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Hi, I'm John Bring.
I am a writer and an illustrator on Penguins vs. Possums.
Hi, my name is Sebastian Kadlecik.
And I am the creator, one of the writers, one of the illustrators on Penguins vs. Possums.
Hello, my name is Lindsay Calhoon Bring and I am a writer on Penguins vs. Possums.
So the idea for Penguins vs. Possums actually came from when I was in college.
I had a class called "Art in the Digital Age" and we had to create a website for our final.
And anything creative, and only things that are creative in school, I went above and beyond on.
And I just started spinning mythology, kind of getting lost in Mountain Dew in the computer lab.
And adding in just a bunch of stuff that I love, like Star Wars...
Originally the Penguins were like the Empire and the Possums were like the rebellion.
Indiana Jones, big mythological battles, the end of the world, Armageddon.
Kind of just throwing all those things in, secrets that have been hidden under the surface.
Just entertaining myself.
And then, after that, the project went over well, thank you, and after that it went dormant for awhile.
I had a really fun time doing it but it was really just this project that I did.
And I always kept it in my mind and I would do drawings and I even did some t-shirts at
a certain point.
So it was always sort of percolating back there, but in large part, I wasn't doing much with it.
And then, I had been working on a TV show where I met this fellow and we both sat in
the bullpen and a mutual friend of ours had said we would like each other and we were
both "Eh" and then...
No way man.
He's gonna suck.
People are horrible.
And then we ended up sitting right next to each other in the bullpen and found out that
we both loved to draw.
And I'll hand it to you.
And soon enough we were doing a Post-It note battle that...
I had a giant white board behind me, we were putting Post-It notes on the battle.
Basically like artistic improv, where we'd go back and forth, we wouldn't know what the
other was going to do.
And it was literally a story of myself and Sebastian trying to *** each other.
And it became a big hit around the office.
People would come from stage to look at the battle and see where it had gone.
But soon enough, in our trading off art, Sebastian had mentioned to me Penguins vs. Possums and
he showed me the site.
And as a funny in-joke to him, in our epic battle against each other, I inserted one
of his penguins with the spiky hair, with the sunglasses, as just an in-joke for our
Post-It battle and that sort of developed...
I just really enjoyed drawing penguins, I think I've always kind of liked drawing penguins anyway.
But I enjoyed drawing the penguin and I said 'Let's do a similar thing, a Post-It note
improv thing but call it Penguins vs. Possums.'
And soon enough, we were doing that and we were basically off to the races.
That was our like "webcomic" even though I don't know if that actually ever made it to the internet.
But... soon we decided to take that idea and turn it into an actual comic book, something
that we had both aspired to do since our youth.
So then we were off to the races on that.
We jumped into it, we had a deadline because we knew we were going to be doing a convention,
we had a table with nothing to sell.
So we had a hard deadline and that's when Lindsay came in.
Yes, I had always been a writer.
These guys had worked on their issue one and I sort of came in and helped these guys sort
of raise the funds to get the issue made and set up a table and worked the table with them.
The three of us had, the three of us had always had a lot of fun together but we had an especially
great time working at that first convention.
It was so much fun and seeing the interaction and meeting fans and I feel like we bounced
around a lot of stories at that time too, where it could go and I sort of came in at
the time as a structure person of "Hey, each character needs their story arc" and "Where's
this going?" and "How many issues?"
I kind of attached...
You don't throw everything at the wall, see what sticks?
It needs an ending!
So I sort of attached myself to these guys and the three of us started collaborating
from there, moving forward to the full run of the comic.
What I find special about this is that this was something super silly and ridiculous but
we really take it seriously.
So, even though the concept is penguins and possums fighting each other, it really has
a lot of heart.
And at its heart, it's a character drama.
I think that if you judge a book by its cover, you're gonna think this is one thing.
What's special about Penguins vs. Possums is once you actually dive in and start reading,
it's... piggybacking on what you said...
It's completely from what you'd expect from something that sounds as silly as Penguins
vs. Possums does sound.
I think what also makes it special is that the three of us are such good friends and
we had so much fun writing it and I think, I hope, that our love for it is shown in all
those pages, like we really put a lot of work into it.
We had a blast writing it, we laughed more than we wrote probably.
I think that shows up in the pages, just our love for it.
And our dedication to telling a full complete good story.
Penguins vs. Possums literally has something for everybody, there's action and adventure,
there's humor, there's kooky characters, but there's also a lot of Shakespearean drama,
there's a lot of pathos behind the characters.
I feel like, I've said it before, but it's something that you could dismiss based on
the name but when you jump in, anybody that reads that story is gonna find something that
they enjoy, something to entertain them, something to even love.
So I think it's that ultimate little sneaky surprise of a book.
Shoutout to Kenneth, number one fan.
Hockey shooter! *laughs*