Process Party – Episode 07 – Malachi Ward!

Study Group Comics has a podcast! Join hosts Zack Soto (Secret Voice, Power Button) & Mike Dawson (Rules For Dating My Daughter, Troop 142) as they discuss their own creative processes, comic art, family life, and a ton of other stuff.
Each episode finds a new guest from the world of comics joining Mike & Zack for an in depth conversation, and occasional guest segments from their pals around the world. Subscribe via iTunes or a podcatcher of your choice, or via the embedded audio in the posts themselves.

This week’s guest: Malachi Ward!

This week we are joined by Malachi Ward, contributor to this site as well as several anthologies (much of this work is collected in the book From Now On), author of the Vile: Decay series, and co-author of the brand new graphic novel Ancestor (which was originally serialized in the anthology ISLAND). All of the art featured in this post is in collaboration with Malachi’s Ancestor co-author, Matt Sheean.

We talk about tailoring your work to the format it appears in, from reading it as chapters to reading it as a finished book.  The phrase “why science fiction?” is used.  Social media is discussed as if we’re all old men trying to figure out Snapchat (I gave up).

Anxiety, morality, self-doubt, Transhumanism, personal and societal evolution and more are explored as we talk about the various themes of Ancestor.

There’s also a healthy amount of back and forth about collaboration, as many of Malachi’s recent comics have been co-created by the cartoonist Matt Sheean. We talk about both their solo comics and go into detail about their somewhat unique method of working together.  All in all a really fun talk!

PLUS: The Return of Shanna!

Shanna returns! After being absent for a few episodes, our favorite New Comics Correspondent is back from travels abroad.

This week is less New Comics talk than it is TOKYO SCENE REPORT! Shanna talks about her recent trip and all the cool places she went in Japan. From unexpected basement punk shows to islands full of monkeys, we’ve got the scoop. She also gushes about the super cool bookstore Taco Ché, as well as one of the books she got there, Tomino No Jigoku by  Mauro Suehiro. We of course manage to talk a bit about Sax Man (or as we call him, “Saxophone Man”) from Lost Boys. Welcome back, Shanna!

BUT FIRST: The Party Boys Talk Patreon!

I think we were supposed to talk about Ancestor publisher Image Comics more generally, but it all spun out of control as things are wont to do. Mike & Zack ended up talking about iTunes reviews (we got a new one!) and Patreon for a bit, instead. We’re going for that $20,000 everyone is making these days.

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Episode 07 – Malachi Ward – Malachi joins us on the party floor to talk about comic collaborations and hard science fiction. His new book Ancestor, created with Matt Sheean has recently come out through Image after being serialized in Emma Rios & Brandon Graham’s Island magazine. Also: Mike & Zack talk Patreon & Shanna is back from Japan and ready to report on her travels.

Theme music by Brandon White. Bandcamp/FB

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