S6 EP27: The return of Professor LatinX

[00:00:00] K-Ondes, Primos and Primas and Primes and welcome to My Primos Podcast this week without Freddie our fearless leader is out recovering but returning from the abyss. Chibume founder of My Primos Podcast co-founder where have you been Walter? You know just making moves in the background you know.

[00:00:32] It turns out that My Primos Podcast has a very generous paternal leave program. Oh yeah, yeah we do. You are getting equal payment right now for the last few months, take care of your kids. You've been getting paid this entire time right? Yep, yep, yep.

[00:00:47] The exact same amount. Are you sure we're living in the US? Well when we say equal payment we don't pay any of us so he is getting paid the exact same amount and that other voice you hear is our special guest Professor Fede

[00:01:01] Aldama, Professor LatinX himself, Master of Branding because literally you can just type in Professor LatinX on Google and you get nothing but him. That is really good. So not even Professor X right? Like you, you have a step above, a step above.

[00:01:18] Yeah, writer, educator and supporter of BIPOC creators. Professor tell people about what you do. Oh my god well first of all it's really good to be back on the show. It's been way too long but I know that the Primos have lots of you've got a

[00:01:36] deep long list and it's a big honor so to be back here with you both in an equal pay situation. So yeah I mean what have we been doing? We've been, the Latinx Pop Lab at UT is often running and we're rocking it over there.

[00:01:55] We have comics Jeopardy Mondays with undergraduate students come in and we just like for 25 points name the concept for displaying a narrative voice in a comic book. Caption okay you get it. I got a trivia one for you. What's a Grolix? Okay you're coming on the show.

[00:02:27] You've got to come on the Jeopardy show. What is a Grolix? A Grolix is whatever you see a character that's cussing but they don't actually cuss you just get a bunch of squiggly lines. That's a Grolix.

[00:02:38] So that's one of my favorite comics only words is that it's like. You are so in the deep in the weeds but I knew that about you. It was from the guy that draws Beetle Bailey he made that one up.

[00:02:50] So what else is a Latinx Pop Lab doing? So okay well one big thing for the calendars to come in and Kevin we got BIPOC, Pop Comics, Animation Video Game, Art Symposium and Expo March 7 through 9 2024 right around the corner.

[00:03:12] So I want to have as many of you can come. We got LASA students. We love LASA students. Bring them all bring more. You have this seriously Kevin you are making and being made by the smartest kids on the planet.

[00:03:30] So we don't know IT High School at the at a magnet school here at the public magnet school here in Austin and the LASA students got invited to speak at the last BIPOC pop and that was a lot of fun.

[00:03:40] They kept talking about that they had a blast with it. BIPOC pop which I love is kind of like a comic con combined with an academic symposium so it's like a half hoity toy you know education stuff and half buy my stickers which I love that combination.

[00:03:56] In fact, Chikoumai we're talking you have little Chikoumai's going around there and they are all up for those stickers right? What stuff do you get those kids? What kind of stickers do you look for? What kind of comics and stuff do you look for as like a parent?

[00:04:11] Well I honestly whatever the color the more colorful they are the more they like them. That's like that's kind of anytime when we go to one of the cons or anything like that they love all of it the color the you know outrageousness of it.

[00:04:27] Chikoumai remind me and I'll bring some of these for you. Oh that's awesome. It is, it's our Carlito. He's our vegetarian Chupacabra that's why he doesn't have any fangs. He'll end up in the cup holder watch of the car seats. Yeah.

[00:04:49] You should make a cup cups for kids. Next on the list. Yeah. Of course. So just to tell you yeah Chupacabra Charlie was at the Cannes French Film Festival right Kevin I think you saw that the animation film that I made. I got to see it last year.

[00:05:12] He actually made a little appearance there was one of the films selected at the screen at the Cannes and my co-producer the team that helped me one of them actually went out to France to see it screened it was pretty cool.

[00:05:33] I couldn't go I didn't have time but anyway really cool stuff. I could have gone in your place you could have just told them I was you. I mean they're European they don't know the difference.

[00:05:41] I told them that my you know my my cousin my primo and his you know his name is Benjamin Bratt slash Kevin Garcia could be and you know but you know they they they have got a spot for you.

[00:06:00] So Chupacabra Charlie was a cartoon and you've also done children's books and other kinds of books as well. But the main reason we're really excited to have you on right now is because you have a brand new comic book coming out next month right.

[00:06:14] This is this part of Chispa Comics we've had David Bowles we've had Hector and we have many other creators here but we haven't really talked with you about Chispa. So could you really quick remind us what is Chispa Comics and who are you making for Chispa.

[00:06:30] Okay so well Chispa Comics as you some of our listeners viewers may know well already given that you're helming this awesome podcast or helping him is the kind of brain kid of David and Hector David Bowles Hector Rodriguez.

[00:06:50] And really it was for you know there's a ton of us out here including you Kevin and many many others creatives that want our comics out in comic bookstores like we love that we have our community and we've been able to build through kick starters and get our

[00:07:11] stuff into hands and grow readers but you know there's nothing like seeing your comic in a comic bookstore right. And so Chispa working with you know so then creating Chispa and then working with

[00:07:26] Scout Comics to do that but then David and Hector coming up with and really in real terms the kind of brain kid of their of David and Hector this the 13 and you yourself I want to hear a little bit about yours which is actually the 13 right.

[00:07:47] I'm the 13th of the 13 you are the second of the 13 I'm the very last one. Well what are the ideas of the 13 as characters is that these are Latino Latina Latina characters that are superheroes and recently for Hispanic Heritage Month on

[00:08:02] Tiktok I was doing videos about like obscure Latino and Latina characters at Marvel and so many of them were not created by Latina creators and it shows because there'll be some embarrassing stereotypes or some stuff that really

[00:08:17] doesn't age well and the idea of us making our own superheroes. That was really appealing that's why when David reached out to me and you and a bunch of other people it was like yeah this is this is really cool.

[00:08:30] Each of the 13 are heroes who are inspired by somewhat named after and certainly empowered by one of the day signs in the Aztec calendar. So that's why there's 13 of them but your specifically the first one by

[00:08:44] the way just came out so feel like they just came out as we were recording this it came out. This is Hector's and I was describing it Hector's first character is El Paso Héro he's been doing for over 10 years who is basically like

[00:08:57] the original version Superman the one who could leap tall buildings and was strong but not throwing planets around and like the original Superman he fights for social justice but his character fights for justice on the border and now he's introduced this new character Sepulote who is basically that

[00:09:17] but Batman fighting for it in Latin America. I can't wait I have not had a chance to get over to Austin Comics and books but first thing in the morning I'll be there. Well this book just came out and I've still gone through it I'm enjoying what

[00:09:33] we got so far this is kicking off the adventures but yours is going to come up right after this 13 origins so below the number one but yours is going to be 13 origins pyro class number one. You got it. What is pyro class. Yeah pyro class.

[00:09:51] Oh man you know no. I've been working on it so long how do I get into it. No but you know I don't know for you Kevin and Chukamaya I don't know if this is interesting or for our audience but when David was like OK

[00:10:08] basically pyro class that's your superhero name Aztec you know we have our Aztec calendar and this is a basic like three or four word kind of description about it go and that was awesome. I love that because for me you know pedro Pete Lumeris like the others turns 18

[00:10:34] and really comes into this. So awesome. Love it. Comes into you know this realization kind of retrospective realization of why he's been kind of half suffering and not fully understanding himself. And by that I mean a lot of struggle a lot of issues.

[00:11:07] His mama is gone right she's not in the picture anymore and I'm not going to you know give any anything more away on that score. He's his his I mean his papa has gone his his his surrogate papa is

[00:11:24] basically his Dio George and he's got a little sister and one one way or another. He starts to this kind of struggle and anger that he's bottling up starts to materialize express itself in this hardening of his skin.

[00:11:45] And there's a moment when in this particular story when it actually creates this basically this kind of outpouring the burning up this heating up of hot lava. And so what to go back to my point we were given a mission but we weren't constrained too much.

[00:12:09] We were given a conceit we were given a name and we were given a couple of identifiers. And I loved creating this character and I hope our readers will as well. You know he's super cool. He's like me Irish Mexican mixed.

[00:12:27] He's in a community working class community in California that I call San Sebastian named after the Catholic saint that has become a patron saint of LGBT LGBTQ especially gay Latinx folk for the for the sacrifices right that San Sebastian made.

[00:12:53] But he's a cool kid who's like a super to confident cool guy but kind of you know a loner. He listens to nine inch nails reads fantastic for right. Jane's addiction smashing pumpkins all the all the stuff I love right. It's hard to his life. Yeah. Oh cool.

[00:13:13] And yeah. Yeah. Hey all that stuff is cool now. Yeah. Oh man. OK I'm so glad to hear that. The most funny to me is like I teach teenagers every day right and it's like when I was in high school I would listen to some

[00:13:29] 70 stuff but like most of the teenagers around me had no idea what those songs were. But for the kids now everything from like 1979 to today is still fresh for them. I think largely because of the accessibility of the Internet.

[00:13:43] So so many of them like I was playing some music the day and they were like is it the clash. I love the clash and I'm like OK. All right. Yeah there's you know it is interesting today I gave a mock

[00:13:55] lecture for our welcome center admissions we bring in high schoolers seniors from all over Texas for a day on campus which is actually it's one of my favorite things that I do on campus for the university because I get to be around all

[00:14:13] these really smart awesome mostly Latino kids from across Texas and you're right. They know more about the 90s and like 2000s in terms of music TV everything then I think I do. Yep. Seriously I had a kid's kid tell me the day.

[00:14:34] Wait you watched Friends and I said yeah I watched it when it first came out and then they go oh did you also watch MASH when it first came out and I was like how do you think I am. All right well.

[00:14:48] Well I think Friends doesn't age well you know but but anyway back to the topic of power class. Yeah things that that got me from your description right now is that for a lot of superheroes their powers are kind of

[00:15:00] symbolic of their their past or their struggles or their personality and it sounds like for power class this this holds up right. It's it's it's part of who he is this idea of putting this wall up in an and a burning one as well right.

[00:15:15] Yeah absolutely completely the other cool thing to come in that I don't know if you've got a triumph in your garage that you're rebuilding but that's Pete loves to do that. He's been working on you know he goes to the park the

[00:15:30] parts and pool and he works on his motorbike and Pete being power classed himself. Exactly Pete being power classed himself but going back to the 13 and yours and so on with the other thing that I love about this is teenagers you know there's

[00:15:48] nothing more exciting for me besides having a teenager then that time in our lives now for better or worse it was it was a time that was filled with all sorts of anxiety surveillance all sorts of things but at the same time

[00:16:09] a real time of possibility and I think that's what the 13 for me it's not only resuscitating and making vital our indigenous ancestral roots within a comic book superhero universe it's also this time of development in our lives. Yeah because every member of the 13 is 18 years old.

[00:16:31] Eight yeah and who are you working with as an artist on this professor. Oh yeah so yeah Guillermo is on this one but I'm glad I'm really great to work with and but again you know Kevin it's it is really important.

[00:16:54] I know you've done comics in different kinds of situation but for me it's really important to be able to jump on a zoom call or a phone call with the artist and kind of work some stuff out because it's not obvious and especially

[00:17:08] if you've been drawing like Guillermo and most you know comic book especially superhero comic book artists for mainstream comics. You know the bone structure the palette the phenotype the all of that stuff is so ingrained in much of what they

[00:17:27] do that we kind of have to remind them that hey it's okay to have a wider nose it's okay to have a browner face you know it's we're all sorts of different shapes and sizes we're not all like with like ripped abs and what have you right.

[00:17:43] Actually discussion I've had with artists before where they would just kind of want to present everybody as this kind of vanilla white and I'd be like hey that's that's not representative you know you need to there's people out there but so you were working with Guillermo

[00:17:56] Villarreal I think I've seen some of the preview art through our little chispa chat and it looks looks really good I'm really excited about that going to that comes out next month. Are there any other 13 members that you're looking forward to. Well yours.

[00:18:13] Okay that wasn't I wasn't fishing for that I was just kind of curious. Let's I want to hear about yours. All right well you are the second of the 13 as we said earlier I'm the 13th of the 13 I'm working with artist Martha Ortiz who goes by pastel de

[00:18:28] Soriana on Instagram and Tik Tok and everything. It just like you I got a list of characters with a very brief description and it essentially came down to you know be let's be blunt. Let's see this girl girl you know this is a character

[00:18:43] that is upbeat and positive and believes the best in people and immediately I asked David you know David Bowles can I can I have one of the main villains because there's one here that's basically an animalistic serial killer and I want to put

[00:18:57] a really happy person against that and it was that was my goal there and I also wanted to have a Latina artist that was very important for me. So I reached out to Martha in Mexico and she has this like anime style that's very much inspired

[00:19:14] by you know cartoons and and you know a lot of things that teenagers really like and look up to but she also has a very dark edge to her style so you see if you look at her Instagram you can see a lot of characters that are like

[00:19:27] just covered in shadow and you can see they've got terror or anger in their eyes and and it's just it works really well so I'm really enjoying the process of working with her like you said Zoom calls are helpful a lot of back and forth

[00:19:39] it's been a lot of fun. So important. So do you guys pick the style or the like the artist has to kind of adapt himself to or herself to the art type of art or how do you guys approach that?

[00:19:57] Yeah, Professor did you did you seek out the artist or did you have a plan for style of art? From what you described they kind of gave you a pretty blank slate right and kind of added to it so then how much of a leash pretty much

[00:20:15] they give you. Yeah I mean checkmate that's a really good question and also in that while a given artist might have a certain kind of comfort within a style I mean you know the artists we're working with and artists generally

[00:20:40] I mean you could pretty much be like look actually I don't I'm think I'm not thinking superhero here in terms of like conventional style I'm thinking manga I'm thinking steampunk whatever and they'll be like yeah you know what it's not something I've been

[00:21:01] I've done in a while but I guarantee you they'll figure out like one they've done it and they can resuscitate it and two if they haven't done it they're willing to give it a shot so that said Guillermo was kind of appointed to me but it's not

[00:21:18] always the way we work like Kevin just share his yeah I did seek out my goal was to find somebody who had a style that matched the character because well well as a reader I might like hyper realistic for a character like Koneha

[00:21:33] who's going to be the 13th character I need somebody who could do light and somebody who could do fun. Yeah so but checkmate on this for me it'd be interesting to as these characters come out you know from one to 13 and they eventually you see

[00:21:53] crossovers right and it's like artists trying to cross over and then you kind of get you know just to kind of yeah you get enough you get an artist that seems more like I don't know what's his name with a particular style crossing over with another and they're

[00:22:13] kind of coming out you know crossing each other's path because they're in the same universe and everything right so it'd be interesting to see that pop up yeah the paths cross so I was yeah no yeah that would be cool and in fact we

[00:22:29] see that a lot and I know Kevin probably has one heck of a huge long list of comics that he can talk about on this but yeah where you have invited artists into the story world that was created by a buddy a friend

[00:22:46] a fellow artist and they go in and do the story and it's interesting because it it you realize just how much the style does shape the story when you have a same story or the same character drawn by someone else and you're like

[00:23:14] wow it does make a difference and you know what it's like it's like it's like every other app out there that you can slap a filter on it and it completely changes the mood of a as a person I like that yeah yeah spoiler

[00:23:29] alert that is the plan after my issue comes out the 13th of the 13th the plan is to have a team up book where they're all going to be in one story and that's going to be written by Terry Bloss who is you know a

[00:23:46] you know I want to say a rising star he's done a lot of good stuff already in the comic industry but like he's getting more and more noticed every time and so we're really looking for that I don't know who the artist is

[00:23:56] going to be Terry Bloss is an artist himself but he's going to be writing that story and you talk about different art styles I'm looking ahead at some of the other books coming out after Pyroclast one of them by David Bowles child is is David Bowles son is

[00:24:10] Shaper which just the art style is very different from the others it looks more cartoony but also has a lot of emotion to it and then Vendaval is another one that has this kind of ethereal kind of almost looks like a webtoon kind of art

[00:24:24] and I'm really enjoying the different styles so I'm also curious what it'll look like when everything comes together at the end and you get to see you know a variety of of characters done under a new artist style you know yeah can I share so another question

[00:24:41] so as they come out the the one through thirteen do you then continue like for example you know and you put yours out and it's like do you come back and collaborate later or is it sort of maybe again again like in the

[00:24:56] comic book world when they it's a maybe these these are one shots and then we're going to have the team-up series by 30 plus after that we'll see where it goes okay yeah yeah well but we're going to have our um Chispa cinematic universe

[00:25:12] after all this right and it's going to star Kevin Garcia on his way to the canned french film festival um so let me ask you both um on the same related notes um can I share a little bit of my upcoming graphic

[00:25:29] novel vignette that I did with Oscar Garza yeah called through fences it drops in January um it's it relates to everything we've just been talking about so through fences it drops in January and this was um actually we've got you know a nice blurb speaking of David Bowles

[00:25:52] David Bowles the omniscient omnipresent David Bowles but this is a braided graphic novel graphic novel in the sense that it's braided graphic vignette stories what do you mean by braided I'm not familiar braided okay yeah I'm gonna yeah thanks Kevin braided by braided

[00:26:15] it means that the stories exist in and of themselves so you know um the story about Albert Alberto the story about um each one has it their own their own Rocky has his own story um there's one I mean each one La Maggi, Alicia each one

[00:26:44] and they're all youth they're all young folks but there's something in the story itself that braids it in with the other stories so um they're all us Mexico borderlands set so you know Calexico, McCallan, Sani Cedro you know and the thing for me was on the note

[00:27:07] of author and artist working together now you'll see that this was with our local friendly Spiderman Oscar Garza who illustrated it I I picked Oscar because with Mashbone and Griffty and his work it's very cartoony very smart very satirical it wasn't so much the smart and satirical

[00:27:35] that I was aiming for definitely the smart but it was the cartoony because going back to your point Kevin these are really hard stories and if I had done the kind of photo gone with the style of an artist who's more into the kind of realism of comics

[00:27:56] you know Batman damned whatever it would have probably repelled the viewer we needed someone like Oscar who did the cover by the way to be able to What I love about Oscar with his work with five meets is that he's able to take

[00:28:13] things that that seem simple on the surface but as you look at it it has so much more depth to it he did one aimed at little kids for example the the lemon pepper one and it's just like every panel while it

[00:28:28] you might have a dot for an eye you would still see there'd be a motion in the kids there'd be you know something in the background that kind of tells you what's happening what their world is like and I told about this I was

[00:28:39] like man you know I you told me this was a book aimed at kids and I didn't expect so much depth to it and and so I like the idea of having somebody cartooning like that to go for something that is emotionally powerful like you're saying

[00:28:50] yeah that makes sense yeah so that just goes back to your point Chuka Mei that you know it is it is really important and one of the things about working either for Chispa or working for ourselves or independent of kind of either the big comics

[00:29:13] publishers scholastic you know of course the the mainstreamers DC marvel but also you know pantheon etc is that we get to choose our artists and they're not chosen for us yeah and and yeah having an artist match the story always one of the

[00:29:32] vital things it's not the first time you've worked in graphic novels before right you've done others before yeah so I mean you know well first of all let me just say Latino graphics itself which is a trade press you know that I curate and edit I did

[00:29:52] I established that I founded that precisely because we need outlets Chispa's doing certain amount of work and it's very recent but we need outlets we need publishers especially publishers that are not only going to get these into the hands of our readers but into the hands of high

[00:30:12] schoolers into classrooms K through 12 fifth grade etc and a lot of that means having our books in you know the hands of librarians and we need that huge apparatus that allows for and that opens doors into those spaces that the kind of mainstream like scholastic seems to

[00:30:35] automatically have and so yeah creating these spaces for not just us not to get too political but if we do fuck it uh it's good I mean it's podcast what happens it's it's that's important because you're hearing so much so many stories about access to books

[00:30:56] these days that it's good that there's somebody else there's other people doing their own stuff out there and you know more power to them they're kind of curating their own material to try and supplant other material I don't know

[00:31:11] I'm not gonna get it part of it but the fact that you you're writing your own stories and making them available so that it reflects more of what who other people are in this case myself and our own you know background stories families because let's not let's not

[00:31:30] short come ourselves from telling their stories you know so that's very yeah no we have to be there on the front lines not only opening spaces but defending defending librarians who for the most part are the ones most aggressed teachers as well but librarians by the way

[00:31:51] Scholastic recently had their diversity button where you could choose not to have Latino or Black or LGBT creators yeah they literally they put you can only hear about that on their website so they had a button you could put with your ordering books like don't

[00:32:07] show me any books that might have diversity of characters or it's like the crazy part about how historically at least in pop culture librarians have had well librarians fought against yeah librarians are either like this sexy woman the most boring person in the world

[00:32:25] right but but they're the ones of the front lines and it comes to books and free right now they're literally in the lines and it's like you write a comic book about a librarian it's like writing people off and defending whatever and Scholastic

[00:32:39] by the way did walk that back they said they're not gonna do it anymore well only only because of all the pressure right exactly it's like it's like an equivalent of uh Indiana Jones but instead of stealing stuff you're putting stuff back you know like national treasure

[00:32:58] or something like that but yeah you know you know I was just um at the local one of the local libraries up in Ohio Columbus Ohio and fighting tooth and nail to keep the books but it all started because a parent saw a special display that was

[00:33:25] kind of tied into a librarian who was given an invitation to the middle school to talk about LGBTQ coming of age stories and one parent these days with social media and the megaphone yep creates hell for this for this one little tiny library that

[00:33:48] was doing the right thing yep you know uh you talk about changing times right before we started recording at Chakumaya you were asking about uh you know the economy because that's you know since since the pandemic we've got you know issues of banning books

[00:34:04] and we've got issues of people you know going after free speech we've also had issues of you know just funding things right uh what were you what were you asking us about well I was just wondering like obviously everybody gets affected from you know

[00:34:22] what you buy at the grocery store to write everything else um which is kind of important and and we do what we do here in the podcast right humbly um try our best for all the pay we make the big bucks for that reason yeah um

[00:34:36] well they don't exist in uh in some kind of bitcoin some kind of coin ethereal or not um but yeah like I imagine like just supporting each other because you know time they're getting tough so it's it's it was already tough it

[00:34:57] seems like you know um and it's only gonna get tougher so how do you see that landscape because it feels like hard times right you kind of make it through hard time to pop up through the other end and hopefully right how do you see that landscape

[00:35:11] kind of evolving or devolving you know for whatever progress has been made as of yet yeah so professor I you know as somebody who's published other people's work is it is it trickier it is it is trickier but so now we're faced with the question

[00:35:38] do I publish with and go with someone that's kind of mainstream or do I go with someone who is maybe not going to get me into all the comic bookstores or all of the libraries but who will actually let me tell the story I want to tell

[00:36:02] small published versus go after the big publishers where they're going to be giving you a lot of micromanagement yeah and since basically um it's you know it's censoring right I mean on a it's not the big visible censoring like we're pulling your book from

[00:36:18] the bookshelf or putting a button on a website right it's um you know what um you need to take this out because we won't publish it if you keep it in yep yep I've heard so many stories like that so many stories but what to say a second

[00:36:34] ago was supporting each other right and that's when I said when I said a second you've published other people um when I first met you virtually you know through an online interview actually I had to think about it uh it was because you were uh promoting other

[00:36:48] Latino writers other uh BIPOC creators um and one thing I've said a thousand times that I love about the Latino comics community is that it's always about supporting each other it's always about trying to promote not just our friends but but people who are just you know

[00:37:03] friends of friends primos you know yeah no that's great yeah why is there something you've put such a big effort on yeah because exactly what you just said first of all okay so like basically what it's I'm in a position in my career where honestly

[00:37:22] if I didn't write another word I'd be more than fine like I've published so much and I'm at the kind of top tippy top of the ladder right so the AI would be able to go who you are so if I say right right in

[00:37:41] the style of frederick odama yeah there's that in fact I just found out one of my books is the entire book has been swept into the AI brain anyway that's a whole other story but back to my point look we I think we're all there like the second

[00:37:59] that we can take we get where we need to get wherever that is you turn around and you bring everybody with you yeah here it and that's just the way it is we don't even think about it at least or at least leave some

[00:38:15] breadcrumbs or a string and hey catch up you know yeah I mean I'm so that's kind of my thing and you know we got Latino graphics you know that you know has opened the door for a bunch including by the way more stuff

[00:38:30] really focused on youth Latinx youth like the speculative fiction for dreamers that came out right that um Matthew Goodwin was kind of you know helming yep I'm at him through the online interviews too the all of the other comics that have come through

[00:38:51] there my original volume called tales from la vida which by the way you know is has become a an anthology comic that has been adopted into classrooms across the country it's in the Smithsonian Museum you know it's so like doing these kinds of things

[00:39:13] that have lasting deep impact not just for the authors and creatives that we work with and that we love but also for new generations coming up who can see themselves in these spaces brown ink I just I'm going to launch brown ink with flower song press it's

[00:39:33] going it's the word and image book storytelling imprint of flower song press and I'm going to launch my book called the absolutely almost true adventures of max rodriguez with that um so by uh so brown ink latino graphics chispa but then you

[00:39:55] know I we've got other things coming right around the corner another edited anthology that I put together with Angela um Dominguez who went you've met I think Kevin she's the one that's running the latinx animation stuff out of LA she was a

[00:40:13] by-product so we've got one called from cosinas to lucha libre wing sides in a way it's a sort of follow-up to the tales from la vida and again another way to kind of open doors for new gens of creator storytellers to kind of get their stuff out there

[00:40:34] and we just keep doing it you know I wanted to show you both and I know where's a podcast but I did want to show you this is um I'm gonna drop the steampunk heracronicles will drop in the artist of that so this is Miguel Hernandez and beautiful

[00:40:51] beautiful work um this is set in the mid 19th century in Mexico but it's a steampunk and the entire um kind of super team are latinas of very varied backgrounds ancestral heritages um there's the little monkey cogsworth I appreciate that there's a monkey wearing

[00:41:14] a pilot's hat uh that's you always need to have one of those I love it I love it so you know we are out there doing this doing the work man which I mean in like a recent father right two and four year old uh that's

[00:41:31] why I've been away if anybody wants to know um and I'm here trying to raise my kids educate them as best I can to then pass them on to Kevin so then Kevin can pass them on to Aldama over there it's like the home

[00:41:47] the school the school the school pipeline yeah yeah instead of the what is it yeah said of the said of the what is it school to prison we don't need that you don't need that one we don't need that one right um so like I

[00:42:01] now that the kids are of age it's like they love going to these comic-cons what we would have Mexican-American coming up pretty soon yeah right in in a couple weeks uh November 4th Mexican-American in Austin is it still at the Mexican-American yes and no it's still being hosted

[00:42:17] by the Mexican-American cultural center the mac but it's not going to be at there it's going to be on the other side of the expressway it's going to be east of the expressway because last time they paid they paired it up with what other event I

[00:42:30] forget with the day of the dead celebration it still will it still will be that's still going to be kind of overlapping so there's going to be a bunch of vendors there a bunch of one thing I loved about it last year

[00:42:38] is that we had a bunch of call book artists and a bunch of like like poster artists and and then we had a bunch of like vendors who make shirts and and and purses and and all kinds of other kinds of like art pieces and it was

[00:42:48] just it was a cool combination of people so you had fans of one type of craft and fans of one type of art coming and meeting the other type of artist and it was it was a beautiful crossover it's going to be that again but a different location

[00:43:00] professor you're gonna be there yeah the pan american park right yeah yeah i'll be there one to nine p.m. i'll be there i'll be tabling nice i'll be there as well i'll be i'll be hosting uh one or two panels uh there when we're there

[00:43:14] probably record them put them online later very cool um yeah what are you gonna bring the kids yep yep yep and that's what i was talking about the kids now better bring the kids um have access to that you know because i i know

[00:43:27] some of you guys and it's for me to kind of oh shoot like it pops up in my feet somewhere oh let's go do this let's go check this out so that does a lot more easier to kind of expose your kids to to people that they

[00:43:41] know they look like you know when they walk past the mirror on their way to school because they dressed up and as kids become self aware trying to be as poetic as possible um so it's very easy like i got my

[00:43:56] what i got a wall in the living room full of like stuff i've picked up at comic cons you know and it's like i like what he does um and as that's because it becomes a much more available that's pretty damn cool pretty damn

[00:44:10] awesome you know in my book but what we were referencing earlier that that like that fight that keeps kind of it feels like it feels like it feels like all of this was welcomed because we everybody something would always pop up or some reference would always pop up

[00:44:28] regarding that little black girl being asked what doll is beautiful right yeah well yeah a lot a lot of things of that where it's like when you don't get exposed to you know people not just like you but other people as a kid

[00:44:44] then you just start seeing the default being you know white this happened to me as well when I was a teenager reading x-men comics one of the first thing I noticed was that whenever they had a character that wasn't you know plain white

[00:44:58] they were always from another country now i'm not saying it was great having immigrants in the story but the idea was you couldn't be mexican-american unless you were from mexico you couldn't be brazilian america unless you were from brazil and and even a storm technically born

[00:45:11] in america raised in africa because hey she's black we have to explain where she's from and it wasn't till i saw the character of skin join generation x was a you know us born you know mexican america and i was like oh wow

[00:45:24] somebody who has my background you know i was excited because it was just so rare to see in superhero comics and then so we talk about that with a little girl is that example if you don't see these examples whether you notice it or not it

[00:45:37] affects you you know and they're here now yes idea they're shining a light on it we're you know more being created and you know we're shining we're making them shiny like like cheese but and it just goes back to that and it feels like in my mind

[00:45:57] it feels like there's some kind like progress is not linear right one step back what is it two steps back one forward or something so it's like it feels like okay we have to like you can't get sometimes you feel like oh that's so awesome

[00:46:13] there's brown dolls you know but then it's like oh what who's doing what to what library librarian and cancers are like is Texas the ground zero should I worry that much about it you know like because my kids are my my four year old

[00:46:30] just started school at the about a month ago just started school and it's like god damn it do i need to worry i thought this was well look forward as ground zero Texas is at least ground two we're okay we're

[00:46:47] not okay at all we're not okay at all yeah but that's why we have to say aware of it we have to stay cognizant yeah anyways that's kind of like um it's the battle is still there the field it's still in play it feels like and you

[00:47:01] guys are fighting for it so thank you for that you know most like the best I can do support so that's one thing that just support support support so well this this podcast is really important right i mean we need we

[00:47:15] need it to be coming in all it's not just one if it's coming at us from all directions in a way that's always been kind of like a straight jacket well then we gotta be out there in all kinds of ways right because you

[00:47:31] have what's what's the former huckabee the former speaker or uh oh yeah yeah the governor so then it's like part of me wants to respect them because they actually believe that but then part of me is like no they don't it's just for show and it's like ah

[00:47:52] like okay let's okay and like it's like you would at least imagine let's compromise no they don't even want to they just want to burn them like what is it what's that like literally Fahrenheit for what is it 451 yeah everybody always says you know book

[00:48:08] burners have always been on the same side of history so yeah so yeah it's like yeah and I i don't want to burn anybody's books you know what this is why this is why we have events like BIPOC pop right we talked

[00:48:21] about at the beginning of our show want to come back to that real quick um BIPOC pop is about supporting those voices having communication between those voices not just like yeah exactly and inspiring the next generation as well and and I said earlier that I

[00:48:36] like how the Latino comics community is very interconnected by pop-pop expands that to people other communities um feather can you tell us a little bit about like how that came about and what what the goal is for BIPOC pop yeah BIPOC pop you know

[00:48:53] going back to all of our point which is you can try to hide from us now but you're not going to get very far like look we are everywhere and we are doing amazing things everywhere and Austin is like a hot spot for like

[00:49:15] you know our creators thinkers you know right yeah and uh you too being like at the kind of core you know and let's bring everybody together let's let's do this bigger than Latinx let's bring our brown black indigenous Asian brothers and sisters together

[00:49:39] in and around comics animation video game arts and celebrate one another but also bring in new gents into that space so that they can carry the torch the spark the cheese spa right and continue to light those flames and BIPOC that's what it's all about and

[00:50:00] you know we need we need mexamerican but we also need to clear and make you know forever and eternity these places where we can speak to our brothers and sisters that share common histories but also have very different experiences to learn from one

[00:50:21] another to grow with one another and to lock arm and push hard against you know those people with the megaphones that are telling us to pull books from bookshelves yeah and not only that it's like you can only reboot Iron Man so many times like these

[00:50:37] these are badass characters uh what's a downing jr did a badass job with that i don't think they'll ever be a better one but you know you can only reboot them so much before it just turns into the and it feels like in today's entertainment cycle things

[00:50:53] just move quicker quicker quicker so it's not even like 20 years later the remake of whatever it's like no five years 10 years later and it's like i'm still alive like can you that's why we that's why we have to inject new blood into pop culture

[00:51:07] new blood from new sources new types of creativity new types of creations that you don't even have to i mean you don't even have to fake it like literally the people are there you just have to give people the opportunities for those that's exactly what we're

[00:51:23] saying they have the power in their hand to do so so and you're not asking and on the other hand nobody's asking for a handout it's like it's good shit like this is like we said earlier it's we're promoting each other once somebody's been promoted you

[00:51:39] know they get fans and they don't get fans they get readers they don't get readers but the point is they probably would not have had that opportunity if somebody like professor earlier somebody with a megaphone didn't promote them yeah oh hey before we before i forget

[00:51:53] i want to mention november 11th soft launch for the latinx pop magazine ooh i didn't know about this yeah and the latinx pop magazine is going to be um in a way a kind of hub for people to go to so like for instance

[00:52:14] the the primus podcast is going to be there pop cult x will be like resourced there we'll also be generating kind of our own content reviews you know thought pieces um you know in and around new media tv film and

[00:52:33] so on latinx but we also we want people to know that if there's a podcast or a um a website that has anything to do with latinx pop culture and its peripheries you could just go to the latinx pop magazine and find it

[00:52:51] so will you find my primus podcast there yeah you will find it absolutely okay as a reminder um 13 origins pyrocross comes out november 22nd in comic book stores in let me phrase that good comic stores everywhere you know i already know austin books and comics is

[00:53:10] going to have it i know a tribe comics that you're not talking about it okay i'm gonna say it again austin book because i've been just ordering austin books and comics yeah we have so many comic books here in austin and i think all of them better be

[00:53:24] carrying cheese for comics the 13 origins um freddie if i'd rather thank you so much for coming um how yeah yeah missing freddie in the cloud but but feather uh how could people find you online well i already said earlier you can just google you

[00:53:44] yeah at professor latinx yeah exactly latinx yep and uh tukume out of curiosity since you've been m i a so much can people find you online is there a way to find you alone leave me the fucking alone i'll be here when i

[00:53:59] fucking want to uh but hey i wanted to ask professor i want to ask the professor last time i i spoke to you at least here in the podcast uh you had you were about to move here and how's it been

[00:54:14] because we all three of us are actually here in austin right like yeah yeah yeah um you know it's been it's been great great because of folks like you folks the you know havi and and everyone that puts on the mix america on everybody who throws down for

[00:54:36] by pock pop the latinx pop lab um you know we've got incredible creatives like cat fahardo's in town ashley franklin's in town all latin latinx comic books makers of ton of folks coming out of the bat the austin batcave um laticia um you know

[00:54:57] everybody over there so yeah it's amazing i mean are you moving from columbus ohio to here it's like you know i went from you know um a great space once a year when we had soul con which is something i put on um similar to

[00:55:14] by pock pop and the rest of the time it was a desert and you know here we're around one another constantly i love i get i get students from you know kevin's high school they call me regularly to interview me about you

[00:55:30] know what's you know what's a you know what's your favorite adaptation and why you know things crazy stuff like that so yeah i love that part i have to say there was a big sacrifice that i make my daughter is you know i have been

[00:55:45] put it this way i have a lot of frequent traveler miles she's in columbus ohio and the she did get into lasa by the way kevin's high school good to hear um um but it was gonna be you'll you'll be there

[00:56:02] but it was gonna rip her world apart to uproot her and bring her to austin at the time going to high school yeah yeah yeah that's a particular time to up and go just like that yeah so for me personally it's been you know a lot of

[00:56:23] traveling but um in the end i made the right decision for lots of reasons not just because of the awesomeness of austin um but and the long-term big picture of everything we're growing here in austin in and around latinx but um you know

[00:56:43] my kids off to college next fall and you know she's gonna do just fine wherever she ends up keep your fingers crossed she gets in the ut austin and she wants to come that would be amazing i then i would kind of have made up for lost

[00:56:59] because she would be right here that's awesome that's beautiful and and i want to point out to other people who are visiting or thinking about visiting austin these events we've been talking about by park pop and uh mechs americam they're free you know

[00:57:12] bring your families check these things out see the artists talk to the writers uh thank you again so much feather for joining us you can obviously listeners if you're hearing us we are on all the podcast sources out there my primus podcast we're also my primus podcast

[00:57:28] com check us out and on all the social media is that at my primus podcast and oh i just realized without freddy here no one's been calling me at kevin garcia underscore com because every time but man it's been a lot of fun thank you all thank you

[00:57:45] primos out there good night enjoy the weather it's finally not that hot anymore okay bye