Episode 245 with Comic Writer/Artist Christopher Hastings! (Marvel/Dr. McNinja)

UPDATE: Joe threw some words down so I added them along with my own. Check them out:

The Adventures of Dr. McNinja is among the most popular web comics ever to be put on-line, and Chris Hastings has spearheaded the writing and the art of the project since 2004.  I stumbled across it in December of 2009, and ended up catching up on the entire 4 year run at that point in one afternoon.   At one point I handed a copy of the first McNinja book to frequent guest Brett Kelley to show him a joke probably a ninja joke involving Jose Cuervo and after he laughed, he flipped over another page, and then another, and then grabbed the second book.  Hastings has a talent for pulling humor out of every medium that he works in, from writing to drawing to skit comedy, and you all have the pleasure of experiencing the auditory version of that with this week’s episode.

  In addition to a great webcomic, Hastings has churned out several fantastic comic books including Gwenpool (which has recently popped out a trade) and Adventure Time (a five year running book that Chris joined in 2014).  He also churned out the Deadpool arc of Fear Itself, and Longshot Saves the Marvel Universe, both of which allow the hilarious Hastings to paint with a large comedy brush.  I’m obviously a hugely obsessed fan, but it comes from a place of immense talent and deep hilarity. 

 This week’s episode has Alex, Jayare, and myself interviewing Hastings a little about his career, talking about how he goes about creating comedy gold, the importance of creating compelling characters, his sketch comedy, and then like 15 minutes on how apparently Hearthstone is awesome.  It was nothing short of being one of the best hours of my life, and I sense you will all find hilarity and enjoyment from it as well.

Finally, if you are going to check out Dr. McNinja and haven’t before, start here with the first official storyline or here with the first color storyline.  The current arc is the last one, and nearing completion – avoid it at all costs, because in addition to being an awesome payoff for hundreds of pages of hilarity, it is crazy spoilerific.  Thank you to Chris Hastings for joining the episode, and Jayare and Alex for letting me join them in interviewing one of my personal heroes.

-Joe

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I apologize in advance if I've written this before but it bears repeating:

One of the greatest feelings in the world is when you talk to someone you really admire and you confirm that they're a genuinely good person. That they fit that image that you've formed in your head based off of a 2 minute conversation or a quick Twitter exchange. They live up to the absurd and probably unfair expectations that you've set for them simply because you enjoy the product they create. They're not obligated to humor you and sacrifice their spare time while you fanboy for the better part of an hour...but they do it anyway.

To put it bluntly: It's awesome.

Our guest this week is the one and only Christopher Hastings. (Longtime listeners will recognize the name mentioned in past episodes.)  He's the creator of the hit web comic "The Adventures of Dr. McNinja", he's written comics for Marvel such as "Deadpool: Fear Itself", "Longshot Saves the Marvel Universe", and "The Unbelievable Gwenpool". He also writes the Adventure Time comic and makes frequent appearances in the local New York sketch comedy scene (More on that in the episode). He's also one of those people I talked about in the beginning of this post. We've admired him for a while, we're all fans of his work, and after spending an hour and a half with him on Skype we can confirm that he's just as rad as the stuff he makes for us.

To reiterate: Awesome.

Enjoy.

-Jr.