Horus in Hell 2 with Allen Dunford
Anthony: Hello and welcome to Capes on the Couch where comics get counseling. I’m Anthony Sytko.
Doc: And I’m Dr. Issues.
Anthony: We are joined once again for another Creators on the Couch episode by our good friend who at this point basically has like the recurring guest slot whenever he wants it.
Friend of the show and friend of us Allen Dunford. Welcome back, buddy.
Allen: Hey guys I appreciate you guys always having me on even though, I bet if you watch your viewer rating, as soon as you say Allen Dunford, the chart just plummets down straight to hell, and then doesn’t come back.
Anthony: Well, if they go down into hell, they can find Horus, because that’s, that’s what we’re here for.
We are here for Horus in Hell 2 which the Kickstarter is still live until, when, when does the
Kickstarter end? It ends the eighth at 10 o’clock Eastern time. Okay.
At 10:00 AM So this 10:00 PM this episode. Oh, 10:00 PM Okay. Yeah. I’m, I’m wild like that. Oh wow. Okay. Yeah. You’re, you’re, you’re night owl.
Allen: Yeah. I’m crazy.
Anthony: You, you wacky man. You, yeah. That’s 10, 10:00 PM for me is usually right about when the edible is like fully kicked in and then it’s like, ah, now I got about another hour maybe. Before I’m just completely useless. That’s what I need, man, to shut my brain down. Listen, the hamster, that hamster does not stop on its own.
Alright, he needs a tranq dart in the ass and the only thing that works is blue dream. 25 25 milligrams.
Doc: It is Is
Allen: brought to you by blue dream don’t let your dreams be memes
Doc: Do it
Anthony: what are you waiting for? Yeah, if we can get the, you know, actual cannibal Shia LaBeouf to guest star on this show, that would be that would be quite a feat. So yeah, Allen texted me a couple weeks ago like maybe, no, it was last week, dude. He was like, Hey, you, you, yeah. And I was like, yes, yes, we are, we are.
I said, what? I said, I think we had just recorded the night before. And I was like, yeah, what’s up? And he goes, yeah, we got Horus in hell. And I was like, oh, I didn’t even realize. That was going on. Cause my, my job has been beating my ass, you know, beating me like it, like it owes me money, which it does.
And some job
Doc: works, right? That’s yeah. That’s the point.
Anthony: That, that, yeah. So so Horus in Hell 2. It’s obviously you know, the continuation, a bit of a spin off of the Pocus Hocus storyline as well as you know, and we’ll get into Grandma Chainsaw and folks can go back. I think this is your eighth appearance on the show
Allen: at this point.
Yeah, i’m not counting anymore. I just enjoy your company at this point. Yeah, i’m just really i’m just lonely
Anthony: Yeah When you’re not on the show, I get those shirts and I sniff them and I go. Oh, they still smell like him. Yeah
Allen: It just what it smells like regret
Anthony: It smells like west virginia.
It smells like burning couches and meth.
Allen: Yeah
Doc: You forgot the coal man,
Allen: yeah, dude coal country, baby
Anthony: Yeah, but the burning couches is so much funnier. My cousin went to West Virginia and that’s, you know, she’s like, yeah, the Mountaineers won. And then we set couches on fire.
Allen: Yeah, Mountaineers win and everyone just just runs.
Yeah, it’s a, it’s a tradition. So I don’t know how, if the tradition still stands. I think it’s like really slacked off for obvious reasons, but for some reason. If WVU would win, so West Virginia University, if they would win everyone just had it in their brain that they just would burn a couch.
And the, the thing that blows my mind the most is the fact that, like, you know, it’s, it’s college. Like, everyone stereotypically is a poor college student. And then these people are gonna go burn couches. Like, that’s like a commodity, you know what I mean? Like, like if, if college had like a commissary, I bet couches would be through the roof, how much they would cost that rent.
So yeah, that, that’s a little bit of a story with it. So, yeah,
Doc: I definitely learned something tonight.
Allen: Yep. Oh, yeah. Yeah. I went to wdu for for a semester. I was For those who don’t know I am too sober for my own good And I just didn’t have fun being being away at college and the the craziest thing about it was like The next day after a game you know because I don’t I didn’t drink or anything like that.
Walking out especially if west virginia lost like Just how you could feel the tension in the air And like the streets were were abandoned. So it’s just me going to the coffee shop. It was great
Doc: Yep, the
Allen: end. But yeah, we got a comic on
Doc: Kickstarter.
Anthony: Oh, man. It’s about a hell raising bunny. Hell raising bunny. Yeah, so, so tell us you know, a little bit about Horus and Hell 2 since since your partner Will Radford is not joining us this evening, unfortunately. Lazy bastard. No, I, I’m saying, I, I, I’m saying that with the, you know, tongue, tongue fully in cheek.
Oh, yeah. Yeah. Will, Will knows we love him.
Allen: So So yeah, Horus in hell number two obviously it’s a spinoff series like you guys said of Pocus Hocus which was our first comic book series that involves a magician who sells a soul to a demon to have actual magical powers and It’s just his journey to get it back And like always I promise it’s way funnier than what i’m making it out to be and Horus was one of those characters that Was a frustration And what I mean by that is he’s that character that you like it’s like our group, right?
Like you just kind of spend the least amount of time on and it’s just a fun one off sidekick character But everyone just was gravitated toward toward that character and you know, we thought like hey, well, let’s go and just make a a quick ash can of horus and just kind of tell his origin so We wrote the A page of it, we had Kit Wallace give us his amazing artwork on it, and then the Ashcan took off.
So then we got to the point where we were like, well, I guess now we have to write. a whole series and How we made the series was we we had two possible endings one ending that we could end with issue two if issue one’s campaign didn’t do well because You you know, you guys know how it is like people are like, oh we want we want a single Horus issue We want it.
We want it. We want it and you know, you could do something like that and then people write I don’t want it or has like a lukewarm response, right? So but luckily for us it it kind of took off So we had the other ending that we were then able to use where we could make Horus and hell a four issue mini series, which we were very happy to be able to do but Horus in Hell follows the story of a demonic pink bunny named Horus who is one day in the fields of battle in hell, and he is pulled up by a drunk magician named Pocus Hocus into our material world, and we like to really play on the lore of you know, a demon’s word is their bond, even though they’re trickery, lore of you Involved with with demons and nothing’s ever as it seems But whenever they say I pledge my my services to you You know We we like to really try to stick by that And horus thought Pocus’s giant hand that was pulling him up in the middle of this battle Was finally his you know eternal reward for his years of servitude in hell’s army But really it was just a magic trick and a drunk magician thing who happened to have magical powers and the the story of horus and hell one follows that where he gets pulled back into hell and You know, let’s talk about the ending here.
So spoiler alert. He gets pulled back into hell and he meets his brother Boris and Boris is a Russian hare, which is the best joke I’ll ever make. So I can go ahead and just wrap that up now. Boris is a Russian hare and says that he’ll get them back to his magician friend if he does something for him.
And that’s where it ends. And issue two picks up immediately there as we find out what Boris actually has in plan for his brother.
Anthony: I love the Russian hare. Yes. Did not, did not realize that. But that is
I love the over.
What I appreciate about this series is it gives you that freedom to really lean into the absurdity of some of the stuff that is only, I don’t want to say it’s, it’s not lightly touched on, but it’s, it’s there in hocus, but it’s not the, the crux of the whole series. You do you know, a fantastic job I think of balance the humor with, with the stakes and the horror and, and all of the other things for Pocus, Horus is just, let’s just go full on bonkers with it and see what we can do and just let it run.
And it’s, it’s, is it cathartic to have that kind of an outlet?
Allen: Yeah. So, because, you know, not, not saying that, you know, we don’t have fun or Brian doesn’t have fun with Pocus. I. And it’s not entirely tonally different but What we get to do with Horus Is just kind of turn our brains off And just make this wacky wild thing because you know with pocus and then we’ll get into this here in a little bit with grandma chainsaw we’re telling a story that is involving several characters at once.
This is just following Horus and just the the situations that he gets into so we get to take a lot more liberties and get to just You know because we have to be really careful like again, we’ll talk about this later But with grandma chainsaw, you know, we it’s not like we were just throwing people to the wind We were carefully planning on okay.
This person will die here because of this This character will die here because of this with Horus. We have one character and yeah, we introduce other characters But it’s like we don’t care about them Like, we’re just here to have fun. Like, we don’t care what happens to it, we just gotta write it and just see what feels right.
Anthony: Yeah, that fun definitely, comes across I mean, it comes across in, obviously, everything that you, work on. That fun I mean, that’s, that’s why we’ve had you back on as many times as we have.
Doc: Yeah. I mean, there’s, look, we, we’re all about the entertainment anyway, and my selfishness, as you’ve probably heard me say, I don’t know if Anthony hasn’t joked used three times, I have this used like 300.
I, I always loved the idea that characters just go on. Like I, I can accept the idea that a story is never fully told. That is not a pet peeve of mine. And in all honesty, I don’t care about spoilers, whatever. It’s all good to me. But the first time you introduced Horus, I’m like, Oh, okay. We can go anywhere we want with this.
I, I love open world. Not just in gaming. I, I just love open. I don’t know what the literary equivalent is, but that’s, that’s what. That’s, I envision when I’m, I’m reading stuff like,
Allen: yeah, again, you know where he has that. You know not not to pull from our our campaign But from where he has that demented cartoon esque like saturday morning classic cartoon stuff Like we really just get to like I like the juxtaposition Of this this cute character that’s Horus and then just all this crazy stuff that’s happening around him Just I don’t know.
It’s just it’s so much fun. I don’t know all of it’s just fun
Anthony: yeah, and like I said that you know, it it plays well and again when you’re you’re dealing with A bunny who’s a, leader of a, of an army against, a bunch of angels. I mean, there’s really only two ways you can go there.
You can try and make it into this very serious story and really try to say something, go, you know, like Cerberus with it. Mm-Hmm. or Cerebus you know, with it. Or you can say. Screw it. We’re having fun. We’re just gonna go bonkers and throw logic and reason out the window. Just go with whatever looks funny. And that’s what you’ve done.
That’s it. You’ve only got those two options. There’s no middle ground because if you middle ground it, it’s going to fall flat. So you might as well embrace it. Have fun. Go nuts. And you know, hats off to you for, for doing that. And just saying, you know, screw it, we’re just going to go nuts. We’ll save some of the serious, character development, this, that, and the other for, for Pocus, Horus is just like the fun, cathartic thing.
Allen: Yeah, that’s, that’s exactly it. You know, we. Even when we are being relatively serious, like in POCUS we always try to never take ourselves too seriously because I, I, I think one of, one of our approach from everybody in the team is the, the world around us is so serious right now and there’s just so much going on.
No, no matter what you believe, whether, whether you’re left, right, in the middle, it, it doesn’t matter. Like, all of us on either side have something to complain about right now. And it’s just I, I just wanna create something that is just an escape for people. So if we’re not having fun writing it, I don’t think that you’ll be having fun reading it.
And at least if we can offer some reprieve to what’s happening around you, then I, I think that we’ve done our job and, and Horus and, and I like to think the other stories are, or, or they fall in mind with that ideology.
Anthony: Yeah. I like for, from this perspective you know that it’s. It’s a self contained story that you were saying earlier how, you just kind of created the ash can and you’re like, well, let’s just see what happens, just kind of throw it out there and see what works and, oh, okay, we hit something here.
But I like that it’s, it’s still remains self contained largely that it’s, a four, four part series. Because I think, Those limitations help and you can correct me if I’m wrong, but I think the limitations kind of help give you, I don’t want to say freedom, but it’s limitations breed creativity.
Allen: Yeah, definitely. Because what was cool about it was when we’re trying to construct Horus in, in this crazy, crazy ass world is. We also wanted it to To be independent of Pocus because we wanted to write the story to where You don’t have to read Pocus to be able to enjoy horus And you know, we have a lot of people who have backed horus and don’t back Pocus like they they probably could care less About the story of Pocus.
They want horus and hey, I get that like I I hear you. I see you I feel you I value you I get it but You know, we, we still keep in mind whenever we’re constructing this, the, the confines of the world that we’ve already built with Pocus. Because in our minds, the, the story of Horus takes place somewhere between Pocus Hocus number one and two.
So we really try to make sure we go in knowing that in our timeline because I’d like to think that the story for Pocus is following a pretty straightforward linear path to where we want to get to and yeah, we want Horus to be this crazy side one off series, but we’re respecting what we’ve done with the groundwork beforehand.
And it’s actually able, you know, enabled us to be able to, to tell the story this way, and then maybe we can even revisit it in Pocus Hocus at some form, and we can allude back to some of the stuff that Horus went through in this.
Anthony: Nice. I like that, you know, and I’m glad to hear that it’s not just, we’re doing this off on the side and it’s unrelated to all the other
Allen: stuff. Yeah, no, I’ve always took this as, this is, this is part of the canon for, for the focus
Anthony: story. Yeah. All right.
Doc: Yeah, that’s much appreciated then
Allen: Yeah, I just I don’t know.
I love the world that we’re all creating And i’m just so happy that you guys are all on the journey with us for this whether it be for this or for grandma Chainsaw or just any of the other crap that we have coming up like yeah, it’s just
Anthony: it’s great And and you do have you know quite a bit of stuff, that that you’re working on.
So, let’s kind of touch on some of that then. I know you had mentioned a little bit Earlier, I don’t remember if it was pre roll or not that you’re working on grandma chainsaw the next oh, what’s that four?
Allen: It’s the last The last that makes me so sad Yeah, it’s actually in production right now.
Yeah, I’m going to miss, I’m going to miss old Hazel.
Anthony: So how, how’s that how’s that coming along?
Allen: Man, it’s, it’s great, but this is our first series that we have. That’s coming to an end. And it’s kind of crazy because like, you know, we’ve, we’ve, it’s been just about three years now that Brian started drawing Pocus One.
So it’s just kind of crazy to think about, like, we already have all these issues and we’re actually wrapping up our first mini series. So for those of you who don’t know the title for Grandma Chainsaw is pretty self explanatory. It’s, it’s a serial killer grandma with a chainsaw, and Doc thought he was going to hate the book, and I appreciate his honesty.
Yeah,
Doc: yeah. It wasn’t, well, it wasn’t a matter of hating, it was more like, okay, I’ll, I’ll get through this once and not really think much about it, and then Then all the other characters arrive and it’s it’s like I’m i’m in
Allen: yeah you know and that was something to like with all these ideas you know doc we’ve talked about this ad nauseum, too With all these ideas that we have for these stories it’s it’s something That we recognize that we’re not telling the most original story, you know the, the Faustian tale of focus done a million times the slasher trope.
I mean, you can find it everywhere. Like if you go to Tubi, oh my God, you know, it’s just like as ridiculous of the ideas as you can get. And I think they call it I think they call it hag horror is what it is. Whenever you have a, an elderly person, that’s kind of like your, your villain. Yeah. You know, We’re doing that with with grandma chainsaw you know, it’s but I I like to try to think it’s the stuff that we do around it that makes it fun and unique you know with grandma chainsaw, we we went in early and I don’t know if we undersell it Whenever we try to pitch it because I don’t want to really give too much away, you know, just obviously on here I You know spoilers We probably are going to get into some stuff on it But I I wanted to people to be excited and surprised whenever they opened up and read the first issue Because if we just had a grandma running around with a chainsaw just killing people I would i’d be afraid that it would just get boring after a while And then, you know, we have to know when to end the series because I don’t want a Jason takes Manhattan situation on our hands where, you know, the story is just getting like, this is, you know, these, these guys should have stopped at issue three, right?
Something like that. So yeah, I’m just trying to be smart about how we throw little surprises at you with, with every issue that we
Anthony: make over here. Okay. Well, I’m, I’m looking forward to it. Looking forward to, you know, grandma chance on number four. Been thoroughly enjoying the series as I know doc has as well.
And his daughter Yes you know and he’s he’s read it I I gave him all the stuff where this isn’t like, you know Six months later and he still hasn’t gotten his his stuff. So he’s got it. I gave it to him We’re done at
Allen: the end of issue three We we give a pretty big heavy hand on where this thing’s going.
Yeah, and we Here’s the thing. I think we we all decided early like we we knew how the how the book was going to end and Even introducing the dead squad. I think it was one of the things where Either you’re with us or you’re not Like, you know, we introduced the dead squad early and it’s like if you guys like it great If not, i’m, so sorry, but they’re not going anywhere And that’s how we felt about the the ending too.
Like if you guys the people who like it, we hope love it And if the people who look at this thing like this was ridiculous, it’s like, well, you did pick up a book called Grandma Chainsaw. I dunno what else you expect, right?
Anthony: Yeah. I mean it’s definitely all there in the title Uhhuh. You know, it’s, it’s like snakes on a plane. Like, yeah. Need that title? You know what you’re getting.
Yeah. So, I mean, if, if you pick up a book called Grandma Chainsaw and go, well, this was not what I expected. I mean, it’s, it’s what it says on the tin. Yeah. Right there. Right there. That’s on you. So, all right. So you, you’ve got the, you know, Grandma Chainsaw, the finale that, you know, someone’s going to put Hazel and the old folks home.
Allen: That’s the ending. Hazel just goes to a retirement community. Yeah, that’s it.
Anthony: Yeah, that’s it. Yeah. It’s actually, she
Doc: finally started taking her meds. That’s good.
Allen: She’s really got a shuffleboard at this point.
Anthony: There you go. Yeah. Mahjong.
Allen: And so, yeah, one thing though, that we’re, we’re super excited about is Once we’re done with grandma now, I sound like what row are those crappies here?
like once we’re done with grandma, we’re going back to the world of Pocus. So we have Pocus six that’s going to be coming out and it couldn’t be more more thrilled to get back into it because we love the story of Pocus but it’s one of those things where you know, we’re bouncing between grandma Pocus grandma Pocus, but then Once we got to after grandma two, we kind of made the decision.
We’re like, all right, let’s just end it like we’re We only have two more issues You Let’s just let’s just do it and on the on the grandma campaign for number four We are going to have the trade paperback and I I i’m hoping that that will pull a lot of people into the series Because I I know kickstarter it operates within its own ecosystem And campaigns are all unpredictable.
You can’t judge what campaign success off the last campaign i’m, just really hoping that people people come in for this because I I think that there’s something there Honestly, for just about everybody, if you like dark comedy, horror, I mean, just crazy characters, even if you might like horrors, you might like this, you know, like, it’s just, I don’t know, I just, I’m really proud of the work that everyone’s done on this series.
Anthony: As well, you should be, you know, I mean, obviously all credit goes to, the art team and, and you’ve really been, I think, fortunate As, as writers to have such fantastic artwork across all the titles, whether it’s Kit, whether it’s Brian, you know, whoever you’ve got on, on your series from, from pencils to inks to colors, it all works and it all very much feels cohesive and that’s not something that every.
Writer can say, you know, I mean at least for my perspective There’s plenty of books that i’ve got in my collection and plenty of books that i’ve read where I love the writing the artwork is kind of meh or yeah, the artwork is gorgeous But the story is like kind of just you know passe or it just seems rote or or tired you Are are very lucky and I hope you acknowledge and realize how lucky you are, dude Every I’m sure you do, but to have that consistent quality across all the titles that that you’ve released so far.
Now, I know you said you got more stuff in the hopper and we can talk about that in a little bit. And I know that at least you know, in, in some of those books, you’re, you’re continuing to collaborate with the folks that you’ve already worked with. So I, I envision that you know, that the work will and the quality will continue.
But So I guess we’ll, we’ll segue then of the stuff, and I, I don’t know how much you can or can’t announce of the stuff that you’ve got in the hopper, is there anything you’ve got with new Artists or somebody that you haven’t worked with before. Yeah,
Allen: so we You know, I don’t want to say the word clubhouse but I I do like to try to keep keep a tight knit circle of of artists that I love working with just because it’s obviously it’s a respect issue and it’s it helps me stay focused Because whenever we go to write a story we always take into account the skill set of the artist And I I think that that’s important because I I don’t want the artists to be out of their comfort zone.
I mean a little bit Yeah, because like I want you know, like brian, we’re always trying to push brian and brian’s always trying to push us Whether he knows it or not, and that’s that’s great. I think But you know, there’s a cover artist that we’ve used for for grandma chainsaw On two issues now his name’s ruben mosho and He he’s such an incredible artist and his style.
He’s I call him a chameleon because he blends so well like you could pick up a book by him and not know it’s him It’s it’s just like one of those like how does your brain function like that that you could blend so on the horrors campaign we have a book on there. You can read the first eight pages for free, but chapter one’s done It’s called the herald and It’s a western so it’s my first it’s my first time writing a western which is crazy but ruben approached me with this story About a stranger that comes into a town and he has to retrieve an item and The mystery around it is really cool.
And obviously we know where the whole thing’s going But he wanted to tell this Supernatural story that felt larger Than the environment that it was taking place in and this this thing goes in all kinds of crazy locations and just all these different scenarios But so, you know with ruben it was a no brainer to to want to work with him on a project like this you know with brian and kit, obviously, you know, I I want to keep those guys busy like I I just love working with them so much and it just once you get comfortable with people like this It’s just it’s great because everyone’s just feeding off of each other like, You know you I I send a page to brian I send a page to kit They don’t send a preview page back or an outline page anymore.
It’s just here’s the finished page after a couple days, right? And it’s just I don’t know they just get it. They they know what we’re looking for. But at the same time We we write the scripts and tailor them in a way where we give them as much freedom as possible too because I I feel like if they can’t express themselves And they’re too worried about what we’re saying then we’re not a team anymore It’s just me trying to tell a story And they just happen to be drawing it, right?
I I want them to tell the story as much as we’re telling
Doc: Incredible value of trust there. That’s
Allen: yeah, 100 percent man you know and the same thing goes with ruben like And how ruben likes to do this stuff because ruben’s also the artist and the the creator and co writer on the herald He he did it the marvel way and I had to really rewire my brain He drew the book first and then we wrote it.
Huh? so That was hard that was very harsh to do it that way, but it was fun You know what? I mean because like I got to see what was coming out of his head first And then we just made it fit because he knew what he wanted for the story. Okay. It’s like, okay Well now how do we get this dialogue across with what you’ve already drawn?
so yeah, it was just kind of a cool thing to do and again his approach was great because you know, if you go to our campaign and just click the link that has the The herald cover on it in the add on section Style what he did for it. He wanted it to look like it was from that time period And he made all the colors very flat So dude hats off, you know, i’ve seen this guy he can color he can do everything But he just wanted it to look like it was from that time period.
He wanted bold colors You know if you see a light on something It’s not like you know, this the the lighting is coming from it. It was just a square that goes across it You know, it’s just, I don’t know. It was, it was just cool. I just think it’s for everyone to see the full launch whenever we got to do this later.
Anthony: So do you have a rough timeframe then on when that book will, will be hitting Kickstarter? Yeah. So we know when to clear our schedule to have you
Allen: back on. Yeah. It’s actually going to be our next campaign. So as soon as Horus is done and fulfilled, we’re, we’re doing the Herald. Now on this campaign, we are offering an exclusive cover.
Which is this one it will be foil embossed for the logo on the book and it’s going to be numbered So it’s just kind of a way like I said the the book’s already done and it’s kind of great going and knowing that so Yeah, I think i’ll be able to ship that book early. So for those of you who do back it You’ll probably get that separate from your Horus campaign just so that I feel comfortable launching, you know, the independent one By itself instead of being like, well, I pre ordered on the Horus campaign, but Horus hasn’t shipped yet, you know, because we still, we still have a little bit of way to go for Horus because Kit, he’s, he’s working on it, obviously, but he took a vacation to go to Japan for three weeks, can’t fault him for that, you know, so, yeah, enjoy your vacation, man.
You, you’ve, you’ve definitely earned it.
Anthony: No, you get back here and you chain your ass to the desk
Allen: and
Anthony: you draw Horus. You draw Horus. I’m gonna glue the pencil in your hand. God damn it.
Allen: Whether you like it or not, I don’t want you to enjoy your
Anthony: time. No, no, all, all, all the best to Kit. Enjoy the, enjoy the vacation.
He’s definitely earned it. So, You guys always have really cool stuff with your kickstarters. Not just the opportunity to go ahead and catch up on anything that you’ve missed. We’ve spoken about this numerous times, at some point, every kickstarter is going to be somebody’s first introduction to your work.
So aside from the whole, you know, back catalog, et cetera, et cetera, what are some of the fun add ons and incentives you got for, for this? Campaign. Oh,
Allen: dude. The coolest thing on this one is the the collector’s box. I love that thing so much and the The t shirt i’m a sucker for t shirts.
So we we took Horus from the from the cover of issue one where he’s charging with the battle axe and we just put that on the t shirt Just so you can show your battle ready Horus off to your friends
Anthony: Love the image and it’s definitely It’s, it’s definitely gonna get worn. And I, you know, I, I wear the shirts out in public sometimes. I’ve, I’ve worn the Dead Society shirt out. I’ve worn . People are like, what the hell other pocus stuff out. And I haven’t yet been approached, but I’m always hoping that someone will see it and we haven’t done our job then.
That’s, that’s an awesome
Allen: shirt. Even the Eat Slay love shirt, no one said anything.
Anthony: Yeah yeah, I don’t remember. I, I, I definitely, I don’t remember where I’ve worn them. I’ve worn them all out in public. I, I just don’t recall. Yeah, no one’s ever approached me.
Allen: I’m fed up with the shirt.
Anthony: I’m sorry.
Allen: It’s all right.
Doc: It’s all right. You still have your dignity and respect, even if it just is the two of us. And that’s it.
Anthony: I’m, I’m sorry, I, I’m not gonna blame the shirts. I’m not sexy enough to
Allen: No, you’re, that’s, you’re too sexy for the shirt. Mm.
Anthony: I’m too sexy. The shirt for the Too sexy. The shirt too sexy. It hurts. Yeah. No, I, I, you know, I, I backed it.
Of course, and, and looking forward to to getting the shirt and and all the other stuff associated with it. Obviously, I skipped past all of the back catalogs. I’m like, oh, I, I’ve already got that. I’ve, I’ve got an entire, you’ve got several issues of everything. I’ve got several issues of everything.
Which I appreciate you always, always hooking us up with, with the good stuff. I see that, Allen and Will have a, have a new Kickstarter. And then, you know, I start scratching my arm cause my blood itches and I’m just like,
Oh, you don’t got any more of them comics?
Allen: No obviously, you know, you guys never have to back it, but we always appreciate it. And, you know, this is it’s a hobby, but it’s also a passion project for everything that we do because we want to put our all into it. That’s why we always try to be really selective about the projects that we’re doing, because I don’t know if I have the capacity or the brain space just to be a script mill.
And I admire anyone that can. But for me with work and life and all this stuff like, you know, it’s just one of those things where we we try to be very careful About what we’re doing
Anthony: Yeah, and and I can tell you from experience you know and knowing what what you’ve got You know other non comic Projects you’ve got coming up.
Very very soon. Your life is about to change sir Drastically In
Allen: the
Anthony: next You know, months, months to six weeks. Yeah.
Doc: Yeah, it’s Oh, it’s a, it’s an amazing challenge. Congratudolances. Hey, thanks
Allen: man. And and I was even stupid enough. I I started going back to school, so I’m working on my PhD right now.
So, okay,
Doc: wait, wait, wait. All right. That’s burying the lead, dude.
Anthony: Yeah, seriously, how the hell we go this far into the process and this far in the interview and you keep that You keep that nugget until like we’re like 40 minutes in
Allen: I well, it’s because I I never want to be that guy, you know, I mean I’m getting my phd It’s like no one cares, right?
You know what I mean? But yeah, so i’m working. i’m working online right now for my phd. Look
Doc: Game, okay Anybody that goes doctorate level anything be it jurist doctor be it medical doctor be it ed doctor. That’s my wife. Whatever like This is hardcore, man.
Anthony: What, what what are you going
Allen: for? I’ll have a PhD in health education and promotion with an emphasis in population health.
Doc: Thank you.
Anthony: Okay. Yep. Okay.
Allen: So I’ll be I’ll be that guy that will be able to, that I go in at a I guess at a state level, county level, or a, I guess. Just a nation level. I could do it that way, too. And you look at health disparities that are happening through certain regions, like
Doc: Stay. In. West.
Virginia. For the love of
God, please! For the love of my
God, stay in West Virginia! My, my
Allen: thesis right now that I’m starting to develop is just health disparities. From rural territories versus their metropolitan neighbors or city, neighbors just because They’re it’s it’s crazy mortality rates that affect rural populations that don’t affect metropolitan areas Yep.
Yep. So if people haven’t fallen asleep yet We’re going back now to talk about comic books
Doc: Yeah Forget all the things that actually are going to impact the well being of society at large We need to talk about all the stuff related to horror
Allen: and yeah
Anthony: Yeah, never never mind people dying out, you know in areas because they’re you know, 45 minutes removed from any major health care providers Let’s talk about a homicidal pink bunny rabbit.
Yeah, or
Allen: Or you know because mobile health clinics don’t really exist in a lot of rural territories so people getting blood work or even a simple mammogram isn’t Yep.
Doc: Healthy, healthy food and pharmacy deserts, you know? Like, yeah. Mm
Allen: hmm. Yeah. Yeah. Yes. Hmm. Yes. Here is her. Here is her. Yeah.
Doc: Gotta love it.
Anthony: Gotta love capitalism. Yep. Oh my goodness. It’s the greatest, freest country in the world, right folks? Huh. Oh
Allen: God, I could talk about this stuff all day.
Anthony: Oh yeah, let’s, let’s not. That’s,
Doc: and so, and as you can tell, so could we, yeah.
Anthony: So could we, but we won’t because that’s, that’s not what the purpose of this podcast.
And although I wonder sometimes, you know, we’re always like, oh, we, you know, we’d lose listeners. Would we, I dunno if we just, like, it would,
Allen: we should do a Patreon episode you know, kind of where, where we get in, we could, I mean, we could, we could do a Patreon episode where we get into that stuff. So, hey.
And get, get feedback that way. And then there’ll be the, there’ll be the test audience.
Anthony: All right. Sure. Just as if I don’t have enough stuff on my plate, I’ve literally got my, my Trello open with like all the other things that I want to work on for the podcast and, you know, different I mean, we just announced with, with last week’s Julia Carpenter episode, we’re like, Oh, with our sixth anniversary coming up, we’re going to be introducing a new pillar a new sub series within the capes on the couch umbrella, that you know, we’re working on so but you know, yeah, sure Let’s yeah. Okay. Perfect. Got you.
Allen: I signed you up
Anthony: Let’s throw politics and you know health care and all this other stuff in the mix. Sure. Why not? It’ll be it’ll be fine Yeah, it’ll be fine.
It’s good. Whatever everything’s fine. It’s pain so We’ll have all the links to you know, we’ll have the link to the Kickstarter and the show notes. Where else can folks find you on online aside from, you know, regularly appearing on our, our program? So
Allen: you can find me on Hex, Twitter, however, wherever you stand on it.
At chapsoffury our newsletter thetophatstudios. substack. com. And then now you can find us all over anything Bad Bug related. So just go to badbugmedia. com and, or just shoot an email to any one of the guys and you know, we’ll be more than happy to, to facilitate whatever you guys
Anthony: need.
That is fantastic. And so, you know, best of luck to you. Like I said, we’ll you know, we’ll get this up before the before the Kickstarter officially closes. As of this recording it’s got 11 days to go. You’ve already passed your goal several times over, but obviously you’ve got stretch goals and, other, other things. And it’s always just, you know, it’s, it’s a continuous thing to see how much more successful each one can, can build off the last. And it’s always fun to bring you back here and talk about these things and just compare and contrast and in a, in a fun. Non competitive way and just see okay, you know, how much how much bigger can you make this one?
How much Can you grow the next one, you know? Yeah,
Allen: and that’s the thing. We’re always trying to push ourselves even you know, we talked about like from a creative standpoint, but also for a business standpoint, too and it’s just like I said, the feedback from everybody has just been Been mind blowing and we we really hope to continue that so from the bottom of my heart will’s heart everyone else on the team Just just thank you guys for being a part of our crazy ass ideas
Anthony: anytime, man Absolutely.
Any time. I mean, you know, there, there’s a reason why we brought you back as many times as we have. And it’s not just, you know, for your, your stunning good looks and your sexy tattoos. I do,
Allen: I do have a lot of those, I got too many of them, I think.
Anthony: No such thing. No, no such thing. No, no. I’m already my wife and I both said this year we’re getting new ink.
It’s, it’s on our to do list for the year. So she’s got, you know, one or two ideas planned. I’ve got some ideas planned. And, you know, I always say my fundraising goals for my extra life, I’m going to get the extra life logo tattooed on my body somewhere. So. Yeah, it’s good stuff, man.
And you know, it’s obviously, it’s always a pleasure to chat with you and looking forward to more insanity hilarity, grotesque, horror, comedy, all of the, the wonderful mixture that that you and your cohorts bring our way. It is, as I said it’s always fun. To chat with you and to read whatever it is that you got working on.
I
Allen: appreciate it guys. Thank
Anthony: you all Yeah, so you can catch all of our episodes, on our website capes on the couch. com you can do a search for Allen and will as they’ve got kind of their own little sub Category, under the the creators on the couch just from the sheer number of times that we’ve we’ve had them on so we are also on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, TikTok and Threads, ad capes on the couch.
We’re proud members of the Gonna Geek Network. You can go to gonna geek network com. And check out some of the other sister shows on the network. I know that I’ll be recording some stuff with Chris from Play Comics very soon. I know Doc will as well. And that’s it, you know, just join the discord, check the links in the show notes and, and join the discord, join the fan community.
If you really like what you hear and you want to support the show go over to patreon. com slash capes on the couch, and then click the link there and subscribe. You can unlock early access, additional content, uncensored material, all kinds of good stuff there. And as I said you know, we’ll have the, the links up in the show notes to to the, the Horus and Hell 2 Kickstarter which will be ending Friday, March 8th at 10 PM.
So if you haven’t already go and support Allen and Will and their, their fantastic works. And You know, especially send the money because Allen’s gonna need it. He’s got a baby on the way and he is got the PhD, so yeah, he’s he’s gonna be, he’s gonna be hemorrhaging money. . Yeah. Very, very soon.
Allen: My God, if only I could launder it.
Anthony: I mean, you know, you can throw your wallet in the wash, but I don’t think that really that really does it for you. Yeah.
Allen: You know, you’re right. I did that once and didn’t work out.
Anthony: Yeah, yeah, just ends up stripping the magnetic thing off your credit card and you just have to get a new one anyway.
Allen: And I was just a soggy bottom boy after that.
Anthony: Oh, I am too a man of constant sorrow in this day and age. For Allen Dunford, Doc Issues, I’m Anthony Sytko. Thanks so much for listening. We’ll see you next time.