COURT OF THE DEAD - SIDESHOW COLLECTIBLES

"I think storytelling is really important to humans, and I think it's really important for us as creatives to be able to put out stories and kind of get people thinking." Lacee Shaw, Court of the Dead, Sideshow Collectibles Originals team

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ABOUT COURT OF THE DEAD:

The Sideshow Collectibles Originals team of Anna Van Slee, Lacee Shaw, and Ricky Lovas join the podcast this week to talk all things Court of the Dead. Where did the idea for this massive story come from? Who are the characters and the factions involved? These questions and more are answered by the team that created this incredible property and we also talk about what is next for Court of the Dead - figures, board games, and the possibility of a TV show and more.

ON THIS WEEK'S FUELED BY DEATH TV SHOW:

This week on Science, Dustin and Jeff break down some new finding from the Cassini Grand Finale. Since the beginning of this show, Cassini has been a favorite Science topic and it is interesting to hear all the exciting new data that has been discovered. Where did trick or treating start, and where has it ended up is on The Roast, and some details about upcoming mugs are on The Update.

DEATH STAR OF THE WEEK:

Meet George Hain this week in the Death Star segment in the show below:

TRANSCRIPT:

Jeff: You guys are all part of this incredible new project, Court of the Dead, which, I mean, common. [inaudible 00:00:07]? We're really excited about, cause it's all centered around death. That sounds really great. But, I want to know who you are, and what your specific role is in that project, and then we'll get into that from there.

Anna Ansley: We are the Sideshow Original's team.

Jeff: Yes!

Anna Ansley: Court of the Dead is one of the many Side Short Original properties, and that's what we'll be focusing on this today. I am the sideshow originals director. The director of the program, Court of the Dead and all its many iterations, games, comics, cartoons, everything we'll talk about. Collectibles, of course. I oversee all that.

Jeff: And what's your name?

Anna Ansley: I'm Anna [inaudible 00:00:49].

Lacee Shaw: Small details.

Anna Ansley: Yeah.

Lacee Shaw: I'm Lacee Shaw. I do a lot of the social media, but also, I'm a graphic designer. I've been with sideshow since 2015. Yeah. Like May 2015, and then moved over to sideshow originals beginning of the year.

Anna Ansley: We kidnapped her.

Lacee Shaw: Yes. I'm okay with that.

Anna Ansley: Willingly.

Lacee Shaw: Yes.

Jeff: Awesome.

Ricky Lovis: I'm Ricky Lovis. I deal mostly with our publishing and graphic design, and some art direction on some 2D art. I've been here seven and a half years. It's long. Pictures.

Jeff: Yeah. Yeah.

Anna Ansley: I guess I'm right in the middle. I've been here for about two years, so you guys look at the whole breath of the experience from the jaded. He's been here forever, to Lacy, who's mostly unspoiled.

Lacee Shaw: I'm having a lot of fun. At Comic-Con, it was great. Wonderful time.

Jeff: Oh, good. Good. I don't know how you can work at a place like sideshow and not have fun. Is that possible? You don't have to answer.

Ricky Lovis: [crosstalk 00:01:59]

Jeff: Would you please list the not fun things that happened here? Chronological order.

Anna Ansley: We do work.

Lacee Shaw: Yeah. There's work involved.

Jeff: So let's talk about Court of the Dead. Where is the inception of this? How does this come to be at a company like this?

Anna Ansley: Well, that was actually the intention from sideshows beginning: to do original IP. We were so successful in our passion and fandom and interpretation of the beloved DC and Marvel and Luca Film, and all of our other characters, that that kind of took over the company's mission for a long time.

Anna Ansley: It wasn't until about 2012, with Court of the Dead, that we started getting back to the original intention of the original IP. Court of the Dead specifically comes from the head and twisted heart of our chief creative officer Tom, who unfortunately couldn't be with us this afternoon. But we carry his vision forward, so we'll represent it well. Tom's a classic metalhead. He played a lot of DnD in high school. A lot of those gnarly roots are very evident in the characters, and that history in gaming is also a part of the character design.

Anna Ansley: Can I put you guys on the spot and talk about Tom a little bit and his vision for Court of the Dead? What are the parts that-

Lacee Shaw: That's very well said.

Anna Ansley: But this has been rattling around in Tom's head for quite a couple decades, is our job is really to pull that out and manifest it. Organize it, manifest it as collectibles and the different forms for trying to deliver it to people.

Lacee Shaw: Their story. Yeah.

Anna Ansley: Like "Look at this cool thing!" And stuff.

Jeff: Speaking of the cool thing, it is such a cool thing, and for our listeners and viewers, could you give us a real quick synopsis of the story arch?

Anna Ansley: There is no quick synopsis. No I'm just kidding. No.

Jeff: There isn't.

Dustin: Take your time then.

Anna Ansley: No, no. I'm kidding. I'm kidding. But, it is deeply philosophical. There's a lot going on with this world psychologically. I think the symbolic thesis, if we're gonna go super short, is that absolute power corrupts absolutely.

Jeff: Nice.

Anna Ansley: But what that looks like in story form, is that Death, who's our main character and our protagonist, you sort of, traditionally, know him as the grim reaper, and the collector of souls, and someone that's traditionally viewed of as evil. Right? Who's going around and destroying us mortals. But, in the Court of the Dead universe, he's enslaved to that task. It's not something he chose for himself.

Anna Ansley: The actually balance of the universe is completely off base. Heaven and hell are both really corrupt and just power hungry and to tease.

Jeff: Dicks.

Anna Ansley: Yeah they're total assholes. They've been at war forever. Mortal souls fuel their war, and they can't get to the mortal realm. So, they looked at death who's kind of like their little brother, and they said, "You, motherfucker, have to go collect these souls for us, an deliver them on so we can keep waring with each other."

Jeff: Right.

Anna Ansley: So, death's been doing that for a while. He's built up hi court of the dead in the underworld to go harvest those souls. It's kind of an entity in an organization. Each character plays a different role. But, he's secretly planning a rebellion. So he's been ciphering off some of that mortal soul power. He's been building these creatures. He's also picked a few really powerful mortals from the mortal realm to come join him. He's secretly amassing that power, and hoping one day it will rise up and over throw heaven and hell, but there's one more twist. See I told you it's not a short story.

Jeff: No, I like it.

Dustin: Go on.

Jeff: please.

Anna Ansley: That power, that etherea, that mortal soul energy, is kind of like the force in star wars. So you can use it to be creative, and make amazing things, but you can also get lost in your hunger for it. It can subvert your will and turn you to the dark side. We call that the dread's grip. So, if you fall to the dread's grip, you essentially become heaven, or hell, or some of these other creatures we call rakers. You totally lose your self determination, which in a world without a moral compass, cause there is no heaven hell, good or evil, self determination is everything. It's really very existential. Life is what you make of it. If you get lost to the dread's grip you lose that self determination and all is really lost.

Dustin: Wow.

Anna Ansley: So it's kind of balancing out their rebellion as well. So they're really between a rock and a hard place.

Dustin: that's exciting.

Jeff: So death itself is not an evil character in this universe.

Anna Ansley: No.

Lacee Shaw: No.

Ricky Lovis: No.

Jeff: Death is the hero.

Lacee Shaw: Yup.

Anna Ansley: Yeah.

Jeff: Yeah.

Dustin: So, what is the world that he wants to create?

Anna Ansley: A world that's in balance. So right. No, everything is feeding a war. We've got the mortals here, we're multiplying like bunnies, creating more etherea. He's got his legions coming down, picking off the spoils after our wars. We do a pretty good job of killing each other.

Jeff: Yeah. No doubt.

Ricky Lovis: Killing each other is our specialty.

Anna Ansley: So they sweep through and pick up that eutherea. It passes through the underworld in something called the dirth forge. And then, it gets passed on to heaven and hell. So it's totally out of balance. Everything is feeding heaven and hell. So, he believes that there's a better way, so that the mortals aren't essentially the soul farm, feeding that war, and that he can end that, and restore balance in sort of a different cycle to the universe where that eutherea can cycle and be more creative and not -

Ricky Lovis: He's a little more in the middle too. A little bit more of an antihero. I mean, he's striving for balance, but in reality, his job's still pretty fucked up, and he has to do it. So, it's not necessarily a good guy.

Jeff: Well, I mean ...

Anna Ansley: The choices.

Jeff: Right. I mean, exactly. Also, how big is the Court of the Dead? How many characters are involved in this story?

Anna Ansley: It's probably, I just made a list.

Ricky Lovis: More every day.

Lacee Shaw: Countless.

Jeff: More every day? That's a great answer.

Anna Ansley: Yeah.

Ricky Lovis: I'd say there's a base of like ten to 15 really significant ones. But then it's

Anna Ansley: There's probably lie 60 or 70 others.

Ricky Lovis: It spread from ... yeah.

Anna Ansley: I just made a whole list the other day. It was a long list.

Jeff: Does it ever get ... I don't know ... overbearing sometimes?

Lacee Shaw: So, take that, Game of Thrones! Sorry.

Ricky Lovis: Yeah.

Jeff: Like, is it hard to keep track of everything?

Anna Ansley: Well, Lacy's working on a book where we're gonna be able to keep track of that, but sometimes it's easy to divide focus. Cause we have so many characters and they each have their own unique story.

Lacee Shaw: Yeah. Once you get to know it, it's really not confusing. It's like Game of Thrones. You watch it, you freaking know who everybody is. It's not a big deal to you. Going in, it's a little overwhelming, but take a good look,and you're like "Oh. I get it."

Jeff: I feel like that goes with everything. Where, it might be overwhelming at first, but, that's the fun part is watching it unfold, almost like a good song. The first time you listen to it, you may not know what you're really listening to until like the tenth time you listen to it, and then, you start picking up the layers. That's what this kind of seems like, is that it's a multilayer universe that just kind of unfolds for you. That seems like the fun of it.

Anna Ansley: Definitely.

Jeff: Speaking of multilayer, when you have this idea, you want to tell this story, is everything from the beginning, are you guys like "Okay. We're gonna craft a story. We're gonna make the world. We're gonna have figures. We're gonna have games. We're gonna have books on it."? Is it a snowball effect as it's happening or is that all from the inception.

Ricky Lovis: It's a little bit of both. I mean, our company makes statues, so we naturally-

Jeff: So that's a no brainer.

Ricky Lovis: Yeah. We naturally started there and kind of went backwards. I think the story, at least some of the story elements, were always there. We had like, the general base of it, like heaven and hell, and death and all that, was in place. Then, we started making statues and designing characters, and then little by little started tying everything together. And the, once that happened, we expanded on it, go to publishing, make comic books, etc. it's kind of working backwards from most properties.

Jeff: Is there something that you haven't gotten into yet with the Court of the Dead that you're looking forward to or ...

Anna Ansley: Lot's of things.

Ricky Lovis: Yeah.

Anna Ansley: And we'll probably each have a different answer, but Tom definitely had a Court trilogy story in mind, and it's been again, marinating in his bran, and something we've been marking out, and something we call like a beat sheet for years now, and we finally have an author engaged, and we're about to start working on a trilogy of novels called Rise, Conquer, and Rule, which is really the story of Death, and kind of his Alice in Wonderland, who is a character called Chard, who will come in and face heaven and hell.

Anna Ansley: A lot of the stories we've done so far have been ancillary to that, like character origin stories, stuff explaining the dread's grip, which all fall in a timeline, but this is really gonna be the primary trilogy, so I'm super excited to start.

Jeff: So you are kinda able to insert yourself in the story, but with the Alice in Wonderland story.

Ricky Lovis: She's like the mortal window into it.

Anna Ansley: Exactly.

Lacee Shaw: Yup.

Jeff: Yeah. Very cool.

Anna Ansley: It's intimidating, so we needed a mortal character that can give you that perspective going in.

Ricky Lovis: So it's very cool.

Jeff: That is so cool. Outside of that question I guess, where do you see Court of the Dead existing in the next couple years? Do you see this just getting bigger and bigger, and bigger? Is there an end game with this?

Anna Ansley: No. I don't think so. We wanna just get the world out there and keep growing it.

Jeff: Just keep growing it.

Anna Ansley: But I think, like Ricky said, we're adding new character's every day. It's deeper, and deeper, and we can keep going with that, and building out that world and that universe.

Jeff: Cause I can see it being like a mini series, or a movie.

Anna Ansley: we'd love that.

Jeff: Or a cartoon series.

Ricky Lovis: Yeah, we'd love to do animation.

Jeff: Yeah.

Anna Ansley: We'd love to see it.

Ricky Lovis: Cause a lot of the characters are so fantastic, and to do live action thing would be so expensive. Yeah. So, in animation, you could really play off the famous [inaudible 00:12:06] aspect and do anything with the character designs.

Anna Ansley: [crosstalk 00:12:09]

Ricky Lovis: Rather than kind of bastardizing them, for the sake of a budget or anything.

Anna Ansley: That'd be awesome.

Jeff: That would be really exciting. Actually, a question that I kind of want you all to answer separately. Do you have a favorite iteration of Death that's out there? Outside of the Court of the Dead obviously,

Anna Ansley: [inaudible 00:12:32]

Jeff: but I mean Death is personified so much in movies and comics, and music, and all that stuff. Is there a version of death that you gravitate towards?

Ricky Lovis: Are you talking only as a personification, or even like a destination?

Jeff: Ooh. No, I'm talking all of it.

Ricky Lovis: Yeah. Well, then yeah. You can go all of it. I really have always enjoyed the way death, or even the lack of it, like the ambiguity of your final endgame in like Twin Peaks in David Lynch's world, and even the second Hell Raiser, stuff like that, where it's more your souls being consumed by good or evil, or like in Twin Peaks. They're trapped in a lodge and that's kind of where they're existence is until they can escape, and even then, the question in that is "Is this all a dream?". It's more a character trapped inside their own head, or another realm or something. It's not necessarily like "death, you're in the ground" or some Christian version of it.

Ricky Lovis: In hell raiser it's like a giant Labyrinth in hell, which is awesome. I like stuff like that, where they take a little bit more of an out of the box approach to it rather than just a simple ending. I mean character wise though, if you have to personify, there can't really be Bill's intense bogus journey.

Jeff: That was the best one.

Ricky Lovis: Yeah I know. Sink his battleship and melt in them.

Jeff: Yeah.

Anna Ansley: [inaudible 00:14:03]

Ricky Lovis: I like to think of ... what was the Bill Murrey, Nightmare Before ... Oh no, no, no.

Jeff: Scrooged? Are you bringing up Scrooged?

Ricky Lovis: Yeah. Scrooged. When he sees death in the elevator he opens his shirt up, and they're all stacked up staring at each other's ... sure. Yeah. That to me, scarred me as a child.

Jeff: So, what about you guys?

Anna Ansley: I always liked comic interpretations of death. Like in Sandman, gaming Sandman, I love her. She was just so charming and laid back, and kind of like matter of fact. I always thought that was kind of a fun interpretation. I also really like ... I guess it's not quite death, but I've been watching the preacher show, so I went back and read the comic and like the Saint of Killers is a great kind of personification of death too, and the mythology there is pretty bad-ass.

Jeff: Totally. Yeah. Comic book interpretations of death is really interesting. How different people take that idea and put it into this fantastical super hero world, or whatever world it happens to be. It's pretty interesting.

Lacee Shaw: I know you guys said not in Court of the Dead, but that was my answer. I really, really like our old taker.

Jeff: So good.

Lacee Shaw: No, I really like it. And I can't think of anything else off hand. It's nice to think of it as something that happens one way or another, but it's not evil. It's a necessary transition, and it was nice that he is a shepherd. He is a dark shepherd. But, it is a shepherd, and I thought that was really cool, and we have our sketchbook. Which on is it? Is it our sketchbook or our journal? Where it talks about ...

Anna Ansley: The journal.

Lacee Shaw: is it the journal?

Anna Ansley: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Lacee Shaw: It's all talking about your memories and it's all written from ... there's like an intro and an outro and it's just beautiful. It's Death talking to you about how your memories live on, and all this beautiful art to accompany it. It's nice.

Jeff: That's awesome. That's awesome.

Lacee Shaw: That was my answer.

Jeff: And that's fine.

Lacee Shaw: I don't have anything else.

Jeff: Because that just shows the passion that you guys have for the project that you get to work on, and that is why Court of the Dead is co cool, because you guys are so passionate about what you're creating. I think that's awesome.

Jeff: Has this project changed your perspective on death at all?

Jeff: It's a little deep. I know.

Anna Ansley: It's helped with transitions of thought.

Jeff: Do you feel better about the inevitable end?

Anna Ansley: I'd say I feel better about life.

Jeff: Oh. That's good.

Anna Ansley: Hey, I'm just saying.

Ricky Lovis: My answer is no. Accept what happens to us. Buried.

Jeff: On more of the business side of it, is it a lot different working on your own IP as opposed to working from somebody else's sandbox? Is it easier? Is it harder?

Anna Ansley: It's a little bit of both, but overall it's just better. I think I've worked with a lot of different big brands throughout my career and the bigger the brand, the further removed. As a creator, you tend to be from the source, and much of what you can do creatively, it's dictated to you. And while it's fun sometimes to work with constraints, working directly with the creator, like with Tom, and having as much creative freedom as we do, sometimes it can be more challenging, cause if we don't have direction we have to make it up.

Ricky Lovis: Yeah, you never know when [crosstalk 00:17:26] yourself in.

Anna Ansley: Yeah. Sometimes Tom has a really specific vision, and its hard to hit that, but its always a better challenge than it would be working on something more corporate or bigger.

Jeff: Do you catch yourselves reeling yourselves in quite often? Cause I feel like something like this could easily get carried away.

Anna Ansley: We let ourselves sometimes.

Ricky Lovis: Yeah that's usually her job. We'll all be ... Like a five minute meeting will turn into like a half hour conversation. "Oh, we could do this and that." She's like "Guys, we need to stop this meeting."

Anna Ansley: Yeah, exile. Our administrator will be like "yeah, we have a budget and a timeline. Let's actually do something. Great ideas." We have very giant idea back logs.

Dustin: That's awesome.

Jeff: When you're talking about timeline a little bit, something like this, because you're not working with somebody else's franchise, I imagine timelines are different, but are you still giving yourself timelines and due dates for a project like this?

Anna Ansley: Yes is the short answer.

Ricky Lovis: They're flexible.

Jeff: Laugh. We're done with business now, my answer was laugh there.

Anna Ansley: I mean, it's nice because one of the best things about working on our own original properties is that if we feel something isn't up to snuff, we'll wait and put it out when it is. But, that can also be really frustrating. I mean, as a project manager and administrator, and wanting to get things out there, without some of the outside pressures of a license property, or a bigger corporate property where you at some point have to call it, you can get into a cycle of perfection that you need someone to call it. But, you know what it's some job security for me I guess.

Jeff: I know. Right? For sure.

Jeff: So, the one question we get to on this show, with all of our guests, and I want you each to answer this individually, is this idea ... and this is the basic idea of our own show. Our show, Fueled by Death Cast is born from the idea that we're all fueled by death. We're all fueled by this idea that we want to leave this world a little differently before we inevitably leave it for good. Every time we have guests on this show we ask the question, "what fuels you?" Starting with you, what fuels you to continue to come to work and kick ass, and create this kind of thing.

Anna Ansley: That's a great question. That's a tough one. Definitely leaving the world a better place than it is. I think, philosophically, something that I always come back to, especially working on the Court of the Dead, I think it's easy to get lost in your day to day, between like social media and thinking about what you're gonna have for lunch, and what movies you're gonna see that weekend, what friends you're gonna hang out with, or family, it's easy to forget that we're finite, mortal creatures in a limited time on this planet. I think a lot of people kind of consider some of those bigger questions. You know, and they're teenagers, and then they buy into some sort of mythology or doctrine, and they out it on the shelf and they're like "I'm not gonna think about that anymore."

Anna Ansley: I don't think that's a healthy way to live. So, I think building a world like we have, that forces you to meditate on that, I like to think, what fuels me, working on Court of the Dead, is waking people up, making them ask those questions again, and maybe reconsider some of the instances they are taking for granted.

Jeff: Cool.

Dustin: Really cool.

Jeff: That's a good answer for a tough question. I think you were thinking about that for a while. That's good. That's a good answer. Next.

Lacee Shaw: I think storytelling is really important to humans, and I think it's really important for us as creatives to be able to put out stories and kind of get people thinking. My answer is kinda similar to Anna's actually. And, leaving the world a better place than you found it. Making your mark, but for the better, and using stories and all of our creative stuff to do that. It is definitely fueled by death in my case.

Jeff: Yes.

Lacee Shaw: I read that on your sight and I was like "yes. That is very accurate."

Jeff: Excellent. Excellent.

Ricky Lovis: It's similar to hers. I really enjoy story telling. One of my things I'm most passionate about is movies, and seeing a lot of films and everything. So, to be able to come to work and work on essentially, an entertainment property of our own, rather than when I first started working here was cool, but it was like designing things for other licenses, which is cool. Especially when you're working on ones that you've grown up loving, but at a point, it just becomes doing a task kind of. Where this is like open ended, creative exercise really. So that's awesome and it kind of fuels your passion in and outside of work I think, where you might think of what you're watching differently because you're kind of constructing a different universe while you're there and vise versa. I really enjoyed that. It makes working cool.

Ricky Lovis: Enjoying your job is priceless.

Jeff: Rare.

Dustin: It's tough to find.

Ricky Lovis: [crosstalk 00:22:55]

Jeff: It's tough to do that.

Ricky Lovis: And I think, even when you do enjoy your job, you're always gonna have moments that are a bit frustrating than others.

Jeff: It's still a job.

Ricky Lovis: Think that the trick is to really indulge in the moments that you do enjoy, and a place like this is full of those moments for sure.

Dustin: That's so cool.

Jeff: That is really cool. Looking into then future, I know we are in a realm of secrecy and sideshow collectible, so I don't want to step on any of that, but stuff that's coming up for Court of the Dead specifically tat we can talk about? Maybe stuff that might be roped into near Comic-Con, or something that has recently come out for it that people can be looking for.

Anna Ansley: Oh gosh, where to begin. We've got so much stuff.

Jeff: That's excellent.

Anna Ansley: We could talk about collectibles, or-

Jeff: Sure.

Anna Ansley: Publishing, or ... I'll speak to gaming. Court of the Dead Warner's Call was a really big important project that we completed this year. It was a kick started game with our partner project Raygun. It was successful, it'll be fulfilling in December.

Jeff: Excellent.

Dustin: Great.

Anna Ansley: We are talking to project Raygun and some other gaming partners, and all I can say is we're definitely gonna make some more games.

Dustin: So cool.

Jeff: Awesome. Now, these are table top games right? Or is it video? Or you can't tell me.

Anna Ansley: Table top.

Jeff: Table top. Okay.

Anna Ansley: We're making specifically table top.

Dustin: Court of the dead Twister.

Anna Ansley: Yeah. There you go. Something light. For the family.

Dustin: Take your eighth arm.

Jeff: [inaudible 00:24:19]. That's excellent.

Dustin: Hopefully seat in the seventh level of hell.

Jeff: That's really cool. Does a game like that add on to the existing world in the story, or is it drawing directly from stories that you've put out already?

Anna Ansley: A little bit of both.

Jeff: A little bit of both.

Anna Ansley: But, definitely making that world more experiencial.

Jeff: So cool. So cool.

Dustin: Do you ever think about making roleplaying set up for something like this?

Anna Ansley: Yes. We do think about that.

Ricky Lovis: Yes we do.

Dustin: As a kid, there was always new ... when I was chucking dice as a young lad, there was always these new universes popping up. Obviously, there's the DnD world, but I role played in the Middle Earth world. There was the vampire world over there you can role play in, but this seems like right up that ally of dice chucking heaven.

Anna Ansley: Most definitely. Except for that.

Jeff: On the collectable side of it, is there anything that you wanna do that has come out that you guys are stoked about?

Anna Ansley: Yeah. What's your jam?

Ricky Lovis: Yeah. There always is. That's what we do here.

Anna Ansley: We're going to talk about what we met [crosstalk 00:25:30]

Dustin: Interview over.

Ricky Lovis: We're starting to explore some smaller scale statues-

Jeff: Cool.

Ricky Lovis: Because these are quite large and take up a lot of space and -

Dustin: They're awesome.

Ricky Lovis: A lot of cash to purchase them. I think offering other scales is advantages for a number of reasons [inaudible 00:25:56] collectors. We could revisit come characters, or maybe even take shots at some that we would never do in that size. So, that's cool. And then, there may be some vinyl ... more art kind of figure interpretations as well.

Jeff: Cool.

Ricky Lovis: And we have a lot of publishing coming up, which is fun. We've got two comic books. One is about done.

Anna Ansley: Yeah, as of this week.

Lacee Shaw: It looks so good. I'm so excited.

Dustin: Wow. Wow.

Ricky Lovis: And we previewed that one at Comic-Con, and it's been a no-no for a while, but it's finally done. Then, we have another one that we're kicking off in a couple months. And then, the three arch story that she was talking about. There's a lot more that we can do and might do as well.

Jeff: That's so cool.

Anna Ansley: It's a big world.

Jeff: The three arch story. Is that going to be like graphic novel based or is that straight novel?

Ricky Lovis: Its just prose novel.

Jeff: Just prose?

Anna Ansley: Yup.

Jeff: Awesome.

Ricky Lovis: And doing graphic novels of those would-

Jeff: take forever?

Anna Ansley: We tried actually.

Ricky Lovis: Yeah. It would take the rest of all of our lives to finish them.

Anna Ansley: It's too much detail.

Ricky Lovis: The one comic we're putting out that's coming out pretty soon, is 100 pages, and it's taken at least the whole year right?

Anna Ansley: Yeah. Just to illustrate.

Ricky Lovis: Or maybe even the start of late last year.

Anna Ansley: And the year before for script.

Ricky Lovis: So I'd imagine the big three arch stories would be a few hundred pages each.

Dustin: Wow.

Jeff: Wow.

Ricky Lovis: Yes. It's not really practical unfortunately.

Jeff: That is cool though. I could also see, as a fan, and I don't know if this would be something that you guys are thinking about, but, with all the different characters that you have, one of the things that I gravitate towards is that it would be great to have this as a Halloween mask or something.

Jeff: See I love it when your eyes dart. It's just like oh, I better shut up about that or something.

Jeff: So, for our fans and for your fans, what is the best way to follow Court of the Dead, and everything that's coming out outside of sideshow?

Ricky Lovis: Do we have social media?

Anna Ansley: Yes. We do have social media. Yes.

Jeff: Yes. Yes.

Anna Ansley: We're @CourtoftheDead on twitter, Instagram, and Facebook.

Jeff: Excellent. I'll put all that right in the show right here. Yeah. Cause you guys are constantly coming out with new stuff, new characters, new collectible things, games.

Ricky Lovis: Halloween masks.

Jeff: It's exciting. It's got to be so exciting.

Anna Ansley: It is. It's so cool. It's growing. Very much.

Jeff: You guys have seen this come, like you said, from an idea that's rattling around in a guy's head to all of this tangible stuff that's just incredible. Creation in this world is magic. It breads emotion, it breads just the tangibility that is amazing. You guys are creating some of the coolest stuff out there right now, for sure.

Anna Ansley: Thank you so much.

Lacee Shaw: Thank you so much.

Jeff: I can't thank you guys enough for sitting down and talking with us.

Lacee Shaw: Thank you.

Anna Ansley: Oh, thanks for having us.

Jeff: This was a lot of fun.

Dustin: Yeah.

Anna Ansley: Are you bone faction?

Jeff: Yes.

Lacee Shaw: The best faction.

Ricky Lovis: Yes.

Jeff: yes I am.

Dustin: Boring square faction.

Anna Ansley: Typical flesh answer.

Ricky Lovis: [crosstalk 00:29:08]

Jeff: Yeah. Dustin's flesh.

Anna Ansley: Yeah, me too.

Dustin: Why am I flesh?

Jeff: Because your Dustin's clan is flesh, and you like flesh.

Dustin: Oh right. That's right.

Jeff: Yeah.

Dustin: Yeah. Shout out to flesh clappers.

Ricky Lovis: [inaudible 00:29:19]

Jeff: Yeah, I'm very excited to see all of the new stuff that you guys are gonna be doing through all the months and years to come. It's really exciting.

Anna Ansley: Thank you.

Lacee Shaw: Thank you. Awesome.

Jeff: Alright.

Dustin: Cheers everyone.

Jeff: Cheers.

Dustin: Cool.