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Mark Ostler
851 Plays5 months ago
Mark Ostler joins the show to kick around comic books - specifically his work Ivar the Boxer and Waltzing Carpet Juliette
We also talked about Warning: Danger!
Mark Ostler is a comic book writer and publisher. In 2023, he wrapped up a 4 issue mini-series titled, “Waltzing Carpet Juliette” about the dangers of consumerism. In 2024, he began a new self-published comic book series titled, “Ivar The Boxer”.
Mark Ostler can’t draw comics. Thankfully, he’s got talented friends who are skilled artists. Thus far, 37 different illustrators have contributed artwork to these collaborative comic books. What began as a creative daydream has blossomed into an incredible comic book community. Together, we’re creating “Waltzing Carpet Juliette” and “Ivar The Boxer”.
Mark is also the lead singer of “WARNING: DANGER!” – a Seattle based punk band. They have released 7 different albums, embarked on 3 West Coast tours, produced 4 different videos, featured on 2 compilation albums and 1 movie soundtrack. Check out WARNING: DANGER!’s music on all major streaming platforms.
Sometime soon, a major publishing house might pick up Mark’s comics or music.
Check out Episode 265!!!
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction and Guest Welcome
00:00:01
Speaker
You are listening to something rather than nothing. Creator and host Ken Vellante. Editor and producer Peter Bauer.
00:00:16
Speaker
This is Ken Vellante with the Something Rather Than Nothing podcast, and I am very excited to talk to Mark Ostler. And, man, at first, it was the content of some of the work you do in illustrations, the Waltzing Carpet group.
00:00:35
Speaker
and I had seen that and then holy wow I found out Morning Danger also a band which I listened to extensively hell yeah love that shit so that was that was a great surprise I didn't even know that that realm of things but when we get into a little bit later talk about the different things that you've done in the art world and art identity but Mark wanted to welcome you on to something rather than nothing
Artistic Journey and Inspirations
00:01:06
Speaker
Thank you, Ken. Thank you for having me. This is a real privilege. It's a real pleasure. Oh, my goodness. Now, you want to talk about my discography. Let's talk about your discography. Everybody after this podcast. Go check this out. Something rather than podcasts that you will be amazed by some of the guests that Ken Vellante has had on. And thank you for having me.
00:01:29
Speaker
Thank you. I really appreciate it. It is fun to have great, amazing guests and to be able to do this. But I want to start off just like in general about your relationship to art. And you've done different things. But starting a little bit earlier when you were younger, I mean, did you walk around and
00:01:51
Speaker
You see yourself as an artist, or did you kind of bump around artists? What's your relationship with doing art? Great question. Well, if we want to go way back, I would admire the people that did art. I didn't really do much myself, but then I discovered zines and stuff like that. And that was something that I really gravitated to.
00:02:19
Speaker
I wrote Walton Carpet Juliet back in 2001 and it literally stayed in my basement for about 20 years until I revisited it. But that's when I first started out with, and I also liked like filmmaking too. So my band Warning Danger actually started out as a film project. And the film project collapsed, but the band kind of was birthed from there.
00:02:45
Speaker
And then eventually, the band, we go through our ups and downs. Right now, we have some wonderful members, Eric Brookbauer, Rick Lambert, and then our new friend Josh from a local band called Tit 9. He's filling in for some of the drumming for us. We've got a future ahead.
Zines and Community Spaces
00:03:03
Speaker
We're going to try to get one gig coming up soon. We're playing a bunch of gigs, and I was a stand-up comedian for a while, and now I publish a really
00:03:11
Speaker
wacky little four issue miniseries called Waltz and Carpet Juliet and I'm about to publish the first issue of my next comic book called Iver the Boxer.
00:03:25
Speaker
Alright, hey, I was so excited to hear that about that that coming up in the you know Comic and we talked about zines and stuff for me. I just wanted to mention I uh, I Found zines for real in the last few years for me. I had seen them around and stuff like that I didn't know what was going on, you know, there's a lot of stuff in the bookstore and
00:03:47
Speaker
I have a lot of interest, a lot of things, but I started to drop into, you know, small press and zines. And what's so cool about it is I adore the format, but what's pretty cool here, just an aside, is a bookstore, browser's bookstore, a couple blocks from me, official bookstore of the show, great independent, used bookstore, vibrant kind of place and community.
00:04:14
Speaker
And, uh, I had a bunch, I had a bunch of zines and zines would be shared or yummy collect them, of course, but you gotta like, you got a good zine you run over and Hey, you look at this shit. This fucking awesome. Have multiple people read it. And, um,
00:04:28
Speaker
And Abe created a zine section in the store with part of my collection to kind of build that up. And it's really great because a lot of people are kind of drawn to it like a sparkly object. Like, what is this thing? Why are these things different colors and small in different sizes? So it just attracts people. What's that bookstore?
00:04:50
Speaker
Thank you very much. Browsers Bookstore. And one cool thing about browsers is we got to get your comic there because most of the authors and such have their books over there or books can be ordered through
Philosophical Aspects of Art
00:05:06
Speaker
browsers. So I love having
00:05:08
Speaker
uh... these connections and i'm excited about that comic book tell us uh... tell us what the hell uh... what's going on with that or what's what's it look like so that's my future project coming up soon it's called ivor the boxer and it's a story about a salty surly buff and burly russian sailor named ivor luna rex jed who immigrated to america only to have a sucker punch till him dead
00:05:37
Speaker
And the year is 1907, an Iver sales on a trade ship bound for the USA. But he never returned to his crew on that fateful departure day.
00:05:46
Speaker
I will make my fortune in America and return to Russia only when I'm wealthy until my pockets are bulging. Not yet again will I see my family. And enchanted by beauty, Iver committed mutiny and refused to return to his vessel. He abandoned his duty and chased his destiny to a seaport town named Seattle.
00:06:16
Speaker
So that's how the comic book starts. Jeez, that's how it starts. And your show gets a sneak preview of the audio book. For next weekend, actually, I'm going into my friend Dean's studio, Magnet Temple Studio, and I'm going to be recording the audio book that's going to accompany the zine slash comic book that's titled I Ever the Boxer.
00:06:43
Speaker
Dude, you got it rolling here. You're talking audio, you're talking Iver, showing up in Seattle. I mean, you got this rolling. I'm down here, and everybody, I'm down in Oregon speaking to Mark Osler, up in Seattle, and talking music and art. And speaking of art, Mark, very intrigued by your thoughts about
00:07:12
Speaker
What the hell is art? And what are we trying?
00:07:15
Speaker
Great question. And I love the format of something rather than nothing. I love that you just, that's one of the main questions you ask your awesome guests. What is art? And that is a huge question. I love it. And, you know, back when I was in college, I actually studied a philosopher that has kind of a funny name. His first name is Emmanuel, but his last name is Kant. K-A-N-T, Emmanuel Kant.
00:07:44
Speaker
And unlike other philosophers, Emmanuel wondered about stuff like beauty and the sublime and the art. And I guess my personal definition of art falls in line with Kant's term of aestheticism. Or it's something that produces an emotional reaction in the viewer. And now,
00:08:04
Speaker
You know, the emotional reaction can be as a trickle like a stream or it can erupt like a volcano. But nonetheless, it might be a pleasant emotion. It might be an unsettling emotion. But regardless, it's an emotion and it was created anew by a piece of art. And then you get into matters of personal preference and bad taste and what's hard and creates a thought. But
00:08:28
Speaker
is it shares an emotion with the viewer. If you learn any animate object or it can be the animate object like dance or something.
00:08:36
Speaker
We could all be staring at blank walls, but instead we get a print of Monet or a photo or some sort of phrase that inspires us. And it creates an emotion in us and life is better because of art. Because we could be staring at blank walls and it could be nothing. And that's where your podcast comes in. Something rather than nothing is art. Art is something that creates an emotion.
00:09:04
Speaker
And thank you for bringing art out of obscurity. All of these cool artists that are on your podcast, all are absolutely artists in their own little way. And it's been so much fun deep diving into something rather than nothing.
Stand-up Comedy and Performance
00:09:18
Speaker
I really appreciate that, brother. And one of the things you mentioned there with Kant, I give you credit on Kant and Kant's
00:09:31
Speaker
Philosophy art or aesthetics and the critique of judgment Kant is a difficult philosopher to wrangle with but so important and I was actually quite moved myself Mark with the critique of judgment. I had the opportunity to study Kant's works a while back when I was at Marquette University as a matter of fact Kant
00:10:02
Speaker
uh... was one of the required base courses so we had con play-doh Aristotle in Aquinas to study and um... con i hadn't come into contact with much con but the project is so massive and and and intellectually thrilling and i was actually surprised as i went through i was like uh... con thought and and this just a simple view of my and and and my thinking confident right
00:10:28
Speaker
around a lot of different subjects. But he wrote on what I think he thought was the most important, knowledge and how do we have knowledge, moral morality or ethics that comes out of Kant in art.
00:10:45
Speaker
And I think he had the felt like he had the grapple like what goes on, you know, so much of a rationalist What's going on with this weird ass shit that happens when we encounter art like what's going on there and the description and critique of judgment and you
Film and Music Projects
00:11:01
Speaker
know the the sense of What would we say?
00:11:09
Speaker
or the sublime or the sublime. And yeah, yeah, I really appreciate that. And the thing is too, even on the show, I appreciate your comments about like almost the integration of something rather than nothing. Because when people ask something rather than us, it's like the hugest metaphysical question and don't necessarily tie it to art. But in my show, I've just been,
00:11:37
Speaker
keep pushing that in there, the something, the nothing, what the heck are we doing? So let me ask you the big question there, like kind of in the midst of this after the other big question, what is ours? Why do you think there's something rather than nothing?
00:11:54
Speaker
And that's a wonderful, wonderful question. And you mentioned other philosophers that you've studied, like Plato. Plato, this is along the same pathway as the cavemen staring at Plato.
00:12:11
Speaker
at a wall. It could be a blank wall, or it could have something on it, some sort of like wonderful window into the past, some sort of field or landscape that no longer exists, or it can be a song that you listen to and it grips you and it transports you, or like reading a book that you're so involved in, you got something in your head rather than nothing. Because you know what sucks? Fucking nothing. Nothing sucks. It sucks to have nothing.
00:12:42
Speaker
And I'm sure we all remember those times in our life that it felt like we had nothing. Like maybe it was a major transformation in your life. You know, like you have to change schools. You got no friends or somebody that you know that you love so much passed away. And it felt like you had nothing, some sort of tragic shit.
00:13:02
Speaker
But you know what you did have? You had something. That one comic book, that special record, that one song, that piece of media or something that would transport you away from this nothing and give you something. You shared an emotion with some sort of art and that is something rather than nothing. Rather than being zero, you had a little bit of something and that fucking art makes life worth living. It's cool.
00:13:32
Speaker
I don't know. I'm caught up in this idea. I love it. I'm caught up in it too. It's a zero or it's a one. And now, man, I love your energy around the art. I have that too. And I think that's fun when artists come in contact with each other and that these ideas are exciting. And what if, you know, the question is, you know, take art out of the world, think about that concept for a while and then let me just chat about... You have nothing.
00:14:02
Speaker
I have a lot of guests saying like you know things get a little bit goofy or something or you know even a moment during a day or a thousand moments during a day you go and look at a book or a comic or you play a song you're like fuck this noise like you do it each day throughout the day when things are like scattered or hazy or something you have something
00:14:23
Speaker
Helps make a little sense of it. So I think if you're sensitive to it that that will happen take you You've had different iterations, you know talking about being an artist a performer So what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna I'm gonna mention the role and I'm gonna let you riff on Like you doing that like, you know what it what it means to you So all right, you mentioned the comedian you mentioned the comedian bit now being trying that is
00:14:51
Speaker
That's the high wire act. Tell us about that. So where do I begin? Well, Warning Danger started from a film project. That's the band I was in. And then one of our members left, and it was kind of a tough time to be in the band. And so we weren't having regular practices. And I was just like, you know what? I'm going to be a stand-up comedian.
00:15:18
Speaker
My friends are like, yeah, now what you doing, Mark? No, I'm going to be a stand-up comedian. I was a stand-up comedian in the Seattle comedy scene for about two years. It's hard. It's tough. Oh, my gosh. You know, like, it is very vulnerable up there. This is you and a microphone, and you're trying
Identity and Vulnerability in Art
00:15:35
Speaker
to make people laugh.
00:15:38
Speaker
So, yeah, so you're trying to make people laugh. And one night you're up there and you deliver that punchline and the house comes down. It's the coolest feeling. You have a group of strangers laugh at you. You just sit back like, wow, this is cool. It's like getting blasted with wind. But then the very next night, you don't change anything in your act and you deliver that punchline and it's
00:16:01
Speaker
Ricketts. Nobody understands what you're doing. It's a humbling experience to be up there.
00:16:10
Speaker
There's no middle ground experience, it seems, sometimes in the experience of comedy. Let me hit you with another one talking about film. Tell me about Vampire Hunter Hank. Vampire Hunter Hank was done by Taco Cart production. Jerry Howard, Stacey Hoffman, Wes Johnson, Joey Flores, myself, and Don Chile Ortega.
00:16:37
Speaker
We made a video called Vampire Hunter Hangs. Now, if you're a vampire hunter in modern day, how are you gonna make your money? Well, on my grandpa's day, he could take an ad out in the local newspaper, and all sorts of people would come for him to kill some vampires. Nowadays, if you wanna be a vampire hunter, you gotta be a little trickier. So what he does is he kills vampires, takes their stuff, sells it at garage sales, and on eBay. Vampire Hunter Hang.
00:17:06
Speaker
We got into some film festivals, and it was a really cool experience. I gotta tell you, I could be wrong on this. I thought I saw a Portland Craigslist ad for a vampire Hunter Hank there. So I don't... Don't reply to that one. Don't reply to that Craigslist ad. You don't want nothing to do with that person. All right.
00:17:35
Speaker
I started out talking about warning danger. You know, so what do you do? You know, I'm listening, fucking love it. But I'm trying to, you know, you try to get a handle on music. You're like, you know, what is this? What is somebody up to? And then I read a little bit more. And
00:17:58
Speaker
a band talking about the dangers of danger and about safety.
Comic Culture and Influences
00:18:06
Speaker
So I was startled at first, because that's not what I expected. You know, safety, even called safety. This is not everyday parlance for our listeners. Tell us what's going on here with warning danger and safety.
00:18:23
Speaker
Warning danger has a message, a message to give to the world. You know what that message is? Stay safe. We're all about warning you of dangers that you might not actually think of. We got dangers about killer bees. You remember in elementary school what a threat killer bees were going to be? Oh yeah, I did the book on that, yeah. You did a report on killer bees?
00:18:48
Speaker
Awesome. And we got a song about Godzilla. We got a song about how you assemble an emergency kit. We got a song called Stop, Drop, and Roll. We got almost 70 songs on YouTube right now. And thanks to our friends.
00:19:02
Speaker
Cameron Peck from Tilted Bucket. He was the drummer in our previous album, and you were talking about the doom metal side of it. Yes, we have some doom metal stuff. It's called Doom Vacuum, and it's all about the dangers of animal torture. What a prick. Anybody that does that,
00:19:26
Speaker
deserves what sort of fiery place that they deserve to go to. So we have a song about the vacuums and the dangers of them. It's been a wild ride. And it's been a really fun ride being in Warring Danger.
00:19:42
Speaker
Thank you for doing it because I'm locked in and digging on this and everybody I'm looking at the asteroid with an exclamation point CD beautiful physical media with tracks asteroid exclamation point greed one-hit wonder fuck it all Active shooter in a very reassuring song everybody shits their pants Sometimes that's right. That's real. Yeah, you have a hidden track in there
00:20:11
Speaker
Rick Lambert's remix of Asteroid is badass. That remix, I listened to the remix as well. Did not know what to expect, but was utterly pleased. Thank you. Throughout. Everybody check out Warning Danger. Got it. Drop it. Drop in and keep going. I'll tell you some YouTube links. So we have a song about the dangers of clowns.
00:20:40
Speaker
Clown, type in clowns, they freak me out and you will find the warning danger song called clowns, they freak me out. Record by Anthony Fantozzi, one and a half bastards recording. Amazing. It was so much fun. The Tacoma Volcano, which is our local paper here in the Northwest, did an interview with me because do you remember there were all these weird clown sightings?
00:21:09
Speaker
And like right before the pandemic, weird little balloons showing up at random places. And they're doing a video. They're doing a little article about this strange phenomenon. And so they thought that I was some kind of clown expert because I made a song called clowns. They freaked me out. And we talked about clowns.
00:21:29
Speaker
I'm talking to you right now and because we could see each other and I see your screen, the thing that popped up with clown expert, I could literally see the typograph there, you know, like a TV report, clown expert right next to your head and I can't get rid of that.
00:21:44
Speaker
You must have been on that list. There's these lists, right? I work in the labor movement, right? So there's these lists. Somebody's going on strike. Who do we call? This clown's showing up. You must be on the equivalent expert list. We got clowns going on. Fuck, we got to get Mark another call. It's like, does he have any? Let me ask you a particular question that popped into my head. Have you listened to the band called Clown Core? No.
00:22:12
Speaker
okay and this is for everybody that's listening as well and that's totally fine since uh clowns came up everybody uh clown core
00:22:25
Speaker
will blow your fucking mind and watch the videos as well. So I don't know. Maybe if I listen to some of the clown songs that you have and, you know, there's a whole clown thing and I'm feeling more comfortable around clowns, but I know you're always trying to point out the danger.
00:22:47
Speaker
danger that's out there. Clowns can be dangerous. Don't believe anybody that tells you otherwise. Clowns can be dangerous.
00:22:57
Speaker
All right, so the question back behind some of these comments was about when you saw yourself as an artist. And I think folks would do different things and create different type of things. That could be a different type of question, right? I'll give you an example. Somebody's been singing since they were four or five. That's their path. Their mom sang. They love singing. They're fantastic at it. They're going to sing. They're an artist. That's what they do.
00:23:23
Speaker
What about you as far as seeing yourself as an artist, the artist zone around creation? What's your relationship with that? I don't know. I'm always battling with crippling self-doubt. I'm never quite sure if I'm an artist or not, you know? And being an artist, not entirely sure what that means, but in a lot of ways, you make yourself vulnerable.
00:23:50
Speaker
You show your little product, whatever it is, your art to an audience and it makes you vulnerable. And it sets you up for rejection and failure. And I've experienced some really deep, weird levels of rejection and failure being an artist. So part of that being an artist is like, oh, I got this big success. So that kind of, I guess that makes me an artist, right? But then I got this deep failure. So fuck, I guess I'm not.
00:24:22
Speaker
But then you get these cool wins. And you get these cool wins like, hey, you get an acceptance from something rather than nothing podcast. And you're like, hey, all right, maybe I am doing something right.
00:24:35
Speaker
It's just this is art. This is art. This is artists own I think you know I I think it's I always find it be a Fascinating question because it isn't like anybody has to perfectly like meld into their identity at artists I think artists have fundamental trouble with what all that means and um, you know, I would say like even for myself, it's only been It's only been over the last
00:25:02
Speaker
five to seven years that I would inhabit that persona, even though I've created things. I didn't create things consistently or I wasn't involved in projects, but for me what was really important was painting. I started painting and the feelings within that and the small accomplishments or larger accomplishments were
00:25:30
Speaker
I was kind of amazed once in a while with what was created. I was filled with wonder. That's where it started to happen for me.
00:25:41
Speaker
You know, creating a podcast over five years, you know, you know, working as an artist, you know, consistency, intrigue, fascinating stuff and keeping going with that because you want people to listen to listen and read. I wanted to chat. I want to ask you a little bit, just kind of open it up, Mark. I'm a I'm a comics freak, about 20 feet from me in the attic.
00:26:09
Speaker
here um i got a massive fortress of 500 you know 500 of uh quantity comic boxes the big long comic boxes and i got and i could throw a rock here and and hit five thousand six
00:26:31
Speaker
All right, a lot of underground stuff. Superheroes, let me start with superhero stuff. Marvel, Spider-Man, huge, huge on Thor. Fucking love Hulk. Love Hulk. DC, Batman, Batman's just like fucking, I'm all into Batman. Thinking of like Vertigo or adulthood. Swamp Thing, I did an episode on Swamp Thing. Two and a half hours.
00:26:59
Speaker
moving into
00:27:02
Speaker
the wonder and beauty that is the mystery of a swamp thing, Sandman. But what has happened with me is throughout my life, I'd hit the bigger titles, but now I'm really underground or smaller publishers. There's a great comic books or a couple of great ones, Floating World Comics, which does publishing.
00:27:29
Speaker
In in Portland, I pick up a lot of stuff a lot of stuff there. Yeah, and And love a lot of image comics. I'm a huge fan of Jeff Jeff Lemire a sweet sweet tooth in Essex Essex County
00:27:50
Speaker
really adore loving rockets so I go all over the place but the big piece to take away from this is Portland is like Seattle when I first got to Portland I'm like
00:28:05
Speaker
Holy mother of pearl. This is comic book heaven I walk past book artists and writers the comic convention the comic book stores I mean I can drive to Portland drop drop into six of them. That's mind-blowing to me and 20
00:28:24
Speaker
Probably a lot more, I'm not sure. I'm a huge fan. When I read comics, it really quickly puts me into a different place, a different cadence of my mind. Between the color and the words, I'm in better shape.
00:28:45
Speaker
overall a lot of times through my comic experience. But that's about me, Mark. What do you dig on? What do you dig on with comics? What's been your influence? Oh my gosh, great question. Well, as a kid, I loved Mad Magazine and Sergio Aragones grew the Wanderer. Oh my goodness.
00:29:08
Speaker
I would wait for the next episode issue to come out, right? You feel like you can't wait for the next something. The next month, you get a new something? Oh, man. Something rather than nothing.
00:29:21
Speaker
So I also love Spider-Man and Batman. And the other one, I like the X-Men, but New Mutants. I love New Mutants. Before Harry Potter and the Owl, you had a letter from Xavier's School of Gifted Youngsters that was going to show up in the mail. And this dude in a wheelchair is going to take you away to this special school on the hill and teach you about your own mutant powers.
Seattle's Comic Community
00:29:47
Speaker
Yeah, that's what I want to do.
00:29:50
Speaker
Hell yeah. Hell yeah. Thanks for that celebration of the role that Charles Xavier and the X-Men played in society for a very long time. I love the X-Men.
00:30:03
Speaker
I recently had the great fortune. I was at a war conference very recently. I was out in New York City. I was at Times Square, and the biggest, largest rolling banner in animation of X-Men 97. I was just standing there and looking at it. It was so fun to see this kind of excitement around this show. I guess they're popping on.
00:30:30
Speaker
Disney Plus, Dexman 97. But it was great to see all these images and such like larger than life the way that it feels. So early on, these days, I got a whole mess of stuff I love that's coming out.
00:30:48
Speaker
Yeah, what about, I dig on, you know, I wanna say even on the show, what I love about the show is that I'm consistently connecting with Seattle, connect with you. I've had Mark Palm on the show, Sarah Romano deal. I was great up there and a lot of folks up there in Seattle. I wanted to talk to you, and of course, fanagraphics books,
00:31:17
Speaker
Yeah, can you tell me a little bit about the I've never never even been there Can you tell me a little bit about the influence of the fan of graphics or any contact with them for you? Wow, where do I begin talking about? Fan of graphics. Well, they got a bookstore right in the heart of Georgetown and it's run by an Incredible man by the name of Larry Reed. They call him the mayor of Georgetown. He's the proprietor of Fan of graphics
00:31:47
Speaker
a bookstore and gallery. He's also got his own little publishing called Misfit Lit, and they're now releasing every two months a new little newsletter called Comixity, and it pretty much talks about what's going on in comics in Seattle. You know who their first guest in their zine was, their brand new zine? Peter Beck, one of my favorite artists, cartoonists of all time.
00:32:15
Speaker
He was published by Fantagraphics with a long-running series called Hate, and then it was republished as Buddy Does, Seattle, et cetera, et cetera. Peter Bag, B-A-G-G-E-E, is one of my hugest influences.
00:32:32
Speaker
And that modern day, fanographics, bookstore, and gallery, they host parties. They host artists' signings. They host art showings. They host comic book release parties. And they've been so nice to me and let me have a party in their bookstore.
00:32:49
Speaker
And the last one, we had Spoken Word from Larry Reed, who re-did, who re-did. He republished poetry by Stephen Jethi Bernstein, and he performed some of that. Goddess Kring, a long-running public access star slash poet slash model slash musician, and then myself somehow with my fourth issue of my comic book. Sitting there, hanging out with a bunch of friends,
00:33:19
Speaker
Looking at comic books is a beautiful thing. They've been so supportive. And they also are very involved in the Comic Book Festival. We have two big ones here in Seattle. The Hot Off the Press Book Fair, which I have done two years in a row now, and then one day I'll do the Short Run Book Fair in November.
00:33:40
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, great stuff up there in Seattle. I have Larry's name just so well-regarded. I talked to Mark Palm. I've been on the show and chatted with him. He tells me about all the stuff that happens up there. And the first thing for me with the antigraphics that drew me in, honestly, was the high-quality publishing of these incredible volumes.
00:34:13
Speaker
It's it's well done art, uh with time and dedication and I think you know for you too being around that atmosphere And you know, uh being connected with that that's for me. That's the major leagues There's it's the major. It's the major leagues and I you know a lot of times I don't publishers nowadays just some publishers that just seem so important fan of graphics being one i'd love uh drawn in quarterly, uh up and um You know like that are
00:34:32
Speaker
You know, like it's not it's it's.
00:34:43
Speaker
Important publishers in the role of publishing a great work. So yeah, super excited in the graphics in a part of the thing too. Like I said, when I got here, I didn't know I moved here from Madison, Wisconsin, where I lived for about 12 years.
00:35:02
Speaker
and good comics there, but it wasn't like culturally as significant as you find in Portland and Seattle. And I saw, speaking of Wisconsin, I saw that, I think it was Lion's Tooth had your comic over there in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. That's right. I believe.
00:35:21
Speaker
Yeah, Lion's Tooth are wonderful friends of mine. The proprietor of Lion's Tooth, forgive me, can't remember her name, but she just released her own publication, her own zine called Cicada. And it's an exploration into magical realism through Cicada. It was a mind bender. I love Lion's Tooth. Yes, I'm very blessed to be part of that.
00:35:48
Speaker
Um, it's funny name of the street that it's on and it made me, maybe you're familiar with it. I'm not sure how to pronounce it. Can Nick, can Nick Avenue in Milwaukee. The easiest way is you just say K K when you're out there.
00:36:08
Speaker
It's knick-knick. It's knick-knick. That's amazing. But if you're out there, you can just roll, hey, KK. And people are like, oh, this dude's here. I'll help this dude out. He knows what he's doing. No, great. I love Milwaukee, Wisconsin. And I think I've seen Lion's Tooth. I know I've seen Lion's Tooth ad in a comic which I adore and who I've also had on the show.
00:36:34
Speaker
Um the comic being uh, uh, santo sisters, uh by greg by greg and fake and they've been on the show and i've seen lion tooth's ad, uh in in the great santo sisters publication
00:36:51
Speaker
Um, so yeah, uh, love to check out some more lines tooth and um, yeah folks check out the fan fan of graphics and that uh, Uh newsletter list i'm super excited to pop on to that and get that feel
Life on Tour and Reflective Closing
00:37:07
Speaker
We have so many talented artists here in Seattle. Brandon Layman is one of them. Another cartoonist that I got to mention is Max Klotfelter. And he's just recently got into a publication that's somehow connected with Robert Crum called Mindshaft. So if you get some extra time, check out Mindshaft. They're an incredible compilation comic book. Yeah.
00:37:30
Speaker
Yeah, love sharing this. So one of the things I wanted to actually just make sure like we have it in places. Let's start with where to find your stuff physically, like physically some of the spots and worldwide podcasts, but where can folks go like some of your stuff physically to run into it?
00:37:57
Speaker
So I'm in 13 different bookstores. Actually, it's 12 now, because one of the comic bookstores is taken to hiatus. It was a local place here in Burien called Ancient Comics, run by a man by the name of Jeff Hicks, a wonderful supporter of my comic books from back in the day.
00:38:21
Speaker
You can get a bunch here in Seattle. Tales to Astonish is a great local comic book shop in West Seattle. Atomic Books in Baltimore. If you're in Baltimore, go check out Atomic Books. The Comics Place in Bellingham, Quimby's in Chicago. If you're in federal... Hell yeah.
00:38:42
Speaker
If you're in Federal Way, here in the Puget Sound area, there's Action City Comics and Toys, Fantagraphics Bookstore Gallery in Georgetown has me, a couple places in Portland, Maine too, Strange Maine, Coast City Comics, and one of my favorite record stores here in Seattle, Singles Goin' Steady, and a wonderful LGBTQ plus-centered bookstore here in Seattle called Phoenix Comics.
00:39:11
Speaker
So hell yeah. It's rough. You go into comic bookstores and you're like, hi, my name's Mark. I make a comic. And sometimes you're like, wow, that's cool. Other times I'm like, I don't know, kid, I don't think this thing's going to sell. So yeah.
00:39:26
Speaker
Exactly. You know, comic book owners and workers have opinions, if you all haven't noticed going to comic book stores all the time. Hey, if anybody out there in Chicago, if you go into Quimby's, you could, as far as I know, if it's still in stock, there's something rather than nothing, Zine issue one and Waltzing Carpet Juliet. If you in Chicago, you can pop in and get physical
00:39:56
Speaker
zines from both of us here. So if you're lucky in there in Chicago, what about ordering your stuff? What about warning danger? Like where do we run up to to get some blast of music or online for the comics and such? Yeah. So if you want to check out my comic books, you can go to my Etsy store and it's just etsy.com slash bangs app.
00:40:26
Speaker
B-A-N-G-Z-A-P, that's the name of my little publishing, my exact publishing. And I got all four of my comic books there. And the Warning Danger CDs and t-shirts and stuff are all up on Etsy too. If you want to check out our music, we're all on Spotify and iTunes. We have a really cool Pandora station. But the best place to do it is Warning Danger on YouTube.
00:40:53
Speaker
Oh, man. Yeah, thanks. We made some really incredible videos on YouTube. If you type in Warning Danger Holly Flips, where the first thing that comes up, it's a music video where we smash the windshield of my own car with a baseball bat. It's awesome. You're a mad man. You're a mad man. Unbelievable. Hey, for art, right? Yeah. Super art. Thanks, man.
00:41:21
Speaker
Things need to be uh, I gotta replace my windshield anyways, it's either gonna have one giant crack or a bunch of little ones and That's what we did we put cameras inside. It's great. It's a cool fucking video. Ollie flips by warning danger Love it. Hey, um
00:41:41
Speaker
a little bit of a curveball question, but just for the sake of public safety, you know, for you, what are the, you know, you have this moment here to tell folks, you know, be careful about, there's danger out there in the world. What should people feel safe, be having eye towards being safe here? We're recording almost in April, 2024.
00:42:09
Speaker
What dangers that folks need to be safe from now. Silica gel packets.
00:42:17
Speaker
Oh, man. No. Don't you crack that open. Think that it's yummy, tasty salt. Don't eat silica gel packets. They look like they taste good. What's going on? And it says, don't eat. So everybody's inclination is to eat. But don't eat. Those are just to protect the product, right? Those aren't part of the product to consume, right? I don't know what the heck they're used for, but they show up all the time. And I'm here to tell the world, don't eat silica gel packets.
00:42:47
Speaker
Thank you. Hey, and the thing is when it, yeah. Uh, yeah. And, uh, you know, when it's cold outside, spend minimal time outside, dress warm. You could get hypothermia or you could get knee stroke of likewise. If it's too hot outside, have sun protection. We're thinking about making a split 45 on one side, we'll have heat stroke and on the other side we'll have hypothermia. So that's kind of coming down the pipe from warning danger.
00:43:15
Speaker
Yeah, well, I mean Heck if you can use music, uh to keep people keep people safe in an unsafe world and to also uh be regaling them with uh, uh punk Doom guitar sounds uh, check out your wanting danger because even if
00:43:38
Speaker
Even if you choose to exclude or ignore the advice, the sonic experience still awaits. You know, if you're oppositional to good advice, you can still listen to it. We have some very talented musicians.
00:43:52
Speaker
part of that. Yeah, I love the drums in doom vacuum and then asteroid that was a drummer in a fridge who's in a great other band called uncle or yeah, I mean a lot of friends I tell you what with that other like mighty musicians that we've played with and and and stuff and you know ratsy ruckus we went on tour with them we went on tour with a hidden number we have some funny tour stories.
00:44:22
Speaker
I can't categorize it a tourist story with the most destruction in it since we're talking about safety.
00:44:36
Speaker
Oh, I got one. So we were on tour, and the second night of the tour, we were playing at a punk bar in Oakland, which the name escapes me right now. But it was during the World Series, and San Francisco was in the World Series, and the
00:44:56
Speaker
you know, the Bay Area, it's already crap packed in there. So throw in a whole bunch of random baseball fans. Holy crap. But the show went well, right, but we couldn't get a hotel room to save our lives. We had to like stay way outside in some weird ass town. I think it was called like Richland or something like that, or Richwood, right? So this crappy ass hotel that we were staying in,
00:45:22
Speaker
It had not one, but a pack of feral cats in the parking lot. Right when we were parking our tour van, there's all these feral cats everywhere, right? So our bass player, Rick, decides he loves animals, right? He just loves these little feral cats running around the parking lot. And he decides, I'm going to feed them some cheese.
00:45:47
Speaker
We had a big ol' hunk of cheese in the cooler, you know, on Tillberg, Tillberg Jesus. He goes out there and he's feeding these cats cheese after the show, like 3.30 in the morning. What the fuck happened? Rick gets bit by a stray cat.
00:46:02
Speaker
A bass player in warning danger has been bit by a potential rabies suspect, right? So we start messing with it, man. Like, oh, dude, you're gonna get rabies, or maybe you're gonna get a superpower. That's how Spider-Man started. He got bit by a spider, got ripped and bit by a feral cat. But yeah, so he had a little bit harder time playing this bass for the rest of the tour, but it's pretty badass.
00:46:30
Speaker
Yeah, the feral cats when you're on the road in the hotel parking lot. There was a whole bunch of students there and I'm like, this can't go well. In the middle of nowhere at the hotel, pack of feral cats and let's feed them. Let's feed them cheese.
00:46:51
Speaker
Yeah. Um. So, pack up. Cats are usually individual. There's a whole **** pack of them in this crusty **** hotel in the middle of nowhere. Took all of our gear and tried the hotel that night, man. Left nothing in the van. Oh, made it, made it, made it through it. There are on top of the TV in case anybody busted through there. Wanna rob us. We had our pepper spray right on top of the TV. Well, part of the part of the
00:47:21
Speaker
you know, to tour in the Bay Area when the baseball, I mean, talk about fanatics. I love it. I'm from Boston, so I can recognize baseball fanatics from pretty far away. Yeah, hotel rooms in the area.
00:47:39
Speaker
It's like trying to go somewhere when there's a big graduation. I did that recently and being like, why do hotel prices go up to the hundreds of dollars and are not available? And it's like, oh, everybody in town is graduating today. So, hey, Mark, I just want to tell you,
00:47:56
Speaker
I'm super excited to enjoy your art. And like I said, just recently bumping into that music I'm really digging on. I'm going to send it to some folks of mine who dig on such.
00:48:12
Speaker
I get a good group of folks. And so I wanted to thank you for that. And a great, great conversation. I appreciate, you know, collaborating here with me, getting excited about art and like having some fun with it and just really appreciate what you do. And I'm super pleased. I know you enjoyed the show, but super pleased to have you.
00:48:37
Speaker
On the show. Thank you Ken. There's a lot of fun. I love doing these podcasts like Spud Goodman show Yeah, it's been a lot of fun. Thank you for having me Yeah, podcasts podcasts are are fucking cool. Mm-hmm podcast. Oh
00:48:58
Speaker
Thanks for having me, and I'm going to keep you up to date. I've got Iver the Boxer coming out soon, and I've got four issues of Waltz and Garbageuliet all finished up, and Warning Danger might have a show soon. And I got friends, the people who were doing Vampire Hunter Hank now have a new film project called Bloodbath in Palookaville coming out. There's a lot of cool art being made these days.
00:49:25
Speaker
Just love it. Thanks, Mark, for coming out to something rather than nothing. Mark Osler, that's me, Morning Ranger, Bangs App Publishing. And Ira Locks is soon to come. Oh, you know who's going to be the next spoken word artist? Soon as we get to confirm, Fantasy A. He's a friend of mine. He just recently made a movie called Fantasy A Gets a Mattress. He's in England right now on some sort of film festival. So he's a supporter of this crazy thing that we call Bangs App Publishing.
00:49:55
Speaker
Thanks for being part of it too, Ken. Thanks for having me. Thank you, good brother. Love the art and let's chat again soon, man. Everybody drop in. Morning Danger, Waltzing Carpet Juliet, all the different art. Get your physical copy. If you're in Quimby's, get the SRTN, some rather nothing, Zine 1.
00:50:18
Speaker
uh in Mark's work and uh check out uh warring danger spotify check out these videos thank you good brother keep it rocking up there in Seattle thank you something rather than nothing podcast Ken it was wonderful work this is something rather than nothing
00:50:49
Speaker
and listeners to stay connected with us in our guests, visit something rather than nothing.com. Join our mailing list for exclusive updates and access to guest created art. If you enjoyed this episode or any episode, please like, subscribe, leave a review on your podcast platform. People really read that shit.
00:51:10
Speaker
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00:51:37
Speaker
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