Zombie Book Club
Welcome to Zombie Book Club! We're a Podcast that's also a book club! We talk about Zombie / Apocalyptic horror novels, TV and movies.
Zombie Book Club
Path of the Pale Rider Issue 5 with Special Guest Laurie Calcaterra | Zombie Book Club Ep 81
Join us for a thrilling episode of the Zombie Book Club as we welcome back the brilliant Laurie Calcaterra, creator of the spaghetti western undead apocalypse series, Path of the Pale Rider. We dive deep into Issue 5, exploring the mysteries of Dwayne Fink’s revelations, Jude’s journey, and the eerie parallels between Laurie’s apocalyptic world and our own. Laurie teases the Kickstarter for Issue 6, packed with exclusive content, art, and stretch goals that promise to immerse fans even further into this undead universe.
From undead fashion to blister beetle conspiracies, we discuss the themes of humanity, fear, and humor in Laurie’s work. Plus, we touch on the vibrant community surrounding Path of the Pale Rider, including fan engagement, Kickstarter strategies, and the emotional rollercoaster of indie comic creation. Tune in for a lively conversation that blends laughter, intrigue, and a dash of apocalyptic chaos!
Contact Information for Laurie Calcaterra:
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lauriecalcaterra/
- Kickstarter: Path of the Pale Rider Kickstarter
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@lauriecalcaterra360
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Welcome to the Zombie Book Club, the only book club where the book is a comic book and in the comic book no one can die, including swarms of beetles, and the main character is named Jude. And hey, jude was written by the beetles. Follow the money. I'm Dan, and when I'm not connecting the dots to uncover an international beetle conspiracy, I'm writing my own book about my own zombie world, where I have recently decided will not have plagues of undead insects crawling all over me and eating my skin. I can never follow you up.
Speaker 2:I'm Leah and today we are so happy to have our Zombesty, lori Calcaterra, back on the show with us. Lori Calcaterra is the mastermind behind the spaghetti western undead apocalypse series, path of the Pale Rider. She's a martial artist, fellow podcaster, hot sauce connoisseur and overall creative genius. Last but not least, she's also the 2023 zombie wean queen wiener of our inaugural zombie wean game show. Welcome back to zombie book club, laurie. How are you today?
Speaker 3:yay, I'm so glad to be here.
Speaker 1:I'm dying laughing laurie was here for all the takes yeah, I'm here for all the takes.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I'm here for all dance jokes. It's been a week but we're here.
Speaker 2:I'm very happy to be here. We made it together. Yeah, I've been looking forward to this too. I reread all of the issues to prepare and our last episode and I thought I maybe it was like long in my beanbag chair for an hour and I looked up and it was like four hours later. I was like was like lying in my beanbag chair for an hour and I looked up and it was like four hours later. I was like, holy shit, I have just lost myself to path of the pale rider.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you're also a good story.
Speaker 3:You had a few edibles as well, so that's at that point only one but that'll really get you in the mood like you're in there and you're like, oh yeah, I'm lost it was.
Speaker 1:It was morning motivation. So you know you got that. You got that focus from the morning motivation.
Speaker 2:That's what the gummies are called. Yeah, the high sativa content.
Speaker 3:They're great on Mondays. I hear yeah Makes Mondays way better.
Speaker 1:Yeah, unless you have to drive somewhere. Today we're digging into issue five of the Path of the Pale Rider with Lori Cal calcaterra, who's here, um, and talking about the issue six, kickstarter, I think yeah, it's coming.
Speaker 3:Um, we're in pre-launch right now. Everything is on there, except for the four preview pages for issue six, because my colorist is still coloring them. But it's all there. In fact, I could even show you guys a preview later because I can show you behind the scenes. But we're going to be launching on February 1st and hopefully taking over a Kickstarter, because that's what we do and we always have a lot of fun. I have, you know, jokes. I got the deep thoughts by Dwayne Fink so deep I have grim questions of the day. Um, lots of behind the scenes art from gilbert. Um, you know, just reviewing all the slice and dices where I smash watermelons and pumpkins and jackfruits. I got new hot sauce coming. Um, we have, uh, big boy james. We have figurines of those being made right now. Uh, gosh, we're just ripping and roaring. We got lots of stuff going on.
Speaker 2:You know how to make a Kickstarter super fun, Like whatever you do. Whenever it's coming out, I'm like oh my God, what are we going to experience next? Just like your comic, it's not just like I'm reading a comic. There's a whole immersive experience that comes along with the Pale Rider world.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and we're recording this in the past. We're in the past right now. This is past us, but when this comes out, we're going to be really close to the Kickstarter.
Speaker 2:I think it'll have been out Friday.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so if you're listening to this and it's new, then good chance you might be able to just go over there and see all of this shenanigans.
Speaker 3:Oh, that's so exciting. I love it when people find us, because the further we get in the story, you just get to binge read. Yeah, you know what I mean. I love everybody that comes along for the ride too, because we're building a poker deck, so those people are getting all their poker cards for free when we hit stretch goals. Um, but when you find us brand new and you do that catch up, it's just like leah said you can sit down and immerse yourself in the story for hours, just escape your own reality. Go visit this one.
Speaker 1:It's way worse you know, maybe that is the appeal of the apocalypse genre is like a lot of people are like why do you want to read something that just reminds you of how bad everything is like? No, but this is worse though this is worse this is way worse and it's like you might actually appreciate your job.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I don't, maybe not. Yeah, I was gonna say, I didn't think about it that way at all.
Speaker 2:In fact, I was like I want to go into a old western um clothing store and like pick myself out an outfit off the mannequin yeah, spoilers that would be great yeah yeah, that would be awesome.
Speaker 1:I always assumed that there was a big story behind that, but it just turns out he just found it on a mannequin I mean, if you're in the apocalypse, where are you finding are you pulling it off a dead body?
Speaker 1:yeah, you know, we have enough clothes in the world to give me your clothes, clothes the next seven generations of people, so like I don't think clothes will ever be a problem. If there's a sudden apocalypse, we'd have so many yeah, until they fell apart, they would wear out I mean, it's like depending on where you are you know, eventually clothes might wear out.
Speaker 3:but it's like when you're traveling, like judas, how do you carry all the clothes you think you might need?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'd have a problem.
Speaker 1:I overpack.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And also, do you wash your clothes or just go kick in a storefront and get new ones?
Speaker 3:I don't know, probably that. Yeah, you'd be stanky. You'd be stanky even if you're alive. You'd be stank, stinky when you're undead. It just stinks in the apocalypse.
Speaker 1:I'm not washing my clothes, I'm just stealing them from mannequins.
Speaker 2:I had an alternate intro for the apocalypse. I had an alternate intro for this episode that involved calling it the stinkiest apocalypse ever, and I learned that Dan doesn't like to say the word stinky. Yeah, lori.
Speaker 1:Oh, you know how some people don't like saying the word moist. Or you know how some people don't like saying the word moist or mayonnaise, mayonnaise. I don't like the word hot dog.
Speaker 3:I'm sorry if we triggered you when you're listening. Sorry.
Speaker 1:I also don't like the word stinky. Stinky, yeah, I would see why. Yeah, I also don't have a sense of smell, really. So anything referring to the sense of smell, I'm just like, yeah, that's weird, is there something wrong with me?
Speaker 3:there is, but I don't think it's that it takes deep yeah, we could.
Speaker 2:We could talk about stinkiness forever, but I think we just yeah, let's talk about issue five yeah, well, I was gonna ask you before we get into issue five. The last time we saw you was the 2024 zombie ween Game Show and you were this close to keeping the crown and Sylvester Barcy snatched it from you. I thought you know. It was really close. It was really close.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I'm just wondering how you're recovering from that, I'm still pining for the crown. He posts pictures of himself with the crown on and I'm sad. I'll be back next year gunning for that crown again, that's right. I'll be back next year gunning for that crown again, that's right. I'll be fighting, I'll be fighting. And I'm going to show up to the contest with the crown and be like sorry, game's over.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you're the person that shows up with the. You show up to the wedding with your own wedding dress. Exactly You're like I'm so happy, I'm so happy you're getting married. I brought mine too brought mine too.
Speaker 2:See, I'm prepared well for what it's worth. You're both gonna get crowns, so yours is arriving tomorrow and I just got the the stuff to start making it, but I haven't made it yet where does he live?
Speaker 3:georgia? Okay, I'm gonna go on a road trip and steal it. There can only be one highlander, thank you it's like belts.
Speaker 2:It's like the wwe belts where it's, you know, like there's different belts yeah um, there can only be one.
Speaker 3:I would love to read his book. That's where, actually where I'm at. Um, I would love to see you know what he's imagined I was. Uh, I heard some of the clips from his episode with you guys and so seems really creative very yeah, I want to kind of crawl in his brain for a little bit and see what he's come up with it's fun.
Speaker 2:You two would be a great mashup combination too. I think that's why you were both uh right up there at the end duking it out for the crown.
Speaker 3:I think he's afraid of me because I sent him a message. I was like here's my issue. You know, la la la. It's hoping like send me something. Nothing.
Speaker 1:I was like oh, at least he doesn't want to fight you like jack and marry you.
Speaker 3:Jack either wants to fight me or marry me.
Speaker 2:I don't know How's your marriage doing after the release of the love story between you and.
Speaker 3:Jack. My husband was a little confused until I explained who Jack was and then he was like, okay, he did weird things. And I was like it's not my fault, I just, you know, did the speech from Gondor and he was, you know, had hearts over his head. Yeah, you didn. Did the speech from gondor and, yeah, he was you know had hearts over his head.
Speaker 2:Yeah, he did. You didn't know that was going to create that reaction.
Speaker 3:No, no, because he was fighting with me the whole time.
Speaker 2:Of course, I think he was drunk for birth, definitely yeah, I'm 100 sure he was drunk jack callahan hi shout out to you, author of zombie, nerd and the half-term harrowing if you want to know the love story. The quote unquote love story hate, love to hate, hate to love.
Speaker 3:Hate to love Enemies to marriage proposal. Infatuation yeah.
Speaker 2:You can go back and listen to the Zombie Ween Game show episodes from 2024.
Speaker 3:Jack remembers nothing. He's like I did what? But if you want to talk about a true love story, I love Jo Salazar, I love her we saw you binding a book for her.
Speaker 3:Yes, well, first her and I we were talking on, you know, on Insta, and I purchased a copy of her book, she purchased a copy of mine. So we were nerding out over each other's properties. And then I was like, you know, I rebind books and I would love to rebind yours. And she was like, can you do one for me? And I was like, oh, absolutely, I'm like, if you send me a book, I will bind the one for me and I'll bind the one for you and I'll just ship yours. You know, just pay for the shipping, and you know that. And then she was like can you do it, can you do two for me? And I was like, yeah, it's fine. Um, so she sent me two books. I did all the design work. She was like just surprised me, amazing, right. And because I had actually read the book, it was real easy for me to to pull design elements onto the cover and like the interior pages. And she loved that.
Speaker 3:The bookmark there's a bloody machete. That was the bookmark that I found. And I was like, oh my God, amazon, I love you. So I rebound this for her and just sent it to her, you know, and she opened it. She did a reaction. It's like I cried. She was so emotional opening it and it was just like it's such a cool thing to see someone appreciate the art it's their book, it's their baby and to see it re-envisioned by someone else, but with all the same love and passion that you have. It's really a cool moment. So I think we kind of bonded over that. Now I'm like following all our social media. I'm like, yay, joe, like, like, like, comment and like I love that so much.
Speaker 2:I'm enjoying watching your um friendship grow. It's very cool because we love you and we love Joe, so and Brandon and that happened because of this show and because of zombie women.
Speaker 3:So I was just saying you were bringing us all together and that's great.
Speaker 2:I tried to have a surprise for you today, Lori, but it did not work out. I tried to have Brandon show up for 15 minutes for a surprise showdown of zombie ween type questions, but he was unavailable. And are you unavailable, Brandon, or are you just scared of Lori? That's my question.
Speaker 3:He's not scared of me, we? That's my question. He's not scared of me. We'll just say that much. He came on Killer Karen, and it was the most awkward episode. I kept having to turn my camera off.
Speaker 2:I'm like I can't do it. I don't think I've watched that one.
Speaker 1:Yeah that's one to look out for. So what is Killer Karen for people who don't know?
Speaker 3:It's an intentional dumpster fire of a podcast. I put on a blonde wig and a personality of Karen the ultimate Karen and I interview comic book and other creators and she hates comic book creators. She hates anybody that's artistic and she hates comic book creators. She hates anybody that's artistic Like she has this whole like scale where it's like writers, artists, furries and D&D players yeah, Are all in the incel scale. So she just loves to insult you to your face and like you try to promote your book and she just like will ask you random questions about mayonnaise. It's an intentional dumpster fire, but it's. It's entertainment at its best where it's like you turn in knowing that it's going to be weird and awkward and sometimes over the top, but you still get to see these creators and then all of their links and everything always go on the show description, so we're still promoting them.
Speaker 1:This is your like between two ferns?
Speaker 3:yes, that's exactly what it is, yeah okay but we've had like drinking contests with the, with the guests, and like, um, what else? Someone came on that was canadian and like did all the canadian tropes that you could think of? And like we were just laughing at someone came on and said they were a killer, a hunt, I'll wait. Uh, karen hunter. Oh, and he was hunting the the like you would hunt vampires. He was hunting karen's, so he was trying to get my address to show up and, like you know, behead karen. So we just had, and like karen just told him he had a small unit, the entire episode, um, until the end where he finally broke and he started yelling at her in the voice of elmo um, it's just all over the place, it's just, it's crazy. So every time you tune in, it's like it's something different. Every time it's wonderful.
Speaker 2:Um, I just picture as soon as I see you in the wig lori. I know it's gonna be, it's gonna be a journey and then you also have um the tuesday morning brew yeah, I really enjoy that one too. It's really fun. Um feels like a casual chat with creators as well it's exactly what it is.
Speaker 3:It's just and everybody's welcome. I've had artists and, uh, writers mainly those, just because that's the community that I'm in and they see me, so they know that the show is there. But I've had musicians, novelists, um pot, other podcasters. Uh, one of the gentlemen I had on makes nerdy furniture, nerdy high-end furniture like gaming tables and comic book cabinets, and that's cool. That's really the stuff that he puts into these. Yeah, um, that was a great episode. I had a, a young woman, I think she was 14, ventriloquist and musician. Oh, yeah, uh, that was a great episode.
Speaker 3:But like we launched other people's kickstarters and like we just you know, it's casual, it's casual. It's more about letting people get to know you and then if you have something to promote, we promote it as well. But it's less about selling stuff, it's just more about awareness of that creator, that they exist, because indie comics the hardest part is you have cool stuff but people don't know who you are and they don't know you exist and so it's just getting out there into a new audience to you know whoever's tuning in that day to be like, I really like that, I really like what she does. She has hot sauce I've never had you know someone do comics and hot sauce before you know and it gets them. It gets them, hopefully, to the Kickstarter to help support. You never know, but everyone counts, everyone counts. Even if it's just one person that comes from that audience, it helps.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it grows. It grows the community. That, I think, is really fast and fiercely loyal to you and also for other creators. I think there's something really fun about getting to just know a person and if you vibe with that person, odds are you're going to enjoy their work.
Speaker 1:That's definitely the case for us, yeah and I think a lot of indie creators, you know writers um artists, especially if they don't have a whole lot of experience in the social media world, equate whether or not people are finding them with whether or not people like what they're doing, and that's just not the case. It's just that they don't know who you are.
Speaker 3:It's so hard? Yeah, um, because we internalize. I mean, again, we're seeing the world through our own lenses, right, and so let's say I'm running a kickstarter and someone cancels, right, a lot of times creators take it personal. Oh my god, they don't like what I do. You know what I mean, but usually it's something going on in their life. You have no idea what's going on, financial whatever where they're just like I just can't support right now. But, like you said, like okay, I'll let you guys know a little imposter syndrome that I'm having Because I run a Kickstarter every you know, twice a year, three times a year and for whatever reason, my backers hate signing up for that pre-launch email.
Speaker 3:Now, is it necessary? No, because whenever I launch something, if you've backed one of my projects, it'll automatically send you an email that says back another project by Lori Calcaterra. Plus, I'm so active on social media. I tell everybody I'm launching on February 1st at 7 pm eastern standard time and I start telling people that a month out. So do they have to sign up for pre-launch? No, but when I look at it I'm like man, I have like no one signed up for pre-launch. Then I'm like they don't like, they didn't like what I did in issue five and they're not gonna come back. That's what that stupid imposter syndrome is telling me, but it's never true. Every time I launch, everybody comes.
Speaker 2:You're kind of lovable I know, laurie, you're kind of a lovable piece I'm getting, I'm. I'll let it say say channeling, dan I'll just channeling dan feeling fangirlish just I. You're kind of a lovable person and so I think it's really helpful to actually hear that someone like you has imposter syndrome because you are a creative time. Yeah yeah, you're a creative genius. You're incredibly kind, you're charismatic and hilarious, like in my mind. I'm like who wouldn't be excited to read path the pale rider jerks.
Speaker 3:Maybe you, the pale rider jerks maybe you should make a jerk sauce for them. I don't know. Yeah, but they would buy it. Um, I appreciate that, uh, because it is so hard to kind of put your heart and soul out there and and usually, you know, I don't let people see my weakness. So when people cancel or I'm feeling unsure because usually it's it's a huge emotional rollercoaster. So if anybody is thinking about running a Kickstarter, I'm going to give you a secret it doesn't get any better.
Speaker 3:This is going to be my seventh Kickstarter and it's going to be an emotional rollercoaster. So in the beginning, when you take off and you launch and everybody piles in and it's going sky high and it's oh, it's such a high, and then after like three days, there's nobody Right, you might get one or two a day if you're lucky and you don't get a cancellation, and then it's just like you crash, your emotions just crash and you're like, oh, maybe I'm not, as you know, maybe the project's not as good as I think it is, and so it's just and it doesn't matter. Seventh campaign, 12th campaign Carissa Grant's, I think, on her 14th campaign. It's the same, it's just. It's an up and down journey. So find a good friend Like I have people in the community that I vent to invent in private. Don't put it on your social media. Don't do that. No one wants a sob story. Present a positive you know front to the public and then, if you're sad, you go cry in the back room.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, you have a DM group that you commiserate with. It doesn't go on the internet yeah.
Speaker 2:Right, Right. Feel free to vent in our DMs anytime.
Speaker 1:Laurie, you can vent to us anytime.
Speaker 2:We have our frustrations and moments of imposter syndrome too, mostly me. Dan is like disturbingly confident.
Speaker 1:I just keep it inside where it eats away at me a little bit over time.
Speaker 3:That's a very male response. It is. It's the male response. Bury it deep within, yeah, and sometimes it comes out and we look at you like what.
Speaker 1:I had no idea you were feeling that and it's been like years I'm like it has everything to do with my father it probably does and then all of it just boils out all at once. It's like my dad didn't love me.
Speaker 3:The podcast gets this many downloads dan, that's when you put it in your book. Yeah, I'm serious. All that trauma, it's true, you put it in your book.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm serious, all that trauma.
Speaker 1:That's true.
Speaker 3:You put it in the book. That's what I do.
Speaker 1:Oh don't worry, I'm trauma dumping into the book.
Speaker 2:You've seen it.
Speaker 3:All my crazy, my fears up there yeah, bears, bugs, dementia I'm afraid of all of that.
Speaker 1:That is a good point. There's a lot of things in your books that sounds pretty terrifying.
Speaker 3:Terrifying, yeah, okay, so last episode that we recorded together, we were talking about how you used hot sauce when you were in the military to keep soldier ants off of you, right? My response was I can't wait for you to read the next one. Yeah.
Speaker 1:They needed some pale sauce.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I was going to say what's your reaction to what happened.
Speaker 1:Oh, I hate the idea of swarming insects that you can't kill, that it's worse, that they can't die, or rather they still keep going, but yeah, so there's a little QR code in the issue that'll take you to a little video to inform you a little bit about these beetles.
Speaker 1:I had no idea these things existed. They break their legs and bleed on you Acid. They're acid blood which makes huge blisters on your skin. So they're just covered with blister bugs. They're just, they're just gonna be blisters. Now that's not, that's, that's their life they're, they're covered in blisters.
Speaker 3:And then some idiot uh tried to help and lit them on fire, yeah, and burnt santa claus to the.
Speaker 1:Yeah, everyone was on fire.
Speaker 3:So you're either covered in bugs full of blisters or on fire.
Speaker 2:That's definitely worse than my day job.
Speaker 3:And that's how I roll. That's how it's like I think I had posted a couple spoilers with no context. It was like Lori Calcaterra writing issue five and it's just like you know the SNL funny thing where it's like good. Calcaterra writing issue five and it's just like you know that the um snl funny thing was like bad. Uh, good guys, don't look at explosions where you just like throw a match and you walk away as things explode behind you. That was me writing issue five.
Speaker 1:I'm like we're done here, we're moving on have you no more santa claus?
Speaker 3:have you encountered a blister beetle? No, they're out west. Yeah, I think the video where they belong that's what I was wondering.
Speaker 2:I'm like is this something you found out about? And you're like I absolutely have to make my characters suffer with blister beetle.
Speaker 3:Yes, that's what it was. Because it was like, uh, we were in issue five and it was just like swarm of bugs, right, and gilbert was like what, what kind of bugs? What am I drawing here? And I was like let me go, let me go search. And so I was like what's kind of bugs? What am I drawing here? And I was like let me go search. And so I was like what's? Because they're in Arizona at that point. So I was like native insects to Arizona and I was looking at beetles and then I was like, ooh, look at these. I'm like a blister beetle. That sounds like that's extra right. And then I found that video and I was like these are going in. And I sent the video to Gilbert and he was just like what is wrong with you? He was like does everybody need to suffer? I'm like, yeah, it's the apocalypse. What are you?
Speaker 2:thinking, yeah, and even Dwayne Fink spits one out after they've been rushed down the river for escaping. And I was just like. Then I read more about them and apparently if you ingest them accidentally, like say they're like in a food product somehow, and you eat it, that it will still, it'll like blister you on the inside. Yeah, that is horrifying, is this? Also a connection to like the end of the world. You know what are they called. There's like the swarm of locusts. Yeah, that are in Revelations.
Speaker 3:Yes, and that's part of it, right, yeah, because path of the pale rider. That name is connected to revelation, where it's like the four horsemen of the apocalypse and the one riding the last horse, the pale horse, is dead, and so this whole thing is about where is dad? And, like I try to put in as many, I slide them in there. If you're paying attention, like Leah does, of those apocalyptic tropes, they're there, so I'm glad that you caught that. There's so much more that happened in issue five that I want to pick your brains about. Ooh, the grocery store where he's with. He got his uniform. So it's like, okay, we're back to issue one, jude, right, that's basically where we are in time, but he's in the grocery store and he's battling verbally with lola, which is one whole mess, and then there's the tv in the background.
Speaker 2:oh, right, yeah, yeah, america. I actually just opened. It is with great sadness I say america is no longer united. Who may or may not be an undead president? We don't know oh, he was.
Speaker 3:They took his disc off and it was still beating green. Oh, that's right.
Speaker 1:So there was a military coup.
Speaker 3:There was a hacked disc, and then the president said something about the undead gangs that are roaming the West and he called their leader, jet. And when you see Lola and their gang, they're referring to her as Jet. And did you see who was in that gang? Oh, in the gang.
Speaker 2:I didn't In the gang. Now I'm looking at it. I've got to look more closely.
Speaker 1:This is the fun thing about it. You can read this thing 10 times and still see something new To be fair, my edible was kicking in, so I knew that I had a limited amount of time to finish it.
Speaker 3:All right. So in issue four there was a riot right and there was this character in all green and he had a mask over his face with snake fangs, and so he was in that riot in issue four and if you watch his movements he starts with the undead side and then eventually and he tells the guy, throw your disc right. And then he goes to the other side and he's standing with the collectors and he's like go ahead, fire on him.
Speaker 3:So he's kind of he's playing both sides and we don't really know who he is yet because, he's got a scary mask no, I didn't tell you who he is, but he's here I think I'm looking at the exact same page as you.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so he's there moving in the background yeah, and you know, we've, we've seen, we've seen things like this in real life too, I'm sure. I'm sure you've seen it as well, laurie. Where people will like they, they have a vested interest in their being, division and causing chaos.
Speaker 3:Yes. So this character you will find out who it is later on. It's like I'm showing you Jude St Claire's point of view and all of this and then, when you get further in the story, you know what caused all of this. Then I reveal who he is and he's really important to the story. So you're seeing one thing, but when you go back you're going to see something else. After you know, I love that.
Speaker 2:It's always so interesting Cause like as of right now, I don't. I don't know or really like or trust snake man, as I call him.
Speaker 3:Nor should you, I Could you. I mean, it's just one of those things like what is he doing? That's where you are, because there was one.
Speaker 2:I was actually. I was looking at this. I'm going to apologize in advance. You might have to edit this out. This guy oh, I hate backgrounds. Let me just get rid of my background. It's on the page before the beginning of the blister beetle infestation and he's also in green, and I was trying to figure out if that was the same guy or not. Oh, jimmy, jimmy, okay, yeah.
Speaker 2:I'm like green, maybe, I don't know. There's a lot of things that could go in any different direction, and it's always I'm left with a lot of questions at the end of reading your series.
Speaker 3:Yes, Well, jimmy is kind of like the representation of danger. So between issues one and two. So issue one, the big threat was big james, and in issue two, when they're in the saloon, it's jimmy they have the same name.
Speaker 3:Yeah, these people with james jim names are no good jim james and if you look at his face, he has the scar. He has the big james scar on his face and in issue two, jude brings it up. He's like what happened to your face? Did Big James give you that scar? And he goes no, I gave Big James his. Who knows if he's telling the truth, but he's just kind of like the representation of like, no matter if you're in the wild or you're with people, there's always that ever present danger. That's there.
Speaker 1:There's always a.
Speaker 2:James? What did James do to you, Laurie?
Speaker 3:Speaking of trauma, change his name to brandon.
Speaker 1:You're gonna change the bear's name too. It's big, brandon brandon bear.
Speaker 3:It's big brandon, no, that might go to his head. We won't do that, um, so anyway. So I mean like this if you read this as issue two and then issue five, it's just the, the, the wrapping up of that encounter where jude embarrassed him in front of like his posse and he kicked his ass right and so now he's like he's you're dead, he's like we're gonna. You know I, there's nothing left for him to take except for his life. So he's, he's out there to cause trouble. He wanted to hang him in the santa claus tree and come visit him every year that was fucked up to read.
Speaker 2:Yeah yeah, he's just, he's a bad dude but he gets his right, because the beatles take him out, which is a terrible way to die.
Speaker 3:So there's some karma in this story too yeah, you know, and I've talked about this, jude has an over abundance of luck, good luck and bad luck. He just it's, he. He's always seems to be in the place where everything goes wrong, but he makes it out alive. Um, and that was kind of that situation where, like, he was trying to go jimmy into a duel to make it fair, uh, jimmy wasn't falling for it and the beatles showed up. So you know, the beatles suck. He got out of there, but it's like as soon as he got out of there, they swam to the shore and he got kicked in the face yeah, I was actually at the very end.
Speaker 2:Jude says that he wants, wishes he could go on vacation because all the things that just happened to him, which are many and terrible, and my instant thought was like where would jude go on vacation in the Path of the Bellrider universe? Is there a place that Jude would go.
Speaker 3:Yeah, there's well in the lore. We haven't gone to any place yet, but there are places where it's just the living and it's like. It's almost like they pretend the apocalypse didn't happen. We haven't gone there yet, we will.
Speaker 2:So there are places that you can go.
Speaker 3:There are places that are less violent. Santa Claus is very unfriendly. It was unfriendly to strangers, it was unfriendly to undead and that was kind of like your first experience with living people. But there are communities out there that are friendly to both living and undead so you can move through that place, no matter your living status. There's places that are unfriendly to living, so if you're undead, you know they just kill you, which is kind of what we saw with Lola. It's like if you have a heartbeat, we're just going to shoot you and now you're on our team. That was the whole point. It's like we're done trying to talk you. We find you, you become one of us, that's it, yeah, so it just depends on where you are, yeah, where his vacation might be.
Speaker 2:Well, it's also an interesting one. Like she's come a long way in those 10 years and it made me wonder if we're gonna get to see any uh of who lola was before they were undead, um, or even just the 10 years that turned them into the vigilante jet leader that they are you will see lola's story, but not in this.
Speaker 3:In in the main comic it's jude's point of view. Um, I think I mentioned I was writing the second. Choose your own adventure, oh she's in there.
Speaker 2:That's very cool because clearly something happened to her. Like, um, there's a line in in this issue, issue five, where she says the only way to regain their sympathy meaning the living is to remove their heartbeat. And that stopped my heart for at the moment. Yeah, a really powerful line. And, um, the fact that she was considering unaliving, uh, jude, and also that just anybody who's alive should be killed because that's the only way to get them on her side, was a really sobering moment. And I'm curious like what it would take to get someone to that place. Like, what kind of abuse has she seen or suffered from people like her?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I want to remind everybody, I wrote this in 2018 because I feel like, if that was the answer, that people would be doing that now. I agree, people are so divided now that if it was like we could do one thing and make you on my side, they would do it Right, because they're done, everybody's done arguing with each other, but there is, there's still no common ground. So I feel like it's not. It's not far off from where we are right now. To be honest with you done, everybody's done, arguing with each other, but there is there's still no common ground. So I feel like it's not. It's not far off from where we are right now. To be honest with you, and I'm one of those people like I. I I threatened, I'm in the middle, I take no sides. I hate politics. I hate it all. They're all crooks, they're all. They're all terrible. I don't want any of them. Anarchy, yay, wait, wait, wait, I'll take that back.
Speaker 3:Well, my point is is like people are. If you look at and this is what's coming in six if you look at people for who they are, we're a lot alike, yeah. And so Jude wakes up in this camp cadaver. So Leah and Dan have seen the first four preview pages of issue six. So, uh, jude, and then end of issue five, gets kicked in the head and there's something in spanish that says camp cadaver is waiting for you. Um, and he wakes up there with duane. Uh, which I think is funny, because even though they are gagged, that duane is still like trying to talk. He's just like like everybody's like shut up, like we can't understand you, you big dork. But then you get introduced to Miguel Blanco and that's who kind of runs this camp. But you're going to see something different from Jude St Claire in this issue.
Speaker 2:And then, of course, this is all meant to lead us to what happens next it feels like an inevitability that he's going to be unalived and and maybe that's not what's going to happen, but I'm that's sort of what I'm like in this scenario. How would he get out of camp? Cadaver not being a cadaver? It'd be pretty difficult.
Speaker 3:Well, how do I say this without spoiling? Nope, can't. Um, that's where the filter comes in. There's, there's something that happens, but you'll just have to wait and see. Now we, we always tease that jude is gonna die and I've said I think we kill him off like three times.
Speaker 2:Um you have to in this world, take that for what it means.
Speaker 3:Yeah, um, I think one, two, at least twice.
Speaker 1:But, you know something like it's hard to keep in mind while reading this. Is that like when, when the enemy, when the bad guy dies? You know, like example, the guy who wanted to string up Jude St Claire after he escaped jail? Yeah, it's hard to keep in mind that after the swarm of locusts came in and the whole town was burned to the ground, that's not solved.
Speaker 3:No, they're still there. They're burnt to a crisp, they're mad.
Speaker 1:There's no getting rid of them.
Speaker 3:They're coming back, no matter what I feel like, if Jimmy, if he sees, if and when he sees Jimmy, I'm trying to wear this so I don't spoil anything. If and when he sees jimmy, I'm trying to wear this so I don't spoil anything. If and when he sees jimmy, again that bugs would come out of his mouth every time he talks.
Speaker 3:One of those yeah but yeah, they're still there. In fact, in those preview pages, one of those characters is burnt to a crisp, uh, and he's important too. So, yeah, it's. It's interesting that, yes, you're right, it's like santa claus is down, but that doesn't mean that those people are gone. They're still there.
Speaker 1:So you got to do something. And also as there as the, the undead are going around and and you know stopping people's hearts yeah. You know it's. It's easy to think well, that's kind of barbaric, that's mean they're doing bad things, but also like they're just kind of speeding up inevitability.
Speaker 3:If death is broken, everyone dies, so right is it important to be alive anymore yeah, well, except for lola doesn't think so, um, miguel blanco doesn't think so, um, but I mean, like that seems to be, the mentality is that this there's so much of a division at this point that it's just like you're gonna, eventually, you'll be on our side, we're gonna get you one way or another. The mentality is that there's so much of a division at this point that it's just like you're going to, eventually, you'll be on our side, we're going to get you one way or another. Right, so there's that. So Jude is out there in that environment at this point. So I feel like the farther west you go, the more the undead have gone out that way, and it's much more hostile for the living. So that's, he's surrounded with the undead. So, out that way, and it's much more, um, hostile for the living. So that's, he's surrounded with the undead. So how does he continue to survive? Is it that luck thing? How long until that luck runs out?
Speaker 2:yeah, and why does he still have the? Why does he? And living in general, like in uh, issue five, where they kill that family or unalive the family I think the term unalive is so appropriate for your your series, by the way yeah, um when they unalive the family.
Speaker 2:I think the term unalive is so appropriate for your series, by the way. When they unalive that family like they're terrified to die, but I'm like you're gonna die, like this is inevitable. So why do you still want to hold on to your living body when you're like you're going to die? But also, even before death was broken, it was always inevitable that you were going to die. And this time you actually get to still stick around for a bit. So I think it's really interesting human psychology that people are holding on to their livingness for lack of a better term it's fear of the unknown.
Speaker 3:Yeah, um, also, I mean, I think jude jude says it in the grocery store where she was like why does it? Why are you so hung up on this? Why does it even matter anymore where she's like why are you so hung up on this? Why does it even matter anymore? Where she's like? It's kind of the same thing that you said it's inevitable. Why do you keep fighting? And he was like I'm terrified of this. He's like.
Speaker 3:I've seen it time and time again. I see the confusion set in because even though you're undead, some people are able to hang on to their humanity longer than others and others just just go. They lose it. Yeah, they lose their memories, they lose their you know, human, they get violent, they get vegetative, it hits it's dementia and fast forward. So I think people are, are so the living ones are so desperate to hang on to that humanity as long as possible, because it's terrifying to think you're going to lose your mind, you know, or just the fear of unknown, like that poor kid. You know it's funny I was. I was like we never. I was arguing with my husband because of the whole sad pancake Right Cause we killed a puppy.
Speaker 2:Sorry, not a real one, folks.
Speaker 3:Not a real one and it's coming back in issue six, but I blame Gilbert for that, because that puppy was not in my script. He put it in there. He put a puppy in there and then forgot. I don't know if he just didn't like put two and two together, because it got to that final panel and the puppy was the last one alive. And I was like make sure lola shoots that puppy. And he was like what? I was like, did you not, did you not read that? He was like I didn't think that lola. I was like lola shoots everything. That's who she is, so that's gilbert's fault. So anyway, um, but I was like yeah, we didn't kill any kids. And my husband opens the book and puts it in my face and he was like this kid right here.
Speaker 2:And I was like, oh yeah, we did kill that kid, honestly all right and the kid's puppy but they're still here and the puppy it's a, it's a mind fuck because they're still here, and that's what I think. They're still here. It's like she thinks she's doing a kindness. I think this is her solution to the problems that our world has. Let's just make everybody the same. If we're all the same, then it's going to be okay, Right, Then you'll stop fighting.
Speaker 3:Yeah, how boring. But you have to embrace the insanity that comes with it. And I mean like she's, you know, like again, that's kind of a warped thought If you think about it, where it's like if everyone's dead, we wouldn't fight anymore.
Speaker 2:That's pretty dark parallels of the real world, which are always so stark to me when I read your work, is like um, hesitating. I'm wondering if my inner filter should win this one, but it's not going to. I think I'm just going to share this that my grandfather, uh, who was basically prejudiced against everybody that wasn't him, essentially, uh, would say insert any historically oppressed group, uh, and he would say we should just put them all in a pit and burn them, like that's the final solution. I don't like, I don't think that her, yeah, that was my granddad glory. Wow, I come from impressive stock, uh, but uh, it's not that far off. I mean, that's how genocides happen, that's how war happens. Is we just decide some people's lives aren't worth being here? You forget?
Speaker 3:their humanity. Yeah, and that's, and that is what's at the key of issue six. You forget their humanity. Um and uh, that's how I think that's how humans are able to do the atrocities to each other that we do. Yeah, from any way, any which point of view, right, any, any culture doing that to another culture.
Speaker 3:It's like you're no longer human, and so I think that's at the core of this story too, is that once they're undead, are they no longer human? They may not act. You know, polite, we'll just put it that way. They're impolite. They murder you in your sleep, I don't know, um, but they're still human in some way, shape or form. Um, and then, of course, it's like since you don't see my humanity, that gives me permission to take away yours, yeah, and so that's where that struggle comes, um. And so jude is at the center of that in this camp, and has to. He will have to make a choice about how he proceeds, because, again, he's trying to get to this golden city, el dorado, because that's where duane and every you know, that's where his journal is telling him has answers, um, but what's the cost to get him there?
Speaker 2:it's. I don't think it's easy to be jude. I'll say that because the other thing that really strikes me, that feels very real, is just that, um, on either side of the dehumanization that's happening, whether you're dehumanizing the people who are quote unquote alive versus undead, is this assumption that they're all the same different issues with dementia, I mean, that's, humans right like not. On the flip side, not all living people are safe. Jimmy is a great example. You know jimmy was alive and he was very, very dangerous yeah, green shirt guy green shirt guy.
Speaker 2:Yeah, green green shirt guy and snake guy. So it's just, I don't even know if he's human.
Speaker 3:Yeah, oh interesting.
Speaker 2:That's right at the end of four.
Speaker 3:Dude, I don't know if you're gonna go back at the end of four after that second riot he's walking out of that town. He's the only one left right lola bailed and he's walking and he runs into him. The guy takes his mask off that's him this is at the very back of issue four.
Speaker 3:Dang it, there we go. That's him. And they look at like jude is like hello, and they have this like they stare daggers at each other and all the hairs go up on the back of jude's neck and he says, and I quote what the hell was that thing? Yeah, that thing as he runs off into the, into the grass. Oh my god, we don't know what that guy is yeah something entirely different, do you so?
Speaker 2:something new we haven't seen before do you surprise yourself with the accuracy of path the pale rider in terms of what's literally happening in the not very united states of america? Can I swear?
Speaker 3:yes, if you haven't noticed, there's a shit out of me yeah, there's a shit out of me and it scares the shit out of my team because things have been happening and in the news that we can't even talk about yet because we haven't gotten that far in the story because, remember, I've written all the way up to like 20. I think I'm on 21, wow, so the story, right, we haven't gotten there yet and things are happening like an arc two. Now that in the news and I send it like look what I found. And they're like shut the up, lori. You know what I mean. They're like they're scared. I'm scared where I'm like I don't even know. They're like can you write something positive?
Speaker 2:like write happy well, I mean, are we in a positive time? Like you said? Like this, your path to pale writer is an escape from a very sort of shitty reality, but also still better than this one in many ways, and Are we living in a timeline where you have magical powers and everything you write becomes true?
Speaker 3:That's scary to me because have you seen the inside of my brain A little bit.
Speaker 1:We haven't even gotten to the.
Speaker 3:We haven't even gotten to some of the worst things. We'll just put it that way we've gotten there, it does.
Speaker 2:Okay, I'm gonna get woo woo for a minute and people should take this with a lot of hot sauce made by laurie calcaterra from the next kickstarter. Um, but I do think it's creepy. Your ability to describe the reality of what we're going through as a country right now through this allegory of path of pale rider and it's about the apocalypse and very much calls back to revelations like it, does make me think, like you might have a little bit of a line, a little bit of a tapped in line lori, uh, into sort of like universal consciousness or I don't know what people believe in, but it does creep me out a little bit, and there are other authors that I've seen that have that ability to predict and I do think, like I mean, I'm sure some of it is just the fact that you're an observant and very smart person and you're just seeing what is real and what's happening, but the the fact that there are so many things that are actually very close to what has happened in real life is what's disturbing to me.
Speaker 3:And what's disturbing to me is that I wrote it before it all started. Yeah, and it's. It's following as we release them. It scares the crap out of me where it's like issue five came out right before the election. It was like election day that we released the PDF and, of course, my journal entry was like we don't know how much longer we're going to be the United States.
Speaker 1:Yep, I did notice that at the beginning of issue five. I'm like, wow, that's poignant.
Speaker 2:Yeah, because that's what it felt like when the election happened. It was just like fuck and, honestly, whatever result we had with the election, it was going to be a mess. That's the truth In the sense that there's this much division. You know, obviously I do, I do have a bit of a side. I am certainly a left-leaning person, but I and I think that it's really important for us to figure out how to talk to each other, because it's just we're so close to full-on civil war revolution.
Speaker 3:uh it's terrifying. And when we stop talking, that's where. That's where the problems happen. That's when you turn into lola. You don't need to tell me anything, I'm just gonna shoot you.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's like I don't know, it's okay let's talk about something light, to just shift the mood a little bit.
Speaker 1:Hey, remember, remember, prince the dead horse.
Speaker 3:Yes, I was like, yeah, well, she's in issue five alive. Yes, you're welcome. I was wondering.
Speaker 2:I was like was this? I'm sure it was already in your plans, but it did make me very happy because I know that I I was like I'd really love to see prince again before they're and we we could still see her again.
Speaker 3:Yeah, we could still see her again in the state she's in now, because we didn't see her after big james dragged her off. I will the reason jude had to get out of there. He had. He had to get out of there because the bear was there. But we don't know if we'll see her again.
Speaker 2:We could see, potentially we could see everybody again yeah, that's what's so interesting about it nobody, nobody, actually dies, but it would be very sweet. This is my like imagination of what a potential future that I'd love to see in path of pale rider, and if it's's not this, it'll still be amazing. Whatever it is you come up with, but both of them on dead, reuniting, like a visual of undead June, undead Prince, riding off into the sunset together that's your fanfic rotting together slowly on a hill somewhere.
Speaker 3:It's very sweet. Puts it back on. There you go.
Speaker 2:I mean, yeah, as a horse person I get it like when my horse slaps her star back on her forehead that got left behind.
Speaker 1:Damn it he has to go back and get it makes a little headband out of the star he should have leathered it.
Speaker 3:I mean, he just makes a star out of something and puts it in the space.
Speaker 2:I've been saving my dog's hair like a total fucking creep because I know that they're gonna die oh no, speaking of dogs, did you?
Speaker 3:what about sad pancake? Were you upset when she's shocked?
Speaker 2:I actually wasn't, because the name is so good and I remember. Um, I remember actually, this is why it's important to get like, get in the community. You're. One of the only reasons I go to Facebook now is for posts that are happening on Path of the Pale Rider, because you actually asked for like ideas for dog names, like fun dog names, yes, and I was like, oh, this is why Sad Pancake happened. I told you about Muffin Pan a dog that I knew yes. One source of inspiration.
Speaker 3:And that was one of the names in the poll. I put Muffin Pan in there because I thought it was a cute name.
Speaker 2:It is Sad Pancake's perfect though, but so I think being a part of the story building in a way in your community is a really awesome thing, and it enabled me to feel not so upset about Sad Pancake, because I kind of was like okay. Because there's that connection. Yeah.
Speaker 1:It's kind of a different experience too, cause you know that sad pancake is just going to come back. So it's it's. It's a little bit harder to mourn something that's just merely the heartbeat is being taken away and nothing really else. I mean, really, you know sad pancake. You you know it got turned into a forever dog and, uh, you know, if it had remained alive, the unalive part of it would happen after like many years of like losing hearing and eyesight, and like arthritis and then hip dysplasia.
Speaker 3:Um, but dan, he's still gonna get all that.
Speaker 1:He's rotting yeah, aren't we all? Rotting like a little bit different, though, when it's literal, just decompose, like decomposing, because, like I don't know, I feel like it's different is it?
Speaker 3:I guess I don't know it. Just and that's the thing I love about path is I don't. I don't answer any questions, I just say what do you think? Yeah, you know how do you feel about this? Um and uh, sad pancake. You're gonna see sad pancake again. I I made a spot for him that's wonderful in issue six because again, the script has already been written. But gilbert did a thing and it had such a visceral reaction. And then, you know, I got the fandom involved, like name this puppy. And I'm surprised that no one in the group was like why are we naming this dog? Lori's just going to kill it. No one said it out loud At the time. I thought maybe you were getting a puppy.
Speaker 2:I'm so innocent.
Speaker 3:Oh, is that why I was just like I'm really surprised no one, is it? Because it was a picture of the puppy in the comic, that's right. And then I had posted a picture of that creepy looking puppet from saw whatever that stupid puppet's name is where I was like I want to play a game, name this puppy. And no one said a word.
Speaker 1:No, I was like they're like, we choose not to play it was okay.
Speaker 3:No one said anything, they just happily named the puppy and there's actually a funny story behind the name. So there was a comic book store in McKinney Texas, right close to me, that I had kind of picked as my home base and they're super great owners that I really liked. It was such a nice store and just like a haven for all the people that felt different would go there and their readership was great and I've set up in their store and had very meaningful connections with a lot of their clients. And he's read the story and when I'm there he's always like go talk to Lori, go talk, go talk to lori, um, so it was just it felt like home and they had a giant is a golden retriever and what are those? Uh, livestock, livestock dogs. The big furry it looks like a golden retriever, but bigger, yes, the great pyrenees.
Speaker 2:Yeah, there's a lot of those up here yeah, so he's, and its name wascake.
Speaker 3:And it would go to the store with them and this giant huge dog. So you'd walk in and Pancake would come greet you at the comic book store. Well, unfortunately they had to close their doors in 2024, as many comic book stores did just because of how rough the economy was. So I was sad to see them go. But he's the one that picks sad pancake. And then everybody else voted for it, cause it sounds funny. And so when we released the sad pancake variant cover of issue number six, it just made his day where he was like I'm good he had said something like I'm no longer in comic books, but sad pancake is he's like pancake is still living the comic book life and I was like, and he will live forever, so sad.
Speaker 3:Pancake is a tribute to pancake and carpe diem and mckinney that's very special.
Speaker 2:I'm really ashamed that they had to close. It is a rough time out there yeah, this, the rent was so high.
Speaker 3:Mckinney is kind of it's like how do I want to explain it? It's those quaint little shops, downtown boutiques, it's high-end stuff, so the rent for this place was probably raised on them like four times something ridiculous. But yeah, we were real sad to see them go. They were good people. They are good people. They're just not in comics anymore.
Speaker 1:Yeah, they're uncom comic king.
Speaker 3:That was a bad joke and they probably still have like a lot of merchandise that they're that they're selling off post uh, leaving the store, um, she keeps posting like I'm still closing the books, you know, because tax time, so they're closing the books and it's like it's hard. It's hard to come to terms with that life that they loved but also was a huge source of stress for them because of what happened. So it's like this love, anxiety, reliving PTSD situation. I just, you know, I wish I had words to tell them that could help them feel better, but I'm sure I can't. I would be like, sorry, sad.
Speaker 2:You know what the story sad would be, I'm sure enough, and I know that they, I'm sure I can't I would be like sorry, sad. You know what the story sad would be, I'm sure enough. But I know that they, I'm sure they know that you support them and love them. It is interesting because, like the end of a business or a big moment in your life, or like a divorce or anything like that is a form of death and you keep living. So in a way, we have all experienced that in our lives, like I'm sure everybody listening has lost something or someone, and not to death. So again, these are the things that are actually a really big part of human experience. You just make them extra creepy and disturbing. But I do want to put you on the spot and ask you, lori, if you were undead, would you want to rest? Like Jude says to Lola, don't you just want to rest and like have things go back to where they were, or do you want to keep going? Like what would you choose in that reality?
Speaker 3:Well, if rest was an option, I think at some point we would all want that, because your decomposition does not stop, because your decomposition does not stop, so it's almost like I'm so deathly afraid of dementia. Yeah, runs in my family on both sides, and it's like at what point can you no longer trust your own brain when it's to that point? Put me in the ground? You know if you could, but you know it's hard in that world because at where Jude is, there is no rest. There is no rest, there is no transition. And so do you do you yearn for something that's not a. You can't obtain it. You know it's like having hope in a hopeless place. So I don't know, that's a. That's an interesting question. So I think, I think, yes, you would want, you would eventually want that, and we haven't gotten far enough in the story yet for me to talk about what happens once your body is no longer.
Speaker 2:Well, I know there's going to be a headless person. I remember that from last time there is a headless person and he's hilarious and I can't wait.
Speaker 3:He is so funny. But yeah, it's like what happens to you when your body is no longer, but there is no death and there's no transition If energy can't be created or destroyed. What does that look like? Last time, right before, I was like right after, wait, brain is not connecting all the dots.
Speaker 1:Brain is not running.
Speaker 3:In the interview, after I had already gone off, you were like why do you have guns in a world where guns don't matter?
Speaker 1:That was another one that you asked.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that we didn't get to talk about, so that was a good one too.
Speaker 1:Now I know why some people have guns.
Speaker 3:Lola right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know what the source of that question was my living centric experience for the uh, for the living. I mean, I guess it's a threat to anyone who's still alive to make them one of the undead, and but yeah, against the undead, but also the living. Have them yeah, well, that's yeah, that's what I mean. That was like like where I I'm. I guess I'm answering my own question right, it's like the undead would have.
Speaker 3:Well, here's the other thing too is where are they finding these bullets? Because that's like a lot of times you'll see Jude with a gun and has no bullets. Who's? Because if someone's making them, they're not giving them away and they're, they're probably hoarding them, so like military and anybody who can steal.
Speaker 1:So the undead underground would be in in the business of stealing yeah, those commodities I mean you can control, you can make bullets, but somebody would have to be like, dedicated to the business and art of of reloading and making ammunition you almost have to like chain them to the station and be like you're making bullets for the rest of your life I mean gun life.
Speaker 3:It could be a cottage industry.
Speaker 1:You know, it's just like you show up to the farmer's market with your bullets and you're like, yeah, I've got fresh made homemade bullets guys I only made one caliber, though.
Speaker 3:So if you're if you don't have a nine milliers shit out of luck willing to trade for bread yes, bullets like fresh bread, bullets for bread, that's my business or maybe it's bullets and bread.
Speaker 2:Bullets and bread.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's the two things I specialize in specifically, you get cornbread, you can get bullets, you can get both.
Speaker 2:You can get bullets in your corn bread what business would you run in the Path of the Pale Rider universe? What, what business would you run? Business, yeah, in the Path of the Pale. Rider universe.
Speaker 3:So one of the things I've been doing recently is when I go to Comic-Cons, I will dress up as the undead cowgirl and I will be like you ever play Fallout, where the traitors go with their mutated cow, yeah, and they just have a random spattering of things.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's what I I play. I put on that personality when I go to a comic-con and so I'm undead, I'm a living, I'm a living trader out of path of the pill rider, and I have a blast. So I would sign up for that where I would travel around with the just smattering of things and just go barter in the world.
Speaker 1:That's a great idea. So we've talked about this a little bit in the past and you know, we know why some people don't eat animals in your world because they don't die. And you know the hamburger would continue to try to escape after you'd cooked it and grilled it and started taking bites out of it. But I don't imagine that that would dissuade everyone like especially certain people like Big James, who's a bear, maybe people who have developed a certain level of dementia due to their decomposition, or some people who are just plain cruel, and some things would get totally consumed or burned or waste away entirely and would no longer have bodies left. What would happen to the consciousness? Because of the mystical nature of your universe, where death is the problem, not necessarily a biological issue, does this?
Speaker 1:turn into a ghost story.
Speaker 3:You are right on the cusp of what's coming. I don't want to say too much because, like I said, we haven't gotten far enough in the story, but we will address the consequences of this world. When your body is gone, where does your energy go? What does that look like? And yeah, someone very aptly put on Facebook we all turn to poop. And I was like excuse me, can you explain that? He was like well, you know, if you get eaten by Big James and he turns you into poop, or you're eating other things and they turn into poop. And I was like he's like the world just turns into poop. And I was like thank you, I don't know how do you respond to that. But yeah, the energy does not. It doesn't go anywhere. Yeah, so are you now a poop? You know?
Speaker 1:also in that, in that realm, like bacteria, is also immune to death. At this point, and like I imagine, gut, yes and no not immune to death.
Speaker 3:Remember you still die.
Speaker 3:But you're mobile so, like a virus, wouldn't be contagious because it is undead, so it's not reproducing People don't reproduce Right. And also the eating thing is only for the living, because the undead don't eat anymore. So, like Big James, for example, he's not necessarily eating people, he's destroying them. I see, and this is one thing I point out in the issue number three, when we see him get shot, he is shot through the brain and so his brain does not function like a normal bear he is. He is stuck in rage. He's a rage bear right yeah, so you?
Speaker 3:you just being in his presence is enough for him to turn you into hamburger meat. He's's not necessarily eating you, he's destroying you. He's turned into a cocaine bear. Correct, correct. So the eating thing is like would you be able to eat the hamburger that still moves? And I think some people would because they're starving, but you got to feel it as it's moving the entire way through your system. That's gross, yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 2:That is very gross.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and that's gross. Yeah, that is very gross. Yeah, and does the poop still move? That's what I need to know. Yeah, is it like that's?
Speaker 1:what I need to know. Does it give you chronic IBS?
Speaker 3:Probably that would feel terrible. Yeah, a lot of gas, but yeah, we are going to get there and I will answer that question about what happens when the body is no longer and it's not happy.
Speaker 2:I'll say it's not happy.
Speaker 3:I mean that's not surprising, laurie I know really, I know it's my writing right um, I know you think you're angry your readers, I do.
Speaker 3:I drink the tears of my readers in my lovely mug, which I keep at my desk, beautiful. But uh, yeah, yeah, yeah, it's, it is. It's coming, dan, it's coming. Not for a little bit. We got to do some more things with jude sinclair. Um, because, remember, I told everybody this is not, this is not a spoiler. He does figure it out, so he's on his journey to figure it out. He figures it out in issue 10, so we're on our way there. So it's 1 through 12 is the first arc, and then, uh, the second arc starts and it's 100 more crazy than the first arc.
Speaker 2:If you can believe that it's, it's insane I can't wait for it, but I'm also really enjoying the journey, so I will wait. Yeah, I will wait for issue 10.
Speaker 3:That's how I feel, too, like I'm having so much fun doing this. I really am, even though that emotional rollercoaster kicks in and, like that imposter syndrome is always there. I really am. I'm genuinely having a good time. I love the story. I'm passionate about it. I love the team that I have. They do great work and we're able to get the story out there for other people to read it. And my fans are great. They have a blast doing all of this, the Slice and Dice. They give me feedback, share pictures on the internet of them doing fun. There's a lady that has one of the Big James plushies and she will go on adventures with her kids and Big James comes along too, so Big James gets to explore the world with them. It's so great, and I mean like I would never imagine someone doing that when I started this story.
Speaker 2:So I was gonna ask you about that. What like? At what point did you realize, like holy shit, I have real fans and it's become a community? At what point?
Speaker 3:I don't know it's. It's odd because at first it's like your friends and your family supporting you and then other people read the story and come along and then you find out like someone is fanning over my work, like, oh my God, I just read blah, blah and I'm like, wow, when you start having impact on people, it's a bizarre feeling. And I'm not famous, I don't None of that, right, I'm small potatoes. You're famous to us, it's true, thanks, but it's. It's an interesting feeling, um, to have people participate in the community and like I went to pastime comics yesterday and I put it out. You know, I'm going to be here from 12 to 4 and I had several people that came in just to see me and I was like, wow, that's. You know, that's an interesting feeling. I don't know, I don't know when it happened. It just kind of happens over time, I guess. Did I answer the question?
Speaker 1:Yes, I think so, like I don't know.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think it just sort of sneaks up on you. The same thing happened with the podcast. Yeah, All of a sudden people were calling it a community and I was like wait what?
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I have seen the community for this podcast grow leaps and bounds. Last year it was amazing to watch it happen and like the zombie wean contest. And then, um, what was it? Uh, america's top, next top zombie. That was hilarious, those polls. I had a blast and, like I'm always looking forward to what you guys are going to post next, being in being a zombie fan and a horror fan and a fan of you guys, um, I, it's always funny, it's always spot on, um, and I'm I'm glad I'm so happy to be part of this community as well.
Speaker 2:We're gratefully a part of yours and I will say that, um, the irony of all of this is that we're reading some of the darkest shit you could be reading, and yet the community is what gives me hope for the future yeah at the same time, yeah, but just knowing you're out there, laurie, doing your thing, raising kids yes, seriously, I, I present a normal front, like when we go to the neighborhood barbecue.
Speaker 3:I look normal. At least the kids are normal. They're not know weirdos like I am, until someone asks me what I do for a living, and then my husband rolls his eyes and walks away. He's like oh God, here we go. I think we're weirdos.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think when we're doing things like this, this podcast and you've probably experienced this too with Path of the Pale Rider or other things that you've done in the past is that there's just this period of time where you just have to be okay with knowing that you're talking to yourself for a little while. And when you're screaming into the void and you start hearing echoes coming back, that's when you're like oh wow, somebody's listening. And there's a really crazy moment when you realize, oh, there's actually a lot of people answering back, and now it kind of feels like something is building. That's kind of like not necessarily within our control, really, it's just it's going to happen as long as we keep doing this.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so you touched on a couple of things there. I still feel like I shout into the void sometimes and I don't think it's the truth. I think that social media and the algorithms that we constantly fight give us a kind of again that imposter syndrome like I'm I'm posting things, but no one is saying anything in return, and so if you are a reader or a part of a community, just putting a comment helps our sanity, because there's nothing more frustrating to me than posting new art from Path of the Pale Rider and the only responses I get are from scammers.
Speaker 2:They're like.
Speaker 3:I want to help you get your Kickstarter funded.
Speaker 1:And I'm like it's not live For $100.
Speaker 3:Yeah, or they're just like send us money in return for fake pledges and I'm like I don't have time for you. But it's interesting because then people will see me and then tell me when I was at Pastime. One of the other people that came in to see me and then tell me, like um, when I was at pastime, one of the other people that came to see me was a creator named terry parr who I'm working with on his series, and he was like, oh yeah, I saw that you had posted something and can you tell me what killer karen is? And I was like, oh, my god, terry, right, but um, but here I am thinking, like nobody's watching, right, that I'm speaking into the void, but yet they're seeing it. They're just not replying to it. So there is that. That's out there.
Speaker 3:What was the other thing I was going to say? But building the community, yes, and that people are watching and that a lot of times they're just not commenting or saying anything, but they're there, which is my hope. My hope is that when we launch this thing, that everybody gets that stupid email that says come back, lori Calcaterra, because it's super annoying, but it's a necessity, and that people do come and support, because, again, running a campaign is the most important time for people like myself. Yeah, that helps us create not only this issue, but helps us create the next issue and the next one. And the more we grow, the faster we can release issues, because people are like man, your series goes on for a long time, and it does, but if we start making more on the Kickstarter, I can release two issues at once.
Speaker 2:I don't know if I can handle it. I'd be like catatonic in my beanbag chair, being like what did Laura just do to my brain?
Speaker 3:I know. But I mean, it's one big story. It goes on until the end and there is an ending. I've said this a few times there is an ending. But how quick we get there depends on how fast we grow right. Because if I could skip all the individual issues and just produce a graphic trade, like a trade for four issues, I would do that. But the amount of money that I have to raise to pay for all that art production and the printing and the merchandise is just astronomical at that point. So it just depends. It just depends on our growth. But the other thing you said was consistency. So the longer we do it, the more people can find us, and being consistent is key. So that goes towards books and podcasts and everything. I'll shut up now.
Speaker 1:No, by all means, please never shut up yeah we could talk to you forever.
Speaker 2:I think we've established that, but I do want to hear more about your issue six, kickstarter, because, like I said, your Kickstarters are some of the most fun ones and I look forward to them, like you have. I think you've created that community. It's like, yes, the Kickstarter is coming, but I was thinking to myself, like, did I sign up for the pre-launch?
Speaker 2:I might be a guilty party matter, because you'll get the email when it launches, right, and so that's what like how many of the lias are there out there that didn't sign up for the pre-launch but are like fuck yeah, like I see your messages or I see your posts about it coming and I know it's coming and I'm it might be ready to lay down my money to know what happens next?
Speaker 1:It might be an urgency thing. Maybe all of your readers have ADHD and they're like I fully intend to back this, but they're waiting for the last minute to do it.
Speaker 3:Well, and that's another story. So a lot of again. What we try to train our backers to do is to come on that first day, because as soon as we hit that funding goal, kickstarter actually pushes you to the front. And then you get more randos because it'll start suggesting you might like Path of the Pill Rider because it's popular. You know what I mean.
Speaker 3:And then Kickstarter has different categories. Categories like just launched, it has project we love, it has things in your area. If you have a history of backing on Kickstarter, it will look at your history like oh, you like sci-fi, here's another sci-fi. Oh, you like Westerns, here's another Western. You know what I mean. So it'll do that. And then, of course, like when you're done, when you're closer to the end, it'll be like ending soon. So it has all these different categories that people can find you in.
Speaker 3:But when it pushes you to the front and I get new people just because they're there, that's amazing, right, they just stumble upon us and they find us, and so but that again it's triggered by the algorithm, which is when we hit our funding goal. And so that's why I try to tell people if you're going to come, come on day one. But of course we need backers throughout the campaign. So those biggest two kind of periods are the first 24 hours, maybe the first two days, and then the last two days are usually the biggest. People are like oh yeah, I forgot, I got to go back, got to go.
Speaker 1:Yeah, god, I gotta go back. Gotta get out. Yeah, um rush to lori's kickstarter to fund in the first 24 hours so that everything goes great and that's huge.
Speaker 3:We were. I think we did fund it was just after 24 hours last time. But then the upper, the uphill battle, you know. After that it was very slow because you know if all those people show up on day one, then it doesn't trickle every day. You know what I mean. But who knows? Who knows it's a math problem that's impossible to solve.
Speaker 3:Kickstarter yeah um, you get bragging rights for funding quickly, but our goal is not. Um. A lot of times, creators will lower their goal instead of having an actual goal. So what I mean by that is they'll say their goal is $500, but really to produce the comic to the way they want to, they need $1,200.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:So when you hit that $500, it says that you're funded and again Kickstarter is pushing it to the front, and then hopefully you'll hit that $1,200 you need but you might not. And then you're still on the hook to produce this piece of work Because you funded it and you're correct, but you don't have enough money to really do it, so you'll have to come out of pocket. Yeah.
Speaker 1:You got to call mom, you know what I mean.
Speaker 3:Yeah, you got to call mom. Hopefully you have something that you can put towards it, but I mean, that's, that's the risk of lowering your goal. Yeah, so it's, so it's best to be honest calling my mom. No, cancel, cancel, theory cancel. It's calling my mom does?
Speaker 1:does your mom have?
Speaker 2:anything to say in the episode was like calling mom.
Speaker 1:It's like no so I mean yeah, so, uh, gaming the system is is easy to do, but like it's in your best interest to like actually be honest about what your money needs are. Otherwise you might be on the hook to produce something you can't afford if you don't make it correct.
Speaker 3:Let me um, 4550 was our original goal for issue number one, to produce a black and white comic. So it actually runs me about $4,000 to produce just the comic art for issues and it doesn't include any of the merchandise or the shipping etc. Etc. Etc. So now I mean, like our goal is really it's higher than 4,550. But I leave it the same because it helps me track how we're comparing to previous campaigns and so I'm not playing that $500 game and we're funded in two pledges, like no, I really want to track how we compare to previous campaigns because then it tells me is this a good time of year to run a campaign? Um, is my advertising working? Um, what did we do differently? It helps me compare notes so I can fine-tune what we're doing and I mean like every time I think I figure it out everything changes and you got to do something different anyway it's real, like you do.
Speaker 2:I think you've done and do everything you can in your control to make it the best experience for the people who are backing you for actually just reading it all, and you have some very fun things in store for those of us who are going to be following you for issue six Kickstarter. Do you want to talk a little bit about those?
Speaker 3:So we of course we always do the variant covers. We have a sad pancake cover, let's see, let me go through here. We have early bird stickers. I always do, I need, so that's always a surprise. So the main, the most of the people that are there, are backing like the, just the comic book, so it's the comic book and the PDF, and so if you back the early bird special in that first seven days of the campaign, I create a collectible sticker and I only make 25 of these and people have been collecting these from the beginning and hopefully they'll be worth something someday. But I mean, like it's just something extra that you can get during the first seven days of backing and then, once that one goes away, we have the same thing, just without the sticker. And of course we have different covers available. I have this two cover combo.
Speaker 3:I ran it last time and I don't think I talked about it enough because people didn't know it's there. So usually when I have a campaign there's the cover. Let's say, you want the sad pancake, oh, but I also want the main cover, and so you could go to the add-ons and you can add on a cover from Gilbert to your sad pancake and it would be there $10 and 15 to 25. So I put it together and I just I discounted it. So if you do two covers it's 20 bucks Nice, and it's just a little bit cheaper for you to get the two copies that you want. But I think I had like two people do that but a ton of people add on stuff, and I was like, oh, maybe I just didn't talk about it enough.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we were one of the, maybe one of the two people, because I was like I have to have the scary, dark, pale the path. Pale the path. Writer. Pale of the path writer.
Speaker 3:Pale of the path, writer. It's better than path of the pole. I had to have that like really dark, spooky one.
Speaker 2:And I also wanted the original, because what I really wanted was the actual original art, like if we could have swung it, would have bought it and put it on our like. I just was looking at it and seriously thinking about, like do I put this on a credit card? What?
Speaker 2:will I not be able to afford if I do that Because it's so beautiful. But yeah, we were really excited to see that we could get to, and I think I'll do it every single time after this for now, because then you have, like the one that you read, and then you have the one that's sort of a little more precious and it's just really nice, yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, and that's a lot of people do that. They want the one that goes on the shelf and is never opened the only fingers that have touched it are mine and then the one that you actually sit down and read and enjoy and go through it, and it doesn't matter how many times you touch it, because that's the intention. We got hot sauce sampler, like always, so that one is still going to be the three flagships. So the Pomp of the Pill Sauce that's a barbecue ghost pepper. The Mango Habanero and then the Heartstop and Jalapeno Serrano. There is a new flavor premiering this campaign and it is Jack's Revenge.
Speaker 1:So yes, so Jack's Revenge is? I mean, is this possibly about Jack Callahan?
Speaker 3:No.
Speaker 1:And are there beans in it?
Speaker 3:I'm going to die. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. It's from Jack the Ripper, is what we named the um, the jack fruit from the slice and dice last time. So the slice and dice is when we hit 6 000. Um, the fans get to name a fruit or vegetable and I'll, I'll pick one and then, uh, they also pick the weapon of destruction. And then on the tuesday morning brew, I dress up as Pikachu, for reasons I don't know, and then I massacre this fruit or vegetable. So we had a jackfruit, the fandom named it Jack the Ripper, and they voted on a two handed ax and I destroyed the jackfruit and the stool it was sitting on, because that stood no chance. A two handed ax, two handed ax. It was a on, because that stood no chance. A two handed axe, two handed axe. It was a big one, so it died, but the hot sauce is that jackfruit.
Speaker 1:Oh, it's made from. Okay, you know, we've Jack's revenge. We've been using the three hot sauces. Yeah, some of us have been using them all together at once someone asked me to do that at a comic-con.
Speaker 3:They were because I had a sampler stand set up so you could have like one you know, do it on a pringles. And he was like these would be dope if you put them all in one bottle. And I was like you're crazy, uh, and there's dan doing it. So yeah, I have is it?
Speaker 1:good, all three of them together, oh um, yeah, I mean, we kind of just like pour it in like we've, we've, like, like, if we're having soup, for example, you know, one goes on one side and then you have one in the middle and one on the other side and it kind of it does get mixed together a little bit, but it's more for the, the sampling, you know, mostly because we can't decide what flavor we want, so we just do all of them. Um, yeah, I was, I was afraid, because ghost pepper, it's like this, is it the second hottest next to the carolina reaper? Um, I was expecting it to melt my face off and I was ready for that to happen and I was pleased at the spice level that it was.
Speaker 3:I was actually surprised by the jalapeno one.
Speaker 1:The jalapeno one was spicier than I thought it was going to be.
Speaker 3:You know what? It just depends on when I get the peppers. Yeah, because if I make hot sauce in the wintertime, that jalapeno serrano is not hot, but I made it in the summertime and there's some spice to it. Um, and it just depends on the peppers I get. Sometimes they're spicy, sometimes they're not. Um, the habanero is usually like a medium hot, and then the path of the pill sauce I control, but it's, it's. I like to taste my food and I don't like excuse my French but the afterburn, yeah, yeah, exactly, I don't want that, I don't like it. So none of these are gonna melt your face off, think. You know, people are asking me to do one that hot and I just don't want to. I want to taste it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, exactly, and I think it's a perfect medium heat level and it also has that smokiness of it because it's like the barbecue, so I love that, because my favorite is a Chipotle pepper.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:I like the smokiness of a Chipotle pepper, so it's very similar to that.
Speaker 2:What we're saying is you should also get, you absolutely also have to get the hot sauce. I was very happy about that, and Jack's Revenge sounds like a one-of-a-kind, one-off moment Because it's the original from the.
Speaker 3:Jackfruit yes, from the Jackfruit that you co-conspired to murder. I feel like we have to have that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, of course.
Speaker 3:So that one you can find in the add-ons. There's no like if you're gonna look at the pledges, pick out your pledge and then when you go to the add-ons, that's where it is. There's only six, and I know people are gunning for this one. So if you want a jack's revenge, you just got to get there early, um, but I'm I'm thinking I might put this in rotation. I wasn't planning on it, because jackfruits are a pain in the ass because they're like the size of a watermelon. But you gotta like pull it all apart, and my fingers were hurting by the time I was done. It was two hours to pull this thing apart, um, but I had some and it's so damn good, it's so good. So it might be one of those like, like, when I feel up to it, I'll make a batch. I'll probably, like I'll make sure to make one when the Kickstarters are live, you know what I mean when I'll make it an option and people can get it.
Speaker 3:So then that the sampler pack will. Then you have to pick your flavors, because it'll be four. Oh, that'll be hard so, but I always have a single bottle also in the add on. So if you don't want to do the whole sampler. Like I'm allergic to I don't know something in the barbecue sauce, but I can have the mango. You can just go into the add-ons and there's just a blanket single bottle of hot sauce. So people can just try what they want there if they don't want to go all in.
Speaker 2:So you handmade this mug.
Speaker 3:How did you do that? So I didn't make the mug itself, but I I came up with the design like you go to, like that's one of those places where you paint, you paint it and then they fire it and so, um, so it's blank. When I show up, there's just a blank mug and then I I bring my little um vinyl stickers that I glue. There's a whole process that I have to do to do this, but this is I did a green one and I loved it so much and I was like I bet you people would want these.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it looks like a really good, nice mug to have lots of coffee for your Tuesday brew.
Speaker 3:This one's actually bigger than the one that I made for myself. They didn't have you go in and they randomly have what they have, and so they change out their stock all the time. So they're all going to be different and unique and I'm not going to repeat colors. So it's like every campaign I'll do a mug, but there'll only be one. So I'm going to start doing these unique items like the mug and the bound book. Just because I do so many crafty extra things that are POTPR related, I figure I can let the people get them, because how else are you going to get a bound book for me? Yeah, that's a very special thing to have. I'm going to be doing Jurassic Park. I'm going to rebind that one. I'll probably I might do it live during the campaign.
Speaker 3:That's a great idea to watch yeah, and I can work on it and people can just hang out and watch me rebind a book. I mean, to some point, at some point it's like it's gluing. Let's not like watching paint dry, but you can kind of watch the process. So I'll have, uh, I'll have that. Um, I have swag bags this time around too. So if you want a surprise other than well, there's the secret reward, which is something different, but the swag bags is like I have all this merch. Now that you know, if you don't want to pick and choose, just get a add on a swag bag and I'll pick and choose and put it in a bag and send it to you with your book. And there's a $10 level and a $25 level, so you'll get things appropriately priced, things for those bags, that's really fun.
Speaker 2:I love random stuff. I have a really important request and I realize you may not be able to fulfill it for this Kickstarter, but there are some potatoes, Lori, that you introduced me to. I forget what they're called it's a mashed potato and you shared the recipe. Cracked potatoes. You shared the recipe and we made it for the holiday season, and it is indeed so good you don't want to stop eating it, to the point where you might regret it, and I want to know can we get some cracked potatoes as part of our pledge?
Speaker 1:How would?
Speaker 2:that work?
Speaker 1:I don't know, just a Ziploc bag full of mashed potatoes.
Speaker 2:Yeah, just hope it's not moldy by the time it gets here.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I was like if it's a perishable food item, I don't know.
Speaker 2:I love that you're taking my request seriously.
Speaker 3:I'll have to think about it. I don't know if it's possible, but it's, I'll look at it. Um, it's just hard when it's like you never know how long shipping is gonna take.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, even just like a path of pale rider uh cookbook, like here's some things you'd be able to eat in the path of pale rider universe. It'd be super fun. Or just like Lori, cockatera is food Cause. At this point I am sold and wish I lived closer to you because I'd probably be like hi, lori.
Speaker 3:I'd be like have some bread, leah. Oh, I'll have to tell you about my new obsession Once we're off the show. I have a new food obsession that I'm currently um, I'm tweaking, I'm I've been working a single recipe over and over to try and like oh yeah, make it really good so I think I'm tweaking like you're, you're cracking out not drugs no
Speaker 1:we're not tweaking on those cracked potatoes you're like you have a spoonful of potatoes and you're just like I'm tweaking so hard you're not actually crack in the crack potatoes.
Speaker 3:Let me just put that disclaimer in there.
Speaker 2:Yeah, very important, so the most, the most important question we have to ask you before we finish for today, or at least for the listeners get to hear, is where can people find you and find your, oh yes oh my gosh, people, I'm all over the place.
Speaker 3:I'm not that hard to find once you come across me. So I am on Facebook. I am on Instagram. I was on TikTok who knows what's happening there, because that just happened. I'm on X. I haven't started a blue sky, but that's the next one. But there is a group that Leah referred to. It's a path of the pill rider group. I would love to see you in there. That's where we do the polls and name the puppies and then kill them off. We premiere things in there, we play games, we build musical playlists, I premiere t-shirt design. We do all the things in the group. All you have to do is answer one question to get in, which is do you like comic books? You can put anything in there. I like giraffes and I'll still let you in.
Speaker 3:What if they say no, you just got to put an answer there, huh.
Speaker 1:What if they say no?
Speaker 3:I still let them in, but you have to at least put an answer, because the scammers don't. The scammers try to get in and then they flood the feed with their own stuff. So if you don't answer the question, it auto rejects. Just so you're aware, because I've had other people request to get in and thought that I recognized their name. I'm not. If you don't put an answer, it auto declines you, just so you know. Alright, so that's a great place.
Speaker 3:You can follow my podcast. Every Tuesday. It plays on my own YouTube channel, but also on the Madness Comic Network, which has a plethora of shows like 40 shows that are all different topics. We have music now there's one about hip hop. We review movies, we review comics, we show off comics, we talk about nerd culture, I interview creators. So there's a whole bunch of things that you can get.
Speaker 3:You know someone like myself that you didn't even know existed. Who's doing something bad-ass? Um, do that If you want to watch killer Karen approach at your own risk. Uh, that's. That's on the madness network. Uh, also on my YouTube, but that is every other Friday. Um, and again, it's an intentional dumpster fire. If you get triggered, you have been warned, we trigger everybody. Um, I don't think we've discussed transporting dead bodies across state lines, but we've been close so I mean, like it's that level of just messed up, uh. But yeah, we can't follow my socials. Please come to the kickstarter and go kick the tires and see what's around. I got some. I got a ton of t-shirt designs that are new. I did four new t-shirts for this campaign. Hoodies I got three hoodies now and a ton of cool stuff. Leah, instead of getting the original art by Gilbert, there is a tier where you can have him do a sketch cover and it's a lot cheaper.
Speaker 3:That's cool, so you get the sketch cover and you get to pick your POTPR characters and Gilbert will hand draw it. So you get to pick your potpr characters and gilbert will hand draw it. So you get physical original art from gilbert on that cover.
Speaker 3:Wow, so there's that option. We also brought back the immortality. So if you guys want to be drawn into the comic and we probably will squish you well, everybody in this one is undead, so fun. If you're going to be in issue six, you'll probably be squishy already, but that's an option so you can get drawn into the comic. We have the secret rewards. We got the poker cards going. We got new funko pops. God, it just doesn't stop here. In camp path of the pale rider, add on a freaking. Choose your own adventure, go walk around that world and get squished.
Speaker 2:It's fun it really is a whole world. If you have not yet joined us in the Path of the Pale Rider universe, it's time that you should come. It's a lot of fun and, lori, you are an incredible person. So there's all kinds of things you can buy on Amazon and Walmart, but nothing will be as fucking cool as a Path of the Pale Rider issue. Some good hot sauce made by yours truly, lori Calcaterra, and all of the other amazing words are really struggling for me today. Amazing, what do you call them? What do you pride? They're not precious merchandise, merchandise, comic books, comic books, swag, all the swag. Good luck putting that together, dan's. Probably all the things, yeah, all the things you just heard all the things. Come join us.
Speaker 3:I definitely, I definitely didn't just leave it on one of them all the things. So I have a. I have a tier called the singularity and it literally has the all the things guy on it, because you get all the things. Last time I had a kitchen sink on it like that one is just you get all the things. Last time I had a kitchen sink on it like that one is just, you get everything. And you get that one gets the um, the jimmy, the cricket I uh we actually do know somebody who needs a, who needs a kitchen sink.
Speaker 1:So if you can send a kitchen sink as well, that would be very appreciated.
Speaker 3:That would be funny, yeah, that one gets the new Funko Pop every time, so people gun for that one too, but it's a little more pricey.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I don't have a Funko Pop yet and I think that needs to change. I would love to make one last special request before we close out this episode. There's been a new outro song that I've been torturing Dan with oh song that I've been torturing dan with oh, yes, uh, and it was written by oliver grayson from ollie eats brains and it goes like this or you know, I'm gonna put the, I'll put the lyrics in the chat and it goes to the song um, bye, bye, by nsync, which I know you know the lyrics too, or you know the thing too, because I'm pretty sure it was inspired by you partially. So I'm wondering if you want to just uh outro us with a little, a little rendition of this song uh, might sound crazy, but the end is nice saying bye, bye, bye, don't die I love it so much.
Speaker 2:I don't know why it tortures dan, but it just makes it extra great. That was wonderful. Thanks for joining.
Speaker 3:You're so cringe thanks everybody.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much for coming on again, laurie. You know we love you. Yeah, love you guys. Thanks everybody.
Speaker 1:Links are in the description down below for all the things that we talked about, plus um I throw.
Speaker 2:I throw some randoms yeah, go have fun in the links go to the kickstarter. Bye everybody, bye everyone, don't die, don't die.
