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Antidote Fuckery with Will Mapp
135 Plays3 years ago
Welcome to another episode of Fabulous Fuckery! This episode is special because this multi-passionate businessman is delving into a new passion - comics. Tune in to learn about his new comic Antidote, arriving on comic book day 2021.
William Lee Mapp, III is an author, maker, engineer, inventor, executive, nerd, and international speaker who has delivered talks stateside and in Europe and the Middle East. He’s also a radio analyst and host known for his witty takes on the technology industry. His life’s mission is to help people succeed by fostering compassion, communication, and collaboration using technology.
Will is eager to spread knowledge and help people learn. He seeks to inspire with wit, humor, and humility, by sharing his experiences running businesses that build advanced technology. He’s delivered talks and participated on panels for SAP Insider, Minority Innovation Weekend, EYECON, the National Retail Federation, RFID Journal Magazine, Blerdcon, and numerous non-profits and universities. Over the years he has served as a radio host, technology analyst, podcast guest, and has written two books. His pursuits include designing and producing video games, writing, and mass media.
Visit AstridComics to preorder your copy!
Find will on Twitter, Instagram, and www.willmapp.com
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Transcript
Introducing William Mapp
00:00:13
Speaker
Good afternoon, everyone. I am here today with Mr. William Mapp. So this man does everything. I don't know how he does all the things he does, but he has now pursued starting a comic book. So we're here today to talk about his newest opportunity.
William Mapp's Multifaceted Career
00:00:32
Speaker
But let me give you a little bit of background about Mr. Mapp. But first, sir, welcome. Thank you for joining me today.
00:00:40
Speaker
Hey, how you doing? And thanks for having me. OK, so yeah, William Matt is a author, a game designer, and a technologist. He makes award winning games, writes informational books, and invents advanced technologies. Will is a creative and enjoys telling stories and sharing information. His mission in life is to help people win by encouraging collaboration, communication, and compassion. That's what I like to hear.
00:01:10
Speaker
Oh my goodness. So you do a lot of different things.
Early Passion for Computing
00:01:12
Speaker
So how did you decide to do a game designer, a technologist and an author? So I guess the first thing is that I got my first computer when I was seven.
00:01:24
Speaker
I was one of those kids who knew Bill Gates or who he was. I didn't know him, but I knew who he was. And I've been writing programs of some sort since I was seven years old. So I've had a very long, deep love for computing. I've named my computers over the years. I'm one of those types of people.
00:01:45
Speaker
And one of the first games I actually, one of the first programs I wrote once I really learned how to code was a game when I was seven. It was a really cheesy, really cheesy paddle game that I wrote. And then as I got older, I actually started building games on paper. And so I would actually use like notebook paper and it was like Command and Conquer except on paper.
00:02:10
Speaker
And that was when I was in middle school. So it's always been in my spirit to build games and part of that is storytelling. So what was the name of your first game?
00:02:21
Speaker
Oh, the cheesy paddle ball thing had no name at all. And then the game on paper, it was just called War. You had different weapons, you had a terrain that you would sketch out on the map, and then it was turn-based, and you had to move around on the map and show where you were moving. And it was fun. I had kids in school playing it with me, and we would spend lunchtime playing War, and it was fun, and I
Entrepreneurial Journey
00:02:46
Speaker
enjoyed it. Now, I'm going to ask a question you may find to be offensive. What was the first
00:02:50
Speaker
coding language that you use because that's how we date ourselves. So the first one, it was GW basic. I had a TRS trash 80 from Radio Shack and I have dated myself. You can do the math at this point. So there you go. Radio Shack doesn't exist anymore, right?
00:03:18
Speaker
You can't even buy batteries from Radio Shack anymore. Wow. So as you progressed and learned how to code and learned new things, you were saying you named your computer. What's the sexiest name you gave your machine? Oh, she was called Veronica. Veronica. See, I knew the girl.
00:03:42
Speaker
So Veronica, so you typically name your computers after women or? Yeah. I would give them a custom paint job too. Really? OK. This is informative. You've written games. You work in technology.
00:04:09
Speaker
At one point in time, you probably were employed by someone. What made you begin to follow your path of your passions for yourself? What was your fucking moment where you're just like, you know what? I'm going to work for me. Yeah. So like I said, when I was a kid, I would get PC magazine and I would put them under my pillow and Gates would be on the cover. And so when I was a kid, I wanted to be him.
00:04:39
Speaker
Like I wanted to be Bill Gates. And so being an entrepreneur and owning my own company was something that was planted as a very small seed earlier on. And then I worked for a telecommunications company and I hated it. Like we couldn't make personal phone calls on our own cell phones in the place. And so there came a day where I texted a friend of mine and I was like, I want to stab myself in the eye.
00:05:04
Speaker
And this was, this was like six months before I got married and I said, fuck it. And so I started my, started my second company with a business partner, another woman. And from there, the rest is kind of history. It's, we've done some big projects. I've spoken around the world, a couple of patents here and there. I led an all girls team to win a congressional app challenge for a game a couple of years ago. And so we're, we're kind of.
00:05:34
Speaker
It's a lot of
Launch of Astrid Comics
00:05:35
Speaker
stuff. I've done a bunch of stuff, and it's kind of crazy. Well, now I'm going to harass you for a second, because you're here today to talk about a comic book that you recently created under your own imprint, Astrid Comics. And your comic book is, I mean, y'all, I got to just play the graphic on this. It's so cute. It is a woman of color, and the name of your comic is called Antidote.
00:06:04
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. Tell me if there's a little bit about her. Yeah, yeah. Marty is a little bit of a badass. So I've had the characters. There's two contemporaries in the comic. Martinique Danes, who is a journalist by day. And really, she is a true social justice warrior if you wanted to call one. She actually stands in the way when women need avengement where other institutions just don't fall into place.
00:06:31
Speaker
And so two contemporaries, Martinique Danes and Jessica Gray, they kind of work on two different sides of the spectrum, but they both have this mentality that sometimes doing the right thing requires the wrong actions. And so they are anti-heroines, like ultimately they want the good result, but sometimes the institutions just don't work and they have to step in and do things themselves.
00:06:59
Speaker
Wow. Okay. So you have written a badass female based comic. How can women know that they can trust you that you did the woman justice or, you know, how can we trust you in this climate right now of, you know, men, you know, over-sexualizing women and things of that nature. Right. Right. So, uh,
Diversity and Inspiration in Comics
00:07:22
Speaker
Man, this is this might be sound a little personal, but so I kind of grew up around badass women like like like I did like my grandmother Had a master's degree taught school She she was the breadwinner in my family and I like I have my father and my mother still together in my grand prince school And like I've been surrounded by really strong women who have really strong personalities and
00:07:51
Speaker
I credit my aunts for a lot of my sex talk too. So I got a lot of that. I just hung around a bunch of women who just were pretty bad ass. They were bad bitches. And so with the comic, I kind of wanted to showcase a light on bad bitchery.
00:08:12
Speaker
Like my wife is a bad bitch, you know, and that's kind of, that's kind of like how it plays. And so for, for the comic itself, we've gone back and forth, like, like I changed lines, like just to be straight up with you, like, like does that, would that be something that sounds right coming from this voice? And the, the comic not only has strong women characters, but it is an LGBTQ element in the, in the comic as well. And so I, I sent it out for test read.
00:08:40
Speaker
I got the comic test read by people from alternate backgrounds, different lifestyles to make sure that I got it right. And so I think that people who actually enjoy good storytelling, this is also a DC comic. You will see recognizable landmarks in this comic. We took time.
00:09:06
Speaker
We took time to get the jumbo slice in Adams Morgan Wright. And so it is a DC comic and I'm hoping that we can explore the culture that you see in DC as well. Nice. So you made Washington DC the home base of the comic. Is this where home is for you? I'm actually a country kid from Virginia, one stoplight.
00:09:33
Speaker
I'm from the Eastern Shore of Virginia, but I've been a bunch of places and I've traveled a bunch of places in D.C. D.C. is a great town. People are always inventing themselves in D.C. And my wife, my wife is Southeast.
00:09:51
Speaker
DC, Rayful Evans era. So I can date myself again. And she said it's the place where power, politics, and pussy kind of collide. And it's a great town. So I wanted this to be a DC comic. So you do all
Comic Collaboration and Audience
00:10:10
Speaker
these things. Are you also the artist and illustrator? You do all of these creative things. So talk about the team that's working on this with you. You said, no.
00:10:20
Speaker
No, I am a writer. I do a lot of writing. So my collaborators for illustration are my collaborators from game development that we've developed. So if you've played Cupcake Diva back in the day or Silly Spooky Spirits, a lot of that stuff, you will recognize some of the design sense, but
00:10:44
Speaker
we spent a lot of time getting skin tone features right. And so I'm hoping that when you really start seeing some of the pages and seeing some of the faces that, you know, it is an illustration, but, you know, we spent actual time in trying to get the features correct. Now, who's your target audience for this project? I would like to thank people who enjoy storytelling.
00:11:11
Speaker
this first issue is a little bit espionage, there's some sex involved, and you know there's shenanigans involved as well. And so like if you if you're enjoying like how deep the rabbit hole goes you know if
00:11:31
Speaker
If you've seen any of the trash that's been on DC politics back in the day from, you know, the blue dress, you will enjoy this comic. Okay. Okay. So we got some adult material. Okay. It is an adult. It is an adult comic. Like it's not intended for a younger audience. There's a vibrator in one of the panels.
00:12:02
Speaker
Fair enough. So for the parents listening, this is a female empowerment comic. However, not for under 18, we would recommend that. Yes. There you go. That's fair enough to say. I'm going to put this 17 plus that we're putting in comics. Okay. 17 plus. Okay. Wow. So I'm just sitting here like I, to be honest with you, so
00:12:30
Speaker
I got a sneak peek of the comic. I saw a couple pages, and the artistry is beautiful. And I'm a comic book nerd. Like, this is my jam. I really think that the character is, from what I've seen, very well fleshed out. And it's very interesting that you have decided to, I want you to tell the listeners about how you decided on your launch date and how you're going to premiere.
Special Edition and Community Support
00:12:59
Speaker
this comic for release.
00:13:01
Speaker
Yeah, so we were originally targeting BlurredCon to actually release. And New Comic Book Day, because we're now past Wednesday, this month, is August 4th. So we will be printing BlurredCon special edition comics. And we got permission to use BlurredCon logo and iconography in the comic for the special edition. So it is indeed a special edition. And if you get that comic,
00:13:31
Speaker
The cover is 80-pound matte paper. It's going to be really nice. It's going to be really nice. So it's a real true collectible. It is. And it's a limited run. And once we're done printing them, we're not going to print any more of those. So we plan to announce at BlurCon next weekend. And we will have a promo comic that will have the first eight pages in the comic, as well as the back cover, which is something special. And if you're at BlurCon, you may recognize that something special if you've been to a couple BlurCons.
00:14:01
Speaker
And so it'll be available for, you know, real purchase on August 4th, but pre-order will start at BlurCon. And well, so you're going to be a BlurCon, I take it. You have always been a huge part of the BlurCon community and we thank you for your work because if you guys are listening and you've attended BlurCon, he's developed our app that got us navigated us through Con. You have been a huge sponsor.
00:14:27
Speaker
for many of the events, because I remember that's the first time I saw Cupcake Diva. So the work that you've done and the things that you're doing for our community are appreciated. So thank you. No, thank you. I enjoy this stuff. I run on magic at BlurCon. BlurCon is absolute magic. You'll be exhausted, and then you see one of your favorite characters from your childhood and just lose it. Yep.
00:14:53
Speaker
And this will be our first con in a year and some change. Oh, it's kind of weird. We'll be a little different, you know, high fiving people from across the room. Like how does this work? But we're going to make it work. We'll make it do what it do. If you guys will, if any of our listeners will be attending Blurred Con, we ask that you stop by, say hello, introduce yourself to Will. He's extremely friendly.
00:15:19
Speaker
And, you know, just talking about his comic, let's talk about what we can do to promote this in our community. Let people find out what's going on with it. So I do have a couple of other questions for you unrelated to the comments because you do a lot of stuff.
Relaxation and Inspiration Methods
00:15:35
Speaker
You do a lot of stuff. What are you doing to take care of yourself? Like, what is your thing when you need to relax at the end of the day? So at the end of the day, like, like for real, for real, for real.
00:15:50
Speaker
I just kind of veg out and read, like for real, for real. Like if it's just me. Also, I take long walks. And when I say long walks, I mean like two hour long for a mile.
00:16:05
Speaker
four mile walks. And I come up with a lot of ideas when I don't have headphones and I'm in nature. I just get a kick out of looking at the leaves, looking at the trees, looking at how I don't know the tech side, the structure of the elements that are around me and just being appreciative of it.
00:16:27
Speaker
The other thing, I will admit this on camera. I admitted it today. I have been therapy now. 2019 and 2020 were very challenging years for me. A number of different things went on with the company and all kinds of stuff.
00:16:48
Speaker
And so I needed a step back for a perspective. I was going and going and going and going all the time. And, you know, I've started living more in the moment now and I've been able to shift my perspective, you know, really things to therapy. So I will, I will openly admit that. Well, can we hear excited about soccer? We are huge champions of therapy. So I'm excited that you are doing the things that you need to do to take care of yourself.
00:17:16
Speaker
and still create amazing products for the world to absorb and participate in. So thank you for this. Like this is such a cool project.
Promoting and Contacting William Mapp
00:17:27
Speaker
And as soon as it drops, I will have all that information on the Faber Fuckery website and on social media. Where can we find you online? What else would you like us to know? So I'm getting better at the online thing.
00:17:42
Speaker
Even though I work in this field, I don't have the best online presence at all.
00:17:51
Speaker
Cause I mean, even you pulled me up, it was like, look, I think you talked about, you talked trash about me on Instagram, about reaching out to people. Because I was like, I like, look, I don't know what this link is. It was like, what is this? And you said something like, yo, use that email address instead of social network. No, because you DM me. So I'm gonna tell you. DMing is the worst way to get in contact with me. Like, that's how we start the conversation. Are you in? I'm in. Then I dropped the email. Bam.
00:18:20
Speaker
So I sent him my link to my scheduling tool and he's like, how do I know this isn't a bot? And I'm like, no, it's my scheduling tool. Like, this is how I get all the information we go to the next level. So, you know, I'm horrible about DMs, bad people with DMs. And now I'm doing that Instagram, they're doing something where sometimes my DMs will clear out the next day. So I was going to log back in and say, oh yeah, I'm talking to somebody about something. And then it's like, damn, it's gone.
00:18:47
Speaker
So if you put it in my inbox, it gives me accountability. I have to respond. It may take me a day or two, but I'm going to respond. We got this scheduled fairly quickly. You're a very busy man. I'm a busy man. We're going to get this together. But yeah, he just called me out. Yeah. Yeah. I did. Like, I'm like, listen. Talk trash about you. I just said, Hey.
00:19:08
Speaker
Send me a pitch. What is this? Play? What are you talking about? And then also because you're not very chatty on social. I'm like, is this really Will? Who the hell? Let me call. Let me call his wife. I am for a technology guy. I am very much in person. I am very much a people person when it comes to that stuff. And I'm like, yeah.
00:19:31
Speaker
And so, yeah. But if you want to reach me, will at willmap.com is probably the best electronic channel to reach me at, if you want to hit me up. And I do have the social networking handles. I got Instagram and Twitter and Facebook, but I'm rarely on Facebook at all today. Facebook has changed. It's not as fun as it used to be when we first. No. It just no longer holds the allure for me.
00:20:00
Speaker
But no, but no, I first of all just want to say thank you so much for allowing me to talk to you about this comic. I am excited about it. As soon as I see I want to get my copy and get my hands on it when it's ready for Comic Book Day. Now for Comic Book Day, when they purchase it or is it somewhere locally in the DC area where people can pick it up.
00:20:31
Speaker
But right now, if you are in the DC Annapolis area, we are working with those comic book
Creation of Antidote and Character Development
00:20:39
Speaker
shops. And if you buy comments there, you know which ones I'm talking about to get Antidote in there. We've been at this now for several months. If you want to talk about the process, Antidote started as a concept last year. And the way it started is I was in a Facebook group. I was in a Facebook group.
00:20:51
Speaker
So right now, we are, I can't. You can't say where. I can't.
00:21:01
Speaker
And this was around gamergate, if people remember that, and how one of the journalists who writes video games, she got doxxed. And I was in this group, and this group is a bunch of women in there, and she was like, who's looking out for us? Who's doxxing the dudes who are doxxing other people? No one is calling them out. And so I had these characters in my head, and they started to really coalesce, and I was like,
00:21:27
Speaker
I can do something with that character now, like I have the actual crystallized idea. And so then we went out and did character sketches. We did some character studies on what Antebell will look like.
00:21:43
Speaker
What's her skin tone? What's her body style? What kind of clothes does she wear? We're coming up with, you know, one of my friends is really into colognes and perfumes. That's what he does. And so we're trying to figure out what kind of perfume does Antidote actually wear? You know, it's so weird. This is all the character. This is all the character development.
00:22:08
Speaker
If you know what antidote smells like, then you can put that on a bottle and you know, Marvel has the Spider-Man cologne for a little bit. So, you know, they, you know, as your comics presents and to do. But I don't like it. I feel like I'm going to melt when I spray myself with it, you know.
00:22:30
Speaker
What are we doing? What happened to me? But no, I am so excited for this for you. Like I said, what you've done for the Black community to realize that they can be geeky, that they can be gamers.
William Mapp's Creative Journey
00:22:45
Speaker
Now you're writing a comic book. You've already written a book. I mean, you've book several books. So for you to do this is amazing. Thank you for sharing your information about your imprint. And again, we can find you at will at
00:23:00
Speaker
Wilmatt.com. All right, guys. Well, we will see you at Blurcon on July the 16th. It starts July 16th. Yes. Next week. I'm sorry, guys. I just blown off on my face. It's next week. So I will see you there. Awesome. I will see you there, too. It's going to be great.
00:23:22
Speaker
And for everyone listening, you can find out more about BlurredCon on www.blurredcon.com.
BlurredCon Participation
00:23:30
Speaker
There'll be a link to the event on my website and on my social media. If you're stopping by, please say hello. I am doing a panel, actually a couple of panels, but one panel for Fandom the Stardom and one panel for Blurred Mom 101 on Saturday. We're going to be working between 1 and 3 p.m.
00:23:52
Speaker
Hope to see you all soon. Yeah. Oh, wow. Right. But thank you. No, thank you. I really appreciate it. Seriously. All right. Well, let's do this and we will see you guys at blurt.com.