Rusty Gilligan

One of the things we love best about attending Comic Book Conventions are the people we get to meet.  We get to sit down with them in person and have fun conversations that never make it on to the podcast.  But these conversations never seem to do more than scratch the surface of who the person is that we were talking to.  Such is not the case with this podcast.

We have on the podcast Rusty Gilligan, a face we see frequently at many cons and we get plenty of opportunities to talk to. Once the conversation began, we truly had no idea where it was going to begin. Not in our wildest dreams did we think we would start with Rusty as a child actor in Broadway musicals and movies and television in the 60’s and 70’s and how that led to his first real art assignment of the 1981 movie Heavy Metal. What a long strange trip it was from them to now. Oh, and did we happen to mention his 2 cat buddies, Mack and Trouble and how they rescued his life from professional wrestling? Of course we didn’t, but he did. So, there was that, and then there was also what he has been doing recently, so we got to talk about a few of his current Indiegogo projects and how Indiegogo has become the goto sales vehicle for artists and artisans during the pandemic.

In a way, we learned a ton of stuff about Rusty, but our guess is we have just scratched the surface. Check out his work and enjoy the chaos.

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Jackiem Joyner

Well it was bound to happen.  After 448 episodes we have become a music podcast.  Okay, not really.  But when you have a talented jazz performer who has moved into the realm of science fiction writing, you have to talk about the elephant in the room.  Especially when the “elephant” is having the opportunity to play with George Duke.  So we may have strayed from the path as if this is not a normal occurance for us.  We hope you will forgive us. If not, you haven’t been listening much.

Welcome to the world of Jackiem Joyner. He came to talk to us about his first book, Zarya, a novel novel set in an alien universe. The main protagonist is a young girl with a peculiar set of tech skills which are seemingly inherited by osmosis by a father she has not really ever known. What sets this apart from most first novels is its style. As mentioned, Jackiem makes his living as a jazz musician, so in a peculiar way he writes hs prose in much the same way her writes his music. As hard as it is to describe what in fact that means, we spent a good portion of the interview talking about that process and how it makes the feel and texture of the prose “different”. I will be the first to admit that it takes a bit of getting used to , however once you recognize the tempo and beat, the characters and story flow in sometimes expected and many times unexpected ways; almost musically.

It was fun to read and Jackiem was fun to talk with and hey, check out his (believe it or not) Book Club.

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Zyria

Kathrin Hutson

In 2020 we thought the world was strangely similar to the first book in the Blue Helix saga, Sleepwater Beat, like we had seen this before? Well welcome to 2031 where everything old is old yet again but not. It is a confusing dystopian future, which we were left off in at the end of book one (see Talkcast 441) . Unfortunately, when book 2 , Sweetwater Static begins, the reader is not where they think they should be.They are left with the feeling they have been tossed around in time and space.  Welcome back, my friends, to the twistedly wonderful, frightening future of Kathrin Hutson.

When book two begins, our protagonist Leo Tieffler is nowhere to be seen, what remains of the Sleepwater group has exchanged the mountains of the west for the heat and humidity of the southeast and Bernadette becomes our new storyteller.  With honeyed words and nails to bite on she takes us through the past/current/future lives of our ragtag  Sleepwater coven and the dangers they face while bringing a new member into this world.  At the same time we learn more about her checkered past in the same three-beat style we have  begun to appreciate and grown to love from Kathrin Hutson.

Soooooooo,

“So, if the words sound queer and funny to your ear, a little bit jumbled and jivey,

Say mares eat oats and does eat oats and little lambs eat ivy.”

Enjoy the chaos!

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Sleepwater Static

V.S. Holmes

So. here’s what happens when you assume……99.99999995% of the time, you’re wrong. Welcome to the continuing saga of Nel Bently as told by the incomparable VS Holmes as we explore the third novel in the Nel Bently series Strangers, a series that takes place simultaneously on Earth, in space and on some other places yet to be explained.  Because of the complexity of the universes we need the guide that V/Nel provides us in her own inimitable fashion. V’s writing style , along with Nerls character traits makes for a run and gun suspense filled story with moments of beauty, grace, intelligence and wonder. I have no idea how it all melds together so smoothly but the fact of the matter is, it does, with the jarring exception of her endings. 

Allow me to explain. Over the course of the first three books I have come to have a relationship with Nel Bently. I have come to admire and care for her and wish for her to gain the insight and inner peace she has been striving for throughout the entire series. And yet, at the end of each book, V dangles out the next tidbit, the “One More Thing”….. And if you’re invested in Nel, you know you’re hooked.

Book #4, Heretics, comes out soon….. Not soon enough

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Strangers

Autumn Grey

In 2014 the comic world was introduced to The Twisted World of Jay Mooers’ Autumn Grey. At that point it was the beginnings of an interesting story about a place, kinda like here but kinda not…an in-between world that existed somewhere in the periphery of your vision…just when you think you see it, it blinks away. Over the intervening years, as the story grew the glimpses became more solid, the characters more real, the stories more substantive, as did Jay’s work in general. 

In this episode we talk about issue 8, Collusion.  In this ABSOLUTELY NO SPOILERS SHOW, we do spend a good amount of time talking about the evolution of the story line from its inception to today, as well as where the final 2 episodes will carry the reader to. We also discuss the ways in which Jays has changed stylistically over the course of this story as well as in his other works.

Art in the time of Covid 19 is a particularly difficult subject for a myriad of reasons and as much as  from an interviewer’s p.o.v. I tend not to bring it up. In this case I thought it was appropriate to do so…so I did. We  like Jay and his work a lot. Enjoy the chaos.

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Autumn Grey Ingiegogo

Jeremy Whitley

The good news is, It’s a great day here in area 51 when we get to visit again with someone we really like and they have a new project to talk about. The better news is we are for some unknown reason STILL talking about aliens on earth and the agencies that support them. Our old friend Jeremy Whitley returns. You might, that is should remember him from his Princeless series and The Unstoppable Wasp. His newest graphic novel is something that John Cleese might call “completely different”, except that it isn’t.

 Along with artist Jamie Noguchi, Jeremy has created book one in his newest series, “School for Extraterrestrial Girls”  Without going into any details which might be considered spoilers this is the story of twins separated at birth, one a prince, the other a street beggar who decide to change roles and….no wait, that’s Dickens. This IS the story of a young teenage girl who spontaneously combusts (albeit only partially) and finds out in short order that not only is she not of this earth but there are literally hundreds like her.  From the point of view of Tara Smith, the aforementioned “fire girl”, we learn about an existing sub-culture of ET’s that for whatever reason are stranded here on Earth and cared for and taught how to survive by the “friendly” humans at Blacksite 513. With the use of ingenious tech, the aliens can alter their outer being to appear human to others as well as to themselves and this first book in the series gives us a wonderfully inventive  introduction to the setting, characters and events.

If the old saying you can’t judge a book by its cover holds true, well then welcome to the school for extraterrestrial girls where you can’t judge an alien by their skin…or something like that.

Keep social distancing while listening.

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School For Extraterrestrial Girls

D. M. Kirtaime

The fun thing about this podcast is that we never know where we are going to be introduced to our next guest.  This includes social media platforms we would not associate with science fiction or fantasy.  I am looking at you LinkedIn.  But that is where we met Dominik M Kirtaime and learned about his first book, The Perennial Migration.

The Perennial Migration is an interesting merging of fantasy and science fiction that might remind readers of the TV Series V, and Logan’s Run.  In this, we meet the New Breed that lives in the vast dome cities of the future, chipping their populace and tracking everything they do and the Old Breed who survive in the forests outside of the domes living off the refuse of the New Breed.  And the reptilians, tired of living beneath both of them and looking for their chance to rise and take over.

If you think this sounds like a boiling pot of conspiracy, oppression and mystery, you are right.  Dominik brings you into a world that keeps giving you twists and turns and plays with your expectations right to the very end.

Our interview with Dominik covered many points of his creative process including the natural evolution of one of the pivotal races, the forest folk.  We even found out that there is more to come in this series. We fought hard not to give too much away and had a great time as usual.  Unfortunately no jokes where made about Dome playing a pivotal role in he story…maybe next time.

Enjoy

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The Perennial Migration