TO ME, MY X-MEN: Our hosts are joined by the show’s resident on-the-ground-Marvel correspondent, Kyrun Silva (of Taurus Comics) to talk about the first the episodes of the highly anticipated Disney+ animated series, X-Men ’97. WARNING: spoilers, hot takes, and deep lore dives abound in this episode.
THE STROMAN ARGUMENT: Kyrun Silva of Taurus Comics and the 4 Tales Podcast joins D. Bethel for this week’s show and they talk a bit about some recent guests Kyrun has had on his podcast.
WEEK IN GEEK: This week, Kyrun dives into Alan Moore’s celebrated run on DC Comics’ Swamp Thing while D. Bethel is awestruck by Godzilla Minus One (though, technically, he watched Godzilla Minus One Minus Color).
(00:00) Intro – Welcome, Kyrun Silva! (11:20) Kyrun’s Week in Geek: Alan Moore’s Swamp Thing (21:10) D. Bethel’s Week in Geek: Godzilla Minus One Minus Color (42:46) Outro – A Mini Con Artists (46:25) Outtakes
It’s been over a year since D. Bethel sat down with Taurus Comics’ Kyrun Silva to talk about reading, making, and selling comics. Since both hosts recently released new books, they spend some time to focus on what is probably (for some) the least fun part of the comics creation process: marketing.
Con Artists #01 – StocktonCon, pt. 1 : The drive home from the first day of the show. Kyrun and D. discuss making sales, confidence, and the comics they grew up reading and enjoying.
Con Artists #02 – StocktonCon, pt. 2 : The drive to StocktonCon to start Day 2 of the show. They discuss the importance of continuity, the level of fan engagement and ownership over continuity, and Dan’s strange reading habits growing up.
Con Artists #03 – StocktonCon, pt. 3 : Where Kyrun and D. talk about the breadth of indie comics, writing comics, and dive headfirst into personal nostalgia.
In the world of 2021, not much has changed. Hope and optimism dares to tread across the jamb as COVID vaccines get into the arms of people across the world and, for independent comickers, conventions start to return…kind of.
After attending only a few shows in 2021––their first in nearly two years––D. Bethel (of the webcomic, Long John) and Kyrun Silva (of Taurus Comics and the 4 Tales Podcast) reconvene to share their experiences, fears, and surprises with the fact that comic shows and conventions have become very different beasts from what they were before, and how difficult it may be to adapt.
Con Artists #01 – StocktonCon, pt. 1 : The drive home from the first day of the show. Kyrun and D. discuss making sales, confidence, and the comics they grew up reading and enjoying.
Con Artists #02 – StocktonCon, pt. 2 : The drive to StocktonCon to start Day 2 of the show. They discuss the importance of continuity, the level of fan engagement and ownership over continuity, and Dan’s strange reading habits growing up.
Con Artists #03 – StocktonCon, pt. 3 : Where Kyrun and D. talk about the breadth of indie comics, writing comics, and dive headfirst into personal nostalgia.
CAPTAINING AMERICA: With the next big Disney+ MCU series having come to a close, our hosts bring in our brand new on-the-ground-Marvel correspondent, Kyrun Silva (of Taurus Comics and the 4 Tales Podcast), to talk about Falcon and the Winter Soldier (especially since Dan still doesn’t have Disney+).
RELEVANT EPISODES:
“Episode 96 – Applejacks. Hot Dogs. Thursday. Fire Truck.” (13 May 2016): Where D. Bethel and Andrew talk about Captain America: Civil War where the MCU last dealt directly with Bucky “Winter Solider” Barnes and where they introduced the Daniel Brühl’s Baron Zemo.
“Episode 107 – Spock’s Screams” (23 September 2016): Where Andrew and D. Bethel discuss the interesting concept of legacy characters.
“Con Artists #06 – Tickets & Tables” (11 December 2020): The most recent episode of Dan and Kyrun’s show about reading, making, and selling comics.
RELEVANT LINKS:
Twitter thread by Margaret Owen on Twitter breaking down intentional design choices of John Walker’s Captain America costume (and why it fits so weird…on purpose):
2020 was a year that upended all expectations. Though the threats that 2020 brought affected people in a variety of ways, for most it became a year of simple survival. For nerds, of course, we turn to the things that occupy our attention, inspire our imagination, or generate conversation. This year, we are looking at the things that helped us survive 2020. Today, Kyrun Silva––creator at Taurus Comics and co-host of the Con Artists podcast on this very website––shares what kept his spirits up this year.
Okay, let’s get this out of the way: 2020 sucked for most of us. For me it sucked a lot. No comic book conventions, no family gatherings, no martial arts training (which also meant I didn’t get my black belt this year, maybe next year; who knows?), and so many other things. 2020 will be a year that remembered forever, but even through all this turmoil Some things still brought joy to my life. A few of those joys were geeky things. While my family’s love (and the sheer variety) of anime––a mainstay of my 2019––allowed us to explore all of the feelings that came with the pandemic, there was one thing in particular that––aside from annoying my wife for half the year––really hit me hard.
HAMILTON
I have to admit, ever since July happened my family hasn’t been the same.
July 3rd, 2020 was the exact day. It was a warm evening. Dinner had been consumed, and we sat down to relax. Instead of watching more anime, I suggested we watch Hamilton, which had just been released on Disney+.
I heard about Hamilton over the years. I even watched a couple of YouTube videos showing clips of the original cast performing on stage, off stage, and in the White House. For years, my wife and I tried to get tickets to see it live. When news got out that Disney had bought the rights to stream it, I knew I had to watch it. From the opening couple of notes I was hooked. The music, the voices, the pageantry, the dances, I loved every minute of Hamilton. Maybe a little too much.
Source: Disney
The entire musical is three hours long with an intermission in the middle. For my wife it probably felt like an eternity. The problem is, after my first viewing, my love for Hamilton didn’t end. One viewing turned into two, then three, and soon became double digits.
I quickly found the soundtrack and lyrics online and soon began singing the entire musical all day every day. My enthusiasm for this phenomenon spread to my oldest son, who quickly joined me in my madness. He and I started taking different parts of the show––he, as Alexander Hamilton; me, as Aaron Burr. Then my two youngest joined us.
My wife was not amused. She said I was a grifter1 of sorts, tricking them into liking the show. I say they just have good taste.
Presumably, this is Kyrun and his son at least twice a day. At least. Source: Disney
I became a Hamilton zealot, searching from anything I could get my hands on about the musical. My browser history became filled with searches of the cast and crew. Even to the point where I started watching the show Station 19 because Okieriete Onaodowan, an actor from the musical, was now on the show. Side note: I already watched all the episodes of Black-ish that featured another Hamilton cast member in Daveed Diggs.
Hamilton is still played at least once a week in my household. Yes, the enthusiasm may have died off a little, but the love is there.
2020 was a crazy year. Though I wasn’t able to consume my geekdom in ways I had been accustomed to in the past, I found alternatives that filled that void and helped bring my family together. We’ve created new memories together that will strengthen my family’s ties and give us something to look back on years down the line.
As the pandemic rages on, more and more independent artists are left figuring out how to manage their careers in the absence of in-person events, specifically exhibiting at conventions.
The pandemic is also a time for reflection. As the big conventions struggle to give fans some semblance of the con experience through digital-only replacements, independent comickers D. Bethel (of the webcomic, Long John) and Kyrun Silva (of Taurus Comics) come together to discuss the difference in experiences, expectations, and realities of what going to a convention means for fans versus what it means to creators and how the chasm between the two experiences may be larger than they thought.
Con Artists #01 – StocktonCon, pt. 1 : The drive home from the first day of the show. Kyrun and D. discuss making sales, confidence, and the comics they grew up reading and enjoying.
Con Artists #02 – StocktonCon, pt. 2 : The drive to StocktonCon to start Day 2 of the show. They discuss the importance of continuity, the level of fan engagement and ownership over continuity, and Dan’s strange reading habits growing up.
Con Artists #03 – StocktonCon, pt. 3 : Where Kyrun and D. talk about the breadth of indie comics, writing comics, and dive headfirst into personal nostalgia.
WEEK IN GEEK: This week, Andrew enthusiastically plays the 2nd edition of Pathfinder, despite not fully enjoying the first edition, while D. Bethel gets really excited to play an adventure game based on one of his favorite comics, Blacksad, but gets horribly disappointed by Blacksad: Under the Skin.
RELEVANT EPISODES:
“The Volumometer Incident” (10 July 2014): Where Andrew shares his experience playing the Pathfinder card game.
“Starting By Starting” (03 January 2020): Where D. Bethel discusses the noir adventure game inspired by H. P. Lovecraft, Frogwares’ The Sinking City.
“Nature’s Velcro” (03 July 2020): Where Andrew plays the computer RPG, Pathfinder: Kingmaker.
Everything has changed in the wake of COVID-19. This applies, of course, to indie comic creators, for whom the pandemic hit especially hard in terms of income. With gatherings of people not likely to happen in any safe capacity for awhile, it has many creators asking, “What do we do in a world without comic conventions?”
D. Bethel and Taurus Comics’ Kyrun Silva sit down to talk about creating comics during a pandemic. While a dour topic generally, they manage to find the laughs amid the serious discussion of the future of indie comics and the conventions they hold so dear.
Con Artists #01 – StocktonCon, pt. 1 : The drive home from the first day of the show. Kyrun and D. discuss making sales, confidence, and the comics they grew up reading and enjoying.
Con Artists #02 – StocktonCon, pt. 2 : The drive to StocktonCon to start Day 2 of the show. They discuss the importance of continuity, the level of fan engagement and ownership over continuity, and Dan’s strange reading habits growing up.
Con Artists #03 – StocktonCon, pt. 3 : Where Kyrun and D. talk about the breadth of indie comics, writing comics, and dive headfirst into personal nostalgia.
The YouTube playlist of the short videos D. Bethel made for Chapter 4 of his webcomic (the music changes regularly after the fourth or so video; he was playing catch-up):
This year we are hosting a variety of looks back at 2019 as hosts and friends-of-the-show offer up the things that defined the year for them. Today we hear from indie comic creator, friend-of-the-show, and Con Artists co-host, KyrunSilva (from Taurus Comics), talk about what 2019 meant to him.
2019 was an interesting year of nerd and geek culture for me. The year came with a lot of highs and lows, but for the sake of this retrospective I’ve decided to stick with the highs. This year brought a lot of change for me and my family when it came to our geekdom. I continued to find that my love for comics keeps changing; in a sense, I was reintroduced to a medium that had been almost forgotten to me for awhile and my childhood dreams finally were able to come true and assemble.
INDIE COMICS
Though it started in 2018, in 2019 I really started to notice that my love for comics had started to shift. This year I noticed my tastes for books going away from the mainstream things that Marvel and DC brought to the table and turning more towards indie publishers. This change solidified in the trimming of my saver list at my local comic book shop. Where once I had fifteen to twenty books that my shop saved for me each month, I now maybe five are saved.
A sampling of Taurus Comics characters: (clockwise from top left) Starcore, Malik from Shaman’s Destiny, Xob the Lightning Wielder, and Ruby. Art by Michael Dorman (lines) and Anthony D. Lee (colors).
Part of this is the ability to watch Marvel and DC’s characters on the big and small screen. The ability to regularly see the Flash, X-Men, and others took away a bit for my need to read their ongoing comic book exploits. The major reason, though, is that I’m so engrossed in the indie comic book culture. I know and follow so many amazing creators that I want to support and buy their books as much as possible. This has left me with little funds to support big name publishers.
I enjoy indie books so much that I find myself supporting and advocating for them when someone asks me about comics; I even mention indie books before I mention any from the big publishers. With books that range from standard superherolore to horrorcomics to anything and everything else, the indie community truly has something for everyone. Yes, you will find some duds here and there, but overall the indie community produces hit after hit at every turn.
ANIME
2019 also brought back an old friend to me and my family: anime.
Though I have been watching anime since the ’80s and ’90s, I haven’t been able to appreciate all the available books, shows, and movies. With comic books, sports, and family obligations, I just haven’t been able to watch anime like I had before. That seemed to change in 2019, not just for me but for my family.
It actually started with the series One Punch Man. My oldest son had been watching the series before any of us and asked if we could watch it while we ate dinner one night. From that point on, my family was hooked. My wife, my 3 boys and I watched One Punch Man every week when new episodes came out. But we had a problem, we had binged all the episodes and the next season wasn’t out yet. We needed a fix and fast.
(R-L) One Punch Man, My Hero Academia, Naruto, and Demon Slayer Source: (L-R) Viz Media, Funimation, Viz Media, Aniplex of America.
In came My Hero Academia, and it blew our minds. The action, the storylines, the character development. It was everything we had wanted and more. So, again as a family, we started binging another series.
But that wasn’t enough for us.
My wife and other son started watching Naruto and it’s 600+ episodes and I started getting into the series, Demon Slayer. Anime had become so important to us, we started contemplating if we should dress up as anime characters for Halloween––that is still up in the air. However, it is nice to have something that we all enjoy, something that we can talk about and look forward to as a family of fans.
AVENGERS: ENDGAME
Avengers: Endgame was not only a milestone for 2019, but for the last ten years of Marvel movies. Source: Marvel Studios
“AVENGERS…..ASSEMBLE!” Those two words, exclaimed by Chris Evans playing Captain America in Avengers: Endgame was the highlight of 2019 for me.
As the culmination of 10 years of Marvel movies, I’m sure I’m not the only person to think this was one of the highlights of 2019, but for me it was a dream that 13 year old Kyrun never would have imagined possible. The idea that theatres would be packed to see a comic book movie was unthinkable in the ’80s and ’90s, but today it’s the norm. With what Marvel has done we almost expect them to be massive hits.
‘Nuff Said. Source: Marvel Studios
Endgame also brought an end to an era. Seeing these heroes come to life and die was like watching a friend leave. I’m not going to lie, I shed a couple tears during Endgame the first few times I saw it. I for sure screamed and cheered when Cap wielded Mjolnir. I cheered when Thanos was defeated. I was there when Iron Man first donned his suit on the big screen in 2008, and I’ll be there for whatever they bring in the future.
So, that’s my 2019. It was a great year. There are more I could have mentioned, but I felt these were the biggest ones for me.
Sacramento native, Kyrun Silva, broke onto the comic creation scene in 2015 launching his first independent title, Shaman’s Destiny. 2017 saw the beginning of Taurus Comics, a new solo small press line dedicated to the many worlds Kyrun is bringing to life, including Shaman’s Destiny, Xob the Lightning Wielder, Ruby From Planet Oz, Pathfinders, Starcore, Donner Lane, and more to come.Kyrun has also been the co-host to the spin-off podcast, Con Artists, with D. Bethel.
