I I it kind of just took
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me to a whole another place uh because it was around the time in middle school when I was really getting into like anime you know Japanese culture and
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manga had just this very different uh look to it it's very different how they
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approach the stories the content the way it's drawn it in my opinion at that time
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time I mean this is such a sixth grader thing it's like the mindset I had at the time was like Japanese Comics are
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superior to Western Comics Japan all the way you know and that's how I felt for a
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long time um but that changed um you know uh when I hit uh sophomore
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year and I was introduced to what I considered two of the most important books I ever read growing up which is uh
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Johnny the homicidal mini by jonan Vasquez who's also the creator of Invader Zim he was actually a comic book artist oh before he got a show pitched
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with Nickelodeon um and uh the other book would be James o'bar the crow which was the graphic
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novel the movie was inspired by with Brandon Lee rest in peace um those two books were very important
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to me um because they were the first Comics that had what I could see clearly as the
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the author having their their heart and soul in the story and the character it
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was you could tell it was inspired by real experiences at least emotionally and I had never seen anything like that
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at the time you know wait hold on are you telling you're telling me that the crow that's a manga no excuse me so I
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jumped for manga so manga was something I got in my middle school and then uh the crow was something I got later on into when I was oh okay my Affinity for
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Western Comics uh re-blossomed uh because I by that point I was kind of disinterested in superhero stuff because
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I found it to be very formulaic and uninteresting um inspiring here and there especially with books like you know Watchmen and
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you know some other stuff like All-Star Superman and you know even Batman you know some of the Batman stuff that was
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made in the 80s and you know like The Dark Knight Returns but what I liked about this was the most important thing
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of it wasn't just the reflection that these artists were creating content that was very personal it was also the fact
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that there was Independent Artists out there doing their own thing and creating their own stories and they were able to
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publish their Visions you know what I mean um for the most part unfiltered unapologetically and you know
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uncompromised you know as the great as Ed piss score would say Outlaw Comics yeah so are there different types of
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comics like genres I guess you can say I mean yeah I mean it's a it's always had
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a different types of mediums uh as far as excuse me genres as far back as the
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early 20th century I mean one of the things people forget is that there was a time where superheroes weren't really
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the centerpiece of comic book culture before that in the early you know as early as the early 20th century strips
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were the thing I mean that's what was printed because you're talking about a time where print media was the number
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one form of entertainment because it was the most accessible it was the most affordable for everyday people the film
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Citizen Kane the character that's based on um you know Kane fought William Foster
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Kane was based on William Randolph Hearst which was this um you know to put it lightly a lunatic
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that had a very big newspaper in San Francisco and he published a lot of what
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would become consider groundbreaking comic book material because his stuff was the most popular because he was able
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to make a newspaper that was affordable but he was also one of the earliest innovators of something we would call yellow journalism which was a Prelude to
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what we call fake news to this day so it's just interesting Comics have always been in the Forefront of counterculture
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early culture pop culture as well and uh you know strips were the thing and it
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wasn't until like around the 30s when you start seeing superheroes take the place in the center stage yeah I was
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going to ask that like when when did superhero and Superman uh like superheroes like Superman come into I
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would say like you know well from what I've seen so the research that I've done
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um uh there's a couple things that you could argue were early superhero stuff Japan has been said to make some of the
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first you know so-called superhero stuff um I believe there's a character called the Golden skull that predates Superman
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but at least I think 10 years I don't don't quote me on that but I know that the golden School at least predates
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Superman but I'll look that up I gotta see that yeah so Superman and golden School the golden skull yeah so the
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golden skull I believe is the name there's there's a Japanese name for it right there but
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um so it's not Superman the golden school it's just called the Golden skull so the golden skull was a Japanese character created that time so
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um but you know Comics didn't really start bringing superheroes into the fourth run around until around the early
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1930s when um you know uh um uh Simon Joe suster I believe uh
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created uh the you know first superhero comic so that's not the correct one you'll probably want to put manga after
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that yeah so he so this character in particular
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from one I understand so yeah there he is right there that's one of his uh appearances and stuff and so yeah the
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one right there on the bottom row where he's like looking up and stuff so go to all because I want to see the uh the the
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date oh you know what I think I might not be the golden school might be the golden bat try that excuse me yeah the
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golden bat I got so much see this is what happens when you're like such a nerd you got all these different names little details wrong and then everyone
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starts questioning your credibility you can do the anime but it's originally a manga uh I would say look for the manga
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if you can um you know this character was uh very popular at his time
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um so you know he he was originally because yeah 1947 which is when I
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believe uh later stuff came in but Superman came around the early 30s but he predates Superman I think
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substantially um but yeah he was the type of character that would fight you know giant monsters he would fly around and protect people
21:07
uh that's not that one no that's probably the bottom left one right there so it says golden Batman yeah to the
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left right there so the very left image so this is we don't have any images it looks pretty cool yeah he's a cool
21:18
character I mean he was like you know he he's a demon that comes back to basically bring order to the world and
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oh you know not very much in the same vein of like superhero but yeah you know he's uh he's an interesting character
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he's almost like an anti-hero and he's an important character yeah in um comic book history so so this is what 1947
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this guy can't say earlier than that I I'm not quite sure on the exact date but I believe yeah his appearance right
21:43
there in 1930 and Superman I believe didn't make an appearance until 1932. yes okay yeah so if not at before around
21:51
almost the exact same time okay let's look up Superman now alrighty this is
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where we we test the prince's Darkness Superman uh first issue yeah yeah so I
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believe his Action Comics uh I can't remember the number yeah first issue first appearance you could probably put
22:10
either one of those two but yeah I mean there's there's a very deep uh you know
22:15
history of comic books you know in The Human Experience 1938 so okay predates him um and you know absolutely golden
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bat you know is one of the first I mean he flies around he has super powers he fights monsters and this is from Japan
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this was a character from straight from Japan I mean Japan has a very different um history of comics because after the
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you know the the bombings of Hiroshima Nagasaki in Japan had to really rebuild its its entire economy from the ground
22:42
up uh the term escapes me but there were these popular types of activities that
22:47
were going on at the time one of my favorite artists uh who did this really great manga called uh uh Barefoot gen
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which is an account of his he was actually a survivor of the bombings of Nagasaki and Hiroshima or Hiroshima I
22:58
believe or not one of the two he was saved by an eight-foot wall but he used to see the the this time in the early you know post-war Japan there was a lot
23:06
of random people coming around with these like different types of print slides and basically these would be
23:12
early alludes to things like anime and early manga which would influence people like ASO asamo tezuka who grew up in
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post an early uh Imperial Japan in post-war Japan and they would watch these and be inspired to draw stories
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based on these random storytellers that just comes wagons and these like images they would insert on these blocks and
23:30
like change them with the story and do voice acting and performances so Comics are a huge huge uh part of just you know
23:39
culture and Imagination in the public um and it's especially now it's become so much more socially acceptable than it
23:45
was you know 40 years ago you know so I can go on forever about it I feel like I'm
23:52
yeah when I decided to choose Comics as my immediate I only had one thing
24:01
so yeah as as you could see I mean I could go on forever about you know comments and just just their importance
24:08
in my life and importance in a lot of my friends and people that I think you know I think it's a bridge to literacy it it
24:15
stimulates the part of a brain I think that really encourages in between of imagination that is provided an
24:21
imagination that is interpreted you know which I think is where the literary literary aspect of it comes from so yeah
24:28
keep going oh my God [Laughter]
24:34
no when did you decide that you're like you know what I'm gonna I'm gonna do this I'm gonna actually go
24:41
to school and and get an MFA in comics yeah well 16 uh when I was 16 uh after
24:47
reading you know John the hamasana maniac and um uh the crow I I just realized like this is what I want to do
24:53
for my life like there's no other medium and art form that I love more um it was just something so accessible
24:59
and personal um that I was able to really just like take home and I already knew from you
25:06
know a team that I wanted to go to art school and just become a professional artist or you know and tell my own
25:11
stories you know and um I'm sorry how supportive was your family like when you yeah told them that you
25:17
were gonna you wanted to do that yeah so um I I have to say um you know shout out
25:22
to my parents you know uh for always being supportive of what I do you know my parents come from a different generation I'm a first generation that
25:29
next person or Latin or Latin or whatever you want to call it you know my dad's a Cuban Refugee my mom was born
25:35
here but you know grew up in a Nicaraguan family in Pacoima and my dad grew up in Bill Gardens you know and you
25:41
know and basically in the 70s and stuff and uh you know as different as their experience were you know as hard-working
25:47
parents you know my uh my opportunity to just be able to ex be accepted as an
25:53
artist I think is something that I would definitely consider you know a privilege and is not very common you know and I'm
25:59
very grateful for that and they've always been supportive it's changed back and forth over the years obviously because you know as you grow older
26:06
different responsibilities come up and you know certain things are perceived a certain way but at the end of the day
26:11
I've always been supported not only by my parents but my community to continue to do the things I love to do and part
26:18
of that has been also you know learning to become a teacher in that passion of
26:24
you know creativity but also sharing the in the the wisdom the passing the Baton if you will to create that accessibility
26:31
and excitement for the Next Generation I I was just gonna ask you about that like how do you I mean
26:38
people don't know right but we know like you teach my nephew right yeah shout out
26:44
to Mateo what's up but how how like how different like I
26:50
because I think of myself back in the 90s and yeah yeah we had things we had certain shows and they were coming up
26:56
and everything but I feel like kids now have like this like huge range of like just things that
27:03
they can watch and see yeah do and everything like how do you think it's like so different now teaching a kid
27:09
like then versus I mean obviously you didn't teach anyone back in the 90s but you know what I mean like do you think
27:15
that these kids creativities are a lot more what's the word I want to say like
27:21
do you think they're more creative now because they see so much or do you think it kind of seen so much kind of blocks
27:28
creativity uh I think that's a good question I think that um it's not a matter of what I think
27:35
it's a matter of how um which is where you know my teacher mine comes in because
27:42
um I I grew up in a generation to which you know technology was becoming much more you know dense with with content I
27:49
mean I come from the era where YouTube was just starting you know um I was a teenager when the internet was like a
27:55
2.0 and there was like finally things like streaming content you know you could read stuff online that was much
28:01
more high definition in images than you could in the early 90s with dial up and I think that even then there was still
28:08
this oversaturation of content but it's nowhere near what it is now where we
28:13
grew up in a generation where we went outside and did stuff outside of Technology kids now have grown up with
28:19
it with the internet as being a fact of life before it was something that was new introduced to us but now with the
28:25
Advent of Technology creating this accessibility I think that it's not a matter of what is accessible it's a
28:31
matter of what are we teaching our kids to do with this content and what are we using it for because this content is
28:38
made for one purpose it's to be consumed it's to be watched it's for your attention and your eyeballs equals money
28:44
so when I teach my students I I think about less about how are they being
28:49
creative with the content that they're watching and try to figure out how can we take what content they're watching
28:55
and use it as inspiration for them to create their own stories and the way I go about that is by creating it in a way
29:01
that utilizes the technology available today which is much more accessible than it was when I was growing up and finding
29:09
ways to make it simple and you know and accessible for kids to kind of articulate their ideas and I think that
29:16
Comics have a really great way of bridging kids to kind of really diving into their own imaginations and
29:22
developing their own kind of creative vocabulary and that can come from a different you know stream of different
29:29
Inspirations I mean I would be lying if I didn't know as much as I did because of all the cartoons and comic books I
29:35
consumed growing up the differences right I was shown through mentors and teachers and different people in my life
29:42
of what to do with that knowledge and that wisdom and that experience and that you know media that's forever burned in
29:48
my memory you know what I mean so so I guess like taking today's
29:53
uh today's whatever YouTube and using it as a tool for your own creativity yeah
29:59
but also um not only using it as a tool but making sure that kids uh know other
30:06
forms of expression that's outside of you know the thumbs on the screen you
30:11
know I think that nothing beats you know using a good old ink pen or brush and
30:16
making a mess you know what I mean kids love it kids really do but they need to be given the space uh not only with you
30:23
the tools that they're using but also the proper you know nourishing environment from a teacher the class
30:29
itself the space that it's in all of that correlates to how a person
30:34
especially young children you know experience their creativity um you know coming from the public
30:40
school system you know uh there there it's very dicey on how creativity is
30:46
taught it's in my opinion much more focused on memorization
30:51
um very basic uh projects that kind of you uniformly don't allow students to really Express themselves in some
30:57
capacity and so I think what really is advantageous about Alternative forms of
31:03
Education either whether it be after school programs or even YouTube content There's an opportunity for kids to find
31:08
out new ways of expressing themselves and finding the spaces to do that safely and in a way that encourages them to
31:15
explore that so um the MFA in comics is fairly new right
31:21
yes about how um I don't know exact numbers but I would say
31:27
um it probably isn't something from what I know at least uh that hasn't really 10 15 years I would say probably less than
31:35
20 years yeah because up until now there was not many schools teaching it as an
31:40
MFA there was literally from what I remember at least in my own memory and I could be wrong but there's only about two schools in the United States damn
31:47
really yeah that offered uh programs to emphasize specifically Comics there was
31:53
the cartoons uh in um a car the cartoon Institute I believe in Maryland
31:59
um and then there's the uh Joe kubert School of of Art and Design which has specifically uh a comic books
32:06
professional program but this is like more catered towards people who want to get like established in like bigger
32:11
mainstream you know industry standard stuff whereas the other uh cartoons institutions more about you know diving
32:17
into like more Memoir stuff or very like intellectual Comics stuff from like companies like fanographics or like you
32:23
know Tron quarterly which are much more like prestigious you know very intentional and very culturally uh you
32:30
know uh centered and you know you know uh comic books Let's Just Like Love and
32:35
Rockets you know which you know or like you know uh Mega hex you know which are
32:40
on the surface very like you know look like very typical comic book strips but they're very culturally dense based on
32:45
the reflections of the authors and creators so MFA in program in comics is something very new um and unprecedented
32:51
in history I mean this is something that would have been a laughing stock in the yeah 20th century quite honestly especially around the time where comic
32:58
books were on almost their last life during the 70s and 60s do you see another like art form that's
33:06
emerging uh just like you said like uh somebody's saying that you know uh a
33:13
comic book uh type of master program would be you know laughable back you know 20. do
33:20
you think that there's something else that's emerging that has a similarity to
33:26
to Comics yeah I mean and it's like a different like art form I would say animation definitely has changed a lot
33:34
um you know animation was also a medium that was dying by the time you got into the 80s until two films changed that
33:40
which was Roger Rabbit um and then another show that was called uh that was short-lived but it was very
33:46
influential for its time which was The New Adventures of Mighty Mouse uh directed by Rob actually I mean this is where you got most of the 90s Titans
33:53
that revived animation to like really got their start you know um you know tons of people worked on
33:59
that show tons of people also worked on Richard uh Richard Williams which is a well-known animated animation director
34:05
who was trained by the original nylon men the original nine animators of Disney was the head animation director
34:11
for you know um Roger Rabbit and that brought a whole new interest in animation which led to
34:16
the Renaissance the Disney Renaissance of the 90s which popularized animation until you know 3D came and hijacked the
34:22
whole show 2D is getting much more acceptable um and much more respect I would say now
34:28
than it has been in the past and animation in general you know something that was very Niche has become very um
34:34
you know popularized I mean look at a Marvel any Marvel's credit screen it's just full of names people just making
34:41
stuff yeah working on that film oh yeah definitely you know shout out to them
34:50
um even even films like that I mean because Marvel came from Comics right
34:56
and that even has changed the movie scene there's always a Marvel movie yeah
35:02
and every every month I feel like something is coming out every month I feel that
35:09
they're I don't know they're just like it's like over polluting the film
35:15
industry right now um I would definitely emphasize the word pollute um I know this might not be a popular
35:21
opinion but um quite honestly I think um Marvel super hero not specifically
35:27
Marvel but superhero movies the oversaturation of it I think is really Chuck holding the Artist Cinema
35:33
um you know I I don't want to you know come off as this you know a pretentious
35:38
nude you know because I understand people like what they like but as somebody who understands the history of
35:43
comics and how it's kind of infiltrated you know the film industry in a way I
35:49
feel that the same problems that existed for big companies like you know uh these
35:54
the the superhero genre are also pervading themselves or putting them are also interest and you know causing the
35:59
same issues in in the film industry you know um I'm a huge you know cinematic you know uh person that was really into
36:07
Cinema especially when I was in college and you know I I watched a lot of movies you know what I mean that most people
36:12
probably wouldn't be interested or you would have to have a really specific taste in film to watch but you know I
36:19
think that it's it's important to have films that challenge convention and that
36:25
challenge you know what it can be told in a story and as much as I love superheroes it's like as a kid this
36:31
would have been my wish to like come true like there's superhero movies everywhere and as an adult I kind of
36:37
regret that wish now because I feel like that's all there is that's all there is and that's all that people look forward
36:43
to and the movies are all formulaic in that sense they're they're um as Martin Scorsese put it it's like a going
36:49
through a little amusement park ride you know and it's funny because when I watch the movies I see again a lot of the same
36:54
issues that the mainstream Comics have which is why I've long largely ignored most mainstream Comics just because I
37:01
feel that the independent scenes that I've been involved with both organizing and you know as a vendor as a Cartoonist
37:07
selling my work there's much more of a personalized experience with the artists
37:12
that you see in these scenes but they're not being recognized anywhere else at all for the most part you know it's
37:18
becoming more acceptable and much more seen than it was but at the end of the day um the big two are telling the stories
37:25
that are being told about Comics you know and very few other stories are being represented and I think it's
37:30
hurting you know film in some sense because if you want Comics you know as a medium
37:37
to grow they have to exist outside they have to exist in their own terms too and
37:43
if they're only being represented in a film medium if people are only consuming comic books culture through a film
37:49
medium I find it very difficult for people to find interest in Reading you
37:54
know and it's just easier to wear a t-shirt you know of Captain America and say you know oh I love the movies and
38:00
like I understand people have issues with people who you know talk about that like well you should just let people enjoy your stuff I'm like well yeah
38:06
enjoy it but recognize that this came from a medium that you are not
38:12
participating in you know you are not experiencing and I feel that it's very
38:18
important to know where these characters come from and to experience where they
38:23
come from not only from a historical standpoint but from a literary point because I believe that is what inspires
38:30
greater art in at least in the sense of something that that's an unformulaic you
38:36
know and understanding what these characters were and where they come from in the history behind the creators of the story
38:41
um it's funny because like it reminds me of a conversation I had with one of my students um not not the not the one I'm currently
38:48
teaching Mateo but but another student of mine um you know I remember having a conversation with them about you know uh
38:54
you know I asked them like hey did you want to watch a documentary about the creator of Spider-Man sometime so much and they're like no I'm not really
39:00
interested I'm like excuse me and who is that I'm not gonna tell him his name I
39:05
love myself no no no no no who's who's the creator of the Creator yeah oh okay so that imparted me I was like I'm not
39:12
gonna show no no no no no no trash no but uh no I mean that's Up For Debate
39:18
um a lot of people debate there's still an argument to who created Spider-Man um two people created specifically it
39:25
was Stanley obviously and Steve didco um why did Stanley get all the credit for
39:31
everything okay I'm gonna just say it because you know what as much as I respect for Stan Lee for putting Marvel
39:37
on the map I think that he is way overly worshiped and if you learn a lot of hot
39:44
take ladies because I stand by this is is that Stan
39:49
Lee gets far more credit than he should and as much as I have respect for him as far as what he had involvement with the
39:56
industry if you read more about the history of Stan Lee you know behind the scenes behind the veneer there's a lot
40:02
of screwed up stuff that he did to a lot of the artists really oh yeah and you know I'm not going to go into details of
40:08
that um but that's something I really encourage people to learn about if anyone would want to learn about that I'd highly recommend the book Marvel the
40:14
untold story it's a great book uh if anything listen to the audiobook but you
40:20
know one of the biggest debates is who created Spider-Man because Stanley had the concept of Spider-Man but Steve ditko was the one that Drew the stories
40:26
you know and I ask you that yeah I've seen right now that it says that it's written by Stanley but it's
40:33
yeah but see that's the thing and that's the tricky thing about Comics as a medium is that who is the real Creator
40:40
really when one person is drawing all the ideas you know so so part of that is you know for
40:46
debate but um one of the reasons why I really push for Comics to be existing outside of the
40:54
sphere of superheroes in mainstream is because there are artists out there who are literally doing everything writing
41:00
drawing you know putting it all together and in my opinion have much more interesting things to say than a you
41:07
know atypical mainstream comic but that's not to say that those comic books are valuable either you know superhero
41:12
comics have an important place in history it's just a matter of what is who is stories are we being told and how
41:19
much are we seeing it and what is accepted you know in our culture as being the standard you know which I
41:26
think should change you know so I have two questions sure one um
41:32
uh so a lot of the Marvel movies right going back to Marvel movies I mean I'm I
41:37
fall prey to the person that watches the movies and then doesn't know that there was a comic book behind it sure sure so
41:43
are are a lot of the the movies out are those existing characters already for
41:49
the most part yeah well because Disney acquired uh Marvel I believe in the
41:54
2010s uh if I'm not mistaken and you know with that all their properties all
42:00
their IPs you know what I mean so everything you see on the screen has been created as a comic book first
42:07
um all of it you know any character you see on there I don't believe yet I haven't watched Marvel movies in almost
42:13
10 years but you know I believe up till now there has not been any characters exclusively created for the movies yet
42:20
um most of the characters if not all have all been original IPS preview you know something like even black panther
42:26
was invented in the early 60s you know what I mean by Jack Kirby you know and uh that that was a completely different
42:32
type of character of that time very reminiscent of what it is what wasn't as reminiscent of it is now but
42:39
um those characters have existed for a long time you know and uh you know what's import another thing I would say
42:45
to what was your second question before I forget my second question was like why do you think that they're not Bridging
42:50
the Gap between um comic books and the movies like why why not include your comic book Into The
42:57
Craze of the movie and the merch well the thing is that's the thing you said you said the m word merch
43:04
um especially since a big company like Disney who acquires another a relatively
43:10
big company like Marvel the incentive isn't about the medium it's about making
43:17
as much money as possible on a popular IP I mean I'm I'm not going to go on on
43:22
from Disney but that's the reality you know the reality is these companies exist to make tons and tons of money off
43:29
IPS that has always been their incentive which is fine my thing is though I don't
43:35
like the fact that Comics have become more of a supplementary medium to the
43:41
movies as opposed to standing on their own as an art form this isn't always the case with every comic book you know out
43:47
there with mainstream Comics there's plenty of examples in history even today that stand on their own Comics but the
43:54
problem is is when the comic books no longer serve as a medium that people
43:59
like to experience for themselves it's more of like oh I like this movie I'm gonna buy it and you probably never read
44:05
it you'll just have it decorated in your house which is fine you know I mean no knocking on that but but recognize that
44:11
there are people behind these books just putting as much labor and love you know
44:16
as the people on the credit scroll that you watch in these movies you know what I mean and you know if comics and comic
44:23
that's why I always encourage my students to always Branch out and try reading different stuff that they're not familiar with reading stories about
44:30
people who are either real people or other people have different stories to tell that might not look like what
44:36
you're used to um you know because most people don't consider I would say a good majority of people don't consume Comics uh that are
44:42
outside of the mainstream to Aspera which is of mostly superheroes you know and I think that's a problem wait hold
44:48
on there's there's other comic books besides superheroes absolutely but see you're joking but the thing is that's
44:54
the truth you know I think I think a lot of people forget that there exists a
45:00
whole history of comic books that have been around since the early 20th century that don't have you know half naked men
45:07
flying in here you know and there's nothing wrong with that obviously but and also people for yeah well like
45:15
that's the thing too like I'll be one thing I will say is that did you know that Wonder Woman's uh Creator was a a
45:20
male for one it was co-created by two of his polyamorous relationships and they
45:25
were a BDSM uh whoa so much of what Wonder Woman is now is inspired by BDSM
45:32
culture if you look at some of the early 1930s stuff oh yeah it's it's amazing like some of the earliest stuff if you
45:39
look at it I mean one of my professors shout out to Justin um you know he's one of my he's our he's
45:44
our gay Uncle we love from CCA and our High Street Professor but the early comics of Wonder Woman have a lot of you
45:51
know alludes to BDSM you know what I mean and yeah it's pretty crazy yeah well I mean look at her the last of
45:58
Truth is literally an allude to like you know bdsn culture which is you know like the kind of domination you know uh power
46:05
power dynamics that exist in BDSM culture like right there uh below that one know below below watch click on that
46:11
one again the one you just clicked click on it again one more time unselect it yeah and then go right there to the bottom right there yeah this one right
46:17
here so this is a perfect example of like an early early examples of this I mean this is a serum this is one where
46:24
uh Wonder Woman goes on a ceremony I can see that man and if you look at it there's a lot of you know like bondage
46:29
in this you know what I mean and there's a lot of you know reveal to me your secrets you know a lot of sexual you
46:36
know energy in these things all the redhead is just missing she's just missing a ball gag yeah basically that's
46:42
all she's missing and that's what's fascinating and and so the creators of Wonder Woman weren't were able to
46:48
articulate a lot of these desires and experiences through Comics because unfortunately Comics is one of the few
46:55
spaces that a lot of marginalized groups or you know communities can only express themselves and you know you got goofy
47:00
stuff like that you know Tyrannosaurus Rex you know you know um I think that's
47:06
the that's where uh furries stem from from furry's Wonder Woman furries actually
47:11
have a very interesting yeah they're you know furries have anemomorphic characters have existed since ancient uh
47:18
ancient India um some of these furries so furries are a subculture of people who have a love
47:24
and affinity for anthropomorphic characters which are half animal half human-like humanoid animals uh they're
47:30
often um associated with you know sexual predatory and uh weird pornographic
47:35
fetishes I used to live I had to work at the event okay I didn't know this yeah I was it was an
47:43
invitation it was I had to be at that event to work okay I don't want this to get hijacked by the furry community no
47:49
it wasn't what you're saying yeah no it was uh there was a convention at uh the
47:54
hotel that was next to the venue and we had to we had to set up the bars for
48:00
animals and I we were we had like another like small little food truck festival that was outside of it so we
48:06
had some overflow from that event so we had some people come in their costumes and yeah not come
48:12
in their costume but they they arrived they arrived in their costumes well I
48:18
will say it's one thing they definitely came yeah yeah but I don't know for sure no what
48:25
costume would you wear if you were part of it um uh me as a as a friend as a furry
48:31
um oh my God okay good both of us so I don't get Vision home um I don't know um I would probably you
48:38
know I would probably dress them as a hyena because then I could just laugh at everything all right there we go yeah
48:44
there we go I would be something with the tail oh that's pretty vague yeah no I'd be a fox a fox yes so you could be
48:52
the Fox on the Run yeah I'll be the foxy lady or something something furry
48:58
um not necessarily right I mean furry the furry community is a very broad very
49:05
Spectrum type of community it's it often gets uh I mean as somebody who used to
49:10
you'll be furry phobic when I was a teenager and getting to know several friends of mine who were for a reason
49:16
fact um I found them to be very very amazing people and you know they get
49:22
often you know categorized as like weird sexual you know fiends and stuff you know and I would say well there's people
49:28
like that in every Community yeah you know you know no Community is exempt from that but you know it it's it's so
49:35
black and white to describe him as that there's tons of people in that community that are wonderful people and they just have their interests and we just gotta
49:42
love them as they are but yeah I mean you know if furries have
49:47
been around you know since the beginning of time if you look at early ancient you know uh Hindu you know glyphs and stuff
49:53
there's tons of eludes to you know different creatures and uh if you're gonna write it it's what two R is not
49:59
like yeah you might want to be careful though you might get some NSFW stuff on there
50:07
oh there you go too bad no no and that's the thing there's nothing wrong with it what has
50:14
become wrong with it is this over representation of people in that Community being really screwed up how
50:20
did they accept sexualize this I mean you know I I I'm not an expert on it
50:26
anything could be sexual but anything yeah exactly anything can be sexualized I mean you don't even have to go to furries I mean if you look at Japan
50:31
their entire porn industry is it doesn't stop I mean there's literally buildings that have five stories of just different
50:38
types of porn um even manga has a variety of different types of fetishes that they cater
50:43
towards you know in erotic comics and stuff I I'm not sure how we got here but this is kind of hilarious this isn't
50:49
yeah and I was gonna say this isn't this isn't the first time that uh the word Japanese porn has been brought up on
50:57
this podcast yeah that guy looks like Ratatouille actually
51:04
yeah what's his name um Ramy Remy yeah that's Remy goodness
51:09
oh there's this uh there's this great uh I forget the name of there was this baseball
51:15
um near uh baseball uh announcer that was really great his name is Bob something
51:20
um there's this great audio on YouTube where he's basically talking during a game and then between the game he's like
51:26
commenting about like on the slow side about the Furry Convention that was happening across the street from the baseball game he says one of the
51:33
funniest things uh one of the guys who was associated with like sitting with him talking about he's just like so would you ever dress in the have you
51:38
ever dressed in a costume I've never dressed in a costume but I've worn a fig leaf or two find that clip oh you said
51:45
it was on YouTube yeah I think it's on YouTube just type in Bob uh Furry Convention baseball like just yeah you
51:51
could just probably type it in the Stream yeah on the search engine yeah in the search right there Bob furry baseball
51:57
yeah Bob furry baseball yeah um it's it's hilarious so and it's just really
52:02
funny how it's like yeah Bob Euchre there you go Bob Uecker when he like actually like saw the furries
52:09
um so it was pretty hilarious like how he talks about this and uh oh there we
52:14
go yeah that one yeah it's he talks about it a lot in there and it's one of
52:20
the funniest things I've ever heard because it's like almost like he it's almost like getting like a nature show
52:26
narration but with like a baseball narrator telling you about this is what furries do this is what they're into you
52:31
know oh okay you know it's it's it's hilarious like I I couldn't believe it when I because I heard from it from
52:37
another YouTube channel someone had mentioned it and I was just like what is that like I gotta find out what this is
52:43
and then I'm like who's Bob Euchre and then I looked it up I was like oh so you want to put Bob Uecker uh his last name
52:49
yeah just type in you yeah there it is furries right there there it is right there Bobby referee's
52:55
in Pittsburgh it's a pretty long clip so I'm not sure if you want to um play the whole thing obviously but we'll Pace play something we can play a part of it
53:01
yeah it's it's pretty great I love them too high and it's even at a
53:07
ball and a strike people dressed up as as animals yeah for real
53:14
yeah they're wearing actual um costumes have their faces painted
53:20
kind of a weird look but uh I guess that's their thing one ball in one strike what do these
53:27
people call themselves years yeah they're having a fur ball tonight oh really
53:35
from PNC he was having fun with that it's just the way he talks you know it's
53:40
it's so funny to me
53:45
councilwains here it is and it's outside two balls and a strike you saw them this morning
53:54
yeah and I got out of there real quick like and they're checking in there uh I think
53:59
they're here for the next four days I believe it is
54:05
you know he he attended that thing he knew so much about it oh yeah no there's
54:10
a picture of him there's a picture of him literally posing with somebody from the actual convention yeah you know so
54:18
yeah I wonder where he was hiding his baseball this guy
54:25
let's hope it wasn't a bat yeah oh my gosh jeez
54:30
um so how like how much of the 19th because I'm super into the
54:37
1960s and the Psychedelic Counter Culture how much of that counterculture
54:42
and psychedelics played a part in an art I would say um the Psychedelic movement
54:48
was probably in my opinion one of the most important contribute contributions to American culture but especially
54:54
Comics culture um you know Comics uh underground Comics really blossomed in the 60s because
55:00
prior to that there was really virtually no underground Comics that we know of other than these pornographic comic
55:07
books that were illegally distributed in the early 20th century called Tijuana Bibles so a fun fact about comic book
55:13
distribution in the early 20th century a lot of it was money laundering from organized crime
55:18
um so much of the models to which you know printing uh you know printing Comics was was alluded to a lot of early
55:24
you know Comics uh comic book industry so if you look at Tijuana Bibles these were some of the early remnants of yeah
55:31
so these were sold and these were illegal and these are also one of the first representations of underground
55:37
Comics because it was one of the first comic book forms that had porn in a modern context but not porn just like
55:42
anything they would have characters of the era having having sex things like even like popular like like um
55:49
celebrities like you know like like Al Capone and even having characters like Donald Duck and like Mickey Mouse having
55:55
sex and not just like regular heterosex like actual gay sex like whoa things like that hello yeah there's tons of
56:02
that like gay sex you know lesbian sex all of this stuff started in underground comics with these porn I mean again you
56:10
know there's a saying that it always starts with porn and it's true in the case of underground Comics so you got
56:15
these as being kind of one of the first you know uh introductions like right here like you got like a little you just
56:22
can click not today right there yeah and then like so like right here it's like oh baby I came here so we could play a little before Donald got here oh Mickey
56:30
I think you're a nasty man you know and it's like this these were
56:36
these were secretly sold you know and there's a ways to money launder a lot of organized crime and they're considered
56:43
very important where do they sell them so these would be sold like like drugs like you would find a guy who knows a
56:49
guy you know and then or you go to like you know what are the speakeasies and then I have someone hiding them under
56:54
the cover or you ask a guy like hey you got it you know special book Sunday yeah something let me get a head of acid and
57:00
a TJ but uh Bible well well and that's the thing so these were very impactful
57:07
um for their time but aside from that um underground Comics um really took
57:12
light in the 60s um because in the 60s you start getting artists like Robert Crum who um I have a
57:20
lot of mixed feelings about he was a huge deal when I was growing up but as I've gotten older I've had to learn to kind of rethink my relationship with his
57:25
art but there's no doubt in my mind that he had a huge impact in the industry uh
57:31
because in the 60s you start getting you know these underground movement of artists who are just saying you know [ __ ] it like we're gonna just I know
57:37
hold on what is that I want to say yeah wait here we go Donald Duck and Mickey right there you know I mean yeah he's
57:45
got his little Peter out you know and Donald Duck can you can you zoom in on that I want to read that I've been
57:50
trying to for like the past 30 seconds I like I like how the furry thing is still still prominent here but yeah this was
57:56
drawn in the 20s right here like as early as the 20s you know and and these are a part of comic history I mean as
58:03
much as people want to deny or you know whoa you know someone read it for a guests that aren't watching it amazing
58:18
Donald that tickle's so good you know and and this is this is existed
58:24
as you know porn has existed in comics and sequential Arts since human beings have existed I mean if you look at early
58:29
like Hindu art you know in India there's tons of sex in it everywhere in there because you're talking about an era
58:35
where you know Paulie polyamory was a normal part of Human Experience you know what I mean
58:41
um but yeah there's tons of these these comics of just all these famous like properties and IPS you know what I mean
58:48
I keep going wow yeah it's a rabbit hole for sure you know but getting back to
58:54
your question yeah the 60s I would say uh you know you know a lot of people you know look at it with Rose Colored
59:00
Glasses a lot of the time but it was a really different time you know and a lot of artists of that era were changing the
59:06
game I mean you got guys like Robert Crum you know Spain Rodriguez you know and like all these different artists
59:12
emerging of the 60s who are taking LSD and just going for it you know and just making whatever whatever the hell they
59:18
want you know at a time where comic books were very heavily censored by you know what was at the time the comics
59:24
code which had emerged what's a Comics code so there's an amazing history behind that so by the 1950s there's a
59:33
independent comic There's a comic book company called AC Comics uh they started
59:38
off as a religious uh comic book company the founder of it um His Name Escapes me
59:44
at the moment but he started selling comic books in the 30s and what he did was actually invent the very first uh
59:50
saddle Stitch 30 Cent like 10 cent sticker Comic-Con the Sunday Funnies he got a bunch of these different Sunday
59:55
strips and put them together and sold them his comic book company fell Underwood and so once you his father the
1:00:02
character fathered I believe uh uh uh will Gaines the Creator uh the founder
1:00:07
of the one who picked up the mantle he hated his dad because he didn't want to take up the comic books industry or the the business but instead he put his own
1:00:14
stories that he wanted to see in the books so they started off in mid early mid 40s really putting stuff like what
1:00:21
you're seeing on the screen right now Crypt of the Tails oh shocks suspense stories all these Comics at the time
1:00:26
were very groundbreaking because there was nothing like it at the time that we're talking about horror stuff you know creepy science fiction and they
1:00:34
were all inspired by different books and movies that the guys would watch and they would come up with stories like this the time that they're what's
1:00:40
interesting about this time though and by the time we get the 50s these are some of the most popular you know books
1:00:45
because post-world War II many of the readers of comic books were adult men they were reading them in the trenches
1:00:51
they were interested in stories and experiences that they experienced as well you know and the horrors of reality and kind of coming back to this 50s
1:00:58
Suburban nightmare you know after you know having things like PTSD and or what they called shell shock at the time and
1:01:04
so you know these guys are reading these Comics because these are the stories they want to read you know and what's brillant about these Comics is that they
1:01:11
were very provocative at the time very um you know pushing the edge one of my favorite short stories uh that I can't
1:01:17
remember which one of the EC Comics it was but there is a short story about a man who comes back to a small town and
1:01:24
he's just disgusted by his whole community that celebrates him returning because he finds out that his his Band
1:01:30
of Brothers is one close friend in the trenches was black and was buried 30
1:01:35
miles away from the town and so that nobody could see it you know they were talking about these kind of
1:01:41
subjects as far back as the 50s you know but so what happens is in the 50s there's this uh crazy psychologist
1:01:50
um named um oh my God his name is escaping I just talked about it last week in my class sorry excuse me don't
1:01:56
come back to me but what happened was this psychologist he was a popular psychologist at the time
1:02:01
because he was trying to make a name for himself in the United States and there was a rise of a lot of juvenile
1:02:07
delinquent crimes uh kind of happening in the Midwest and parts of the United States by the time you're in the mid 50s
1:02:13
you know like things like you know the books like The Outsiders are kind of like alludes to like a lot of generation
1:02:19
of young men who are lost you know at the kind of you know culture that they're surmounted to in the states at
1:02:24
this time at a time where the Communist scare is like everywhere everyone's afraid of the bomb you know what I mean
1:02:30
there's this kind of just like this you know going back into this kind of inward you know uh culture of just like
1:02:36
everything's hunky-dory because we got a lawn and a house and a you know a nuclear family and a lot of these kids
1:02:42
hated it you know and their imagination would go wild and you know with that you know I feel like kids will get into like
1:02:48
crazy stuff but what happened was there was a situation where a young boy uh uh
1:02:54
had uh basically murdered somebody and his brother on the report police
1:03:00
report had eluded that comic books were the cause of this violence this outbreak of violence now whether you agree with
1:03:07
that or not what year was this this was I believe in 1954 or 53.
1:03:13
um and so for the first time in history comic books were put on a congressional hearing
1:03:19
and and uh will Gaines uh the the owner of EC Comics was the main target by a
1:03:26
lot of these people attacking comic books I mean you're talking about a time where you know by this point he's one of
1:03:33
my favorite moments is when they actually went and had a congressional hearing about this in the Senate I believe and they were basically badging
1:03:42
comics and stuff like that I mean there's a clip I can show you guys that kind of ascribes what happened if you want go on a YouTube and then type in uh
1:03:49
EC Comics um Court and you know there's a whole clip that
1:03:56
kind of ascribes to what was going on at that time um let's see scroll down uh yeah William Gaines uh let's go over
1:04:04
here Comics code keep going down there's a particular clip that I'd like to show you uh so what's interesting about this
1:04:11
is that um let's type in on will Gaines can you type in will Gaines please sorry about that I just really want to make sure we
1:04:18
put the right clip because this clip is like perfect will Gaines and yeah there we go
1:04:25
and uh so so it looks like oh my God the clip's not showing up so so basically I
1:04:31
mean before I get into it so like basically there was a there was a whole you know argument if comic books are
1:04:37
causing juvenile delinquency and he wrote this book called uh the the um seduction of the youth where he
1:04:44
alludes that comic books caused juvenile delinquency sexual deviancy and you know
1:04:49
um very homophobic very anti you know lgtbq basically what they did in the 90s
1:04:54
with video games basically that's the thing it's exactly the same thing and they attacked it with the same Vigor you
1:05:01
know that they would with the Communist scare of the 1950s okay you know what I mean and so what ended up happening is
1:05:06
Will Gaines went to court and tried to defend Comics but the funny thing was he was high as [ __ ]
1:05:13
um on pills because you know pills were like a popular drug for a lot of Housewives and he was no exception to that wow time and he was on these
1:05:20
goofballs like crazy he was sweating like a pig and you know I felt bad for the guy when I was watching the Clips
1:05:25
but he had some profound things to say and um that's awesome he was high as [ __ ]
1:05:31
and and uh you know um uh so he ended up losing the case and then EC Comics was basically destroyed
1:05:38
because they had very severely targeted and the comic books code uh to this day
1:05:44
by many uh retrospective you know historians has said to be the most oppressive uh censorship
1:05:51
um you know act in American art history because unlike any other medium history comic books were heavily censored by the
1:05:58
1950s to a point to which all the guts Neil Adams one of the guys who helped
1:06:03
bring Batman into a whole nother level that was way different had said it best he says comic books became no more
1:06:09
better than toilet paper after that which I agree like at that point as far as mainstream Comics go but what
1:06:15
happened so once that code came into play it really [ __ ] up the medium because before you could have all these
1:06:21
crazy images and you know visuals and stuff and like really get a glimpse of
1:06:26
like you know what the code did to people and at this point not only were people like censoring them people were
1:06:32
losing their jobs who were working in this industry for a longer than like 30 years since the 30s and not only that
1:06:38
there were comic book Bernies is that is that him so that's will Gaines will Gaines yeah Will Gaines right there he
1:06:44
is uh the found he was the basically his father had started EC Comics and he took the mantle book okay he's considered a
1:06:50
huge deal in publishing history because he really brought a lot of new stories and ideas into Comics but by the time
1:06:56
you hit the six these people are you know like there's a there's a point where I want to say too where there was comic book earnings here in the country
1:07:02
at that time where people were literally going out and burning Comics just like they did with Beatles records when you
1:07:08
know the whole moral panics that you know this nation kind of you know manufactures a lot you know so by the
1:07:14
time he hit the 60s you know you get a lot of these drug using hippies and the only reason why they were only able to
1:07:20
kind of put this art out there is because there was things like uh uh you know um psychedelic dungeon shops which would
1:07:27
be considered like you know like Boutique shops that sell specialty stuff something like a bong store or like they
1:07:33
would sell like different jewelry or psychedelic stuff but they would also consign underground Comics oh that's cool yeah and so that had a huge impact
1:07:40
on I would say many generations including myself you know of what could be done in comics because it reminded me
1:07:46
most importantly that there's no rules in this medium there's only um possibilities you know what I mean
1:07:52
and I think that again it kind of goes full circle with that with me which is why I teach it which is why I create
1:07:58
Comics is because it's accessible it's immediate it doesn't require any skill all requires you is to have Clarity and
1:08:05
even then that's subjective but yeah you're able to put something together you're able to create something and
1:08:10
really yeah so like here's a here's one of the testimonies described here and stuff um but you know he you know this is it's
1:08:18
just very interesting how this whole thing happened here but yeah I think that you know there's a
1:08:25
lesson to be learned with that you know with with you know censorship and you know I want and I think about that a lot
1:08:30
you know what is acceptable you know what is the line and why are we so afraid of you know children reading
1:08:39
you know it's like you know I like I mean basically I remember seeing the same kind of panic with religious groups
1:08:45
with the Harry Potter uh becoming extremely popular you know what when you were saying that earlier on when we
1:08:50
started about um about your experience with that this I had the same experience with with
1:08:56
Harry Potter growing up and I wasn't able to watch the movies I wasn't able
1:09:01
to read any of the books um even like they were I think there was
1:09:07
like some uh there's like forms that our parents had to sign and
1:09:13
um you know my Guardians at the time they didn't sign any I guess because they were talking about witchcraft so
1:09:18
they just wanted to warn the parents that what the kids were about to read oh yeah and I would wasn't able to to be a
1:09:25
part of that assignment because I wasn't able to read Harry Potter yeah there is a I mean um a lot of um a lot of
1:09:31
religious groups uh especially uh I'm going to say Charlton um you know religious organizations make
1:09:37
a lot of money off fear-mongering much like how a lot of media does you know um and I remember being a kid as young as
1:09:43
like 11 watching conspiracy Christian videos about Harry Potter there's a great one on YouTube called that I
1:09:49
watched as a kid on VHS called Harry Potter witchcraft repackaged um it's hilarious because as a kid I was
1:09:54
terrified from it especially in the segment where they talked to real Wiccan witches about what they believe and it's
1:10:00
like the most terrifying thing when you're like a young Christian kid because they're like we believe that everybody is should be available to be
1:10:07
free and we should love everyone and then it's like oh my God they don't really mean that they're actually killing like babies inside there yeah
1:10:13
and then when like as I gotten older as someone who's a self-proclaimed bruja um I laughed now I was like yeah no like
1:10:20
yeah we can they they have a lot of great values they're all about love being alone with nature and paganism is
1:10:25
like actually you know predates Christianity by a long time yeah so you
1:10:30
know you know it's it's just it's just interesting like how you know American culture United States culture
1:10:37
specifically is just always been rooted in these moral panics and you know uh
1:10:42
religious fears you know it's really rooted in the early you know Colonial Puritan culture that this country
1:10:48
cultivated from its you know uh its infancy you know what I mean yeah so I don't know I can get into that but
1:10:54
that's a whole other section well I mean it translates that like into
1:11:00
today like I I listen yeah to a lot of you know different podcasts even stuff
1:11:07
on the uh you know conservative conservative news yeah uh about like uh
1:11:12
the the gay agenda and how the agenda yeah how they're trying to feminize uh
1:11:18
women I mean men and how they're trying to get rid of uh men and yeah it's just
1:11:23
it it's weird well it gets weird I'm queer so I don't give a [ __ ]
1:11:31
no I I get that but it just it just it's just weird how how they have to every
1:11:37
everything about about a book yeah about Harry Potter I wasn't able to read a [ __ ] book yeah it's it's strange you
1:11:46
know because there's this kind of contradiction which we want kids to read but they better be reading the right
1:11:52
stuff yeah better not be making my kids gay exactly and I'm like so what if your
1:11:57
kid your kids gave who like so what I mean I mean they might be become
1:12:04
happier than you because you got a lot of you know some of those ones that fear the most are the ones that oh the any
1:12:12
person who is that afraid of anyone with their own sexual identity and is
1:12:19
comfortable with it is obviously very repressed very uncomfortable with their own sexuality and the possibility that
1:12:25
they may not know who they are do you think like over suppression will cause
1:12:32
that yeah certainly um as somebody who grew up homophobic and uh you know was
1:12:38
you know very um you know unsure of their sexuality at a very young age and was not able to
1:12:43
really understand or explore that at a time that was developmental for me you know I think that
1:12:49
suppressing it only makes it worse and it's not even the fact I think that if
1:12:55
you have those kind of feelings or those kind of thoughts is what makes you that
1:13:01
way I think it's just about accepting that those are things that human beings think about experience
1:13:07
and it's okay it doesn't mean you are suddenly gonna jump into like excuse me
1:13:13
jump into it you know like Amber Loves You by the way oh my God I love it I
1:13:19
tell going like I can't wait till someone does it happen many times you gotta have like a button where you have
1:13:24
like a buzzer when it's like hey burp no um but you know like for me
1:13:31
like you know because like I you know coming from a very religious family um both spides outside of my immediate
1:13:38
family and knowing that that is very pervasive you know in my own personal life and um and outside of it you know and
1:13:44
especially in the world that we're kind of experiencing right now with a lot of hate you know towards people with a different experience of sexuality and
1:13:51
you know I think that any person who has that much hatred and that much you know
1:13:56
fear has something to hide and has something that they don't want to know about themselves which I think is the
1:14:04
key to their their peace and their freedom you know and you know I think because again we're when you're so
1:14:10
culturally rooted in certain ideas it's it's really hard to unsee them I mean I had to experience that you know
1:14:16
deconstructing the faith that I was raised with and realizing that most of the people that I'm going to be talking
1:14:21
to especially when I entered Art School are queer gay lesbian bi you know and
1:14:26
also remembering that I was grew up with you know queer people my whole life and I accepted them and loved them but I
1:14:33
didn't you know accept their their lifestyle and I think that it was very
1:14:39
important for me to come to terms with that and realizing how much of that sexual suppression is extremely damaging not only to the people who are that but
1:14:47
the people who are afraid of it you know um it's less about accepting other
1:14:52
people it's more about accepting yourself you know and I think that
1:14:58
if you are able to at least see them as a human being first
1:15:03
then you can have that conversation of what you agree or disagree with but you're if you have created an image of
1:15:09
somebody based on what you have been told through a different lens that has absolutely no connection to that
1:15:15
Community you're going to create another you know image of people that will lead to their death will lead to their
1:15:21
violent end I mean African Americans know this firsthand you know from just
1:15:27
their history here in the States you dehumanize people from an image that you create in a mass popular depiction you
1:15:34
know or perception of it is stereotyping and all of that and you know that dehumanizes people from the mass you
1:15:41
know um observation but that's a whole other discussion we can have like five different podcast
1:15:48
episodes just from oh yeah if we do it though if we do it though I wanna I
1:15:53
wanna I wanna do my Alex Jones impressions what you're saying about
1:15:59
um uh about uh people not wanting to you
1:16:04
know dig in about their own behavior and their own mind that's exactly how I feel
1:16:10
about some people that don't want to or just uh uh that don't want to try
1:16:18
psychedelics or mushrooms because they're they're off they're afraid quotations they're afraid of what they
1:16:25
might see or think about in their own mind did you just say the p word my friend yes I did I'm going to go there I
1:16:32
think I did did I better being my Alan Watts impression no um yeah do you have one I want to hear
1:16:38
Alan Watson before this podcast ends I want to hear Alex Jones and Alan Watts
1:16:43
how about I do Alan Alex Jones as Alan Watts oh wow
1:16:49
it's like you say folks the thing about Zen is you
1:16:56
got to be present the whole cycle of life is full of surprises and I know a thing about surprises I'm
1:17:02
not gonna lie to you meditation has saved my life many times and I'm not gonna forget the day that Buddha brought
1:17:09
me Nirvana that's the way you understand the world
1:17:15
no yeah um yeah you know drugs um is
1:17:20
another thing that I had to uh you know deconstruct and really understand uh through research it took me a very long
1:17:27
time to be comfortable with you know participation and especially at a time where marijuana and you know for most
1:17:33
part most psychedelics were illegal absolutely and um being able to experience that um it's been a very
1:17:40
different history timeline for me because when I started you know smoking marijuana when I was like around 21
1:17:46
years old um I was very indifferent to it because it was fun it felt more like a party thing or like something you
1:17:52
would do just to have fun but it wasn't until I started studying the history of like you know Shamanism and especially
1:17:57
in Peru and learning about Ayahuasca and learning about you know you know you're on a podcast if you're talking about
1:18:02
Ayahuasca yeah so um but you know when I started you know you know you're on the Mind buzz when
1:18:07
you talk about Ayahuasca marijuana and psychedelics and comic books and Alex Jones
1:18:17
so psychedelics that I think has been the most important thing for me is how
1:18:22
much they're how much their science backs up the benefits to it I mean when you look at how mushrooms work how uh
1:18:30
psychedelics affect your brain and how how much more positive they have an
1:18:35
impact on you than something like that's more publicly available and much more dangerous excuse me there's another burp
1:18:40
here we go uh publicly available then um you know um something like alcohol
1:18:46
you know what I mean where again as many cases have said alcohol causes more deaths than most you know drugs are said
1:18:53
to be more dangerous like I would say not dangerous at all I'm really like marijuana and psychedelics you know um
1:18:59
you know psychedelics have been in like an integral part of my life you know they have there's me before and
1:19:06
then there's post you know psychedelic you know and I think that every human being should at least experience it if
1:19:12
their brain is obviously compatible because now it's not for everyone obviously you know but I think the thing is too is the fear comes from a lot of
1:19:19
the fear-mongering because of the ability for it to expand your Consciousness and to really deconstruct
1:19:24
your reality which in my opinion I'll just say it you know um you know pulls questions to power structures and
1:19:31
systems you know what I mean of well because if you start asking why you live this way yeah why we you start asking
1:19:38
funny questions that people don't want you to ask I'll just asking questions here yeah I'm not trying to screw up the
1:19:45
soup I'm just here to take mushrooms and find out what the truth is you know and that's kind of dangerous
1:19:52
yeah if you want to keep a whole society in line absolutely and have one way of
1:19:58
thinking at all times you know historically any any movement that has questioned you know how things operate
1:20:05
it has always been dismantled especially if you look at how available psychedelics were in the 60s and how
1:20:10
they completely even the fifth these two in the 50s yeah I mean with the beatniks and stuff you know um you know participating in that and you know I
1:20:18
think that it's such a natural part of Human Experience if you look at any culture especially pre-colonial cultures
1:20:25
it is common it's like it was like as essential as you know [ __ ] and eating
1:20:30
you know what I mean you you go out and you take a [ __ ] you go eat and like you know and then you take a mushroom and
1:20:36
then you have like a nice little experience and then you know you go you go on with your day you know right
1:20:43
sorry I gotta burp another fourth one this is now the the burp Buzz podcast
1:20:48
[Laughter] so yeah no I and I'm a huge advocate uh
1:20:54
for psychedelics I think that they do more um positive and harm but that's not to say as I was going for is I think
1:21:01
that the most important thing is do them responsibly um absolutely on my Instagram I posted several images that I
1:21:08
did while I was in LSD and I would say it was probably one of the most creatively ex positive experiences I've
1:21:16
ever had it really changed my whole perspective if you want to scroll I can point out where it is
1:21:21
not only does he know a lot about comic books but they're also an amazing
1:21:27
artists oh yeah that there's a lot of your artwork I mean do
1:21:34
you have art pieces free you know psychedelics oh yeah I can show you exactly where really pre and then post
1:21:41
uh so if you scroll down um keep going and stuff so you'll get to see a little bit of my body of work
1:21:47
um there'll literally be a uh yeah literally be a thumbnail that says uh
1:21:52
some LSD drawings but you'll see those there um but yeah like so there's there's pre
1:21:59
there's predestined with psychedelics and there's posts right there so some LSD drawings right here yeah so click on
1:22:05
this yeah click on that please yeah so that's where you'll start seeing some of the things so this was a very important
1:22:11
Arrow right there yeah yeah so these were made so these were I was doing some
1:22:16
work for uh a pitch that was gonna be uh uh that was going to be a part of a
1:22:22
LucasArts Adventure um unfortunately it fell through but I created amazing arm the reason why is
1:22:28
because I found out the creator of one of the artists that animated the stop-motion segment of the first Star Wars movie where they're playing the
1:22:33
chess boards and stuff from what I heard and you can confirm this if not but what I was told and I read is that the
1:22:40
animator for that the stop motion animation um as you say right there yeah Dragon draw responsibly it was actually great
1:22:46
because when I posted that somebody actually thanked me for putting that wow um because they had a friend who wasn't able to handle their psychedelics and
1:22:52
unfortunately had committed you know uh their own their own death so was nice to know that people you know appreciated
1:22:58
that responsible aspect of it but you know one of the things that I did that for is because I really wanted to
1:23:04
experience that because the guy who animated for Star Wars that segment of the chessboards wasn't LSD the entire time when he was animating it's all like
1:23:10
well if I'm doing something related to LucasArts I got a LSD right but what was
1:23:16
the thing is if you look at the brush work on this is that it's very visceral it's very you know instinctual I
1:23:23
literally felt like I was six years old again in my body less than in my mind
1:23:29
and I was just like going at my art at a very gut level unprecedented before in
1:23:35
my life I mean it really also the kind of thoughts that my mind produced was more like it became this very
1:23:41
philosophically different thing where I was starting to see things totally different where I realized like why am I because at this point I had always
1:23:48
called myself a cartoonist but at this point when I started you know when I had this experience it really kind of
1:23:54
changed how I saw myself in my art and I realize why am I limiting myself strictly as a Cartoonist why am I only
1:24:01
calling myself that what if I am just an artist and I can do whatever the hell I want and whatever I want to pick up I
1:24:07
can put together oh I like this one a lot yeah so this is pre-psychedelics but this was
1:24:12
um a series of images I did to produce for my graph my thesis for my MFA program so I'm very heavily inspired by
1:24:19
Mesoamerican history shout out to my homie Daniel Prada Kush Katan on Instagram
1:24:25
um we had a when I used to live in the Bay Area we used to go on a lot of walks and uh we met we we really had a lot of
1:24:32
conversation about Mesoamerican history and how how rich and deeply diverse and
1:24:37
complex it was you know especially pre-colonial and a lot of this was inspired by that history because one of
1:24:43
my biggest Inspirations outside of you know psychedelics is research history um learning about you know ancient
1:24:49
civilizations which is why I take a lot of my inspiration from visually yeah yeah no you can it's really prominent in
1:24:56
your artwork thank you yeah yeah so these are uh so these pieces that you can see the final piece of this actually
1:25:01
this was a progress part this is like a slow um stream but if you go up a little bit more uh right there this was a piece
1:25:08
uh yeah that one right there so these are a series of Arts images that I still create called humanatas whoa um so these
1:25:16
are literally never planned I don't plan anything on these I just go for it um they're all instinctual
1:25:22
um these are made out of time a difficult time in my life where I was trying to just be present and they're very therapeutic for me because I'm able
1:25:28
to just create repetitious colors space and images and also kind of explore
1:25:34
what's possible with with comic book art because human not as for me uh this type
1:25:40
of style and this type of art form for me is really more about getting my instincts present with the paper so I'm
1:25:46
able to kind of you know get out of my mind and be at peace in my body you know and yeah and I'm able to kind of
1:25:52
articulate thoughts and ideas and all this type of stuff so this was actually at a gallery show in Los Angeles
1:25:59
downtown called the Hive I was able to display this yeah where is this now so this is in my living room now but uh if
1:26:06
anyone wants it it's for sale is it yeah it's for sale you can DM I like it I'm glad you like it I'll DM you please do I
1:26:13
like it a lot I just want to jump in there honestly well you know and you can also commission me I also make do this
1:26:19
with collaboratively with people um there's a whole Forum you can sign on my My Links right now okay but um yeah and
1:26:25
these pieces just became very personal currently those some of these pieces are also at an art gallery in um Arcadia
1:26:31
called creative art worlds which is a really great non-profit for youth um I had a show there uh as uh last the
1:26:38
last couple months it's about to end but I just taught for them recently too with kids um it was fun I got to dress in
1:26:44
costume and teach Comics oh that's cool and stuff which yeah it was a lot of fun and then some of this other stuff right here so this one right here wallow so
1:26:52
this is an important book um we worked on this for three years with my collaborator um so I'm half nicaraguense and I'm half
1:27:00
Cuban and as I said earlier and for the first time in my life two years uh two years ago
1:27:05
um for research for the book uh my collaborator took me to Nicaragua and I had never been outside in Central
1:27:11
America ever in my life until this book uh was I was commissioned to make this book and uh it's basically follows a
1:27:18
story of our friend Walder who also now is currently in the states uh uh we're getting we're helping him seek political
1:27:24
Asylum since he was becoming very oppressed in Nicaragua at the time and uh it's basically about his experiences
1:27:30
as being a migrant worker in the second poorest nation in the entire Western Hemisphere the second to Haiti uh and uh
1:27:38
I was able to visit where my family came from I found my grandmother's grave there it hadn't been cleaned up in 10
1:27:43
years my great-grandmother's grave wow it was powerful to see that I found I had long lost family there and all my
1:27:49
cousins there were artists which was tripping me out whoa yeah it was crazy we found them in a Granada and uh they
1:27:57
apparently had like tons of sculptures and like they lived on a farm but they sculpted they built stuff out of
1:28:02
Woodworks and like one of their other kids like was uh was drawing with charcoal and pencil and I'm like where
1:28:09
were you guys all this time my half my grandmother's half-sister was
1:28:15
there that's where we found her and she was living in New Orleans for a long time and I never knew her existence
1:28:20
until I went there you know scroll back down dude these the your black and white images remind me of there's this image I
1:28:28
can't remember maybe we can Google search this about it's uh uh can you
1:28:34
look it up Amber it's um it's like mushroom look up like ancient mushroom art do you know which one I'm talking
1:28:41
I'm trying to reflect I'm interested in seeing this now this sounds like a lot of fun mushroom art and it's like this black
1:28:48
it's like this black and white like uh bird looking there we go there he is you see he's right there right that guy
1:28:56
wow are these literally cave drawings yeah look at that wow
1:29:02
wow it's similar that's why yeah the first thing like when I seen that I was like whoa hold on
1:29:09
that's fascinating you see yeah and that's the thing um I I really believe that mushrooms
1:29:17
uh anything that we eat really uh has data you know it's like eating data right you know we we think of food and
1:29:24
what we consume in our bodies is simply just nutrition cells that you know just
1:29:29
become part of our bodies and then have an effect on like our bodies but I think there's less discussion about how
1:29:35
certain plants affect our psychology too I mean if you look at the kind of food that we consume in America especially if
1:29:41
you're constantly eating fast food there's a lot of studies showing that it causes depression and a lot of sickness but what's to say that you're not able
1:29:49
to also consume something like mushrooms and it's information that it has its
1:29:55
Consciousness as a plant can infiltrate your brain too and give you information I mean just from my own
1:30:01
personal mushroom experiences one of the most important things that I felt under that was this conversation in my brain
1:30:07
that would you know tell me when to relax or like hey you're thinking too much hey don't overthink it it's just
1:30:13
this it's just that you know um you know and I think about that it's like is that me or is that the mushroom
1:30:21
using its way of communicating with me because if you look how mushrooms operate they're very connected they're
1:30:28
very huge networks and they have tons of data in them that is you know basically
1:30:34
you know plant you know material in in cells and stuff and there's so much I don't think that we're putting research
1:30:40
on to finding out how these things connect to us on not only on a you know on a psychological level but a
1:30:45
biological level too you know especially how when you look out mushrooms affect the brain and stuff so that's how the
1:30:51
way I Lisa describe it and that's where I feel like art has a way for us under the influence of plants like that yeah
1:30:57
can really help us understand our own minds too and our imagination and what kind of images come to us as a species
1:31:04
and what they represent you know one of my favorite things that Terence McKenna talked about in his book um you know
1:31:10
food of the Gods is how one of the earliest images that we see that would
1:31:17
be considered what we call DNA um strands started off as a symbol of a
1:31:22
serpent you know what I mean the kind of you know cyclical you know spiral like you know you know uh you know the
1:31:30
serpent as being a symbol of wisdom or a source power that was inspired and do by inducing psychedelics the Peruvian
1:31:37
shamans talk about the cosmic serpent as being one of the center things too of that you know and it's something that
1:31:42
even goes far back as ancient Persia you know so I I feel like early art had to
1:31:50
have been inspired some capacity by psychedelics because again there's like that Stone Age theory that Terence
1:31:56
McKenna talks about how our species as when we were more ape-like really became more self-aware because of the constant
1:32:03
digestion of plants because if you look look again with the science of mushrooms they literally expand your brain they
1:32:09
literally shut down different neural Pathways and compensate by creating new ones so new ideas new Concepts new ways
1:32:15
of thinking emerge language language I really believe only emerged from the
1:32:21
construction of possibly consuming psychedelics because how else do you think about constructing these weird
1:32:27
sounds that only we can understand and only if you can hear and you know but
1:32:32
it's energy you know is your name Gill
1:32:38
story of my life oh my God I got two of us now oh my goodness uh double down
1:32:45
with the mushroom [Laughter] that's the thing though you know and I
1:32:52
think it's very important you know for for us to take this stuff seriously um that said I do not condone
1:32:59
um this type of stuff consumed by youth I think one thing I've always taught my students um is that if you're going to do drugs
1:33:07
do them when you're older and your brain is more developed because if you're young and you're consuming drugs on a
1:33:14
constant basis I cannot say that it won't have a negative it will have a negative I can say that we'll have a
1:33:20
negative effect too so you're on you're you're part of that that group that says that they that uh a child or even a
1:33:30
person should do marijuana or any type of drugs after the age of 25. well I I
1:33:36
20 they they say that 25 is where your brain is actually more developed because
1:33:42
25 also is when you suppose your brain starts it's growing oh okay you know it
1:33:47
stopped yeah well it stops expanding I'm not sure I mean there's science to be back I need more research on that but
1:33:52
like my thing is I I just from as an educator and as someone who you know you
1:33:58
know didn't grow up taking drugs um until I was in my 20s and also seeing a lot of Youth in my time teaching
1:34:04
because I've taught youth who've been incarcerated who have been in juvie hall and oh okay you know have worked in and
1:34:09
have sold drugs you know what I mean and yeah you know and they the thing is do you see a difference I do because you
1:34:16
know when when I see youth who especially older you know people who have been consuming marijuana since they
1:34:21
were 15 years old it does have an effect you know what I mean and I think there
1:34:27
is an opportunity in the future perhaps for it to be possible but I don't agree
1:34:32
with it until you know there's a way that is safely being used and quite honestly I don't think it's necessary
1:34:38
for young people uh to take yeah because I think because you're young and your brain is developing there are so much
1:34:44
more immersive ways to expand your mind and art is one of those things you know what I mean I think that you know and
1:34:51
this is just and I hate it and I mean it might just because of a thing of my age but like I really believe that young people should really be free to learn
1:34:57
about their own mind without any external stimulus like that because yeah if you can't be strong on your own mind
1:35:04
you know at your Youth and as you're developing it I don't think that you'll
1:35:09
be able to do that as an adult you know what I mean because you're not developing that part of your brain and
1:35:14
drugs can kind of interfere with that especially uh with adolescent brains that are impulsive very very uh risky
1:35:21
you know um you know their brain is in a very extremes you know what I mean right so there's a lot of room for addiction you
1:35:28
know to kind of take place there because it doesn't matter the substance doesn't matter what you what you take anything
1:35:34
can become an addiction you know what I mean and it's not a matter of what causes addictive behavior it's more
1:35:39
about why you become addicted to something what are you going through what you experience is causing to depend
1:35:44
on the substance and I think that adolescents are much more um you know vulnerable to that kind of
1:35:50
behavior you know so I mean I'm open to the idea but yeah I think that you know
1:35:57
um yeah by by me asking that question I don't I don't I'm not
1:36:03
I'm not here to back behind oh you should give a joint to a 12 year old I'm
1:36:08
not right because I've I've been on that that side yeah you know what I mean yeah
1:36:13
and I totally agree I would rather have somebody give me a pencil or a pen and
1:36:19
paper than than a joint at 12 years old hey man you ever hit this [ __ ] it's called graphite you can you can crazy
1:36:25
[ __ ] with this yeah I wish I wish I had dust in here when I was 12 to see that
1:36:31
give me that that's why I do what I do I mean because you know nobody was able to do that for me when I was young you know what I mean I mean oh that's good I mean
1:36:38
because like you know I I was offered lots of drugs growing up and I never did it because of religious fear and also I
1:36:43
I because punk rock was something that was a huge influence in my life and being in the straight edge culture for a
1:36:48
while was like affecting me from that you know it was off grounds of fear but I think that I'm very happy that I
1:36:55
didn't do drugs until I was way older in my life and I'm proud of that but I also feel like yeah like you know you know
1:37:02
there's a lot of kids there that that's the only option that they're given right you know and I don't think that's right I think that's very unethical you know
1:37:09
and I think that young people will have the right to explore their imagination
1:37:14
without dependency on substance you know what I mean yeah um because a lot of Youth you know there's a lot of Youth
1:37:20
out there that are trouble that are hurt that are in pain that are suffering and you know drugs are a way out you know a
1:37:27
way to not feel to numb and I think that you know there are so much healthier ways of doing that and I think that
1:37:33
people really neglect the idea of art being one of those things you know we always push a lot of Youth to do sports
1:37:38
or do technology stuff and I realize well how is this technology any other different addiction that it would be
1:37:43
than any other substance if not as one of my great friends uh Gaia Gaia Weiss
1:37:48
said shout out to Gaia um the internet is the most addictive substance on the planet yeah it is I
1:37:56
mean look at us right here we're surrounded by screens you know what I mean and it's it's not going to stop no joke and as coming back to what we
1:38:02
started you know I think that you know like anything you might do it responsibly do it with intent you know
1:38:09
do it with knowing what you're doing and why you know and that requires
1:38:15
an educator I think in a community that really challenges you to think differently or question everything you
1:38:21
know and research why you know like it's one of the reasons why when I teach Comics like I really make sure that my
1:38:28
students um I don't tell them that they have homework I tell them you're doing research this is research you're going
1:38:33
to find out who these artists are what they did and I want you to write what's and draw what's most important
1:38:39
and I feel like that's much more interesting than writing a boring ass book report that's like double spaced
1:38:45
you know and like yeah Bland white black screen you know when you can just draw What mattered to you and then discuss it
1:38:51
as a class I mean that's what I've done with my students in mentoring you know oh my my adolescence is that I tell them
1:38:57
we're not a class we are a studio and in this studio we learned everything we
1:39:03
don't just draw we read we research we think critically we ask questions and discuss it and you can do that with
1:39:10
anything you know it doesn't matter what the subject is even art has the ability to teach us stuff that seemingly seems
1:39:18
disconnected from art like mathematics you know Theory you know philosophy you know a history all of that stuff
1:39:25
encompasses all existence it's everywhere so it's not only exclusive to
1:39:31
it's it's not exclusive to just one subject Dustin yes sir thanks for coming out man
1:39:39
thanks for having me here I'm super happy to be here it was great there we go she's got it yeah that's so
1:39:47
cute so this is my time to shout out all right yeah go ahead and share whatever so you want to share if you like what
1:39:53
you heard please check out my Instagram it's at Dustin you can also check my website dustin.us-t-o-n-ed and if you have time
1:40:00
please check out my graphic novel uh wallow uh a Central American Odyssey
1:40:05
we're at wallow comic on Instagram and wallowcomic.com if you want to learn more about the MFA program that I was a
1:40:11
part of check out CCA Comics MFA we also have a BFA program in there as well and
1:40:18
please please support Independent Artists please support Zine festivals please support independent Comics please
1:40:24
support anything that is outside the mainstream I don't want to sound like a pretentious sipster but it's true the
1:40:31
only thing that pushes the medium forward are the voices that are not heard also check out this new documentary called No straight lines
1:40:38
it's based on a very well uh award-winning Anthology that one of my professors Justin put together it's one
1:40:45
of the first documentaries if not the first about covering lgtbq history of comic books and their important role in
1:40:51
our history as a society and talking about subjects otherwise underrepresented in our community
1:40:56
especially in comics so on one thing I just want to say peace love and prosperity everybody you are loved you
1:41:02
are blessed don't feel that you're alone in this world you are here there's a community that loves you and that if
1:41:08
anything make a comic about how you feel put it out there and in inflow Comics unfortunately our website's down
1:41:14
but we're a non-profit it's my nonprofit we're currently in development right now so and if you're interested in working
1:41:20
with me or getting a custom art piece check out my human Auto form on my link uh on my Instagram so thank you guys for
1:41:26
having me here this is the doc Prince of comics we will see you until next time
1:41:32
until we meet again in this universe or the next
1:41:39
peace guys [Music]
1:41:48
no you just let it play out what are you doing that's why I told you to stop
1:41:54
I'm bored guys I'm sorry [Music] okay go to the picture
1:42:03
go to the picture did you did you stop recording no go to the intro and outro what are you
1:42:09
doing girl bye bye everybody
1:42:15
she's fired just kidding she'll be back next week we'll be back next week for another one I love you guys
1:42:22
peace love and prosperity peace out [Music]



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