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Io, I'm Mac, I'm Sean. Oh you guys, my god,

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I gotta tell you, I'm that
kid that has to look at a book

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and basically hold on to it,
and then you turn it over and look

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at the back and I feel like
that you guys grew up watching Batman episodes

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because it's like the first Cat in
Space and the Soup of Doom. Meanwhile,

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then you talk about poison soup.
I mean you had me giggling like

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a child just on the back cover. Oh, I love hearing that.

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It's true. You know that narrator
voice you just did, and that was

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a very impressive narrator voice there.
Ero I tried to do one. It's

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not nearly as good. That spirit
of that, that narration, that action,

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that excitement, that is exactly what
we're going for in these books.

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Well, and it's what I feel
when I go from picture to picture.

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Maybe I was the weird kid that
always wanted to have pictures in the books

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that he read this right here.
When you do an action graphic like this,

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not only do I get the pictures, but I'll read the paragraph,

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look at the picture, go back
to the paragraph, and I really jump

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into the storyline. Well, I
think you've been proved right, uh,

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that that so many kids these days
love reading graphic novels and illustrated fiction.

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And there's been a beautiful thing that's
happened. I think that in the past

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adults have been skeptical of this art
form, but it's really gaining acceptance and

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for good reason. What you just
described is exactly right. Uh. A

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kid who's reading a comic is getting
the story from both the words and the

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pictures. It's it's pretty sophisticated.
To understand the story, they have to

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they have to synthesize text and image. Well, I got to tell you

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what the the thing about this is
that my grandson is dyslexic and and and

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and books like this are what helps
him understand a story. These books have

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saved his life. That is amazing. I mean, it's always great to

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hear stuff like that. And and
we we know that that when you're a

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kid, until you find that book
that genre, uh, that that really

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is exciting to you, you can
kind of be casting about. And Sean

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and I both love reading is so
important. But if you haven't found that

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yet, it can be very alienating
to not love books. But when you

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find that thing. When you find
that thing that makes sense to you,

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you really get excited about. That's
what makes you a lifelong reader. And

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we do hear sometimes from families to
say like, these are the books that

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turned my kid into a reader.
And that's the best cumpliment you can get.

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You know what, you guys are
masters at creating mystery, because you

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know that we don't. We can't
figure it out unless we dive into the

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story. And the way that you
build this up about the soup and why

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do you want to poison the queen? You create such a mystery for the

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reader that you just keep going to
the next frame, the next frame,

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the next frame. Thank you.
Yeah, that sense of forward motion,

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that's the trick, right, how
do we keep people reading? And so

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I've always loved mysteries. I think
it's such a compelling reason to move forward.

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Sean is great at paneling, just
keeping the motion propulsive. We try

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to have good jokes, big surprises
across payns uh, just keeping a really

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immersive experience for the reader. So, now, how did you create laws

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four thousand? I means so unique, very very much, you guys.

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I mean it's one of those things
where I want this dude's picture on my

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T shirt. Yeah, well we
actually do you know we have We have

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lost four thousand t shirts. If
you go to the firstcat in space dot

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com, you could grab that arrow. But yeah, last four thousand is

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a toenail clipping robot and he was
actually based on my great great grandfather,

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who was also a toenail clipping robot. Your childhood friends, most most people

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form a garage band, but you
guys went into action graphics. The problem

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was I can't play musical instruments.
Sean is very musical. I had I

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also had a garage bands. Why. That's why when you crack this book

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up and you'll get to pages that
say, go to the firstcat in space

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dot com and hear the song that
the characters are singing on this page.

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Most books don't have songs, and
these ones do. I always love it

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when a book does have a song
in it. But you know, then

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you always know, like you you're
wondering, like what is the tune of

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this song? How would I sing
it? Is it all? You can

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just end up kind of singing everything
to row row row. You're both,

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but we have both orchestrated music here
that just you know, you can listen

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to for free and you can know
what our characters are singing along to.

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Yeah, the album, the album
Troup of Doom. The album drops tomorrow,

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as well as the book, as
well as the audio book, which

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has songs in it. We're talking
about a three hundred and sixty degree multimedia

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experience. Ero. But you know
what, but you're right about that,

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And that's one of the reasons why
I created the iHeartRadio channel view from the

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writing instrument, because we can pick
up any book and read it, but

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until we hear your voice and we
hear your inflection and your laughter. Okay,

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now you've given me another reason to
start this book all over again,

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because I got to hear from you. My favorite books are the ones that

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give you more each time you read
it. And we really hope, just

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like you say that the first reading
of this book is just fun and fast

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and propulsive, but that readers who
come back to it can get as much

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out of the book as they put
in. Yeah, but you know what,

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I go looking for Easter eggs because
I know you too. You.

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I know you planted things in this
that we're going to get it on the

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second and third read hmm, that's
right, Yeah, definitely. Yeah,

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there's a there's a there's a full
spread page in there where the characters are

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flying past a huge full moon,
which parents will probably recognize as a frame

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from et Oh, which is a
movie that came out toars that me and

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Mac were born, but somehow was
still so instrumental in in kind of our

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sense of what movie storytelling, what
big storytelling? What is Yeah, I

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wonder whatever happened that, Yeah,
he needs How did you get into story

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tell like this? What was it
that? Were you guys doing this in

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high school and you said, look, man, I'm going to add something

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to that. That's funny. Yeah, We Sewan and I have always made

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stuff together. So in high school
we would write songs and make up stories,

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and we even we would just sometimes
put a cassette in and just record

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a conversation between the two of us
for an hour. If you think about

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it, we really invented the podcast. The distribution model just wasn't there yet.

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But this story, this story grew
out of COVID. It was a

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COVID project every Saturday morning at the
beginning of lockdown, when schools were canceled.

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Sean and I sort of commemorate the
weekend for kids who had lost the

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week we would tell one installment of
a twelve part science fiction epic called The

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First Cat in Space eight and that
story is what became the first graphic novel

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in this series. Well, you
know, a lot of writing is pretty

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solitary, and this was an amazing
chance to show kids our work as we

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were making it. As soon as
we finished a chapter, we would put

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it up online, share it with
kids, get their feedback, and it

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really incentivized us to make this The
story is as funny and as exciting as

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possible. It's you know, that's
the way that the novels used to be

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written in the nineteenth century. Just
serialize. It's why you get these amazing

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cliffhangers and compelling stories. And I
do think that if Charles Dickens was alive

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today, he probably would have written
The First Cat in Space and The Soup

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of Doom. But he's not alive, so we had to There you go.

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You guys have got to come back
to this show anytime in the future.

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The door is always going to be
open for you. Thank you so

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much. We love being on here
talking books and just we so appreciate you.

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Sharing is sharing books with the world. It's really important. And thanks

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for making the space. You been
there. You guys, be brilliant today.

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Okay, we'll try. Okay,
Bye bye