Ryan Christopher

Voice Over (00:03):
This show is sponsored by the Comics Shop. Welcome to Tuesday Chinwag with your host Lee Chalker, writer, artist, and creator of the Comic series Battle for Basel.

Leigh Chalker (00:26):
Howdy, and welcome to another episode of Tuesday Chinwag. My name is Lee Chaka. I’m the creator of Battle for Bustle. Now, battle for Bustle is available in the comic shop. The reason why I mention the comic shop all the time is because it doesn’t just house my comic, but it houses over 100 odd comic book creators from all over Australia. So it’s also the sponsor of these live streams. So one of the things you can do to keep these live streams going and build the community is go and support the comic shop and all the other creators. There is a $9 flat rate of postage. So you can buy one comic, you can buy 20. You don’t even have to buy mine, you can just go and buy anyone else’s because it’s all good. It’s like picking ripe fruit from a tree of goodness, man.

(01:12)
So just go out there and check it all out because there’s something to blow your mind. I mean, my mind’s been blown for years, but it doesn’t matter. Look, just in case any of you haven’t seen the show before, it’s based on who, where, how, and why. We don’t tend to ask those questions. We have a fluid conversation because I like fluidity. It’s just how things are. Good, man. You just roll with it. You just take it as it comes and you just see how you go and you live on the edge. I like living on the edge and I don’t really, but I just felt like I had to be enthusiastic to get people attention. Jeffrey Beats. Good evening, sir. To everyone out there that’s saying good day. Hello. Thank you for watching again, supporting Comex and Chinwag comments are welcome and encouraged. Thank you Kerry.

(02:03)
And the best thing you can do to support Comex and the community is to like and subscribe and share because we’re nearly at 500 subscribers and for Australian independent comic book community, that’s pretty good. And I think we’re about 20, 19, 20 people away. So remember, double check if you’re subscribed, get us up to 500 because that’s an outstanding achievement I reckon. And you’ll just, if we get to 501 day on this show, you might see me spontaneously combust and wouldn’t that be a way to start men show Anyway, I have a guest this evening that he and I haven’t met until tonight, but we know of each other and I wanted to get him on tonight. A lot of information to be had with this fella and it’s an area of, I guess, Australian comics that I dunno a lot about. I love to learn and we have lots of questions and my mind’s been ticking. And look, I’m just going to introduce the man. So it is Ryan Christopher, how are you mate?

Ryan Christopher (03:11):
I’m very well, thank you Lee. It’s a pleasure to be here.

Leigh Chalker (03:13):
Oh mate, pleasure’s mine’s. Great to see you. Great to have you on. Chinwag, welcome to the family. So mate, you’re going to introduce yourself soon enough, so you know what? I reckon we just get straight into it. Are you ready mate? Are you ready to rock and roll? Luck,

Ryan Christopher (03:31):
Rock and or roll?

Leigh Chalker (03:33):
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well we’ll try and do both man simultaneously.

Ryan Christopher (03:36):
If we get time we’ll do both.

Leigh Chalker (03:38):
Yeah, yeah. Oh mate, we’ll just make it happen. And I may spontaneously combust if I’ve got to manage too many things, it may happen tonight. Alright bud. So

Ryan Christopher (03:54):
That’s the big question. That’s the question that I’ve been trying to find out for the past 36 years. A bit of probably all everything I do, I think the journey that I’ve been on has been driven by a internal restlessness that’s sort of always aiming for some sort of stimuli, some sort of output, some sort of creative input that’s sort of been churning away since I was just a little kid. Everything sort of comics isn’t where it starts for me. It really starts with the theatre. The first sort of creative, the first sort of creative medium that I remember having any sort of vivid encounter with was live theatre. My grandparents were big patrons of the theatre, so they would take me and my brother to theatre productions in Melbourne, which is where I’m from.

(05:19)
And then I think it all sort of exploded from there. So I was born with a disability, so a bit of a different journey for me than a lot of people. And so I think I’ve always turned to different creative media, film, music, comics, books, television comedy like standup theatre to try and make some sense of the world and how I fit into it and how I can maybe say something about my experience in life. Yeah, I mean it’s, it’s been an up and down rollercoaster ride, but I’m still here and the last few years especially, I found a few things about myself which have allowed me to open up a bit more to be getting involved in the scene locally, getting to work with creators, getting to have discussions with people like yourself, getting to do podcasts and video shows or streams like recent reads, which is another comics show has sort of been good for me to branch out and find a bit of a community that I’ve been searching for even when I didn’t know what I was looking for. So it’s been a long journey. It’s been at times, uncomfortable at times, euphoric at times, distressing at times, depressing at times Overjoy. But I’m here and yeah, I’m just happy to be, I guess growing up a bit now in this community of like-minded, passionate, creative people.

Leigh Chalker (07:41):
That’s very nice man. It can be pretty wholesome and encompassing meeting people that you’re right are similar in terms of just I guess mindset man. And that’s how I found it with the Comex community too. But Wandered for a long time in and out of lots of things, man, I’m not sure about myself. And about four years ago with the discovery of Comex and getting to meet lots of people and I also found that doing these live streams and podcasts and stuff too also brought something out in me man, which allowed me to communicate I guess which one way of looking at it and to feel like I was involved in something that I’m passionate about, man, so I can understand where you feel like you found the place. And I think that’s a beautiful thing, man.

(08:54)
I know Shane and Kerry and the rest of the Comex crew, we all feel similar, like-minded people, man, birds of a feather flock together and you work at it and you do your thing man, and just you find a unity I guess, mate. And it’s really, it’s Ryan, I’m going to take you back to naughties. How are you buddy? Let’s go back to have lots of passion, Lee. Thank you mate. I like to get the nervous energy out early on, mate, and then just settle back into things and chill out because believe it or not, Ryan, I actually get very, very nervous before a chinwag. Very much so I pace backwards and forwards in the studio and have quite a few cigarettes and as you can tell by the appreciate, do an awful lot of nervous talking. So I get it.

Ryan Christopher (09:58):
I’m that type of person where I’ve been preparing all day for this.

Leigh Chalker (10:02):
Yeah, yeah. Oh dude, man, I know man. I know. On a Tuesday it’s Tuesday Chin wax because I’m thinking I’ve got to mention this, they got to mention that, just the intro. That’s why because I don’t keep notes. I mean the fluidity of the nature is, it just seems a little silly to me to if you are expecting fluidity and authenticity and all those sorts of things I just did. So that’s why I like to just really concentrate on the intro, making sure that people like and subscribe and know about comics and stuff and know who the guest is and things. And then man, we just take it and just see where we roll, man. That’s part of the cool thing. So dude, let’s take you back to Little Rhyme and growing up in Melbourne, mate, so you said theatre and your grandparents were, they were actors or directors or involved in theatre or they were just frequent patrons of the arts?

Ryan Christopher (11:05):
Yeah, they were just passionate theatregoers. If there was a show coming to town, they wanted to see it and they sort of have such a long history of attending the theatre that they were lucky enough to witness so many landmark moments in Australian theatre history. Like the absolute first run of all these incredible Andrew Lloyd Weber musicals, the first time they ever came to Australia, some of the finest stage actors that Australia’s ever produced, they’ve seen them all. So they sort of, at the time I didn’t know, I mean at the time I was just a kid who loved the costumes and the lights and the songs and all that sort of stuff. And then I grew up appreciating more and more everything that goes into making a show like that come to life to then myself being actively involved in the production of live theatre. So it’s something that’s been a constant thread and then ended up coming sort of full circle.

Leigh Chalker (12:32):
How did you get into, obviously your passion from being a young fella and grandma and granddad and seeing like, man, you must look back on those memories now and be like, wow, I checked out some cool stuff and you said you were searching and you’re obviously a creative minded fella, so you’re introduced to theatre early and that got your spark in. You just made mention in your comments that you loved how you could bring all forms, like every section of it together to form that stage presence because there’s a lot goes into everything to bring you to the front. So when you’re in school, was it something that you wanted to do was to get into theatre, did you want to act or would you more interested in the directing or the craft behind it, the production side of things? What was floating your boat man

Ryan Christopher (13:33):
In school? What was floating my boat was that if I took drama, I didn’t have to take any of the other harder subjects in its place,

Leigh Chalker (13:45):
Man. Yeah, I definitely get that, which

Ryan Christopher (13:50):
For any prospective students watching is a huge mistake because even though it may not be highly academic in its nature as far as mathematics and theory and all that sort of stuff, my God, the workload involved in learning and understanding the history and the production of life theatre is mind boggling.

Leigh Chalker (14:22):
What goes into a basic setup, man? What are the intricacies while we’re chatting? Well, I

Ryan Christopher (14:32):
Mean if you are looking at a period piece, so you’re looking at something that is set in a certain time of history and you’re presenting this as a realist production, so you want it to be as true to form as possible. They’re less common now. But traditionally you’d have your director, you’d have your script, you’d have what’s called a dramaturg and a dramaturg. Their job is essentially to go through the script and pull out everything that they need in order to make this play historically accurate and then do all the research about each individual bit.

(15:20)
For example, you’re doing a play by checkoff. So you’re talking about a Russian play and then you think about all the little bits and pieces that might go into a traditional Russian home at the turn of the century. So what kind of chairs did they use? What kind of tables? What was the style? What would these people, if these were real people based on everything we know about them, what would they have been able to afford? What might they have inherited from their parents or their grandparents? What kind of clothes would they wear? Why are they wearing those shoes? They’re wearing that tie? Why is it that colour? Everything that you can possibly imagine, how would they have painted the walls? What colours were prevalent in houses from people of this society and standing at the turn of the century, how can we replicate that as cheaply as possible? Because also the great thing that I love about theatre that I learnt when I started doing it is that nothing is as it seems that those walls that look like they are genuine Venetian plaster, they’re not Venetian plaster, they’re the cheapest MDF fiberboard that you could possibly buy that have been painted by an artisan to look like Venetian plaster so that they look like it under stage lights. Wood grain is not wood grain, it’s plain wood that’s been painted to look like wood grain costumes.

(16:57)
You can’t afford to use designer materials, but you’ve got to make it look like designer stuff. So how do you do that? Well, you cut the here, you tuck here, you use this stitch, you do that, you fill it out this way, you make sure that it looks good from 20 feet away and 60 feet away. That’s all these little bits and pieces that go in. How do people wear their hair? How do they wear their makeup? How can you get that makeup to look good under stage lights and then be readable from the very back seats of the auditor, all that sort of stuff. And that’s before you even cast anything, these ideas and these considerations, you pull them out of the work straight away and heavily researched before you even start putting pen to paper as far as concept design and production design go. So it’s a huge done on a scale, like a professional scale, it is a huge undertaking to go from source text to finished production and it’s usually the work of dozens of passionate people who work for way longer than they get paid. I remember the first show that I worked, I was doing the lighting for a production of cat hot tin roof, and I think our tech days were 16 hour days, so 16 hour days for a whole week in order to prepare the production to go live. And that’s not even including the hundreds of hours of planning that goes into making sure that you are ready come day, one of tech week that you can dig into actually putting this thing on the stage.

Leigh Chalker (19:04):
Yeah, yeah, man, that’s amazing. That would be what, several months I’m assuming of research before you even sent out quotes from builders and stuff like that, I guess in people to help you out because man, you’d have to, God, there’s so many logistics when you think of that from script to getting the director to vibe with it and have his own vision to historically meld everything, mould everything together. You’d also, I mean man, you couldn’t leave a stone unturned because in a theatre you don’t just have people sitting directly in front of you. You’ve got people coming at you from other angles. So you’ve got to make it all work absent. You learn very early that red lighting cancels out red makeup. There you go. Colour

Ryan Christopher (20:02):
Theory is very, very important when it comes

Leigh Chalker (20:04):
To, yeah. Tell us about colour theory then, man. Oh my god. What’s colour theory and theatre?

Ryan Christopher (20:10):
I mean it’s the same as in any other form of artistic illustration or anything like that. You’ve got some colours that go together, some that don’t. And you want to make sure that if your set’s one colour and you’re using a light that has gels. So gels are basically little coloured pieces of plastic that you slide into the lighting fixture to colour the light that comes through onto the stage. They can’t clash with each other, they can’t combine to make other colours, they can’t wash anything out. So everything’s got to be very carefully matched together in order to paint a picture. Otherwise you end up with things with clashing horribly blending together or just being completely washed out.

Leigh Chalker (21:08):
So to those, the lights with the gels in them, that would obviously the stage colouring and the stage, like the painted stage and what you’re using for materials would work against it if you’ve got the wrong lights, is that what you’re sort of suggesting or Okay, tricky.

Ryan Christopher (21:31):
And the directional light as well. So top light, side light, backlight, front light, it’s all a balancing act. Too much of one washes out the other, you don’t get the effect that you’re after. Just like if you are doing an illustration, a coloured illustration, and you’re doing a silhouette character, if you don’t use the right shades to highlight that silhouette, then it’s not going to be evident that you’ve got a person standing in shadow. You’re not going to get the depth that’s required. And depth, depth on stage is super important. You’ve got all the space to fill. You don’t want to seem like it’s a 2D image because the lighting is so flat. So yeah,

Leigh Chalker (22:24):
Man. Yeah, yeah. I didn’t know. I haven’t been for a while, but when I was younger I used to enjoy going to the theatre and I enjoyed the spectacle of it and the passion from the people involved in it and things. And I had no idea that so much went into it because that’s the beauty of everything though. Hey, unless you learn about it, you don’t really realise people take everything so for granted, don’t they like for face value? And they don’t realise what goes on in the background. So Nick May, Hey team. Nice to see two great humans, just having a chat. Nick May, it’s nice to see you and everyone else sending in comments. Love you.

Ryan Christopher (23:10):
It’s nice to see some great humans watching.

Leigh Chalker (23:14):
Absolutely. And Shane settled Rock on Ryan, US Magneto fans got to stick together. Ha, is that a punt? S can Lee handle off topic? Random comment. I blame the germs. Yeah, I’ll let everyone know watching because I like to just tell everyone what’s actually happening. Scissors crook tonight. So he’s sitting back at home with Kerry and he’s chilling out and me little brother quick. Nicholas Cleary is tucked away in the background and he’s handling everything tonight. So a big get well to Shane and a big, a big nice one quick and a big thank you to quick who’s working his magic in the background, doing tricky little things like that. So yeah, so let’s get back to the theatre. I like this conversation. I haven’t had a conversation and I’m learning stuff man. I like learning. So

Ryan Christopher (24:10):
I think imagine when you’re drawing battle for Busle, you don’t start throwing the exact finished product down on the page from the moment that you sit down. There’s structures that need to be built, there’s frameworks that need to be built and that all needs to be solid before you start building up the final image on top of that. And theatre is exactly the same. It starts off with a basic idea. The framework is generally when you start to put your basic concepts together, what is the set going to look like? Set usually the first thing that needs to be decided when you’re putting a production together. And then everything sort of falls in around that

Leigh Chalker (25:08):
With the size of the venue, the stage that I imagine that it’d have some consequence to, I guess the limits of what is in front of the audience. You couldn’t be different. Remember the old rock and roll movie, the three British dudes, what were they called? It was hilarious back into their spinal tap and they decided and they decided they wanted to build Stonehenge man, and they went out there and Stonehenge is this big on this Wembley sized stadium, man. So it’s like, how tricky is that? Is that a thought process that you have to go into as well? What size venues are we playing? Are we only staying at this venue for so many nights? That would be tricky. Were you ever in a touring theatre or were you just in a one venue sort of location or did you travel around?

Ryan Christopher (26:13):
Worked some touring shows, but when I’d worked in a design sense or a technical sense, it was always a static production. So this production’s here, it’s here for two weeks and then it goes. But we were producing those shows, so they were limited run. We put ’em together, they played for two weeks, we tear ’em down. So for us, there were considerations though, because we had quite a unique stage setup. I mean there’s different types of stages out there. Not to bore everyone, but the most common one you’ll see is a proscenium stage. So you’ve got your archway and the stage proceeds backwards behind that arch. Another type of stage you’ve got a thrust where you’ve got sort of a large section that comes out in towards the audience, almost like you see at a concert when you’ve got the little catwalk that the lead singer might go out onto, can be similar to that. But the stage that I did most of my work at was a proscenium thrust. So it had a proscenium arch, but then it actually had a thrusted stage that came forward. So you had this incredible depth to work with and it allowed you to put, if you wanted, you could put action pretty much straight in the face of the audience.

(27:46)
And I remember doing a set for a production of Othello. It was a rotating four-sided sets so it could display four different locations without actually having to fly in or fly out any scenery. And the proscenium arch was 16 feet high, I believe, and the set itself was 15 and a half feet. So it’s scraped in by six inches.

(28:21)
And it allowed us to set this gigantic set right in the centre of the stage and bring it all as close to the actual audience is possible. And that’s something where the decision to do that had to be made on week one of the entire process. So we got the scripts and while the director is still working on putting the cast together and going through that process, we’re already having to lock down certain details about how this is going to look because you’ve got three months or so from first meeting to open. And so the design and production of the set needs to kick off straight away. And to put it into a bit of perspective too, three month production lead, I finished painting the set about four hours before curtain on opening night.

Leigh Chalker (29:24):
Yeah, yeah. Bit of panic that day. Yeah, yeah. No, I bet you that wasn’t a 16 hour day, mate. I bet you that was a bit longer than that.

Ryan Christopher (29:37):
I think I took a break to sleep on the floor at the back of the theatre for about two hours and then cracked straight back into it to make sure it got done.

Leigh Chalker (29:48):
Oh man. That’s so cool because I’m going to take that info and take it back to what you were talking about with comics, the basic foundation that you are talking about. I don’t know what anyone else calls it, but for me, I call ’em the pillars. So when I’m doing the story or the comic book, I always make sure that I’ve got several foundational pillars. So there’s little bit of room to move if things aren’t quite shaping, because I guess you’ve got to have a little bit of slightest adaptability. But I’ve found that as long as the story beats and this happens here, this has got to be here, that’s got to be there. Then usually everything is okay. And I’m assuming that is, I guess the comparison to what you are talking about within the first couple of weeks. You’ve got to know what floor you’re on, you’ve got to know how high you’re working with, this is what we’re doing so we can now that is done, those foundations and pillars are done, we can now start fleshing that thing out, man, and start playing. So that’s, dude, I love, this is what I love about Chinwag, Ron. I just the whole, how all these creative processes in their own way do share such a similar, oh man, just process of piecing it all together, man, just one stone at a time, man. And if one stone’s rock solid and your foundation’s good, the rest of it, it is just, it’s good, it’s good. It’s just a bit of stability, man, in all things. Even life, it’s good to be stable with

Ryan Christopher (31:42):
So many processes go on concurrently when you’re working in life theatre too. So you mean you’d get your stage dimensions down and then those would be blocked out on the floor in the rehearsal space so that the actors could start working within that space in a virtual sense

(32:00)
From hopefully day one of their physical rehearsals. So they do their table read, they do all that sort of stuff, but then the hope is that you’ve got enough information down that they can start working in a proxy version of that space straight away. And that’s, I guess the goal and the job of someone who’s doing scenic design is to make 101 decisions extremely quickly and extremely, certainly even when you’ve got no idea what you want, what’s available, what you can afford, which is a big one too. Making decisions before you know can afford to make them. That’s one of the big hallmarks of theatre.

Leigh Chalker (32:51):
What is it better to beg forgiveness than ask permission sometimes, mate,

Ryan Christopher (32:57):
What I also learned is that nothing’s really impossible. You can make decisions that are out of your pay grade and then part of the fun of the process is like you’ve written the check and now you’ve got to cash it, say you better make sure the money’s in the bank, so

Leigh Chalker (33:19):
Let’s find a

Ryan Christopher (33:20):
Solution.

Leigh Chalker (33:21):
That’s true, because I guess theater’s all about, I guess communication too, man, you are having to make decisions as well. But the poor old director, he’s like dealing with cast members and he’s got, as you said, several different, I guess areas coming to him at different times. And somehow he’s got to bring them all together to create that moment of it’s all flowing, man. It’s here. He’s

Ryan Christopher (33:50):
Captain in two ships at the same time.

Leigh Chalker (33:53):
Yeah.

Ryan Christopher (33:54):
And at any one time, if he takes his eye off them for too long, they’re going to crash into the bros. That’s just the nature of it too.

Leigh Chalker (34:03):
Yeah. Hey, did you find any artists or anyone working in the No names needed. We are just talking goss here, mate, but the people that were working in the background doing their thing, did you find any of them a little bit diva? Did you find?

Ryan Christopher (34:23):
Of course, yeah.

Leigh Chalker (34:25):
So yeah, they had that on

Ryan Christopher (34:29):
Both sides of the fence as well. So we’re not just talking the performers, but it’s as common amongst the production staff as it is amongst the performing staff. So you just learn what’s to still sort of stay in your own lane as much as possible. But then you’ve got to be assertive about things that start to impact on your artistic integrity. And that’s pretty much where you have control. I mean, the production’s not yours. You are there to do a job, but you are there to do a job for a specific reason. So when someone else’s ego starts to impact on your ability to do what you were employed to do, then that’s when you have to stand up and say, Hey, you’ve got to pull your head in. This is a team environment, this is collaborative, we’ve all got to do our part, and this is something that is a non-negotiable for me.

Leigh Chalker (35:36):
Well, that’s setting boundaries, mate, like healthy boundaries, just being cool, but letting people know. Just back up a little bit there champ,

Ryan Christopher (35:47):
And I guess there’s unofficial pecking orders even amongst what you are there to do. There’s certain aspects where obviously you need, everything’s about collaboration, so you need to communicate as clearly as possible. What’s your colour scheme, what are you going for? And you need to communicate that as early as possible to wardrobe lighting so you don’t end up with these clashes that occurred down the line where all of a sudden someone’s got to either remake a costume, repaint a set, or hang new lights because it wasn’t clearly communicated what you were doing. But at the same time, there’s certain aspects where, because say for example, set comes first, it’s put together first in the space. You do have an element of veto power I guess when it comes to some things, like if someone decides that they want to change something down the line and that’s going to impact on you, nine times out of 10, the director’s going to back you up. They know that when you talk about the set, that’s a hell of a lot more work than just not changing your mind about X, Y, Z. Not changing your conceptual idea is not important. If it means that somebody else has to do dozens and dozens of hours of skilled labour because you’ve decided that you weren’t exactly happy with that shade of blue light, you want to use a different shade of blue light.

Leigh Chalker (37:31):
And then from what that impacts the people that are painting the walls and the colours that they’ve used and throws everything out of whack, it’s like, man,

Ryan Christopher (37:42):
You kind of have a lockdown stage where you go, okay, you’ve got an, if anyone has any real problems or issues or they have anything that they want to change,

Leigh Chalker (37:54):
You’ve got to bring

Ryan Christopher (37:55):
It up now.

Leigh Chalker (37:56):
Yeah, yeah. I get that, man. I’m finding it. Look, dude, don’t stress about talking about this stuff. Like you said, just sorry to the audience and stuff. So I find this fascinating man, because I don’t know much about theatre apart from viewing it and the comparisons, as I was saying earlier, in between creating the basics foundations and that in a comic book or a painting or anything else, I mean God even running, you know what I mean? You start small, you’ve got to get good shoes, that sort of stuff. Once you get that stuff done, all the extras come with the time and the effort and communicate and things like that. All processes in this strange way are all connected meant from the way I’m looking at it and the way you are describing it, oh, in my mind, while I was listening to you, I was like, man, it’s making a comic book.

(38:52)
You’ve got to get that point of that’s the pencil of doing that here. That’s enough pencil in to give that Inca enough space to put his flare on it. And then they’ve got to get this to the colorist, and you don’t want to put too much of that on it because there’s no room for colour, there’s too much detail. All of those things sort of work as well, man, depending on what I guess the project is, mate, I could be very different if you were a one man stage show, I guess. You know what I mean? You wouldn’t have a lot of those intricate thoughts and processes that you’d have to, but they’d still be important nonetheless. How long did you, because I can tell you’re still passionate about it now, you sent me a message a couple of days ago that you worked in Australia with this, but you were also like, you went overseas for a bit, man, and were dabbling around in theatre. So how did there and what took you over there to do things? You right mate. You’re chill, man. You have a drink. Wet that whistle, dude, because it’s like,

Ryan Christopher (40:05):
So my wife’s American, and so probably around 2013, so I was working in finance, actually, I was working in project management for a bank in Melbourne, and I had this idea of what I wanted out of life and what I thought was important, and I worked hard at it. I moved through the ranks, I got some promotions, I got some absurd pay rises to the kind of level that most people would probably find incredibly comfortable and they’d be quite happy to just sit and do their work and dot the i’s and cross the T’s and collect their paycheck. But I had the troubling realisation that I’d worked hard and I’d got what I thought I wanted. And when I got there I was profoundly miserable, like deep, deep, deep depression.

(41:29)
And it sort of made me rethink my whole whole approach to just the idea of what is work? Why do you work a job? What are you supposed to work a job for? What are your priorities? And we talked about it, about the idea of maybe living in the states for a while. Granted the move was supposed to be longer term than it was in the end. So my wife said to me, why don’t we just move? Why don’t we just give it a try? Why don’t we just pack things up, head over there and have a bit of an adventure and see how it works out. So I did that. I quit my job, I moved to the other side of the world and I started studying theatre. So I went into education mode and I got hooked in with a really great group of creators. I had a fantastic mentor.

(42:43)
I’m not going to name drop other than to say that she was a two time Emmy award-winning scenic designer. So I just went and tried to learn as much as possible, talk to work with everyone, ask questions. Hey, do you want to work on this show? Yes, I do. Do you want to work on two shows at the same time? Yes, I do. Do you want to do lights for this touring production? Sure, there’s this national tap dancing finals. Do you want to work on that? Yes, I do. Do you want to do this Neil Diamond cover band show? Yes, I do. Only

Leigh Chalker (43:34):
If they play crunchy granola.

Ryan Christopher (43:40):
And I just worked as much as I could. I did the studies and I worked as much as I possibly could on everything that came my way and just enjoyed it. More and more, I get restless real easy. So the structured education part isn’t always my forte. Once I start to get outside of the area of interest. So when I was studying and I was doing theatre and I was doing theatre subjects and I was working with theatre people and I was sort of just fully enmeshed in that environment, it was go go all the time, frustrations, but happy frustrations.

(44:32)
But then inevitably you start to have to do the subjects at school that you don’t really want to do, that you have to do in order to complete your formal education. And that’s when I said, okay, well maybe I’m not going to do the education part anymore, but I’m just going to work on the theatre side of things. And so I stepped away from doing the actual structure education and just dug into actually working as part of the running crew. So the in-house crew basically for two live theatre venues years and worked on just an amazing variety of shows. Everything from, like I say, musicals, straight theatre by straight theatre, I mean theatre that doesn’t have songs. So it’s just your traditional sort of plays, Shakespeare, cover bands, dance recitals, full orchestra, anything that I could get my hands on, working for the local symphony, learning how you set up a stage when there’s going to be 86 instruments on there, just little bits and pieces and super nerdy little things like being asked.

(46:01)
I once did a show where my job, after we’d done setup my job was to stand side stage and hold the first chair clarinets clarinet when they weren’t actively playing it. So that was my job, and I was just like, that’s cool. I can’t believe I’m like, this is what I have to do. So you’re just watching this entire recital and you are playing this tiny part. But it was still better than any board meeting I’d ever sat in. Any project I’d ever launched or been a part of didn’t compare to holding the first chair clarinets instrument when they weren’t playing. And I think that looking back now, it’s like nothing solidified my viewpoint on corporate work structure more than probably that very moment.

Leigh Chalker (47:12):
Yeah, yeah. Oh man. It’s firstly hugely courageous act to be in that position. I have known, I know friends and family that I’m very sure have been and are in a similar position that by all accounts and purposes, everything on a fiscal level is very comfortable and they certainly don’t wish or need or want for anything. However, there’s something that I’ve found that there seems to be, and I’ve been there too man, and I’ll talk from me personally, is I found that there was always something missing, man, that just I couldn’t put my finger on it. And that was another one of those things is I won’t talk about it too much this evening, but that was another thing that ended up adding to my addictions and stuff like that, was the fact that I sort of felt locked in to a certain extent. I’d locked myself into something that I knew was man, it just wasn’t because I hadn’t set boundaries, I’d allowed myself to have been pushed into an area that was slowly just, I guess, devouring me man and killing me soul wise.

(48:51)
And then when I knew that this was not working, fuck, it was a case of I was too deep in it. You know what I mean? And then I had to like, okay, I got to spend another couple of years getting myself out of it, man. Do you know what I mean? Yeah. And then get out, man. I understand what you’re talking about holding a clarinet because for the person while they were having a break and just standing there having those moments, because to be quite honest with you, in comparison, man, having moments like Tuesday Chin Waxs for me, I have those moments row every Tuesday, man, where I generally sit in here after everyone’s gone home and stuff like that, and I have a couple of cigarettes to myself to wind down, and I sit down and I just go, man, luckiest dude ever.

(49:51)
Just to have those moments to talk to such like-minded people and passionate people, man in all their fields and learn and apply what their lessons into my life and different things like that too, man. So I totally, from my perspective, get where you just got to a point where it’s like, no, I need a change. I can see myself, maybe not tomorrow, but give me another 10 years. You know what I mean? And that’s not going to be a pretty picture, but at what point, while you’re in theatre and doing this and vibing with life fully resonating and stuff and feeling good, I can tell you feeling good because smiling and stuff, talking about that moment, when did you start picking up that little bit of taste in amongst all that for comic books and those, the things that you’re passionate about now? How did that all intertwine and come about?

Ryan Christopher (50:57):
So comics goes back to being a little kid and digging out a big pile from my uncle’s bottom of my uncle’s wardrobe.

Leigh Chalker (51:10):
Don’t you love those uncles, mate? Do you know how many people tell me like, oh, my uncle that

Ryan Christopher (51:17):
It was full of those nine. I think they belonged to my grandfather originally, and they were all Superman, Lois Lane, Jimmy Olson, Superboy, those DC books from the fifties and sixties. And I remember just sitting on the floor with just this massive pile sprawled out in front of me. And this is an interesting thing to talk about actually, because I think that maybe some people will resonate with it, if not, maybe it’s like a little bit of an education sort of thing as well. So I found out recently that I have a DHD, so attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, there is a lot of misinformation about what that is, what it means, what the symptoms are, how they present themselves. But I can tell you now that for the longest time, my reading comprehension wasn’t great, so I didn’t necessarily have problems reading. So it was really hard probably for teachers and people to pick up on the fact that I wasn’t always understanding what was going on even when it appeared like I did. So comics were always great because you can just look at the pictures.

(53:02)
So I loved comics. Did I read comics? No, I didn’t read comics. I didn’t really read anything because reading wasn’t really something that I was comfortable with, wasn’t really something that I did. But being able to have a book full of cool superheroes and super villains and action and funny things going on, Kurt Swan artwork, things like that was just, and at the same time, I was watching things like the Fleischer Brothers, Superman cartoon, Batman, the Animated series X-Men, the animated series. That’s where it all began for me around that same time. So those two, which are now historically iconic television shows and these old school DC comics books. And then as far as the first comic that I, and I’m Australian, I grew up in Melbourne going to the Royal Melbourne Show, Phantom Comics in Show bags, so just like everybody else on the planet, but the first book I probably ever bought for myself, I can’t remember issue number or anything like that, but it would’ve been a Captain America book because I was just absolutely fascinated with Captain America when I was a child. There was that, I had a VHS tape that had maybe half a dozen episodes of that 1966

Leigh Chalker (54:54):
Sort of, yeah, it’s Captain America Throws His Mighty Shield, mate. That’s the word. Yeah, I mentioned that dude. Slightly off top, same topic, but I’m sorry to interrupt, but just there’s a Nick Ma ruddy teachers comics to the rescue. That’s right. Nick gra teachers are good, mate. Batman animated series is awesome. It was Jeffrey Man, I don’t know, A couple of months ago I actually sung that because I don’t know Ryan, why I do these things, but sometimes I burst into Song Man on this show and doing things and that, I don’t dunno what it is, but hey, whatever, a fluidity of things. And I sung that song and a gentleman that watches the show regularly messaged me the next day and he said, oh, how long has it been since you’ve seen one of those episodes? And I said, oh mate, since I was a kid.

(55:52)
And he said, oh look, I came across this today. I thought I’d let you know. And it was a link to a website that had all the episodes of the Captain America, the Incredible Hulk and Thor on it. So about three months ago, man, I was here drawing and thank you so much, man, the person that sent it like your champion. And he knows that I’ve already said that to him multiple times. But I was drawing and I had the laptop set up, man, and I was drawing and I was like, captain America, I his mate. And I was into it, man. And it took me back too, man. So yeah, that was big for me as well, those reruns and stuff, man. Sorry to interject.

Ryan Christopher (56:31):
No, no, no, that’s fine. I mean those cartoons, the X-Men Animated series, especially the animated series, core memories for me, like encountering those shows, the age that I was when I encountered them and the impact that they’ve had on my life as pieces of consumed media are probably second to none. I think everything branches out from those points, and especially the X-Men. I mean, growing up with a disability, it was the first time that I had encountered people who were different, but they weren’t treated as other in the sense of they had a community, they were cared for and their gifts made them unique, but they didn’t make them lesser than, and they wanted to improve the discourse around what it is to be different.

(57:55)
And the older I’ve gotten, the more that’s resonated deep in my soul. If there’s a hill I die on, it’s the hill of you treat everyone with respect regardless of their circumstance, because nobody makes a choice to be disabled. And also, I’m a big believer that, I mean, disableds your word, it’s not my word as far as when I say your, I mean the able bodied discourse of people. So it’s built this foundation for me of we need respect and accountability and we need to demand that from society. And the fact that I’m just going to take one moment because I know we’re not supposed to talk politics at all or anything like

Leigh Chalker (59:02):
That. We take as many moments as you,

Ryan Christopher (59:06):
When we look at things like the NDIS bill that’s just passed through federal Parliament, nothing enrages me more than the idea that things like this are still happening. That the futures of disabled people are being cited for them by able-bodied people that don’t ask questions and don’t care about the answers. And I think that at its core, that’s what the X-Men has always been about, people who are being discriminated against for no reason other than they’re different. No one asks why they’re different. No one cares why they’re different. And when it comes to shaping policy around their existence, nobody actually gives a shit enough to ask them themselves. And because of that, X-Men has remained intrinsically linked to my DNA and more specifically the character of Magneto and the idea of fighting for equality, not just assuming that equality will be given to you out of the goodness of people’s hearts. Because I’ve been around on this planet now for nearly 40 years, and I’ve had to scrape for every bit of equality that I’ve been given in my life. It’s never been something that’s been handed out to me like I deserved it or had earned it. It’s always been a case of having to prove that I made not a burden or that I should be given the same amount of rights and respect as everybody else. And

(01:00:56)
I think in a lot of respects, comics and the concepts and ideas explored inside of them have helped me reconcile and deal with a lot of those ideas through one, it’s escapism form of entertainment that you can get lost inside of characters that you can relate to, characters that can give you a bit of hope. But also I think that one of the biggest mistakes that the literature discourse makes is that comics and even mainstream comics are digging into some incredibly lofty themes and having something really important to say about them.

(01:01:52)
I am a Stan Lee guy. I think that Stan Lee is one of the most important figures for diversity and inclusion in the literary world that has ever put pen to paper. And I’ll, there’s a lot of anti Stan people, but I’ll fight those people in the streets and Chris Claremont as well. The writing of Chris Claremont has been such an eye opening experience for me to go back over those works time and time again and really soak in those ideas that he was sowing for 11 years through the pages of X-Men. I think that the Claremont years of X-Men should be taught in school as far as representations of diversity and inclusion, and there’s so many fantastic individual issues, entire runs that really put a mirror to society and be essentially say, why are you like this to these people? And for what reason? I think it’s sort of been a two pronged thing. One, it enrages me, but I think it’s a positive rage. I don’t think it’s the type of rage that eats you up inside. I think it’s the type of rage that just makes you demand better from other people and hold people accountable.

Leigh Chalker (01:03:39):
Yeah, it gives you a sense of drive mate passion for something that you heartfelt about. One thing, many years ago, I had an awful lot to do with a young man called Jason, and I found that one of the best writers of our times, Jeffrey, I agree with that. And I found day, hello William, how are you mate? Nice to come back. Thank you to see you again. I’ve always hated man bullying. I find that it’s weak people that pick on those that appear different. I believe that those people should be helping, particularly through my sobriety. One lesson that I have learned, and one of the things that is important is service. You shouldn’t be putting shit on people or being toxic in nature. You should be helping your brothers and sisters out as best as you can because we are all one man and don’t leave anyone behind.

(01:04:56)
Another thing that I despise is the fact that when I was growing up, disabled, people used to also be known as invalids. And what made me disgusted when I was a teenager is I could never associate in my mind or believe it was correct that how could invalid and invalid both be the different, just the slight different change in the delivery of the word, but just a disgraceful, I guess, description of a community of people. Mate, the other thing that I would like to say to you about Chris Claremont is I was about 12 years old and I was in Canberra with my dad, and we were in a comic bookshop, and it was, oh, obviously it wasn’t working then, but he was an avid comic book fan. And I’d read his comic books and he’d buy me a few. And this particular day, up on the wall in a plastic bag, it was the first time I’d seen a plastic, one of the original Marvel graphic novels, the big 2000 ad size man.

(01:06:15)
And it was X-Men God loves Man Kills. And at the time, it was about 20 bucks. And I dunno what it was, man, about this. I wanted it. I fucking wanted it. And Dad was just like, yeah, righto mate. Just go and grab it and I’ve got it. And that was the first time from my memory that I read a comic at 12 years old and realised for the first time something went off in my brain about what a fucking beautiful medium comic books is, because they absolutely took a subject matter of people being different, people being disassociated, people discriminated against, and made it very accessible to a young kid like me. And I guess ever since then, man, that has always stuck with me too. I would go so far actually as to say, I mean everyone that’s watched this show knows that the crow is my thing, but I’d say God loves me, kills is a fucking close second, because I just remember rereading that multiple times and I’d just never seen anything like that.

(01:07:34)
Man, Shawnie. Good day, mate. How are you? I couldn’t say good day to you before because I didn’t want to interrupt Ryan. The X-Men also show the diversity within a group. Not everyone has the same idea of how things should be done. Not only are you making the decisions in the wrong way, but one decision does not fit all. This is correct. I agree with that. Shawnee. Thank you for the comment mate. Shane s Same here, Ryan, same here. Huge connection to X-Men for similar reasons. It seems. The X-Men, I don’t really know where they’re at now. I mean, I’m obviously more Australian comic book orientated and stuff, but the Chris Claremont era of X-Men into the uncanny X-Men blew my mind as a kid. I’d never read anything as detailed and as gripping. Every character was fleshed out. And what they portrayed or what he particularly portrayed, obviously with his writing to me at that point was he focused on all of the characters’ weaknesses and their fears. And as the characters grew and grew, you could see them overcoming the things that were working against themselves, working against how they could get on in life, and even from night crawl or hiding to later on, proudly knowing who he was, walking down the street and not caring. You know what I mean? And absorbing himself into society and things like that.

(01:09:21)
Beautiful.

Ryan Christopher (01:09:22):
There’s a great thing that Chris Claremont does during that run as well, where, and I think it’s a master stroke and storytelling, is you’ve got this segregated group, the X-Men, and when he strips Banshee of his powers and you don’t know if he’s going to get him back or get them back, and then he himself becomes an outsider within the group of outsiders. And to show a completely different way in which you can include and treat that person, they let him be as involved as he wanted to be. They didn’t assume that he was no longer capable of being an X man. They helped him through his crisis of faith in himself and his ability now that he didn’t have his power. All that idea of showing people how it can be done within the concept of the group as well. And I thought when I read that passage of issues that again was like everything, you need to be an ally of the disabled community. It’s all within those pages. If you want to start a guide as to how can I be an inclusive human being that has empathy and understanding and protects the rights of people who are different than me, just read those books. It’s a starter guide. It’s the entry level reading. It’s the summer reading for this course.

Leigh Chalker (01:11:14):
Yeah, yeah, I’d agree. I learned a lot of lessons from that. I remember my dad sitting down and he used to read the X-Men comics with me. And I remember having conversations with him where he’d be out, we’d always read comics together on the beanbag either side, like swap comics and Oh, what’d you think about that? And telling stories and jamming off each other and stuff. And he’d go outside and he’d have a cigarette and he’d be like, what did you make of this? What’d you make of that? And I remember a couple of times, man, him saying about some of the uncanny X-Men stories, he was like, oh, that’s a heavy comic. That’s a heavy comic Lee. Even he was acknowledging they’re good comics, they’re heavy, A lot of things in that.

(01:12:01)
But again, I think, and we’ll get more into this, I know you are super passionate about what we’ll talk about later, but there’s so many things in comic books, man, that I struggled to read as a kid. Comic books were the first things that I read. And then as I got more confident with my reading, I progressed to novels and now I read as much as I can. Through that, I progressed through having the confidence of reading and comic books and starting to see the messages and to having someone like my dad to be able to talk me through those things and situations. And Dad knew what was happening in the world, so did they Were always open to communication. If I had questions and things, I could associate what I’d learned there to what I was learning in the real world, to then reading novels, to then reading history books, everything again, foundation man.

(01:12:59)
You know what I mean? Comic books and stuff. Anyone else listen to this? Some dude sitting down having a VB at nine 30 at night at the local tavern and be like, they never taught me anything, but they did. I’d argue that point maybe when he is sober. But there’s a beautiful medium, man, and it’s not just the great writing. I think, honestly, Ryan, I think that’s why, obviously man, I’m Australian orientated creatively in comic books now because I see the work from my friends and peers and people I admire that goes into comic books, man, and the blood, sweat and tears and the doubts and all that sort of stuff that goes into that. And in its own way, I can sort of see what we’ve talked about with the uncanny X-Men with the community of people that we’re involved with here, mate, because to a certain extent, everyone comes from a different background. Everyone has their doubts and things like that, you know what I mean? And they’re just trying to get to that thing that like a Unity. Jeffrey Beats Chris had a great way of keeping the character true to characters. Modern X-Men is not so good. Eighties, nineties was a golden age for the X Titles, man. Yeah, yeah. Shanes

Ryan Christopher (01:14:28):
Say seventies, eighties, nineties, I mean the seventies. The

Leigh Chalker (01:14:31):
John Burn stuff was brilliant, man. With Chris Claremont back,

Ryan Christopher (01:14:37):
I think that mean mileage may vary depending on taste, but you’ve got 30 solid years of X-Men stories almost straight through. You can go from 1970 to 2000 basically, and you’ve got solid stories told at different intervals with incredible creative teams all the way through. So my God, pick a decade, pick a book

Leigh Chalker (01:15:04):
And have a go. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I know another one, and I’ll move on from the X-Men in case there’s people out there going, not talking about X-Men again, but you can send your complaint emails, siz down there, he’ll file. And for me, everyone knows I keep a file. I still haven’t looked at it, but I’ll be sure to it one day. Another one that blew me out in that uncanny X-Men period was the Mutant Massacre, the original one back in the eighties, man, where you had the, what were the marauders man just cruising through tunnels underneath New York City, man, just wiping out as many morelocks as you could. And I’d never seen anything like that in a comic book either, man. Do you know what I mean? And yeah, that was like, ah, my God, Stu, how are you buddy? John Burn did great stuff on X-Men and Fantastic four never.

(01:16:07)
Hello Stu. I’ve got some issues of that fantastic four period. But my John Byrne love was his X-Men run with Terry Austin and Chris Claremont. I really, really boomed that artwork. That was some stuff that I saw as a little boy that really stuck with me to this day. Yeah, Mr. Burn, he was good. Ryan, with your love of the uncanny and what other comics did you sort of resonate to at that point, man, you started off with your DC and granddad’s stuff and then you found X-Men, and that really struck home with you because I do want to touch on, and I want you to touch as much on your whatever story or how far you want to go into, for lack of a better word, disabilities and things like that. All is welcome here, man. I myself believe that. Look, man, you’ve seen the show How I believe that mental health is an incredibly important thing to me.

(01:17:18)
You know what I mean? So being a person in the situation that would also have mental health would also be stricken at times, as you mentioned earlier, before suffering depression and things like that. And we’ll get to something I always like to touch on is later on, maybe you can touch on it when you’re comfortable, is how creativity and helps you through those moments, man, because I simply ask that question in particular for anyone that’s watching the show for the first time or has seen it multiple times because I know creativity saved my life and I’m interested to promote creativity as something that could save yours or save peoples. You don’t have to be magnificent at it. You don’t have to be Michelangelo just sometimes just saying you can’t verbalise. Sometimes you’ve got to get that out and it’s a beautiful thing. But what other comics struck with you at that particular time in your life? Man,

Ryan Christopher (01:18:30):
Judge. Dread.

Leigh Chalker (01:18:31):
Yeah, yeah. Love Judge.

Ryan Christopher (01:18:37):
Fascinated by, I had this judge Dread and Judge Death cover, I dunno which issue it was. So it must’ve been something from the Dark Judge’s issues. So it was reprints. It wasn’t like the original 2018 ad stories, but some sort of nineties reprint of some of the dark judges storylines. So colours a square artwork. And it was the first time I was like, ah, comics can be kind of spooky too. It’s not just superheroes. It can be a little bit dark and mysterious. So I got a few more of those, like 2088 Annual, which had some bit of rogue trooper in there, bit of a BC Warriors bit of,

Leigh Chalker (01:19:44):
Oh man, you’re singing my song here, man. I love Man, A, B, C, warriors Judge, dread 2000 ad. I got hundreds and hundreds of ’em, man, like 2000 ad comics and a BC Warriors man. Oh, I love a B, C Warriors. That’s just one of my

Ryan Christopher (01:20:05):
Little, and it kind of comes full circle in some ways too, in ways that you don’t friendship when you’re a child, for example, is so just you are there, they’re there, you’re friends. That’s how it is. You play games, you do silly stuff. The core basis of being friends with someone when you’re a child is that they’re there. You are there. That’s enough. That’s cool. They like football, you like football, bang, do they go for the same team? Well then you’re best friends. That’s the simple notion of it. So I don’t think that young me when it comes to comics and some of the comics I was exposed to at a young age, and then some of the people I’ve had the pleasure to meet and form friendships with that were foundational in the creation of those comics. At that time, I wouldn’t have understood the significance of it as a child.

(01:21:19)
But looking back at it now, it still doesn’t seem real at times that I can, I’m going to name drop here just a tiny bit to be able to say that I was able to have a friendship that went on for many years with Carlos as Square before he passed away through being a collector of comic art is surreal to me. This idea that the guy who drew this book that completely blew my mind apart when I was seven years old, is now writing to me. I’m writing to him, we’re sharing a joke, we’re catching up on how was your trip to this convention? Oh, I was good, blah, blah, blah. How are you? Oh yeah, things are going well, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And being able to just shoot the shit with people that were foundational in forging this, I guess creative identity that then started simmering away under the surface.

(01:22:49)
Remember, I don’t get starstruck often, especially when it comes to comic related things, and that’s not because that, it doesn’t hold extreme significance to me. It’s just I think that people who work behind the scenes that you don’t necessarily have a picture of them in your mind like you do with say a movie or a TV star. They’re a little more grounded and down to earth just by nature. But the one time I remember getting starstruck was the first time I met and got an original art commission from Colin Wilson at a show in Melbourne. And just the idea that I had this book, I should have dug out some.

Leigh Chalker (01:23:45):
What did you have? Did you have blueberry or something like that? I had

Ryan Christopher (01:23:48):
This 2000 ad annual that had a future shock comic that had been illustrated by Buy Colin in the book. And I showed it to him and I explained this. This was a beat to hell book.

Leigh Chalker (01:24:12):
Yeah, you loved it. You loved it. It’s hanging in there by a thread. Yeah, exactly.

Ryan Christopher (01:24:16):
The cover is barely attached. Pages are brown, they’re creed up. It’s been beat to death. The corners are all rounded from years of abuse.

Leigh Chalker (01:24:31):
Love those comics.

Ryan Christopher (01:24:32):
It spine ticks the whole way up and down the book.

Leigh Chalker (01:24:37):
Hey, one random question, Ryan, don’t mean sorry, I’ve got to ask you, do you smell your comic books, man,

Ryan Christopher (01:24:44):
The old ones? I do.

Leigh Chalker (01:24:46):
Yeah. Yeah. All right. See, I’m forming a team of comic book sniffers here, man. The amount of people that I meet that like a cheeky smell at the old Musky pages, I thought it was just me, man. Sorry to interrupt. KJB. Wow, that’s amazing. Ryan Carlos is absolutely phenomenal. He is, man. Carlos

Ryan Christopher (01:25:08):
Was such a kind person, and if I had to tell people anything about him, it would be that he was just so kind. The guy, he didn’t hold himself in any sort of esteem for the work that he did. So I think he was still just over the moon that people wanted to meet him. They liked his work, they still followed his work. If you liked his work enough that you went out of your way to reach out, say hello, that was it for him. That was it. And he was just such a kind and funny person. So that’s what I want people to know about Carlos

Leigh Chalker (01:26:07):
Shawnie. Are you saying people don’t sniff comic books? I don’t know Shawnie, but it’s just a weird thing that came up in topic maybe a month or so ago. And every time I think about it, because I sniff them, I sneak into bookshops and comic books shops, man, and I don’t know, man, how you going? So I don’t dunno what they think of me, I don’t really care. But it was just one of those things that popped up. So I’m just randomly when I remember asking people if they sniff comic books, that’s all. I mean, I think that seems perfectly normal to me. I dunno if it’s to everyone else. Pickles.

(01:26:51)
When did you get the opportunity to, as we gently move into the topic of you and your comic book art, let’s just set the foundation for people that may have been watching us on the live stream that have seen that little white box underneath your name there with Comic Box, comic Art, a corner box comic up. So obviously you are starting to appreciate the artwork in the comic books. You were seeing it because you had a little bit of difficulty reading. Some of us did, including myself, but the artwork was appealing to you, so it was attracting to you. So that’s always resonated. Your artistic yourself. You’ve been working on backdrops and things and the production side of theatre, so you are creative, you are humming, you’re appreciating this stuff. At what point did you get what age, what point did you get to where you realised and recognise that I wouldn’t mind owning some comic book art Man? What was that particular trigger?

Ryan Christopher (01:28:01):
It was probably about 25. So it is probably harder to believe from doing this show, but up until maybe five, six years ago, maybe 10 years ago, you couldn’t have paid me money to do a show like this. The idea of being open and to talking to people, I had a lot of anxiety, like social anxiety and difficulty with talking to people. So it really did hold me hostage to some degree for a really long time. So there were so many things about pop culture and comics culture that I loved and I wanted to be a part of, but I could just never stretch myself and bring myself to do it. Married.

Leigh Chalker (01:28:54):
Married. Did that happen at that particular time? Were you also suffering anxieties and social anxieties while you were in the theatre section and enjoying yourself there? So man, that’s very strong of you, man, to push through that stuff. Congratulations,

Ryan Christopher (01:29:13):
Dude. Yeah, it was always difficult. I always became very task focused. I always became very much like, this is my role, this is my task, this is what I need to do. And I pray to God that I don’t have to talk to anyone about anything while I’m doing this because

Leigh Chalker (01:29:30):
So that was how you dealt with when you felt that you were just, this is what I’ve got to do. I’m head down.

Ryan Christopher (01:29:37):
Yeah. Yeah. So I got married and we were just watching TV one day and an ad for Supernova came on the tv and I said that I’d always wanted to go to one of those sort of shows, but I never had anyone to go with, so I’ve never gone. And my wife just said straight away, okay, we’ll go. And so we bought tickets and we went and it was Nirvana. It was everything that I ever wanted to experience. It was like the geeky, nerdy side of me that had been a fan of all these things for so long, and either for the longest time, didn’t even know there were communities out there putting these sort of events together or just could not face a social situation like that by myself, was suddenly surrounded by stimuli from every direction of all the fandoms and experiences that I’d been craving to be a part of for the longest time.

(01:31:12)
And so the first convention I ever went to, I remember being in the comics, like the artist alley area and just walking, keeping my distance from the tables and just sort of walking by and not going up and talking to anyone, just looking from afar and just sort of experiencing the vibes of the whole thing. But I couldn’t bring myself to actually go up and talk to anyone. And then it was the following year where I enjoyed it enough that Supernova rolled around again and I wanted to go back. So we bought tickets again, we went back and it coincided right with me getting back into being a comic, like an active comic buyer and collector, which again is something that my wife actively encouraged. So she trod the streets of Melbourne with me, and we went to every comic shop until we found the one that I was comfortable with where I felt like I wasn’t being, I’ll tell you, I’ll tell you, I won’t name the store, but walked into this store was sort of blown away by it.

(01:32:53)
Started looking at comics and I asked the comics guy a question, which he must have thought was a very stupid question to ask. And so instead of helping me, he called over the other guy who was working behind the counter, and they both had a massive laugh about how stupid the question was that I asked and laughed at me right in my face while I was standing there in the store. And that nearly killed the whole thing for me right off the bat, thinking that all the worst negative stereotypes that you hear about comic shop people I’d experienced on the first time that I’d walked into a comic book store and then we left, found another store, went to that store, was a customer of that store until they closed down and formed friendships with the people that work there. It was foundational for me. But that’s when I got back into being an active comic buyer. And the first X-Men comic that I bought during that time was, I don’t want to say the wrong issue because it’s such an important issue to me. So I’m just going to take a moment to

Leigh Chalker (01:34:19):
You can take a moment, mate. Okay,

Ryan Christopher (01:34:21):
Details.

Leigh Chalker (01:34:24):
Well, Jeffrey Beatz has got a comment. So while you are looking mate, I’ll read out Jefferies to the audience. Now, Jeffrey’s asked, we need to bottle that smell Lee a new cologne CK for comic lovers. Jeffrey, that’s a magnificent idea. And man, I’m 100% with you essence of Comic man, something like that. Nothing better. And Danny Noel and Gade mate, thanks for coming back. Champion. Yeah,

Ryan Christopher (01:34:55):
So it was uncanny X-Men 534.1. So it was the 0.1 jumping on issue for that particular arc of the comics, and it was illustrated by Carlos Pacheco and Carlos Pacheco was going to be at that supernova that year,

Leigh Chalker (01:35:22):
And that was the one, that issue was the one

Ryan Christopher (01:35:27):
That was the one where I read it and the love affair immediately rekindled with the X-Men. And that was the first time where I had it inside me that it was like, I need to tell him how much I love this book and how much I love the way he drew the X-Men. Brian Michael Bendis was also there at that same show. And so I lined up and I met some fellow collectors in line that I’m still friends with to this day, and I’m standing in line and I’m noticing all these people with sketchbooks and folios and stuff like that in front of me. And then as I’ve got my book and I’m waiting in line and I’m getting closer to the front and it’s taking a long time to get through the line. And that’s when I realised that, oh, he’s drawing for people. People are asking him to do drawings for them and he’s doing them right there in front of them while they stand there and they’re having a chat and they’re talking about whatever. And so I said to my wife, I was like, can I do that? Is that okay? And she said, yeah, if you want to do that, that’s fine. So I got up to the front and I handed him my book and we talked about it. I also had some green lanin trade paperbacks that he had done some work in.

(01:37:28)
And because the issue was brand new, it was also the same. The cover of that image was what he was using for his convention banner at the time. So we talked about that. I gushed over how much I love the way that he drew the X-Men, especially the way that he drew Magneto because Magneto is my favourite character. And then I got to watch him draw my very first piece of original art that hangs in my bedroom wall of magneto, and it just became like a drug in some sense. Most people would probably think, I know that most people think that paying people for art is a ridiculous thing. Most people, there’s a lot of people out there who think it’s a drawing on a piece of paper. How could it have so much value?

Leigh Chalker (01:38:35):
Don’t worry about those people mate.

Ryan Christopher (01:38:39):
But to me, this idea that when I look at that art now and again, this is someone who unfortunately he, Carl Pacheco passed away after a short battle with a LS. And when I look at that piece now, that energy, that conversation that we had, that memory is infused into that piece of art that forms part of my collection. And

(01:39:17)
It’s so different to, I mean, you can go to a gallery and buy a painting, but you didn’t sit with that artist and discuss the medium of painting and the influences and all that sort of fandom minutia while they were painting it. Comic art is really something special when you see someone at a convention and they’re taking sketch requests and they’ll work on that sketch and you can watch them do that drawing and you can talk to them during it. There’s no comparable experience that art can give you. I mean that you get to be a witness to the creation. You get to witness the blank page, transform before your very eyes, and then you get to take that home at the end of the day.

Leigh Chalker (01:40:13):
You do, mate. Shawny says here, it’s not a drawing on a piece of paper, it’s decades of blood, sweat, and tears condensed onto a single page. Absolutely shoring. Absolutely, man. Like Ryan, you were just saying,

(01:40:35)
Part of the community that I found with comics in the Australian comic book community. I mean, there’s a lot of people I’ve never met one day, but it’s a community nonetheless, you do find obviously connection with people, but man, when you just said before, people don’t understand drawing that moment, buying pieces of artwork, it’s like don’t ever let them stop you from doing something that you love, man. It’s like they’re out there buying car parts, you know what I mean? To drink 20 cartons of beer on a weekend and stick a muffler on a car. I’m not throwing stones at ’em, but it’s really strange how people look at creatives as being odd or unusual where I’m completely of the opposite mind frame, man.

Ryan Christopher (01:41:40):
Well, and that’s a big thing. Anyone who has doubts about their love of fandom, anyone who ever tells you that you’re over the top because you keep talking about the X-Men, you keep talking about the Fantastic four, you won’t shut up about Batman, Spider-Man, even this manga that you love. You love one piece and you just want to gush about it. Remember the fact that if you replaced that manga with the St Kilda Football Club just to choose a random club, people would think that you were a real manly blokey bloke talking about really great manly bloy bloke things and that it was nothing to consider nerdy or geeky or weird that you could be like, oh, not in 66 grand finals such and such got 34 possessions and they kicked six goals and there were 101,000 people in the crowd. It’s like if that’s not weird as shit, being able to account all those details, then the same can’t be said about any other form of fandom.

Leigh Chalker (01:43:09):
Man, I agree with you, dude. I agree. I grew up in a sporting family and an artistic family and was allowed to do both. So I do sport and I do like art. I love both on equal measure art more than sport, but I’m a diehard Baltimore Ravens fan. Don’t ask me why they go in there. They don’t give up. So something with that, can

Ryan Christopher (01:43:36):
I say that I predicted the Baltimore Ravens Super Bowl win nine weeks out. So nine weeks out from the Super Bowl, I predicted that they were going to beat the San Francisco 49 ERs, and that was one of the best Super Bowls I’ve ever watched. It

Leigh Chalker (01:43:54):
Was fantastic, man. Love those Shawny footy fans, even cosplay as part of the team. There you go. When you look at it that way, fourth monkey stew, blood, sweat, and tears, 50 many, so many tears indeed, man. But I just think, man, wherever your passion lies, I just don’t necessarily think that everyone, what’s the divide in anything really? As long as you’re passionate about it. I’d rather people be passionate about something, man, even if I’m not interested in it than just being rice cakes, you know what I mean? I’m watching world go by. You know what I mean? You’ve got to have passion. If you don’t have passion, you don’t have movement forward because you don’t seem to have that drive to want to do something that whole, now you’re weird. Fuck off, mate. Go and do your thing. That’s cool. I’m cool with doing me do.

Ryan Christopher (01:44:51):
I mean, I’m a big believer that I can quite happily listen to anybody talk passionately about anything as long as they’re passionate about it. It doesn’t matter if they’re talking about their favourite type of tree or they’re talking about trains or they’re talking about cloud formations or anything. Anything at all, even if I don’t appreciate it, hearing someone talk passionately about something is energising.

Leigh Chalker (01:45:27):
Absolutely, man. Absolutely. You can feel like the positive just vibration pick up when you just strike that conversation with someone and they just like battery turn on and they, oh, I love being around people like that, man. I do. I just like sitting there and just listen to ’em. I just like learning about different things. But you know what, I didn’t know that you like a bit of NFL veering off briefly. Like what team do you go for? I don’t meet many Australian NFL fans.

Ryan Christopher (01:46:01):
Well, you

Leigh Chalker (01:46:02):
Got a favourite.

Ryan Christopher (01:46:04):
I lived in Phoenix, Arizona, so I’m an Arizona Cardinals fan. But my sport, well, my sports that I follow, A FL Richmond Tigers born raised family team goes back generations and Phoenix Suns in the NBA. That’s my other. I played basketball when I was a kid for a long time at a decently high level, and I don’t have much hair now, but back then I had long hair and Steve Nash was my favourite player. And so absolutely obsessed.

Leigh Chalker (01:46:51):
You got more hair than me, mate. So you’re miles in front that, look at this, look at this. Beautiful. Love it.

Ryan Christopher (01:47:05):
Yeah. So yeah, am big US sports fan, but I’ll watch if sport’s on and there’s nothing else on, I’ll watch it. It doesn’t really matter what it’s,

Leigh Chalker (01:47:17):
Yeah, no, but that’s the thing, man. That’s the thing with being open-minded, you’re not just an art collector and appreciator and stuff too. But as you just said, there’s so many other things that are of interest out there. So I dunno why people close themselves off to certain subjects or have a weird, I guess not wanting to discuss certain things or have or someone else from somewhere in their past has put this idea in their head that that’s weird. So they don’t want a bar of it. That whole conditioning thing that people go through, you should be open-minded about everything, man. Which also brings me back to your passion before about the NDIS and things like that. People should be passionate because unless someone talks about these things, no one knows. That’s how you pass on information. You shouldn’t be shunned for having a conversation about something that interests you or something that means something to you. That’s how things live. It’s like everyone,

Ryan Christopher (01:48:26):
If conversations make people uncomfortable, it’s on them to ask themselves why they’re uncomfortable. It’s not on you to comfort them in any way, I would think.

Leigh Chalker (01:48:38):
It’s their feeling. Yeah, I agree with you, man. There’s too much.

Ryan Christopher (01:48:47):
I think

Leigh Chalker (01:48:47):
You can’t talk about this, you can’t talk about that. Well, if you don’t talk about some things, you don’t have communication. Therefore, assumptions are made. It’s not clear what’s happening. There’s no clarity, there’s no conversing. You can’t deal with the problem. Prevention is the best medicine sometimes instead of letting something train, you know what I mean? You get in early and you try and work out compromise, you do things. Basic human nature meant just with patients.

Ryan Christopher (01:49:13):
And this has some crossover into comics as well, but the term woke

(01:49:24)
Is a cop out for avoiding difficult conversations. If you don’t want to talk about something, just say it’s woke and write it off that way. But you look at all the conversations, nuanced conversations that need to occur, there’s all one side of things. There’s all one wing of society that is trying to paint every nuanced, difficult conversation as this new age woke bullshit when really it’s we are in deep need as a society of difficult nuanced conversation and no one is going to have it unless we just keep persisting on our right to be heard just like anybody else, whether that’s disability, whether that’s trans rights, whether that’s immigration policy and immigration rights, whether that’s the economy and the wealth gap and intergenerational wealth issues and all that sort of nonsense. I mean, we both live in small towns in rural Queensland, maybe differently to some of the people watching, but there’s some troubling shit going on in Australia. I think that if you live in a big city, you’re somewhat siloed about it, but you get outside into the small cities and there is something that is rotting at the core of Australian democracy right now. That’s a whole nother conversation to be had,

Leigh Chalker (01:51:27):
Mate. I think there’s a disconnect with people in themselves a lot. There’s probably more to it than that, but it’s

Ryan Christopher (01:51:43):
A big thing. When I talk about my ideas about corporate work now and not wanting to go back into that space, it’s very much, I think, connected in a foundational way for me because

(01:52:06)
Everyone’s supposed to fit in a box. And we’ve been convinced that fitting into the boxes, right and not fitting into the boxes wrong, and everything that’s been structured about society now is almost prevalent. It’s predicated on the fact that you must tick all these boxes in order to be considered an equal, successful, productive member of society. And a lot of people who have disabilities have grown up with disabilities or have become disabled because let’s not make any distinctions here between people who are born with a disability and become disabled that you’re expected to adhere to and jump through the same hoops as everybody else, regardless of how many obstacles put in the way. And the statistics and percentages of disabled people that live in poverty are astronomical. And so many sections of society now seem to think it’s not their problem and that if that people can change their own circumstances. But what do you do if you are born with a disability? Why should you live in poverty for your entire life just because you were born with a disability? I cannot reconcile this in my mind whatsoever. And again, as much as this is

(01:53:50)
Deep controversial stuff to some people, it all comes back to artistic expression for me. And I think that’s why art is so important because there’s got to be a way that we can get people to understand there’s got to be a way that we can get people to consume these core ideas about equality and justice that is going to get the wider societal body to listen to us. And not just people who are disabled, but people who are long-term unemployed, underemployed, people who face racial discrimination, people who come from an immigrant background, people who come from low socioeconomic background. Politics has never seemed to be enough. So we’ve got to change the discourse somehow. We’ve got to permeate public consciousness somehow. So how do you do it? Well, it’s got to be, if we can’t do it through political willpower, then maybe we can do it

(01:55:16)
Through making our art part of the culture, making things that are consumed by the wider society. Maybe that will allow people to have a little bit more perspective and a little bit more understanding about what the realities that we live in are. Because I can tell you from personal experience, I can tell people exactly what my life has been like, exactly what it was like being a child, going to school with a physical disability, exactly how I was treated, discriminated against, bullied, beaten, abused, exactly how many times I sat in my room and thought, I’m ready to check out. I don’t want to be here because this is how I’m being treated. This is how I’m being made to feel. The things that people have said to me in my life thinking that they were funny or that they were the first person to say it or that they said to you and then everybody else laughed or that someone said to you, and then the people that were in your friend group didn’t say anything to back you up or protect you. And that situation, how many of those experiences you have to keep hidden within yourself because you’ve made to feel like a burden. If you voice any of those negative situations or sometimes flat out atrocities that have occurred to you due to being born in a way that you didn’t ask for, there’s got to be a way to get people to listen and understand.

(01:57:04)
And maybe if you are watching this, maybe that’s come along for the journey, seek out art by people who are different from you. Art can absolutely change the world, but you have to seek it out. You have pick it up and read it. You have to consume it. You have to look for stories that aren’t yours, stories that will make you uncomfortable, that will leave you with questions because nothing else seems to be working. And it’s something where the older I get the harder it is to reconcile time and time again that, I mean for me, the decades are flying by and nothing’s changing. So what hope can there then be for the future when you haven’t noticed any positive change?

(01:58:11)
There’s many times in my life where I still feel like the 8-year-old kid who’s going to school and wondering whether he’s going to be bullied today, whether he’s going to get pushed to the ground and kicked today, what kind of slurs are going to be thrown his way today? That stuff doesn’t just go away because you grow up and you’re no longer in school. So maybe that’s something for people to ruminate on a little bit. If we’re still dealing with the issues around colonialism, then I look at my situation sometimes and I think what hope do I have to have any sort of resolution to my circumstances in my lifetime when the goalposts haven’t moved in 36 years? But I mean, we can go back to talking about comics now, but that, that’s my little rant about storytelling, the importance of representation, storytelling, and why I think it’s got to be there. It’s got to be included in the discourse. It’s got to be consumed, it’s got to be studied. It’s got to be widely distributed because it’s increasingly looking like that’s all we’ve got to fight with is this idea of permeating the public consciousness.

Leigh Chalker (01:59:50):
I’d like to thank you for sharing that, Ryan. Greatly appreciate your honesty and your passion and your authenticity with that, mate. Thank you. You’re right. There’s more people out there that are suffering and there’s more people that should take attention to what’s happening to brothers and sisters, and to put it lightly, a lot of people out there should pull their heads out of their asses and realise there’s bigger issues out there on a societal and a personal level than there are themselves. I was very saddened to hear, man, that you got bullied as a young fella. That’s no good.

(02:00:39)
I obviously wasn’t in the same situation as you, but if I’m not putting you on the spot, Ryan, when you mentioning about being bullied as a young fella, so you were born with a disability. It wasn’t something that happened through an accident or something in later life, and you’ve had to cop a lot of that stuff through school and a lot of people, I guess that I can’t really excuse that sort of behaviour, whether it’s from children or not. But the one thing I will tell you, man, is we’re not done talking yet. But I do want to give you a compliment because what you just described then about putting up with that bullshit and telling me about climbing a corporate ladder, going through theatre, going overseas, battling anxiety with the help of your lovely wife there, mate, that’s got you over the line into what we’ll talk about now, which is your mindset now.

(02:01:45)
I mean, man, that’s some brave shit dude and respect. So don’t discount yourself mate, then keep on fighting the battle for what you, because if there are more people like you, man, that were courageous enough to speak about situational cultural, societal issues, it may resonate with one person. It may plant a seed with another person out there that wants to speak, that wants to communicate on these levels. And they may not be verbally communicative, but they may be creatively and as you said, that could bring out stories because God knows stories are the most important thing, and each individual’s story is the most important thing. And you can always learn from just sitting down and listening to people. Man, it’s a beautiful thing, dude, with your obviously going through that as a kid and finding a love in comics and creativity. Now, you’ve shared some drawings with me over the last 12 months of you like to draw and you’re a painter and you’re like, you’re doing what you can. You certainly haven’t let you stop you, man. You know what I mean? Which

Ryan Christopher (02:03:15):
Is it almost did and it did for a long time.

Leigh Chalker (02:03:21):
Why was that? Because you just didn’t think you could do it because you had so much negativity coming from outside of yourself, or you just busy. Yeah,

Ryan Christopher (02:03:29):
Yeah. I think that’s basically what it was. It was that I let people take that from me.

(02:03:42)
So wasn’t in my life for a long time. I mean, it was all I did as a child. I remember if there was loose paper and a pencil, I would want to draw on it. I would draw pictures and give them to my grandparents. I would make up little stories and comics and things like that that were barely legible as drawings and illustrations, but that’s what I loved. And they started to get better and are better and better. And probably 10 years old or so is when some of the negativity really started to peak, and I just didn’t want to do it anymore. I mean, I from, I used to sit down with the instruction manual from Street Fighter two where it had all the character bios and all the drawings of them doing their special moves and all that sort of stuff. And I used to draw them out. I used to copy them again and again and again and again and again. So I had a notebook full of pictures of UD doing Hadan and moon mill kicks and all that sort of stuff.

(02:05:02)
And I used to love to do all that stuff. I’d draw Disney characters, I’d pause, I’d be watching Beauty in the Beast, and I’d pause the screen and then I’d draw what was on the screen. I was a kid. I loved to draw. That was it. I once had a drawing that I sent into Australian PlayStation Magazine of Abe from Abe’s Odyssey published in their magazine in the fan drawings thing where people would send in art to PlayStation Magazine. But then, yeah, I guess the negativity got too much. And I think, I don’t really think anyone knew it. I don’t think anyone knew how bad it was for me or how bad it got. And I think it’s only retrospectively now that I can look and go, this is what was happening and this is why that happened. So I can look at it now and go, the fact that this was going on and that I stopped really indulging in some of these things that I loved. I got more into things that were completely immersive, so I wasn’t drawing as much, but I would sit and play a video game for 10 hours without a break if I wasn’t at school, all I wanted to do was sit alone and play video games. That was pretty much it.

(02:06:56)
And part of me, you have to learn to let go. You have to learn to accept what is and all that sort of stuff. But then part of me is also so incredibly resentful and angry at the people who did that, who did that to me. And it has its breadcrumbs that continue leaving a path through your life. I always make the joke. Well, I mean, it’s not really a joke, but it’s the observation that the person who made my life so difficult at high school, I graduated high school 20 years ago, but I can picture them so clearly in my mind. I can remember the things they said to me. I can remember the tone in their voice. I can remember the exact individual instances of profound cruelty that were put upon me as a kid who was just trying to get by. And there’s so many other things I don’t remember. I can remember this person so vividly, but I struggle to put together memories of loved ones that have passed away. I struggle to remember their voices or their laugh or things like that. And this is the effect of PTSD and what PTSD does to people when you go through these sort of profound traumas. But

(02:08:59)
How fucked up is that? I remember this guy’s face. I remember his voice. I remember his laugh. I remember the things he would say to me, but then I try to remember what my grandfather’s laugh sounded like. I can’t do it. This is why. And my experience is not, I guess this is the hard thing too. My experience is not unique to me. It is not unique to disabled people either. Some people are just cruel fucks and they will torture people because they get a sick thrill out of it. Thank you, David.

Leigh Chalker (02:09:44):
David Shery pictures brave man, Ryan touching words. You’re a champion. Well done, David. What said, sorry, mate.

Ryan Christopher (02:09:55):
Yeah, so so much gets taken from you when you go through that sort of thing. And half of my life now has been about getting those things back and rebuilding this idea of who I am. And my wife has been so helpful because she’s embraced this idea of when I’ve said things in passing about interests or passions that I have, she’s encouraged me to get involved and embrace those passions and not be a spectator in life and to actually pursue happiness. So it’s been as much about loving comics and loving collecting comic artwork and comic books and meeting some of my heroes and getting to know them as it has been trying to discover who I am inside if I’m free of carrying some of this baggage around. I have been for so long, and it’s an ongoing process. I mean, it’s kind of like

(02:11:24)
If you are slicing an entire potato with a potato peeler, you can only take it off one tiny layer at a time, but it’s whittling away and it’s revealing a form of, or maybe it’s like sculpting marble. Who I am is encased in this rock of granite. And over the past 16 years that I’ve been married to an incredibly supportive partner, it’s allowed me to start really chipping away at this casing and trying to reveal who the person is that’s always been inside. I think it’s Michelangelo. When someone asked him about the statue of David, he said the statue was always there. I just chipped away the unnecessary pieces. And I think that’s how I’m trying to view this journey of self-discovery. I guess that’s been occurring over the past two decades now, as someone who was stuck for so long, just frozen in place through a combination of trauma and self-doubt, that’s the profound nature that embracing creative medium, not just as someone who has been involved in the process of producing something creative, but as a consumer of creative medium has allowed me to do, because it’s allowed me to encounter encounter stories that I wish I’d encountered at that time when I was 10.

(02:13:27)
I already said maybe Chris Claremont’s books would’ve been a bit of a stretch stretch for me at that time. But if I’d been able to encounter those concepts encased and constructed within the concept of something like the X-Men at that time, maybe things would’ve been a little bit easier for me than they were. And I think that’s what I love about comics, film theatre books, plays, video games, any narrative structure. Poetry is that ability to shape concepts in a myriad of different ways that can make them easier to digest at various points during your life that if you’re open to it, maybe will teach you something about yourself or give things a little bit more context and perspective. So maybe you don’t have to be weighed down by everything so profoundly.

Leigh Chalker (02:14:41):
I agree. My teacher

(02:14:48)
Describes the journey as similar to you, but her description is that it’s just like taking dirt off the diamond every day. You’re on the journey and in the moment you’re aware, you go through, I’m on a journey myself, mate. You know what I mean? Different steps I guess. But on the same sort of path to get through my own traumas and lots of things, again, different way, different experiences, but no less traumatic to an extent. I was, look man, I’ll share, I was the victim of a domestically violent relationship, and that was something that I’ve had to spend the last few years getting my head around too, mate, because you get, there’s treatment that you think is normal, but it obviously isn’t. And it’s part of my process of healing as to have to have dealt with and still dealing with a lot of my trauma in that regard too, mate.

(02:16:03)
So that’s why I found myself on a meditation path and a spiritual path and veered off into studies and seeking advice from people in that regard to help me. So I understand the process of being washed into something that you’re not, and trying to refine yourself through passions and using creativity and reading and structures and just the general process of creativity to speak. Because I didn’t talk either, mate. Anyone listening to me now, I’d be like, man, you’re always talking. It’s like, no, no, trust me. I wasn’t always, but man, thank you for sharing. It’s important. And I’m so happy that you can communicate and stuff, man. Nickname this show goes there. Love it. Shawn. I’ve been wanting to do comics on my experiences with ND and C-P-T-S-D and tonight’s convo is really firing me up. I just don’t think I’m at a point to do it right yet. Sha there is no rush. When the time is right, the time will be right and you will know it and you will. Yeah.

Ryan Christopher (02:17:21):
No one can tell you when it’s time to tell your story

Leigh Chalker (02:17:25):
A hundred percent. So just be patient and it will come. Don’t rush. It’s everything in its time, mate. So I believe that you can do it when you’re ready. So I’ll be there to read it quick in the background. Can you bring up that last comment from absence there, mate, please, absence minded, drop one in and it disappeared real quick. Shay, you should absolutely do it. Well said I second absence, mate. Your love of comic books led to art. It’s made you feel something when you felt like a loss within yourself as a kid. At those moments when you were introverted and insular and feeling like there was no one out there to lean into in the world or understood, you felt a connection to the stories of what these creators were putting down on paper, and it gave you some strength. It allowed you to, I guess, be part of that and created something.

(02:18:33)
You knew, momentum, passion, you got yourself through some bullshit. Strong. Don’t discount that dude. Hey, anytime you have negative thoughts, man, flip that perspective, man, and the perception of yourself, because from the story that you are telling me the night, dude, you shouldn’t be putting shit on yourself about that. That’s fucking strong, man. You are a comic book hero man. So don’t think about that. And for anyone that’s listening, man, you can already see several comments that come up, man. There’s obviously other people that are very respectful of what you’ve gone through, so don’t ever be embarrassment. You’re doing well and your lovely wife, I want to give a shout out to her for like, man, good on you, mate. For in the background there, if you’re watching and for looking after your hubby and getting him to where he is now, after it’s been a long battle and you’re on your feet now, mate, you’re fighting.

(02:19:38)
You’re not down on your knees. So the old saying is, you’d rather be die on your feet than on your knees. So whatever you’re passionate about fighting for, man, stick it to him with your Carlo Pacheco piece of artwork. Boom, you’ve, wow, look at this. He’s passed on. Now. You’ve got that moment where you had with him, and that’s something that you’ve found some real connectivity with and has meant something to you. Was that the moment where you went, man, I’m cut and sick on this comic book art, and then what point, what point, how many pages of comic book art did you have under your belt before you started asking yourself? Man, I wonder if I could buy and sell some comic books and maybe start a little business and stuff, because we’re going to move on to this now because this is an important part of who you are, and this is, I guess for people that haven’t met you before this where I suppose corner box comic art would be your identity in the Australian comic book scene at the moment. But after this interview, there’s more to you than that, there’s no doubt. So tell us about Corner Box Comic Art Man. How did we get to that? What brought you to this? And

Ryan Christopher (02:21:16):
I,

Ryan Christopher (02:21:17):
It came about by circumstance, really. I had this idea. This idea was that there’d been, there’s so many companies that are based in the USA that look out for the interests of creative people. So comic artists, for example, in assisting them to sell their work to a wider audience, handle all the minutia that allows them to just focus on producing work and not having to basically be their own admin person as well. They don’t have to be a marketer, they don’t have to be an admin person. They don’t have to be keeping track of anything other than putting their pencil to paper and producing the work that they need to produce.

(02:22:26)
I became unemployed and it just lined up that the circumstances were, I had the time, got all my entitlements paid out, all that sort of stuff. And so I thought, I’m probably never going to have another moment in the near future where I can put all these resources into actually getting this thing off the ground and trying to kickstart an idea within Australia that hasn’t existed before. And that’s facilitating art, sales commissions and whatnot, comic book signings for Australian based comic creators. And so I put some feelers out to some friends basically and said, Hey, I’m thinking about doing this. Would you be interested in getting involved?

(02:23:39)
And that’s how my association with Wayne Nichols began was that I’d been working for Oz Comic-Con in their artist alley, looking after artists and whatnot. And then sort of been, I’d gotten to know Wayne, we we’d sat together at conventions, chatted for weekends at a time, and I said, Hey, would you be interested in being the Guinea pig for this situation? And basically straight away he was like, I’ll give it a try. I’ve got nothing to lose, so yeah, why not? Let’s just give it a try. And I sent email feelers out to basically any contact that I had that was an Australian comic creator at the time. I threw out an email saying, Hey, would this interest you at all? I’ve got this sort of thing going. Most people were happy to pass at that time, that’s fine. But a few people were interested. Jason Paulo got on board, Lauren Marshall, Colin Wilson. And from there just tried to slowly start to build this idea about this is a sort of service that we can provide and try and build a fan base and a community of collectors who were both collectors who were interested in supporting the work, and then artists who were interested in having support for their work. And it’s been a journey up and down there’s, there’s been good and bad parts of the process so far. But

Leigh Chalker (02:25:48):
Yeah, the good, hopefully the goods far out eclipse the bad. I hope so, because you still going, I do know that there was a little bit of a period there where you had a little bit of time off from it due to whatever reasons that is. Don’t have to talk about any of that now. I dunno what they are, but it may be something personal or sick, so you don’t have to touch on that.

Ryan Christopher (02:26:21):
No, no, no. The Australian comic scene is interesting. We, we’ve said a lot of things that are, we haven’t censored anything so far, so I don’t necessarily see a reason to start now. And while I’m not going to name names specifically, I’m just going to talk broadly about concepts and ideas and attitudes that exist within the Australian scene that are irrefutable. So they are what they are. If people don’t like hearing it, then maybe rethink your methodologies. But there’s pushback on the idea that this is a business or an idea or a function that needs to exist within this market because it hasn’t existed before.

(02:27:28)
And that comes across in attitudes that sort of encompassed two misconceptions. One is that, oh, he must be, he just wants to take advantage of artists and that’s why he’s setting up to do this, is because he wants to make money off them, blah, blah, blah. And the other is this idea that I’m exploiting a community of collectors. They’re the negatives. And those ideas have basically been perpetrated by bad faith actors within the commerce community that essentially have something to lose by the way, that I am insisting on doing business. And that is insisting that everybody gets paid, which to me shouldn’t be a foreign concept. I still think it’s absurd that media guests who attend conventions are expected to get paid to sign autographs, get paid to take photos, get paid to appear at the show. And for the most part, especially Australian based comic artists are expected to do these things for free or at their own cost. So their own cost to set up the table and then sign for free. So there was this big misconception because I set a principle basically that said, it doesn’t matter who it is, if you don’t charge a fee to sign books, then if you are getting books signed through me and my company, then you’ll be paid $5 per signature. And this created a misconception that spread amongst parts of the collecting community that I was charging money for people who didn’t charge, and that I was keeping that money for myself

(02:30:01)
Instead of paying that to the artisan creators who were signing these books for people. And they didn’t like being confronted with facts either. They didn’t like artists coming to my defence. They didn’t like convention organisers coming to my defence, and they didn’t like me turning around and saying, I know that you know this person, so you’re more than welcome to reach out to them and ask them about the thousand plus dollars that I put in their pocket at the last show that they were here in Australia doing. But so many other things. Once the bullshit is out there, it’s really hard to erase that from people’s minds, especially when the perpetrators and the bullshit have far more social collateral and reach than you do. So there are people who will take their word as gospel simply because of who they’re, and that’s the most frustrating part of trying to do business, is that there are people who are within the same industry who really, the people that they’re bringing to shows, the people that they are making money off are going to benefit from this setup. But because it’s viewed as maybe being in competition or maybe shining a light on a part of the convention community that is being underserviced,

(02:31:34)
You are treated like a hostile competitive business that needs to be discredited, that needs to be shut down, that needs to be, the quicker they go away, the better. And I still have huge issues with that. I still have huge issues with the idea that people wouldn’t want continued financial success for the people who were involved in these projects who were coming out to these shows. Why wouldn’t you want to put more money in the pockets of your guests? It boggled the mind to me, and the negativity just got too much. When I would advertise services and I would get people respond to my post and say things like, oh, I’ve heard you just charge money and keep it all for yourself. There’s only so many times you can refute that bullshit before you want to throw your hands in the air and just say, well, I dunno what to do. And I mean, I still don’t, don’t dunno what to do. It’s been incredibly hard to build a community of collectors and people who are financially invested in the company. So people who support you financially. Because I think it comes down to there’s been people who have been grossly misinformed and cannot have their mind changed. Or there’s people that just don’t,

Ryan Christopher (02:33:25):
I

Ryan Christopher (02:33:26):
Hold the Australian comic scene in any esteem whatsoever, so they don’t apply value to it, or they don’t see why they should support local artists. And yeah, it’s been a constant battle to try and correct this misinformation. And then also people, Australian culture is really weird. Someone can wrong you and then you can turn around and call them out, and then people will then be like, oh, well, you are being petty, or You shouldn’t be posting this, or You shouldn’t be airing this dirty laundry in public. And it’s like, so I can be attacked publicly, but I can’t respond publicly. You can’t defend yourself because that’s seen as airing dirty laundry or being petty or being whatever. And it’s just disappointing. It’s disappointing to be part of a community that as its good sides as far as the collectors themselves, the people who want to support quarter box comic art, the artists that have been involved are all fantastic people and they are passionate about the community. And the ones that do support us are passionate about supporting Australian creators. And then the others. It’s almost like a sense of this is a closed circle and you haven’t asked permission to be let in or something like that. The block has to pay the taxes

(02:35:52)
And it’s very wearying because all I want to do, and all I’ve set out to do from the very beginning is put more money in the pockets of Australian creators and the international creators who kindly come and visit us and do shows in this country. And to provide a service where people can send their books and know that they’re going to be cared for, taken to the show, signed and returned to them in the same condition in which they were sent in a service that literally nobody else offers. Yes, there’s a bunch of businesses that do, you can send in items for them, like absentee services that run with conventions and stuff like that, but no one is doing it specifically for the need of getting comics of any value or significance signed by the people who created it. And so I was very strongly of the opinion that I was filling a gap in the market and one that is far more specialised than people give it credit for. But I get the self-doubts creep in because people often say the market will dictate the product, the service, all that sort of stuff. And

(02:37:40)
If that’s the case, then financially speaking, quarter box comic art has been a tremendous failure for the past two years. Methodologically or methodology wise, I still stand by. I still think that it’s important that someone here is doing this work, but community support has been at times quite iffy and a constant battle of asking questions and trying to determine why that is, which it’s frustrating. It’s frustrating to have this thing that you’re passionate about, this thing that you are in some ways uniquely qualified to be pushing ahead with compared to some other businesses or people who will treat it as a financial exercise and not a cultural exercise. Yeah, it is difficult. It’s frustrating. It gets me down sometimes and it’s why I mean corner box comic art is on a break again right now simply because I spent 12 months throwing things at the wall, seeing what would stick and just having those success,

(02:39:11)
I try all sorts of things. People would say, oh well Australian artists, we’re not that interested in Australian artists. We can get Australian artists at any time. They do shows all the time. I’ll just see ’em next time they’re in my city, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. So I then went behind the scenes. I went to some of the contacts that I’ve made while I was living in the US that I’ve cultivated over the last decade of being part of the community to say, Hey, would you guys be open to the idea of taking a commission list just for Australian customers? So they have to ship to me and they will only ship to Australian addresses.

(02:39:48)
So bringing international artists exclusively to the Australian community and still getting those support. So I’m very much, I’m confused. I’m honestly confused as to what the market wants because what the market tells me it wants, I try to provide and then the traction just doesn’t take hold. So it’s curious. It’s a very curious time and yeah, I’m still determined. I’m still, the wheels are always ticking over as to what I can do differently, but I worry sometimes that initial ill will has had a flow on effect that has continued to be the stick in the bicycle spokes sort of causing everything else to sort of be a little bit pointless in its endeavour. But I don’t know, it’s probably just me getting down on myself and self-doubt creeping in. But

Leigh Chalker (02:41:12):
Man,

Ryan Christopher (02:41:14):
The successes that I’ve had have been very successful. I did sell out signing with Dean Rankin for US based supplier. I signed in remark books for, I hit Fairyland number one. They sold out less than 24 hours. So the market’s there, I believe it’s there. I’ve seen that it’s there, but it’s fickle. It’s so fickle, it’s, it’s difficult.

Leigh Chalker (02:41:47):
Oh yeah. While not 100% now much clearer on what you are doing from what you’ve discussed and speaking about it, a wise man in Australian comic books, who is my mentor, said to me once, stick to your lane and do the best you can. And I’ve always found that to be pretty sound advice mate. If you believe that that’s something in the market that’s there. If you’ve identified it, you’re always going to run into, mate. The one thing that I’ve learned about Australian comics, man, I don’t get into the politics of it. I stick to my lane, I stick to chinwag and I stick to trying to spread love and positivity and kindness. That’s my thing, right? And I’m cool with that. I don’t give a damn If people don’t like me, mate, I’ll tell you that now. But the one thing that’s not going to stop me from trudging forward, it’s as simple as that.

(02:42:53)
Don’t let you got a very, it’s a weird place Australia, the comic book scene, man, there’s going to be people out there now listening to me say, this guy, what are you talking about? I love it. I love the fact it’s so diverse. And anyone that’s known me or watched enough chin wax seen me and seen my comics, you should all know that I love it and I’m supremely passionate about it. But there are people out there that are very set in their ways. And I would say that when a new idea or the possibility of a new thought process or something worth looking at or trying or a new style or a new something along those lines, the people that have been there for a long time feel threatened by that because they’re otherwise like safe Little Nook is being approached. And again, it comes down to communication and stuff again. But I mean, you are never going to get away from toxicity anywhere.

(02:44:17)
I draw comic books, man, do you know what I mean? I see the support, I see the lack of support. I see the people of buddy up like a co of corn, but then they don’t go and buy nothing. You know what I mean? I see all this. I don’t keep receipts or anything, but I’m there and I’ve noticed it in my small time. The ones that are allowed and come like in explode like a firecracker and then gone. You know what I mean? It’s just very interesting discussion. Dont hello mate. See you in a couple of weeks, buddy.

(02:44:55)
But the thing is, mate, is if it’s something you believe in, if it’s something that you want to do, I mean you just have to keep going at it. You’re always going to get naysayers, dude. And I’m thinking from the shit that you’ve been through already, a couple of disgruntled old men sitting somewhere and who knows where manhood and comic book art or you can’t do this, you can’t do that. Times a change, mate. You know what I mean? And it’s progress, man. You’re always going to get those people that fight against it, but you’re never going to stop it. So if you believe in it, mate, and obviously people like Dean Rankin and Wayne Nichols and Lauren obviously believed in what you were doing because they were happy to be part of working it with you. And I haven’t met Wayne, but I’ve met Dean and I know Lauren and they’re two good people. So it’s, you’re always going to get negative people, mate. You can’t do anything about it. Just believe in yourself and push forward is the only thing I’d say to you plainly. Sorry. It’s fuck mate. You’re not hurting anyone. You’re just trying to do something that you’re passionate about and that’s a good thing.

(02:46:20)
So now mate, you had, I’m hearing word on the street is were you going to announce something this evening that you are contemplating doing in the future or would you like to hold off on that? No,

Ryan Christopher (02:46:35):
No, no. Let’s talk about it. Alright,

Leigh Chalker (02:46:39):
Let’s talk about this now. This will be the first time from my understanding, Ryan, that this has been discussed. This

Ryan Christopher (02:46:49):
Is the first time it’s going to publicly talked about.

Leigh Chalker (02:46:53):
Alright, fire.

Ryan Christopher (02:46:56):
So had some wheels spitting in the background ever since I’ve been involved with the Comex community. And one thing that I really wanted to know was how I could contribute in a more meaningful way. So I’ve been having discussions with Shane, so with Ciz, and I’m super happy to announce that very soon we’ll be launching original comics art. So we’re going to be handling original art sales commissions and whatnot for a whole bunch of Australian based artists who are under the comic stable. And we want to be able to help get their physical art into the hands of collectors, both in Australia and overseas. We know that so many people are sitting on stacks of original art. So we’re going to take all the hassle out of running your own online store, doing all your own marketing and promotion and all that sort of stuff. We’re going to be hitting up shows with folders full of artwork for people to buy. Yeah, we’re going to sort of take corner box comic art and take some of the principles from there and we’re going to meld them into comics and we’re going to start being one of Australia’s only dedicated original art sales businesses. It’s very exciting. It’s something new. It’s putting the focus purely on Australian comics, Australian creators original ip. Yeah, it’s next level. It’s exciting.

Leigh Chalker (02:48:53):
That’s good. That’s a cool announcement, man. Yeah, it is a cool announcement. Look, it’s very exciting. I know there’s loads of people out there sitting on stacks of artwork, man, that dunno what to do with it either. So I’m sure there’s going to be friends of mine that are involved. I’m sure those names will come forward as things progress and it’s everything becomes more transparent. Like the online sales section and the website and all that are made public for people and the artwork and everything like that. But it’s pretty amazing creators obviously, and people involved in comic books and behind the scenes, but there’s some pretty amazing comic book artists in Australia. Man, the blow my mind. Well,

Ryan Christopher (02:50:06):
There’s some people putting out, as far as Australian independent comics go, there’s some people that are putting out books right now that are going to be known as foundational comics in the Australian indie scene. The work that’s being done right now is incredible and it’s work that I feel like once it’s made available, people are going to want to buy, they’re going to want to have this art on their wall, they’re going to want to have it in their collection because in 10 years time, some of these books are going to be a far bigger deal than people think they’re going to be right now they’re having cultural impact, they’re having an impact on the scene. And I think that should be celebrated and that’s what we want to do. We want to celebrate that work. We want to get into people’s homes, we want to get it on the people’s walls, and we want to get those dollars into the pockets of Australian indie creators because what that’s going to mean is more books.

(02:51:09)
That’s going to mean that book that’s only hitting once every two years because of the cost and time involved in getting that to the printer. Well, we support their work. We buy their pages, we put extra money in their pocket, maybe they can do that book every year and they can get that arc finished the way they want to get it finished. They can hire that colorist that they’ve been thinking about but wasn’t sure that they’re going to be able to afford Ford. That’s all the stuff that we want to assist with. So the more that people commission these artists, the more that they buy their work. They’re essentially bumping up the health and the long-term viability of the Australian IND scene on a whole. And I think that’s something that I hope the community will get behind,

Leigh Chalker (02:52:03):
Man. I think it’s something that they will, because if no one out there doesn’t own a piece of comic book art, what you see on the page after it’s been manipulated through computers and all the programmes, the dark and inks and do that, blah, and it looked beautiful printed, don’t get me wrong, but when you see a big A three sometimes an A two, varying what the artist uses is comfortable with in a traditional sense, and you can sit there and you can analyse it like, wow, look at those brush strokes, look at the depths, look at the fingerprints on the paper, all that sort of stuff, man. There’s nothing like it, dude. And I know Ryan, in the time that I’ve been doing comic books, man, I’ve been so lucky to get a few pieces from people as well just through working with them and stuff like that, you know what I mean? And I have them in my house everywhere, mate. They’re some pretty, she’s great art man, but get on board and do support that because realistically what Ryan and C are trying to do is make more money for the creators that are out there and appeal to more people, give them more options to make creators, artists accessible. It encourages community, it encourages people that don’t think they can do it. Man, I remember, remember

Ryan Christopher (02:53:39):
Just to interrupt you for one second, I suppose, and there’s the incentive for people too. If you’re watching this right now and you’re an Australian comic creator and you work digitally, but you’ve always wanted to put pen to paper and get a book down traditionally, but you just think, I don’t want to have all these pages. I dunno what I’m going to do with them. Now’s your chance. Maybe that next book that you’re working on right now, maybe you want to pencil it digitally, print those out and do some physical inks on paper because we want to have your work in the comic store. We want to have that available so that collectors who love your book can also take a piece of art home and put it on their wall.

Leigh Chalker (02:54:20):
It’s beautiful. Now, Ron, because you’ve just announced this and stuff, there may be some people that are listening out there tonight. So if there’s artists out there that want to approach you or like yourself, I mean they know where they can get C, C is on X and you can see him on Facebook or x.net au. You can reach Ciz and that, but if they want to get to you and talk to you about the Ys, the where fours, the whens, the hows, where do they best reach you bud? Like to discuss this sort of stuff?

Ryan Christopher (02:54:58):
That is a good question. I wasn’t expecting that question.

Leigh Chalker (02:55:04):
I’m tricky. Hey, like that. What’s comfortable, man? Would you prefer people just to touch base with Ciz at the moment just to make,

Ryan Christopher (02:55:13):
Yeah, I think

Leigh Chalker (02:55:15):
Clear.

Ryan Christopher (02:55:15):
We’ll keep everything centralised for now. So getting in contact with Ciz through coms net au or I think, I’m not going to say the email address, I’ll probably get it wrong, but reach out to Ciz, he will pass your details onto me if you’ve got any questions specifically that I can help you with. But ideally, we would love to hit the ground running with a full shop. We would love to have an abundance of choice for collectors that jump on their day one, see the site live and just, there’s so much out there that they just got to fill up their cart and check out.

Leigh Chalker (02:56:06):
Yeah, yeah. Well look, I’m going to be part of it. You’d be able to buy my artwork there. And there’s a couple of other people I know out there that are in the shop too, but that can come later. So yeah,

Ryan Christopher (02:56:24):
You’ve heard it here first. Lee Chalker, the debut, debut artists,

Leigh Chalker (02:56:30):
Man, I support you. I support s mate, I support anyone in the Australian comic book industry that wants to give it a go. And you can have my artwork and make it part of the show

Ryan Christopher (02:56:45):
If anyone’s picked up Battle for Bustle, that there’s a lot hard work that goes into those pages. So I mean, I haven’t seen any in person yet, but I’m looking forward to checking them out.

Leigh Chalker (02:57:02):
Yeah, yeah, thank you.

Ryan Christopher (02:57:04):
I love nothing more than being able to see the process on the page. You can see those pencil marks, you can see where they’ve used white out. You can see where they’ve had to hide a mistake. You can see all these little bits and pieces that go into crafting these stories and it’s just phenomenal.

Leigh Chalker (02:57:19):
Yeah, yeah. Well, pretty much every, I won’t say too much, but I’ll be on that list, so you can wait until site goes up and you can see what pages are out there. There might be a few extras in there too. Alright, Ryan, mate, as we wind down our show this evening, I always like to ask the question of now if little Ryan walked up to beg Ryan, what advice would beg Ryan? Give Little Ryan right now?

Ryan Christopher (02:58:13):
Man, that’s a tough one. That’s a tough one.

Ryan Christopher (02:58:17):
I

Ryan Christopher (02:58:19):
Mean, having been through so much, I feel conflicted about so many ideas of what I could say. Maybe

Ryan Christopher (02:58:35):
I,

Ryan Christopher (02:58:43):
Yeah, it’s a hard one. It’s a hard one. There’s some concepts that are too adult for a child that I wish maybe I had known when I was younger or had an understanding of. I guess the essence of it has just got to be don’t give up. Don’t let people shape you with their negativity because it’s going to take you a long time to dig yourself out. They’re going to bury you in sand and stuff, a sock in your mouth, and yeah, it’s going to take you a long time to find a voice and find your shape. So yeah, just don’t give up and don’t take all that shit on board.

Leigh Chalker (03:00:11):
Nice one, it’s a, or when you go through the shit mate, transformation by fire. Hey, like a phoenix. You come back like being broken and you come back better and repair and reconfigure and you get back stuck into a mate and show the ones that knocked you down just who you are. And no naggy Aggies, man, that’s what I call ’em. Naggy Aggies don’t like ’em because if we listened to everything that we couldn’t do from these naggy Aggies, we wouldn’t get anything done. That’s why I just don’t even worry about ’em, man. It’s all love, peace, kindness, and compassion. And I think that annoys ’em more. So I just keep love bombing what works for me.

Ryan Christopher (03:00:52):
Yeah,

Leigh Chalker (03:00:54):
Even the people I don’t like love you.

Ryan Christopher (03:00:58):
Maybe that’s a good point.

(03:01:07)
Remember how happy your misery made them, and then think about how angry your success is going to make them. And then sometimes that’s the best revenge. I guess it’s like be successful. I’m a big believer in spite, spite is a powerful tool. It’s a driver. Succeed for spite. Write that comic, draw that comic. Do it for spite. If you can’t do it for any other reason, do it because it pisses them off. Do it for spite. Spite can be as powerful tool and as great a driver as any other form of motivation. And I don’t know if I could go back and make sure that that, do you know what I mean?

Leigh Chalker (03:02:18):
How it worked for me is I used to be angry as man, and then I turned my anger into determination and I decided to pull myself together and get on the front foot and I just focus on just moving forward, man. And I just realised that not everyone in the world’s going to like you, and that’s okay. As long as you are doing the best you can to be yourself, then that’s all you can do. I think that’ll show with your actions and it’ll show through your artwork, your creativity, your nature. There’s a lot of good in everyone, man. Even the people. Just whatever feels you, just take it out on the page or the canvas or something. Don’t be cruel to people.

Ryan Christopher (03:03:14):
I think that’s the thing. Find out what fuels you and then pursue it endlessly because don’t just be another time sheet clocking in and out of somebody else’s business. We all have to pay the bills and all that sort of stuff, but don’t be party to a system that doesn’t believe in you. Believe in yourself, believe in your own creativity, believe in your own strengths, and yeah, don’t wake up in 40 years time and look at all you’ve accomplished and have that all be for other people. Accomplish something for yourself.

Leigh Chalker (03:04:10):
I agree. I agree with you, man. A hundred percent agree from some, I can’t agree from someone who’s been down the road to do things for other people and never got me anywhere. So I don’t mean that in terms of kindness and things. I just mean in terms of working 60 hours a week for other people and grinding myself into oblivion and seeing my dreams burnt up into ash in front of me. And with that, the essence of my being. So try not to go down that path, but you’ve got to pay the bills, so sometimes you might have to, but anyway, look, it’s pickles. Anyway, Brian, man, I’ve really enjoyed our chat tonight, mate. I’ve enjoyed not only getting to know you, man, but the one thing I often find about Chin Wags is I have no expectations each week like what I come into and the conversations that are had, but I enjoy the existentialism of certain conversations and I really enjoy people being authentic. I enjoy that because I like the people go with the fluidity of the show. I like people being themselves. I love people being themselves because everyone is unique and I encourage uniqueness. I encourage bravery, man, you’re a brave dude, man. Inspiring. Inspiring to people out there that watch the show, I’d say, and anyone that watches it in the future.

(03:06:07)
Ryan is part of Corner Box Comic Art. You can find Ryan on Facebook, the new wing of Ryan and Shane’s comics. Art. Sales should be up and running soon, and you’ve heard it here first that it’s on the horizon, so if anyone’s got any interest in that artist and stuff, as we’ve said, reach out to Ciz and Shame head, honcho of Comex. Just go to com.net au and you’ll be able to find links to emails, et cetera. Thank you, man. Thank you. Yeah, courage takes courage. It does. Again, I’d like to thank everyone that watches the show, supports Chinwag, supports all the guests that are on here, supports comics. The best thing you can do,

Ryan Christopher (03:06:58):
I’m going to give a quick shout out, say, I dunno if it’s in the store yet, but it will be soon. Jump on comics net au. Pick up Pink Flamenco by Nick May, Reddit recently. Love it. If you like eighties action tropes and Anthropomorphic Flamingo, then that’s the book for you. That’s all I got to say.

Leigh Chalker (03:07:21):
Yeah, yeah, read it the other day myself, man. Enjoyed it. I’m a big fan of that and everyone should be that comes across his work. But Ryan, again, thanks buddy. Thank you for everyone watching. Thank you for the support of Comex Chinwag, stop here. Never stop. Nick, love you mate. Peter Lane, thanks buddy. Thanks Peter, fantastic chat. Thank you for watching and always supporting Comex and Chinwag. See you next Tuesday. Remember from tonight’s show, you know I’m always on about it. Mental health is important. We’ve seen tonight how it can affect people. Look after your brothers and your sisters man, this toxicity and stuff and creating issues for people that communication could sort out, or just maybe even being quiet and just showing some general manners and kindness and politeness to people would probably be a good start. If you be nice to state, just don’t say anything at all is what my dad told me. So maybe you can start there. Be good to your brothers and sisters, like share and subscribe to comics. Get us to 500 subscribers. Thank you. Quick and thank you to Mr. Nicholas. Quick Cleary in the background doing his magician work. Ryan, thank you very much mate. And community is Unity, chinwag will and Always Will is made with love. Bye. See you next week.

Voice Over (03:09:04):
This show is sponsored by the Comics shop. Check out com to Comics Shop to pick up a variety of Australian comics from multiple creators and publishers. All for one flat postage rate. We hope you enjoyed the show.