Transcript
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Hello and welcome to no Wrong Choices, the podcast that explores the career journeys of accomplished people.
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We showcase these stories to provide insights that are strategic, inspiring and, most of all, entertaining.
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I'm Larry Samuel, soon to be joined by the other fellows, tushar Saxena and Larry Shea.
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If you've been enjoying our show or are new to the program, please support no Wrong Choices by following us wherever you're listening right now and by giving us a five-star rating.
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We also encourage you to connect with us on LinkedIn, facebook, instagram Threads and X, or to send us a note by anoerongchoicescom.
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This episode features the journalist turned comic book writer, ethan Sax.
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Ethan has worked on several best-selling series, including Marvel's Old man, hawkeye, star Wars, bounty Hunters and Star Wars Galaxy's Edge.
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He's also deeply involved with an important project called A Haunted Girl that we will certainly dig into Now.
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I think the intro and the setup for this one is easy for me to choose in terms of my co-hosts.
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Tushar, as the comic book fanatic on this show and in my life, I think you have to be the person to lead us in.
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I prefer to go by comic aficionado, if you don't mind.
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Look, you guys know me.
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I'm a huge comic book nut.
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I go out on Wednesdays to buy new books.
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I've been collecting for, I would say, at least 25 to 30 years at this point.
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So I've been collecting a long time.
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I've gotten to know how a lot of writers are in terms of their styles, etc.
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But I've never had the opportunity to really sit down and pick the brain of one, especially one who turned from journalist to comic book writer, which is basically my dream, for God's sakes.
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My first question to him has to be why did my guidance counselor tell me this could be a thing?
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So, I'm really looking forward to speaking to Ethan for this reason alone, because obviously we're talking about the creative process here, and this is a man who obviously enjoys writing for a living.
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Obviously, he was a journalist who turned comic book writer.
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In many ways, the journey is very similar.
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I'm also a Star Wars nut.
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A lot of the books he works on are Star Wars in that genre.
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So he's not really reinventing the wheel so much.
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He is just making a better mousetrap, which is really, really cool.
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Larry Samuels, how many of our Wednesday recording sessions have ended with all right, you guys?
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I gotta go to the comic book store, oh.
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I gotta go.
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He's in a hurry.
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He's got a guy.
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I gotta go.
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I got something to do.
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Oh my God, yeah.
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So, as the guy who knows nothing about comic books, it was fascinating.
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The other guy who knows nothing about comic books?
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Yeah, the other guy.
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That's right.
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That's right.
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It was fun to do the research, though, to figure out like oh my God, like so much goes into this and the creative process, and how difficult it is to bring something like this to life and to choose it as a career path.
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I mean, I'm fascinated to hear what he has to say about getting a paycheck every week or doing freelance work, and how you find your way in this field and how it can happen.
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So just what goes into it was fascinating to me, and I'm excited to pick Ethan's brain and see if we can get some other people on this path and this road to success via comic books who knew and you know, as the other guy again who knows nothing about comic books.
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You need to get in.
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I'm really curious.
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I'm really curious to get in.
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Yeah.
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This is going to be a very educational episode for each of us.
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I'm very curious to hear what it takes to actually create a comic book, and I'm sure we'll dig into that at some point.
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So with that, here is Ethan Sax.
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Ethan, thank you so much for joining us.
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I'm happy to be here.
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Thanks for the invite.
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Okay, so Ethan and full disclosure to everybody.
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I got to know Ethan just a little bit through a mutual friend of ours who actually happens to be a fan of the podcast Gentlemen named Dave Rican.
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He and I went to college together and you know, dave, through what?
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Through high school.
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So my friend Paul, someone else you knew from college, paul Palkonen, who unfortunately passed away a few years ago, he introduced me to Dave.
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Dave is now a member of our fantasy football league and fortunately I'm the only well he's the only team that's below me in the standings right now.
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So I kind of want to ask you a little bit, because obviously the story of going from journalists to comic books is surprising.
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But before we get into that, I kind of want to get into a little bit of what you're doing currently, and obviously we just mentioned that you are a comic book writer.
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So what is what is Ethan Sax working on these days, aside from his series A Haunted Girl Sure?
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And the projects that I can tell you about.
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I'm doing an upcoming Star Wars comic book about Django Fett, Boba Fett's father from the prequel trilogy, and I'm trying to, in my head as I'm saying this, remember what has and hasn't been announced yet.
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So there are currently three other comics that I'm working on that have not been announced.
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So, unfortunately, all I can say is is the Django Fett one.
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So is are they all Star Wars related or are they other DC related things related?
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Okay, at least tell us the companies you're working with.
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Sure One, I can't tell you I'm doing another image comic.
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I can't say that, I can't say what it is and I'm unfortunately I can't say the others.
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Okay, All right I love content that's cloaked in secrecy Exactly.
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Exactly the World Recordist podcast episode.
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I probably can talk more about other things.
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So what is this book you're writing?
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I can't talk about that.
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Can't talk about that.
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All right, but let's okay, so let's start here then.
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Was it always going to be comic books Ultimately?
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Was that your fascination?
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No, okay, I mean I always loved comic books.
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It just seemed like you know the kind of job like Kepler, elf or Askernaut, where nobody actually has that job, you know, like if you wanted to be one, how do you even begin?
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You know, I mean, I know there are such things, there are such things as astronauts, so, but as far as comic book writing, it just didn't even, it was not even on my radar.
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I knew I always wanted to do writing and my parents raised a fairly pragmatic kid, so I early on zeroed into onto journalism because that seemed like something that I could do.
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You know, in theory.
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So how did you, how did you act on that?
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Like?
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Were you a storyteller as a kid?
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Were you writing as a kid?
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Like how did you begin to pursue that?
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I mean I abroad a lot as a kid, mostly fiction.
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As I got older, and certainly by college level, I was, you know, in high school I was more into like the science fiction magazine.
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But I got.
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I got to really experience newspapers at the school newspaper and university, at McGill in Montreal, and I fell in love with it and that sort of you know.
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I did internships on my summers off for some local community papers, the kind of papers that they give out in lobbies so that you can curb your dog or read community news, whichever is like more convenient.
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I came out, I taught English and Japan for a year and then after that it was perfect timing.
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The internet was just sort of taking off and I got hired pretty quickly, first at this startup called Metropy which became City Search, and then within nine months the New York Daily News was was hiring for their website, and this was in October 1996.
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My first practice, my first trial shift, was such a horror show for me.
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Like I was an overnight shift, I got out of the 8am.
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I swore to myself I need to, I need to give this six months and get the hell out of here, you know, just to get the experience of my resume and I ended up staying 20 years.
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Wow, yeah so, but in that 20 years I covered a lot of everything from news, sports and, ultimately, entertainment, and one of the things I covered was comic books, since I was the reporter that actually cared about this stuff, and it was like you know, marvel was having this resurgence in the early 2000s and comic movies a few years later started coming around, and then things like the, eventually, the Walking Dead, game of Thrones I got kind of covered all of that and I don't know how much you want me to go into this now, but that sort of started it.
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Basically it led to my comic book career, which I can get into later if you want.
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Which we're actually going to talk a little bit.
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We don't have to wait, we can get to it right now.
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So so okay.
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So you spent 20 years at the Daily News and obviously you know I think it's not, it's not a secret that for many newspapers readership is down.
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It's been down significantly, and you know most newsrooms have started to cull or have started to let go of staff etc.
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At the at its height, when you were there in 1996 and maybe a little bit further, how many reporters were working over at the Daily News when you were there?
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So when I was hired, it was about 450 reporters, photographers.
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Now it's somewhere around 50.
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Wow, Wow right.
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And that led to my leaving ultimately journalism, because I was in my low 40s at that point I think it was around 42, 43.
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And every year we were having these layoffs and, like my mentors, were getting laid off and I knew it was one day it was going to be me.
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The analogy I always used is it was like we were antelope or something in the Serengeti around a watering hole and every once in a while, you know, a crocodile would come up and eat several antelope and we'd scurry but we'd have to come back.
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That was the watering hole we all lived around and that was what it was like to be in journalism.
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Like you knew, one day you'd get eaten.
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I was looking for other jobs.
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I just couldn't find anything.
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That either would take me Like there were places I applied for that took people I trained that were like 10 years younger than me, or the other thing that was happening is the jobs I was getting offered were like 25, $30,000 less than what I was making, and I wasn't thinking that much that that was like you know.
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So yeah, and I remember the year before I left, there were like 50 people were laid off within three days and I missed the first day.
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And then the editor in chief at the time calls me into his office and he's given and I thought for sure, like okay, I'm laid off.
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And he's 10 minutes into this doom and gloom speech about how these cuts are necessary to keep the daily news functioning and all this kind of stuff.
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And then it's incumbent on all of us to, like you know, do this extra work or whatever to keep it going.
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And then I was like I thought you were laying me off.
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Does that mean I'm not laid off?
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Yeah, I know, and he offended and he's like no, this is a pep talk, Like the layoffs are happening.
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two doors down and three floors.
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That's pretty much what I knew is like I have to leave, or I mean I'll leave either way, you know.
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But yeah, so that was a pep talk.
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The strangest pep talk you'll ever have.
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Yeah.
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You're fired.
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So you got to work triple as hard.
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Absolutely Right.
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Pretty much.
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That was the tone of the speech Before you move on from the daily news, New York daily news stuff.
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I mean, what was the heyday of that Like?
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What was a typical day like there?
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Because you go from what you're in college and McGill you set up in Montreal and then you come down into how did you get the daily news job and what was that like?
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Daily, as you like, did you pick your projects?
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Were?
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you.
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Eventually I had a lot of freedom over what, because, like, by the end of my tenure there, I was the movies editor and I did a lot of you know, like the celebrity interviews with directors, actors, things like that.
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I did theme weeks where, like, I flew out to LA, interviewed like the cast of the Avengers, and we have like a different story every day.
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Probably the highlight for two highlights for me is on that front was like I got to go to New Zealand to cover the Hobbit and I did performance capture with my daughter oh my God, awesome.
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And Terry, who is the Oscar winning effects guy, was like directing us and you know I would share the photo but you don't want to see me in that light suit with all the you know the dots on it.
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But it was just a fantastic experience.
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And then the other thing I'm proudest of was I got to start a little charity initiative where the daily news was sort of the media partner.
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I would find children's charities that sort of were thematically related to like, for example, the Avengers movies.
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The studio would sort of rent the theater, host a screening, or the Marvel movies rather, and then they'd fly in like one of the actors to surprise the kids.
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So I had, like Robert Downey Jr twice oh wow, chris Evans, and it was just really a moving to.
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You know, it was drawing attention to these charities.
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It was.
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The actors loved it because they, you know, felt like they were doing something good.
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The studio loved it because it was like great publicity for them.
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The newspaper loved it and it was just like it didn't cost anybody except the studio, the rental.
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You know what I mean.
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So it was, and then hopefully we raised awareness and maybe some donations for the.
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So, like I was proud of that, we did like seven or eight of those.
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I actually did one for the Today Show as well when I went to NBC News for a bit.
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Yeah, so I did a lot of things I loved and I love journalism.
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I also did a lot of news stories I think were of some importance, like local news stories about scholarship, helping raise money for scholarship, all sorts of things over the 20 years.
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So I didn't leave necessarily because I was disaffected with the idea of the job, it's just.
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The reality was just very unstable.
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The ground was unstable beneath my feet and I stumbled into comics.
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Right, right, I kind of want to stick one.
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I want to say one more second on journalism, maybe two, but for the moment let me say this did you now, obviously you said when you started there I guess it was in 1996, I was only going to be there for six months put on my resume and get out, and you ended up staying for 20 years?
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So outside of, let's say and you kind of just made mention of this too outside of, let's say, the charity work that you were able to kind of be a part of and get started on your way, and obviously being there for 20 years means that you moved up the ladder as well in terms of your own importance within the Daily News.
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Did you feel that, that type of importance of the job as well and I think that was a very, very important story but that the job in and of itself was important?
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Was that what attracted you to stay for 20 years?
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For sure I mean.
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So, growing up, my father was a New York Times reader.
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My mother was a New York Daily News reader, so it was the paper and it was the paper that I first I started with the sports section, but as I got older I read more of it and I am somebody who very much believes in the importance of journalism and certainly we see that a lot now More than ever.
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Right, yeah, it's a separate topic as to whether or not outlets are doing enough or properly or whatever, but I definitely I also, like, during my 20 years from 2003 to 2005, I actually did a mid-career part-time run at Columbia School of Journalism.
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So I was very, I deeply believe in the importance of it and so, yeah, I mean that was definitely one of the reasons I stayed.
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At various times I was like the number two person on the website in charge of breaking news and things like that.
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So I had my moments where I feel like I did that role.
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So in a comic book theme there's literally an alternate universe where, if the ground wasn't coming out beneath you, you would have stayed in journalism For sure, for sure.
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I think now I have like one toe dipped in that world.
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I still work very, very part-time for NBC News Now, mainly doing obituaries, but yeah, so like when I left.
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It's a gig.
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It's a gig, no, it's a gig.
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I love it.
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It's their mini biographies.
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Yeah.
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It's weird because I'll write them and then like four, five, six, seven, eight, and it's usually a celebrity or public figure that is, you know, old or has a series of health problems Like I've.
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You know, when Bob Barker died, the obituary came out and I was like, oh, that looks familiar.
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And I'd forgotten that I had written it because I, oh jeez, I was like four years.
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Whoever wrote this was a genius, Absolutely.
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I never see the good.
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I critique my own writing.
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Well, I think any professional does that.
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No matter what they do, they're going to critique everything.
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So, ethan, as you're working at the Daily News and you're working, the beat that you worked for so long from an entertainment standpoint is that when you started to develop the network, that puts you in a position to cross over.
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Inadvertently.
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Yes, I mean, I was not anticipating that, you know I you work long enough on a certain beat and you just get a million contacts, you know, just over time.
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And actually one of those contacts was this guy, joe Cassata, who became a friend over the years.
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He was like one of my first big feature stories because it was when the first Spider-Man movie was coming out in 2002, marvel was just emerging from bankruptcy and one of the creative reasons that they were sort of, you know, coming back into the sort of the peak of the industry was these two people.
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The publisher was Bill Jemez and the editor chief at the time was Joe Cassata, who was this hot shot comic book artist who, long story short, had been given this role and really ran with it.
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And so I become friends with him over the years, and that inadvertently and I can get into that story if you're ready for it.
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Yes, this is exactly what we're going to go next, that is the show.
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Yes, okay, so what happened was in 2016 for May the fourth, which is that fake.
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Yeah, the fourth star with you, absolutely Exactly.
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May the fourth be with you.
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So I always would do an online story for the daily news every year on a Star Wars thing, because I'm a nerd.
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And this particular year there was this actor, paul Blake, who played Greedo, the green bounty hunter that is doomed to be killed by Han Solo in the Cantina in the first Star Wars Spoiler alert.
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Yes, spoiler alert, spoiler alert I haven't seen this movie in more than 50 years.
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We'll have to edit in a big yeah, so.
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So I'm old enough, because I'm 50, and I was four years old when the movie originally came out, and I remember seeing it that Han Solo just unceremoniously shoots Greedo under the table and so yeah, there is a spoiler alert, because there are going to be a lot of kids that have no idea what you're talking about.
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But it's surely afterwards George Lucas decided that's like not really heroic enough, you know, even though it's, it was perfect.
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Perfect to the character Right.
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So then he has Hans, he has Greedo shoot first, somehow miss and Han Solo shoot in the subsequent edits.
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So I don't know why, but when I was talking to Paul Blake he was so funny, it was like a standup comedian.
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It was talking about Greedo's bulging eyes and being myopic and being unable to you know he was talking, you know, just say you just had one line after another.
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But he did say in the script it says Han shoots alien.
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So I don't know why it stuck with me and I had this.
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I just couldn't let it go and I had this idea It'd be funny to see the murder investigation, but framed like Rashomon, like the Kurosawa classic, which is based on a Japanese novel, and for those listeners out there we don't know what I'm talking about.
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It's a very classic movie by Japanese director Kurosawa, who basically it's a murder story in feudal Japan that is told through the accounts of four witnesses and none of them match, the fourth witness being the ghost of the murder.
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None of the accounts exactly match up and I thought it'd be funny, because these accounts don't match up, to have the murder investigation into it.
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So then I was at a Mets game shortly thereafter With Joe, who is a big Mets fan and he would frequently take his friends to games, and I was like, hey, I have this idea for a story I cannot get out of my head.
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I think it's funny.
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That's the only reason I want to do it.
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Can I pitch a script to you guys?
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If you don't use it, I mean if you, if you use it, I'll just donate the money to charity or whatever.
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And I'll be upfront about it, because, because I'm a reporter and you know, and he was like fine, whatever, it was not enthusiastic at all.
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Right, it was a really whatever dude yeah.
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And so then I got, I took it seriously and I never in a comic book script, never thought about writing a comic book script, but I'd read so many and I reverse engineered the, the ones I liked, the pacing and the structure and all this kind of stuff.
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And I had contacts in Lucasfilm publicity, so I somehow use them to get a hold of Pablo Hidalgo, who was one of the people on the story group that sort of is essentially like air traffic controller for the canon, the mythology so and he very much said Greedo has to shoot first.
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That's what, that's what George wanted, kind of thing.
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So I ended up use putting this all together, putting together a script, sending it by email and not hearing anything for a while, like for months.
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So I thought, okay, well, he must really have hated it.
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And then I fly to Japan my, my wife's, japanese, so we were visiting my in-laws.
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The plane lands back at JFK on September 7th 2016.
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And I know the date because that is really the date that changed my life.
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Obviously, right, I turn on my phone and there's an email from from Joe, and the subject line is F Greedo, since this is a family podcast, and so I, before reading the email.
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I was like wow, he really hated it.
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But the gist of it was F Greedo, you can actually write and I'm angry that I've known you for 20 years and this is like the first like I put this together, kind of thing and I think you could do this for a living and a long story short.
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He started the ball and he was no longer editor-in-chief at that time, he was chief creative officer, so he was not like directly involved with the comics, but he put me in touch with the then current editor-in-chief, axel Anzo, who also love the script.
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They started the ball rolling and about in November of that year the Daily News announced, instead of another batch of layoffs, the annual pre-Christmas layoffs.
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They were going to do buyouts.
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So I've been there 20 years and that was seven months pay.