Jeremy Whitley – Navigating With You
Anthony: Hello and welcome to Capes on the Couch where comics get counseling. I’m Anthony Sytko.
Doc Issues: And I’m Dr. Issues.
Anthony: We are back with another Creators on the Couch episode, and we are bringing back to the show for the fourth time, fourth time, fourth time, fourth time, the hilarious and fantastic Mr.
Jeremy Whitley. Jeremy, thank you so much once again for taking the time to meet with us.
Jeremy Whitley: Oh, thank you. I guess one more time and I get a free sandwich, right?
Anthony: Yeah, you know, we do joke about the five timers club. So we’ll we’ll get something for you for next go round but you know, we’ll figure out what that is You get the little punch card and so yeah, one more you get a free sandwich or we’ll figure something out So if you haven’t gone back and listened to the first three times that Jeremy has been on the show, Jeremy was actually our first creator that we ever interviewed on the show way back when we talked to him about Nadia Van Dyne and Unstoppable Wasp.
And then I got to interview him again at New York Comic Con. So we’re calling that the second time and then was about a year ago earlier this year. I forget exactly whenever it was Yeah, yeah about a year ago for the Dog Knight and he is back because he’s got a new original graphic novel that is dropping august 13th, so So you know by the time this episode comes out it will have been out a couple of weeks already But the book is called navigating with you and it is a A fantastic story and doc and I are going to get into all of the reasons why It is not just a not just a great story on its own, but how it is very personal to each of us in in very different reasons.
But but first off Jeremy man, how have you been? What are you up to since the Dog Knight? Since we talked to you about a year ago
Jeremy Whitley: Oh, you know working frantically, trying to stay afloat. I had the second volume of school for extraterrestrial girls come up. I’ve been some pony stuff I’ve been working on actually the next volume of the Dog Knight, which will hopefully be out sometime in 2025.
We’re, we’re working our way on that one. Yeah, and then obviously obviously this navigating with you, but also a lot of a lot of other things cooking.
Anthony: Okay. Okay, we we talked enough careers. We know you can’t always reveal everything You know, it hasn’t been formally announced by the publisher or for legal reasons this that or the other But first off very glad to hear that volume two of the Dog Knight is coming out something You know the follow up to that universe Please definitely go and listen to that episode.
We, we had a lot of fun with it and I’ve got the book somewhere, somewhere over yonder on my shelf over there. So yeah, thoroughly enjoyed that. And, and definitely looking forward to the next installment in that universe, because I just think it’s such a, such a cool idea and it was just very set up very well and Looking to see the further adventures of the Pawtheon, especially the little Batman dog.
I forget the, I forget the name, but the
Yorkshire Terror,
Anthony: the Yorkshire Terror. That’s it. Yep. Yeah. So good. So good. The Bark Knight, if you
will. Yeah. I love those characters. I love you know I love getting to make all the dog puns, but also I love Frankie, or, you know, Non binary protagonists getting to play around with their world and we get to see a lot more of that in the next one.
Getting to see what, what it means to be the dog knight and what, what kind of stuff they’re going to have to actually deal with now that, you know, at the end of the first book, it’s, they’re, they’re officially the dog knight. Now they have to actually do the hard stuff.
Yeah. Yeah. You got the origin story out of the way and now you can really get into the meat of it.
So finding out what it means to carry that mantle. And we will certainly bring you back on to talk about Dog Knight volume two or whatever the title is going to end up being or you know, the Dog Knight returns or whatever. Okay.
Jeremy Whitley: Chaos bites back.
Anthony: Nice. Nice. I like it. I like it.
But we are here to talk navigating with you which is another another YA story. And specifically the, the teenage high school age. And we’ve, we’ve spoken before on, on the show about how YA is such a catch all term that really doesn’t ultimately mean anything. It’s basically just, oh, it’s not about grownups, then it’s YA.
You know, it’s either for kids or grownups or YA and then very little in between. So this is this is firmly in the teenager, the high school age. Story what the first question I have is what was the impetus for this particular story?
Jeremy Whitley: So I was talking to maverick, which is part of mad cave about doing something with them and we wanted to do a Romance story that sort of they really wanted to do a romance story that revolved around fandom.
And I sort of took that and ran with it. I was like, you know, i’d love to do that That sounds like a lot of fun. I have a lot of personal experience. I think from Being in comics of having people come up to my table and be super excited about stuff They’ve made all these, great important relationships Thanks to this book or that book, you know, unstoppable wasp princeless stuff like that where people have really connected over these things so it was a great starting point for me and for me, I was like, all right from From start one I was like Can it be gay?
That’s the, that’s the first thing is like, if we’re doing a YA romance, there’s plenty of YA romances out there. I’d like for it to, you know, be a queer story. And I’d like to tell a story with, characters that we don’t always see in romantic leads. So, you know, specifically from there. I wanted to bring together these, these two characters of Nisha and Gabby, who are both, you know, young women of color who both have complicated lives in some ways.
They both moved to the, same area in North Carolina from two different places and each of them have a some different stuff that they’re dealing with including, you know, disability. So that was, that was the big thing for me is I wanted to, I wanted to use some of the.
Information, some of the contacts that I had made making Wasp when it came to disability including my, one of the readers I had had, you know, working on Wasp, which we created a character in that who had cerebral palsy. I’ve always wanted to do more with that character, but, you know, Marvel only has so many things they’re actually interested in doing.
So I was like, well, if, you know, we’re doing this romance story let’s, you know, let’s do the story we want to do here. Let’s, you know, Bring bring us back together and then do something something original and, and big and fun and different. So I wanted to tell this romance story that circulates around all this fun, nerdy stuff, but also deals with a lot of.
Complex life stuff as well.
Anthony: Yeah. And, and it is incredibly well meshed, when you have a situation where you are trying to tie together all of these various components to the story and to the characters, things can either feel heavy handed because you’re focusing too much on it, or you can give it short shrift because there’s not enough room and.
You can only fit so many things into the story. I really think that this is very well balanced in terms of each of the different facets to Nisha and Gabby. And I just, I really appreciated it. Like I said, from, from that perspective and, As Doc and I, as I was explaining the story to Doc, you know, cause to get a little bit of a backstory, I was tweeting about this.
I saw, it was about a week prior to this interview, I saw that Jeremy was Posting on, on Twitter I, I’m sorry, I refuse to call it by its other name. I know that’s dead naming, but in this instance, I’m okay with it. And he was like, you know, I’ve got this new book coming out and everything. And so I, I shared it and then Jeremy and I got to talking and one thing led to another.
So I started chatting with Doc about it last week. And in going over the, basically the synopsis, Doc and I said, holy smoke this is us. Yeah, yeah. I mean, they’re girls. It’s a romance thing, but there’s so much of this that is very personal and very real to just me and Doc and our friendships.
Doc Issues: Yeah, this was incredible to read because, I mean, I read the synopsis and I’m thinking to myself, I’m like Oh, I can see the parallels and I do have a, like Also on a different angle where this became very personal to me and, and the way some of the things that were described that I’ll, I’ll rip the bandaid off.
I basically described some of the things that I went through with my own relationship, my own marriage and things like that. And so I’m like, Oh, this is, this is just hitting every level now.
Anthony: Yeah, because you’ve got, two people that meet in high school and you have the one person who’s very extroverted and then you have the other person who’s like, I’m just kind of doing my thing and the extrovert is like, no, you’re cool.
We’re going to be friends now, whether you want it or not. And if you can’t figure out which is which, then this must be your first episode listening to the show and you have no idea who the hell we are. Yeah.
Doc Issues: Says, you know, as, as the guy with the, still with the suit and everything, that lets Tony run everything this hit heavy on that end, and then also when you add in the cerebral palsy part, because my wife has cerebral palsy, and When we first started dating and really started talking, and she talked about some of the things that she went through, and some of the expectations, all these other things.
And as I’m reading this book, I’m like, oh my, this hits, how do I put this? It’s not that it is the major point of the story, because it’s not. But the fact that it ties in with how she navigates. Each of the relationships that she’s had, and she even goes over and flashbacks, like how, like how things have turned out and why she made the decisions she made.
And I’m like, my, Oh my, the, the psychology behind it is spot on. And I’m just saying, I really appreciated that.
Jeremy Whitley: Yeah. I mean, that was a, that was a big thing for me. Cause when we were doing unstoppable wasp, I created the character of Taina and that who had cerebral palsy, and it was a sort of thing that like, She was one of a whole bunch of characters they were introducing at the time, so initially I hadn’t gone into sort of great detail as far as Figuring things out with all, all the bits and pieces of, of how her life worked.
And then as we were doing the second volume I had met a, a fan of the book who was very excited about being in it and having representation of somebody with cerebral palsy in a, a comic who’s Reed, who’s thanked in the book. And Qua volunteered to, you know, sort of. You know, reading and giving notes on WASP for me and helped me out with some of the stuff around Tyena and the second volume.
And I’d always wanted to do more work with, with Quade and with Tyena. And you know, that didn’t always pan out, but in this case, it was like, it was a great opportunity to bring somebody in to, to talk about this stuff. And we had some other, consulting with other readers and people who were interested in this, who, you know, also had cerebral palsy and dealt with this stuff.
I think the biggest thing that I wanted to make sure of is I, I didn’t want it to be, I mean, obviously it’s something that she’s been dealing with for most of her life at this point. So it wasn’t something that I wanted to make it about her disability, but I think something that a lot of people who.
Who aren’t dealing with physical disabilities don’t think about is just the thousands of ways that it affects you just on a day to day basis that the little things that are different, the things that people say to you, the way that people look at you the way the things that people assume about you just day to day that, you know, those people don’t even necessarily think about, but, there are a million little, you know, Pin pricks when you’re going about your day and to have those things sort of integrated in there and then to have some, some stuff that was specific to some of the people we talked to while, while working on it, like the I, one thing that multiple people said to me when they were talking about using wheelchairs is the number of people who would just one, either push them without asking you know, Would we just move the chair with them in it?
Or people would just like use their chair as a prop to like hang stuff on or, or whatever in places just while they were sitting in this chair just, you know, not treat it like it was somebody’s, only mode of conveyance and, an extension of their physical body.
Anthony: Yeah, there’s, there’s definitely a lot to it. And in speaking with various people with, with different disabilities and, and things of that nature, you. You can’t look at it as, Oh, it’s a chair, you know, because it’s one thing if if for for those of us that are, you know, able bodied to just rest on the chair or you know, you lean on the chair You put something on just a regular four legged chair You can’t view a wheelchair like that.
It is an extension of the person. And so if you wouldn’t do it to a person don’t do it to the chair. It was something that I wasn’t really aware of, you know, again, it’s the type of thing you just, you know, I hate to say it, but you take stuff for granted like that.
But when you talk to the people that don’t have those privileges it becomes quickly apparent just how many assumptions, you know, to your point, you know, a million little pinpricks, just all these different little things. And thank you for acknowledging what I’m going to call, and I’m sure there’s another better term for it, but like disability tragedy porn.
Where it’s, oh, the woe is me or the flip side to that is the, the beatification of caretakers that, you must be, you know, a wonderful person for having to, to cope with this and whatever, like, just stop. Can we, can we just stop that? So, thank you for acknowledging it without falling victim to it.
Like, there’s, there’s nods to it in the story that, that Nisha talks about. You know, to that point where people, you know, look at her differently or, you know, in the case of the, the one thrift shop, she takes advantage of it, the older woman, she’s like, oh, you know, I know I’m, if I go in there on the crutches, you know, she’s going to be like, Unfully intended tripping over herself to help me, you know, with this, and that allows Gabby to go in and, and get the book.
So I just I, I appreciated that. Part of it that, you know, again, you, you kind of tipped your hat to it. And you’re like, this is the thing, but we’re not going to go there.
Jeremy Whitley: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I’ve wanted to, I wanted to touch on a lot of that stuff. I wanted to show sort of the diversity of the ways in which, you know both the ways that Nisha’s disability affects her, but also the ways she, she deals with it.
It was not something that I wanted to you know, land on in that, that disability porn kind of way that you’re talking about of, of, you know, poor baby, this, this, and that it’s just, it’s part of life. It’s something she has to deal with. And you know, I, I think I wanted to make sure, you know, this is something that I think has been the case with a lot of my, my friends who are disabled, that like you sort of, so you show the ways in which people deal day to day with disability differently.
I mean, in that, you know, people don’t always. they don’t always use the same ways, things to assist them, or in the same methods of conveyance. You know, she has braces, but she also, you know, sometimes uses a chair. She sometimes uses the leg braces, but she sometimes uses the arm crutches as well.
You know, so it’s it’s A variety and there’s I feel like enough in there for you to understand what she’s doing and why she’s doing it, but It isn’t something that I it was there necessarily to for it to be like an educational point for the audience and then we’re not It’s not a book about teaching people about disability
Anthony: Yeah, but but the first you know in the very beginning of the book the interaction that she has with the principal where her He is kind of, I guess, the avatar of that mindset of, you know, Oh, you don’t look disabled and, you know, or, or that maybe was another character.
But, but his was the, you know, Oh, you’re disabled. So I put you in all the remedial classes because you’re disabled. So you couldn’t possibly be intelligent. You know, and then, Oh, and then he backpedals real fast on all of that. And and then you have Gabby, who is dealing. You know, with her own grief and, and PTSD and doc, since you’re the professional, I’ll kind of let you you know, get into some of that without, again, we’re trying not to get into too many spoilers here, which just look.
Doc Issues: The best way I could put it is that there are so many things that are outside of your control in life. And when you add it. happening at a young age there’s no one right way to handle it. And I don’t want to, I don’t want to come off as, as saying like, you know, well, as a doctor, this is what I would recommend.
Like, that’s not even the point. It’s just people need outlets for things when everyone around you or many people around you don’t seem to even comprehend what It is, that’s on your mind or how you can express it in a way that isn’t going to push people away. And, you know, being able to connect with others is, is wonderful.
And I’m glad that we see the how do I put it? We literally see the growth that happens when you’re able to take a step that you didn’t think you could take, where you can say, you know what, I, for some reason, think that I’m going to mess everything up, and I’m a horrible person, and this is all wrong, and, you know, just don’t even take the chance, and when someone else literally says, like, no, I’m here for you it, it really opens up the world, regardless of what’s happened in the past.
It’s not always about what’s happened before, it’s about what’s happening now. Who you’re with in the relationships you can develop now. So I think that’s really what my takeaway was reading through, because I know, I know this is a separate question, but like the fact that much of what they’re bonding over is a separate story that isn’t really that separate.
I think that’s really key to all of this. And you have, you know, a person that’s been fanboying for a long, long time, or fangirling, sorry, for, you know, in terms of gender, but just really into it. And then another person that is also into it, but didn’t really appreciate it the same way, and they both eventually just, like, dive in together.
I love everything about that, because sometimes you don’t have to know the right things to say or the right words to say. Or, or just even like how to fix things as they’re going wrong. It’s just, as long as we’re doing it together, we’ll be fine. And that I think is what I really took away from this.
That’s, that’s it. I’m not getting into specifics of, of, you know, negative events or accidents or, all the other stuff I just, you know, purposely keeping it vague, but it was well enough done that if I had a patient, like an adolescent, I, I don’t usually deal with children, but if I had someone that’s even in their, you know, early adult stages, I would recommend something like this because it really does show that nothing has to be perfect at any step.
Things can go wrong plenty of times and still be okay.
Jeremy Whitley: And that has a That’s the idea of using this this book to help somebody getting through other stuff has this nice sort of like dramatic irony to me as it’s also, you know, what they’re doing in the book is using another, you know, they’re using this book to help them get over you know, these, these other things that are happening in their lives.
Yeah, it’s it’s interesting to me what you were saying, because I feel like part of the challenge of this book is, is both of them are dealing as, you know, as most people do in high school with things that are way out of their control and are much bigger than themselves. You know, the, in, in. the divorce and moving of her parents and you know, the sort of not complete, but sort of loss of her dad and that, you know, he is now further away and she’s.
I think also realizing some things about him and his involvement or, or lack thereof in, in her life. And also, you know, Gabby’s is a much more severe loss of of people in her life and her home as well. You know, by even at the beginning, we find out that she is relocated to North Carolina because her, her home in Florida was, was flooded in a hurricane.
So, you know, she’s moved up there with her, her dad and her brothers. It’s it was important to me that this be a story where, like, they get better without things necessarily getting better, like the things that often don’t change in life. You know, your parents generally don’t get back together. And then, in fact, like, once they’re apart, you start to see, you know, a lot of the cracks more clearly.
And, you know, in the case of, you know, Gabby’s family, like, her family’s not. together. That’s not a thing that’s going to happen. And, you know Nisha’s is not going back to New York and when she does, it’s, it’s not the same, you know but it was important to me that, Things in the world don’t get better, but they get better in the way they’re dealing with them and feeling about them through, you know, through their connection and through their relationship.
Anthony: Yeah. Yeah, definitely. And, and the impact that Josh has on Gabby and I heard of, I see just, you, you just, his facial expression, he just had like a, you know, kind of, kind of look on his face. I mean, it’s, it was so real. To read some of the things that he was saying because I have experienced situations like that, like with, with friends of mine about partners that have taken that, that control over somebody and used, you know, negging and, and emotional manipulation to just keep this person down in one particular place.
Or, you know, for their own ego or control or whatever, whatever it is you want to call it. And just the, the way that he was so. It was just written so damn well. And then her development over the arc because of him, you know, he’s kind of like one of the instigating things and then it, it just, it grows and develops and just, just 10, 10, no notes, very well done.
I just, you know, I, I had to say that. So where, I guess, where did you come up with some of the stuff that Josh was going to say and, and do?
Jeremy Whitley: I mean, I, I feel like we have all experienced either in our own minds, having one of those relationships or having had a, like a good friend who’s, who’s in one of those.
And I think like, Seeing somebody that you know to be awesome in your life, who you know to be a great person, who like you’re You’re like people have every reason that they should love this person and treat them. Well, and then watching you know, they’re they’re significant other not do so in fact treat them like garbage is is Unfortunately as close to a universal experience as as many of us can get.
This is a, an amalgamation of a lot of different people and conversations and friendships. But I think the most specific one is I have some of the conversation about Gabby’s bisexuality is taken directly from my friend Sarah, who had the same, same issue with her husband at the time when she, she came out as, as bisexual and her Her husband had a very like dismissive.
No, that’s not a thing bisexuality doesn’t exist. Stance on things and the the idea of him not only like not only dismissing this entire part of her but like sending her Post scientific articles that prove that bisexuality is not a thing. It was just so like Like I I know this guy I hate this guy.
I made an active, choice to be far away from them. But it’s interesting to me because Hearing his reaction to josh because the first draft of the story josh actually appears and it is in it a lot more than just sort of we’ve sort of You Get him through the phone and sort of see his influence in, in the story as, as it came out, but like in the original draft, there was a, you know part where Josh came to visit at one point and like it was too much.
It was like too much. Too much of a horrible thing when it’s like, you know, you see people like this in real life and it’s like, ah, that’s horrible. But then when you actually project them in fiction, it just seems so much more horrible that you’re like, ah, people aren’t going to think this is realistic anymore, even though like, this is maybe the most realistic part of the story.
Anthony: Yeah, I think if there’s anything the last. Close to a decade or so has shown us it’s that reality is unrealistic. You can put all this stuff together and then say, you know, if you were writing this as a Hollywood movie or some type of fiction and tried to present this to like an editor or a publisher, they go, nah, nobody would buy this.
Nobody, nobody would, nobody really acts like this. You’re basically you know, like a mustache twirling villain You’d have to expect him to have, you know, somebody tied up to the railroad tracks, you know, like a snidely whiplash type deal. And yet here we are. So you know, he’s probably sharing, I don’t know, Jordan Peterson stuff to,
Jeremy Whitley: to Gabby, you know, and I’m sure, yeah, he’s probably a regular subscriber.
I, you know, it’s funny that, did you say that? Cause I, I remember thinking at one point that like. When when Donald Trump was originally running for president, I was like, it’s like somebody mixed up their Superman script. It’s like, you know, the Lex Luthor from Superman, the animated series, the Lex Luthor we know now, who’s a smart, ruthless businessman, that guy makes sense running for president.
The version we got is much more of the like gene hackman lex luther And I was like this doesn’t make any sense that this character would run for president. I don’t I don’t know He’s not even he’s not
Anthony: even gene hackman lex luther. He’s like like Ned Beatty’s character of oh god, what the hell was his name?
Anywho, yeah, come on. Mr. Luthor So so we’re gonna we’re gonna Shift a little bit and this is gonna be way more into into doc’s wheelhouse. Super navigator nozomi This, this story within the story, this Tales of the Black Freighter you know, within, within the story. When did you decide to write a manga within a comic, and how hard was it to condense, try to tell this story of the manga into, you know, essentially a handful of pages for each volume?
Jeremy Whitley: Oh, that was one of the first things I knew about this book, when we started talking about it. Then I was like, you know where they’re going to be reading this manga together. I always hate it When movies and TV shows and books are like, it’s the best thing ever. It’s the most amazing piece of art. It’s the best song.
You never actually hear it or it doesn’t live up to it. I, I always despise that if there’s, I love the like movie where like a Josie and the Pussycats where they actually sing, you actually hear their music. They have original songs and stuff like that. Like. That’s so much better, you know scott pilgrim things like that where the the music that’s important to the story makes it into the story And that was a thing.
I knew I wanted to do with this is to have some of the manga in there And I wanted it to feel When you look at the pages Casio did the art for both sections, did the both manga and the original comic and the the manga in it I wanted it to feel really like inky and have a sort of 90s feel to it of of like This was the manga that for some reason they decided to translate.
It’s a little weird. It’s a little like there’s, there’s some creative decisions in there that don’t entirely make sense. Like the fact that the starships they’re playing around and look like steam trains you know, that she’s, her title is navigator, but she doesn’t actually navigate, she fixes an engine.
Like that’s, that’s her whole function. Is, she’s the navigator. You would think she’d be like reading a map or something. And it’s like, no, she’s, you know, fixing the engine and making sure everything works. She’s doing everything about the piloting, basically. And so I wanted it to feel to have that feeling of that, like, 90s anime that, that just happened to like breakthrough here in the U S but like, was just good enough that like, you had read a couple of volumes, but then you couldn’t really find the rest of it.
They didn’t translate it or it didn’t make it, you know, to the, the story that you went to and you know, you had to really work to like track down volumes. I wanted you to have that feeling of sort of like. Half remembered media. That I think, you know, pre pre Amazon was very, and pre streaming is very common for a lot of us of like, Oh yeah, I’ve read all the way to book four, but I don’t know what happened in the other quarter.
Yeah. This is the
Doc Issues: way to get it. Yeah.
Jeremy Whitley: Yeah. Yeah, that, that was the, the feeling I wanted it to have. And I wanted to pull that into this and give that sort of like a way to reflect their story in it as well for them to sort of. Grow with it and see in, you know, a way that is obviously a metaphor, but also very, like, really what they’re, they’re dealing with and reflected in this sort of sci fi premise of the comic as well.
Anthony: Yeah, well, like I said Doc is way more into the manga, anime. Eastern, you know, eastern stuff than I’m, I was reading this and I’m going, oh, doc has gotta be living his best life right now with some of this stuff. I don’t understand. Like, I, I get it for the, for the story. But you know, I’m sure that there were like references or tropes or things in there that will go right over my head, but Doc is like, oh my gosh, I’ve read this.
Like this book before.
Doc Issues: Well, no, the idea as always is that, okay, you have the original premise of what everything is supposed to look like perfectly, and you get the setup tropes of, this is the main character that always gets everything done and is the hero, et cetera, et cetera. Meanwhile, you find out that pretty much the supporting cast is super important.
And then more, Once, once the story gets to a point where you realize, Oh, I’m sorry, I mistook who is doing what now, as, as Jeremy already said. Like, it, once you get past that, you realize, Oh, we’re just gonna watch these people deal with some really messed up stuff. And there’s going to be a lot of emotions that come out.
And once they start coming out, We’re gonna see all of the And I’m not even talking, and by the way, I’m not even talking about homosexuality versus heterosexuality or anything like that. Just, when it comes to, especially manga and anime, it’s just, take what you originally know, and throw it away for something that might be better.
And I, I think that’s, that’s what I get out of it. Like just take a chance and yes, there are going to be people that misunderstand it. There are going to be people that even temporarily reject it, but if it’s your authentic self and if you are still trying to do the right thing, even when, and this isn’t even a metaphor anymore, but people are literally trying to tell you, okay, I think it’s better for you to do something against is your best wishes or best goals and all that stuff.
And you don’t care. And you say, I’m going to continue to do what I know is the right thing for me and for the people that I care about. And in some ways it’ll work out, in some ways it might not, but I’ll take the result and I’ll be able to live a better quality of life because of it. So I, I, you know, I think that’s a great story, no matter how you tell it.
I don’t care what, you know, what short came from, what, you know, or, or who gets exposed to it first, but as long as enough people get exposed to it, it’s amazing how really quality stuff becomes popular anyway.
Anthony: We make the joke, the cream rises to the top.
Macho man. Yeah, we rise. Yeah. Now the, the other, and this is like a minor thing. When, when I was reading it the very first section of, of the manga that it jumped to, I was like, oh, am I gonna have to read this like right to left or are we gonna, are we, no, because I know that’s how they’re, they’re is, you read them, you know, right to left in the original style.
So I was, as I’m. Couple of panels. I was like, okay, where am I supposed to be going? Okay. There, for the sake of the, you know, this narrative, because it’s Western, even though technically it’s, you know, the manga within the story, whatever, like that, we’re going to read it left to right. But I was, I was thrown.
I just, I guess I was prepared to, you know, revert. Was, was that ever a discussion that was had? Oh,
Jeremy Whitley: absolutely. My, my initial pitch for this actually was when you got to the manga section. It would be printed upside down. So you’d have to turn the whole book over and read right to left. So you’d flip through and then you’d hit the English section again, and it would be, you can turn it right back over.
And that was, that was something that we were talking about. Almost all the way through up until like we started doing the art for the manga section, and it became clear like one how how difficult that was actually going to be from a process perspective, but also that like that wouldn’t that wouldn’t play at all in a digital format, you know, when we gave people the book either digitally or to review digitally, but it wouldn’t make any sense.
If we put them in there upside down, people wouldn’t know what to do with them. But, you know, otherwise they’d be lettered backwards. They’d have to letter the book and flip it twice. So ultimately it was just when it came down to it, it’s like that would be a lot of work for for not much reward.
So I don’t know, unless this, you know, Takes off enough that they can afford to do a special edition where they do all of that backwards and upside down I don’t I don’t think that’ll happen, but it was absolutely something that was like on my wish list when we started it
Anthony: Okay, so I I feel a little better than because like I said when I was reading this I was like, okay Are they gonna go full bore or are they gonna cheat a little bit?
You know, it’s like when you’re in theater, you know, like you you’re having a conversation with somebody but you kind of cheat out a little bit for the sake of the the Script But I wasn’t sure how much cheating out there was going to be, but I’m glad that the discussion was was at least had. For that because like I said, I was I was ready.
You know, i’ve i’ve done A little bit of manga reading here and there i’ve watched some anime doc and i’ve done panels on on some Stuff at different conventions. And so thanks to him. I have a a better Appreciation and and understanding of the genre and some of the tropes and things You know again because of doc you know, which again gets back to the the point we’re talking about earlier that You You know, you get these people that come together and they introduce them to others.
I never would have read this stuff or watched these animes if it’s, you know, wasn’t for my best friend, but but here we are. You’re welcome. No, no, I sincerely thank you. Here’s here’s a question. What was the biggest thing that you you either put in the book or you wanted to put in the book that was Like just for you you’re like i’m writing the story like yes I’m writing the story for lots of people but I want this in the book that knowing other people might or might not get it But you kind of had to have it in the story Was it like a reference or just like a little thing where you’re like, this is you know It’s like author self insertion or whatever.
Jeremy Whitley: So I I set the whole thing in Durham, which is where I live and I It’s funny because I Casio, the, the artist is he lives in Rio de Janeiro, so he has no point of reference for any of this stuff. So I was just sort of like, I was like, I want this to be accurate to what Durham looks like. So I was driving around with my daughter, like taking pictures of like random strip malls on the side of the road and you know, ugly old high schools and things like that to just sort of like get the, the feeling of Durham and We went back and forth, particularly there’s a scene that takes place at the Durham Farmer’s Market, and like that’s a real place.
You can go there. There’s pictures of it online. But like I wanted to like, I wanted to make sure that was in there and I wanted to make sure like it appeared as itself. So there’s lots of little like landmarks that people won’t, won’t really know unless they’re, they’re from the area, both that and Duke Park.
The thing that’s funny to me, that is a joke that I think. Maybe four or five people will get when they read it is that they go to Durham Western high school which is not a place. There are two high schools in Durham named Northern and Southern. So like East and West don’t exist.
And so like I, I set this, you know, high school. In, in West Durham and I, I called it Western and they made them the Cowboys because they’re Western. Yeah, it’s just such a, like, it was a little, like, it’s like half of a joke, you know and other people don’t have the other half to get it, but was a, was a funny thing to me.
And I was like, I want to plug that in. It looks, the, the build of the high school looks exactly like Southern, which is actually close to where I live. And we went and took pictures of sort of the outside of that, which is just basically it’s a big ugly square So, you know, we we translated that over and and yeah created a a new third directional high school in in Durham
Anthony: Okay.
All right. I I always appreciate that because you know again We we talked to a lot of writers and we talked to them about either Inserting themselves as characters or different Aspects of themselves and the characters you write what you know, certainly to that extent, but it’s some of those little little details That I really appreciate and so I know that you know, whenever i’m talking to a writer I always want to ask about something like that.
Like, you know, what did what did you want to put in? We’re like i’m writing this story for you know Mass appeal and and hopefully that you know, it connects with the audience, but this one little thing is just Just because it makes me laugh, you know, I mean doc and I do that all the time when we’re we’re writing.
Oh, yeah You know,
Jeremy Whitley: yeah
Anthony: Episodes and we’re writing skits. It’s like yeah, we’re we’re gonna you know, we want to talk about some real stuff We want to get across the point but sometimes You know, we got to keep it if we got to keep ourselves entertained with it. So i’m always you know Interested in in those types of things.
Jeremy Whitley: It’s interesting to me. There were a couple You There’s a couple of things in the book, like she, she mentions going to a biscuit place at one point, and it’s it originally had the name, like, originally had the name of the actual local restaurant in Durham in there, but it was like, oh, well you know, that’s a trademark thing.
We don’t want to put that in the book. You know, but you know, it’s an actual like biscuit place. That’s right down the street from where Gabby theoretically lives. Like I have sort of mapped out in my head where both of them live in actual Durham which is, is a, a fun note, I think as well. But that, and they, they go to a convention towards the end of the And the convention to anybody who’s ever like been to it.
Is very obviously like set and it’s in Atlanta and it’s given the time of year and where it’s at, which is it would have to be MomoCon which, you know, I was like, I didn’t put the name of it in there because again, Copyrighted name of a thing, but like what, you know, it’s, it’s right there in, in downtown Atlanta at the Georgia world Congress center.
So like where they’re at when they leave it, they’re right out in sort of the Olympic park in the middle of downtown Atlanta there. It was, it was interesting to kind of, you’ll, you’ll spot a lot of the references to places and where things are in there if you look carefully.
Anthony: Very cool. Okay.
Well, I’ll have to I’ll have to go back and check that out. I mean, I, I, I read it obviously. But, and I have no frame of reference for anything in Atlanta. Never having been there, but I will, now that I know I’m going to go and, you know, do like a,
Jeremy Whitley: In the background when they’re, when they’re sitting and talking, there’s Atlanta has a millennium eye Ferris wheel down there in downtown.
And that appears sort of in the background as well as you know, the, the Olympic park there in downtown is very distinct because it’s very, it’s almost all brick and it has little fountains and everything in there. And that’s, you know, where they’re sitting and talking and the the part where they’re, they’re reading the last book together.
Anthony: Okay. All right. Also going to say, is there any talk of an adaptation for this? Because I could very easily see this being, you know, something, a story that’s told in a film, either, you know, animated or, or live action. I mean, is there, has there been any word whatsoever on, on anything like this?
Jeremy Whitley: I would really love that. It’s not a, it’s not a conversation we’ve had with anybody yet. I think once the book is out, I think it’s much easier to have those sorts of conversations. But I’m hoping you know, the early reviews have been, have been really good. We’ve gotten a couple of great starred reviews and we’ve gotten, you know, name checked in the New York times and a couple of other great places.
So I’m hoping that’s a, that’s a possibility in the future. And I’m also hoping that, you know, we’ve got a chance to do more stories in this world because it’s, it’s not a certain thing yet, you know, we’ll, we’ll have to see how the book does. But I’d, I’d absolutely like to come back to, you know, Gabby and Nisha and sort of leave it at a point where I think it’d be very easy to pick up and tell more stories.
Anthony: Yeah, definitely. I would love any and all stories set in this world. And like I said, I, as I was finishing this. The book I was definitely thinking to myself like this could very easily be, you know A teen romance film. Oh, yeah you know something like a I don’t know like a search like pictures or you know, a24 type thing where you know, one of these these smaller studios that you know focus on You know telling different stories that aren’t the You know, multi million dollar blockbusters you know, and just really focus on the heart and, and the, the relationship and the characters and do it justice.
How, I don’t know how you would translate some of the, the manga sections, you know, to, to the screen but you know, I’m not the director but I was, like I said, I, I just, I very clearly, You know, I can almost kind of even see the, like the, the film poster in my mind. So you know, fingers crossed this ends up hitting, you know, theaters in like, I don’t know, 2027 or something you know, on a very small budget, you don’t need, a hundred million dollars for this movie.
So, so. You know, if any, if any of our listeners know anybody in the Hollywood system or know anybody at a film production company, give Jeremy a call because you got a great story here. And again, I’m not just blowing smoke. I, we talked during pre roll, you know, I, I say this not because we’re interviewing you and because you’ve been on the show, this book really It hit me and I I cried more than once reading this book like and I was sitting there and and you know When they had their first kiss I was like like I was like I rooted for them so hard and I there’s just so much stuff that they were going through and by the time it was all Done and I was just like I just I want to be their friends.
I I feel like I know them. They are real people They are So three dimensional and again, it’s it’s a credit to you and i’m not blowing smoke and i’m not just trying to kiss your ass This is a Fantastic God damn book. It just is.
Doc Issues: So, so I’m going to, once again, without giving away a whole lot, there was a line in there that I’ve actually just within the past few years, been able to say honestly, to family members who I know can take it there was a point in my life where I figured if things aren’t going to work that.
work out that well it’s okay and I can just be alone. I don’t need anybody in my life, things like that. And then I’m in high school and I meet some really cool people and I’m glad I met friends and things like that. And I’m not complaining about that. But even then, I figured, you know what, these are the type of people that are going to be transient in my life and I never, you know, I’ll like, I may hear from them.
A couple other times in my lifetime, and that’s it. And then this guy just starts talking to me, and ironically, it was making fun of me at one point. And this is directly related, though, to this book, because there is a line in there that, and it was, you know, I really tried hard not to like you, and yet Here we are.
And that’s, that’s pretty much the point. Like, and, and that’s the way I have dealt with some of the closest relationships in my life. I thought for some reason I could push people away and people saw through it and Tony’s one of them. My wife is one of the others and I am eternally grateful for it. So to see that sort of thing in its own way on, on pages like this I didn’t really expect that.
And it was powerful. So yeah,
Anthony: I was reading that and I was like, well, this is this is doc This is being doc again, I was like, I don’t know how you did it you turned us into girls and you Gave us the romance, but this is me and doc. This is this is us in high school I don’t know how you found it. I don’t know how you wrote it.
But yeah, again, just really really powerful stuff
Jeremy Whitley: Thank you. Yeah, and it’s it’s it’s fun because I think this was also You along with along with the Dog Knight has sort of cemented this, my era of now writing awesome parents and books cause you know, I’ve written a lot of bad parents and things between Princeless and Raven and You know school for extraterrestrial girls and stuff and Dog Knight was the first book that I had like a a mom that I was like She gets it.
She rocks. But then like both both of their parents in this but nisha’s mom, especially It’s like yeah, she’s she’s great. She just you know buzzes through checks in on her kid. Do you need anything? No fine Do your thing? You know and then also is of course the the bomb that sort of busts up the the Quickly becoming a romantic moment in the in one of the scenes.
So, you know, it’s it’s good good parents stuff.
Anthony: Yep. Yep. So I was going to say, you know, we have the question at the, we like to ask towards the end is, you know, any new stories coming up, but you mentioned, you know, you’re working on Chaos Bites Back, the, the second volume of of the Dog Knight story I guess to follow up on, to follow up on this, do you have at least a, an outline or something for maybe the next story in this, this universe, if things go well?
Jeremy Whitley: I have a, a lot of. Ideas of stuff I’d like to do. I think if, if we do a sequel to this I want it to be a similar format and that, this book covers their junior year. I think if, you know, we do a sequel, I would like to do something that is you know, their senior year of high school that, you know, follows the, the two of them as they’re, they’re going through all the various stuff.
So I think it’s. It’s interesting because you know, the, the book hunt is sort of what Hides everything together in this story, but there’s a lot of like just life things that happen along the way in the story that really sort of like give it give it the feeling it has and I think that would be very similar to what I’d want to do with the with the second volume is sort of like Have them, you know, hit some, some unexpected roadblocks and challenges and people in their lives that you know surprise in good and bad ways.
Because, you know, it leaves them off in a, a place where, you know, they’re, they’re planning the next thing they want to do together, but also, you know, it is pretty open.
Anthony: All right. Okay. Very much looking forward to that. So, so wrapping up here where can folks find you on social media and,
Jeremy Whitley: you know, and the internet? So my website is JeremyWhitley. com. It’s basically just a big portfolio of a bunch of my stuff there. You can also find me online on On Twitter and Instagram, I’m j Rome, five eight, so J-R-O-M-E five eight.
And on blue Sky and Tumblr. I’m just Jeremy Whitley. And you can find me in either of those places. And also you can listen to my podcast progressively horrified, which we do every week, where every week we watch a scary movie. And we talk about the ways in which it is and isn’t progressive.
I mean, you know sit down and then dissect basically We we basically as we say in the the podcast hold horror movies to progressive standards. They never agreed to
Anthony: Yes, that’s right. I remember you mentioning that during the the Dog Knight and I remember doc being particularly intrigued about that that concept so You know, I suppose anytime you want to have him on, I’ll pitch him as a guest.
So, well, thank you again, Jeremy. Please go and check out navigating with you would be available again, by the time this episode drops, it will be available wherever you buy books, whether that’s Amazon, Barnes and Noble bookshop, any, any place that you could find it, please definitely go go find a copy.
Check it out. And then Jeremy, I know we were talking a little bit about some cons that you’re doing where where were what’s your con schedule like for the rest of the year? Maybe at least the next couple of months
Jeremy Whitley: Oh, it’s it’s insane. So i’m doing Flame con which is in new york. i’m gonna be at everfree northwest, which is a my little pony convention up in seattle later this month.
I will be at dragon con in atlanta over the holiday weekend I will be at Madison Comics Expo. I will be at Baltimore Comic Con and I know for sure I will also be at a New York Comic Con. In October, so we’ll see you there as well.
Anthony: All right. Well we, we submitted a panel application for New York Comic Con.
So fingers crossed we will be there. You know, again, no guarantee that we’re going to get it, but you know, we we’re shooting our shot. And we’ll, we’ll see what happens. That would be that would be absolutely fantastic. And in worst case scenario you know well, I think they’re out of the regular just fan passes, so I don’t know that I could get in at this point, but you know, if all else fails, maybe I’ll see if I can, can I go my way into like a press pass or something.
But you know, we’ll see, we’ll see, we shall see. So And, and I’m sure you can find all that on, on your website, right? Your, your con schedule.
Jeremy Whitley: Yep. On my website or on those various social medias.
Anthony: Fantastic. Fantastic. And speaking of websites, social medias, you can find all of our episodes on our website, which has capes on the couch.
com. We are on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, TikTok, and threads at capes on the couch. And if you like what you hear and you want to get additional access and additional material and early access You can check out our patreon. We’ve got a discord. You can join the fan community and chat with other Other capes on the couch fans.
We talk about not just about the show, but we talk about comic books We talk about movies tv music memes mental health whatever it is that that comes to mind And so again, thank you so much. Jeremy we definitely appreciate it and we will absolutely be Reaching out to you in 2025 for you know, chaos bites back and, and all of the other, the stuff that you’ve got coming out.
And again, fingers crossed, you know, maybe, maybe we get a movie out of this. Sounds good to me. I’m, I’m, I’m rooting for it. Six seasons and a movie. No. Maybe just a movie. I’d settle for either. There you go. There you go. So Doc, anything else you want to add?
Doc Issues: Nope.
Anthony: Nope. I think
Doc Issues: this is one of those that speaks for itself.
Anthony: All right. Fantastic. So for Jeremy Whitley, for Doc Issues, I’m Anthony Sytko. Thank you so much for listening. We’ll see you next time.