Chris Sequeira

Voice Over (00:03):
This show is sponsored by the Comics Shop. We hope you enjoy the show.

Leigh Chalker (00:25):
All right. Hello and mate. Welcome to Tuesday Chinwag. Hello to Peter Lane. My name is Lee Chaka, and as I said, this is Tuesday Chinwag first one back for a while. So look, it’s lovely to be back. And before I get into some other little intros, I’m going to welcome our lovely guest here today, Mr. Chris Sequeira. How are you sir?

Christopher Sequeira (00:50):
I am very well indeed, Mr. Joka, lovely to be a guest on your show.

Leigh Chalker (00:55):
Matt, it is lovely to have you. I’ve wanted you on this show for quite some time, so it’s a real honour and pleasure to have you back or have you here maybe we have talked before on another show. We were just talking about parallel universes and stuff in the pre-show. But hey Gary, how are you mate? But we could come up with that again and talk about that a little later on. So this is just what Chinwag is all about. Omni Bow. How are you buddy? Look, it’s lovely to be back. I do apologise about the delay in things between transmissions, but this station is back to normal. Operation Chinwag will be on every fortnight now. So bringing new guests and stuff like that. Now, another thing. Hello Thomas. How are you buddy? Good drawing tonight, man. You’re on fire. The other thing, look, the other elephant in the room, Dave Di champion.

(01:53)
I do want to just talk about how Claudia is, look, I have had a slight change of appearance. I’d like to get that out of the way now so it doesn’t cause anyone any concern. You have caught me out and I did lash out today and buy myself a new Paisley shirt, so I hope it all works for you. And here we go. So the show is based for all of you viewers at home that have never seen it before. It’s based on six prompting words, questions, who, what, where, when, how, and why. And sometimes we get through them and sometimes we do not. This is just what Chinwag is all about. And this is the pleasure of Chin Waggon. So Christopher Sequeira, who?

Christopher Sequeira (02:44):
Who, okay, well, I guess in the comics context, I’m principally known as a comics writer, but I’ve been a comics writer. I’ve been a publisher, I’ve been an editor, I’ve been an editor in chief. I’ve even my American buddy, Mark Wade often jokes about, he’s been a retailer, he’s been a publisher, he’s been a writer, editor, blah, blah, blah. He’s done everything to put but put the staples in, right? I’ve put the staples in for a while there. When I was self-publishing comics at one stage, me and a friend of mine, Kurt Stone, we bought a printing press and we actually printed ourselves three or four comic books and printed them, put ’em together, stapled them, put ’em in the boxes and shipped to the national distributor. Had ’em distributed around the country. So I put the staples in.

Leigh Chalker (03:55):
Now with your printing press that you got now, I have heard stories from varying other people in particular Mr. Gary D, about how he had to remove a wall from his house to get a printing press in. You didn’t have to go to any such.

Christopher Sequeira (04:13):
We were with Kurt got a secondhand gestetner offset printing press that basically just fit in his garage.

Leigh Chalker (04:27):
Yeah,

Christopher Sequeira (04:30):
It was amazing. So we did about three or four comics that went out printed by like that and distributed. So yeah, I’ve done it all. I’ve done what we used to call separations, colour separations. We have different plates of colours that go off to the printer. When I used to print by photographic plates, I’ve done those. Yeah, I used to draw a bit more, but I just about hardly do any commercial drawing because I’m too slow.

Leigh Chalker (04:57):
Yeah, yeah. Oh, do you still dabble a little bit on the side?

Christopher Sequeira (05:03):
Look, I know enough about artwork to be useful in terms of reviewing portfolios, but mostly in laying out a page and thinking about the amount of space on a page and going for, okay, choices about closeups, mid shots, two shots, long shot worm’s, eye view, bird’s eye view, and a few things like that. And understanding some stuff about composition and spotting and blacks. I could do a decent say cover or something like that, but it takes me so long to do, they wouldn’t be worth me doing. So I don’t do much anymore. I might do it to amuse myself or do a quick sketchbook. Sometimes people come up to me at comms and they give me sketch covers. I did some work for a few different Phantom comics at one stage and I still get people coming up with sketch covers and go, oh, do a cover for me. And I’ll go, I’ll just do you a sketchy one, not a fully retail. And they go, yeah, yeah. And they love what I do, but it’s more clever design choices to make up for the speed.

Leigh Chalker (06:14):
Yeah, fair enough, fair enough. Look, I’ve been off social media for a fair while and you need a detox from things, man. As anyone that’s seen any of these chin wags, you’d be aware that without throwing a stone at myself. But I have quite an addictive personality and I’ve had to shy away from a few things over the years. But I just threw myself on there maybe two or three weeks back to have a little wander and see what’s happening. And you had tacked up, I’m assuming it is one of your first self-published comic books. You put a post up and we’re discussing it at the time. I’m not sure whether it was one of those memories that come up or not or something like that, but it had a most unusual name that I can’t think off the top of my head. What was the name of it?

Christopher Sequeira (07:21):
I dunno which one you’d be talking about unless you were talking about, I mean the two titles that I distributed to Aussie News years ago was one was a series and one was a one shot, the series was Pulse of Darkness. Was that it?

Leigh Chalker (07:38):
Nope. Let’s talk about Pulse of Darkness, man.

Christopher Sequeira (07:43):
But the other title was Rattle Bone. The Pulp Face Detective. Was that it?

Leigh Chalker (07:49):
That’s the one. That’s the one I saw. Yeah, right.

Christopher Sequeira (07:52):
Oh, and then some years after that I did publish again under a different shingle, a bunch of one shots, and they were, geez, I think there was six of them. There was Pulse and Rattle Bone again. And then there was also Mr. Blood. There was an anthology book called Bold Action. There was, oh yeah, the Border Lander Mystical Superhero that I did with Steve Propo and Chewy Chan and the fourth one, I can’t think of at the time. But yeah, so I’ve done a couple of direct self-publishing to news agents across the country.

Leigh Chalker (08:36):
Yeah, no, it’s cool man. I love going back and just randomly coming across people’s where they started and stuff. And that caught my attention immediately because even though this is the first time that you and I have ever spoken together, I don’t want it to sound weird, man, but it surprised me that it wasn’t this long ago, but I actually have a copy of Border Lander. I’m disappointed I didn’t get it out of my portal over there. Dave died be throwing stones at his screen telling me I should have my portal closer. But the portal is where the portal is, man, I don’t control these things or perhaps I do, but what I, man now, I looked at the date today and this, I thought it was a lot longer ago, so maybe that’s a good thing or a bad thing. I don’t know. Perspective is everything really, but I’m going to go with they exist, so it’s a good thing. Now, I know that you like your classic literature and I have been brought up in a house where classic literature was available, anything you wanted to read, really so lucky. But at the time, and it appears to be 2009, that when I was wandering the news agents of Townsville in North Queensland searching, devouring, anything I could get my hands on, I came across this

Christopher Sequeira (10:23):
And then

Leigh Chalker (10:24):
I followed it with this, and then I went back after and got this one and I got this one. And man, I’m telling you, these Sherlock Holmes comics man have stuck out to me in my mind for a very long time. And I do actually come back to them and have a look at them. You know what I mean? Well

Christopher Sequeira (10:49):
Look, I’m glad to see you up and around after that. Dreadful experience, mate.

Leigh Chalker (10:55):
Oh mate. Look, it was more the exhaustion of having my mind blown back in the day, to be honest with you, Chris, because it got to a point, man, where what I really liked about it, mate, is I’d read a lot of Sherlock Holmes stuff. I’d seen a lot of the BBC productions on tv. I like Sherlock Holmes. I mean, there’s something pretty cool about it. I guess an English detective that smokes opium and boxes to fight crime and stuff in that period of London history, which if you don’t like that period of London, the look, the aesthetics, that whole, I guess steam punky vibe and stuff like that, I don’t know, but I would question their taste, but that’s just me. But I also noticed too that this was through Black House comics now, black House comics, if my memory serves me correctly and I don’t even need to use my memory probably on the inside cover Now that was Jeffrey’s printing something to do with that back

Christopher Sequeira (12:13):
Black House Comics was owned by the same people that owned Jeffrey’s Printing. That’s right,

Leigh Chalker (12:18):
Yeah, right.

Christopher Sequeira (12:20):
A fellow called Baden GaN.

Leigh Chalker (12:22):
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. I’ve heard that name before. So how, because I want to track your career because you’ve had an interesting career and we’ll get through that because this, I mean, I guess this is your show and this is your story to tell Mate. And I don’t know your story, so I want to hear it. I feel like I have known you for a long time from your Mates printing press in the garage, so we can get just random so we can get some idea of the size of the printing press single Port Garage or double.

Christopher Sequeira (13:09):
Pretty sure it’s single from memory. I haven’t been back there for years, but yeah, single as far as I remember.

Leigh Chalker (13:15):
Okay. Did he get a car in with the printer in there or not?

Christopher Sequeira (13:21):
I think he had a carport, so I think he didn’t need to.

Leigh Chalker (13:24):
Okay, so that’s cool. All printing boxes, it’s all covered in the That’s cool. I love that stuff, man. Alright, so how did you come to this? How did we

Christopher Sequeira (13:38):
Get to this Look what happened with Black House Comics, if I’m remembering correctly, and Baden GaN is still around. I made to him still and talked to him. I still do stuff with him to this very day. He advertised that he was thinking of starting a commun company, and I think he put something up on a website. It might’ve been, there was an old Aussie comics message board thing, and I’m trying to think of the name of it and I can’t, and it’ll come to me later. And I think he might’ve posted saying he was interested in looking around for proposals. So I contacted him from that and his operations in Sydney and I’m in Sydney, so he said, I’ll come and have a chat. So I came and have a chat with a whole bunch of different material under my arm and we chatted for a bit and he talked about the kind of things he was looking to do, and I left him some samples of different stuff and he looked at some of it and he said what?

(14:50)
There was one actually, he was sort of keen on Pulse to some degree or another of bringing Pulse back, but he said to me, oh, I’ve heard this. He said, I’ve seen some reference to something on a message board or Facebook or something. He said to me, something about you and Sherlock Holmes, what’s that all about? And I said, oh look, I developed a treatment for a screenplay for a Sherlock Holmes movie. This is before Robert Downey Jr. And I was working on it for my mate, Dave Elsie, who won the 2010 Academy Award for best makeup for the Wolfman with Benicio del Toro. And Dave’s a Sherlock Holmes. Dave’s originally from London, has worked in Hollywood and for several years he was living 15 minutes away from me in Sydney. Him and we met because he was reaching out to Sherlock’s Homes, clubs, talking to people. And we met because of that. And because we met because of that, we ended up, he said, I’ve got an idea for some Sherlock Holmes related movie stuff, but I don’t write. I just conceptualise and do cool makeups and things like that. Dave did, and his wife Lou did every creature in all the seasons of that TV show that was shot here.

(16:20)
And Dave did Revenge of the sth. He did all the creatures in that. He designed the Anakin all burnt up and turned into Darth Vader. That was all Dave. And he won an Oscar for Wolf. Anyway, Dave and I had started hanging out and I’d started trying to develop this concept for him. And we were going along just sort of chugging away. And then I think we sort of got Axe by the Robert Downey Jr thing coming out, but we had the thing sitting there, I can’t remember if that was the thing or whether it just was Baden came along and was asking about it, and I had a mention of it on some platform or might, and Baden said, what’s this Sherlock Holmes thing?

(17:08)
I know what it was, it was a reference somewhere. I’d done three short stories for three different overseas publishers about Sherlock Holmes. And Baden said, what’s the connection between? I said, I’d just love the character. And he said, you got anything on that? And I said to Dave, this guy’s interested in a comic, what do you think? Could we do that? And he said, yeah, yeah, show it to him. So I showed to BA and he said, I really like it. Could we do something with that? And true story, the thing that Dave and I had worked out in the Sherlock Holmes timeline would take place about 1891 and beyond. And what I said to Baden was, how about I give you the same timeline but from 1887 on, because there’s all these things that could happen in a comic, an ongoing comic years before you get to that big story, there’s some other big stories we can have.

(18:12)
And he said, write it up. So I wrote it up and he said, we’re doing it. So it was me and Dave as co-creator. And then we hunted around for artists and on the first issue, yarn, she and helped us out. Tim McEwen helped us out, but Phil Cornell came in as the main art guy and Phil drew it and coloured it, and Dave then did this, what we called digital Victorian of the colours, colours, colours. He used tools that he uses for designing makeups and applied them to the colouring thing and did all these weird digital effects to make it look sort of grimy and suit covered Victoria and London and people really loved what he did with the colours. So that was our finished team and we did eight issues before it wound up. Phil and I have got most of a ninth issue done, and we might bring it back next year with IPI comics, but we’ll see. We did eight issues that went to Aussie news agents and then it got picked up later. The first four issues, there was a trade paper back with Calibre comics in the us So the first storyline and the sort of the standalone fourth issue got packaged together in a trade paper back in the United States for a calibre entertainment, but it was never published as singles in the us So that’s something we’ll probably do with IPI comics down the track.

Leigh Chalker (19:58):
Yeah, yeah, yeah. That’s cool man, because we’ll get to the darker half. Sean Craig, I’d take it. Lee, what the hell happened to your beard? I dunno, Sean just, it was there one minute and gone the next, mate, everything’s subject to change, so it is what it is. But thank you for noticing, mate. We’ll get to your comment like what you’re doing now a little bit later on down the track. Sure.

(20:38)
I’m going to definitely say that one of the things that I loved most about this was indeed the colouring was indeed the, what I thought was just, well by that stage, I guess I’d probably, and people may hate me for this, but this is, I remember what I was thinking at the time, Sherlock was wondering if anyone had done, how do we say, maybe things just, you can’t do much more with a character. And one of the things that I would say attracted me to the comic book is what your whole team, but your writing did for the character because it brought for me the character into I guess at that stage, a really fresh light man. I just hammered it, man. And I was keen as mustard to get back to all these issues. I’m pretty sure I do have another couple of issues floating around. But for some reason I think that possibly you could correct me here if I’m wrong, that may have been about the time where some Australian comic books were slowly just, I guess, inkling out of news agents about that time. Look,

Christopher Sequeira (21:57):
I don’t have any firm recollections of whether Baden was having any troubles with the news agent distribution by issue eight, but I can’t remember, but it’s a very tough road to ho. It’s a very tough road to. So yeah, I mean, and his plan had been to go to the US and put it through Diamond and all that, but accumulating enough material to feed a big funnel like Diamond was a challenge. So anyway, and in the end he decided not to go ahead with that aspect of things, but that’s fine. He gave people like me and also he did a two or three issue book with yarn, she and Hoen a sort of a post-apocalyptic FBI thing called the Twilight Age. He gave Yarn Anos an opportunity to do those. I think they might’ve been convention books rather than news books. I can’t remember. Jason Paulo did a couple of books for Baden anthologies of Jason to stories called E. So Jason did a few that were sent to news agents by Baden. Yeah, so look Black and he did also did Black House, also did some zombie short story magazines called After the World. And they were really cool too. So a lot of people are very appreciative of Baden supporting local talent.

Leigh Chalker (23:41):
Yeah, yeah. No man, I’ve got some of those novellas as well, man. Good stuff. Yeah, man, I’d at the time never seen covers quite like this.

Christopher Sequeira (23:56):
The covers. The covers are all by Dave.

Leigh Chalker (23:59):
Yeah, right.

Christopher Sequeira (24:01):
And for example, see the number three? So Dave? No, the other one. Number three. That one. Yeah. So Dave, right at the beginnings of people doing it, he was using a tool called ZBrush.

(24:18)
He’d go into Hollywood and they’d say, we want to have, I am just making stuff up here. We want to make Bruce, what’s his name, up like an alien for Star Wars. Show us what it’s going to look like, Dave. So Dave would get photographs of Bruce Watt’s, his name, that tall, thin Aussie actor, and he would use digital tools to manipulate the photograph and say, this is what it’ll look like if I put a prosthetic makeup on him. This is the design. And you can see I’ve used his photograph as a baseline to give you some idea of the finished product. And they used to love that it was much quicker in terms of approval process, he could do it on the photographs. So Dave became incredibly skilled with this ZBrush and does these beautiful images covers. He also, after doing these, he started to get offers to do book covers, which he still does and does for different people. So that number three of Holmes versus Moriarty, but they’re not looking at each other, which sort of symbolises the story. They don’t connect face to face. Co-winner of the 2010 Oscar, the famous makeup man, Rick Baker as Mariani, and that’s Dave and that’s Dave is Sherlock Holmes.

Leigh Chalker (25:43):
Well, there you go. Bloody hell. Well, there you go. There’s a little tidbit of information for anyone. So there

Christopher Sequeira (25:50):
You, so Rick Baker, Rick Baker is won seven or eight Oscars for make. He wanted to be Morty and Dave said, could Morty have a beard? I said, I love it, beard and long hair, Phil, just draw it like that. So yeah, it was just fantastic. So we made the look for our Morty.

Leigh Chalker (26:13):
I reckon it’s a cool look and look, man. Yeah,

Christopher Sequeira (26:15):
It was great. It was just awesome.

Leigh Chalker (26:17):
Yeah, no, that’s beautiful stuff, man. No, I’ve always remembered those and often gone back

Christopher Sequeira (26:24):
And look, it’s still a favourite series of mine and David and I and Phil reminisce about it, I guess you could say from time to time. And we’d like to bring it back. A couple of people have come to us periodically over the years and talked about trying to sell it as an animated series or a live action series, and we still get those conversations going with people. Will it ever happen? Probably not, but we let people talk to us and if they want to talk to us and talk to people, that’s fine. Our particular take on it, we’ve got notes for a hundred issues. If the money was ever there, we could, we’ve got notes for a hundred issues is what Dave and I wanted, and Phil was on board from the start. We’re all Sherlock Holmes nuts, right? Is Sherlock Holmes meets Hammer Horror just like the 1959 Peter Cushing hound of the basketballs, but crank that up to 11.

Leigh Chalker (27:31):
Yeah, yeah,

Christopher Sequeira (27:33):
I like it. So go for the Hammer horror vibe, but then just crank it up to 11.

Leigh Chalker (27:38):
Yeah, that’s cool, man. I hope you get these things done, man. I like the fact that

Christopher Sequeira (27:44):
It doesn’t matter. You’ve got to find the joy in the job.

Leigh Chalker (27:50):
Yeah, for sure. But the best thing is part of that joy too man, would be the fact that it’s still resonating with people because they’re coming to you and talking to you about these things and stuff, man. So I reckon that’s something, man.

Christopher Sequeira (28:02):
Well, the second storyline that we didn’t finish publishing, which I would like to was we cranked it up again because the second storyline, if you didn’t see it, which started about issue five, was basically called Sherlock Holmes and the Knights of Frankenstein. And we had this amazing character that Phil designed called the Marquee of Frankenstein, and it was like an eight foot tall, scarred, weird looking thing. But he wore this beautifully frilly ruffled shirts and neckpiece and had a monocle and a top hat and a velvet vest and all this sort of thing. And he speaks very poetically and quotes Shelly and Byron and whatnot. Yeah. And the story was all about the mystery of that character.

Leigh Chalker (29:08):
Yeah, yeah. Well look, you had me at Monaco, man, I’m a bit of anyone wearing a monocle mate, like yeah. Hello, how are you? To whoever Leah Bryce is, I’ve never met you before, so thank you for watching the show and giving us a shout out. Now Mr. Chana put up a thing before, was the Oz Chat thing that you were talking about Pulp Faction, was that the name of it?

Christopher Sequeira (29:37):
Yeah, that’s right. Thank you Gary. The web pages where that stuff was happening was called Pub Faction. Thank you Gary.

Leigh Chalker (29:45):
Thank you Gary. Alright, we’ve got that covered. I wonder out there in the interweb somewhere

Christopher Sequeira (29:51):
Faction not to be confused with bold action, which was the title of one of my one shot comics.

Leigh Chalker (29:58):
Alright. Alright. Talk to us about bold action. What was that about? And was anyone wearing a monocle

Christopher Sequeira (30:07):
That was one of those six one shot comics I did. It was an anthology and it had a rattle bone story. I missed a Blood story Hooded assassin character called The Deaths Man was in there and there was some other one pager or something. So that was just all sort of short, sharp, violent sort of comic book, almost probably slightly crimey version of 2000 ad type comics. And Mr. Blood was sort of, he had one foot in crime because he was a hitman for hire, but his other foot was, he was a hitman for hire who secretly worked for Satan.

Leigh Chalker (30:53):
Right. That’s cool. That’s cool. I like it. I like it, man. You got a really broad range of creative thoughts going on here, man, through your time and stuff like

Christopher Sequeira (31:05):
That. Oh, you’re very kind.

Leigh Chalker (31:07):
No, no, that’s fine man. You generally and genuinely do. What do you feed your creativity man? What sparks you off? I love creativity. I mean, creativity has, look, it’s had a huge impact on my life, obviously I’d go so far and I’ve said it in the past to say that creativity has probably saved my life, man, even in recent memory. So I’m very interested to know what gets your synapse a spark in man. Look,

Christopher Sequeira (31:49):
I’ve been, I was an early omnivorous reader and I was reading well beyond my chronological age when I was little and I was an avid artist and writer from when I was a little kid as well. When we were little kids in the school holidays, one of the things that we would do was we would get reams of photocopy paper, right? Fold a bunch of pages in half, put two staples in the side and just start drawing on page one and then just keep going to the last page. We’d just say that’s a book, and we’d just draw our own illustrated books. And then they became comics and me and my two brothers would do this and we just, sorry, my next two brothers, I’ve got three brothers and we’d just do it for bloody two weeks nonstop. We’d pile up these things by the truckload and make a mountain of these things and we’d just do that. And writing and drawing was just absolute fun. And then I guess is when I started to think about doing it seriously as an adult, although some people question how adult I am to this very day, the difference was obviously you approach it differently and you try and be more serious.

(33:22)
And I guess I start with writing just the way most writers do. You start imitating the works and the writers that you love, you start sort of going, if I love horror stories, I’ll try and do something as good as, or in the vein of, pardon the pun of a Bram Stoker or an HP Lovecraft or one of the creepy Canan Doyle stories. Or if I was into private ice stuff that year, I’d been doing dashel ham knockoffs of tough private eyes. You start trying to do a thing and you go from there. Because I was reading comic books and science fiction novels from a very early age. I was, my father just used to read probably a couple of dozen paperbacks a week and chuck ’em on the floor of his side of the bed in his and mom’s bedroom. And we’d go in there and go diving in this pile.

(34:24)
And I can remember pulling out Robert Hein novels when I was eight, and you just start reading them, didn’t quite get everything, but you start reading it. So all this stuff was going into my sensitive and impressionable mind and warping it for forever. And so you start doing that kind of stuff and then as you get more of it, you start realising how bad they suck and how much you are imitating and you need to try and find something original to do. You do that. So I’m doing that and I’m on a steady absolutely rock steady, rock solid diet of comic books. My mom used to work the night shift and she’d stop the news agent on the way home to buy the paper and then get home and wake dad and us kids up for school. And

Leigh Chalker (35:16):
Your dad was going to school as well?

Christopher Sequeira (35:18):
Oh, dad was teacher. Yeah. Well, he was because he was a teacher.

Leigh Chalker (35:23):
Oh, that’s funny. Was he your teacher, like man, was he your teacher or? He

Christopher Sequeira (35:29):
Was actually, we went to a Catholic school and he taught at a state school, but I did eventually grow up and become friends with a couple of dudes in my teens that he taught English to.

(35:46)
And because some of the kids I hung around were a bit rough, I thought, oh, this is going to be not going to be fun. They’d ask, they’d get the name and they’d ask and I’d go, yeah, and they’d go, that bloke was the only bloke who could make me understand that fucking Shakespeare. So I got a pass from that. He was reasonably well received by people my age, so that was cool. Yeah. But the comic works said, my mum would say, do you want anything? And I go, I saw this green Lanin comic at the news agent on Saturday, but I didn’t have any money. Could you please buy it for me? And she goes, how on earth am I supposed to know what a Green Lantern comic book is? And so I would draw a picture for her and say it’s like this. And she would go in and take that, the news agent and she’d come home with that comic. So she was doing this before we were allowed to get out of the house and go down and buy stuff from the news agent. Of course, once that happened, once we’re old enough to do that too late. It’s all over.

Leigh Chalker (36:58):
Oh yeah, yeah, man.

Christopher Sequeira (37:02):
The next thing we’re doing is we’re applying at all the local paper shops for jobs as paper boards so we can have extra pocket money, money, and then we’re spending all the pocket money on the comics at the News eight. We’re spending all our money from getting paid from the paper shop on the comics.

Leigh Chalker (37:24):
Well, I guess you were fit.

Christopher Sequeira (37:27):
That’s right. Look, isn’t that what they call the circular economy now or something?

Leigh Chalker (37:32):
Well, that is one way of looking at it, but man, I love that story of just then that you said of you drawing the images of the comic books for your mom, because my dad was a huge comic book fan, and the Chalker side of my family come from Gunda guy in New South Wales and around the Riverina and stuff. And when he was a young man there was only playing football and reading comics and he man appetite you wouldn’t believe, man. You know what I mean? And I’m lucky enough to this day to still have an awful lot of his comic books and I hope you’ve got yours tucked away somewhere there too, and feel, I love hearing stories like yours because when dad was older, dad used to got me into comic books and my grandma, my mom’s mom used to support that as well.

(38:45)
So I used to go, gran was a pensioner, and every Thursday, a second Thursday, she used to go into the city and do her shopping, but she used to love books. So there was a book exchange there and a newsagent across the road. And I’d get a little like, here you go, go. Here’s a couple of bucks, see you later. And man, I’d get comic books and comic books and then she got so used to seeing the titles. Here’s my grandma at the time would’ve been, I don’t know, near 70, you know what I mean? And she’s on the bus with, what did you get Today, Lee? Oh, the Uncanny X-Men and Dad devil and things like that. And when I’d get sick, my grandma used to go to the news agents and she’d end up knowing what issues that I had and things like that is cool. Sometimes this man, that’s great. You’d get like, here’s some stuff for you to make you feel better. And it’s like, whoa, that’s a cool grandma. That’s

Christopher Sequeira (39:47):
Fantastic. That is really good.

Leigh Chalker (39:50):
I enjoy meeting a kindred spirit in that regard, man. Because yeah,

Christopher Sequeira (39:54):
Look, my parents were middle class nurse and a school teacher as middle class. They were both really intelligent people. But like my dad, when he was at school, he got promoted twice because he was devouring the curriculum too fast. And mum had been top of her year one year, so they were pretty bright people and they had sort of classic lefty kind of middle class things of decades ago. And fortunately they never were snobby about the comics and thought the comics were bad for us. Of course that would’ve been a problem, but they just thought that the comics were fine and harmless and happy to see his, as I said, my dad was a big science fiction reader, so I guess that probably was a helpful thing. They weren’t prudish and they didn’t have a problem with comics, so the comics were allowed to rain free.

Leigh Chalker (41:02):
Yeah, that sounds great, man. That sounds like a wonderful household, man. Yeah,

Christopher Sequeira (41:09):
No, we’re very lucky. We’re very lucky.

Leigh Chalker (41:11):
Yeah, yeah. Did you ever with your brothers? I had mates. They’re all gone now, but it’s just me, but the old violin, but anyway, I’m just kidding. They’re still around somewhere out there. Did you ever do weird stuff in terms with comic books? Did you have competitions where you’d choose your favourite cover and shit like that? You know what I mean? You’d just be bored one day and you’d have your pile of comic books and you’d go, Hey, what? What’s the best cover? That one, that one. I like that one. I like that one. I like that one.

Christopher Sequeira (41:54):
We did all that kind of stuff as well as did our own drawings as well as make our own action figures. We used to customise our action figures too, if there was no action figure of electro or something, and we, we’d make one, that kind of stuff we’d make with bits of bloody plastic electrical tape and other bits and bobs and stuff like that and paint them and stuff like that to change one character to another. So look, we were crazy into it, and it was one of those things where you are reading this stuff and absorbing this with the ferocity and intensity of a kid and a teenager, and then you suddenly realise, wait a minute. And we started to do this thing where you’d pick up a comic and you’d open it to the middle and you go, that’s Jack Kirby. And you go, that is, I reckon that’s John Bima, that’s Sal Bima and that’s Frank Miller. And you’d start to realise you actually knew the names of the people who were drawing all the comics. You’d actually absorbed the art styles in your brain before you’d actually purposely wanted to remember those things. That was freaky. And I guess that’s part of that evolution and that sophistication of understanding the medium and going to being a casual reader to being a true obsessional or devotee of that art form.

Leigh Chalker (43:30):
Oh man, it does sort of, I guess to an extent send you to a little bit past your mates who are the casual readers when you can sit there and fully, I guess, notice a John Ram Meda Junior and they say to you, no, it’s not. And I’m like, yes, it is. And it is. So I know that feeling, man. They were cool days, man, those days. And then as someone who just loved that medium so much, my dad was really enthusiastic about it, then I had Grandma pile and shit on me, you know what I mean? And then I had novels and then I was getting inundated. And then back when I was a kid too, you had those man, people get spoiled, man, we had those B grade tits and ass fantasy movies, man, like Beast Master and Death Stalker and all that stuff. And you’d be down the video store getting beat a chord I might add and fucking banging them out on a weekend and stuff.

(44:45)
I like where you’re going because that is where I reckon that the creativity man is spawned in young people is having adults that are supportive and allow your imagination to grow. And if you want to paint, you paint. If you want to write, you write if you want to draw. And I was lucky too, I mean, from the sounds of it, I can’t speak for you, but from what you’re saying now, maybe you were too and probably were that no one ever really questioned me drawing, man, if I wanted to spend the whole day to myself under a tree whimsically, drawing away or creating stories,

Christopher Sequeira (45:31):
Yeah, I would agree. It’s a beautiful way to spend time by yourself. It’s just so engrossing when you’re in the realm and things are working and you’re not being harsh on yourself and just doing the stuff. It’s a magical feeling. And then I find the same with writing, and then you come out of it and you’ve finished the piece to some level, some degree or first wave of whatever it might be, first draught, or it might be first design or something, and you come out of it and you take a breath. And when you actually think there’s something good here and it might need another draught or it might need another go over with pencil or ink, I still find it difficult to top that buzz

Leigh Chalker (46:37):
When

Christopher Sequeira (46:37):
You actually know there’s something good there and it’s not just, okay, that was pretty ordinary, but when you’ve actually got something, no, no, there’s something here. There’s something of some degree or other of a professional standard quality here, I’ve managed to capture something. It feels great.

Leigh Chalker (46:57):
Yeah, yeah, I would agree, man. Yeah, there’s something, as a creative individual, you get doubts when you’re in the middle of something. You do have those little things like crawl their way in when you’re halfway through something, man. You know what I mean?

Christopher Sequeira (47:22):
Oh look, absolutely. And learning what to do when those things happen, when you’re doing a professional gig, learning how to get yourself out of those things is essential if you want to do any kind of professional work, learning what to do when you either hit a blank wall or fall into a plot hole or learning what to do, and that’s a whole essay in itself is crucial because of course you don’t have the luxury of putting it aside and going, I’ll come back to it next month and see if I’ve got the answer. If there’s a deadline, you have to solve it then. So you have to have a toolkit of solutions.

Leigh Chalker (48:13):
If you had, because you just said it’s an essay that may take a bit, but you can’t have your whole toolkit, but you’ve got your little wallet, your backpack thingy, this is what I need to get me out of a spite a bind. What’s your things, man? Don’t give away the Christopher Sequeira magic. Oh

Christopher Sequeira (48:40):
No, look, I’m happy to give it away. I mean, I’ll be doing some teaching next year on some of this stuff, and that’s probably an hour in itself. But look, number one is Hitchhikers Guide. Don’t panic, but the expanded version of Don’t Panic is there’s a solution for everything. There’s a solution for everything, and the solution will be in the brief that you took when you got given the gig. So you go back to that and it’s how you apply to that and apply that to the problem that you’ve hit, and a bunch of different solutions cascade out of analysing the original brief and then realising I’ve got to find a way to meet that brief. And so it’s that don’t panic. There’s an answer there somewhere. And the second thing is you’ve got to have confidence you can do it. And if you don’t, just fake it and tell yourself you can do it and start applying the toolkit and do it because it can be done. It’s like sometimes I’ve got one or two people I know who write beautiful stuff, but they’re very slow

(50:21)
And not slow, like I’m withdrawing where the skill’s not there. They’ve got the skill and I talked to them and I always find the same thing that comes up when I talk to them. They try and make every sentence perfect before they move on to the next sentence. Don’t ever do that. What you got to do is you got to get a first draught down. It doesn’t matter how rough it is or how bad it is because you are the only one that’s going to see it. It’s what you do on the second and third and fourth passes. And you can write really professional scripts in three passes and just three passes if you get your toolkit sorted. And you trust yourself if you believe in yourself, but if you try and make every sentence perfect before you get the next one done, your work will be painfully slow and you’re just choking all your creativity.

Leigh Chalker (51:25):
You’re obviously a very intuitive creator and writer from the sounds of things you can feel like if something’s working.

Christopher Sequeira (51:34):
Look, I am, but I’ve spent a lot of years being critical of my stuff, and also I spent a lot of years just reading a lot on the diagnostics of writing and the advice of books on writing, not just comics, there’s very few of those, but just books on writing by good writers that have been successfully commercially published, so you know that they know what you’re talking about and whether it’s novel, short stories or screenplays, when you can pick up those books, the tools you’ll get out of any of those ones where people who’ve got an actual career up, they’ll just, I mean, Jane Michael Stravinski’s written a couple of fantastic books about writing. I Heartly recommend those. And there’s several others. David Murrell wrote something, I forgot what it’s called, another great book, the Guy Who Created Rambo. So read books that make that part of your lifelong education. Don’t just read other stuff, read books by good writers on how to write, and you’ll pick

Leigh Chalker (52:52):
Every lesson to what you are doing at a certain time,

Christopher Sequeira (52:58):
And you just keep adding to your toolkit because you read something, you go, oh, I’m doing that, and that works. Then you go, I’m not doing that. I’ve got to try that. And then you may find that that works beautifully for you and unlocks another dimension of the craft.

Leigh Chalker (53:15):
Yep. Do you find yourself constantly evolving? You’ve never

Christopher Sequeira (53:21):
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Look, I’m not happy with something I wrote last week, right? I’m not happy with something I wrote last week, but I can live with it because I can go, well, I’m a week older than I was then, so can’t beat yourself up because of what I learned this week, and as long as it’s not too quick and occasionally you do something. I mean, my first rattle bone story was like a three or four pager in the pages of Fantastic magazine. What happened was I’d written and drawn this story myself. We’re talking about drawing. I wrote and draw the whole story, and I took it into the fantastic guys. And one of the guys Waterman looked at it and said, this is really cool. I love this weird ghoulish character with a creepy face, but I hate your artwork. Can I redraw the whole story panel for panel myself? And I said, shit, yeah, because Des was a great ass. So I created the whole thing, the character, the concept, the visuals, but he just said, for this first story, we want to run it, but I’ll draw it. And he drew it and he did a knockout job, knocked it out of the park, amazing. Had his own unique, beautiful stylings.

(54:45)
And that story, I still, that’s one of the first things I had published, if not the first thing I had published. And I can still read that without cringing because it was just this really distilled old four page and it was all about style. It was all about the vibe in that four pages. And I was trying to create a cross between Sam Spade from the Maltese Falcon and a character that was like Vincent Price at a House of Wax, or Dr. Fives a ghoulish hideous character and with almost a cheeky Vincent Price, sixties tv, kind of cheesy sort of sense of humour. So I was sort of blending a few different things together there, and it just all came out. It all was perfectly distilled and Des picked up exactly on what I was trying to do. As I said, I’d actually drawn the whole thing, black and white, full size art, but he made it look good instead of ship. And I don’t hate that story even after many, many years because I sort of got it right the first time.

Leigh Chalker (56:14):
Do you go back and look at these things? Sometimes? Do you get a little bit

Christopher Sequeira (56:18):
Sentiment? I don’t have time, so I’ll do it. If I was rummaging around in an old box looking for something and came across an old comic, I would, but otherwise I don’t normally do.

Leigh Chalker (56:35):
I man, I love your enthusiasm for all of this, man. It’s awesome.

Christopher Sequeira (56:41):
It’s going to be look made. It’s about the work. It’s all about the story. It’s not even about me, it’s about the story. The story lives forever. I won’t.

Leigh Chalker (56:50):
So essentially, I guess from that comment there is like you’re not really putting your ego into the work you are doing what’s coming out of you naturally fluidly to what your vision is, and you are passing it on to the artist work.

Christopher Sequeira (57:12):
Look, yes and yes and no, and I do need to pick up on that. I’ve got a very healthy ego

Leigh Chalker (57:25):
Fair,

Christopher Sequeira (57:26):
I’ve got a very healthy ego and people have been known to remember seeing the effects of my ego, but my ego’s not about me. My ego’s about the story, borrow the story, and I hand it in and the editor or publisher approves it, then that’s the story. That’s the story they ask for. They said, that’s what we want. Because of course they’ll ask for changes here and there along the way before the final version. And I always make those, I just did a four issue Star Trek series for IDW,

Leigh Chalker (58:09):
And

Christopher Sequeira (58:10):
That was very heavily edited because you’ve got IDW and you’ve got Paramount as well, and they’re looking at and taking notes on it. And so there’s quite a few, probably minimum two passes on notes back and forth except one issue. I think I’ve got zero notes I think, or very few. And you’ve got to address them all. And some of them are just straightforward continuity notes. The continuity Bs are gone, but is that guy still in on the enterprise D this point in time in season six, or are we in season seven and can we pick a star date for this? It’s got to be between this and this. And so you’ve got to respond to all of that. And then some of it is the whole story. But if he’s doing that, why would he be doing that? And sometimes they changed the position from the broad original position where this was going to be dealt with this from a plot perspective, but then by the time we got into issue two or something like, well, let’s not do that with it because there’s some problems if we do that, can we come up with a solution?

(59:29)
And I go, just leave it with me. And I think I write up and go, okay, let’s have this be the thing behind that or this be the technology reason behind that. How’s that go? Yeah, that’s great. That’s what we’re talking about. You’ve got us out of that problem, and that’s totally fine. But once it’s approved, then that’s the thing. And then if somebody comes back and draws something completely different, which has happened in my many years of doing this thing, I’m starting to sort of think, well, hang on a minute. That’s not a writer problem. That’s an editor artist problem. And they should go and figure that one out. Yeah, I’ll try and do something like Relet up, and I’ve done things for publishers like the artist hasn’t drawn are supposed to draw. And so, oh, can you change the script and the lettering? And I’ll go, yeah, and I’ll try and help get a solution, but there’s a point there where I say, that’s not me.

(01:00:34)
You’ve got to, if you want him to redraw it, that’s what you’ve got to tell him. So that can happen. So yeah, I’ve got a healthy ego in that respect. But if it’s commercial writing, you’re writing to a brief. If it’s creator own, of course I can do whatever the hell I want as long as my publisher’s happy. But in those cases, there’s two kinds of creator owned, there’s creator owned where I’m co-owning it with an artist. And then those are interesting, and those are really powerful because then we’re just working together solving problems, and it’s never about me versus anybody. It’s about me and that person together versus the world and people I’ve worked with in really close quarters to a dedicated outcome where they’ve been happy to tell me, no, that sucks Chris. And I’ve been happy to tell them, no, that sucks, mate.

(01:01:36)
People like Chewy Chan, people like Yarn, she people like Kurt Stone. And again, it’s about making the thing at best it can be. And I’ve done a lot of writing with one of my brothers, Jonathan, who’s a filmmaker. We’ve worked on a few film things and we could do that. We could do co-writing on stuff and we can argue the toss on something and it can get really full on, but it’s never actually, the heat’s not me to him or him to me, no, he like that. It’s just, ah, why is that not as good as it could be? Why is that not a great intro for that character? God, that can be better. All those kinds of things are about a journey again, to make the best version of the story.

Leigh Chalker (01:02:35):
You mentioned the journey there. Now Journeys, working with people, collaborations like the best bands, I guess down to chemistry and things like that. You can’t describe the chemistry. It just seems to work sometimes. I would assume that the most unlikely alliances can form the best bonds perhaps. Have you had happy discoveries along those lines where regardless of your enthusiasm, which is again most obvious to me, and I’m absolutely resonating with your enthusiasm. Have you ever had that moment where you’re A little bit, yeah, real sure, but I’m going to give it a go. See where it takes me. The universe has opened this door. I’m going to walk through it, nothing’s stopping me. I’ll give it a go. And those trepidations are just gone, and you are just on a natural high man. Have you ever had one of those moments? No.

Christopher Sequeira (01:03:56):
Look, I’m so lucky. I’m so lucky that very few of those kind of the journeys and collaborations have left me unhappy or unsatisfied, very, very tiny percent. So most of them have either been as good as what I’d hoped or incredibly better, but they started off with good expectations. Anyway, I’m just trying to think. Did I have any where I was going where I was thinking, oh, this is probably not going to be great, and it was great. I’m just trying to think. No, look, I don’t think I’ve had any that I thought were going to be difficult, and then they turned out to be good. I think most of the time I have really optimistic expectations. I have sort of fairly, Hey, we’re doing comics again. It’s going to be good.

Leigh Chalker (01:05:12):
I’ve noticed because we are talking and

Christopher Sequeira (01:05:16):
Wait a minute, I’ll give you something mate. I’ll give you one super pleasant surprise. Okay,

Leigh Chalker (01:05:24):
Hit me. Not literally it was a hit me.

Christopher Sequeira (01:05:26):
I did an X-Men story for Marvel several years ago, and it was an eight pager in the X-Men versus Vampires miniseries. And I wrote the script and handed it in, and I had no knowledge who they were going to assign it to, and they assigned it to the Japanese artist, Saana Takeda, the one who won all those awards for monstrous.

(01:05:53)
And the eight pages of artwork that floated back in my inbox from the editor was just like a jolt of electricity. They were beautiful. Not only were they beautiful, the storytelling was crystal clear, portrayed my story exactly the way it was on the script, captured all the emotional moments, and the page turned bits of action that I was after. And there was a whole cast of brand new characters introduced. You probably have read it. Basically, I introduced into the Marvel Universe, a secret 1970s sect of San Francisco Disco Club vampires, because of course everyone needs one. So

Leigh Chalker (01:06:50):
Indeed.

Christopher Sequeira (01:06:51):
So I created them and I had ideas for models for all the characters in this crew of empire. They’re called Studio 13 and Ana’s artwork came back and I was just floating. I was just floating, mate. It was so beautiful. And then a few years later I was at a Sandy aka Comicon, and I got to meet her and thank her for the amazing work that she did. Lovely person.

Leigh Chalker (01:07:23):
That is amazing, man. Were you ever lucky enough to get any of those original pages or anything like that?

Christopher Sequeira (01:07:30):
No. No. Would’ve been a bit too rich for my pocket mate.

Leigh Chalker (01:07:34):
They couldn’t have slipped you one mate, just as a, Hey champ, good on you. Look at what we did here. A bit of a bugger, but I guess people got to eat, mate. You know what I mean? It’s like got to pay the bills. So that’s how it is. I love hearing those stories from what you’re talking to me there, because you just sort of said previously that sometimes you work with people to nut it out and you’re not really fighting, but you’re trying to get the best out of something to make something good, you know what I mean? When you do a script like that and you send it off into the Ether man and it’s out there, and then an artist you may be familiar with, you haven’t had too much to do with of them, but then in that case there you are not really sure what’s going to come back and beauty comes back. Was it a case of, was there communication between the two of you or was it really like

Christopher Sequeira (01:08:37):
No, that one was just a really efficient Marvel editorial team led by the main editor I was working for who was there at Marvel at the time was Janine Schafer and super organised, super efficient. They made sure that all the dots were dotted and the crosses were crossed before the script went to Sauna. So any issues with wordage or anything like that, it was all fixed in the script. So what Saana got was a perfectly clean go for it woman script, and she went for it and knocked it out of the park.

Leigh Chalker (01:09:22):
That’s a beautiful thing. Now on the editing, because we’ve mentioned it a couple of times, varying people that I’ve spoken to and stuff like that, and the comments come in on the show and you watch other shows and what importance, Chris, as someone that has edited, has been edited, has gone from the ground level of self-producing your own comic books, man, stapling them, as we discussed earlier, I love because people, we get caught up in the writing and the art and that sort of thing, but we don’t, I find that there’s little conversation in regards to the importance of an editor or an editorial team. Then in the creation of comic books, what magic can an editor bring for those that don’t know?

Christopher Sequeira (01:10:24):
Look, in commercial publishing, there’s really two strands to being an editor in most senses. One is project management, and the other one is understanding quality and story and the commercial realities of the publishing that you’re doing. So the project management is everything you’d see, you’ve got to figure out, so that one’s got to write it first and then draw it, and the timelines and the traffic management of the pages and the lettering and the artwork and the colours and the print proofs and blah, blah, blah. So there’s all that. And the interpersonal skills, both written and verbal, involved in managing armour process through diverse pairs of hands as it goes on its merry way to, so there’s that. And then the second is, okay, if I’m editing a comic, it’s no different to editing a short story in the sense that you bring your artistic lens to bear on what you’re doing. So I’ve got to read the script, just like I’d read a prose short story that I’m for an anthology I’m putting together. Does it meet the brief? Is it suitable for the audience? Is it good? Is it doing what it appears need to be doing? Is the writer and is the writer fulfilling what we need? No use giving me a 20 page chapter for a comic book script

(01:12:12)
If it’s for a four part 80 page story, unless something bloody happens in the first 20 pages. And modern comics, they want a fair bit to happen in the first 20 pages, and we can’t shoot all our rockets in chapter one. This story’s got to build across four issues. So is he sticking or is she sticking to their outline with the gradual dramatic buildup? So the kind of notes I give on a comic book script might be, that’s great, but is what’s that scene really doing? And could we put an action scene in there? Again, I know you want to have this guy lock horns with this guy, or maybe we can illustrate that conflict a bit more and give this because then this issue and then leave this issue up to this point. And that might be your page turner. And then that fulfils the promise of your premise.

(01:13:10)
So you have those kinds of conversations. And I can work with quite experienced people and still give notes. I’ve worked with major published short story writers in the US and gone, okay, that one. Are you aware that you’re trying to do something there, but you’re also trying to do something there? There’s those bits of fighting with each other a bit. What are your thoughts on that? And look, you don’t tell people how to fix stuff if they’re a professional rhino. You just say, okay, I’m seeing an issue here. What do you think? Can you, are the rhino I trust you? Do you have a solution to that?

Leigh Chalker (01:13:56):
You’re gentle. You just nudge ’em.

Christopher Sequeira (01:14:00):
I don’t want to tell them how to fix stuff unless it’s something like we need a shot of somebody running across London Bridge and they’ve drawn the Golden Gate Bridge by mistake. Then you say, it’s the wrong bridge. Right? And would you mind please, just going back, well, to my eye, they’ve gone London Bridge, they should have gone Hammersmith Bridge, right? Whatever. I don’t want to be doing that, but if I’ve got to do that, I’ll do that. And that’s a straightforward, oh, by the way, okay. But if it’s a story kind of thing, you want to say, here’s the problem I’m observing. What do you think? And I am absolutely a hundred percent happy for a short story writer or a novelist like I edited Louis Lowery’s, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde in America. And there was a number of conversations Louie and I had on that, and Louis was a fantastic writer who died last year, and I miss him heaps already. It was a brilliant book. But you work through ’em and because you don’t tell him how to solve, you go, maybe it could be what needs to reset it or to fix that imbalance. What do you think? What can you come up with? And you have to do that because nine times out of 10, a Chris Sequeira solution to a Louis Lowy problem is never going to be as good as a Louis Lowy solution to a Louis Lowy problem.

Leigh Chalker (01:15:35):
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Understood. And it also, I guess to a certain extent, man, there’s an element of, with the gentle nature of how you handle that process, you also don’t affect the writer’s ego or confidence in allowing themselves to take time to visualise process what you’ve just said and attack it from a fresh angle and create a solution.

Christopher Sequeira (01:16:14):
Yeah. Look, because that’s not professional, I’ve only, I’ll be honest, I’ve been an asshole to people when they’ve been ANRs asshole to me first, right? Have you

Leigh Chalker (01:16:30):
Ever had anyone? Right. No names. No names. And we’ve all, everyone’s been there, so no, we’re cool. Have you ever, you’ve gone into the process and you’ve gone just wanted the, Chris Quora has just gone in there and done it, played it his way about presenting possible thought processes to make something better, and the person on the other end of the line going, paper’s gone and they’re out the door. Have you ever had anyone do that to you?

Christopher Sequeira (01:17:08):
Well, look, I was doing a book some years ago and I wasn’t doing it on my own. I was doing it with some other people, and somebody had, it was a multiple contributor book, and somebody had a very bizarre explosion like that,

Leigh Chalker (01:17:25):
Right?

Christopher Sequeira (01:17:28):
To this day, we still don’t exactly understand what their issue was. We don’t even know what the issue was. But we tried to get to the bottom of that and we couldn’t unpack it with them any further. And we said, look, no worries. You are absolutely a free spirit. Then you go your way totally happily, and that’s it. And then they come back and fire another rocket at us. And that’s when I was an asshole. I said, you didn’t want to do this and you didn’t want to do that, and the way you did it wasn’t really cool. And then we said, okay, that’s cool. If you want to go off and do your own thing, that’s also cool and nothing bad about that, and now you want to come back and have a free shot at us, you don’t get that. So yeah, that ended with a very decisive statement from editorial position. Fair enough. I think to this day, that was some kind of weird anomaly, and there was something going on in that person’s life and they’d already decided they wanted to blow that up. And that’s okay. That happens. But do they get to take a kick at my co-editors heads? No, they don’t.

Leigh Chalker (01:19:04):
No. That’s fair enough, man. That’s fair enough. And

Christopher Sequeira (01:19:06):
Look, that’s normal. That’s normal, right? It’s like you go in bloody, you go in McDonald’s and they give you a burger with a fly in. This is a hypothetical example, Sue me. It never happens at your beautiful burger place. But you go in there and you’ve got to fly in the burger and you go back and say, I’m sorry. They’ll usually go, no worries, we’ll give you a refund. And you don’t make a scene about it. You don’t be an idiot about it. You accept that flies get in the grill when no one’s looking and you sort it out happy you walk on. But if then somebody wants to start blowing up at somebody else disproportionate, nobody gains anything. Will I stand there and be a punching bag? I won’t.

Leigh Chalker (01:19:57):
Yep. A hundred percent fair man. A hundred percent fair. From a personal and an editorial perspective. So I think that’s,

Christopher Sequeira (01:20:06):
Now having said that, another really important thing is I actually love it when people fight for their position and say, I don’t want to change. And I think I can convince you why.

Leigh Chalker (01:20:22):
That’s

Christopher Sequeira (01:20:22):
Sort of cool. I’ve done a few things over the years with yarn sheen and sometimes yarns come to me and we’ve be talking about a cover design or a page of art, and yarn said to me, look, I really don’t think this particular layout of the sequence on this page is going to work and it’s right. And I’ll show you why. We’ll tell you why. And it’s the opposite of what I wanted. And he’s gone and told me, and I’ve gone, you’re totally right. I’m wrong. Your waist sounds really cool, heaps better. Let’s do it your way.

Leigh Chalker (01:21:06):
That would also be that beautiful chemistry that we were talking about before.

Christopher Sequeira (01:21:11):
That’s just what that is. That’s just professional respect. And it’s not about you not being gand off going, your changes shall not pass.

Leigh Chalker (01:21:23):
It’s

Christopher Sequeira (01:21:23):
Not about,

Leigh Chalker (01:21:26):
Man, you’re playing in my heart there. I’m an old Lord of the Rings fan, man. That was one of the first books I ever read. Stop it,

Christopher Sequeira (01:21:33):
Man. Yeah, but it should never be, you should never be so precious. You should always be at least able to take it in,

Leigh Chalker (01:21:41):
Right?

Christopher Sequeira (01:21:45):
If you don’t take it in, then that’s a terrible sign that you’re one of those riders and you are on a slippery slope down and out of a career.

Leigh Chalker (01:21:58):
Because

Christopher Sequeira (01:21:59):
You’ve got to have, and this is key, you’ve got to have that some sort of level of constant humility, not fear and paranoia that you might always be wrong, but humility that you could do it better so that you cannot be taking criticism and feedback and notes. You can’t be taking them personally. And if you do a lot of reading on screenwriting, they talk about this as the death nail to so many movie script writers careers either stops ’em from getting started or they start making a few hundred thousand dollars sales and then they start getting asked to make changes by the producers and they start being difficult or refuse, and then they wonder, they never get to work in that town again. Because again, it’s not about you saying, I really don’t like this scene, Chris. I really don’t like that paragraph. Chris is not saying, I really don’t like you, Chris. That’s not what they’re saying. They’re saying This isn’t as good as it could be. And if you get to a point where I know I’ve sold enough stuff, I think I’m good. I don’t need to listen to other people. You are slowly dying. You’re the walking dead already.

Leigh Chalker (01:23:30):
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Understood.

Christopher Sequeira (01:23:33):
Look, it’s a constant balancing act. But look, I’ve been very lucky. I’ve worked with some amazing people in Australia. I’ve been truly blessed to work with them. Dozens of amazing Aussies who can both write and draw, especially they can write, certainly write rings around me, and I’ve got to work with ’em. And that’s been a privilege.

Leigh Chalker (01:24:03):
Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, man. Australia’s got some powerhouse talent. I think

Christopher Sequeira (01:24:12):
There’s another wave coming, I reckon.

Leigh Chalker (01:24:14):
Yeah, yeah. Oh man. Just in the small time that I’ve been in the ocean, man, the people and the things that, not only the folks that I’m aware of, but the constant flow of new things and visions and styles, and

Christopher Sequeira (01:24:42):
You’ve probably seen that references here and there to that Super Australians book

Leigh Chalker (01:24:49):
I have.

Christopher Sequeira (01:24:50):
That’s that jam book of 26 artists and writers that I’ve worked on. Yeah, we’re going to actually get that published internationally next year, starting off with doing a four issue comic shop, run internationally for colour comics and then collecting it as a trade just in that, the bloody talent that popped up in that and the diversity of styles and the diversity of ideas for narrative and stuff like that. That book is just mental, absolutely mental that’s just scratching the surface. That was just 26 people that we scrounged together through personal context mostly a few years back. And it’s multiplied like crazy since then.

Leigh Chalker (01:25:42):
That’s exciting, man. It’s good because the one thing I guess as

Christopher Sequeira (01:25:47):
Can I do a shout out,

Leigh Chalker (01:25:48):
You absolutely can.

Christopher Sequeira (01:25:52):
Julie Dietrich, who a lot of people know, he’s a very talented writer and editor and does various other functions in the world of comics, suggested I talked to this woman called Anna Maria Mendez, Salgado for Super Australians, and I knew nothing about the lady, and I contacted her and worked and invited her to do one of the chapters of Super Zones with another person I didn’t know, a young writer from the Northern Territory, John O. Saunders. So he wrote and created a superhero, and she co-created and drew that superhero, designed that superhero, and they did a chapter and it was in a style like nothing you’ve ever seen for a superhero comic. It’s like this weird picture book, animated Illustrated kid’s book, ethereal Pastel, beautiful six page chapter. Jono wrote it, Anna Maria drew it, and it is one of the most astonishing distilled pieces of creativity in the comics world.

(01:27:19)
I’ve had the pleasure to be associated with. And she was quite nervous. She’s a great artist and does animation and stuff like that. She hadn’t really tackled the comics thing, right? Jono was a little bit more confident. He’d done some script writing and whatnot, but he hadn’t done a lot of comics at that stage. And forget Bloody Chris mate, that chapter in that book was a standout, several standout chapters in that one, but it was bloody a privilege and alchemy to put a couple of people together and to work with Johno on the script and work with her and give her notes on the art and all the rest. Not much in either case because they’re bloody gifted geniuses. And the end result was something beautiful and unique. And as sometimes with the short story collections I do, I get a short story in either from a big name like a Jonathan Marbury or a Nancy Holder or a lesser known person, and you just get it and you’ll read it and you just go, this is gorgeous. This is that particular version of the art form, the comic book or the short story, and it’s just a cracker. And I got to help get that out into the world and I should get no thanks for getting out into the world in terms of creative responsibility. But I did my project management and I did maybe a little bit of creative feedback and convincing along the way. And those successes are really sweet mate to actually, well, I created a conduit for that thing to go out in the world and have a commercial home.

Leigh Chalker (01:29:17):
Magic.

Christopher Sequeira (01:29:18):
Yeah, it’s me. It’s truly magic.

Leigh Chalker (01:29:21):
Yeah, that’s awesome. That was obviously another one of those moments when you got your eight pages back that gave you some electricity man and fueled your fire to keep going with everything. We’re going to just, I like doing sound effects, Chris, I found that sound effects sometimes when I lack articulation because sometimes I just can’t think of a word to say. I find that sound effects often stand quite well. So today’s sound effect for moving to another point is, alright, so next fortnight it could change, I dunno, but for now that’s what it is. I was a little bit not nervous, but I have watched your career, so I’m aware that you do lots of things.

Christopher Sequeira (01:30:22):
I’m glad to see you’re still awake.

Leigh Chalker (01:30:26):
I’m right here, man. Absolutely.

Christopher Sequeira (01:30:29):
If you watch my career, mate, I’m glad you didn’t induce narcolepsy,

Leigh Chalker (01:30:38):
Mate. Well, I’m a bit of an insomniac anyway, so it’s like I got to keep

Christopher Sequeira (01:30:45):
Just as well.

Leigh Chalker (01:30:47):
Yes, that’s right, mate. So your career’s come in handy from time to time, but look, mate, I want to talk to you because I’m most interested in your public speaking and stuff that you do too. You go over to places like your San Diego Comic-Cons and varying other places and discuss, I guess what we’re talking about here and the beauty of comic books and stuff like that. At what point in your writing career or comic book involvement did you decide that you wanted to do that sort of segue?

Christopher Sequeira (01:31:28):
Look, that’s a really easy natural outgrowth out of doing comics, doing panels at comic conventions and talks and other things. It just flows out of that. I mean, I actually did one a couple of months ago, I got called up by a school library in Sydney and the teacher, one of the librarians had one of my anthologies, actually a couple of my anthologies in the school library and said, would you come and talk to the girls, right? And I said, great. And I went out and did that was the lunchtime speaker, and I just spoke to them about writing and writing genre and writing genre in Australia and an international market and whatnot. And yeah, it was great. It was really enjoyable. So it’s sort of a combination as you’ve seen the last one and a half hours, I’ve got a bloody big mouth. I can talk under wet cement and I don’t mind sharing as you’ve identified. I don’t mind sharing my enthusiasm.

Leigh Chalker (01:32:39):
I love people that are enthusiastic, Chris, about things that I’m passionate about also and don’t ever stress while you’re talking to me on chinwag about enjoying a chat because those that know me well also know that one of the nicknames that my loving friends gave me over the years was Shit Talker Chalker. So I have also been known to enjoy just having a yarn mate, which is,

Christopher Sequeira (01:33:17):
Look, I probably developed that facility mate, because I’m the eldest of nine children. So you don’t talk mate, too bad you don’t get heard.

Leigh Chalker (01:33:29):
Yeah, yeah,

Christopher Sequeira (01:33:30):
Just speak. You don’t speak up. No one. There’s no hope.

Leigh Chalker (01:33:35):
Yeah, one of nine children, man. That’s the only thing I can tell you we’re on the end scale of because for, oh look, man, up until last year, I always thought that, I guess to a certain extent had understood that I was pretty much an only child and then found out that I knew of many, many years ago, but it wasn’t until September last year that came in contact with my long lost sister. Cool. And in a really weird segue, I also would like to give a shout out to Alex, and I would also like to give a shout out to my lovely little niece who turned one on that.

Christopher Sequeira (01:34:29):
Oh, that is so good.

Leigh Chalker (01:34:31):
So yeah, just wanted to make a shout out there because that’s weird. We were talking about that, but there you go, Alex and g, I hope you had a lovely weekend and lots of love. Lovely. Now man, let’s go on to your new project, your new company, your new thing that you’re part of. Take me away, man, because I dunno much about it, but I’ve seen you starting to rev it up a bit, man. So

Christopher Sequeira (01:35:05):
Look, yeah, I’m on two tracks in parallel these days. I’ve got my own personal writing career, which is still writing short stories, still writing comic books, and these stories and comics will be for whatever publishers around the world are interested. Okay? So I’d still do that. The Star Trek thing that’s on sale at the moment. Issue three comes out this week. Star Trek, Halloween people, sorry, star Trek, hollow Dash Ween issue three goes out this week. It’s a forestry mini series, Halloween theme, you’re going to love it. So there’s things like that. But several years ago I sold a couple of anthology ideas to a small publisher based in Melbourne called IFWG Publishing. And they produced books and actually distributed them to bookstores all over the world, including America. They weren’t just a digital or a print on demand publisher. They actually had proper distribution and they did genre fantastic.

(01:36:22)
And I had a couple of genre projects I was looking for a home for and they picked them up. And then over a period of time, one of the projects that I placed with them was a series I co-edited with Steve Propwash and Bryce Stevens called Kaul Deep down under. Now as it turned out, we ended up doing four volumes of Kaul deep down under, because we did three Aussie set ones. And Jerry Hunton, the owner, was mobbed by a bunch of New Zealand writers who said, could we contribute stories to a New Zealand set version of this? And he said to me and Bryce and Steve, would you edit that if I set that up and paid you to do that? We said, love it. And so we did. The fourth one was called Kaul Land of the Long White Cloud. So we did four. So I was doing more and more stuff for Jerry, and then I started coming up with more ideas for Jerry and I was having up with ideas for marketing and where we could promote these things.

(01:37:32)
And I was sort of doing lots of little in between kind of things. And he basically said, do you want to become a senior editor? So I’ll give you things, I’ve got this book, this, a couple of novels, I need someone to edit and work with the writers on. And one of them is the Dr. Dick and Mr. Hyde in America, that terrific book and a couple of other things. And so I just ended up doing more and more for him. And then he said to me a few years ago, would you set up a comics division for me? Because thinking, and I said to him, I was just about to incorporate and do that myself. I said, but I’ll send you the ideas I was going to do and if they can be part of the eventual pipeline, then I’ll abandon my plans and I’ll do it for you.

(01:38:26)
And I sent him the projects that were underway and he said we would publish those in the heartbeat. And I said, good luck, I’ll bring over to you. I’ll bring the artist with me and we’ll do some stuff. And it went from there. So basically I’ve spent the last couple of years, few years, he and I have been doing a tonne of preparation scouting for work from the right type of creators with the right type of projects that fit our brand, our genre brand, the right kind of budgets for a newly emerging publisher. And we started doing all the logistical stuff on how are we going to get these distributed in the United States because there’s no point doing this unless you can get ’em into comic shops all over the world. So we’ve been on that journey and doing discussions, contracts with creators, project plans, legal stuff, financial stuff.

(01:39:30)
And we’ve gone over the US and had meetings with distributors to try and iron out wrinkles there. We’ve been talking to printers internationally, and we’re now at the stage where the first few books should be hitting the shelves in the first months of next year. And we’ve got, I’ll give you the exclusive brother. So there’s two books, two monthly comics miniseries, so they’re going to come out in the first tranche. One is the final expanded fully super duper. A whole new chapter was worth of Material Super Australians, which will be going out under the brand of a brand new comic book called Super Humanity We call Super Humanity and Volume One, the first storyline would be drastically expanded Super Australians with heaps of new artwork and cool new stuff. First time it would’ve been available outside the trade paper back that we did for trade shows in Australia a few years ago. First time it’s finally going out to the world, the pandemic and other things got in the way, but this is better. We were able to bring this and make this one of them the second one, do you know Hayden Fryer?

Leigh Chalker (01:40:57):
I dunno him personally, but I do know of the Gentleman’s existence and I’ve seen his article.

Christopher Sequeira (01:41:03):
We were absolutely thrilled to sign and pick up a, what I call a Bush horror book of here’s an original Bush horror concept called Bristle Mouth, A Cove Horror, and it’s basically evil dead spam in a cabin thing, but nothing like the cliches of that kind of genre. It’s a really emotionally engaging, quite poetic and lyrical kind of story with this beautiful black and white wash tone artwork and a really unusual and interesting protagonist. And there’s absolutely demented and weird design of hideous predators attacking the poor people. And it’s different. It’s classic, but it’s different. So bristle mouth. So those two comics, they’ll be comics and then they’ll get collected as trade paperbacks three to six months later are the first two books we’re having coming out. They will debut in the same month. And what we’re planning on debuting in the same month is volume one of a completely, well, not completely, but a significantly revised version of Queenie Chan’s manga series, the Dreaming, which this is revised, this hasn’t been in print for 12 years or something. We bought the rights of Tokyo Pop and yeah, we’re bringing it back to the world. That’ll be a new volume every four or six months or something. And there’s going to be a whole brand new volume for cover to cover brand new material. But each edition as you do so, they’re the sort of first. And we’ll also do a re-release to comic shops of my co-edited short story collection with stories by Jim Krueger, Colleen Duran, Neil Gaman, George RR Martin, Jonathan Marbury, Joe LANs. You might’ve heard of some of these people.

Leigh Chalker (01:43:27):
I’m vaguely familiar with a few of them, mate.

Christopher Sequeira (01:43:29):
Yeah, it’s called Cape Fear Superhuman Horror Stories. And it’s all short stories by the creme doll creme of science, fiction and horror. So short stories about superheroes in horror settings. So those books will all launch around the same time together. And it’s all part of IPI comics, which is ipi comics.com. And you’ll see we’ve got other cool stuff coming. We’ve got Rocker Steve Kilby from the church with two collaborators, Nicole Madden and artist Keith Donald, have done an astonishing sorcery fantasy called Veil of Tears. That is just amazing. The first issue artwork came in the other week as mind blowing. So that’s going to be a four parter. We’ve got the Human Fly, the seventies Marvel character. We’re going to be doing New Adventures of Him, I’ll be writing it, but also Jim Krueger and Dana Bruer, an American writer who’s written for TV and stuff. She’s going to be doing some stories in that. Artwork’s going to be by Yarn. She and covers are going to be by Chewy Chant. And we are in negotiations su night. We are in genuine negotiations with one of the biggest comic book cover artists of the industry to do a cover.

Leigh Chalker (01:45:01):
Awesome.

Christopher Sequeira (01:45:04):
He likes this character, he wants to do it. So that’s going to be an ongoing, and it’s going to be a complete modernization of that old real life stuntman stunt show comic that Marvel licence for a year and a half in the late seventies. So we’re just going to be melding fact and fiction and doing a sort of a metafictional contemporary action book, and I’m really looking forward to it. So I’m doing a whole bunch of different stuff. Yeah, this is getting to be the editor in chief of my own comics company for Jerry. And again, part of the joy is getting this Hayden Friar book that’s just magnificent mate Lee. It’s just beautiful or Queenie’s thing, which people have been wanting to see come back for years.

(01:45:55)
This is just a privilege and a joy to put this stuff out there and get it in front of an international audience. We have distribution to the comic shops and we’ve had distribution for trade paperbacks to normal bookstores for 12 years now. We’ll have double the distribution channels. You can go to any book that sells graphic novels every, any bookshop that sells graphic novels, but every comic shop can get it if they hit graphic novels as well. So it’ll be good. So we sort of got a mix of Aussies and Americans. Another book that’s, if you go to our website, you’ll see Jason Franks from Melbourne and Tam Nation from Sydney are doing this killer thing that we did a preview at some conventions called the Frankenstein Mons. And basically a lot of people would know Jason stuff. He’s a brilliant Aussie novelist and comics guy, and it’s a high octane, what if Victor Frankenstein was a rogue tech billionaire and our work by Tam Nation, people haven’t seen artwork this schmick in a while.

(01:47:14)
This guy came to me from movies and said, I hear you’re the comics guy. I’m friends with your brother. Can we have a cup of coffee? Show me this portfolio. And I went, man, you want to do comics? I said, this stuff is amazing. I said, and the sensibilities that Tam has, the kind of things he’s into, I said, how about I just let you talk to Jason Franks friend of mine? And they came back and said, we’d like to sell you this co-owned idea that we now have for the two of us. And it was magic. So yeah, really exciting mate, because again, I don’t get any credits for the story around on that. I’ll just be credits for the guy that’s helping getting it to market. And look, some of the stuff, we have a particular mentality about what projects we pick. We pick stuff that we think has got a decent chance to sell.

(01:48:12)
It’s got a decent chance that people go, I like that. I want a sql. Can you guys do another four issues, graphic novel a year later or two years later? And we also picked stuff, what we think that could be a streaming or a feature film because look, we’re small and we’re young in terms of comics publishing, so we’ve got to do the sensible things to make these things have a chance of selling and bringing the rewards in extra royalties to the creators. So yeah, that’s a big, there’s also a really fresh, and I mean fresh because I’ve read 50,000 Vampire stories because that used to be one of my obsessions, which is what Pulse of Darkness was about vampires.

(01:49:03)
And we got a take on vampires, a guy called Alan Phillips and wrote a short story in the anthology that I edited Dracula and Fang about alternate takes on Dracula. Alan wrote this killer story called War with the Mafia, so a Dracula story called War with the Mafia, a Vampire Story or War with the Mafia. And it was killer. And I took it to Jerry and said, you know this comics thing, you want to start this short story is like issue one of an absolute killer of a comic book series. And he read it and said, you’re right. And so Alan partnered up with great horror writer novelist, Nancy Holder, by doing the comic with John K. Snyder, who’s drawn for dc, lots of cool stuff doing the artwork and it’s fantastic. So that’s called, they Call Me Midnight. So we’ve got some great stuff and it’s got nothing to do with me. This is those people’s talents and I just get to be the lucky bugger to help work out the timetables, the contracts, and the deals and set ’em free, get out of their way so they can write what they write and draw what they draw and only give ’em a nudge if they think they need it. And that’s very exciting, mate,

Leigh Chalker (01:50:38):
Man, I’m excited listening to you, watching your excitement, man, discussing these projects. You know what I mean? I had a little thought process while I was listening to you there and it took me back to you discussing your childhood earlier in the show, your enthusiasm and the wonderful family that you had that encouraged your creativity and stuff like that. And I guess as I begin to wind down our show for the evening, Chris, one thing that I always like to ask people is why, and I guess I’m going to use go back to what I was saying to was the little fella, little Chris that was sitting there drawing his books with his brothers as magic, having fun, enthusiasm. The garden in the brain is just growing, growing, growing, fertile, fertile, fertile. You’ve had these magic moments, man through your life and your career, and now I’m looking at you smiling like a Cheshire cat from ear to ear as you discuss what you’ve been working on, what you’ve attracted to you in terms of the creative talent and that you’ve brought to you to allow them to come together and go out into their own world and bring stories to readers is the Chris that’s sitting here talking to me now, I guess would the little Chris be happy and proud of where big Chris is right now?

Christopher Sequeira (01:52:37):
Look, I think little Chris would be thinking, well, that’s what you’re supposed to be doing because that’s what I’m doing. It’s good that you haven’t stopped. Why would you stop? Why would you stop? And I guess that’s the me is like, can’t stop, can’t stop. Got to keep doing it, got to keep trying to do it better. But we keep trying to figure out and look, it’s a great, especially when I’m not just doing stuff for myself because I still pitch all the time. I’ve got things firing off to editors all around the world all the time, and some of them come to me and some don’t. I mean,

(01:53:21)
The Star Trek book that I’ve done that I’m very, very proud of that came about because another project with that same publisher had been green lit and was all set to go ahead, but then due to an external situation, it wasn’t able to go ahead. But I could tell you that would’ve sold about 10 times what Star Trek holidays because it was something unique and weird and big. And I am never short of ideas, but sometimes the universe is not ready for an idea or the universe has got to wait. So stuff goes around. And so I never get bored. I’ve got ideas for 10, 20 anthologies more, and some of the couple of them I’m working on with a fantastic editor called Steve Paulson. I got another one working on with Steve that we’re hoping to announce very, very soon with some brilliant Aussie writers like Alan Baxter and What’s Gone Blank, Janine Webb and other people like that.

(01:54:38)
So I’ve always got stuff cooking, so that’ll always happen. So that part of me, that little kid, he’s seeing exactly what he wants to see is I’m still doing it. I’m still doing it just as, and you go in the world, you go in the world of the characters. And it was actually one of the coolest things of writing the four issues of Star Trek. And this was for a wonderful editor, a woman named Heather Antos, who is the most professional editor I’ve ever worked for. She’s fantastic. And I’ve worked for some great, I’ve worked for Paul Levitts at dc, I’ve worked for Steve Wacker, I’ve worked for Dan Rasper, formerly of dc, Janine Chafer I mentioned. But Heather was just amazing, super professional on the ball, feedback notes, just insane. But best thing about doing that script was all those scripts was so you block out the plot when it came to doing the script for the whole 20 pages.

(01:55:44)
I found the best way to do it in this particular case was I wrote all the panel descriptions for the whole book first. I didn’t write a line of dialogue, I just had the panels and I’m going, and in this panel they’re going to say this and she’s going to say this to him, and that’ll be a two shot between Wolf and Deanna. And I blocked the whole thing out and then I went back and did all the dialogue in one pass and did that last before I turned the script in because I love that show and I just went into a trance, right? Caffeine only people, caffeine only. I went into a trance and I let those actors’ voices ring in my mental ears and dialogue the thing that way. And that was a great experience. So I still love writing myself because you still get to do cool stuff.

(01:56:50)
I love playing with other franchise companies, toys when they let me. I like doing my own stuff as well, so I’ll never stop doing that. But the other side of my career, the getting other people in print, I can’t see myself stopping doing that either. I liked that too much When I was in LA in July, I had a meeting with a big American book publisher for a killer anthology, and I’m doing this if it comes off, I’ve got some huge names interested and that’ll be another good one. And it’s just like the idea is just so juicy and it’s like I can’t wait to give that theme to a bunch of a-list writers. I know they’ll just blow me out of my chair. I’ll always be there. The sing fanboy that gets to read their stories first because I’m the editor. So yeah, it’s a very lucky position. I find myself big kudos to Jerry Hunton for giving me this geek of helping set this thing up. But yeah, I get to scratch both those sets of itches my friend, if that’s not too disturbing a clinical image.

Leigh Chalker (01:58:10):
No, no, no. I’ve got a few itches that I like to scratch too, mate. So we both share a bit of a scratchy place here and there, but it’s good to have itches that you’ve got to scratch, man.

Christopher Sequeira (01:58:22):
Indeed, indeed. Now mate, how far is Townsville from Gladstone?

Leigh Chalker (01:58:32):
Oh, probably a day’s drive, man. You’d get there. Leave relatively, I know you wouldn’t have to leave at the crack of dawn if you left at the crack of dawn, you’d probably be there by midday or mid

Christopher Sequeira (01:58:45):
Townsville’s north of Gladstone.

Leigh Chalker (01:58:48):
Yeah, yeah, by way.

Christopher Sequeira (01:58:50):
Okay. Alright. I may be going up to Gladstone at Christmas time.

Leigh Chalker (01:58:55):
Alright,

Christopher Sequeira (01:58:57):
What’s halfway? Maybe we can find a spot halfway between.

Leigh Chalker (01:59:01):
Well, you never know, mate. We certainly keep in touch now we can.

Christopher Sequeira (01:59:07):
Yeah, it’d be very nice to meet you and have a couple with you face to face.

Leigh Chalker (01:59:10):
Yes, absolutely, mate. I 100% agree. Like the universe opens doors, Chris, so we can organise things, man, and anything’s possible, man. So it’s absolutely, man, because I’ve had, man, one of the things that I guess 2023 has been a weird year for me, man. I guess I haven’t been at my best in terms of a person this year and having situations that I didn’t have the faculties or the, I guess emotional intelligence or just the intelligence or experience to handle personably professionally with friends, with colleagues. But what I would like to say is after several months of just taking time to myself, I guess growing the garden and realising just how damn lucky I am to be able to have met so many people with chinwag and people like yourself who you’re all, everyone, yourself, everyone that’s been on chinwag, all heroes of mine, regardless of your,

Christopher Sequeira (02:00:48):
Oh, you’re very kind mate. You’re very kind.

Leigh Chalker (02:00:51):
Regardless of wherever the comic book world has taken you. I’m super lucky. And Chris, if it is absolutely possible, mate for us to meet halfway, I will 100.

Christopher Sequeira (02:01:05):
Excellent mate. So we’re still sorting out our final Christmas itinerary, but a visit up to Gladstone was on the cards the week after, so I might throw that your way. Do you have any relatives south of Townsville that you check in at Christmas time at all, or

Leigh Chalker (02:01:24):
No? Not really, but I know enough people up and down the coast that,

Christopher Sequeira (02:01:29):
So it would be a halfway thing probably. Well, look, you never know you’re luck in the big city, mate. We’ll see if my timetable’s flexible enough and we can figure something out, we’ll do it. Otherwise, I sometimes go up to Gold Coast and Brizi Supernovas and a comicons and those kind of things. And if you are ever in my state, give me a hoo and we’ll definitely do something. Yeah, no, look, you’d be most generous. Now, does anyone on the chat, do you do questions or have we got no time for that?

Leigh Chalker (02:02:07):
If anyone, mate, we can do questions. I’ve got all the time in the world for you mate and for everybody out there

Christopher Sequeira (02:02:12):
That’s

Leigh Chalker (02:02:13):
Interested in comic books. So if there is anyone out there, there will be people watching. They just like to sit back and listen to talk and most of the time meant so chuck us some questions if you’re out there sis, if you’ve got any tucked in there, we can fire away. And while we’re waiting, Chris, I’ll just, I’ll give a shout out to Shane and Kerry and Comex for sponsoring Chinwag and being patient with me over the year and putting up with myself as I put all the broken pieces back together to try and at least begin the process of being whole again. Now Friday night, drink and draw returns Friday evening. Excellent. I believe it’s seven 30 this week and Superman is the theme. So it’s the usual crew back on board. Oh,

Christopher Sequeira (02:03:13):
Very nice,

Leigh Chalker (02:03:14):
Nice. There’s the Thursday night, make a comic book show with a good old mate, ed Kiley and Siz, and if no one’s seen that, you should check it out. It’s a couple of artists get together and they draw a panel for a page of a comic book with the character that Ed’s created. And it’s a good show. It’s fun, it’s interesting to see how the process is like with a limited amount of time and to see what artists can do. There’s a whole heap of content flying out and about to, there’s artists doing one hour shows, drawing characters. Dave Dyer’s done a couple of lessons on teaching like things, and Dave Dy certainly knows what he’s doing. So if you want to check out Dave Dyer’s work, anyone watch your

Christopher Sequeira (02:04:02):
Stuff is great. His stuff is beautiful as just as this authentic quality about it, this emotionally engaging style.

Leigh Chalker (02:04:12):
Yeah, mate. Oh, here we go. Quick, Mick. Hello quick Mick. I do hope. Well, my friend question, what’s Chris’s take on Superman as a character?

Christopher Sequeira (02:04:25):
Okay, yeah, look, as I made a reference to before and just two seconds before I forget, just I want to just on your comments before Lee, you could be the spokesperson for one of my pep talks in writing and drawing because the humility you just displayed about you’ve had a year when you haven’t been optimum. One of the things I say to writers and artist is you cannot succeed in life without failing. You actually have to understand that failure is part of your evolutionary process in both your personal character and in a skill or a talent. If there’s not failure, there’s not growth. What’s the difference between the people that we like and the people that we can’t stand and don’t want to be near is those that can’t admit that they make mistakes and care enough about people around them to try and do something about ’em.

(02:05:39)
So hat’s off to you mate, but Superman. Look, I talked before about my buddy Mark Wade, and he is like the world’s greatest Superman. I think he’s read every Superman story ever published. He’s doing a killer version of the moment called the Last Days of Lex Lal for DC’s black label. The first issue is sensational. So Mark’s got a million ideas about Superman and I’ve been privy to having lunch and dinner with him over the years many times where we’ve touched on the topic, but my take on Superman is there is nothing out of date or old fashioned about Superman. He is as relevant and viable as superhero as Batman is. The problem is that some writers struggle with, but he’s all powerful. So how do we put something in the story that’s actually a threat or a danger that he’s got to deal with and he’s got to sweat and have trouble beating to make him interesting?

(02:06:57)
How do we make it convincing that Superman’s going through a tough time? And the thing is, for decades, none of the writers of Superman had a problem with that. They could just write their way through the stories and they could come up with stuff every month that would give him a hard time, whether it was a new villain or whether it was somebody put one of his friends in danger or someone was going to, they could find something interesting that would make it only a Superman story. And I think a lot of writers get almost like a deer in their headlights, oh, he so powerful, how do I make him so powerful and do that? And you just do it. You just go, well, it’s imagination. I’ll make the villain as powerful as they need to be, including more powerful than him and it’s science fiction so I can make original science reasons why they’re more powerful than him or why they might be suppressing his powers or why they might be causing him grief.

(02:08:10)
So I think that’s part of it people wrestle with because what comics are all, I’ve got to ground it in realism, and I think they struggle in that fight of, oh, but how do I make it realistic? The trend since the eighties, how do I do that? And I think that’s been the problem for 50 years. Some writers have really found it hard to get in the groove. You look back in the seventies and sixties book, and particularly the forgotten Superman era of the seventies is to get all those old go to the secondhand bookshop and buy these mountains of these black and white planet comics that were reprints of DC Superman stories from the seventies. And that’s how I got my seventies Superman knowledge. And the plots were just, they were the cleverer than the sixties ones and they introduced that realism. But eighties was, it’s almost like Superman has suffered post watchman post dark night. People haven’t been able to reconcile the two things. And those writers that do good contemporary Superman, sorry Nick, I’m taking so long with your answer, madam, a bloody big mouth. That’s what I feel is what’s getting in some people’s way.

(02:09:36)
They’ve just got to get comfortable with it and just trust themselves that they can find threats that he can deal and yeah, he doesn’t have to be necessarily pulling needles out of junkie’s arms to be relevant today. He can still be Superman and still do cool and down to earth realistic things. And it doesn’t mean his power scales mean that he’s not useful in the modern world.

Leigh Chalker (02:10:09):
I think you’re pretty much right with Superman there. There’s been some pretty cool modern taste. I mean for me, Chris, I loving it. Soups all the way. There you go. Thank you Nick.

Christopher Sequeira (02:10:21):
Appreciate that, Nick,

Leigh Chalker (02:10:23):
He’s a champion. Actually, Chris, if you do want to read a fine book, man, check out Detective Budgie quick’s a talent. He’s a talent. Little fell too, man. So I would throw a shout out to,

Christopher Sequeira (02:10:34):
I’ve seen him on a couple of the drink and draws and other ones of sizzles meetings.

Leigh Chalker (02:10:42):
Yeah, no, he knows his stuff, mate. He’s worth checking out. Let me tell you. And a good dude too. So I hope you’re well Nick, take care. But mate, I tend not to, I don’t read a lot of modern, I’m more Australian orientated obviously in anything I can get my hands on. But there have been some interesting arcs over the years with Superman, those black and white comic book you are talking about. Again, I was lucky particularly you sort of took me back to a moment talking about them, and I think it was like the federal were another,

Christopher Sequeira (02:11:27):
I think gradual came along. So there was the Planet Comics and then there was Federal slash Murray comics, which I think was the people that sort of, either they bought planet or they took the licence for the reprint material away from planet or whatever. I dunno what the, Kim and Patrick would know it all, but yeah, but they did the same thing, black and white collections.

Leigh Chalker (02:11:55):
Yeah, well, I used to read a lot of Superman with those because when I went to Canberra for the first time when I was five, I was very lucky to have cousins at that stage that collected those. So I very vividly remember my uncle at the time, Phil owned a squash court and the whole family decided to go out and play a squash, but they left little 5-year-old Lee behind in the house. I don’t know whether that’s a good thing or a bad thing in today’s society. It may be frowned upon, but back then it was like, we’ll leave the little fella at home. Don’t stick your finger or a knife in the socket and good luck to you. So being a 5-year-old kid, I remember going into my cousin Grant’s room and now in hindsight probably wasn’t a wise idea, but kids are inquisitive as I guess I still am at this age, and jumped under the bed, did jump but looked under the bed as you do. There’s a box, what’s in the box? Well, there’s a whole heap of black and white federal comic books, men, and they were the Superman reprints and they were an awful lot of the Neil Adams Batman reprints and stuff.

(02:13:14)
And Mike,

Christopher Sequeira (02:13:16):
You hit the mother mode.

Leigh Chalker (02:13:18):
Yeah, yeah. Mike p plug’s, ghost writer early stuff. So I spent that day, I remember sitting on the couch and very still not being obviously able to read too well, you know what I mean? But developing and falling in love with the fact that I could still, even though I couldn’t understand every word, I could flow with the story and see where the panelling was taking me and stuff like that.

Christopher Sequeira (02:13:55):
And the stuff from that era, the storytelling was superb.

Leigh Chalker (02:14:01):
Oh man, I remember them vividly, man. And sometimes when I hit a page that I’m not a hundred percent sure on, I tend to get the few pages either side than that. I work weird man, and I watch the flow of it. I’ve got a table across here and I lay them out and if they flow and I think that they can work together without words, and I’m happy, I’m happy

Christopher Sequeira (02:14:38):
With that. And it’s, it’s not quite a lost art, but I do frown when I pick up a lot of comics these days. And the storytelling from panel to panel isn’t simple, clean and crystal clear. That’s what it has to be. A beautiful picture is a beautiful picture. But if I can’t figure out how the hell we jump from that panel to that panel, they haven’t done their job.

Leigh Chalker (02:15:05):
Yeah,

Christopher Sequeira (02:15:05):
Haven’t done their job.

Leigh Chalker (02:15:07):
Yeah. Yeah. So I guess what Superman means to me.

Christopher Sequeira (02:15:15):
Great stuff. What a great story. Excellent.

Leigh Chalker (02:15:18):
Yeah. So yeah, there you go. There you go. There’s a piece of information on this. My

Christopher Sequeira (02:15:23):
Lovely, lovely good stuff.

Leigh Chalker (02:15:25):
Yeah. Oh, here we go. Darren Close. Hello, Mr. Close.

Christopher Sequeira (02:15:29):
Hey. Yep. Hey, Mr. Close.

Leigh Chalker (02:15:32):
What’s he saying here? Not quite federal books, but I remember Marvel published Punisher magazine, an oversized black and white book, collecting the early Punisher stories on newsprint Wills PIO with Scott Williams Inc’s. Lovely. I actually have a lot of those issues when they came out, my dad bought those, and that was the first time I discovered Wils and Scott Williams together. I would definitely agree with you, Darren. There’s lovely,

Christopher Sequeira (02:16:09):
Very nice. Well, and Wilson’s stuff does look beautiful in black and white.

Leigh Chalker (02:16:15):
Well, I haven’t seen a lot of his stuff in black and white, but those comic books are lovely. He was very unique,

Christopher Sequeira (02:16:25):
Relevant, Punisher trivia. So The Punisher appeared in Amazing Spider-Man, 125 back in the seventies, but it actually wasn’t that long after that. They tried him out to be a solo character, and I’m pretty sure he

(02:16:48)
Definitely had one. But he might even have had two standalone black and white magazine appearances on his own in Marvel’s Black and White magazine, things that were allowed to be a bit rapier and avoided the Comic Code authority. So I think one was a black and white Marvel thing called Marvel Super Action number one, starring the Punisher. And I think it was a Punisher with maybe a Dominic Fortune backup or something like that, but it might’ve been Tony Deger artwork, but it was black and white, it was gutsy, it was the full origin of the Punisher with the family getting killed in the park and all that. And they were really going no holds barred, trying to copy that 1970s Don Pendleton, the Destroyer book series. So showing far more of the violence that they weren’t showing in the Spider-Man appearances. So there was that, and I think there was a Marvel preview that he was in as well, but I’m not a hundred percent sure on that. So yeah, he had one or two and they were the only times he had his own comic for years. And then later on in the eighties or whatever, what’s his face? Mike z and Steven Grant did that five part series and that was a smash hit. And he’s been in I regular colour comics well since then, up until recently when they stopped the character for a while. Really interesting character. Some shadow over the use of him these days, but quite a clever, logical jump from a paperback book genre into comics.

Leigh Chalker (02:18:43):
Yeah, I like The Punisher man, the Mike Zack one you’re talking about, man, I love the first four issues. And then,

Christopher Sequeira (02:18:55):
Yeah,

Leigh Chalker (02:18:57):
No disrespect to Mike. Mike Bosberg was a hell of an artist too in his time.

Christopher Sequeira (02:19:03):
He’s still around. He’s a great artist.

Leigh Chalker (02:19:05):
There you go. I think he might’ve been rung up at midnight and told to get him a,

Christopher Sequeira (02:19:11):
That was one of those cases where the schedule ruled the roost, and really they should, I’d pay good money if they went back to Mike Zeck and said, could you draw it today and we’ll put it as a new trade paperback with you doing the last 20 pages the way the first 80 have been done. It was sad. It was a real shame. And it didn’t do poor Mike Vosberg any favours because it was just such, it was such a disruption.

Leigh Chalker (02:19:46):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, it was, man, it totally was. And I first came across that, I remember Mike Vosberg did some issues of now what I think now, I’ll get your take on this, Chris. I think that the first, I would say 100 issues, this is a big call by me here, right? The first 100 issues of GI Joe, a real American hero from Marvel, I don’t know about it now or where it is in the whole scheme of things now, but from issue one where they introduced him and Cobra Island. I was lucky because dad picked that one up for me. And the first comic that I ever bought with dad giving me two bucks, two bucks, man, I bought GI Joe issue seven. And I’ve got that. And I still say to this day, snake Eyes is one of the greatest comic book characters that’s ever been created. Man,

Christopher Sequeira (02:21:10):
I’m going to disappoint because I don’t know the Joes that well. I did buy that number one. That first one. I think I bought two and three, but I didn’t keep getting it. So I didn’t become a GI Joe fan follower as I did with God most other Marvel and DC mainstream and a lot of other companies characters. But the Joes, I didn’t, and no, look, just for whatever reason, something didn’t click with me to keep it, I probably had to make a choice between that and Spiderwoman or something. And I probably, I couldn’t tear myself away from Carmine Infantino. Yeah. But Bosberg, I’m familiar with his stuff. You’ll see it. He’s got stuff on Facebook and he’s got another, he’s still doing dynamite stuff.

Leigh Chalker (02:22:08):
Yeah, yeah. He still, he a great storyteller, man.

Christopher Sequeira (02:22:11):
He’s beautiful. Another one of these guys sets it up and he’s got a sense of drama. He is got a sense of the characters look real. They’re all standing in poses and positions that look well staged, but I don’t mean in a fake sense. Yeah, no, he’s going, the design sense is magnificent. So he’s still doing stuff,

Leigh Chalker (02:22:38):
Man, in a strange way. The thing with GI Joe, I guess that sort of comes back to what we were talking about before about the flow and the strength of storytelling and things is there’s, from memory, it is issue 87 of GI Joe. And if anyone, this is just me. This is another comic book that I bought at the time, and I still go back to it just for a refresh, maybe once every 12 months sort of thing, and could be wrong. But let’s go with issue 87, and it’s a storm shadow solo story. There is not a single word in the

Christopher Sequeira (02:23:20):
Oh yeah. Was that

Leigh Chalker (02:23:23):
Mate from start to finish? It is just following the story. Oh

Christopher Sequeira (02:23:29):
Yeah. Look, I love it when that’s done. Will,

Leigh Chalker (02:23:32):
Oh man, that is one of, I can’t actually remember the artist’s name. That sounds dreadful, and I do apologise to him, but that is some amazing storytelling because like storm shadows doing things in that comic book, man, there’s the Red Ninjas takings in a Dojo and he’s making movements. That reminded me of when I was a little kid, I was reading Frank Miller’s Daredevil and he brought in the acrobatics with the spin and the jumping and the bouncing and yeah, man, I reckon issue 87 GI Joe is pretty solid story for storytelling.

Christopher Sequeira (02:24:19):
Lovely stuff.

Leigh Chalker (02:24:20):
Yeah, I’ll throw that out there. I’ll throw that out there.

Christopher Sequeira (02:24:23):
Awesome.

Leigh Chalker (02:24:25):
We can. Alright, Chris, bring us to an end, my man. Mate, it has been an absolute pleasure, man. Man, thank you so much. Thank you for being you and Darren. Thank

Christopher Sequeira (02:24:40):
You. Thank you, Darren. That’s very kind.

Leigh Chalker (02:24:43):
And for anyone listening that can’t read it. Chris is a great dude. I really appreciated his reaching out to me recently and not enough folks like that in this scene. Darren Ps I’m liking the new hairstyle, Lee. Thank you Darren. Thank you very much, mate. Appreciate that. And I

Christopher Sequeira (02:25:03):
Think, look, the look is working for you, Mr. Chaka. I think that’s working for you.

Leigh Chalker (02:25:08):
Thank you, Mr. Sequeira. I’ll, before we go, I’ll tell you a funny story. On the day that I decided to shave, I went after about probably about eight years of having a beard of varying length to deciding to shave. And then I went and actually went back fresh. So not only did I feel like I had glad wrap over my face, the wind was whipping me on my face. It was very odd. I basically put my head on my hand at one point and my head nearly slipped off my hand because it was used to getting stuck into the beard and my dogs decided that they were going to bark at me for 10 minutes because they had absolutely no idea. No. So what do you do? Be aware of the dogs if you wear facial hair because they didn’t like it, but they do now, so I’m lucky. Alright, well, alright, so Chinwag is over and done for the first one back. So thank you very much for everyone being patient and enjoying the show and hanging around for a great conversation, great guest. It’s always a pleasure. I’m a very lucky man. Now we’re on every two weeks now just for balance of life and it felt better for me to do these things over two every fortnight.

(02:26:35)
It just felt better and felt like I could give you my all at the time that I could. So I’m going to let everyone know that the next guest on the show, I’m not sure if this gentleman has done an interview before, but I’m super excited to meet this guy. And that is Mr. Aiden Roberts, who recently won the big old award in September at the Paper Cuts Festival with Dead City Lullabies. So man, keen to see what that dude is all about. Keen to see what that dude is trundling out. So thank you everyone. When you see darkness in the world, shine your light doesn’t cost anything to be kind and community is unity. Take care. Lovely

Christopher Sequeira (02:27:28):
Stuff. It’s good night for me and it’s good night for him.

Voice Over (02:27:33):
This show is sponsored by the Comex Shop. Check out comex.cx for all things Comex and find out what Comex is all about. We hope you enjoyed this.