Io, I'm Mac, I'm Sean. Oh you guys, my god,
I gotta tell you, I'm that kid that has to look at a book
and basically hold on to it, and then you turn it over and look
at the back and I feel like that you guys grew up watching Batman episodes
because it's like the first Cat in Space and the Soup of Doom. Meanwhile,
then you talk about poison soup. I mean you had me giggling like
a child just on the back cover. Oh, I love hearing that.
It's true. You know that narrator voice you just did, and that was
a very impressive narrator voice there. Ero I tried to do one. It's
not nearly as good. That spirit of that, that narration, that action,
that excitement, that is exactly what we're going for in these books.
Well, and it's what I feel when I go from picture to picture.
Maybe I was the weird kid that always wanted to have pictures in the books
that he read this right here. When you do an action graphic like this,
not only do I get the pictures, but I'll read the paragraph,
look at the picture, go back to the paragraph, and I really jump
into the storyline. Well, I think you've been proved right, uh,
that that so many kids these days love reading graphic novels and illustrated fiction.
And there's been a beautiful thing that's happened. I think that in the past
adults have been skeptical of this art form, but it's really gaining acceptance and
for good reason. What you just described is exactly right. Uh. A
kid who's reading a comic is getting the story from both the words and the
pictures. It's it's pretty sophisticated. To understand the story, they have to
they have to synthesize text and image. Well, I got to tell you
what the the thing about this is that my grandson is dyslexic and and and
and books like this are what helps him understand a story. These books have
saved his life. That is amazing. I mean, it's always great to
hear stuff like that. And and we we know that that when you're a
kid, until you find that book that genre, uh, that that really
is exciting to you, you can kind of be casting about. And Sean
and I both love reading is so important. But if you haven't found that
yet, it can be very alienating to not love books. But when you
find that thing. When you find that thing that makes sense to you,
you really get excited about. That's what makes you a lifelong reader. And
we do hear sometimes from families to say like, these are the books that
turned my kid into a reader. And that's the best cumpliment you can get.
You know what, you guys are masters at creating mystery, because you
know that we don't. We can't figure it out unless we dive into the
story. And the way that you build this up about the soup and why
do you want to poison the queen? You create such a mystery for the
reader that you just keep going to the next frame, the next frame,
the next frame. Thank you. Yeah, that sense of forward motion,
that's the trick, right, how do we keep people reading? And so
I've always loved mysteries. I think it's such a compelling reason to move forward.
Sean is great at paneling, just keeping the motion propulsive. We try
to have good jokes, big surprises across payns uh, just keeping a really
immersive experience for the reader. So, now, how did you create laws
four thousand? I means so unique, very very much, you guys.
I mean it's one of those things where I want this dude's picture on my
T shirt. Yeah, well we actually do you know we have We have
lost four thousand t shirts. If you go to the firstcat in space dot
com, you could grab that arrow. But yeah, last four thousand is
a toenail clipping robot and he was actually based on my great great grandfather,
who was also a toenail clipping robot. Your childhood friends, most most people
form a garage band, but you guys went into action graphics. The problem
was I can't play musical instruments. Sean is very musical. I had I
also had a garage bands. Why. That's why when you crack this book
up and you'll get to pages that say, go to the firstcat in space
dot com and hear the song that the characters are singing on this page.
Most books don't have songs, and these ones do. I always love it
when a book does have a song in it. But you know, then
you always know, like you you're wondering, like what is the tune of
this song? How would I sing it? Is it all? You can
just end up kind of singing everything to row row row. You're both,
but we have both orchestrated music here that just you know, you can listen
to for free and you can know what our characters are singing along to.
Yeah, the album, the album Troup of Doom. The album drops tomorrow,
as well as the book, as well as the audio book, which
has songs in it. We're talking about a three hundred and sixty degree multimedia
experience. Ero. But you know what, but you're right about that,
And that's one of the reasons why I created the iHeartRadio channel view from the
writing instrument, because we can pick up any book and read it, but
until we hear your voice and we hear your inflection and your laughter. Okay,
now you've given me another reason to start this book all over again,
because I got to hear from you. My favorite books are the ones that
give you more each time you read it. And we really hope, just
like you say that the first reading of this book is just fun and fast
and propulsive, but that readers who come back to it can get as much
out of the book as they put in. Yeah, but you know what,
I go looking for Easter eggs because I know you too. You.
I know you planted things in this that we're going to get it on the
second and third read hmm, that's right, Yeah, definitely. Yeah,
there's a there's a there's a full spread page in there where the characters are
flying past a huge full moon, which parents will probably recognize as a frame
from et Oh, which is a movie that came out toars that me and
Mac were born, but somehow was still so instrumental in in kind of our
sense of what movie storytelling, what big storytelling? What is Yeah, I
wonder whatever happened that, Yeah, he needs How did you get into story
tell like this? What was it that? Were you guys doing this in
high school and you said, look, man, I'm going to add something
to that. That's funny. Yeah, We Sewan and I have always made
stuff together. So in high school we would write songs and make up stories,
and we even we would just sometimes put a cassette in and just record
a conversation between the two of us for an hour. If you think about
it, we really invented the podcast. The distribution model just wasn't there yet.
But this story, this story grew out of COVID. It was a
COVID project every Saturday morning at the beginning of lockdown, when schools were canceled.
Sean and I sort of commemorate the weekend for kids who had lost the
week we would tell one installment of a twelve part science fiction epic called The
First Cat in Space eight and that story is what became the first graphic novel
in this series. Well, you know, a lot of writing is pretty
solitary, and this was an amazing chance to show kids our work as we
were making it. As soon as we finished a chapter, we would put
it up online, share it with kids, get their feedback, and it
really incentivized us to make this The story is as funny and as exciting as
possible. It's you know, that's the way that the novels used to be
written in the nineteenth century. Just serialize. It's why you get these amazing
cliffhangers and compelling stories. And I do think that if Charles Dickens was alive
today, he probably would have written The First Cat in Space and The Soup
of Doom. But he's not alive, so we had to There you go.
You guys have got to come back to this show anytime in the future.
The door is always going to be open for you. Thank you so
much. We love being on here talking books and just we so appreciate you.
Sharing is sharing books with the world. It's really important. And thanks
for making the space. You been there. You guys, be brilliant today.
Okay, we'll try. Okay, Bye bye