Creators on the Couch – Grandma Chainsaw 4 Transcript

GC4 Mixdown 1

Anthony: Hello and welcome to Capes on the Couch, where comics get counseling. I’m Anthony Sytko.

Allen Dunford: And I’m not Dr. Issues.

Anthony: No, but you are on the show enough that you qualify as our recurring guest host. Ladies and gentlemen, the hilarious. And and wonderful Alan Dunford.

Allen Dunford: Hey, how are you? I was going to say, how are you guys?

Because I’m so used to there being two people on the couch, but instead

there

is one,

Anthony: it’s just you and me on the casting couch tonight. I’m sorry. I’m on the couch tonight.

Allen Dunford: Yeah, I was on the casting couch for the first episode.

Anthony: And you’re still here. Yep. That means I’m doing something right. Or we’re doing something very wrong. Yes, Doc will not be. Well, I don’t want to say Doc will not be joining us this evening. There’s a chance he could pop in depending on how things go. But unfortunately, he got called in for work related emergency at the last minute.

So it’s just me and Alan tonight. Just the two of us Talking grandma chainsaw. Oh, you beat me to it

with us. I was gonna say talking old ladies two of us below the floor Like some telltale hearts

Old lady below the floor. That’s that’s good. That’s good. I like that. I appreciate that good stuff Yes, we are talking grandma chainsaw 4 Kickstarter is live And if you don’t know anything about alan or the grandma chainsaw series go back and listen to the 3011 prior appearances And then After you listen to them, you go, why the hell do they keep bringing this guy back?

That’s a good question. And by that, I mean, why the hell do they keep bringing Anthony back?

So, how are you doing, my friend?

Allen Dunford: Man, I am, I’m doing great. Very, very sad because this is, this is the last Grandma Chainsaw book. Is it

Anthony: though?

Allen Dunford: Well, we’ll get into that in a little bit. We will probably get to a point in this episode where we do talk spoilers because this is realistically, this might be the last time that we have a grandma focused episode because the the next project we have launching should be Pocus 6.

Anthony: Ooh. Well, we’ll, we’ll get into that again later. But. So for those of you that again, and we will try to avoid major spoilers up front. Having said that, though, if we’re talking Grandma Chainsaw 4, basically going to assume that anything that Has happened up to this point is not really spoiler, right? So take that for for what it is if you’re completely unfamiliar with the grandma chainsaw series maybe you know take a pause go back and listen to the last couple episodes and then go on the kickstarter and one of the tears as Alan will are always So gracious for is to allow you to catch up to get up to speed on the entire series.

Allen Dunford: Yep. And we’re offering the trade paperback on this one and it is so exciting, man.

Anthony: Yeah. Yep. Already, already ordered it. Already got my money in. So. And you

Allen Dunford: got something else in too.

Anthony: Yes, I did. Yeah. We’ll, we’ll get to that again later. But so as we, as we begin the, the issue, our, I hesitate to call them heroes.

I’ll just say our protagonists. have basically are ready to square off against grandma herself. Yes. And she is not merely a doddering old woman with a pension for Lawn instruments

Allen Dunford: Yeah, because it’s this is it right? Like this is something that we we wanted

We wanted it to to feel like the final act, right? So yeah, I mean there’s still horror elements in it as you know, we’ll get into But we wanted this is the one where no pun intended will and I we were able to finally cut loose, right? We we could have action on top of everything and just finally Like this, like I said, this is it, right?

This issue it ended up being 36 pages, which is nuts, but it had to be. There was no other way.

Anthony: Yeah, you just, you have so much to fit in. That it’s gotta be a supersize issue.

Allen Dunford: A hundred percent. And I’d like to think that we wrapped everything up nicely, but

Anthony: you know,

I think you did. Okay. I mean, as someone who read it and is Plays a small role in the story.

Allen Dunford: So I, I guess this is a mild spoilers. Now this like with every issue, it always picks right up where the other issue left off. So out of the God, what was it like eight people that we started with, we’re, we’re down to four now,

Anthony: which is kind of crazy to think about.

And so, yeah, we, we are down now to the core four and it’s two ton. Yes, two ton, two ton, by the way, is just such a, a fascinating, Character. I’m just, I’m very intrigued by 2-Ton just from an aesthetic standpoint, from a character standpoint, I don’t really know what 2-Ton is.

Allen Dunford: I think that was kind of the point out the gate for 2-Ton, right?

The, the point was we didn’t know what 2-Ton was either, and that’s fine. He doesn’t have to be anything. He can just be 2-Ton.

Anthony: Yeah, but, but it works. I kind of, I kind of dig it and yeah, and you know, again, I don’t want to get into too much about the vital role that two ton plays in this issue.

Allen Dunford: It felt right.

You know what I mean? Like if it felt right, given two ton that final push.

Anthony: Yeah. Yeah, of all the characters, I felt like, you know, he’s just, there’s just something about him. I don’t know. I can’t quite put my finger on it, but from the beginning, he was very much a character that kind of caught my eye again, from, from a, a aesthetic artistic standpoint, but just from the character himself, I don’t think he.

He doesn’t speak, does he?

Allen Dunford: No, not at all.

Anthony: Okay. Yeah. That’s, that’s what I thought. I was like,

Allen Dunford: that’s the charm.

I was trying to remember back. Yeah. No, no dialogue for two ton at all. And then Gabby and Hayden.

They are the, our twin brothers and sisters. And the purpose of their name was simply a play on Hansel and Gretel.

Anthony: Ah, okay. And then I, I don’t remember the neck beards name.

Allen Dunford: How could you forget Fury Chan’s name?

Anthony: Fury Chan.

Allen Dunford: Yeah. The best discord moderator, this side of the Mississippi dude.

Anthony: With, with the fantastic dead squad shirt. I love that logo. I love that style that the D and the S interlock together.

Allen Dunford: Yeah, that was that was all Brian. He he Brian has just understood the assignment at every every facet of this whole thing.

Anthony: Yes, he has. Absolutely fantastic. Gotta love it. So they are, they are our, our final four as it were, and they are going up against

Allen Dunford: Hazel

Anthony: Hazel.

Now I’m not going to divulge the name of, of what. Hazel truly is.

I mean, I’ll call, I’ll call it a mild spoiler to say that Hazel is not what she appears to be.

Allen Dunford: Right. We’ve been trying to allude to that sensation. And I

Anthony: think, I think if you’ve been along this far, you understand that Hazel is not, she’s not human. Yeah. Put it that way. We’ll call it, she’s not human.

Where did you come up with that? Where did you get the idea for who she truly was in turn? Because I, I’d never heard of anything like this. I never knew about her true form, shall we say. And so I kind of went on a little bit of a Wikipedia read and I was like, Oh, okay. That’s pretty cool how we tied it in, right?

Seriously,

Allen Dunford: where did you, where did you find this? So Whenever all this was, was going on and we were trying to figure out exactly like what we wanted to do, because we, originally what Hazel was going to be was Because I feel like I can go ahead and safely say this she was originally just going to be a demon that was just wearing like old lady’s skin and everything was going to take place inside of the house and we we had the scene where like, in the in the first Book, they see like her skin hanging like on a coat rack, you know Like she wanted to keep it nice and clean and stuff like that, but everything was going to take place in there so And then we just decided that There has to be more to it and then that’s what we got So we went ahead and i’m a huge fan of mythology And I always have to give a shout out to to dave lynn’s because he really helped me with it Because once I told him kind of what I wanted He just immediately jumped in and was like, okay, great.

I have an idea. Let’s try this this this And then we went and looked up different things You And yeah, and that’s what, that’s how we got, that’s how we landed on where we did.

Anthony: Yeah. I mean, I, I am familiar with various pantheons of mythological deities and entities to varying extents, but I had never heard of this particular one.

Yep. Because the pantheon to which it belongs is not one that I am very familiar with. But again, if, if this leads people to look this up and go, Oh, okay, cool. Then, then I’m all for it. And again, I’m really, I apologize to the listeners because I’m trying not to give too much away.

Allen Dunford: Yeah. At least for the the beginning part, because I, I really would like to talk about it.

After we, we did like the housekeeping, right?

Anthony: Yeah. So, so we, we get through and I, I

Allen Dunford: guess to, to cut you off and, and, you know, obviously I, I’ll, I’ll talk about this with with Doc at some point, I’m sure, but we wanted to have the ending be unexpected and we didn’t, we wanted someone to pick up issue four, flip through it.

And be like, what the hell? And then open issue one and be like, how does this even connect? And that’s, that was our goal. And I hope that we achieved that.

Anthony: Yeah. I mean, I definitely now having just read four, I want to go back and reread them, you know, together because, and this is, this is a common thing when you, when you read comics like month to month, when you, when you read ploppies like I do for the, for the most part.

You kind of I don’t want to say lose sight or forget about things, but unless you go back and reread every prior issue before reading this month’s floppy, you’re going to forget stuff.

Allen Dunford: Yeah. And plus we’re, we’re independent. We’re Kickstarter. So it’s not like we’re producing every month.

We’re like every four months, you know, so, so there’s that bigger gap in between everything.

Anthony: Yeah. So I’m very much looking forward to getting my hands on the trade and then saying, okay, now reading from. You know, taking my time and really digesting pages and panels and being able to go back. And if something pops up right around issue three, that may have been a reference to something earlier to just be able to flip back.

And go to that page to go to that page in the trade rather than saying, okay, this reference is something in issue one. Now let me go back and find, you know, pull the floppy out of my, my storage and read that and, and then go, okay, this is what they were talking about kind of deal. So that’s something that, again, I, I understand people who, who trade weight and, and who read primarily trades for that reason.

So I get it. I get it because it does make it a lot cleaner. And a little more easy, easy to follow. I’ve been getting into Omni’s a lot. Just for, for my shelf, just for limited stuff. I’m not going out and trying to buy every Omni ever, but it does make it a lot more convenient trying to read you know, a lengthy run on something

Allen Dunford: and plus with Kickstarter too you find a lot of people that wait just for the trade.

And they want to make sure that whatever series they’re backing is going to get finished. And I get that.

Anthony: Yeah, absolutely. You know, because again, it is, it’s, it’s a mentality that some people have. And I’m not going to knock it. Yeah, no, I get it. At least not, not for something like this. Yeah. I do try to encourage folks to buy monthly books because the thing, and this is, I can, I can go off on a tangent and I will try not to too much, but the thing that gets me about people that, that wait for trades is they always say, oh, you know, I want to support the book, but then why are you waiting for the trade?

Because. If you don’t buy the floppies, if you don’t buy month to month, and this isn’t really applicable to you, but just more for like big two and, you know, some of the larger publishers. If you want to support the book and you want to support the creators, buy the floppies. Don’t wait for the trade because the publishers are only going to put the trades out if the book gets enough Month to month sales, right?

And hey, you see so many books get get, you know, can’t or you know That are supposed to be an ongoing and then they get canceled after six issues and you only get that one trade Because nobody was buying the floppies. Everybody’s waiting for the trade,

Allen Dunford: dude Same thing with us, right? Because if we would release grandma chainsaw one and it would have fallen straight on its face I don’t know if we would have been able to do number two, right?

Like so if everyone had the mentality of hey, i’m just gonna wait for the trade for grandma It’s like well, unfortunately from where we’re self funding I can’t I don’t want you to wait

Anthony: Yeah, exactly, you know, and that’s why I I support, all your your kickstarters. Yeah, appreciate that And I did apologize to you, personally for missing final girl next door.

Oh, that’s,

Allen Dunford: you will get an issue of that. Don’t you worry, my sweet prince.

Anthony: Oh, thank you. Thank you, daddy. Appreciate it. This is what happens when Doc isn’t here. Let’s be real. This happens even when Doc is here. Let’s not kid ourselves. All right. So, so we’ve kind of done some of the housekeeping stuff.

We are going to because I do want to talk about some of the stuff that happens in the issue. So, let’s talk spoilers. Okay, we’ll talk about this before

Allen Dunford: we go to spoilers. Like anthony said at the top You know now is the now’s the best time and Problem. I don’t want to say one of the last times because of course we’ll do add ons for future kickstarters and stuff But if you do want to try to collect as much grandma chainsaw stuff as possible I would I would try to do it now.

But yeah, so on on this on the kickstarter It’s the same stuff as always and I mean that in the best possible way We have catch up tiers. So if you want to get the single issues awesome It’s there waiting for you If you want to get some variant covers that maybe you missed we have a kit wallace bundle And yeah, it’s just a celebration of the book and all the hard work that the team has done right now So we we would love to see you there Yeah, and that’s, that’s really all I got for that part.

Now we can, we can go in.

Anthony: Yeah. So. We’ll be talking spoilers for probably about 10 minutes or so, five to 10 minutes. We’ll make an announcement when we’re done, So if you are wary of spoilers and you don’t want this ruined for you, please, skip ahead And like I said, we’ll we’ll let you know when we’re done. Okay, now that we got now that we got yeah, we’re good, right?

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah now now that we got that warning out of the way. Holy bejesus, man Holy bejesus Yeah, boy, yeah, we’re not even getting into her name this one This bitch. Yeah, dude one badass looking bitch. Holy smoke bullwinkle. I Brian,

Allen Dunford: brian, brian

Anthony: brought his ass A game. Yes, he did. Very much. Brian brought his A game.

Mm-Hmm. . Now for, for the design of when we see C How do you C Yeah, it’s pronounced C Yeah. C. Okay. The Mayan God of death.

Allen Dunford: Yeah. Now we, we did potentially do like a gender swap, so we did take some liberties, but I mean, it’s a, you know what I mean? Fuck it. Right? Like

Anthony: yeah. It’s,

Allen Dunford: yeah.

Anthony: It’s an eternal death dealing entity.

How much of the character design did you have input on, or was it all Brian going, you want this to look gnarly and shit? I got you, fam.

Allen Dunford: So told Brian ahead of time. Of course, we all knew since issue one, what it was, right. We all knew since issue one that, that Hazel built her house on top of a Mayan temple and she’s the Mayan god of death, Cizan.

So we, we make some subtle references to it. Like Susan had a necklace of eyeballs that he always wore around his neck. And in issue three, whenever Doc X gets cut in half, or right before Doc X gets cut in half, Hazel takes his eyes and puts them in her pocket and she says, keep these. So it’s.

It’s little stuff like that that we tried to throw in.

Anthony: Okay,

Allen Dunford: okay But yeah, I mean, like I said told brian what it was told him we needed to have a good feel for this And then brian was like, okay, and then that was the design he came up with and I know this may sound stupid and it’s so simple But that’s one of my favorite lines in the whole book and it’s that splash page on page four Where we do the full reveal and it just says I am god You Like, I just, I love that so much.

And it has finale written in hieroglyphics in the back.

Anthony: Yeah. My, my favorite shot of, of Cizan is a couple of pages after that where it’s just silence, I pride myself on my composure, but you’ve broken it. And the mouth is open and the tongue is out and the sound waves. Yeah. Wow.

Allen Dunford: Yeah, dude, Brian went, he went nuts on this thing.

I hope that when people get this thing and flip through it, they’re like, what the shit have I been waiting for?

Anthony: Yeah. I mean, it’s just, yeah, this is, this is some messed up shit.

Allen Dunford: Whenever we were trying to develop like, okay, cause that’s always your big question, right? Now, now we’re dealing with a a God, right? So how do we kill a God? Right. The original way that we were going to do it was, it was always going to be about the same ending.

But. We changed it, because originally it was going to be the chainsaw was made from the spear Destiny but we went ahead and just changed it to Excalibur, just because it seemed to fit better with Crusaders. And kind of like, we could, we could easily play off Arthurian lore if the situation ever saw itself.

Anthony: All right. Yeah. Cause I was like, oh, you know, Excalibur and stuff. I was like, cool.

Allen Dunford: It just, I don’t know. It all just seems to fit. Like you just kind of turn your brain off and now I go, all right, I get it. I’m down.

Anthony: I mean, given everything else that goes on in this comic, I’m not certainly going to split hairs over.

Oh, you Actually well

Allen Dunford: actually the chainsaw, but we thought it was really cool that Excalibur wasn’t just a sword and that throughout the years it’s progressed to being other stuff that’s kind of kept up with the times

Anthony: that it’s the, I guess the housing. Mm-hmm. changes, but the internal spirit remains. Right.

Allen Dunford: And I loved the spread page that Brian and Carrie did where it shows the the travels of Cizan with Excalibur and how she got to Hazel.

Anthony: Yeah, where, where Fury Chan is basically reading about, you know, what has happened and how she’s, how she’s here. Yeah. How she’s come to reach this, this current form.

Allen Dunford: Yeah, because when we were looking up Mayan gods The, the reason why they don’t exist anymore, or at that time didn’t exist anymore, was because Spanish conquistadors drove, you know, the Mayans thought that they drove them out.

Whenever they were taking over with christianity and stuff like that So that was something that we played on too where susan was, expelled from her land Because she was trying to you know conquest all that stuff and it just I don’t know it all just made sense to us

Anthony: No, it works. And again kudos to you for for bringing some of that stuff in and and the mythology because I think so many of those stories are You for, for use by current writers.

When I was many years ago probably going back at least 10 years at this point, probably even more than that I wrote A Moon Knight movie that I was going to pitch to Marvel Studios. And I’ve talked about it a couple of times. I’ve referenced it on the show and I did a whole podcast episode on the, on the Into the Night podcast with my, my buddy Ray the whole podcast is about Moon Knight.

And so he brought me on and he was like, let’s talk about your Moon Knight script. And I think it was in maybe the third or fourth draft. Where I was trying to develop the connection between Mark and Khonshu a little bit more. And I went and I read about the history of the actual Egyptian mythology because prior to that, I had, you know, Khonshu resurrects Mark Spector.

I mean, it’s, it’s in the source material, but I said, how can I, how can I make this a little more compelling and a little more interesting? So I read a lot of. Egyptian mythology and the stories that involve the gods and their interactions with each other were so fascinating that I said, I have to find a way to include this.

And crazy, right? So what I ended up doing was basically incorporating like the actual Egyptian mythology into some of the The interactions between Mark and Khonshu and providing some of the backstory. Some of it was, was the whole notion that, and, and this kind of goes back to like the, the discussion in like the first Thor movie, that you know, they’re not gods.

They’re just, you know, otherworldly beings that primitive Earthlings worshipped as gods, but, but very much that same story. And I, I went into some of the stuff with Ra and, and, and Khonshu. And again, just so much of the, the actual mythology was way more compelling than what I had written. So I’m like, why am I going to make up stuff?

that isn’t as cool as actual, you know, quote unquote, historical mythology. So when you bring all this Mayan stuff into the story and you, you also reference, you know, Arthurian legend and, and everything, and you find a way to tie it all together, that’s, that to me is just phenomenal world building.

Allen Dunford: Oh, I appreciate that.

Thank you.

Anthony: And it just also again gives it that added flavor of bringing in some of that stuff that may entice people who are reading Grandma Chainsaw to then turn around and say, Oh, let me go check this out. Because again, that’s what I did. I was like, Susan, I’d never heard of this. Oh, Let me, so I started reading some stuff on.

Mayan mythology and Mayan deities. And then, you know, if you’re reading about Excalibur and stuff, you want to go and read like the Once and Future King, or you can read stuff about Arthurian legends, and you can go down a very deep rabbit hole on that stuff. Or you could do the cheap and easy way out and just watch Monty Python.

You know? Yeah, easy, right? Either way. You got two abs, you got two empty abs of coconuts and you’re banging them together.

Allen Dunford: But yeah, man, like I said, it was just this thing was just so much fun to write. And we, we wanted to end it with a with a classic horror esque ending where Is it really over, right? Oh yeah. So the end question mark. So one thing that we talked about early on was making a sequel series. That was like, it was a one shot.

And this this would end it right so the the you heard it here first folks The title of the series if we decide to tackle it is going to be called great grandma chainsaw and it’s it’s just something that we thought would be Fun and funny to do And and really drive it drive it all home, right? So and that’s like, you know with with fury chan My favorite part is when his mom shows up at the end, right?

And you know, she’s Terrence get in the car, right? That’s it’s just so funny to me

Anthony: Of course, she’s got the curlers in her hair.

Allen Dunford: Of course, why wouldn’t she right? And then, you know, and of course, we had to make the joke you know, my therapist is going to love this. So, yeah, it was just, I don’t know.

It was all too perfect. And it’s just him sitting there bored. And then he puts the headdress on and it gives him flashes into the future of what’s going to happen, showing that Hazel’s not gone yet.

Anthony: Yeah, so, so that’s what that, because I wasn’t 100 percent certain what it was that he saw, whether it was the future or whether it was, like, she kind of possesses him through the headdress.

Allen Dunford: Yeah, he so, yeah, we tried to put that part in there where it’s like, mom turned the car around. Right. Like he, he’s seen something, you know? Yeah.

I knew, you know, that, that part was obvious. I wasn’t exactly sure what it was that he

saw the future of what, what could happen.

Anthony: So let’s talk about some of the other, since we’re on the spoiler kick here, and we’re talking about the stuff that happens in the book Hazel slash does not play nice and does not want to fight these, these intrepid adventures by herself.

Right. And so she summons an army of the undead.

Allen Dunford: Yes So the army of the undead that we have for this of course, you know, it’s it’s it’s kind of just people all throughout time But but the big joke that we wanted to have in this thing Was just how big of a piece of shit fury chan is and the The joke with that is a lot of the zombies that we see are old dead squad members because he keeps sending them down there You

Anthony: Yep.

Allen Dunford: And they don’t keep coming back.

Anthony: And, and of course he only addresses them by their, their gamer tags.

Allen Dunford: Yes, of course. What, is there any other way to address them? Yeah, fair, fair.

Anthony: And and the imagery here and some of the, the people that get resurrected. They look awfully familiar. They do look familiar.

Allen Dunford: Yes. Curiouser and curiouser.

Anthony: Yes. Yes. I can honestly say I never imagined The fabled secret pocket maneuver.

Allen Dunford: Yeah. So that was not, not secret pocket maneuver, but two time going absolutely berserk was something that we wanted since the beginning.

Anthony: Yeah. He just is like, all right, let’s do this. And he just goes full bore, you know, nuts on them. Yeah. It’s, it’s. Glorious to watch. I, I end up with a cat shoved up my ass.

And yeah, that’s something that, you send me texts with like the screenshots of, just me coming out of the ground. I’m like, Oh yeah, that’s cool. Yeah. That’s, that’s pretty awesome. And then and then wait, what happens to me? What?

Allen Dunford: Yeah. Yeah.

We have an undead cat shoving up your ass. Yeah.

Anthony: Yup. Yup. I, I mean. It had to happen. Did it though?

Allen Dunford: It did.

Anthony: But did it though? I’m not mad, but I’m just like, of all the things, of all the ways to go, of all the things that you could, you could have had me just, you know, straight decapitated. You could have me burned. You could have me, you know, I mean, two ton punches a hole through the back of somebody’s skull and out their mouth, like, that could have been cool.

You know, somebody else had a limb shoved down their throat. Like, that’s, that’s all well and good. I get a cat rammed up my

Allen Dunford: ass. You do. And I, I don’t take anything back, man. I thought we were cool, man. We are, we are cool. It’s just so funny.

Anthony: This is what you think of me? Well, you said do your worst and then.

Is this what okay. All right. All right. I suppose I asked for it

Allen Dunford: But yeah, so like that that stuff right there was just so much fun to do and like I said, it was it was hilarious to us because originally the line right there was Huh, I was actually going to ask two ton to stay home. But we had to change it to the ah, the fabled secret pocket remover

Anthony: Now did you tell brian I want Anthony to die by having a cat shoved up his ass or no, he just did it.

He just did. Okay. Yeah

Allen Dunford: Yeah, we didn’t give him any direction. The only direction we gave him was whatever page it is you know, we just said two ton rips through the backers and then he literally had something ripped through that ass

Anthony: Okay. All right. So so then brian is the one that I really should it should should I take umbridge with a thousand Okay. All right. Yeah. We’ll throw Brian under the bus cause he’s not on this episode. Right.

Allen Dunford: Right.

Anthony: He’s not here to defend himself. Oh yeah, it was Brian’s idea. It was Brian’s idea all along.

Yep. Like Agatha all along. He’s the one who has to die. He’s the one who came up with shoving the cat up your ass. Yeah.

Allen Dunford: God, it’s just so funny though.

Anthony: It is. It really is. I’m, believe me, trust me, I’m not upset by this at all. I, I am just like, okay, that’s, that’s a thing, man. You know, in, in, in a series and it fits though.

That’s the thing. It, it fits and is twisted and wild as the whole thing is. It works. And it doesn’t detract from the rest of the series It it fits with the the tone that of course in the series like this You’re gonna have somebody getting a hole punched through the back of their skull You’re gonna have somebody die with a cappy and shoved up their ass.

You’re gonna have her face, melted half off because of holy water,

Allen Dunford: right? I mean Yeah, yeah, we had to throw that line in there man. The power of christ compels you.

Anthony: I mean, yes, obviously You although my favorite line that combines violence and, and religion comes from the movie Dead Alive.

Allen Dunford: Okay, I love that movie so hard.

Anthony: A very, very early pre Lord of the Rings, Peter Jackson directed this very messed up film that I think at one point. I don’t think it does anymore, but I believe at one point held the Guinness world record for most fake blood used in a film

Allen Dunford: That movie is the only movie i’ve ever watched that made me physically sick and it was It was the lawnmower scene

Anthony: a lawnmower scene.

Allen Dunford: Okay. I was just about to say. Yeah, the lawnmower the lawnmower It

was something about it him just tearing through everyone And it’s just how the blood was that was coming to I don’t know man I’ve seen some shit, but that’s the only movie that has made me physically sick.

Anthony: Yep. I watched that with doc cause we used to, we used to rent B movies from blockbuster back in, back in high school and college.

So did I back when it was a viable career choice, but, but the line that I’m referencing and I’m sure as someone who knows it, the power, what is I kick ass for the Lord.

There it is. That’s what it is. I couldn’t

think of it. The Kung Fu priest standing on a headstone and just before he jumps off to deliver a flying kick to the head of the undead that are rising out of the cemetery.

And he said in the, in the thick Australian accent, I kick ass for the Lord. Man, I, what a perfect movie. Right. Absolutely. It really truly is. And again to, you know, what you were saying earlier, any movie that involves a dude strapping a lawnmower to his chest, blade out so he can walk through a sea of Of of zombies now of all the things that made you violently ill It it wasn’t when the the zombie grandmother or the old mother was melting off into the soup And now and eating it

Allen Dunford: dude, like I mean, yeah, that’s gross, right?

But I for some reason like my my brain could separate that right? But I do the stuff or the stuff like with the the the

Anthony: zombie

Allen Dunford: baby in the carriage You know what? I think it might have been like now that I really think about it I think it may have just been like a culmination of the whole movie, right?

Like maybe I put it like in my subconscious That everything was fine and cool And all that stuff. But then it finally just got to me.

Anthony: And then it just reached a point where you’re just like, I can’t, I can’t. Yeah,

Allen Dunford: my body just gave out. Right.

Anthony: I have made references to Sumatran rat monkeys many times over the year, and very few people get the reference.

Allen Dunford: Like. So one of my favorite things about the Lord of the Rings is whenever they were doing early screenings with the executives, because of course no one wanted to make the movie, right? They, they thought it was too much of a risk and, and all this stuff, which obviously it’s kind of crazy now, like when you really think about it, because it’s, held as one of the great movies of all times, but.

I wonder, there’s other stories like that, right? They did somewhat, some studio, some company didn’t want to make a movie and then someone gave it a chance and then, you know, those executives were kicking themselves afterwards, right? But whenever Peter Jackson was doing early screenings of Lord of the Rings with some of the test footage inside of the theater, he had lined with posters of his previous movies and none of them are Lord of the Rings.

You know, it’s, it’s dead alive and there’s other stuff he’s, yeah, other stuff he’s made in New Zealand with like a handy cam, right? Like they, and the executives were worried. They’re like, what have we done?

But then I look at them.

Anthony: Yep. All right. So we will we’ll exit the spoilers now. Okay. We’re done. So I’d say, yeah, it’s been it’s been about 10 minutes or so. So we’re out of the spoilers. Spoiler free moving forward. So let’s talk about the Kickstarter, which is still active. And the campaign ends next

Allen Dunford: Friday,

Anthony: I believe,

Allen Dunford: or Friday after next. How many days we got? I don’t know what day it is anymore.

Anthony: Yeah. I I’ve, I’ve lost track of days myself. It I mean, we’re recording this on June 6th, so.

Allen Dunford: Okay. So it ends in two weeks. So not this Friday coming up, but the following Friday.

Anthony: Okay. So then the 20th or the 27th?

Allen Dunford: The 21st.

Anthony: The 21st. Okay. All right. Okay. Very cool. So

Allen Dunford: I think 10 AM is when it ends.

Anthony: All right. So. Let’s talk about, I mean, aside from you got the trade and the catch up, you know, being able to get all the prior. Issues you got some sweet variant covers on this one.

Allen Dunford: Thank you. Yeah, we wanted to go as far out as possible for it, right because it’s Last one so we we wanted we wanted to hit them up style, right?

Anthony: Yeah, you always just get beautiful artwork on, on these because you know, so many fantastic artists. Yeah, I just it’s, it’s so cool, man. I just, I’m, I’m in awe of, of, of these. These these covers and the artwork and stuff, it’s pretty, pretty freaking sweet, man.

Allen Dunford: I appreciate it. Yeah. And of course, it’s always a huge thank you to all the artists that lend their talents to us. Right. So can’t, can’t thank all of them enough for everything that they do for us.

Anthony: And so we’ve got the the trade paperback and a whole slew of. Very badass covers. And then you’ve got the grandchild, which is everything.

Allen Dunford: Yeah, that’s the big one. And, of course, I I always have to, to give a shout out to my boy and yours Kit Wallace. He’s just always been there for us ever since the beginning. And thank you. And we’ll never say enough for everything that he’s done, man.

Anthony: Yeah.

Kit is good stuff, man. Great stuff. A little saddened that there’s, there’s not a whole lot of physical

Add ons or, or things with this campaign, like there was with some of the prior ones you know, like the apron and everything, but I also understand it’s the last one, so,

Allen Dunford: and costs are crazy on those things too. And we have to charge a lot because a little peek behind the curtain, we’d have to charge like 30 some dollars for an apron because it takes us 20 some dollars to print one because they’re embroidered on the front.

Anthony: Oh yeah, no,

Allen Dunford: I, I get it, man.

Anthony: Yeah, I get it. So, I mean, I, I appreciate the apron that I did get. Back after the first issue. So yeah. Looking forward to, to getting the trade and then all the other, the other associated delights with that. So you got that final girl next door completed as well, you said?

The next one now is Pocus 6,

Allen Dunford: correct? Yeah. Pocus 6. Dude, I gotta tell you, we were so excited to go back to Pocus.

Anthony: Yeah, I believe it, you know, and it’s been a hot minute. Very much looking forward to getting back into the The universe proper. Cause I know you had Horus, not that long ago.

Allen Dunford: Yeah. And obviously Horus is canon to the, to the Pocus story, but it’s just like coming back to Pocus. I just, I love it. I’m so happy.

Anthony: And Alan just sent me that as the cover for Pocus 6. Ooh. Pretty, isn’t it? I likey. Yeah. I like it. Yeah, we’re,

Allen Dunford: dude, we’re, we’re so excited.

Anthony: Now, when is this Kickstarter for, for Pocus 6 going to launch?

Allen Dunford: Probably if I had to guess, Brian’s already putting a really good din in it, I would say August, if I had to guess. So it gives us time to fulfill grandma and everything like that.

Anthony: Fair enough. So, so the writing is done and you, so Brian is, is done with a lot of the.

Allen Dunford: Yep. He’s up to, as of right now, I think he’s up to page five and it’s another 28 page book.

Okay.

Anthony: All right. Well we will certainly bring you back for that one to chat about it. What else have you got in the hopper? Cause I know we’ve talked a lot about some of your other stories that you’ve been working on. We just finished the Herald number one, you know, we talked to you a while back about that.

Allen Dunford: Yeah. Herald two that’s in production as well. And then yeah, we’ll, we’ll be doing Horus three and final girl number two and. Whatever else may pop up.

Anthony: Okay. All right. Where are we on the deacon dan’s famous chili ?

Allen Dunford: As soon as we’re done with Pocus Okay. Yeah, we want to go ahead and get get Pocus out of the way Well, I don’t want to say out of the way like we’re done with it But you know, we want to get back into it get a good grounding on that and then on issue eight We’ll take a break from that because i’ll end the second arc of Pocus and then we’ll go for the

Anthony: And then you go for deacon dan Okay.

Oh, so it’s gonna wait so deacon. Dan is waiting until after Pocus eight You Yes. Okay. Yep. Man. I know. And then what about the, was it a Sunday morning? Yeah. One Sunday afternoon. One Sunday afternoon.

Allen Dunford: That one will be after

Anthony: Deacon Dan. That one will be after Deacon Dan. Okay. So. Ah. You’re, you’re teasing me.

You’re, you’re edging me here. You’re killing me, Smalls. You’re killing me, Smalls. Exactly. You’re killing me. You’re edging, you’re edging me here. I like, I’m gonna need you to finish me off soon, man.

Allen Dunford: Oh, Jesus Christ. Latter day Saints.

Anthony: So Alan, as always a pleasure. Where can folks find you online?

Allen Dunford: Yeah. Best place always is follow us on our sub stack. It’s the top hat studios. substack. com and just follow us on Kickstarter. I mean, it seems like we always have something going on, whether we plan it or not.

Anthony: And we will, as always, have links to all of that stuff in the show notes so that you can click on it and find it easily. We’ll promote this on the socials. And I’m also going to post up on the socials, the, the awesome picture of me the, the Wanted poster.

Allen Dunford: Oh, awesome. Yeah. Go for it, man.

Anthony: Yeah.

Reuben did such a good job. He really did. Really, truly did. And, and it just about finding the time to, to post that on. On our socials and and tag Reuben in it. Yeah, so you can everybody can show him all the love that that he so rightfully deserves. So that’s gonna about do it for this. So next episode is going to be storm And I know that that was technically supposed to be the next episode that we did but unfortunately fortunately and unfortunately, we have a fantastic guest lined up to talk Aurora with us, but unfortunately due to scheduling, we haven’t been able to get her, we haven’t been able to line our schedules up.

So we’ve got the episode pretty much written and ready. It’s just about getting her, together and, and because she is in Kenya, it’s a, some of it also involves time zones and, and things of that nature. So I do apologize for that. And then a bit of a announcement here.

After the storm episode, we’re going to be taking July and August off. We’re going to go on a bit of a summer vacation for us. Just we’ve got a lot going on personally and professionally behind the scenes, and it’s clearly kind of cut into the show a little bit as evidenced by the. lack of regular episode releases that we’ve had as of late, just because again, between Doc and I, we’re, we’re just so fried from everything else we’ve got going on.

And you know, part of the show is, is we preach the importance of mental health and taking care of yourself. And we would be doing ourselves a disservice if we didn’t listen to our own advice every once in a while. So this is kind of the first. Formal announcement that we’re making that we’re going to be taking those two months off we’ll pause the Patreon.

So we’re not going to charge you if we’re not coming out with stuff. We’ll be probably recording stuff here and there over the course of those two months so that we can build up kind of a backlog. So we’re not as stretched to, to come back when we’re ready in September. But Other than that, as always all of our episodes are available on our website, capesonthecouch. com, proud members of the Gonna Geek Network. Alan, you should go talk to Chris over at Play Comics. I know you’ve been on the show a couple of times. You can go pitch this one to him or, you know, find a, find an awesome game. Maybe, you know, tie in like Dead Rising or something.

Allen Dunford: Dude, Chris I, I gotta shout him out.

He was so close, man, to figuring it out early. Really? He almost had it.

Anthony: All right. All right. Well, he’s he’s he’s a smart one. He’s a smart one. We love them though we love chris and you can find us on facebook instagram twitter tiktok and threads ad capes on the couch Go check the socials, check the stuff out there.

When this episode drops, it will be just before or the weekend before our our appearance at Shenanicon. We now finally have a date and time. It will be Sunday, June 23rd 2. 15. We will be in, I believe it’s panel room three talking Baccano!. So very much looking forward to bringing you that one.

And then, you know, once we do the panel, we’ll record it and we’ll release it as an episode afterwards. So, so that will may come out during the hiatus. But in any case, stay tuned. As I said, you know, we’ve got some cool stuff. We’re, we’re continuing to apply for more and more panels and get some some good stuff out there.

And again, much, much appreciation and love to all of our patrons who continue to support the show and, and all the various levels that you’ve got. And Again, it’s just always fun to chat with Alan. You know, I know this is kind of like a last minute thing. It was just like, Hey, you, you free tonight to talk grandpa for?

He goes, yeah, let’s do it. And then Doc got called in. So hopefully next time we will bring him in and it will be a proper threesome once again, and yeah. We’ll, we’ll, we’ll be looking forward to the next POCUS. Man, I can’t wait. I know. I can’t wait either. Alan, thank you so much. A pleasure as always, my friend.

It’s good to see you. Good to chat with you. And you know appreciate you taking the time. Of course. Anytime, dude. All right. So for, for Alan Dunford and the currently absent doc issues, I’m Anthony Sytko. Thanks so much for listening. We’ll see you soon.