"My dad works in B2B marketing. "He came by my school for career day "and said he was a big row as man. "Then he told everyone how much he loved "calculating his return on ad spend. "My friend's still laughing at me to this day." - Not everyone gets B2B, but with LinkedIn, you'll be able to reach people who do. Get $100 credit on your next ad campaign. Go to linkedin.com/results to claim your credit. That's linkedin.com/results. Terms and conditions apply. Linked in, the place to be, to be. - This episode is brought to you by Experian. Are you paying for subscriptions you don't use, but can't find the time or energy to cancel them? Experian could cancel unwanted subscriptions for you, saving you an average of $270 per year, and plenty of time. Download the Experian app. Results will vary, not all subscriptions are eligible. Savings are not guaranteed. Paid membership with connected payment account required. - Hey, GeekScape, welcome to a brand new GeekScape podcast. I'm Jonathan London, your host. And if this is your first GeekScape, strap yourselves in for some pop culture talk in movies, video games, comic books, TV, all of that pop culture goodness that exists out here in the GeekScape. We started this show, wow, it's like over 18 years. Is it over 18 years? We started this show in 2006. I've been podcasting since 2005, filmmaking since just before that. And in that time, I've written comics, video games, movies, all sorts of stuff, and continue to direct as a filmmaker and tell stories. And so I created a podcast where I could talk to other storytellers about storytelling and share the storytelling talk and the pop culture talk specifically with the audience. Sorry, I missed another week. I'm becoming a dad and it is clearly messing up my schedule here with GeekScape. We didn't have an episode last week, or the two weeks prior, but I gotta tell you, that Adam Nimoy episode is getting some love. Having Leonard Nimoy's son on the podcast last episode. Don't rush to listen to it quite yet, folks, if you haven't heard it. I got Lila Sturgis on the show today talking about her brand new graphic novel, The Science of Ghosts from Legendary Comics. And we're gonna be talking about that. So there's a lot of comics talking on the show, but that Adam Nimoy conversation has been coming back to me, several times in the two weeks since. The very next day, I went on a trail run with someone and he asked about what I do and somebody introduced me about the podcast and he goes, "What's your podcast about?" And I tried to explain it and I mentioned that I just had Adam Nimoy on in this individual. He said, "I know Adam, Adam, when I first moved to LA, it helped get me sober." And that is part of that conversation that was beautiful. And again, listen to this conversation, especially if you're watching this live on YouTube, Twitch, Facebook, LinkedIn. How's the job market out there? And don't rush to listen to that episode, put it and just download it 'cause we got a good live show here. But several people have commented on what a touching episode that is. And I just want to say thanks to Adam for being so candid, writing an incredibly candid book and for coming on GeekScape and talking to me about it because I was moved by it. It was a very hard conversation to do. It was clearly emotional. And I'm clearly freaking out about being a dad. And here we are talking to Adam Nimoy about one of his, about his dad, one of the most famous people in all of pop culture and science fiction. And thank you so much for all the feedback on that episode. I'm really moved by it. And that's just what I want to do here. I want to keep talking about storytelling and our own existence as humans. And it's not always easy. Maybe we have experiences like I'm going to get mad but our Supreme Court going ahead and stripping the protections that every common person has against, I don't know, a dictatorship. I really don't love going too political on the show because I know that my audience goes across the entire stratum politically. And I try and be respectful of everybody's thoughts. But if you're not registered to vote, what the F are you doing? And maybe you believe like, oh, I don't know which-- both buses aren't good this year. And I'm thinking about the metaphor that you take the bus that takes you closer to your destination. And even if you have to walk a few miles after the bus that you get on stops, and it's a couple miles short of your destination, you effing walk. Because I'll tell you, the other bus is on fucking fire. And if you want to get on that bus, you're a fucking idiot. And I'll just say that on Geekscape, go ahead and shut it off. It's OK. But we are faced with people saying, oh, I don't know which bus to take. Do you even know where you're going? If one of the buses is clearly on fire and you're even contemplating it? No, you take the bus that takes you closer to your destination as close as possible. And if you have to walk, you walk. I spent a couple days at the end of last week at a Latino filmmakers summit run by an organization called Nalip. We had our friend Joel Gonzalez on the show a few weeks ago. He runs no sotros. Nalip is like a sister organization. I spent a couple days there with a bunch of Latino filmmakers. And I've got to tell you, I met Dolores Huerta. If you don't know who Dolores Huerta is, please Google her. I actually got Spanish earlier in my life at Dolores Huerta Middle School for a couple of days as a substitute teacher. And I got to tell Dolores Huerta, who is one of the heroes of our entire workers movement. I mean, the Farmers Association here in America, she empowered farmers. And she marched with Cesar Chavez. So if you want to get on a bus, don't take the one that's clearly on fire in spewing lies. And last time, people took the bus. A lot of Americans died. Even if you don't think the other bus has what it takes to get you to your destination, yeah, you get as close as you can, and then you walk. And you carry other people when you walk. And it was amazing talking to Dolores Huerta and hearing her speak and taking a photo with her as fanboying out hard because she is an American hero. And I think that we're in a time when we need American heroes. And we need people to be vocal as I'm using my platform to do. Hopefully you're still listening. And that's about all I want to say. I want you all to be registered to vote and ready to protect our democracy in November. All right, we are going to talk a lot of comics today. I went to see Inside Out 2, and it made me cry. There's my review. I'm having a daughter in a month. And the wheels are coming off of me mentally. But I'm keeping it together enough to vote, to protect our democracy, and to have a daughter. And I went to see Inside Out 2, and Heidi and I just bald pretty much for the last 30 minutes of that movie as we watch the female protagonist in that movie in all of her teen emotions vacillate and go back and forth if you sign in out one. You know what I'm talking about. In Pixar, I mean, that movie's raking it in the box office, and it's a fantastic movie, and it's beautiful. But man, as a parent to be of a young girl in a society that is starting to get a little scary for young girls and young women everywhere, you know, it's getting scary for all of us. I was freaking out in the last 30 minutes of Inside Out. All those emotions were running through me. So, wow, it was awesome. I loved it. All right, let's talk comics. We're going to talk to the science of ghosts. This is GeekScape. If you want to talk pop culture, you want to talk comic books. You are in the right place. We're on the road to Comic Con. We started making the schedule of everybody signing. And we have so much to talk about in the next couple of weeks. But we're going to start right here with this episode with leveled searches. Let's rock it to the GeekScape. [MUSIC PLAYING] comics, movies, radio pictures. I don't think we're going to. Radio, radios, radios. For what's it going to be? Yes, it is to the GeekScape. In the world behind. All your friends are waiting for us. Let's go. [MUSIC PLAYING] All right, GeekScape is Jonathan. Just like the theme song said, Jonathan's here to start the show. My guest is Lila Sturgis. Lila wrote The Science of Ghosts. But Lila is also a very accomplished writer. In other comic book, she's basically just taken off the publishers, if it's DC, or it's this publisher, that publisher. Lumber Jane's the Infernal Compass. You guys know the Lumber Jane series over there. Is that a boom comic? The Magicians, you guys know this one. Jack of all Fables, it's part of the Fables group, Bill Winningham's series over there. DC Vertigo, is Vertigo still a thing? I thought that the DC corporate was like this Vertigo thing. What do we do with it? Well, I don't know. It's a really time-honored brand for the last 30 years. Maybe you should keep it, especially when you have a major series like Sandman on Netflix and all this stuff that came out of Vertigo popping off. Maybe keep the brand that's recognizable. Who am I? All right, Lila, welcome to GeekScape. How are you? Congrats on the book coming out. Hi. Thank you so much. I am super glad to be here. You got my blood pumping with your introduction. Talking about a lot of things that are very important to me, and I'm sure we'll get into them. But the thing that is top of mind for me right now is the breakdancing Spider-Man and the opening credits. Yeah. I was like, I want to know more about that. Breakdancing Spider-Man. Is that from a longer clip or what do we know about it? Lila, that's stock. I've used some stock in that opening. I haven't breakdanced in a long time, and nobody wants that. Nobody wants to see me breakdance. I'm too old for that. It's fine. I'm too old to that. The closest I got to Spider-Man was when my wife Heidi, and when I proposed for her on the main stage of LA Comic Con with our good friend Giancarlo Sposito as my wingman, and I had Heidi wear a Spider-Man heart shirt like Mary Jane, and she was wearing-- it's a black shirt. It looks like when Mary Jane first comes to Peter's door and her aunt had set her up with Mary Jane, and she goes face it, Tiger. You just hit the jackpot, the famous splash page at the end of that Spider-Man issue. And Heidi was kind of dressed like Mary Jane and her jeans and all that, and she was just like, why are you so insistent that I wear this Mary Jane outfit today? LA Comic Con is all weekend. Why are you so insistent? I was like, well, you know, and she was like, you're up to something. So I think she knew I was going to propose, but did she know I was going to do it on the main stage with a Star Wars actor with an actor from Better Call Saul and From the Boys? No, she did not. And she didn't know. And she did not. And she's like, oh, man, I would have worn a different outfit. No, it's to be so purpose of me fanboying out that girl and my wife was basically wearing Mary Jane cosplay. And that's about as close as I got to Peter Parker that are like incessant failures, which happened to Peter. All these hiccups always being late for things. That's Peter. But no. So I mean, I was an unpopular teenager who was interested in science. That's as close as I think I ever got to Spider-Man. Yeah, talk about that because I think our friend David Boor, who has been a part of Geekscape and the other friend Tilly Bridges was just on about a year ago. So they wrote, if that's not an endorsement, Geekscape, it's both those former Geekscape gas have written endorsements and pull quotes for this book, "The Science of Ghosts" by legendary comics. And I'm reading this. I'm like, OK, the science of ghosts. But I actually thought it was going to have some personal stuff. Like, the science of ghosts are the idea that there's a paranormal investigator that leans on science and studying the paranormal. I like that. I think it's been done. But I've got to tell you what was fresh about this. What I enjoyed-- and if you heard a door open, it's hiding. Geekscape is my Geekscape studio. It's been turned into a baby room. And so what I thought I enjoyed was very early on, the idea of a trans lead character is made apparent to you, Geekscape is. And a lot of this book is also a very personal book. How much of it is personal? Because just like Peter Parker-- and I think Peter Parker is a pretty good comparison-- even though you're dealing with the Green Goblin, and all these-- in this case, it's ghosts in the paranormal. Even though you're dealing with all these other things, you still have to deal with your personal life. It's a very Peter Parker, a very Marvel thing. The main character still has a very personal life. In the personal life of our lead character and the science of ghosts, the old romantic life, the current romantic life, the push and pull, that stuff took. It takes almost center stage in this. Where did you make that decision to put the high concept stuff of ghost studying, ghost science, and also a bit of the x-files-ish, and say, no, no, no, this is going to have an equal pairing with someone's personal life in navigating that? Sure. I think a lot of times when we're writing popular fiction or something that's intended for not like a snooty literary audience, we want to have some dessert with your dinner. And I feel like ghosts are like dessert. And dinner is like all of our fascinating facets that we have as human beings. Both make a complete meal. But I feel like if all you're talking about is what if ghosts could be examined scientifically? I mean, that's not much of a story. It's a premise, but it's not a story. And so for me, it's just about what are the things that I want to say about how it feels to be me right now? And I think that the things that I wanted to talk about when I was writing a science of ghosts is, yes, I'm a trans person, and I'm known as a trans person in a lot of ways. But I'm also not that. I also do other things. And so I want to write a book that wasn't about being transgender. I wanted to write a book that was about a person doing her job and doing her best and having relationships and messing up and eventually succeeding. And that story about ghosts is just the best way to go about doing that. For me, but it's always about the characters and who they are and what they're showing us, or hopefully what they're trying to say. Jackknife on YouTube just said, "insistent failure sounds like a great title for a comp, or my autobiography." I mean, Jackknife, thanks for watching. And at the same time, I think it's an effective metaphor for someone whose marriage past relationship is lingering in the story. So there are multiple ghosts in this story geekscape us, and they're not all of the paranormal nature. Some of them are the failures. That is very true. Yeah. And I'm just going to keep that hack a metaphor going. What did you exercise in writing this book? I'm sorry I tried to avoid it, but I was like, no, this is an exorcism of some of your own personal stuff. Is it not? No, it absolutely is. It absolutely is. I have an ex, just like the character Joy has an ex. My relationship with my ex is a million times better than Joy's relationship with hers. But it's sort of the common feelings of how do we move on after a breakup? What if we still have feelings for someone after a breakup? How do we resolve all those unresolved feelings, all those unresolved hurts? There's a moment when Joy goes to her ex's house and realizes that every trace of her has been removed from the house that she used to live in. And that was a very real thing that happened to me one time. So I feel like, for me, that part of the book, that part of the story, was kind of an exorcism and getting some stuff out that I just wanted to express and hadn't really expressed. What is interesting to me is that there's also the dichotomy of life in the afterlife. But we have terms to describe the trans lifestyle, things like dead name. And we have a character in this who, when they were in that prior relationship, they were in that prior relationship, male presenting. And now they're female presenting. And there's a really sharp piece of dialogue when the ex gets in the car with their current-- is that I didn't know you were married to a woman first. Does that parallel your personal experience within your prior relationship, were you male presenting in that personal relationship? So when you go to a house and the ex has erased-- this is what's so personal and sad about it, because this is why it's grieving to me. This is why I started crying with Tilly on the show. Because there's grief involved in that you go to a house where every reminder that you were at one point male presenting or your old life has been erased. And that other person has done that. And they've maybe done it out of self-preservation. Maybe they've done it out of respect for you. And that is what you have done to a sense of self, but you're grieving an old life. And it's so-- I can see how that hits hard. And you put it in this book. It's also really complicated. Yeah. It's very complicated emotionally. And my personal backstory is complicated as well. So there's a lot more than I would ever want to get in. Sure, sure, sure, sure. You know, it's-- Let's talk about break dancing Spider-Man. I'm kidding, I'm kidding, I'm kidding. And I'm drawing from different aspects of different relationships. And I just want to be clear that that relationship is not based very specifically on one person. And a lot of it's invented, so-- All these characters are you in a sense. Are they not? When I'm writing a character-- Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. The current book I'm doing of which David Bors-- our friend David Bors is very gracious and help in-- I believe I'm using the same color as his on his book, "Canto," for "Dark Horse." And we'll see Geekscapes. You will learn more at Geekscapes. I think at Comic Con, you'll be learning more and Geekscapes about what we're working on over here at Geekscape. And I think that I'm writing three main characters, for the most part. And I keep thinking, oh, they're my favorite. Oh, no, they're my favorite. They're my favorite. But they all three represent different parts of me, right? Like the hope, the failure, the wretch, the anger. So you're right, it's not that simplistic. And people are allowed to go through a spectrum of emotions as they change and learn. When you're working with a collaborator, Bill Whittingham, who's created already a sort of world as he did with fables, what were some of the rules there in trying to be respectful of some of the stuff that Bill had established or that had come before in the fables with the other collaborators, et cetera? And then finding, as well, some Lyla Surge's room to write some stuff for yourself. Does that make sense? Because "Science" goes as your creation. It's your story. When you're collaborating, what kind of wiggle room do you have and how do you fit that stuff in, do you need to? Sure. You know, it's funny. Talking about being trans, and when, for a lot of trans women, when you're growing up, you're presenting male, you don't really know who you are or who you're supposed to be a lot of the time. And so what you do is you figure out how to fit in, right? You identify the group that you want to belong to, and then you observe, and then you become the person that you need to be in order to fit in. That's something that I had a lot of experience of growing up. That's the only way I knew how to be a boy, right? It was just to try and figure out how other people did it and then do that. That actually turns out to be a really useful skill when it comes to collaborating in a preexisting world, like lumber chains, like fables, like, you know, any DC superhero, you know? In order to write that world, you have to sort of become that world a little bit. You have to understand what the rules of that world are, who these people are, how they talk, all that stuff. So I feel like I was really primed to do that, in a way. And it's almost second nature to me. So for instance, when I was writing the magicians, writing Alice's story, I sat down and I read Lev's book like three times in a row in order to get the feel of it. And then once I had it, I just could start writing in that world. Like, it wasn't like a conscious thought process of like, how do I come to grok this world? It was just like, OK, I've been here enough. I know how to talk like a native. Let's go. Yeah. And eventually the fear kind of arose. I can't remember hearing about Kevin Smith and the delays. And when he took on Daredevil, it was his first comic book writing outside of the Clerks universe. This is late '90s, "Geekscapus," the beginning of that Marvel Knights imprint under Joe Cassata. I'm taking you back before some of your births. And I just remember reading, perhaps on Wizard Magazine or something, that I think Kevin's favorite comic book character-- sorry, Kevin. I think it's Batman. But I think Daredevil was very high up on the list. And that some of the delay in the book wasn't Joe Cassata's artwork. It was actually Kevin being like, oh my god, I'm going to fuck this up. Right? Like, oh my god, this is Daredevil. I'm going to fuck this up and having Daredevil in so much reverence. And people-- I was explaining to somebody the other day about how I'd love to do "Eternals" because the movie is the movie. But I'd be like, oh, yeah, "Eternals Too" would be so great. And it could be about rebirth and the origin of the Marvel universe and all this cosmic stuff. And it's beautiful. And I'd just stick to the Jack Kirby stuff. And then somebody was like, why don't you just write it? And I go, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, like whatever. Somebody's like, would you want to do a Spider-Man story? No, no, no, no, no, no, no. I'm so scared. Like, then somebody else's stuff, but you're right. There's almost like an actor that has like, inhabit another character. And I think when you talk to actors sometimes, or writers, some of them who've come from like a military family and had to go to like new schools every year or something, they had to fit in into different clicks or social groups like that. And they were like, oh, this didn't work in Idaho. But let me try it in Texas. Or here we are in rural New York and this is way different. Oh, I was a Navy brat. There we go. There we go, I knew something was going down with that Lila. You had to be a chameleon if only because you were moving all over the place. That's right. But you know what's funny about that is that what happened to me when I first started writing comics was I could take on, you know, the character or whatever. You're not going to inhabit the character all day long. The problem came when I was trying to decide what I wanted to say with that character. And I think early on, I had a lot of trouble distinguishing that. I think I just wanted to be-- I just wanted to be able to tell stories, right? I didn't think that I maybe had anything worth saying or I was just trying to make a story that people would read, not a story that I really desperately wanted to tell, if that makes sense. Did you have imposter syndrome? Is that what we're talking about? Like I have to say-- Yeah, oh, absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. And it took me a long time to get to the point where I was like, you know, I'm just going to tell stories that are fun for me to tell. And it's really funny when I really started doing that. I started doing some kind of unhinged stuff at DC. But this was sort of after I sort of stopped being like the golden child at DC, which I was for a bit. And they kind of started to ignore what I was doing after a while. Because you had done, their voice is so well. And now you're like, OK, now let me rock a little bit of my own stuff because my confidence is up. And I want to have fun with those. Well, it's like, here's this-- well, there were like-- so here's this fill-in issue of Zetana, whatever you want, the implication being like, we don't really care what you do, just write something. I've got to make that up. As long as it's not terrible. Let's go. Yeah, we've got to make it up. Yeah, but so that issue of Zetana that I wrote is like one of the best 22-page comic scripts I ever wrote in my whole life, because I just-- I did exactly what I wanted to do. And it was so great. And ever since then, I've just tried more and more to write stories that I want to tell, to say things that I want to say that really resonate with me. And I think this is something that is very easy when you're first starting to lose sight of, is that you need to write from who you are. If you try to write from someone else's perspective, you're going to just end up being a cheap copy of that person. If you want to write like Jeff Jones, guess what? Jeff Jones already does that. He's already gone. And he does it really well. So you might as well do you. My Aurora over on YouTube says, I love unhinged stuff. Thank you for leaning into it. And then Misha responds and says, hi, My Aurora. I like you. You guys are friends. They got friends over there on the YouTube. When I get paralyzed, and I don't believe in writer's block because a part of me is like, OK, just write bad. And you're not writing in a vacuum. You're going to have-- for me, it's producers. Like I knock stuff out as hard as I can to get it to producers and be like, OK, please give me notes. Or I write an outline as hard as I can to get it to a collaborator. Please, notes, notes. And you're usually producers. And I say-- and I just love those people. They're my friends. They're my collaborators for a long time. So I have no fear in bouncing ideas off of them. I try and get them into a three act, or I try and get them in a full beginning, middle, and ends when I start the inklings of it. Sometimes it gets further along. But the fear-- I just say, hey, man, it's a lot of-- we're involved parasites on a molten rock flying through a vacuum who gives a shit, like just grip it. And that's one way to go about it. But I just-- I just-- I think the fun is a big part of it. I think what I call the scooby-doo drafts really freed me up, or I say, OK, I don't know what the scene is yet. But write it like it would be in a scooby-doo. You know that the-- you know you have to get the mechanics of this person saying professing a love in some form. Make it really very obvious in this first draft, and then turn it into an action, or turn it into something a little more human, or tonally appropriate to the story in the next draft. But right now, so you can move on, so you get the structure down, it's, I hate you, it's a hitting them with a mallet. It's something loud, depending on what it is. But just get there so you can have the full structure. You know that the organism is, and then you can get into the parts later on. And when I started writing like the looney-toons drafts, the scooby-doo drafts for myself as rough drafts, I could just rip them off fast and then go back and revise with human revision. Yeah. You can't fix what doesn't exist. This is a thing that I try to tell people. That's a great one. That's a great one. That's what I tell myself a lot. Who are you writing heroes growing up? Did you always want to be a writer, Leila? I always wanted to be a writer. I wanted to be a rock star more. I had very unrealistic ideas about what I was going to be. No, somebody's got to be a rock star. Who are your rock star heroes? And those were also storytellers. Yeah, exactly. I mean, I wanted to be-- I wanted to be Peter Satura. I was very, very into Chicago as a young person. But then as I got a little older, then I wanted to be Ani de Franco. Oh, yeah. There was a real spectrum of where I started from where I ended up. Parallels. I mean, you didn't say-- There's a callity to both of them. Absolutely. There's a passion there. There's a lot. I have a vibe. Did you lose Peter Satura around the karate kid two era, where you're like, no, I'm not power. I've never gave up Peter Satura. It's such a good song. So good. And I remember Ani de Franco was a very '90s. Like, that whole thing was huge. I was more like live fair and like the breeders. Oh, no. I started going that way. And that kind of led me to Kim Shetuk and the Muffs. And Kim Shetuk to me is like-- she just had that roar that I loved. It was a little punk rock and I loved that. That was my crush. My first crush was Belinda Carlisle. She was amazing. Oh, well, yeah. Belinda Carlisle is so hot. And then she is incredible. And then it ended up becoming Liz Fair. And it was like, oh, these are the rock girls who I was like, oh, girl with a guitar? Tell me more. Oh, sure. Liz Fair is an absolute dream. Who wouldn't be in love with Liz Fair? And so did you learn an instrument? How far did you go down the road of I'm going to be a rocker? Because you're still kind of rocker. Can we just say that you're still kind of rockin'? Give yourself that kind of the rockin'? I mean, I learned to play bass first and then guitar and also some keyboards. And I recorded a bunch of music on my own when I was a kid. And then I was in a couple of bands in high school and in college. And then right after college, I was in a band in Austin called Those Who Dig. I was the bass player and one of the songwriters. And we just had a 30-year reunion. I shouldn't say how many years was now in the whole day. But if you're in Austin and not in the band? A multi-year. Like, what the fuck are you doing there? It's like early '90s. We were the band after twang twang that played the West Mall. That was kind of our little claim to fame. Do you remember-- I mean, of course you remember Liberty Lunch. Of course I remember Liberty Lunch. We played there for South by Southwest, baby. And Geeks Gabe's Liberty Lunch was owned by a man named Mark Bratz, who's still a friend of mine on Facebook. And Liberty Lunch is the only concert venue that I was allowed to go to in high school before I got my driver's license during a week. I couldn't really go during a school night. But Mark was my fourth grade teacher. And he owned Liberty Lunch. And I was allowed to go to Liberty Lunch. And then eventually emo's when I started booking punk rock shows there in Austin. But Liberty Lunch, that's the soul of the city right there. And when they kind of bulldoze the warehouse to build the city a hall, did you hear Liberty Lunch is coming back as part of one of the restaurants? Or what's the barbecue-play stubs, I think? I think stubs wants to rename their outdoor concert space in a Liberty Lunch reverence thing. And I'm all for-- I got to ask you though-- Learning about old Austin, yeah. Yeah, I agree. I got to ask you, what's the best show you ever saw at Liberty Lunch? Green Day and Bad Religion. Green Day opening for Bad Religion. That was September, October '93, I think. The one that I cared about the most, in retrospect, having lost my brother later that year in '96 was I got grounded for going to no effects on a school night. And I got grounded for going to no effects on a school night. And I went with my brother. And looking back, I wish I'd gotten grounded every day for a year, knowing that he wasn't going to be with us. And I saw Arches' loaf open for weezer. So a couple of ransing shows. I mean, Liberty Lunch was the place. And I loved it. It was. And I was allowed to go, because it was all ages of my-- [LAUGHTER] --of my fourth grade-- what's the worst? That could happen. My fourth grade teacher wrote it. What's the worst that could happen? Until that to the girl who pierced her tongue outside in the alleyway, yes, we all watched her like, did she really going to do this? And then she pierced her tongue. She almost passed the fuck out. Why'd she going to choose to die? The first time-- the first time I did acid was at Liberty Lunch. Like, what is that wholesome? No way. And Mark's daughter used to run the bar. And she definitely was not a bartending age. And I just loved it. And it's so great seeing Mark post these things on social media. Mark are going to tag you on this episode, because Lyla and I are going down memory lane. And then when it closed, it's just like Emos was great. Emos just said the original Emos bathroom right there on Red River, and it takes like a dare. But when I went out to school in Philly in New York, and I would go to the original, what's it called? They took the toilets out of it and put them in Las Vegas. The major, famous concert venue that I'm linking on, The Rowans in Blondie, and all of them went to those CBGBs. Those bathrooms were fucking disgusting. I would rather lick part of the subway system than anything in that bathroom. Like, they were disgusting. And I loved going there, seeing bands like The Queers, and kind of my boy, and the Bouncing Souls, all that stuff. I love. I just-- I miss that stuff. I miss Austin. I didn't want you to make me homesick, but you made me homesick for, again, another ghost, a city that's no longer that city. And Portland, is Portland going to go the way of Austin? Is it going to become one of those ghosts where it's like-- I think Portland has a whole lot of what I would call cultural density, that there's a lot of people who are doing a lot of culture here. You know Austin doesn't have that anymore? Well, I haven't lived there in-- Austin doesn't have that anymore. OK, it's all tech. Austin has that with food now, which it didn't used to have. Austin was not a food city before. But Austin isn't doing a bunch of really exciting, cool-- of course, now I'm going to get hate mail from people in Austin being like, Austin, it's still fantastic. What are you talking about? Those are driving a cyber truck. Enough. It wasn't my Austin anymore. Let's put it that way. It didn't feel like my Austin anymore. Portland feels like home to me. When they took down Fran's hamburgers. When they took down that red haired girl and friends hamburgers, like on South Congress, he was done. Remember that Fran with the hamburger? When they took her, it was done. They got rid of Lucy in disguise. That was like, for me, the final straw. Lucy in disguise is gone. We used to rent Christmas outfits there so that I could dress as Santa every year for my stepmom's work Christmas party. And I was always Santa because I had the person-- I was like, oh, oh, oh, kids. And I was always having to give out gifts to the kids. And Lucy disguise was where you go automatically for all the costumes. And South Congress, when they started calling it SoCo, I think it was done. Yeah, yeah. That was really the line when you're like, wait, this is not in our control anymore. Something bad has happened, and we don't hold the reins to this down anymore. But Portland, you got a chance. Yeah, and also, I have nothing to compare Portland with. I don't know what old Portland was like. I heard someone say, oh, if you're coming here for that Portlandia stuff, that ended 15 years ago. But I don't know, it still seems a lot like that to me. And so you're playing in a band. Did you always love comics? Was comics always a potential outlet? Was it always something that you read? Talk to me about how the transition happened to comics? How did the writing start? Because you were always writing. If you're in a band, you're writing. If you're always a storyteller. Sure. Yeah, I was always a story. I mean, I always wrote things. I wrote poems. I wrote stories. I wrote songs. And I've never really distinguished too much. It's just different ways of expressing yourself. But when I came to UT, one of the first people I met was a fellow by the name of Chris Roberson, whose work you might be familiar with, by Zombie, a bunch of Hellboy stuff. And Chris introduced me to comics. He was the guy who had grown up reading comics, and knew everything about him. And I used to sit there and listen to him tell me about DC Comics continuity. Just tell me the history of the Legion of Superheroes. We would just sit. And he would just tell me. And I would be entranced by it. It was also fascinating to me, because I had no clue about any of it. And I think the first thing he gave me that I actually liked was Sandman. And once I got to that book, my brain just exploded, because it was like it's written just for me. It's smart, it's passionate, it's strange, it's like subtly kind of gay. All right, how subtle. I mean, it's not as subtle. At the beginning, at the beginning, it starts out a little subtle. He's fucking Batman still in the book, right? Like, he gave us a read Sandman. They're like, oh shit, I mean, it's still in the DC universe is some form. And there's still DC characters in the very beginning. But then by the end of it, it's like, no, no, now we're roaring. Yeah, it's kind of weird with those DC ones pop up. You see like the Martian version of "Dream" at one point. And he looks kind of like Martian manhunter. Yeah. What's happening, this is so weird. But that was my gateway drug with Sandman from there. I always really loved the books that were those original vertigo books. The "Grant Morris" and stuff, the-- Pre-true, of course. Anything drawn by Chris McCullough, I loved. And there was so much of that stuff in the late '80s, early '90s that you could sink your teeth into. That's what you made in a comic. Yeah, and at the same time, like, we got "Dark Horse" over across the-- doing their thing as the big indie publisher. I mean, the image is clearly an indie publisher, but they were very much in the lane of superheroes and all that stuff, coming out of the Marvel kids. And I love the image stuff. "Dark Horse Presents" was my-- "Dark Horse Presents" was my country to so much stuff. Paul Chadwick's concrete. Paul Chadwick's concrete is beautiful. And I read Peter Jackson's script for concrete. Before Peter Jackson broke, I think he was-- around the time he was doing heavenly creatures, he had written a script for Paul Chadwick's concrete. And it was wonderful. And speaking of I-Zombie, like Mike Alred in "Mad Man." And I loved "Mad Man." Oh, "Mad Man." You, of course, know Hellboy, but "Mad Man" to me was the Robert Rodriguez movie that never happened. It was the superhero who came back from the dead. It was a bit of a Frankenstein. But he's covered in, I guess, like a giant pajama. And he's got the yo-yo in a zip gun as an action. He's fighting cool mods and aliens and flying around in zip cars. I love "Mad Man." It's such a vibe. "Mad Man" is like, if X-Ray specs for a comic, like "Mald Man." Yeah. God, I love that book so much. I love "Mad Man 2." And when they kept talking about the flirting of a movie about "Mad Man" and this and that, I was like, oh my god, we're going to get a "Mad Man" movie. And then the director would disappear and Robert Rodriguez wouldn't have it anymore. And I was like, guys, I don't know how you do a "Mad Man." Pardon me, a "Mad Man" movie. But I think you're right, it's a vibe. And I don't know. I mean, there's a fourth Hellboy movie that a long time old-school geekscape guest, Brian Taylor, is doing a "Might" Magnola. And there's a fourth geekscape, third geek-- or fourth Hellboy, "The Crooked Man," which I liked as a comic. And they're doing it. And it looks a little A24 on the trailer, best elect to former geekscape guest, Brian Taylor, and all those guys. Like, I'll watch any Hellboyth anything, but-- Absolutely. That late 80s-- But yeah, I just wanted to circle back, though, about a concrete movie, because if someone were to do a concrete movie now, as like an A24 movie, but with the concrete CGI done seamlessly. It's got to be beautiful. It has to be perfect, where it just has to look like him. Look like him. But not look CGI-y, like any hint of uncanny valley would ruin it. And I think that I think what you all about Spike Jones is where the wild things are. But those wild things, the creatures and the wild things, those felt like real creatures. They did not feel-- But having a man in a concrete suit, it's like the thing, geekscapes, and what it is, is the main character concrete is a political speechwriter. And he's going through a divorce, and somebody takes them out camping who's like, hey, man, let me get you through this. And while they're camping, they get like alien abducted, and his brain gets taken out of his body. And that's horrifying. That is some A24 horrifying, really scary shit. And he gets his brain put in a concrete body. He's experimented on by aliens. And then he managed to escape the spacecraft. But who knows what happened to his body? Other deer got abducted and messed with, and his buddy never got seen again. And he gets back to Earth, and he's stuck in his concrete body. And he makes chairs out of cinder blocks and stuff like that. And he sits in an eagle rock warehouse. Like where the BC boys recorded their albums. Atwater Village, Eagle Rock. And he's not a fan. And he's just a guy. He's just going to write. He's just a guy. He's just going to contemplate. Yeah. And every now and then, like, someone's like, the car's out of control, and you stop a car. But he's just going to write. It's beautiful. I mean, how would you do it? And of course, the bean counters will be like, but there's action, right? You can't just have a contemplative, high, you know, guy in us. He's got to stop a robbery, or he's got to save a kid. That's why it has to be A24. It's got to be-- It has to be A24. You know, Mike Mills, who does movies like that. Like Mike Mills did a thumb sucker and stuff like that. Like Mike Mills is kind of an indie filmmaker. Like, I was like, what if Mike Mills did a comic movie? That's how it feels like. It feels like something that's just really contemplative. And you're just-- you're with a guy who can't feel a human touch again. And he does fall in love. But he has to live from afar and all this stuff. And you go, concrete. Oh, man, you got me. Wanted to read so much concrete over again. I still have all those concrete issues. Go to your comic shop. Pick up my book and pick up the first concrete collection. We're doing yourself a favor. Of ghosts. So as you're getting into comic book writing, how did you-- how did you get into it? How did you ask for that first gig? How did you write that first script? How did you learn it? Because you have an example of full script. Is it full script that you have? Yeah, you have an example of your full script here in the science of ghost trade. How did you start learning those pieces? And like, how did you approach an editor for the first time? How did you write an indie book? And like, right now, people are putting them on Kickstarter. And they're kind of putting their Kickstarter just where their mouse is. I had written-- I was in a writing group called Clockwork Storybook with Bill Willingham and Chris Robertson and a guy named Mark Ben. It's a pretty good company. And we created a website and we published stories on this website. And I wrote a novel at that time as well. And I had-- Bill Willingham had passed on that novel to Shelly Bond at Vertigo. And she read it and liked it. And so when it came time for him to do the Jack of Fables spin-off, he suggested that I co-write it with him because he just didn't have the time to do it himself. And that's pretty much all there was to it. And I hate telling that story to people because I really just sort of fell back backwards into writing comics. Like, I don't even try that hard. Nobody gets anywhere without somebody helping them out. All right? Yeah, that's just the truth. Yeah. But it's just weird because I didn't set out to be a comic book writer. It just kind of happened to me. But I love it. And obviously, I've worked very hard at it for many years. Do you think of writing in other mediums film or TV? Absolutely. I just started writing a novel, which is a murder mystery. Something I've always wanted to do is write a strange murder mystery novel. And since I had time to go, so I was like, OK, I can write a mystery story. Got my toe wet. Let's go. Let's take this one step further. Let's do a mystery novel. See what happens. But it's very hard. It's very hard to do prose after years and years of doing comics. Yeah, how some mechanics are just really rusty at the nuts and bolts of it. Like, how do you describe something? How do you-- Is that an artist? The artist is supposed to put skin on that thing. What words do I have to do so? Yeah. I'm used to just saying, there is a ball on the table. And then there's a beautiful ball on the table. But if I were writing that in a prose story, I'd probably have to come up with something a little more artistic than there's a ball on the table. I might want to describe that ball. I might want to tell you what color it is, how big it is. I might need to know things. I mean, god, there's just so much that goes into it. It's scary, the balance with trusting-- no, I don't know if it's a word-- with allowing your reader to meet you halfway. Because you can still write there's a ball on the table. You can still write there's a ball on the table and hope that your reader and whoever they are, that stranger in their life, the culmination of their life experiences, puts something similar to what you thought on there. And you're still leaving so much trust in their hands. But that is where the insecurity jumps back in, and you have to-- it's not a good gig for a control freak. Because you end up overriding like crazy, right? But I think that's where some of the writing anxiety kicks in as your control freak can be unlike. You guys know the ball's got to be very specific, but then you're not leaving any room for your reader to make the story theirs, I guess, you know? Yeah, one of my favorite books is "Dune." Frank Herbert's "Dune" and all the "Dune" books-- absolutely crazy about them. And so I was thinking about the Paula Trades. It's from the planet Caledane, where his father is the Duke of Caledane, the Plaza Trades, and their home planet is this Caledane. So it's an ocean world, and they have them in this castle called Castle Caledane. And I have this very distinct idea of what Castle Caledane looks like in my head from reading that novel for the first time. And so I went back to try and find where Frank Herbert describes what that castle looks like in the novel. I read and read and read and read. Here is how he describes that castle. Tumble down pile of stones. That's it. That's the entire-- there's no other description of that place at all. He just said just enough to put the idea in your head of that castle, and then he just let you draw the whole rest of it yourself. It's amazing how much-- That's a great line. How powerful the imagination is. If you just see it just right, the reader will do all that work themselves. Tumble down pile of stones. And it has-- Tumble down pile of stones. It has movement in it, which is what's beautiful about that. And usually when you're thinking of a structure, it might have flowing. It might have some form of arches. But a tumble down-- it has gravity to it. It has a weight to it. That's amazing. It also talks about how it weathers the planet of water. What a genius. That's incredible. And so maybe it's not the simplicity of saying, yeah, you could just put a ball on the table. It's how you put a ball on the table. Maybe that is the economy of that line. The word isn't putting a ball on the table. The word is the movement of putting that ball on the table. And what word of movement you're going to describe that, and in doing so with one or two words, it's going to give the weight. It's going to give the direction. It's going to give the tone. I mean, this is what we spend hours on. Gacy people are like, you've been gone a long time. Are you sure you're writing? It's like, yeah, I'm actually like, I don't know, I can't find the right word. Jackknife on YouTube says, I have a dark gray ball on my table. It's inflatable. And you place it between your lower back of the chair when you sit at the table. Heidi's got that one. And she's got a yoga ball back here because she's a month from giving birth. And she's using the yoga balls to not be super uncomfortable. Malarora over on YouTube says, thank you for highlighting the difference between novels and comics. Definitely different writing styles. Yeah, the flow is hard in comics. It's not a screenplay at all. It feels like I'm a shot listing while I'm writing. Yeah, it's a whole set of skills writing comics that I think people aren't aware of when they try to do it for the first time. And the trust you have with an artist. If you don't have a relationship with that artist, then it takes a while. That's one thing I never appreciate when I have a new artist and new collaborators. Oh, they're not that, you know, and especially like my art. One of my artists is Chilean. And I can write in Spanish and I write it in Spanish and this and that, but it's still like, you're still bridging under a minute, Chile. It's not Mexico. It's not Brazil, which I've written for, like, they still bridging a bunch of gaps there. And so many words don't translate, you know? And then when you start to describe things to an Italian colorist or something, it's just, it's like a whole, the whole idea of writing comics that I love about the collaborative nature of comics is that you're actually bridging a lot of gaps and it's actually helping you as a writer and communicator. Yeah. And I can see why the parachute and the safety stuff goes away when you're writing prose. It's like, oh, it's just you in the, it's just you in the reader, Lila, you're better. Hey, what are those tumble stones? That's true. I have a, I actually have a great story about working with a, an artist for whom English was not his first language. Okay. This was when I was writing House of Mystery and Luca Rossi was drawing it. And I love Luca to bits. He's an amazing artist. And he was really good at drawing whatever was in my head, which is my favorite thing when an artist can draw whatever was in my head. And he was really good at it. But one time he got the script and in the script I had written that we were in a demon's office in hell, right? And the demon was like, he was like a middle manager. And I said that he had on his wall, one of those hang in there posters, like the little cat hanging from the branch. I just thought it would be really funny if this demon had that poster, right? And so I sent that on. Well, Luca had never seen that poster that did not make it to Italy. So he drew something that is so much better than what I asked for, which is he drew a kitten being hung by its neck from a noose hanging from a branch and the caption hang in there. It is a demon's office. It is in hell. - It's a demon's office! - Nailed it. - Yeah, that was like, no, that's perfect. - It's a distance, it's horrifying. I love it. You'll be at San Diego Comic-Con. Lila, for those not this, you're okay. I'm gonna invite you to come sign some of these at the Geekscape booth if you make it. But we'll find something else. Jackknife is like, I need that poster. - Yeah, that poster sounds great. Well, Geekscape, you gotta go to your local comic shop and you gotta ask them if they have the science of ghosts. You're gonna go there and you're gonna flip through it and see what you think, you know? You like it. The book is also, I didn't even talk, even talk about it. The book is in black and white. Was there a temptation to color it at any point because I have colored an artist whose black and white was beautiful? And it took me forever to find a colorist that respected the black and white to where I did not think that they destroyed it. You know what I mean? Like, I don't wanna destroy the black and white and it took me forever to find a colorist that respected it enough to not just blanket it. - Sure. - Talk about that decision to do a black and white book. - When I was discussing this with Jan Jones, it was my original editor on the book and we sorta got a lot about what we wanted. - Roller derby, Jan, who like loves Weird Owl? - Yeah. - Jan's awesome. Jan is awesome. - Jan's one of my favorite people in the whole world. - Jan? - I heard this. - It is incredible. Jan, love you. Absolutely love you. - And we love you so much. - Okay, oh my God, the world just keeps getting smaller. Lila, why are you not on gigs years ago? - She, Jan, championed this book. Jan went out of her way to buy this book 'cause she wanted to do it so badly. And she was just the most supportive editor on the planet. I would work with her again in a heartbeat. And, but one of the things we talked about was like what kind of art style we wanted and we kept kind of coming back to a something muted, something noir and then finally we're like, let's just like do it in black and white. Just make it more. - Why not just do that? Yeah, and just literally make it noir and I think it came out great. - Yeah, I think, imagining the book with color does take away from that noir tone and this is very, even though it doesn't take-- - It's gonna be a very different book. - It doesn't take place in the 40s, geekscapists. It doesn't take place with a bunch of gum shoes and you know, that stuff. But it is very noir and tone and it makes a lot of sense. I mean, it does start with a mystery and keeps going and awesome. And the geekscapists watching on YouTube, Twitch, Facebook, the cover looks like this, the main character is in color against a black and white background, the science of ghosts. That's what you're gonna look for, a local, comic book store. Lila, where can we find you on socials? Where can kids continue to-- - I am currently in hiding on social media right now. I am on Instagram, Lila Kay Sturgis. I am on Blue Sky at LilaSturgis.com. - You have your website where people can see your authorings? - Sure, they can go to LilaSturgis.com and poke around. I think it has not been updated to include science of ghosts yet, but you can just assume that that book has come out because of that. (laughing) - Geekscapists, whatever Lila does, we will amplify. So this is a good place to check as well. Geekscapists is the podcast and we're on socials and all that. If you go to a place like Facebook and look for Geekscap, you'll find our Geekscap Forever group where you can talk to other geekscapists. Clearly you can do it on socials. You know, we even got friends over here on the YouTube talking to each other. Maybe they're strangers, maybe they're long-time friends, whatever is happening. Geekscapists about the connectivity that stories give us and bring us together. And that in itself is the geekscapist, a little expanse of collectiveness through pop culture and all that. - You had mentioned LinkedIn and so I was gonna do this whole bit. - Do it. - I was gonna say like my entire social media presence was in the form of LinkedIn comments, but I just, I didn't get to it. - Great job on that new gig. Hey, way to go on your five year anniversary. People give me, people are like, wow, you've been in Geekscap 20 years. Like, yeah, it's my company, like, congratulations on your, got your work anniversary. Geekscapists are like my hobby anniversary mother. (laughing) Geekscapists. I'm gonna turn around with it. There's an actress from the acolyte. Amy saying who wants to come on and talk. So that's the next episode. We have three more, I think two more episodes. And then we have the geekscape 700. And I think we're gonna have a bunch of people from the last couple of years of geekscape on to do a round table because I think that's the geekscape right before San Diego Comic Con of which, sorry, I'm gonna be there for preview night. I'm gonna go down there, set up the booth, hang out for preview night, and then my butt's jumping in a car and coming back and I'm getting a catcher's mitt and I'll be ready to become a dad because that is, I mean, Heidi's like, "Are you sure you're going to Comic Con?" Like, we are in the danger zone. So if I'm not at Comic Con, it's 'cause the baby came. If I'm at Comic Con, Heidi is probably at the hotel and we are probably like, "Okay, what's the closest hotel in San Diego?" Because-- - I was gonna say, this is like a romantic comedy waiting to happen. - Yeah, yeah. We are in, yeah, that is what's going on geekscape. So we have geekscape 698 coming up with Amy Seng. So hit subscribe, share geekscape with all your friends. I've got one more geekscape and then we got geekscape 700 and then we got the Comic Con go go. We got lots of friends signing at the booth. We have a new booth location, this year too, 'cause you heard the drama about the old booth location. (laughs) It'll take full responsibility for being a jerk. And thank you, Comic Con, for being accommodating and not just canceling us. And love you guys, subscribe, share. Cool to say Adam Nimoy episode. Do whatever you guys want to do, it's your life. We just like to pop in and say hi. Thank you, Laila, for being a part of this. - Thank you so much. And don't hate create geekscape, it's peace. (dramatic music) - You're listening to the geekscape at work. (dramatic music)
Back to comics! Lilah Sturges is the writer of numerous comics, including the PRISM Award winning Lumberjanes: The Infernal Compass and The Magicians, as well as many other titles from DC, Marvel, IDW, and others. And now she can add Legendary Comics to the list with the recently released 'The Science of Ghosts'! We'll talk about writing comics, the paranormal, staving off my Austin homesickness, and much more on a brand-new Geekscape!
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