Collin Kelly and Jackson Lanzing, also best friends.
Yeah.
Yeah, it's crazy how that works.
Yeah, we met when we were 18 and literally hate--
Hate?
--like, yeah, and immediately hated each other.
We were way too similar.
It was not good.
We-- we had a mutual friend, our buddy, David Server.
We used to come to Comic-Con with him when we were,
like, just right in college.
And I was too similar to Collin.
He was too similar to me.
Yep.
He wrote me as a villain in one of his pilots.
It was bad news. - Yep.
Wow.
And then-- yep.
I just really couldn't handle the fact that, like, my best
friend had a new best friend.
So obviously, I hated him with a passion.
And then, unfortunately, I started reading his work.
And I was like, gosh darn it, this guy is actually talented.
Classic story.
It's hard to be mad at someone who's
really good at what they do. - Classic story.
Yeah.
So luckily, I convinced him to work with me.
And I've been stealing half of his paychecks ever since.
I have the exact same story, but I am
the one stealing the paychecks.
I'm going to let both of you believe that is both
the truth and not the truth.
Nice. Nice play.
Thank you for having our delusions.
Oh my god, so I love this because one,
I love best friends.
And two--
So do we.
--you've been collaborating with each other.
So it's not just you actually liked each other
and you became friends.
It's like you are-- you are partners in crime.
Yeah, we connected at the brain.
It was-- we literally went on a trip in 2008.
Yeah, OK.
We went on a road trip.
Just graduated college, and we went off on a road trip.
And on the way-- we're going to Lollapalooza
to see Radiohead and Kanye West and Rage Against The Machine.
And on the way there--
- A good lineup, I know. - Facts.
- We had two. - Facts.
And we-- and we're on the way there.
And I don't know if you know this
about the middle of this country,
but it's big, and open, and wide--
- Oh, I-- - --and there's a lot of it.
--I have lived in the middle of the country.
It is a lot of wide open spaces.
Asthma, yes.
So we were driving through it.
And you get-- you can't talk about comics the whole time.
And so we ended up talking about a story,
and figuring out that we had a lot of similar story instincts,
and started making up a movie together.
And by the time we got to Chicago four days later,
we'd written, like, hand--
like--
Yep, Jack was driving, I was writing it all down.
I was going to say, I hope that you
were switching writing.
I drove the whole way.
It was a stick shift.
I tried to drive his car once.
I ground the gears once, and Jack was like, you
may never touch my car again.
Yeah, yeah, I was like--
Then you must have great penmanship, because-- whew!
Much better handwriting than me, true.
So now, you're collaborating with Marvel.
Yep.
What was your first work with Marvel,
for the fans who may not be familiar?
And you know, how did--
what's your Marvel origin story?
Like, how did you first start working with us?
Yeah, well, our first book with y'all was
Kang the Conqueror, which is-- - (SINGING) Kang the Conqueror.
--absolutely insane.
Oh, wow.
We actually pitched this book several years back.
OK.
Because our core for it was really personal.
The fact that we were able to tell
a really personal story with our first book at Marvel
was amazing.
It's a story we wanted to tell about the cycles of abuse,
and the toxicity of fatherhood, and how that can really
get passed down into sons, while also telling an absolutely
rad, kick-butt history of Kang the Conqueror, which is itself
a rat's nest of continuity.
But we pitched them the idea, and they fell in love with it.
It took a little bit of time to kind of get it going.
Thank you, MCU.
And honestly, thank you to Alanna Smith.
Our real Marvel origin story, in many ways here,
is Alanna Smith, our editor on Kang the Conqueror, and now
our editor on Cap.
Just a--
Yeah.
--absolute gem of a person.
Yeah.
A really inviting, really incisive mind who,
the first time we sat down with her--
not to spoil what we're doing now,
but the first time we sat down with her,
it took her about 15 minutes of, like, just talking with us.
And she sort of leaned back and went,
I think you guys are Steve boys.
And I was like, what is-- she's like, I think you'd be
really good at writing Steve.
And we're like, Rogers?
Like, we never, in a million years,
would have ever considered that that could be a thing.
And like three years ago at New York Comic-Con,
she's just like, I don't know, I think
you might-- you should do that someday,
and then left it on the table.
And we didn't do a book with her for another year and a half.
Well, that's a great segue because you
are now writing Steve.
Yeah!
Oh, crazy how it works.
You know, you've been working on Captain America--
Sentinel Of Liberty.
Mm-hmm.
Tell us a little bit about this story--
Mm-hmm.
--what you can tell us.
Yeah.
And talk to us about what you're excited--
it's Captain-- it's Captain--
It's Captain America.
Yeah, I mean, look, Steve Rogers is
both of our favorite superhero, like, straight up.
He was Collin's first--
My very first comics I was ever getting through the mail.
They were coming folded up and stuffed into my mailbox,
just like you love a good comic. - And--
- Yeah, folded, folded. - Yeah.
Folded, with creases in it.
Oh, muah-- love it.
And we--
Pain.
[LAUGHS]
And when we met, when we would couple into our friend's car,
we would go and get Captain America books.
Like, he's deep in our souls, this character.
And I think especially now more than ever,
it's really relevant that Steve find new stories that
push this character forward beyond his Rogues Gallery,
beyond the stories that have been told about this character,
and try to build new characters, new continuity,
new life to live.
And so that's where Captain America--
Sentinel Of Liberty comes in.
While Sam Wilson is out there as Captain America,
as the forward-facing Captain America in Symbol Of Truth,
Tochi Onyebuchi's book, meanwhile--
- Shout-out to Tochi. - Yeah, shout-out to Tochi.
Love Tochi.
An absolute genius who we are so
happy to be collaborating with, just quickly
became our brother.
Like, love this guy.
Our first collaborative meeting with him,
we were just-- we talked about-- maybe for like three or four
minutes before, like, oh, wait a minute,
is that anime on your back?
Yeah, are we just going to talk
about Evangelion for an hour?
Oh, OK, all right-- - We're best friends now.
I'm not going to lie, that's the first thing--
we actually stopped in the middle of our first interview,
and I was like, what is that on your back wall, Tochi?
- Yeah. - But you know--
He wears it on his sleeve.
So Steve in your book, as we have Sam out in the world,
having this banner of Captain America, you know,
where is Steve?
Steve is back where he grew up.
He's showing up to his apartment in Lower Manhattan
that he grew up in as a young kid.
Yeah.
People might know the MCU Cap as having grown up in Brooklyn.
But Marvel Universe Cap grew up in Lower Manhattan,
in a little tenement building, in a little apartment.
That-- in Lower Manhattan, most of those tenement buildings
are still around.
So he's moving back into the same apartment
that he grew up in, around normal people, down--
down the way from a young kid who needs some help
with bullying, down the street from a community college
where he can take digital art classes.
He has to learn Procreate.
I mean, like, you can't-- if you're going to be an artist,
which is his favorite thing to do besides punching fascists,
obviously-- - Correct.
--it's like, well, he's got to learn how to digital art.
Photoshop's a real bear.
And I think the core for us is, like, Steve knows that Sam
is out there repping the flag.
Sam is out there being Captain America.
So for the first time in a long time,
Steve can just explore what it means to be Steve.
Kind of like, yes, he has the suit, absolutely.
The shield is incredibly important to him.
But it was important to us and Carmen Carnero,
our incredible artist--
Born to draw Captain America.
One of the greatest Captain America artists of all time.
I don't know how we got so lucky to get stuck with her.
She's the best. - Yeah.
Yeah, she's fantastic.
Holy cow.
But just getting out-- getting out
of her way so that she can bring us that great Steve content.
- Yeah. - You know?
And like, we just talked Kang.
Obviously, he's about cycles of trauma and kind of the damage
that a father can do to a son.
Cap's the exact opposite.
Cap is obviously not--
I mean, he has a dad, but he's the best of us.
He's the ideal that we can strive for, and he inspires.
And I think that's going to be really
important as we move forward, as like, this
is a story about hope.
Yeah.
Like, we are optimists at our core.
As much as the world is on fire, like,
we have to believe that we can pull it up.
But the challenge to Steve's world
is going to come in the form of a revelation about
the true nature of his shield.
And I know that that's a thing that gets teased a lot-- like,
what does the shield mean?
But this is a-- we are giving a definitive answer to not what
the shield is, but what that symbol,
those rings, that star, those colors, what that means.
And it's not America, it's something much deeper.
It's something much more ingrained,
and it's something much more sort of personally
connected to Steve than he could ever expect.
And so as that starts to engage with him and Bucky Barnes,
who's very much our co-lead in the book,
we're going to really see these two men pushed to extremes,
to opposites, and to a--
a potential breaking point between two best friends,
which given who we are, feels like a very personal-- oh,
I'm sorry.
You all right?
Aw.
Given-- given who we are, really
means that the story ends up being very personal to us.
I love it.
You know, I'm so excited for everybody to get their hands
on this book and the story.
So are we.
And I cannot wait to read it.
I got to ask, though--
I got to say, we cannot ignore what is around us.
We are here at San Diego Comic-Con.
Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.
You know, you seem like two epically, just, well--
Nerdy?
Yeah, I was--
I was looking for a better way to say, but no--
Very, very nice of you, but yeah, we're big nerds.
- So we are all nerds. - Yeah.
What are you most looking forward
to at San Diego Comic-Con? - Whew.
Ooh.
I honestly feel like I've already hit the thing that I'm
really excited about here, which is being back among our people.
Mm-hmm.
I-- this is our first Con back.
We've not had this experience.
We've not been surrounded by the people we love
and the things we love, walking through an aisle
and just seeing that artist you worked with
or that great artist you love that you've never met,
or this fan in an amazing piece of cosplay.
Like, each experience at Comic-Con
is an unexpected and very exciting
way to reengage with people who love the same stuff you do.
And--
Mm-hmm.
--I'd kind of forgotten what that was like.
Because the only people most of us
have seen for years have been in little Zoom windows.
And this guy.
Yeah, and this guy.
I am looking forward to 3:00 on--
3:00 on Friday, or on Saturday, our Marvel
Spotlight on hot new talent.
I feel like it's been--
we did our first ashcan--
the first comics we'd ever done was at this convention
nine years ago.
Yep, nine years ago.
And to go from a little celebrity book--
eight pages of just a little celebrity
book to being on Marvel's--
I mean, doing this--
Being on the next big thing panel,
a panel that we have gone to as fans for, like, 15 years--
Yeah.
--is completely insane.
So we're going to be on there with Chris
Cantwell and Ram V, who are two of our close comics brothers.
I can't wait to do it. It's going to be amazing.
- Yeah. - I love it.
I am so excited that y'all had the opportunity
to stop here on Marvel Live.
Thank you, thank you, thank you, Jackson, Collin.
Thank you so much.