Madness & Company on Art - LA Comic-con Series
This time we interview Madness & Company at LA Comic-con! Listen in as we discuss modern art in movies.
Transcript
This is Film Center, your number one show for real entertainment industry news.
Speaker:No fluff, all facts.
Speaker:Now, here are your anchors, Derrick Johnson II and Nicholas Killian.
Speaker:Hey everyone, welcome to Film Center.
Speaker:My name is Derrick Johnson II, and this is your number one place
Speaker:for studio news, and I'm here with this is Kenny from Madness Company.
Speaker:Madness Company.
Speaker:We are here live at the Comic Con LA Comic Con.
Speaker:If you're listening to this, probably L.
Speaker:A.
Speaker:Comic Con might have passed by however, you can still check out Madness and
Speaker:Company and everything that's really great about them on their website
Speaker:and any other socials that they may have let's just get right into it.
Speaker:I'm here with the artist and owner, right?
Speaker:You have a Very interesting setup here.
Speaker:It's this half hip hop, half kabuki style things that's going on.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Tell the audience a little bit about yourself first.
Speaker:Cool, cool.
Speaker:Hey, my name's Kenny.
Speaker:I'm from Madness Company.
Speaker:Madness Company is a merchandise and apparel brand started by my wife and I.
Speaker:Dynamic duo.
Speaker:Kenny and Indy, you'll see it on a lot of our shirts and our, Products you see
Speaker:a little signature there, but overall Madison company is a way for us to do
Speaker:business together While also being able to develop myself as an artist and just
Speaker:see how far we can see how far we can take the brand so I mean There's a lot
Speaker:of people who listen to the show are either industry professionals or they
Speaker:want to get into the industry and we focus mainly on movies and television.
Speaker:Movies, television, entertainment industry.
Speaker:However, in this industry, it's very difficult, especially as
Speaker:someone who runs a business, to use, do with family members.
Speaker:In the entertainment industry, there's a whole bunch of controversies
Speaker:between people who are trying to work together but are also married.
Speaker:You know what I'm saying?
Speaker:Can you tell us a little bit about that dynamic and how
Speaker:this really came to be about?
Speaker:Was it inspired by YouTube or?
Speaker:So I definitely seen a lot of brands recently blowing up where
Speaker:it's a lot of two man teams.
Speaker:Sometimes it's just, a guy and his brother.
Speaker:Might be a guy and his best friend might be two, two
Speaker:women, a mother and a daughter.
Speaker:However, I realized that it can be done by two people.
Speaker:Throughout college, I can say my wife's been running events for a very long time.
Speaker:She's very business oriented.
Speaker:And as far as visuals and just from the creative side, there aren't really many
Speaker:things that I see that I can't make.
Speaker:So having both of those fields covered, we were like, Hey, let's
Speaker:see what, how it will work if we were to go into business together.
Speaker:I would say one of the best things we did, though, is instead of cutting ties
Speaker:with all of our jobs and ending everything that we're doing professionally.
Speaker:We decided to do this on the side, starting out.
Speaker:By doing that, you take away the pressure of, Oh, this has to work,
Speaker:or oh, we have to make money.
Speaker:It's all about any money that's made goes back into the business
Speaker:and then we re strategize.
Speaker:It's just, the only thing you're really sacrificing at that point is, man hours.
Speaker:There's no real money.
Speaker:There's no real pressure that really can make the business less fun.
Speaker:So at that point, it's just, let's see if we can solve this puzzle.
Speaker:If we solve it, boom, we've done it.
Speaker:It's a success.
Speaker:So we're recording here at Comic Con because Indie creators are
Speaker:taking over like a larger and larger portion of the industry.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:I said this on the radio show before where I have this prediction.
Speaker:That basically, studios will be replaced by indie people.
Speaker:Yeah, I can see that.
Speaker:Just in general, because they can get closer with their
Speaker:fanbase, and things like that.
Speaker:Do you find that it's difficult to grow a fanbase against, Cause you're here
Speaker:in LA Comic Con, it's no small feat.
Speaker:You know what I'm saying?
Speaker:Thanks.
Speaker:Did you find it difficult to grow to this size?
Speaker:Like, how long have you been doing this?
Speaker:So I think it's been a steady rate.
Speaker:So we've been doing this what, it's This would be September
Speaker:would be year five for us.
Speaker:We started this in 2018 and on, if you're ever on our page, you
Speaker:can follow us at Madness and Co.
Speaker:But you'll be able to see the process of how we've grown from, selling out of a
Speaker:bar, in the back of a bar to selling a couple shirts, to getting to this point.
Speaker:And I think the way we did that was by creating, instead of me making a comic
Speaker:and trying to sell you on a comic, we created really rad shirts, really
Speaker:rad characters, and people wanted to know more about those characters.
Speaker:And then we continued to flesh that way.
Speaker:So your strategy was merchandise.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:And to express interest into the story.
Speaker:Exactly.
Speaker:It's interesting because on this show we've also previously
Speaker:talked about transmedia.
Speaker:Once you have one major story that gets into different mediums.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And transferred from all this different stuff.
Speaker:And you're one of the first ones that I've seen.
Speaker:I'm gonna start with the merch first.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Where did that you're not from Los Angeles.
Speaker:No, I'm from Atlanta originally.
Speaker:From Atlanta originally.
Speaker:Was there anything so you're from Atlanta, grew up there, actually,
Speaker:I grew up from Cincinnati.
Speaker:We actually moved to Atlanta, I would say, about seven years ago.
Speaker:One of the best decisions I've made.
Speaker:So Was there anything that when you were younger that made you say
Speaker:Oh, this is what I'm really into?
Speaker:Oh yeah, definitely.
Speaker:The entire premise of Madness and Company is an amalgamation
Speaker:of everything I grew up with.
Speaker:And that's anything from, movies, to cartoons, to comic books.
Speaker:It's all fleshed in there.
Speaker:To music, it's all in there together.
Speaker:And you'll see a lot of the easter eggs pushed out through our different items.
Speaker:I would definitely say that, yes, we started with merch first, but I would
Speaker:say an even better description of that would be we started with characters first.
Speaker:I know everybody, when you're in the back of class, Oh, this is my character that
Speaker:I made, he's got chainsaw arms, whatever, whatever you wanted your character to
Speaker:be like, that's what we started with.
Speaker:We built the world around them, and then, once I had that archetype, I could then
Speaker:flesh out the story and really tell Okay, this is what I want this character to be.
Speaker:I went out, I'm able to go deeper now.
Speaker:It's such an interesting tactic.
Speaker:Because you knew you, a lot of indie creators are doing something
Speaker:with the billiard studios are doing on a lower level.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And by lower, I don't mean quality wise, but just in size.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And it's interesting because with us, even with this radio show, we started
Speaker:originally with just straight up audio before we started moving to other
Speaker:things, before we started doing TV.
Speaker:Now I.
Speaker:personally have a background in, in working with studios and like movies
Speaker:and television, but this whole film center thing, we started off just purely
Speaker:audio and you started off with merch.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:It's amazing to hear someone saying okay, I'm going to start with, cause usually
Speaker:merch is the end goal for a lot of people, but that was your starting point.
Speaker:Did you have any like inspirations to do it that way?
Speaker:Or was it like.
Speaker:I just want to do something different.
Speaker:There was a mixed bag that was going.
Speaker:I'm a graphic designer full time.
Speaker:I've worked with Apple, I've worked for CNN, I've worked
Speaker:for a lot of larger companies.
Speaker:However, through those, I never had full autonomy of the design
Speaker:direction, nor was I able to figure out what my specific art style was.
Speaker:There were two fronts that I wanted done through Madison Company.
Speaker:I wanted to create really cool items that, me as a kid would have loved to
Speaker:have, while at the same time Having a vehicle that I can put these characters
Speaker:and put these ideas on, on a garment for.
Speaker:So as an artist, it's something crazy being able to sell a high quality
Speaker:product and then also see people wear your drawings at the same time.
Speaker:It's probably really cool.
Speaker:Yeah, it's really, it's surreal almost.
Speaker:It's really surreal.
Speaker:Yeah, what's interesting is that a lot of a lot of successful professionals
Speaker:like yourself They always start off getting the experience first, if you're
Speaker:listening to a show and you listen to a show a lot of people that we interview
Speaker:before they break off on their own, they have experience doing other things.
Speaker:I started off writing for TV and TV and movies.
Speaker:No kidding.
Speaker:Prior to branching out on my own and doing my own thing.
Speaker:Gotcha.
Speaker:What was it like?
Speaker:Say okay, I'm gonna step take a step You know into this more indie creative mode
Speaker:was it because you're handling two things at once There's a lot of people who are
Speaker:probably industries professionals a lot more and more industry professionals are
Speaker:breaking off into their own stuff What was the moment you were like, okay, you
Speaker:know what I'm going to just move Farther and further into my own thing and kind of
Speaker:leave this other making stuff other people behind I think there was a time where you
Speaker:know, every artist wants to work for a bigger company maybe you want to work for
Speaker:Cartoon Network or maybe you want to work for Marvel Studios And you'd learn to draw
Speaker:those characters You learn the different art styles that mimics a show that you can
Speaker:keep up with their artists that currently, you know Currently are employed there
Speaker:but through that after a while I realized that there are so many people trying to
Speaker:do that But I can create my own characters have full autonomy have full direction of
Speaker:these stories And that further solidifies the decision of being like, Okay, if I'm
Speaker:gonna step away from Apple and CNN, If I'm gonna step away from these bigger
Speaker:industries and graphic design, It only makes sense for me to create these
Speaker:unique stories that are fully my own.
Speaker:Do you think that, that gave you a good level of training?
Speaker:Cause I try to tell a lot of people you can start off indie.
Speaker:There's nothing wrong with starting off indie, but when you work for these
Speaker:bigger companies, there's like a level of discipline, there's a higher level
Speaker:of scrutiny, you know what I'm saying?
Speaker:I remember getting notes upon notes and being like, Oh my gosh, I just
Speaker:wish they would just accept what I do.
Speaker:But now looking back at it, I'm like, okay, this was showing me how
Speaker:to get to that professional level.
Speaker:Showing me that my first draft.
Speaker:It's probably can still be better.
Speaker:Yeah, I'm saying is you think that discipline is something you
Speaker:take into your Business today.
Speaker:Yeah, I can definitely say that.
Speaker:I think I haven't even thought about it that way.
Speaker:I am Working on those industries.
Speaker:Obviously, you have to be polished you have to make sure that you have
Speaker:all your piece, piece and cues set up properly, but as far as Them helping
Speaker:train me to better myself as an artist.
Speaker:Yeah, I can definitely say that.
Speaker:I think I have a much stricter level of quality that I adhere to.
Speaker:Have you been drawing like your whole life or?
Speaker:Oh man.
Speaker:So that's a great question.
Speaker:So what actually got me into drawings was.
Speaker:Third grade Kenny couldn't draw a dragon to save his life, had a
Speaker:whole meltdown, end up leaving.
Speaker:And then I ended up just practicing and practicing all day to draw like
Speaker:the artists and the art and the cartoons that I'm seeing on TV.
Speaker:So I could get to that point.
Speaker:And I would definitely recommend that to all artists.
Speaker:There's nothing wrong with learning what makes the things that inspire you.
Speaker:Good practice.
Speaker:Those line works.
Speaker:Your natural subconscious is going to.
Speaker:Deviate from it, and you're gonna figure out your own style, but there's
Speaker:nothing wrong with learning from what's already working, what's already popular.
Speaker:you guys are listening, he's talking a lot about, learning from the professionals.
Speaker:Yeah, big time.
Speaker:There is a there's a thought process, at least when I was in school given to
Speaker:me by Kevin Mack who's done some stuff with Marvel and all that kind of stuff.
Speaker:And he was teaching me how to write.
Speaker:He was saying that, whatever you want to learn how to do,
Speaker:the training is out there.
Speaker:You just see your, who you look up to.
Speaker:You know what I'm saying?
Speaker:Whoever you look up to, try, not to copy per se, but understand
Speaker:what they're doing in their process and how their designs look.
Speaker:And that's your training program.
Speaker:That's 100%.
Speaker:There's so much information that artists are putting out there nowadays.
Speaker:If you can see a speed drawing of an artist, there's so much you can
Speaker:learn of seeing their entire process.
Speaker:When we were younger, you couldn't see it on YouTube.
Speaker:We didn't have that.
Speaker:When we were younger, we didn't have that.
Speaker:You're going through the comics and the pages and watching the
Speaker:movies develop your own notes.
Speaker:I put the the white piece of paper over the DVD magazine so you could trace it.
Speaker:When they had the light boxes and you could see through the paper,
Speaker:you're like, oh, this is technology.
Speaker:Yeah, you thought we was living in the future.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Yeah, you know what's really interesting is, especially this whole weekend,
Speaker:we're really pushing that talk to a lot of different indie, indie creators.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And, something that I'm always comparing this, the indie side to, and I say indie
Speaker:with heavy quotation marks, because a lot of indie people, a lot of stuff.
Speaker:Studio people leave to go indie and then they go right back into studio as soon as
Speaker:they're, bigger but there's a difference between how they market themselves, you
Speaker:know what I'm saying, with studios and with you with indie you have this ability
Speaker:to say either I'm going to make what I don't see, or I'm going to make towards
Speaker:market, studios always making towards market, do you find yourself, because
Speaker:you used to work for larger companies, do you find yourself often making more
Speaker:Things that you want to see like you said earlier like what I want to see when I
Speaker:was a kid Or do you self see yourself like oh, you know what this is selling
Speaker:more this type of design says more Maybe I should make more stuff like this for
Speaker:market So I think there's an amazing balance that has to happen there as an
Speaker:artist, you know You're gonna create your own designs and when people rock with it
Speaker:You get locked into being like, okay, I have good taste and you do as an artist.
Speaker:You're going to have a unique taste.
Speaker:If you want to make a country style fighting game, that's uniquely you.
Speaker:And if people rock with it, no one else can take that away from you.
Speaker:However, as I'm creating designs and as I'm creating these
Speaker:layouts, we're developing fans.
Speaker:We're developing a community and they love the same things.
Speaker:That's why they rock with it.
Speaker:So I have to also.
Speaker:Back their point of view a lot of times where they're like, Hey, we'd
Speaker:love to see this in this color.
Speaker:How do you find that balance?
Speaker:Because for every creator is different.
Speaker:Yeah I would say definitely talking with them.
Speaker:A lot of times we'll have a shirt where, you know, or design where
Speaker:it's almost done, but there's that last bit of decision making.
Speaker:We can't quite figure out and we'll throw it to the community and a
Speaker:lot of times they'll be like, oh, this will be a great idea, Nate.
Speaker:They have feedback.
Speaker:There's also artists in our community and talking with them helps.
Speaker:You know into that next direction.
Speaker:I've already done the groundwork as an artist to have my characters out
Speaker:there and keep pushing their stories.
Speaker:But when it comes to creating like really great renditions of the
Speaker:art and merchandise, the community definitely helps along the way.
Speaker:You have a very unique art style.
Speaker:Yeah, I do.
Speaker:There's an issue right now that a lot of big studio productions are
Speaker:looking the exact same kind of.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Some people are calling it the Disney effect.
Speaker:Oh man, yeah.
Speaker:3D animation looks like the same, but if you look back in the early
Speaker:thousands, like when we were younger, they just, this stuff looked different.
Speaker:They were still doing Judy animation.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Treasure planet was a thing journey to Atlantis was a thing.
Speaker:And then they cut it all off to focus on more on 3d animation.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Cause it was easy to pump it out.
Speaker:But now even DreamWorks is trying to, there's a lot of people
Speaker:who work at DreamWorks who came from Disney, obviously, right?
Speaker:They left with Steven Spielberg when he decided to make DreamWorks.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:But now we're in this zone, where it seems like the artists aren't allowed to
Speaker:really express themselves artistically.
Speaker:Man.
Speaker:And instead do what works and it's amazing to see something like the animated Spider
Speaker:Man movies where they decide to break out and do something different and unique.
Speaker:And for some reason, the studios are flabbergasted by this.
Speaker:Why do you think they're pushing this standard animation, because
Speaker:you have a very unique So why do you think they're pushing this standard
Speaker:animation instead of breaking it down into styles like maybe like your own?
Speaker:I think this highlights how important designers and creatives are.
Speaker:I think we're able to see and we're able to create things that are
Speaker:unique and are loved by the people.
Speaker:However, without creatives, a lot of people are just going to look
Speaker:at the numbers of what works.
Speaker:If I see that Inside Out style works, I'm just gonna create the same
Speaker:thing that looks like Inside Out.
Speaker:There'd be no reason for me to think beyond that.
Speaker:However, when you give it to the artist, you end up with stuff like the new
Speaker:Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie.
Speaker:Completely, the artist had a full field day with that.
Speaker:They had as much fun as they wanted.
Speaker:They gave it's own flavor, it's own vibe.
Speaker:It was absolutely one of the top movies, when it came out.
Speaker:Like it's, it speaks for itself.
Speaker:What do you think is preventing those studios from being more
Speaker:encouraging about, unique art?
Speaker:I think right now all the studios fell into kind of the, all
Speaker:right, let's only use what works.
Speaker:But now that the studios are starting to see okay.
Speaker:Letting the artists work is starting to work.
Speaker:I think we're gonna start seeing more studios actually do that I
Speaker:think they're started as a transition starting where it's oh spider man works.
Speaker:What if we let them do it again?
Speaker:Oh ninjas hurdles work.
Speaker:Oh Building confidence.
Speaker:Yeah, I think it's gonna happen where the decision making is less cookie
Speaker:cutter and now let the artists go crazy.
Speaker:But I do think if the artists go too wild, there's gonna be a natural balance where
Speaker:the studios like this movie kind of flops.
Speaker:Let's go with what works.
Speaker:And let's find that balance between culling the artists while at the same
Speaker:time, allowing that bit of freedom.
Speaker:I think it's a, I think it's a spectrum.
Speaker:So there's this in.
Speaker:Entertainment.
Speaker:Yeah, there's a renaissance about every 20 years you know there people always
Speaker:talk about the movies from the 50s the big like epics and stuff and her and
Speaker:stuff then People only talk about the 60s too much because there's overshadowed
Speaker:and it's in the 80s too much because it's overshadowed by the 70s Yeah, Star
Speaker:Wars Jaws, Indiana Jones, you have The Godfather, 70s was going crazy, right?
Speaker:People were trying to get back to that, yeah.
Speaker:Yeah, and then you have another renaissance in the 90s, right?
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:Quentin Tarantino was one of the big leaders in that, you know what I'm saying?
Speaker:And then what's interesting is that the next quote unquote renaissance
Speaker:started with, technically the superhero was a really big, was blown
Speaker:up with Spider Man, but around 2010.
Speaker:Iron Man was the quote unquote first start with the 2008, quote unquote,
Speaker:but Blade was really there before, that's what I'm saying, right?
Speaker:Happened in 2010s, and now it seems now in 2023, we might be on
Speaker:the cups of another, revolution.
Speaker:Now, do you feel like the same way, or, no?
Speaker:It's interesting, I think we saw a bit of a renaissance.
Speaker:With how Marvel completely changed the way that cinematic universes work.
Speaker:I think a lot of movies also started to play with that, like Glass for example.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:That was it's own, they started to make a universe of that and seeing these
Speaker:movies and these series actually talk.
Speaker:I think we're seeing people experiment.
Speaker:And maybe it isn't as far as to say it's a renaissance, maybe an arc, within an era.
Speaker:But, I do think people are trying to develop a new way to provide entertainment
Speaker:that we may have not seen before.
Speaker:I've never seen TV shows be connected to multiple movies, be connected
Speaker:to, all that pushes the, all the lore together, that's something new.
Speaker:Now, is that a renaissance?
Speaker:Maybe not, but I do think it, it will be the start of future, renditions
Speaker:and how we push entertainment, yeah.
Speaker:As a professional artist yourself, what do you see, like, when do you see something
Speaker:on a TV that, or a movie that actually catches your interest artistically?
Speaker:Because, like I said, there's a kind of, there's a huge consensus right
Speaker:now, especially with a lot of fans, that things are looking the same.
Speaker:How do you see something, how do you look at something on the television
Speaker:or movies and you're like, Okay, this is something that's unique and
Speaker:that's connecting with me personally.
Speaker:Because you're also a professional artist.
Speaker:So the way you're looking at images, the way other people
Speaker:look at images differently.
Speaker:Like for myself being mostly a writer director and doing really
Speaker:a lot of writing, I'm always like, It's not like I can't turn it
Speaker:off, you thinking about the story.
Speaker:But because the consensus right now is about art, there's a
Speaker:huge concern about unique art.
Speaker:You know what I'm saying?
Speaker:How do how do you think oh, okay.
Speaker:I think that this is something that I could take away from.
Speaker:Okay, are you thinking from a live action or more like an animated standpoint?
Speaker:Either one.
Speaker:Either one.
Speaker:Because you seem to have a lot of references in your art.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Yeah, I think it, like you said, it's hard to turn it off and you never really can
Speaker:see past the kind of analyzing standpoint whenever you're watching something.
Speaker:But I'll say I'm always pulling it in.
Speaker:So I would say the best example right now would be Bullet Train.
Speaker:I just saw Bullet Train not too long ago and seeing the storytelling,
Speaker:at first I thought it was a Quentin Tarantino film by how it was written.
Speaker:But I love That movies are starting to become aware of their tropes, of their
Speaker:the different stereotypes that are in there, of the way they tell their
Speaker:stories, but they double down in that, and they don't always do it from a comical
Speaker:standpoint, but they dive deeper into the, alright, we know how edgy this is,
Speaker:we know how, over the top this is, but we're gonna make it work in this era.
Speaker:For example, during the era where samurai movies were
Speaker:amazing, that was an amazing era.
Speaker:However, now when it comes to movies, the main character of the movie also
Speaker:realizes how Absolutely crazy it is to see a samurai in that movie.
Speaker:So they'll comment on that what is happening?
Speaker:Got like a little more meta.
Speaker:Yeah, it's it's definitely more meta.
Speaker:I think that's the thing.
Speaker:Seeing how meta things have been in entertainment a lot these days.
Speaker:That's what I'm pulling from.
Speaker:Wow.
Speaker:I love that they're, things are a lot more aware now.
Speaker:And they're commenting on that.
Speaker:Would you say that like I said, you have a lot of things, a
Speaker:lot of references in your art.
Speaker:Do you have some main inspirations?
Speaker:Oh yeah.
Speaker:I would say, man, that's a great.
Speaker:So obviously anime, a lot of the classic anime, Dragon Ball Z, Mazinger
Speaker:pulling from a lot of those sources.
Speaker:But in the way that I pull from them isn't just oh, I want
Speaker:my guy to be a giant robot.
Speaker:It's more so in things that people don't really see, like In the intro
Speaker:of the anime or in the ways that they set up certain angles, or there might
Speaker:be the protagonist and you'll see the robot silhouette in the background.
Speaker:Those were all artful ways of highlighting big characters, or those ways of
Speaker:doing storytelling through music.
Speaker:Like, all those things matter.
Speaker:Your art reminds me a lot of Samurai Jack.
Speaker:Yeah, exactly.
Speaker:And this is, there is this term that I heard for the first
Speaker:time in my life, here at L.
Speaker:A.
Speaker:Con, where they're saying Afro May.
Speaker:Afro May?
Speaker:Afro May.
Speaker:I've actually never heard that.
Speaker:Where it's African American hip hop style, things like that, being combined
Speaker:with anime, almost the only thing I can really think of, like, when I think
Speaker:of Afro May, peak Afro May, is again, have you ever heard of this before?
Speaker:I don't know, this is the first time I've heard of the term, but now I can
Speaker:see the whole Rolodex of all the things that would fall into that category.
Speaker:Yeah, Afro May, when I see Afro May, I think of The Boondocks.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:I think of Samurai, Afro Samurai, Cannon Busters.
Speaker:Yeah, Cannon Busters, stuff like that.
Speaker:Do you see a rise in an Afro man?
Speaker:I do.
Speaker:I'm seeing a lot more black artists that we've been talking to have been
Speaker:like anime is a big inspiration.
Speaker:Why do you think It's anime that's such a huge inspiration to the African
Speaker:American culture, comparative to others.
Speaker:So this will be an interesting kind of monologue I'm gonna go on.
Speaker:I think Monologue away.
Speaker:I think a lot of African Americans first experienced anime through Dragon Ball Z.
Speaker:And I think it it connected with us in ways that we didn't expect at the time.
Speaker:Cause you'll see a various, a various spectrum of of black people kind of love
Speaker:Dragon Ball Z for different reasons.
Speaker:You'll see, super hood guys be like, man, I love Dragon Ball
Speaker:Z, I still rock with Vegeta.
Speaker:And you'll see, super geeks that are like, walking around in Goku outfits.
Speaker:But it's still for that whole spectrum.
Speaker:And I think there's an underdog story that's been.
Speaker:Prominent in a lot of early anime that you know may not be as prevalent now But
Speaker:I think it's still one of the main cruxes anime and that's the underdog story It's
Speaker:and with us being black people i'm feeling like the underdog I think when you see a
Speaker:character persevere constantly take those hits train and do his best It fills you
Speaker:with a hope that you it can be a little kind of silly But I do think it fills you
Speaker:with a hope that you didn't realize you needed that time and you pull from it.
Speaker:So training and seeing characters like Goku, seeing these anime characters work
Speaker:hard, might not succeed but continue to push through, it gives us inspiration and
Speaker:I think we continue to pull from that.
Speaker:But then after a while we start to love anime just for what it is.
Speaker:Oh, wow, this is a creative craft.
Speaker:I still love the underdog story, but now these other characters resonate with
Speaker:me, whether because they're super cool or because the way they navigate life.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:But I think it all started with how we pulled in with our first anime for a
Speaker:lot of people, which is Dragon Ball Z or which is Naruto seeing that story.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:It's so incredible because once again, I haven't heard Afro May until like
Speaker:literally yesterday, this is December 3rd that we're recording this.
Speaker:December 2nd, 23rd.
Speaker:I was like, Afro May?
Speaker:But it made so much sense as soon as I heard it.
Speaker:You even think about things like Kanye West's Power.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:When it's the whole music video is Akira.
Speaker:It's Akira, yep.
Speaker:And you hear and this interesting thing about African Americans this quote.
Speaker:And I forget who said it, but basically, to be an African American is to be
Speaker:a race and a people without a home.
Speaker:Because African Americans, we can't really relate to Africa.
Speaker:We haven't been there in generations.
Speaker:Hundreds and hundreds of years.
Speaker:We're learning about what would be our own culture in the same way we
Speaker:would learn about any other culture.
Speaker:You know what I mean?
Speaker:We're new to it.
Speaker:And yet, at the same time, we are American, but a lot of other American
Speaker:minorities Like Asians or like Hispanics, they can say, Oh, I'm from Italy
Speaker:or I'm from specifically Guatemala.
Speaker:They have a home.
Speaker:From Burma.
Speaker:They can like, Oh, I'm going to go home to my home country.
Speaker:We don't know where our countries are.
Speaker:So there's this possibly stipulation.
Speaker:And you gotta let me know if you agree with this.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:That it's okay, that's a far away land and it's not.
Speaker:It's not home to us, but also we connect with that.
Speaker:It's okay, you know what?
Speaker:I'm also not American, but I am American.
Speaker:I 100 percent agree with that.
Speaker:100 percent agree with that.
Speaker:I think I was just talking to another animation studio, the main director
Speaker:that he's from Nigeria, but he does have a home he's coming from.
Speaker:I think with us, being black, African Americans that are born and raised
Speaker:in America, even down to like our last names I don't think my great
Speaker:ancestor's last name was Fowler.
Speaker:Yeah, but I think not having those original roots, we adapt the roots from
Speaker:different things that resonate with us.
Speaker:I think in the same way that there is this give and take relationship when
Speaker:it comes to, black entertainment, black culture that we've developed in our,
Speaker:our few kind of decades here in America.
Speaker:The way they're pulling from us and we're pulling from them.
Speaker:I think we do resonate with Japan.
Speaker:I think we do resonate with Africa I do think we do resonate with a lot
Speaker:of different places But I think we're creating our identity here as a result
Speaker:of what we're seeing and developing from everywhere else So this is really
Speaker:interesting Perspective from Asia that one of our previous guests gave us.
Speaker:He's from Japan And he was talking a lot about how, like, when, in
Speaker:America, anime fans will talk about oh, the sub versus dub.
Speaker:They have the same arguments about King of the Hill.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:They have obviously, Japan and baseball has been well known,
Speaker:but they also really like college football and things like that.
Speaker:There's also a trend right now for them to, there's a style in which
Speaker:they can Heat and curl their hair to get the acros and stuff like that,
Speaker:and so you're saying them pull from Specifically African American culture.
Speaker:Yeah, not American general, specifically African American culture, and then we're
Speaker:also pulling from them Absolutely, and the world's getting more and more connected
Speaker:Do you think that this would like?
Speaker:Once again, I heard Afro May for the first time and it feels like something
Speaker:that it feels like that would be like an island somewhere like this is Afro May
Speaker:Island where it's like half, half Asian, half black people are there, right?
Speaker:And since your style, you have you obviously pulling
Speaker:from the east a little bit.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Would you ever go over to so you got invited to, to, somewhere in
Speaker:Asia, would you like, give some lectures on not even lectures,
Speaker:but to Show them some of your art.
Speaker:Yeah we're actually planning to head to Japan in this next
Speaker:year in 2024 for the first time.
Speaker:Oh, if you're listening, you're from Japan.
Speaker:Watch out.
Speaker:They're coming.
Speaker:They're about to go out.
Speaker:We're gonna come.
Speaker:I think there's so much for example, learning, learning katakana, learning
Speaker:hiragana, learning kanji, learning how to speak the Japanese language.
Speaker:And navigating that with myself, as a, American artist.
Speaker:But also wanting to pay respect to Japan in the way, because I would say, okay,
Speaker:Madison Company, our mascot is a lantern.
Speaker:And that stems from the fact that when I was a kid, I saw a lantern festival
Speaker:on TV, had no idea what that was.
Speaker:But after a while, I really started to resonate with Japanese culture.
Speaker:I really loved the way that they would highlight their culture.
Speaker:I loved the way that they created items.
Speaker:And a lot of our Western, Highlighted films, whether it be Western cowboy
Speaker:shoot offs, or just samurai, stand offs, lightsabers are just Samurais in space,
Speaker:power Rangers are just super sentai, like Really learning where a lot of the origins
Speaker:of a lot of our Western media borrow from, Japan has been really interesting.
Speaker:To see the influences.
Speaker:Even something, Especially who was influenced by it, right?
Speaker:Both Steven Spielberg and Jordan Peele have been putting in Bids for
Speaker:years to do a live action Akira.
Speaker:The first close person to get close is ironically is Kanye West, you know
Speaker:Even though the whole thing is really a reference then you have things like
Speaker:he's not technically only from Japan.
Speaker:He has some Korean background, but Satoshi Kon who made the movie Paprika that the
Speaker:American iteration of it is Inception.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Where some of the shots are shot for shot.
Speaker:How do you, instead of doing this shot for shot, you're taking those
Speaker:references and making them unique.
Speaker:How do you know okay, this is I think you naturally have your own deviations
Speaker:of what you like as an artist.
Speaker:And I think that helps me a lot and one of the things that really has pushed
Speaker:Madness and Company as far as it is.
Speaker:I love when there's a collision of cultures.
Speaker:I think that's what a lot of people don't highlight enough.
Speaker:So for example, when we were younger, we loved, martial arts movies.
Speaker:But it wasn't that we were watching the true yeah, Wu Tang exactly
Speaker:was where I was going to go next.
Speaker:But it wasn't like we were watching the original movies, we were watching
Speaker:bootlegged, poorly dubbed, VHS, Shaw Brothers movies, but it's like something
Speaker:about the poorly dubbed, something about the over the topness, but still the
Speaker:action being oriented, the action oriented kind of subject matter, all those things
Speaker:resonated, and that's what made the culture, it wasn't the streamlined, high
Speaker:resolution, it was the grittiness, it was the poorly dubbedness, it was the attempt
Speaker:to see in those two cultures collide, and I think that's where the love is,
Speaker:it's same thing with Wu Tang, the hip hop beats over with the Japanese undertones.
Speaker:It's where the, it's a medley, like a subculture is formed between those two.
Speaker:I think that's what I really love about it.
Speaker:Like you'll hear us playing Boom Bap in the back of our, ramen shop.
Speaker:But at the same time, I want to make sure that if I'm going to have the ramen
Speaker:shop out there, that I get true Chochin lanterns made, that I sew the northern
Speaker:curtains, that I create, the roof tiles.
Speaker:Like I'm actually taking the time to do the research, even
Speaker:though I haven't been there.
Speaker:But there's so many references that you can learn from.
Speaker:And create it so that it's authentic.
Speaker:The information is so much more readily available.
Speaker:Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker:It's if you're gonna do it, make it authentic.
Speaker:But don't make it to the point where it's less you.
Speaker:If that makes sense.
Speaker:Yeah, something interesting about Wu Tang.
Speaker:I have a friend who's from Shanghai.
Speaker:And also, if you watch, there's an interview with Jackie Chan, where they
Speaker:ask Jackie Chan, Do you like Wu Tang?
Speaker:And he's very confused.
Speaker:He's what is Wu Tang?
Speaker:What is that?
Speaker:But Wu Tang is actually popular in China, but Jackie Chan for
Speaker:some reason didn't understand.
Speaker:And then I asked my Chinese friend.
Speaker:I was like, do you like Wu Tang?
Speaker:And she's because she saw the symbol on my chest, she's oh, they're awesome.
Speaker:I was like, oh, you like Wu Tang?
Speaker:And she gave me this very confused look what is Wu Tang?
Speaker:It's it's a symbol, it's what I'm wearing.
Speaker:It's actually supposed to be Wu Dong.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:It's supposed to be wudong.
Speaker:And so if they would have said oh, this is wudong.
Speaker:It's not wutang.
Speaker:Yeah, but it's that mistranslation that then it's okay now
Speaker:it feels like it's for us.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Yeah the different spin on it it's been great to have you on Working, working
Speaker:everyone follow you and check you out.
Speaker:Yeah, definitely.
Speaker:So again, we're Madness and Company.
Speaker:You can follow us at www.
Speaker:madnessandcompany.
Speaker:com or you can follow our socials at Madness and Co.
Speaker:So that's at Madness and Co.
Speaker:Check us out.
Speaker:We'd love to have you be part of the community.
Speaker:If you have ideas, definitely shoot it to us.
Speaker:We have a Discord as well.
Speaker:You can hit us through our link tree.
Speaker:It'll be on our Instagram.
Speaker:And join the community.
Speaker:If you have art that you're making, hop in there.
Speaker:Let's talk, let's compare ideas and let's just, let's chat it up.
Speaker:Excellent.
Speaker:Thank you so much guys.
Speaker:This has been film center.
Speaker:And my name's Derek Johnson.
Speaker:The second I'm Kenny and this is a Madison company.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And we'll see you later.
Speaker:This has been film center on comic con radio.
Speaker:Check out our previous episodes at film center, news.
Speaker:com sign up for our newsletter and get the Hollywood trade straight to you.
Speaker:You can follow the show at film center news.
Speaker:on all major platforms.
Speaker:Tune in next week for a fresh update.
Speaker:Until next time, this has been Film Center.
