Oh, you sound a little muffled to me, but your volume is good.
Just give another two minutes or so guys and we'll be starting off 30.
Thank you, thanks for having me. I'm just going to test for this code, I have another fix file.
Alright guys it's seven. Let's get it started. What's up nerds and welcome to Comic Book Corner episode seven. Tonight we will be joined by our special guest, Garrett Bromand and propon. Sorry if I butchered that last name from Legend X.
And tonight's topic will be storytelling in Web 3. How comics and digital collectibles can utilize that storytelling and some of the IP rights that come along with it. As always, we'll bring up speakers at the end, so please get your questions or comments ready. And before we start, would you like to introduce yourself a little bit, Garrett?
Yeah, so I'm one of the core team members with legend X. We're also building out a comic centered project that utilizes IP rights and good art to help reward
our holders. I've been in the space for about a year and a half, two years. And yeah, I've just been helping legend X for the past year and a half roughly as we've grown and developed through the space with our community.
Welcome guys and in fact, Geron and I were able to meet through one of our TV of batch holders at 24/7 comics who referred us and thought we should chat. And so we did chat about a month ago, really gave us a tour where they were in their community and then we thought you know as we've been doing the
on a weekly basis, obviously here at the Commonwealth Corner, it's been a great collaboration between Connox and Crypto Podcasts and 24/7. Our goal has really been to break and identify all the community members that are in Web 3, and we want to be in the intersection of Connox books
and Web 3 because it's the two communities that live on Twitter, but don't talk to each other enough. And so this is the reason we're here. And because Garrett is also passionate about comics and his team has been really working in Web 3 over the last year and they're truly committed, regardless.
of the current market conditions. We thought it would be great to have them here just to introduce your project to our listeners and also really like, again, have these discussions about these Web 3 native projects versus our licensed projects. And the last couple of weeks we have
be focused on VV. So we're going to spend this week today, talk a little bit more about the Core Web 3 functionality utilities and projects that come from it. And we thought, "Garabee, great guest." So that said, I'll pass it up to my other co-host, Spencer, and thanks.
Hey, I'm Spencer. I guess I was just doing introductions. I'll introduce myself real quick. I'm Spencer. I'm one of the co-hosts of the Comments and Crypto podcast. You know, one of the things that we do with the Comments and Crypto podcast is really try to push the collectible space forward, both digital and physical and really try to find the intersection of the two.
So that's what we're really excited about, especially a lot of our big focuses on license IP, especially around the DB community. That's kind of where our core community really got its foundation. And then I said of that I also work with Apollo entertainment, which works with Jose Delbo to do all of his art.
and his comic art for the NFT space. And we're also building the Satoshi verse, which is a comic book universe that we helped design with Jose Delbo based off of some of his art. And we have a planter and game that we just launched our Alpha 4 back in January called Satoshi's Legends. So yeah.
Hey there, this is Bing. Nice to meet you. I'm partner in crime with Carl in 24/7 comics. I'm a product manager and yeah, it really happened to jam with you guys today.
So yeah, I think today's conversation was about story time with right I noticed I think we've seen a lot of different variations folks, you know talking about anime talking about movies but yeah
I mean, you actually, you guys project back been around for a bit now and now, you know, even today we saw a project that did like an open net for a Zuki base comment and it did really completely well.
I'm curious, like, you know, way back when when you guys first picked off, maybe you could give you a little bit of your journey of how you guys got into Legend X first and then why you guys chose comics as the, you know, medium of choice.
Yeah, of course. So it all started out with another founder and our artist will Jack. He is a current DC Comics artist. He does covers for them. So it really started with them. And then I got brought on to
the team with another individual who was actually the one that brought me on and it started off with a different vision. One of the founders ended up leaving but the vision was always building out. It started out more as a memeable like MetaV
first style vision that just didn't come to fruition because of market conditions and the other founder leaving. So we pivoted to Will's niche, which is building out IP based on comic style
characters, that way we can actually push forward in a manner where we have expertise, which is, well, I mean, he's been doing comic art and he's been with DC for years. So, you know, that was it aligned more with our actual
visual vision and our expertise and pushing it. And it also gives you the ability to produce a product that isn't what everyone else is generally producing in the space right now. A lot of people are going for gamifications or metaverse style.
rounds, but comics can really help bridge the web to a web 3 site. There's a big fan base for it. And so we're really trying to push the boundaries to help bridge those individuals into the web 3 space.
Yeah, that makes sense. I mean, we're all, whoever's been in Web 3, we're no strangers to pivoting, right? And so everyone's familiar with that. It's interesting because as you guys think about
You know why why will this expertise kind of brought you into comics? What were some of the challenges that you guys when you guys embarked on this vision? What are some challenges that you could share of us?
So I think one of the biggest challenges was having the Web 3 community understand what we were actually building and the actual timeline for that path. A lot of people, you know, it's basic Web 3D gens. They come in and
they want something done immediately, but the reality is, yeah, exactly, exactly. So we worked on things like art upgrades and stuff like that before it became really the meta to swap out
metadata and stuff like that. We did community challenges, different things along that nature to really just help build our community around that organic base that we already had going for us, just so that people could understand the timeline that we were working on. And the
amount of time that we'll had to put in to do things like the art. And then especially with the market conditions and we don't have funding, it makes the timeline a lot harder to really pump stuff out rapidly. But thankfully,
Hopefully a lot of our community is organic and they understood they heard us they were like, okay, what can we do to help? And they understood our timeline and they've been working with us non-stop since and we've really been building this project as a community and a founder basis with a solid time.
which that was probably the biggest challenge was just getting people on the same page about a timeline. That's awesome. I see a bad monkey in the audience who is one of our bad shoulders as well as the person who referred you guys. I think in this challenge I think there's a lot of web-free native
that becomes a challenge when it comes to servicing them as a community. But it's also a great thing, though, when you talk about how you're able to find an organic community that really bonds with what you guys are doing. Now, what I wanted to do actually was then take what I just asked you and
and pose it to spence over here and see if any of this sounds familiar on the licensing side of the video. Because when it comes to World 3, I think when you went through it was a very entrepreneurial kind of almost like to me, sounds like some of the struggles that a local
comic shop might go through where it's a challenge because you guys have a vision, you guys have an artist who obviously is taking on a lot of work but at the same time you're building a community from ground up. Now on the license side, it's actually almost like a...
and proven brand and proven character that people know. But I'm curious if you see, oh actually Spencer disappeared, but I don't know, maybe Bing or anyone else who's been exposed to VB can answer are there similar struggles in that way?
Sorry, Carl. Do you mind repeating the last part of your question again? Yeah, I just kind of the way Garrett explained some of the struggles and challenges he went through. I wonder if that also exists within the world of license.
in terms of like getting like web 3 audiences familiar and understanding and stuff or yeah I think like the way you explain was like you know some of the things was you know people are impatient they want to
things then yesterday. Maybe there's something of Alex G, you want to come up and share as well. We're really trying to connect the dots between the two worlds to see the similarities that happens within a Web 3 project on an independent level as well as one.
that may exist with even larger IP. So I know one thing for sure, I think something that was talked about before was during minting a lot of times I think. But apparently it's also a bit of a challenge when it comes to the life
and find the things. So I also wonder if on the community find the similar challenges or use Kumakawa's that thing.
Yeah, I mean, you know, as as as Carla has as me and you've been working on this project together, like I was a neo fight when it comes to really understanding how IP rights work. What does even really mean? You know, I come from the Web2 big tech world, so pretty far removed.
from that and what the NFT projects and Web 3 projects have really done is just shine the huge light in regards to what does it even mean to be this owner of something and to do something with it. And when I start seeing
like the best example is the board 8 guys or gals and they're able to take it and start smoking off and doing things with their images and really helping to amplify things like marketing and whatever they're trying to sell or hustle with etc.
I still don't really get it. In the sense of, "Well, does this really help?" This is a really good thing. As I'm digging more into it, I'm finding this whole world of licensing. Now I understand why there are things like IP lawyers. Licensing to me was always kind of a
back room, you know, under the table kind of, it just felt like that to me, but now that I'm getting more familiar with it, I'm seeing, I see just like the huge interest, demand, and possibilities with it, which I don't think is really quite, it's not really quite known, you know, and so
I think a lot of what from so I haven't done projects now for over a year with you, you know, and and and of teasing stuff There and we've talked about this a lot even for 24/7 which is the educational aspects of in the need for that for like what can people really do?
with ownership. We were even trying to figure this out even for 24/7 and trying to figure out and trying to educate myself, just being aware of it, educate, and then from there what can you do with it, right? So there's a lot of really interesting things that can be done with the whole essence of I
Even as an artist, when I go out there, there's this gray area where we draw fan art. We're making money off of somebody else's IP, but I'm putting my own sweat and tears and drawing it and stuff. It's almost like free marketing. So there's this kind of unspoken gray area for artists, all the kind of stuff. But just imagine that.
Now if like I now own this image of like a let's just say for simplicity there's a Spider-Man NFT that I own and now I can draw stuff off of that I can make toys off of it for myself and go out to artist Ali and have no fear of some person coming in with a season of the cis right
That's pretty interesting now where I can actually really expand as a creator myself now owning an asset and doing something with it. This is the capitalistic awesomeness that we live in where we can actually make money off of that stuff.
kind of scratching the surface of a lot of this. It's something that again the Web3 community really needs to come together and help push forward. Again, I'm curious to get Garasaut now because I don't know if that was really on the forefront of your value prop for the Legend X
project, but please correct me from wrong, you know, like if that's what you're all we're kind of thinking about. But this is kind of a really unique value proposition that we're thinking about. That other other popular comic platforms aren't able to really provide because, you know, like, I mean,
Again, we had a whole session on VVN stuff, love them, but they're at the whim of Disney, you know? And so there's only someone who's taken do from a licensing perspective. That's where owning your own original IP becomes really powerful. So, I don't get it. What do you guys have any thoughts on IP ownership for the for the legend project?
Yeah, so actually we went into legend X with the knowledge to pretty much follow along with how board ape did theirs like you said it offers the community a lot of leeway to really utilize
their NFTs to help promote and market. And like you said, go out and pivot on their own to further solidify that community branding. So like before we even launched, we let everyone know that there would be shared IP rights. And
that the rights would be personal and commercial. So we did go ahead and reserve some for the instances if we want to use a character in a specific comic or something like that. Like our one of ones will be used in our comics. So we wanted to make sure that they were shared.
So that we still do retain some of the rights, but we also give our community rights that way They don't have to worry if they want to go out and they find their forever legend and they want to go build a comic of their own that's a spin-off for something of that nature Because that's that's really a big thing
and Web 3 is making sure that your community can help build with you. It's in everyone thinks that it's just like, "Oh, can the devs do something, can the team do something?" But you want to enable your community to also be able to do stuff that they wanted. If you want people to genuinely
want your product and to help build it with you. And that'll make your brand as a whole stronger. So yeah, that IP licensing was on the forefront of our project at the beginning. And we modded it similarly to board app as well.
Okay, earlier you also said you're something around how there are some challenges in getting the community to understand what you guys are trying to do.
I guess in hindsight then, what are some of the lessons learned and what are kind of things you guys are implementing to help people further understand the vision that you guys are trying to implement?
In hindsight, I mean, you know, when you're sitting there and you're gearing up for your project, you want to sit there and you want to be like, okay, here is the road that we're going to go down, but in our reality,
There's a lot of stuff as project founders that is actually out of your control. And when stuff starts going into shambles and you know you're still going to push on, it's just really important
to let your community know, okay, these are XYZ is what we 100% will be able to do. But ABC is what we want to do if we hit these milestones.
It's really just a, it's more so a communication technique. I guess I would say to be able to articulate what is feasibly possible with nothing, but what's also where you're trying to push towards
because in the end you want to do a lot more things if you're able to. But sometimes it's just not meant to be and it doesn't work out. So that was our biggest point was when we didn't get funding, people were like
like, okay, how are you going to do XYZ? Because we didn't really lay out our path of, okay, here is our bare bones. This is what we will do, regardless. We can have no funding, we can have nothing. We'll just build with our community.
And so once we finally were able to articulate that and say, "Okay, this is where we're going. We don't have to have anything." People started to understand more about why our timeline was the way it was and what we were going to be pushing out over the next couple of months to a year.
And remind me again, Gary, when you guys were, I know you went through an interesting journey with Legend X just in and of itself, but and, and please share if you can share with the group here. How are you all thinking about the audiences? Like, were you breaking them up and just
like, you know, do you build something optimized for, let's say, the Web 3 savvy folks or the DGENs, right? Or do you go for the non-Web 3 folks and the typical comic book consumer or how did you guys think about your audience? Yeah. So, um,
Our main priority was targeting the niche group of comic collectors in Web 3. So we went and we talked to Pixel Vault, we had a lot of their members. We had a lot of roots in just basic Web 3 as well.
But we also tried to get outside members from outside of Web 3. We had a cosplay artist that came on that we did some work with. But yeah, that was definitely a challenge. I was trying to get people outside
You know will was posting about it on his personal pages and everything to let people know that it was legit But there wasn't a great translation of web two folks that came in but I mean, you know one is one so
that's better than none, I guess. Yeah, and just for the folks that aren't aware, I'm on your website too, like legendx and ift.com, folks, please check it out. Like, Will Jack is the artist. He's a great artist, you know, you look at his stuff, like the super polished
He's got, you know, those work with DCs got Harley Quinn on here and like the guy's got mad chops, right? Even on social media if you look at the numbers if I was like assessing if you will the qualities there like it's balls out, right? Like he's got
great number of followers. If I'm an investor, I'm like, yeah, this is looking pretty good here. Really top quality artists and everything. And this is what all projects go through. Okay, well, it sounds like you got or looks like you got a great fan base and followers.
Check, check, check, you know, you guys did all the right things, you know, in regards to putting the project together. Now, yeah, there were some, those issues that you were mentioning with the investors and all that kind of stuff. But, you all decided to go out and execute, right, and launch.
And so, you know, like what were some of the, what, what, if you don't mind sharing, like, like, what, you know, what were some of the inside baseball there of like, well, crap, like, like, the main lessons learned, I guess, like, the top lesson learned that you had coming out of this.
Yeah, so I think the biggest lesson learned was that if you're gonna be a real founder in the space and attach your name to a project just keep showing up I had a lot of people in the web 3 space ask me you know
Why don't y'all just try and start a new project and get fresh fresh funding D Genzel bomb at the arts good XYZ and that's not that's just not what you do So that was that was definitely one of the interesting points was there were more people
DGNs that were like, "Hey, his art is great. The volume is not because we launched it one of the worst times, unfortunately." Most of the Web 3 native DGNs would have rather saw us go and started new projects to get funding and just start
from scratch rather than just stick it out and keep progressing forward. Got it. And did you all try to also put any effort into like the non-web three at all, like at all? And the reason why I'm asking is because this is something that we're also looking into too.
and probably thinking about trying to invest more in, which is like how can we bring in more non-fledged three folks into the fold, right? This is a little bit of a leap of faith too, but just curious to see how y'all are thinking about that, or is it just too far down the priority sector, you guys?
Yeah, so unfortunately right now it's probably a bit farther down just because of where we're at as a project and you know, we want to make sure that our current holders are getting some value that they're at least comfortable with.
definitely on our radar and we have talked several times about how can we get new web three-holders into the comic space and into Legend X. But it's definitely something that it requires a lot more finesse on how to
board a lot more people. And from a tech standpoint and things of that nature, we're personally not there just yet. But it is one of our priorities that's just not at the top of the list just yet.
And I see I think wills wills in the audiences will if you're there man if you want to come up and Talk about your awesome art and stuff be great to have you up and and maybe share a little bit more about the project and and some of the things that inspire you like I would really love it will come up can't come up because furthermore
something that we're realizing is it's really important to showcase the artist and the creator of the project and what it means. I mean there's another I'm sure you probably heard of the project Huxley right? Like the creator there is front-end is
top of mind and is like super in front of like everything, you know, and I think that really helps to connect the audience and the customer with the project itself and so you know be awesome if you can get well up here and get us thoughts on some of these things too.
Carl, was there something else that you wanted to ask? I don't know if we want to get off on the IP rights yet, but did you have any other questions? Yeah, I think we covered and I think we established kind of like the basis for the challenges with Web 3. Obviously, I think you just kind of started scratching service on
on-boarding new audiences. I guess, Gary, I think just to continue down that conversation, what was, you know, when you said, let's just say one person on-boarded, you know, what was that moment where like the day's share a story as to how they discover you guys, they share a story of
why they stuck around. I mean, one of the biggest challenges with Web 3 is it's really like oil and water with the common book industry. And I feel like a lot of folks who are in the common book space for one reason or another has a lot to say against the Web 3 space. And so I think in a way, something that
that they provide a very safe space that protected the larger IPs from the Disney's of the world and the Warner's of the world. And I think that's great. Now when it comes to non-related life as IP, that's an even
related, there are still a lot of reservations from the Greater Columbia Ministry to want to participate in those types of failed. So were there any challenges there or conversations regarding that, like the feelings of the Columbia Ministry towards the Web Through Space?
So the few people that came that weren't necessarily Web 3 native most of them came from Will's following on Instagram He didn't have a Twitter before coming on to legend X So we started that up and we're trying to get
him one more in the web 3 space and to his audience, his core audience from Instagram and stuff like that into web 3. So we had a few people that I mean it mainly started out with them DMing Will and before legend X.
and our project, he was also new to Web 3. So we had the onboard will and then he was also transitioning and helping on board his core followers that were like, "Hey, I see you're doing this. I won in." Which it was a pretty cool moment because
they would be DMing will, what would DM us with just basic questions about how do I do XYZ, what do I do? So that's where our main core part of Web2 followers has came from. It's from Will's work.
I lost my train of thought. What was the question again? I don't want to get off my tangents. Yeah, I guess then they came through well and then won't work some of the things that they were saying or
some of the things that they react to and what were some of the reason why they stuck around. So I think Noth, Noth's clan has some of the say about that as well. So feel free to chime in and if you all introduce yourselves that would be great and then we'll go to well.
Let's thank you guys appreciate the space. I just was kind of curious as far as the independent side of the comics the entities and then onboarding have Correct me from wrong for the artists aside is creating the IP
and then building a brand and then onboarding A-artises that's open to the idea of creating their own IP and owning it. But has anyone explored the idea of onboarding users as far as leading
that just maybe want to be featured in a comic or but not using the word NFT in it, you know, kind of like marketing in that aspect, if that makes sense. It, I don't know if you guys get the question, but have you guys ever tried that route.
is kind of curious on the response of that.
Can you expand a little bit more on what that meant? You're saying so you're a reader and you want to be part of it but you want to be even more, you want to take it out of even creating a part of sorry. So, so example one. You guys want to bring on new users right?
there be on the artist side or on the user side. So an example as far as art aside, obviously you own your IP, here's the NFT aspect of it and how it works on creating your brand and residuals, yada yada yada web 3 talk. But on the
readers side, how do we bring on readers inside a dozen, you know, reading a digital comic? Well, how about like, if you read it, would you like to be featured on there?
It's not just me or is it not rugged? No, it's not just you not not sure you're a body can't hear you're you're rugged really hard so but
It's okay. I think I think I got the gist though. Um, not to be able to get back in or what, but he brings a really, really interesting point. Oh, there we go. Way better. You got cut off on the reader side. Yeah. And like just going beyond like, how do we get people to read digital comics? And then we lost you.
Yeah, yeah. But it's so telling what you got from what you know, I was under the barically. And I could expand from there and then I'll let you know if you kick it up and then you can
Just kind of curious on that. Bringing on boarding new users kind of idea of more intercom. But they hear the three letter words and then they don't even kind of entertain it.
Yeah, I'll start off on the 24/7 side and then we'll be great to get will or or guaranteed to get their thoughts on where there were what their vision was for legend X but for 24/7 the reader experience
is the main focus area for us and I inadvertently triggered some stuff when I tweeted out, just imagine going beyond just reading, right? Really what I meant by that was it
really triggered a lot of creators, not so much that comment, it was just more about on the creators space. But anyways, on the reader side, if you think about the typical reading experience today digitally, you go to comicsology or you go to webtoons, you read it, maybe you can comment.
You consume the product and then that's about it. You can maybe do some emojis or reactions and maybe also share it if you want to. So they have a lot of just really good features for I would say back in the web two days.
The biggest part that's missing from that, and we talked a little bit about this a few weeks ago, is when I actually read a comic book in real life, you go to a store, you browse, you select, but then you read, and then something kind of magical happens is like, oh my gosh, I, you know,
I'm going to kind of protect this, put it in a bag, and a board, store it away, and then maybe a year later or two years later, it becomes a movie. Now there's the man for the, it's a collectible now, right? It's collecting. So that's where the Web 3 piece for me was an aha moment and to build something that
can give people collectible, which augments the IP, right? It augments the story, the characters, etc. Like I am, I have a ton of toys, I have lots of my hero academia, why? Because I love the freaking characters, right? And so that's where
The physical world, it's done a great job. It was still continuing to do a great job. But now it's like, I don't know about you all, but I'm in LA. I don't have a lot of square footage. So I can't buy anymore toys. So where else can I go to have my stuff? And now there's this thing called digital wallets. Carl showed it to me. I'm like, this is B.
Yes, I hated it, but then I started seeing the lights and I'm like, "Oh, I get it." Now I can, and then BV's got their showroom and all this other stuff. There's a lot of now really interesting use cases on the digital side that you can do with your collectible that you own. So, to answer your question, one of the main things is not just reading
anymore is taking that now beyond just reading and then collecting things, having that sense of ownership, and then with that you can trade by sell those kinds of things, but then just own and love and revisit and enjoy. That sense of ownership is what you have. That's the thing that we're focused on. Garrett will.
What do you guys think? Yeah, I'm gonna give it a pretty short today's because I'm sick, but I hope everyone's doing all right. I think that yeah, the the tradeability and sorry, so strange I can't hear what's going on. Come back some these wrong way. Can you hear me?
Yeah, my voice is gonna mess up to some sec Yeah, the collectibility is key to comics in general. That's a huge part of why people like them and That is there with the NFTs. I think the the thing that will help people make the transition
from regular comics into digital comics is really the way they're displayed. I think like the reader like you guys are talking about is super important just how easy it is to get in and out of a comic. And so that's something that we need to figure out when it comes time like how it's going to be displayed because I think that's
That's one of the most important things. Well, that's an interesting comment because I think a lot of technology has been trying to figure out how to properly display. I'd love to get your thoughts on what there's the guided view from
also pseudo animation stuff that like webtoons has kind of experimented with. And then there's like, well, there's like just the OG way, just show the comic page as it was developed, right? And in my opinion, I like the last choice. And in
may not be the popular choice, but to me a comic book page is kind of like a puzzle in a way, but as an artist you can't make it too much of a puzzle because then it becomes just, you can't even read, right? So it's like a balance between making something aesthetically pleasing, yet also your
So you're trying to direct the eyes on where to go, right? And so if you do a good job of it, the reader's eyes should go where to where you want to lead it. And that's where the puzzle, the fun puzzle, if you will, it shouldn't be too hard, right? But that's where it becomes really compelling. That's where the guided
view, chop the knees of what I just described, right? The guided view comes in and says, you gotta look at this, like that. And then for me, I'm just, maybe it's just me, I'm too old or something. I'm just too used to seeing a page because the page itself is like, there's a whole logic behind the page.
So yeah, curious to get your thoughts on that. Yeah, I would it's real quick real quick. Have you guys ever read a comic on DC3 yet or palm? No. No, on palm in a tea. Yeah, the back out comics. I mean, basically just shows it like
how it was back in the day, right? No, it's a guided reading. So it's kind of like it's got to be. Okay. It pulls up the first panel and then what you're done with it, you hit next and pulls up the second panel. Um, yeah, do you like it? Do you like it? Yeah, it's pretty immersive. I mean, uh, it just makes it easy because I don't come from comics.#
So when I was getting into it, it made it a lot more easier for someone like myself to enjoy the content in the proper order. And then obviously that artwork is amazing on the comments, you know. But I enjoyed it. So I just wanted to kind of share that. Cool. I'm about to check it out because I have my cow. I just never checked out the comics there yet.
Yeah, but where are you gonna say man?
I forget honestly. We were talking about Guided View and Guided View versus traditional. Yeah, I'm not exactly sure what Guided View means because I haven't viewed a comic using whatever that is. I'm kind of assuming what it is, but I could be wrong. So it's not just like saw laid out pages like you would expect.
No, no, how it works is there's variations of it, but typically it's like you kind of see the you see like how the page was fully laid out the full page and then it will like automatically zoom into the first panel and then you see the panel you only see the panel and the dial
log with the panel. And then you hit next and then go to the second panel. So what that actually means from implementation is somebody on the backend has to literally define each of those panels and then the technology will then surface that in sequence.
And so it's literally taking to me kind of the fun part of Comma greeting out because you're your it's just more passive now. It's going to be more passive. Yeah, plus but there is there's some comfort in that plus part of the design is the entire page and how it fits together and some of those really great artists
their pages just look so amazing more so than just one single panel like Jorge Jimenez I don't know if you're familiar with him but he's like one of the absolute best I think he's one of the top artists in the comic art I mean you guys just insane yeah and so like I like
seeing the pages with you know when it comes to art like that the page in itself wants to be viewed but I could see the benefit to it especially if it wasn't designed in that same way go ahead and you know like comic Farlin right yeah and could you imagine like a guided view of comic Farlin stuff like that just be it wouldn't work you know because
because he'll draw like a big ass face, a profile, and then like all these little panels, it's like a, it's the holistic view of it, right? That you have to look at and appreciate and then read through. So that's why I'm kind of more anti-guided view. I mean, no offense, no, I get it. I get the appeal for Guided View too.
Guy, did you really work well for those regular structured grid panel kind of comics, but it doesn't do well for the more like artsy kind of comics where there's more design elements inside the page itself. So as we're talking through this, like technology could in the
directly influence how an artist draws. So if I'm drawing for something that's guided you, I'm basically like a storyboard artist, right? That's true, because you're just going from scene to scene. Webtoons, I mean that completely influences how the art... Yeah. I mean like you
even Justin Jordan, he went from traditional comics to Webtoon. They told me the cadence of his totally different because the way, you know, when we think about traditional comics, you think about web page flips, the way they read and consume Webtoon, they're vertical scrolls. So he would say that he actually
industry could do a lot more with that because the different things that reveal and partial reveal can be done in really fun and immersive ways through vertical scrolling. So I think it will change. And I think what we're doing is going to change the way comics are drawn too because we're doing something a little different in the way we're structuring ours.
And so I think, yeah, I think there is a lot of room to grow in this area. It would almost be nice to have it be like a feature that you can turn on and off. Otherwise, you would kind of want the comic to be designed for whichever reader it's going to be, how put on.
Yes, true. Have you guys actually looked at any of the DC properties that's on webtoons guy? I know this like DC dark horse all of them have done deals with webtoons does anyone
in the audience, feel free to raise your hand if you have, or anyone on stage. Have you guys been exposed to any of that content? Because I'm curious what they look like. Yeah, I mean...
DC has a Batman specific title on webtoons and it's about Bruce Wayne and his son or something and it's definitely tailored towards the younger crowd and I think it's
doing well. I can totally get the logic of doing stuff with webtoons because look at the number of eyeballs that they just have. There's a ton of traffic that they get on there. But yeah, if you read it, it's just like super, it's meant to
be very fast, consumption, very frictionless and you go through it, you get that dopamine hit of just like reading the content and then you either close your go to the next one. I don't know, anybody else? Have you guys seen it yet on webtoons?
I guess it's just me. I haven't actually looked at it. I think you're right, it's almost feel like fast food. I don't feel for after I read webtoon for some reason because I don't know it just feels
I'm a product manager for 24/7.
It's the same, you're competing, you're, it's in the attention economy, right? This, this is a market that we're in. Um, and, and, and we're almost the webtoons is, is kind of like the TikTok version of comic books, right? Like short form video in and out, right? And if you like it, you just keep going, you keep scrolling, you know?
Regular comic books on the other end of the spectrum is like literally like it's like it's like kind of like you're doing homework, you know, you gotta sit down open up the book Flip through the pages. It's a it's a more like you know, I just imagine myself having a sitting in front of the fireplace drinking my scotch and you know reading the
Like I don't think about that when I'm reading webtoons. For me, webtoons is like, I get on a subway, I have like two minutes, just quickly look through something and then I shut down and go. I don't do that with the real comic book. I don't know. What do you guys think? Let's bye bye again. - Let's take your way and put it. It's almost like watching a movie versus going#
So, Stel is welcome to stay. You had some thoughts on all this?
Yeah, hey, Sunzy there. His thing on that we're working. How about now? Oh, there we go. All right. Sorry. My my Yeti was muted. Yeah. So I am looking at a DC webtoons right now. It's the hood. It looks really good. It's very well drawn.
What's interesting to me about it is kind of all the dialogue is kind of between the panels, right? So as you're scrolling, then you get the words and then you scroll some more and then you get some art and then you scroll some more, get some dialogue. But I am like cruising through this comic.
I'm reading it very fast and that's pretty interesting to me. I'm not, I'll be honest, I'm not a really big webtoons guy. I've not really been on in that scenario. I'm more of a physical book person. But to also add- -Street-Street-Street-Street-Street-Street-Street-Street-Street-S#
your stones. Okay. I'll go and start. To add to the reader format, I can see it both ways. So I love to see a good full page that is well designed. But I also
Also, sometimes we'll ruin the story with a full page. So I can see both ways. So if you're just reading a panel by panel, you won't accidentally look forward and ruin something that's happening a couple of panels before. And that's really my big difference there. I've experienced both.
I do like both and it just kind of depends on the read right so I don't know I think you know probably our younger crowd probably likes the guided panel version and we're more of our older crowd probably likes just the full page turn so that's my experience
Well, I will say this. When I see a page that has a lot of words, my mind just instantly starts to shut down. Like I just I'm like, oh, it just feels very laborious to me. And I think you bring up a really good point. Like, like the guy like
Even the guy to view or webtoons, you could do that too. You could just bombard it with tons of text. But usually the Batman thing that you're talking about, 99% of them are like that, where it kind of paces you, paces it such that it doesn't get too overwhelming. When it goes through reading,
But the part for me that gets missed out, I feel like it's a trade-off in an art, right? Because in an art, it's just like, I just know, I know what can this size they drew on. There's not as much like TLC into the art. It's usually drawn pretty quick on procreate or whatever, and it looks like a rush job, and I just don't really appreciate
The overall medium when it comes out so that's why webtoons for me hasn't been as sticky, you know But even as we're talking about this it feels like there's like really legit use cases for that like scrolling form and like in that part of the storytelling versus like the more you know expansive
complex vision on a page kind of thing. Actually this would be, sorry you're sick Will, but I will love to eat your thoughts on this because literally as part of Legend X when we first met you guys, you know, if you don't mind sharing like the original plan was you're going to launch and then you're going to use that launch
to then really create the comic itself, right, of all your properties. But then it turned out, you know, things turned out the way they did and Will, you were going to take on the bulk of the labor, if you will, on actually drawing the comic. So like, will we, you know, work any of these even on even top of mind at all? Or how are you approaching that?
Yeah, looks like we got dropped down. Okay, or Gary. Yeah, maybe you can talk a little bit about that too, but yeah, so yeah, he actually has taken the lead.
Well, there he is. What was the question again? Sorry. Hey, well, yeah, so the question was if you can share a little bit about like the initial strategy that y'all had in the Legend X project, I believe it was you guys were gonna do the, you know,
do the mint and then use those funds to really build out the comic. Is that right? And then things turn out the way they did and then you're literally working on the comic as we speak. Yeah, my plan was to use a good amount of funding to get an interior artist
or two because that's so much work and it's really a specialty field which I knew before I tried doing it but like I'm a cover artist I do I do generally one piece at a time really popular
and I can sketch too. I do that a lot, but doing interior art is a different kind of taking art to completion. I can do the sketching part, but then there's so many techniques that go into doing it in a way that
that's ready for line art and then, you know, doing the coloring is there, there's just new techniques that I have no experience in. So yeah, I had no intention on ever doing that myself. The goal was to hire professionals in those fields to do that art.
But you know the project hit roadblocks and so I did what I what I could as far as workload and You know, we're we're a good chunk of the way through the comic. I think did we send you guys the there's like a sample four pages or something?
I can't remember. I love to see it though. I would love to see it. But if you don't mind Will, maybe for folks that aren't aware, that there is in the comic book world, there is a cadre of folks who just work on covers. And they make good money.
And they're beautiful covers and then there are, and then what will kind of describing here is there's a whole different skill set and different muscles, different techniques for interior art. So maybe if we can just spend a few minutes just kind of talking about
what that really means in the world. Yeah, and it's often a three-person job. There's a breakdown of responsibilities that often goes. There's a pencil, a sketch artist, an anchor, and a colorist because they're so special to
focus skills like each one of them is very very different so to truly be the best of the best they do only the
one thing and they do teams of three people on comics very often. Or like Jorge Menes does line art and ink I think. So there's some
artists who do that and then have a colorist or they break it up in different ways but generally that's like a two or three man job. What made you just want to focus on cover as opposed to like covering in interiors? Well I'm a traditional artist. I
I used to do gallery work, portrait and figurative work, study at Florence Academy of Art. So I started out as really just like a figurative kind of realism painter. So when I got into comics, that was kind of the natural path that I took.
And then though, actually when I was a kid, then I was still getting first getting into art. I was really into drawing comics and I was doing like interiors of comics, which is funny that it would come so full circle, but I didn't practice it. That's how it's a little kid. So if you wanted to try to
So if we play a scenario where it's like, all right, well, we want you to really do interiors now. What would you try to do to build up those muscles, I guess, and to do it with
to the quality of level that you would also allow yourself to do. Practice is the only answer. You have to practice anything to get good at it, and even though I've done my 10,000 hours of art well over,
It hasn't been focused in this one direction so it would take me 10,000 hours to get good at that But it would probably take me 5,000 you know to really to really dial it in Take me a long time to have it be kind of second nature like some of these guys that are really good like for covers. I don't really have to think that much
I think you're hitting it right there. It's the thinking, right? I don't think it's so much like the technical skills. I think it's just like that that way to interpret text into like a scene. There's a muscle about that, right? That some folks are really good at. Or, you know, like just how to stylize.
Yeah, yeah. And then, yeah, and of course you got some other folks that are that just knowing some of the shortcuts and and pro tips right that that some pros have that they've only done it like you said through practice and through probably with working with studios and other artists and stuff. And a lot of them I've
Really draw from their minds better than
So I'm kind of like, I'll slave to it a little bit.
which makes my work come out more realistic but it's also not a good trade to have when you're trying to do interior art. Yeah, yeah, there's there's a lot of trade also when it comes to interior and also short on making it work I think the result is is fairly good considering that I've
I don't specialize in it. Yeah, so I'd be curious to see what you guys think of it. Yeah, now I can't wait to see it. Yeah, I'm excited to get a look. We're in there last five minutes, so we'd love to invite the audience if you have any questions for Whale or Garrett. I think it'd be good to definitely
continue supporting them in any way. Obviously we'll all stay in touch, but I think we're on the same boat. One thing I say, one thing to ask me about all the different comic book projects is the more the merrier. I think we all got to stick together because I don't think VV can win by themselves or I don't think pumpkin win by themselves.
I don't think any of us can win by ourselves. We all need to do it together to establish a new industry for what's to come. And I think I've been on way too many spaces this week because apparently I'm just getting rugged left and right all day. So.
have you targeted. One thing we could do is folks are interested, like a prompt that we could have here is, what would you do if you were the IP owner of, we'll say, like, LegendX here, right? And I'm not an owner yet.
But like I'm looking at the designs here and you know like just in the webpage we've got the female characters I don't know like Will or or Gary can you talk a little bit about some of the core characters here and to help spark maybe some ideas for like hey what can I do with this IP?
Will you want to hit on that one? I cut out until just then I missed whatever was said. Pretty much just elaborating on what people could do with these
you character IPs in Legend X, like if you were to buy one, what would you do with your IP? Well, so actually the question, yeah, thanks for that. But the question is, it's like, what are the-- It's just like a board ap, where you can use it for anything you want. You could start a
it's like you can do whatever you want with it as IP and create a spin-off which you know if you are good at creating that can be beneficial for the holder and then it's also obviously good for the
the product because of any marketing is good marketing.
then help inspire like the the boardy side off as a day my throat my uh sounds pretty raster right now but I appreciate you guys bringing us on thanks we'll all right yeah we're definitely having technical difficulties on here but but um uh I don't know okay anybody else hear me okay so
Carl. I can start hearing you again but for a while I could not hear anything. Oh, thank so much. He is telling me. Yeah, sorry guys. I don't know if it's my connection or what but I keep cutting out. Yeah. Oh good. Well, like
Personally, when I'm looking at these NFTs that you all have, I can easily see these as toys. I can definitely see some fun collabs with our 24/7 content as well. But, Karra, what do you think? What would you do if you were doing this?
or I don't know if Carlos just stones what would you do? Yeah so I'm looking at these characters and you know they look pretty awesome and to me I'm thinking D&D campaign you know something
like Legend of Vox Machina, let's on Amazon, just something like that, where I get like three of my friends, four of my friends together and we build on the IP together. And that's really what's coming to me.
Super cool. So you would start actually building some backstory and and
and then even finding some friends who have some characters and you just start like, collabing on it like
together. Build a world together, build a campaign together, maybe make a web tune out of them and just take five of these characters, get five different ones obviously, and then just see where you can take it. Where were you thinking with
the D&D aspects, like you're literally going to give the attributes and powers and stuff for-- Yeah, they just have that vibe to me, right? So as I'm looking at them, I'm thinking, OK, well, maybe it's not D&D specific, but they kind of have that-- you could maybe go--
You know, the kind of like a GI Joe feel to him too. So you could do like a world in GI that GI Joe universe where you're just like, okay, you know, we got five of them, they're, you know, mercenaries or whatever they all work together. They're they're hired to take on some job or maybe there's some corporate, you know, entity that these
these guys are fighting and they're kind of just freedom fighters in the background. It really depends on what you as the IP older wants to do with that, right? So whatever your vision is, is what you should grab onto and take that and run with it. - Yeah, I'm even starting to guess I'm like legal legends vibe on this too, by the way.
There's something there as well. Yeah, and so he actually makes a great point We did a contest of where our holders actually did a group up five and they all had to meet certain attributes to like with wings Some of them with radios for that to
to actually draw up their own like squad style story with each of their members fitting the different attributes and like what their mission was to really tap into that IP usage just to start drawing people's brains and stuff like that.
we were building out our lore. Very cool. Yeah, now I see the GI Joe guy that you're talking about here like snake eyes almost. That looks pretty dope. All right, was anybody else from the crowd? Any any questions for Will and Garrett here?
If not, dude, guys, thanks so much for coming up. Will, you're sick, but awesome for being a sport and a wave in any other outros we got, or we get to go. Yeah, if we're all good to go, thank you everybody for coming in and
listening. I know we've had a little bit of technical difficulties. But yeah, thank you everybody. I don't know if anyone else on our side has anything else to say. But if not, we can tune out. Oh, good. Thanks so much. Garrett, yeah, we'll keep this. Keep the dialogue going, man. Yeah, greatly.
appreciate y'all having us. Thank you for coming on. Have a good one. All right, guys.