Jason Aaron

Full Interview Transcript

Cleaned transcript below. Editorial section headings and quote callouts have been added for readability.

Opening sponsor and cold open condensed: The show opens with the standard Deadly Grounds Coffee bumper, followed by a short Jason Aaron intro clip before the hosts begin the live conversation.

Show Open and Introductions

Leo [00:03:40]: Hey, hey, happy Saturday everybody! You are watching Splash Pages. My name is Leo, I’m the monkey behind the keyboard here. We have an amazing show scheduled for you as always. And, uh, Carrie, how’s it going?

Kari Sanders [00:03:52]: It’s going great, Leo. Um, I got 19 and a half hours of sleep yesterday, so it is evening for me now as I spent the whole night up. And Ratatoskr and I are celebrating with my Moscow Mule, and he’s got some gin. I am super excited about our guest tonight, by the way. I’m so happy that we have him back. But don’t take my word for it. Drew’s gonna fill you in on who we got if you weren’t able to tell from the introduction.

Drew Mollo [00:04:18]: And, um, I am not drinking a Moscow Mule. I am hydrating. But you know, it’s all good. It’s all good. Uh, yes, everybody, uh, happy Saturday. Good morning or good afternoon depending on where you are in the world. Uh, as Carrie said, we have a phenomenal guest coming back again. We’re gonna have to give him his three-time chip at some point. Um, if you’ve read Marvel or DC over the last 10 to 20 years, I’d say you definitely read something that he’s done. We’ve talked to him about Thor, about The Punisher, about Wolverine. Uh, oh my God, there’s so much right now. He’s killing it on Absolute Superman. Um, he just finished, uh, the first arc of his extremely successful Bug Wars. We also got a chance to read his amazing X-Men, uh, Scalped, um, his extremely intense personal story The Other Side. But don’t take my word for it, he’s right here, so let’s have him tell you about it. Everybody, the one, the only, it’s still cold but he made it here on time, Jason Aaron.

Jason Aaron [00:05:29]: Uh, I think you guys’ opening credits got a lot swankier since I was here last. Those are pretty cool. Well, thank you.

Drew Mollo [00:05:37]: If we were going to get you back, we had to up our budget, Jason, you know, like. Well, you know, I believe the term would be absolutely, you know, right?

Jason Aaron [00:05:47]: Also, Drew, I almost wore that exact same shirt this morning.

Drew Mollo [00:05:51]: Oh my God, really?

Jason Aaron [00:05:52]: Looked at it in my closet, but I went with — I went with the Brody King shirt.

Drew Mollo [00:05:55]: Oh, that’s fine. But it’s so funny because literally I was like, where’s my Superman shirt? And I was like, you know what, it’s Star Wars. He did a lot of Star Wars. This is fine. This is okay. This is a favorite. This is R2. He’s the faithful mascot, you know.

Kari Sanders [00:06:12]: I was almost twinsies with Rob Lee when we had him on because we were both wearing the same Ghost Machine shirt, only in different colors.

Leo [00:06:25]: And then I’ll represent the Superman today.

Absolute Superman and the New Reader Responsibility

I just know they’re there. Like, they’re in the shops, they’re coming back week after week, they’re buying these books. The challenge to us and the responsibility we bear now is let’s keep them there.

Jason Aaron, 00:09:18

Drew Mollo [00:06:29]: Yeah, of course. Thanks, Jimmy Olsen. I mean Timmy, I’m sorry, Timmy Olsen. Um, Right. Yeah, but I mean, it’s so crazy thinking about how much you’ve been doing since we last had you on. I mean, Carrie could back me up on this, but it was already midway into Absolute Superman. You were just starting Bug Wars, and where you are right now, you just had Superman duking it out with Absolute Hawkman, and you just did — it was like the Spider — it was the, the special, right? It was the one-shot, right? Yeah, yeah, which was awesome. Absolutely amazing. Hinting at a lot of great things for that. I mean, how has that been? I mean, Absolute Superman has been, you know, still selling really well. And then on top of it, from when I read you and the great Mohammed Asrar, who we had on the show last year, you guys crushed it. The sales were awesome for Bug Wars. My God, it was so good.

Jason Aaron [00:07:32]: Thanks. Yeah, it’s — you know, I think the last couple years for me has been fun where I’m getting to bounce around and do a lot of different stuff. You know, I’ve worked for kind of — I’ve spread myself across most of comics at this point over the last years. Um, you know, right now I’m also doing Thundarr the Barbarian for Dynamite. It’s my first time working for them, first time ever getting a Thundarr the Barbarian comic, which is pretty cool. So, but yeah, the Absolute stuff has been particularly special. Um, just the response to that across the board, I think, has been beyond what anybody expected. I think any of us involved in the books, anybody at DC, retailers — like, it’s sort of blown everybody’s minds. And, you know, I mean, I — this is my first rodeo. I’ve been doing this, I’ve been writing comics full-time for about 21 years now. I’ve done big initiatives, I’ve been a part of big books that have sold crazy numbers, never been a part of anything like what’s happening with the Absolute stuff. And I think doing conventions this last — over the course of last year and meeting so many Absolute fans. So many people who — these are their first comics, these are the first comics they’ve ever read, are these Absolute books. And so I — every time I have somebody come up to my table and say that, you know, it is — it’s like meeting a unicorn, right? It’s like you’re the people we’ve wanted to believe were possible. And we’re always talking about how do we get new readers into the stores. Well, these books have done it. You know, you — I’ll leave it to somebody else to figure out why. Like, what about Absolute Batman or any of these books appealed to people who haven’t been reading comics? Somebody else can figure that out. I just know they’re there. Like, they’re in the shops, they’re coming back week after week, they’re buying these books. I think that the challenge to us and the responsibility we bear now is let’s keep them there, right? Let’s make sure they turn into longtime comic book readers, not just reading, you know, DC books, but reading, you know, Image books and Marvel books. And let’s all just — the people are in the stands. Let’s all step up and, and you know, swing for the fences.

Drew Mollo [00:10:01]: Well, I mean, it’s kind of like a fitness goal, you know what I mean? Once you’ve hit the goal, it’s not just, okay, you’ve done that, but now you got to maintain it while you keep pushing forward.

Jason Aaron [00:10:10]: Yeah, it sounds harder when you put it that way. I’d rather think about it in terms of comic books than my watch telling me it’s time to get up and take a walk.

Leo [00:10:22]: But I think a good part of it could be — you know, it’s a little difficult for new readers to get into comics with such a back history, you know, characters — maybe it could be intimidating. With the Absolute Universe, it’s a brand new story, brand new take on the characters. And I mean, you’re absolutely killing it. Um, and I don’t want to spoil too much, but I have to say — that box he received a couple issues ago — that was a tearjerker right there. Oh my God, that was freaking amazing.

Krypton, Mark Waid, and Writing a Harder Superman

I felt very intimidated in that moment. I felt like a newbie, fresh off the boat, where I was like, I don’t know if I could do this. Do I know how to write comic books? So I called Mark Waid to get a pep talk.

Jason Aaron, 00:14:38

Drew Mollo [00:11:32]: Like, I could just read a whole miniseries about Absolute Superman’s parents. I loved what you did because I feel like parents of heroes sometimes just become figureheads. But what you did — I think my favorite part was when she just goes in to save Jor-El and she’s just got the big gun. And I was like, this is the most badass rescue mission ever.

Jason Aaron [00:13:07]: Good, thanks. Yeah, that’s definitely what we were going for. I mean, I loved writing that Krypton stuff. Part of me felt like I could have done that for 12 issues. Like I could have pushed the explosion of Krypton down the road to issue 12 and just stayed there and developed more of his relationships there and his roots before we rip them all out. But, um, you know, I — the good thing is that we can always go back there. We’ll probably do an arc that takes us back to Krypton in a big way at some point. But yeah, that was — that was my favorite stuff. Favorite part of that first arc was all that Krypton stuff. So I mean, when it got to issue 5, I think, where the planet blew up, I felt really sad about it, which I figured was good. Like, I figured it was good to be leaving Krypton when I felt like, no, I want to stay, because that’s how I want the readers to feel.

Drew Mollo [00:14:07]: Yeah, absolutely. And then we previously this month had on your Action Comics collaborator John Timms, who’s just great, and he had such great things to say about working on the I, Bizarro story. I mean, that scope was insane. I mean, what you and him did in 3 issues, just a world of Bizarros to Bizarro Joker and just all that, man. I was just reading that, I was like, is this like his first story? Am I confused? Like, this is really freaking good.

Jason Aaron [00:14:38]: Thanks. That was fun. Yeah, John was great to work with. I think he killed it on that story. And yeah, those 3 different issues are kind of 3 dramatic escalations of that story. Yeah, I’m really proud of that. That was my first time getting the chance to put words in the mouth of Superman, which was — again, even having done this, you know, 20-something years, I felt very intimidated in that moment. I felt like a newbie, you know, fresh off the boat, where I was like, I don’t know if I could do this. Do I know how to write comic books? You know, like, I was questioning everything. Because just Superman felt so very intimidating. So of course, as I’ve said, I did what anybody should do in that situation, and I called Mark Waid to get a pep talk.

Kari Sanders [00:15:28]: That was one of the things that I was going to say, is that Mark Waid has to be very proud of you because you’re showing all of the anger and hurt and total frustration that this Superman has. But you still kept to the line where he stands for hope and he doesn’t cross the line of killing people. And that, that’s hard to do for some people, to get as — to show that much emotion and not cross that line. So yeah, I mean, I hope Mark was like, yeah, I hope —

Jason Aaron [00:16:07]: I mean, the times Mark says he likes something in Absolute Superman always makes me incredibly, incredibly happy. I have, you know, huge respect for Mark. Um, and yeah, I think that to me, the one of my main guiding tenets with Absolute Superman, it’s not to change the character and darken him up and just make him angrier. Um, but it is to make everything harder for him and more difficult and more challenging. And I, you know, I think that’s the thing people trip over sometimes when they’re writing main universe Superman is how do you challenge this guy? What do you throw against him? And he’s so — no one, no one is more confident and self-assured than Superman, right? This guy is not that. Like, he is still questioning everything. He’s still figuring stuff out. And that’s one of the benefits of doing the Absolute stories is we’re starting over, we’re starting from scratch.

And, and I remember that the last Batman movie, the Matt Reeves Batman movie — one of my favorite moments in that was that little moment where Batman was standing on the roof of a building. He’s about to jump off and he pauses for a second because he’s like, oh my God, I’m about to jump off a building. He hasn’t done that enough times that it’s like second nature to him, right? And that little moment of that pause, I was like, oh man, you never see that. You never see Batman have those little — you know, that sort of moment of doubt of like, should I be doing this? And I’d like that kind of stuff. I loved — I think when I did the Jane Foster stuff in Thor, I got to do that for the first time. Oh, I’m writing a character who’s — she’s Thor, and this is day one of her being Thor, and she has no idea what she’s doing, and we get to watch her figure it out and parts that are really fun for her and that she enjoys, and the parts that are a struggle, and the parts that she learns from. And so the chance to do that with the biggest characters in comics, and Superman, one of the biggest characters in the history of imaginary characters, is a cool opportunity. So I don’t want to drive past any of that. I want to see this kid struggle. This kid is not self-assured and not the confident Superman that we’re used to. He is absolutely still trying to put all the pieces together, right? But that doesn’t take away from the fact that he is still Superman, I think, in the ways that are important to me. If anything, it makes that even more powerful, those moments when we’re reminded like, this guy is still Superman. He still stands for the things we want him to stand for, right? His path to get there is a little darker and a little more treacherous, and it’s more crooked and not as straight as maybe the older version of him will be, but he’s still the hero we want him to be.

Brainiac, Krypto, and the Absolute Villains

Leo [00:19:05]: I think that’s a really — sorry, Drew, and I know we have some questions about Absolute Superman that we needed to get into from our fans, but I think that’s a great way for the character to shine even more. You know, it is dark and everything around them. And especially with your Absolute Superman, you know, how the shield is a sign of class and he’s like the lower class. And thinking about Absolute Wonder Woman where she grew up in Hell and you have all these creatures trying to kill her and she’s befriending them, and then same thing with Absolute Batman. As dark as that is, him growing up with even additional struggles just making him so much stronger. But Superman is just — you hit it on the nail on the head where, you know, everything’s dark around him and he still is that symbol of hope, but more for like, you know, the lower class and the people.

Drew Mollo [00:20:22]: Maybe I can piggyback on that just for a minute, Leo. Yeah, in terms of darker — uh, Rachel Gould was very dark. Brainiac, like, way to tap into just a horror movie, Machiavellian monster. I mean, Brainiac has always been creepy and very much one of Superman’s greatest foes. But your version — and I don’t know if it was just how you wrote it or how your collaborator Carmine Di Giandomenico just drew him — I was just seeing him that way, even with the wires messing up his own brain. I was like, I’m sorry, this is terrifying.

Leo [00:21:14]: Not only that, but the people screaming, “Kill us, please.” Like, holy shit —

Jason Aaron [00:21:21]: Yeah, that first — you get that glimpse of him in issue 1 from behind. You don’t see his face. You see the bottled cities, which, you know, are a classic hallmark of Brainiac. But yeah, there’s screams coming from them, right? They’re not — he doesn’t just collect them and put them on a shelf. He’s doing horrific experiments to these different cities. And that shot is kind of meant — it’s meant to, in my mind, sort of echo the shot of Ted Levine as Buffalo Bill in Silence of the Lambs. I think the first time you see him where he’s sitting at the sewing machine, just sitting in that chair from behind — that’s kind of telling you right away: this guy’s more, you know, leaning more in the direction of a serial killer than a classic Superman villain we’re used to. And really, I love writing Brainiac. Oh, without giving any spoilers, I will tell you his worst is yet to come. Like, the worst things we’re going to see him do, you haven’t even seen yet. So strap in, it only gets worse.

Kari Sanders [00:22:38]: Yes, um, I’m first going to answer the questions for the people who are live, and then we have two questions from Reddit as well, as far as Absolute Superman goes. Um, first we have here — are we gonna get Absolute Mr. Mxyzptlk? Or an Absolute Zod?

Jason Aaron [00:23:00]: Well, I think those are both great questions. Those are both top tier Superman villains. I’ve all along tried to be very careful about what I say about Absolute Superman. I like the fact that with all the books we’re trying to give readers surprises, right? Like, I love how on Absolute Batman they’ve been blacking stuff out on covers, right? I mean, we lost so much of that over the years where covers are solicited months in advance and things are announced online in articles before the book comes out. So anything we can do to get back to actually being able to surprise readers makes me really happy because it reminds me of reading comics as a kid. So — there are characters who are going to pop up in Absolute Superman that we’ll tell you about ahead of time. Like, you see in solicits that a character we’re calling King Shazam is coming soon in the next arc. There’s also another new character that pops up in that arc that makes their Absolute debut that we’re not telling you who that is, so you’ll have to wait and be surprised by that one.

So I — in answer to the questions, I will say those are absolutely characters that I’m interested in. Will you see either one of them? And if so, at what point? You’ll have to wait and see. I’m not going to give you anything along those lines. But I will just say, as of right now, at this point in the story, as far as I’m concerned and as far as we know within Absolute Superman, Kal-El was very much the last son of Krypton. Like, he has found no other traces. There seem to be no other traces of anyone else surviving that blast. And I like him being the last son of Krypton, so I’m not going to rush into — well, he’s the last son, but also here’s Supergirl and here’s Zod and the Phantom Zone villains and here’s the Eradicator. I’m going to be incredibly cautious about any of that stuff.

Leo [00:25:24]: Okay, if I can make one request — Krypto.

Jason Aaron [00:25:30]: You see him in the beginning, buddy. I just love — look, I mean, Krypto being in there was meant to be part of the heartbreak, right?

Kari Sanders [00:25:44]: He was a good boy.

Jason Aaron [00:25:46]: He was — he saved Kal-El’s life hours before the planet exploded. We don’t specifically see anybody else’s ship explode, right, as he’s looking at his parents. But I mean, in my script and in the way Rafa drew it, it’s clear — the whole idea is that there are multiple ships zipping through the exploding debris. But when that planet blows up, there’s just one ship that comes out of it, you know. Um, did anything else survive? Who knows? I mean, we’re — we are predisposed to assume, yeah, of course, like, we know like 20 things survived, right? This is a different story, so for now, I’m afraid we have to assume Krypto is dead, just like Jor-El and Lara, and just like everybody else on the face of that planet. But Kal-El still has hope.

Who Are You? Clark, Kal-El, and the 25-Issue Plan

The recurring motif of those first 14 issues — that first opening arc — is the question of who are you?

Jason Aaron, 00:34:21

Kari Sanders [00:26:53]: Okay, all right. So here are the two questions from Reddit. The first is from OneBadJam — um, how many issues do you have planned currently? Like, are you planning for an ongoing, or are you planning to end anytime soon for Absolute Superman?

Jason Aaron [00:27:21]: Yeah, it’s open-ended. I mean, my initial pitch, kind of the Bible I wrote in the beginning, I had an outline for 12 issues, which turned into 14 issues. Um, right now I’ve got things sketched out through issue 25 or so, kind of know the overall arc of what I’m doing after that. And I think I figured out what will ultimately be the ending of the story, but in terms of how many issues that is, I don’t know. I mean, I think when we started all these books, it was very much a question mark of like we’re going to do a year and see how it goes. We don’t know how people will respond. As we talked about, the response has been phenomenal. And, you know, you see Absolute Superman up to like the 12th or 13th printing or something on issue 1? And Superman’s like 10 or 11. Um, and keeping all of those books in print — incredible success. So now we’re dealing with the responsibility of that and still figuring out — there’s no set end date for these books. So I think we’re all still figuring that out together. Um, so yeah, as far as I’m concerned, everything’s still open-ended right now. But I know story-wise where we’re going, where we’re headed. It’s just a question of how long it’ll take to get there.

Leo [00:28:55]: I for one hope it continues for years and years.

Kari Sanders [00:29:06]: Next we have Kai Chainsaw asking, how will the Clark Kent/Kal-El dichotomy work in this version since the Smallville residents call him Clark but Lois calls him Kal-El? I’m curious how each person decides on what to call him.

Jason Aaron [00:29:23]: Yeah, that’s a good question. I think that’s still a developing situation, you know. I think for me, from the get-go, it’s important to — I never liked the idea of Kal-El Superman pretending to be Clark Kent, right? That Clark Kent is like this affectation that he puts on these glasses and combs his hair in a certain way and pretends to be this other person in order to throw people off. I felt like I want to do a version of this character who’s — he’s not pretending to be anybody. This is who he is. But within that, he’s both of these personalities at the same time. You know, it’s not out of the realm of possibility that you act different ways depending on the situations you’re in, you know. And I kind of always use — as a football fan, I use the analogy of Troy Polamalu, who’s one of my favorite players as a big Steelers fan. If you don’t know football these days, you know Troy as the guy from the Head & Shoulders commercial — he’s the guy with really, really long, beautiful hair. As a player, he played safety for the Steelers, Hall of Fame safety, and he was off the field very quiet, very soft-spoken, deeply religious. Even on the field, he was constantly making the sign of the cross. As a player, he played like a beast — he would knock the shit out of you. That was, you know, a guy who played with just crazed, reckless abandon. So I thought of somebody like that — the Clark Kent persona is real. He is really a shy, awkward kid. That’s who he was on Krypton. That’s who he still is now. And there are plenty of times, you know, the first few times we meet him, he’s very soft-spoken and people can’t really hear what he says. And we even continue to see that sometimes now. But when he needs to flip the switch and when the duty calls and he needs to be Superman, when he needs to clock in and go to work, he is a different guy. And he can very genuinely be both of those personalities in one. And I think we’ll continue to see that even as he gets more powerful, as he gets more confident and self-assured, presumably in his identity as Superman — he’s still going to be that shy, awkward kid at heart. Um, you know, the question was always, since we kind of took the Kents out of the equation in terms of his origin, like, well, how would we ever get to the point of calling him Clark Kent, you know. And we eventually did get there in a different sort of way. So I think to me, we’ll have to kind of see how that develops. He doesn’t have a traditional secret identity — he kind of just is who he is. I think Lois calls him Kal because that’s who she’s known him as, you know. In the same way that my partner — I call her one thing, but her family calls her something else, right? Because that’s what they’ve known her as since she was a little kid. But now she goes by something different. So I think to Lois, he’s Kal-El, and he is Kal-El. But to the people in Smallville, he’s embraced that name of Clark Kent. To them, he’s Clark Kent.

I think Lois could call him Clark if she wanted to, but she didn’t know him as Clark. She knows Kal, right? So I like that. I like the idea of he’s — he embraces both of those identities. He took him a long time to try to find any sort of earthly identity, to feel like he had a home, to feel like he had any roots on Earth. That name represents all that — that name. And then taking over the Kent farm, being welcomed into Smallville. So, but he also doesn’t want to let go of who he was before that, that he is Kal-El of Krypton. And he kind of carries that legacy. So sorry, that’s a long-winded answer. But it’s important. It’s an important piece that — hopefully all that comes across in the book and will continue to be developed as we go. But actually, that was a different sort of dynamic than what we’ve seen before.

Leo [00:33:57]: That was actually a great part in the book when Lois is describing her first interactions with Kal, and she’s talking about him going from a soft-spoken person to instantly a commanding presence when needed. That was such a powerful thing.

Jason Aaron [00:34:21]: And yeah, hopefully it’s clear the recurring motif of those first 14 issues, that first opening arc, is the question of who are you, right? Like, that’s — you know, a great final beat of Lawrence of Arabia, right? When he comes out of the desert and that guy’s yelling at him, “Who are you?” He doesn’t really know. He doesn’t have an answer. So I think for 14 issues we watch Superman Kal-El struggle with that question of “who are you?” And that’s what somebody asked him — somebody asked him that at the very end of issue 14, like when he drops Ra’s al Ghul off in Pakistan and the symbol’s torn away. And he — same thing — he doesn’t know, he still doesn’t know what the answer is. And then getting that name Clark Kent is like obviously deeply profound for him. But that doesn’t put that question to bed. He’s still figuring out, right, that simple question — who am I?

Amazing X-Men, Wolverine, and Nightcrawler’s Return

Drew Mollo [00:35:23]: Well, and kind of to piggyback on talking about something else that we definitely read — as well, that idea of identity and loss — I just have to bring up Amazing X-Men, the arc you did with the great Ed McGuinness. And I have to say, I’ve read a ton of your X-Men and I’m still a huge fan of Wolverine and the X-Men. Amazing was such a phenomenal arc because you balance stories — in my opinion — so well. You have these big themes where you have the action and these great one-liners, but then there’s all this profound stuff about loss and humanity and friendship. Like, you could get easily distracted with the swashbuckling pirate X-Men, but then you have the moments with Wolverine talking about how they’re going to die, or getting stuck in the snow, or just Kurt’s struggle with being in the afterlife — which is supposedly perfect but he longs to be with his friends. That unfinished business — it was fantastic.

Jason Aaron [00:36:38]: Thanks. I haven’t gone back and I haven’t read that stuff in forever, um, but I’m glad you like that. I loved writing the Nightcrawler stuff. I, you know — that stuff’s kind of a bookend with, um, the last — was it the last issue of Wolverine: Weapon X, I think? The last issue of that was kind of around the death of Nightcrawler, and it was the last will and testament of Nightcrawler, and he left instructions in his will for something he wanted Wolverine to do, this task he wanted him to undertake, and he does it, and the story’s really about these two guys and talking about questions of faith, right, over the course of their lives together. And if you look at everything I did with Wolverine over the course of like 6 years and all these different stories, going back really to 25 years ago when I won a Marvel Comics talent search contest with a short little Wolverine story that was about the conversation about fate — that was a recurring theme through a lot of the Wolverine stuff that I did, and that kind of culminates into a full-page splash of two guys hugging each other — Wolverine and Nightcrawler reunited — and you get this great hug. So we don’t always often see that kind of emotion from Wolverine — he’s a short little scruffy hairy guy who stabs people a lot, but he’s got a big heart under all that.

Kari Sanders [00:38:26]: That “atheist overboard” line just killed me. I love how much you put into —

Jason Aaron [00:38:33]: I don’t even — did I write that?

Drew Mollo [00:38:36]: Yes, you did.

Kari Sanders [00:38:37]: Yes, yes, you did. It was Beast getting flung overboard, and because he’s like, “I’m a man of science” — it was like, “Atheist overboard!” Yeah. Um, I want to bring it back — I’m not going to do all the questions I had. I just have one more mention that I wanted to do still with Absolute Superman. I love how you had Perry White deliver the Jack Kirby line, “This business will break your heart, kid.” And it was just like, oh, that was perfect, having the guy who’s leaving the old sect turn that over to Lois. So I very much appreciated that you did that.

Jason Aaron [00:39:28]: Well, thanks. You know, classic line. That’s also the title of the issue. But this world, or this universe, will break your heart. So it’s also not just this grizzled old newshound talking about the newspaper business and how it’ll grind you up and spit you out, but it also reflects on the relationship that we’re seeing between Superman and Hawkman, where Hawkman is — to me, Hawkman’s like the grizzled old beat cop who’s showing up to talk to this bright-eyed rookie, this rookie who comes in and thinks he’s gonna save the world. And this cop has walked this beat for a long time. He’s sold out some — he takes bribes to look the other way when he needs to look the other way, but still feels like when he goes to bed at night, he’s a good cop and he’s doing what he can. He’s just smart about it. The dumb people don’t last, they get killed. So it’s also Hawkman trying to give that same sentiment to Superman: you don’t understand what kind of world this is. The Absolute Universe is a dark and corrupted place, and if you try to be the highfalutin pretty boy and walk this line you think you’re going to be able to walk, you’re going to get chewed up and spit right out, just like this long litany of people that have come before you.

Drew Mollo [00:41:10]: And then kind of moving back to Amazing X-Men, Carrie said there were so many great lines in this, but there was one line in particular I forgot how much I loved. It was Doop — the angel — “Wow, I haven’t seen anything quite that exciting since that time Harry Houdini and Abe Lincoln tried to see who could eat the most crab apples.” I forgot how much that line got me. How does that kind of line come to you? Because your Wolverine and the X-Men were full of similar great quotable lines.

Jason Aaron [00:42:26]: I have no memory of writing that line. I completely have forgotten that. But I mean, I think anytime I write a reference to a character eating a lot of something, I’m thinking of Cool Hand Luke. Cool Hand Luke — one of the greatest movies ever made. And the scene where he eats however many eggs he eats — it’s such a great scene. So any — I feel like I’ve made references to that in different contexts. So it probably came from Cool Hand Luke.

Drew Mollo [00:43:06]: There you go. It’s very Ron Swanson-y of you. Um, Leo, you said you had a question.

Scalped Research, R.M. Guéra, and the Definitive Omnibuses

Leo [00:43:31]: Uh, let’s quickly head on over to Scalped. Um, so Jar Jar, on our team — unfortunately he couldn’t make it today — but he wanted to know how much research went into portraying life on a reservation.

Jason Aaron [00:43:47]: Yeah, you know, quite a bit. I mean, I think I was already very interested in the history of the Plains Indians. And then I think as I got older, I became very interested in the more modern-day history, like the story of the American Indian Movement and the stuff that happened on Pine Ridge and Rosebud in the ’70s. A Leonard Peltier story. Leonard Peltier for a while was down the street in Leavenworth, Kansas. Um, so that was kind of already something I was very interested in and kind of been reading about. And I learned a lot more stuff over the course of working on Scalped. You know, I did — there’s a 2-issue story in there — I won’t tell you which character it focuses on because it’s kind of a spoiler if you haven’t read the book — but there we deal with the idea of Two Spirits and the history of different gender roles and gender identities within Native American tribes and how a lot of that was sort of stamped out when Westerners came over and kind of violently imposed their Christian ideals. So I didn’t really know much about the history of Two Spirits until I started working on Scalped. So there’s some stuff I learned about as we went. This is just kind of an ongoing thing, and then I learned a lot from people that I talked to because of the book, you know, people who wrote in who are Native American who are fans of the book. So yeah, it was an ongoing research slash learning experience.

Leo [00:45:40]: Jar Jar follows that up — did you feel any pressure tackling that subject matter, and what did you learn working with R.M. Guéra?

Jason Aaron [00:45:46]: Yeah, I mean, did I feel pressured? No. I mean, I think it’s the boldness of youth, the ignorance of youth. Like, at the time, you don’t think anybody’s going to read anything that you do, you know. And I still feel like I kind of cling to that, rightly or wrongly, where I don’t think about how anyone else is going to respond to anything. It’s very much a personal experience for me writing. That’s the only way I know how to do it, and certainly to do it well — I have to write for myself. So rightly or wrongly, I kind of never feel that pressure, because I just don’t have the first clue how anybody else is gonna — what they’re gonna think about this. They’re gonna like it or hate it. Um, in terms of working with Guéra — I mean, I learned a ton. Scalped #1 was the third comic script I’d ever written. That I had written the first 2 issues of The Other Side before I wrote Scalped #1. So I had no idea what I was doing, certainly in terms of doing an ongoing series. And I think that first arc of Scalped is kind of me and Guéra in the womb together trying to figure stuff out. And then I think by the second arc, we start to put the pieces together. I mean, Guéra was a savvy veteran comic book artist when he started on Scalped. He had done tons of stuff for years in Europe, hadn’t really done anything here. But I think he and I figured out how to work together. And now, you know, I’ve worked with him probably more than I’ve worked with any other artist in comics over the course of my career. We’ve done a lot of stuff together. And I think I learned just how to structure a page and how to structure action scenes from Guéra and to learn to drill down on the emotions of the scene. Guéra wants me to tell him — he doesn’t need me to tell him what this guy’s prison cell looks like or what’s in it. He wants me to tell him what is this guy feeling when he’s sitting there on his bed at night? What does he feel that he’s not saying? He wants all the emotional content of the scene. Which I think I still do a lot, even if the emotion is not necessarily going to be readily obvious in this scene — it’s still important, I think, for me to know what that is and what this character is feeling and to put that in the script. So I think I learned a tremendous amount working with Guéra. He’s incredible.

Kari Sanders [00:48:57]: And with Lee Loughridge on the colors and Jason Boles on letters, everything worked so well. You had that whole feel going for it, kind of a western sort of thing. And then Jock’s covers — like, it just pow. Yeah, it’s completely different style of artwork, but those are just a punch in the face to get you interested. That was just such a beautiful arrangement that you guys all had together.

Jason Aaron [00:49:32]: Thanks. We had a great team. I’m super proud to have done a Vertigo series, to kind of have snuck in — kind of one of the last Vertigo books to get a big sizable run at the time. Now, thankfully, welcome back Vertigo. We’ve got a bunch of Vertigo books just now launching that hopefully will get their own very long runs. But I got to work with an incredible amount of wildly talented artists over the course of those 60 issues of Scalped. In addition to Guéra and Jock doing the covers, I got to do one issue with the incredible John Paul Leon, um — you know, we — Daniel Zezelj did issue 35, which is one of my favorites, which is like a completely utterly standalone issue within the overall series. It just takes place on the reservation, features two characters we had never seen before and you never see again. It’s just this very singular story buried in the midst of it. I loved working with Daniel. But we decided it’s best if he only does that one issue, so it makes it seem even more special in the midst of the rest of Scalped. Um, yeah, on issue 50, I remember we got one page by Tim Truman, which was really special to me. I’m a huge Timothy Truman fan. And there was supposed to be something written on the hood of the Jeep in his page, but it got left out by mistake. And when we were putting the omnibus together, it finally got put back in there.

So if you want to read Scalped — if you’ve never read it, or if you have read it before — you pick up those two omnibuses. I never know what to call the plural of omnibus. But pick those up. I made sure these are the definitive versions, okay? Corrected any little bits like that that had been bugging me for years. Didn’t go back and George Lucas Special Edition anything — there’s no Greedo shooting first. I didn’t want to change even things I would do differently now, didn’t want to clean up anything, just fix some of the broken things. So this is — and all my titles and everything are in there because I love giving each arc a title and each issue a title. Usually that drives most of my collection editors crazy. We actually went back in those issues and added back in the original titles in the story, which I always like. Sorry, I’m going off on a tangent. I’m just saying, this is your time to buy those.

TMNT, Nostalgia, and the Let It Be Blueprint

Leo [00:59:49]: Uh, so Jar Jar had a couple questions. Uh, what was your first exposure to TMNT — comics, cartoons, or toys? What was your mission statement going into TMNT? We know that it wasn’t a reboot, it’s a continuation. And how do you balance nostalgia with evolution?

Jason Aaron [01:00:11]: Uh, well, those are all good questions. I mean, the first one’s easy. My first exposure to the Turtles was the comics. Um, I think I picked up issue 3 of the original series, was the first issue I read, and kind of started reading it regular monthly not long after that. So it was that original black-and-white Mirage Studios book, before the cartoon, before the movies, before the toys, anything. It was the comic. My mission, my mandate — you know, taking over that book on the 40th anniversary of that original series — was to do something that kind of hearkened back to the grit and the feel of that original book. And something that was very action-driven, had big double-page spreads and splashes and big visual moments. And something that kind of focused in on just the four brothers, um, you know, split them apart, kind of looked at who they were, who they were each becoming at this point in time, and then kind of thrust them back together to see if they could still function together. I looked at them as kind of — I use the analogy of like the Beatles around Let It Be/Abbey Road, where they looked like four guys from four different bands, right? Like they’re growing in four different directions, and it’s like, can they still come together and be what they used to be? That was what I wanted for the turtles.

So that image — and even the cover for the great Juan Ferreyra, who did the second half of this run, he just sent me the other day the cover for — they’re doing a big hardcover collection of like all 12 issues, and it’s that exact image. It’s the turtles, but also the reflection of it is them in these four different roles we see in these first four issues. Um, so yeah, I had tremendous fun on that book. Um, and I think the — sorry, the third question was, how do you balance nostalgia with evolution?

Leo [01:02:32]: How do you balance nostalgia with evolution?

Jason Aaron [01:02:35]: Thank you. I mean, I think that’s always — that’s the question for everything that I do in terms of work-for-hire stuff in this business. That’s, you know, if you’re — when I was taking on Thor, doing Superman, it’s all about how do you honor what’s come before. How do you stand on the shoulders of the great creators and the great stories that have been told with these characters? But don’t just pick the bones of those great stories. Don’t do a story to remind people of other stories from the past that we all loved. Tell a story with these characters that we haven’t seen before, take them somewhere new. That’s the only way that a character like Superman survives for 100 years and continues to be one of the most visible and recognized characters on the face of the earth — you can’t just keep doing the same thing over and over and over again. These characters have to grow and develop, and we have to put them through their paces in new and exciting ways. So I think that’s always the line you have to walk. And I think I’m always — I’m proud of what I did on Thor, and I think that’s a good example of me, in my mind, doing both of those things.

Kari Sanders [01:05:02]: So when it comes to your time on the Turtles — like, I said, you really took us through the wringer on that, but it was a beautiful story. Do you think that your story is done? You’ve handed it over to Juan now after you had your arc. Would you like to revisit the turtles at some point in time, or do you think that what you did has already gotten you to — I’ve said what I wanted to say?

Jason Aaron [01:05:47]: Yeah, I said what I wanted to say. That was very definitive ending for me. That was always the pitch — always a 12-issue story with the ending as it was, as a way to kind of set up whoever was going to come on next. But yeah, you know, those characters are important to me, important piece of my childhood. I’m just happy to be able to tell a story with them that I’m really proud of. Worked with some really incredible artists. But yeah, I feel like I’ve said what I came to say.

Bug Wars Book 2 and the Spider-Witch Special

Kari Sanders [01:06:19]: Okay, I love that. Um, when is Bug Wars coming back? People are excited.

Jason Aaron [01:06:31]: Thank you. Uh, yeah, this summer. Um, so probably late this summer you’ll get Book 2. We just did — got one right here — we just did the Spider-Witch special, which came out last month. Uh, it’s like a big meaty — it’s like 60 — 50 pages of story plus back matter. And that’s kind of your bridge between Book 1 and Book 2. So Book 1 is available in trade paperback right now, pretty huge meaty trade paperback because we put all the back matter in. This special you need to go grab in the comic book store because this won’t be collected in the collection. We’ll do kind of different Bug Sect specials. There’s different kinds of sects, tribes of the Mites. You know, there’s the Beetle Riders and the Spider Witches and the Ant Imperium and the Maggot Monks. So we’ll do kind of between the various bigger arcs, we’ll do a special that focuses on one of those different bug sects. So ultimately we’ll collect those together. But for now, if you want to read the Spider-Witch special, go to a comic book store.

Drew Mollo [01:07:57]: Okay, good to know. Did not know that.

Kari Sanders [01:08:01]: It’s amazing, by the way, folks. I mean, you might get a little squicky if you’re arachnophobic, but it’s worth getting past the squick.

Jason Aaron [01:08:09]: Well, I like to say it’s the book for you if you love bugs or you hate them.

Drew Mollo [01:08:14]: Thank you. I must really love your story because I kept itching the entire issue.

Kari Sanders [01:08:26]: I learned a lot from Bug Wars, like that there are certain beetles that are worth like thousands of dollars for collectors. It’s crazy. I want to go back in time and run a beetle farm.

Jason Aaron [01:08:42]: Yeah, yeah, that is true. Um, if you’re a Bug Wars fan, you can track down the ashcan of issue 1 at New York Comic-Con — we put it out a couple years ago — and there’s a preview of the first issue before it came out. So technically it’s the very first appearance of Bug Wars. But there’s also a prose story in the back of that that I wrote that I did not put in issue 1, did not include in the Bug Wars trade paperback. You can only read it if you go track down that ashcan. And it’s a story about a couple of guys who decide to sneak into the Slaymaker backyard to try to grab some expensive beetles, and you can guess how it goes from there.

Thundarr the Barbarian and Jason Aaron’s Alabama Origin Story

Never give up on your dream even if it seems ridiculous. And for me growing up in Piney Woods, Alabama, the idea of writing comic books seemed pretty far-fetched.

Jason Aaron, 01:16:36

Leo [01:09:43]: Um, Leo, you said that you had a question or two. Yeah — I know it just came out, but Thundarr — and I apologize, a little tongue-tied because I’m a huge fan of yours, Jason, and it’s like you and Mark Waid — I hold you guys in such high regard. But with Thundarr — from Alabama, we’re the only two comic book writers who are born in Alabama. I think, you know, you’re — yeah, it could be.

Drew Mollo [01:10:24]: Yeah, it’s because he loves Superman and he feels that you guys just get it.

Leo [01:10:30]: Yep, exactly. Yeah, Superman is like down to my core. Um, but don’t want to spoil anything about Thundarr — I know it just came out, so definitely go to your LCS to pick it up. But we’re seeing a kind of Gen X kind of storylines coming out. You have Thundarr — we also had recently Herculoids, Jonny Quest, the whole Hanna-Barbera storylines. How did this come about? And were you a Thundarr fan growing up?

Jason Aaron [01:11:04]: Yeah, that was my favorite cartoon when I was a kid. Um, you know, in the early ’80s, basically when I was the kid who was playing in the backyard — from Bug Wars is modeled after my actual backyard from when I was a kid — that was the same version of me that was watching Thundarr religiously on Saturday mornings. My still favorite Saturday morning cartoon. I’d never seen a cartoon like that. It’s very action-driven. It’s like a sword and sorcery story, but in a post-apocalyptic setting. So if you took Conan and put him in Planet of the Apes, you know, it’s a bit like that. Wizards and evil sorcerers, but also like mutants and vestiges of human society from 2,000 years ago. Um, it only lasted 2 seasons. It was maybe best remembered for its incredible opening credits, which kind of tell you the story of what happened in the worst year. Turns out the worst year in human history was 1994, which was the year it all went to hell when human civilization ended. Um, so that cartoon was created by an incredible array of legendary comic book creators, and it was mostly the brainchild of the great writer Steve Gerber. But then Alex Toth did the original character designs, and when he stepped away, they brought on Kirby. Kirby did a lot of the villain designs, and you watch the show — some of the characters look like they stepped straight out of Kirby’s Asgard, or the Fourth World.

But despite that incredible lineup of comic book talent, Thundarr has never existed in comic book form until now. Until now, right? So this is me doing — as I started to work on this, my plans, my pitch changed a little bit, and I found myself feeling very precious about it. That first issue is pretty much an episode of Thundarr the Barbarian from 1982. I found I couldn’t stretch it too far from that. I didn’t want to do a dark, radical take on Thundarr. I wanted to do Thundarr. So it’s kind of like another episode of the show. Things get bigger and bigger from there, and we sort of dive into Thundarr’s origin for the first time. We go back in time to 1994, which was the day of the Great Cataclysm, and sort of give Thundarr and Ariel and Ookla the biggest challenge they’ve ever faced before, as kind of all their enemies team up against them. And we do push things in terms of the level of violence beyond what they were allowed to do in 1980s Saturday morning, and we certainly developed a deeper emotional content. But to me, this is very much like my love letter to that original show and the effect it had on me as a kid. That said, if you have no idea what I’m talking about and you weren’t even born in 1982, it doesn’t matter. Like, if I’m doing my job properly, everything you need to enjoy this comic should be on the pages of the comic itself. You don’t need to go watch the 2 seasons of Thundarr before you pick this up. You should be able to understand what this is and enjoy it, enjoy the ride just as much as somebody like me who was lying there on the carpet as a child with my bowl of Fruity Pebbles and enjoying the adventures of Thundarr the Barbarian.

Leo [01:15:31]: I was right there with you.

Drew Mollo [01:15:33]: Not physically, but — honestly, Jason, that kid who was playing Thundarr in the Bug Wars backyard must be so proud of you right now.

Jason Aaron [01:15:45]: I hope so, you know. I hope so. I mean, I’m doing what that kid wanted to do. Like, it was at that point in time that, as I look back at it now, that backyard, that time of my life was like my origin story. Like, all the things that were going to become incredibly important to me in terms of media I was going to fall in love with, I was falling in love with at that point in time. I was running around that backyard making up stories in my head, you know, whacking trees with a stick and pretending I was on a fantasy adventure, setting up my Star Wars toys and my G.I. Joes and He-Man. And so I very much — I think I fell in love with storytelling in that yard. And little did I know, eventually someday I’d get to play with the Star Wars characters for real and write comics with them and get to write Superman and Thor and all these characters. So yeah, I never, never give up on your dream even if it seems ridiculous. And for me growing up in Piney Woods, Alabama, the idea of writing comic books seemed pretty far-fetched. It took me a while and it wasn’t all easy along the way, but absolutely worth it.

Drew Mollo [01:17:16]: The thing that you keep bringing up, Alabama — and I just keep imagining — is it possible there was a time in time and space where both you and Mark Waid, at some various point in your life, were also in the same space and you didn’t realize it?

Jason Aaron [01:17:33]: I don’t think so. I don’t believe so. I mean, Mark didn’t spend his whole childhood there. He moved around quite a bit.

Drew Mollo [01:17:44]: Um, so I just imagine young — maybe teenager — Mark Waid just happened to be at the same convenience store, just — each other.

Jason Aaron [01:18:04]: I just like grab that issue of Action Comics that I wanted to get. There you go.

Kari Sanders [01:18:23]: The first time I remember meeting Mark was as a fan. He had done Impulse, which was set in — oh yeah — in Manchester, fictional town of Manchester, Alabama, which was kind of like a version of Birmingham.

Jason Aaron [01:18:23]: Wait — at the time, I was living with my parents in Manchester, Alabama, which is like a speck on the road. Like, it’s not even really a town, it’s a community. That’s where my folks live, near Jasper, Alabama. But so — the first time I met Mark, just as a fan getting him to sign some books, I was like, “Oh, have you ever met anybody who’s actually from Manchester, Alabama? I’m pretty sure I’m the only one who’s ever read Impulse.”

The Other Side, Gus Hasford, and Writing War Comics

The Other Side — in particular that first issue — was definitely, even now, 20-something years later, the hardest I’ve ever worked on one script in my life.

Jason Aaron, 01:29:16

Kari Sanders [01:21:43]: All right, so we want to get into The Other Side. And first — I was reading your interview and I was so amazed because it was your cousin — Gustav “Gus” Hasford — who wrote The Short-Timers, which turned into Full Metal Jacket. And so when you were writing this, and I know that he died rather young, but you were friends with his friends. Did you get a lot of your source material from your cousin and his friends, as far as like what it was like in Vietnam and such?

Jason Aaron [01:22:41]: Yeah, yeah. Um, well, Gus wrote two Vietnam War books. He wrote The Short-Timers and he wrote a sequel called The Phantom Blooper, which kind of continued the story of Private Joker. And he gets taken hostage at Khe Sanh as a prisoner of war. And so we get kind of a view of the Viet Cong that really intrigued me. So I think I had this period of my life where I was very much learning more about Gus and kind of trying to compile other things he’d written and interviews and articles about him and created a website about my cousin. And yeah, as a part of that, I met some of his friends and fellow combat correspondents from Vietnam and got to go to the reunion a couple of times. And one of those guys was Dale Dye, who you’d recognize — for so many years, he was kind of the preeminent Hollywood technical advisor. He’s the guy running the boot camp for Saving Private Ryan and Platoon and so many of the great war movies, and he’s in a lot of them too. Um, he would, you know — he was just another one of my cousin’s friends from that troop. So as I was working on that book, um, I would email Dale Dye and ask him questions. So like, me, this dumb kid that they kind of adopted — you know, just as Gus’s little cousin — I got to directly email the preeminent war advisor in Hollywood history and ask him questions about stuff. And I knew they would have no problem telling me if I fucked something up. They would be quick to tell me if I got something wrong or they felt I did something that didn’t reflect well on the war and those guys and what they’d been through.

And Gus wrote a lot about the clichés and tropes of Vietnam War stories. So I did that very much for them, for the memory of Gus and for those guys. And knew, like, “Well, if I screw this up, I will hear about it. I will hear about it directly.” But, you know, they seemed to enjoy what I did. And those guys have always been incredibly, incredibly gracious to me. They loved Gus. Gus was — could be a giant pain in the ass and was a difficult person at times to be friends with. Um, but he was one of them. And those dudes — to see the bond that they share when it’s a group of people you put in a room together, they don’t have a lot in common, right? In fact, they have a lot that makes them not like each other. But the bond that they share from that time they spent together when they were 18, 19, 20 years old, in 1968, 1969, has been enough to keep them together the entire rest of their lives. Um, so it was really an amazing experience to get to hang out with them.

Drew Mollo [01:27:16]: Yeah, I mean, just reading it — I just like, I’m not going to say it was hard to read, but it was just so heavy, and you had to really digest, and it was so real. Because like you said, a lot of what we think — people like us who are children of people who lived through those times — we think of it as history, so we draw what we consider our impression of it on what we saw on film and television. But just reading what you wrote, I was like, no, this is real. And then I love the perspective — you saw two different sides of literally the same coin. And that perspective, those realities — and especially the difference of experience between you had this American soldier, and then you had this soldier — both of them drafted to fight. Similar but different. And in the end, it ends exactly how you’d expect where they’re on the battlefield facing each other. I mean, it was just — and then on top of it you had Cameron Stewart, who is just an absolute legend. He just nailed it. Everything from the decrepency of bodies rotting in the muck to this soldier who keeps seeing groups of dead people just multiply as time goes on. Um, I mean, it was just — I mean, again, kudos to you, man, especially since — if I’m right, that was like really early on in the career, right?

Jason Aaron [01:29:16]: That was — yeah, that was the first — The Other Side #1 was the first full comic script I ever wrote. You know, I had written — the only thing I’d written before that was that short story for winning the Marvel Talent Search contest. So yeah, man, The Other Side — in particular that first issue — was definitely, even now, 20-something years later, the hardest I’ve ever worked on one script in my life. And that script, if you read that one, it probably looks more like one of Alan Moore’s Watchmen scripts. Like, it’s very dense, right? Tons of reference images. I had a whole file of images as reference. Worked my butt off on that script for a long time because that was, um, one I shopped around all over the place before finally getting in the door at Vertigo. And kind of that got me Scalped, and Scalped kind of got me a comic book career. So that’s one of the most important books I’ve ever done — it’s probably still to this day the lowest-selling comic I’ve ever done, but of profound importance to me personally, and then to my career overall. Yeah, again, thanks.

Kari Sanders [01:30:38]: Oh, it was such a fantastical book — in with Billy’s insanity and having the ghost and having his gun talking to him. Oh my God. And Dai also had his moments — I remember where the enemy stuff was like a dragon and things that were coming up in front of him, and he was envisioning the war through his mythology. Whereas Billy was going through it just kind of nuts.

Jason Aaron [01:35:10]: Well, there’s a moment in the book where Joker, you know, at night when they’re in their bunks — Joker hears Pyle talking to Charlene, his rifle. And Joker swears right before he goes to sleep, he hears Charlene talk back. Um, so just that sense of like, oh shit, maybe he’s starting to lose his mind, right? I liked that idea. And Gus’s original versions of The Short-Timers — in Vietnam, the soldiers turned into werewolves, like literally turned into werewolves, and he kind of took that stuff out. So I always remembered that too. I liked the idea of pushing it in a more surreal horror direction and having the rifle actually talk back and using all the different surreal imagery. And, you know, it kind of came from Gus.

And I will also say — if you go, I don’t remember what issue it was, but there’s an issue with — I think it’s a Lincoln Red Crow flashback, where he’s in a bar somewhere. The other guy sitting at the bar is Private Everett from The Other Side. He’s got his name tag, he’s wearing his fatigues with his name on it. Um, so that’s the only bit of an Other Side epilogue you get — is Everett sitting at the bar trying to drink away the horrors of what he’s been through and deal with his trauma. He obviously didn’t shake it off.

Conventions, Substack, and the Southern Bastards Hulu Pilot

Drew Mollo [01:40:20]: Well, um, I’m good if you’re good too. So do you want to maybe wrap up?

Kari Sanders [01:40:28]: We’ve kept you for over an hour and 40 minutes, sir, so I do want to give you back the rest of your Saturday.

Jason Aaron [01:40:37]: Um, I got comics to write.

Kari Sanders [01:40:39]: Yeah, I’m gonna pull you up here. Uh, do you have any cons that you have confirmed coming up, and where do you like people to interact with you?

Jason Aaron [01:40:49]: I do. I’m looking at my board. Um, I’m doing more conventions this year than I did last year. So the first one, you’ll see me at Emerald City next month. It’s my first time there in quite a few years. Right after that, I’ll be at MegaCon in Orlando. Then I’ll be popping up at Planet Comic-Con here in Kansas City. So that’s 3 shows just next month in March. In April, I’ll be in Portugal for the first time, a show in Porto. And then I have a couple more scheduled after that that I don’t think have been announced yet. Um, so yeah, I’ll be popping up at shows a lot more this year. Other than that, the best way to keep up with me is my Substack newsletter, which I put out once a month or so. I’m not incredibly prolific, but it lets you know what I’m working on, where I’m going to be, what’s coming up, links if you want to buy any of my books from my online store. Um, so yeah, that’s the best way to keep up with what I’m doing.

Kari Sanders [01:42:02]: Okay. And um, we’ll see you soon, Dylan. Love you too. Our co-host who couldn’t make it to the show, who’s pulled over on the side of the road so he can ask you a question.

Jason Aaron [01:42:16]: Oh no.

Drew Mollo [01:42:17]: Yeah, no, no, in a good way.

Kari Sanders [01:42:22]: He would like to know if Southern Bastards is coming back.

Jason Aaron [01:42:28]: Well, believe me, if I could answer that question, I’d be screaming it from the hilltops, but there’s no answer I can give you. The — as has been announced recently, we’re working on a pilot for Hulu with Onyx and Proximity, Ryan Coogler’s company. Um, yeah, so that’s been working on that for a while. Pilot scripts by Bill Dubuque, who created Ozark. Um, you know, that’s nothing I can reveal about that other than we’re still moving forward on that and excited to see that come together and then see where we go from there.

End of transcript