Polish off paneer biryani with Tobias Carroll as we discuss which punk rock music made him a fan, why his heart belongs to novella-length works rather than massive epics, the artistic motivation for sometimes not giving readers what they've been taught to expect, the reason Ann Nocenti's run on Daredevil was meaningful to him (and why he believes it aged so well), his fascination with deteriorating physical media, why Edward Hopper's classic painting <em>Nighthawks</em> would have made the perfect cover art for one of his books, how you know when you've stuck the landing with a short story, and much more.
Chow down on cryptid pizza with writer/editor Lesley Conner as we discuss why horror is where she feels the most comfortable as a writer, how her role at <em>Apex</em> magazine grew from Social Media Manager to Chief Editor, her "Price is Right" method of filling out an issue's word count, why she hardly ever reads cover letters, the trends she's seen in the slush pile and what they mean, the key difference between editing magazines vs. anthologies, her longtime obsession with serial killers, how to go on writing after one's writing mentor passes away, and much more.
Devour a Georgian dinner with Dan Parent as we discuss why we both loved the legendary Ramona Fradon, how a Charlton Comics pamphlet gave him the tools to take his art more seriously, what he learned working at the start of his career with the great Dan DeCarlo, the character fans demand he draw the most during his convention appearances, the Archie artist who tormented him during his early days, how to respect legacy characters while still keeping them fresh, whose blood got added to the ink of which comics, how hopeful artists can do now what he did then, and much more.