771: How Does this Creator use Comics on the Frontlines of the Culture War!?

Brian Nichols  
Can comic books help save our culture? Yeah, let's talk about that. Instead of focusing on winning arguments, we're teaching the basic fundamentals of sales and marketing and how we can use them to win in the world of politics, teaching you how to meet people where they're at on the issues they care about. Welcome to The Brian Nichols Show. Well, hey there, folks, Brian Nichols, here on The Brian Nichols Show. Thank you for joining us on a course, for fun filled episode. I am as always your humble host. Joining us live from our cardio miracle Studios here in lovely Eastern Indiana want to learn how to improve your heart health with an amazing supplement? We'll go ahead stick around. We'll talk about that later. But first joining us here on The Brian Nichols Show today talking about how Yes, in fact, comic books can help impact the culture from the voluntaryist series Jack Lloyd, welcome The Brian Nichols Show.

Jack Llyod  
am Brian how's it going? Thanks for having me on. I really appreciate it.

Brian Nichols  
Doing great, buddy. Great to have you on the show. And I gotta say, Jack, I'm embarrassed. It's taken us how many years now of us being buddies there on social media and meeting in person to now actually having you on the show. So I need to apologize. First off, but secondly, man, I'm so excited to have you on the show. Because you are doing amazing stuff impacting the culture specifically, through meeting people where they're at on the issues they care about in the entertainment space, I want to dig into all that stuff. But first, do me a favor. Go ahead, introduce yourself here to The Brian Nichols Show audience and what are you doing in this whole world of comics?

Jack Llyod  
Sure, I really appreciate that. So I do a lot of different things for liberty. I'm basically a producer for liberty, which means that I'm doing all different types of educational outreaches to people using memes, educational videos, skits, nonfiction books. And as you note, of course, comic books, and music as well. So I've been doing this for quite some time now, you know, at least the comic side now over 10 years, and I've been in the Liberty space, well over 15 years at this point, you know, kind of learning growing, and then of course, sharing that knowledge with others. And before all this, I was a criminal defense attorney and later government, school teacher and then tutoring company owner. And eventually I started to move away from from those things and started to work more on projects that I really cared about in delivery. You are

Brian Nichols  
an attorney, you're a teacher. How old are you?

Jack Llyod  
Well, I'm not young, give the exact age. But

Brian Nichols  
for our audio listeners, by the way, Jack will click 24. So that's that's why I'm asking the question. Sorry, Jack continue.

Jack Llyod  
It's all good. Yeah, a lot of times people think that are maybe a little younger, from how I look. But yeah, I've lived a little bit longer than people might expect. So. But yeah, so after doing all those different things, I just really wanted to take some of the things I was passionate about when it came to the mainstream, like I really liked, you know, nerdom, with comics and superhero movies and things like that. And so I started to think about how I could integrate that with the principles of liberty and voluntaryism. And I started to work on some concepts, did some cosplay things that eventually came to like a film script idea, but then I realized that would cost too much money to do, right, it's, you know, you just really have to have a big budget to do that. But comic books was a lot more attainable. And so I kind of switched there and pivoted toward the comic book world, and started develop a comic book treatment, and then eventually developed it into issues and then did some prototyping. And then, after many years of doing the prototyping, I got to doing the Canon origin story. And we just completed a remaster. And actually, if you see right here, it's now in this beautiful trade paperback format. So we actually have this 192 page voluntaryist comic book, a trade paperback, I love it, what does it mean to be truly free, and you know, it's got lots of different things going on inside there. And that represents the individual comic books here, you could say so, you know, basically have these six single issues that also is in that Compendium that you could see right there. So this has been, you know, a big project of love. And now finally, we have something that is, in my opinion, a really competitive, mainstream, competitive, beautiful, well written and it's, you know, something that I'm just super proud of at this point. And we're getting ready for our next comic book campaign arc launch coming up at the end of October. So it's going to be called the suit sagas. The next arc is, you know, coming off the origins, and working on that first issue and whatever else comes from that. So, really thankful for where we're at now, lots of learning and along the way, but it seems like it's a great time for the independent crater universe to kind of flourish. I think aerosolized reverse is just one among many successful examples of that. So

Brian Nichols  
yeah, you brought up Eric July he was the first person that popped in my head was reverse because he did a crowdfunding campaign he raised like what was well over six, seven Here's right.

Jack Llyod  
So he did what was called a pre order campaign. So he had his own website and a comics were already made. And so people were just putting in pre orders. And then he got those up. And his first campaign on the face, it was about 3.7 million, I think is probably closer to 4 million was stuff that was sold after and then a second campaign did about 2.3 million. So very successful. Probably one of the most successful independent comic productions to date up there with Ethan Van Shriver, you know, he's kind of the father of comic skate, you know, this kind of movement of artists moving out of the mainstream, because they're just, you know, tired of their nonsense. So, it's really exciting. You know, and I've been doing this way ahead of even all those people, like I, you know, I saw the writing on the wall way back in 2012, you know, and was beginning on this, then. And so it's kind of crazy to see how far this has come and how serious people are taking it in the parallel economy, looking at alternatives and independent creators.

Brian Nichols  
Yeah, and one thing I wanted to go back towards was something that you raised up specifically in this independent creator space. And it's the reason why we have independent creators because the the more shall we say, institution of the, you know, the comic book entities that were out there, those institutions, they weren't responding to the demands of their readers, and there wasn't a very real and dare I say, like palatable demand and need from that that consumer base, and you hit the nail on the head man, like, there is a market for this. And not only is there a market for this, you guys are are proving that in the success that you're having both you Eric July and others I know our buddies there Remo Martinez, and and Mark Claire have their podcast, second print comics, they're talking about a lot of these comics, you know more from a cultural perspective as well. And in some cases, doing more critiques, you're out there Jack making comics, right? You're setting the narratives, you're helping establish culture. So with that, I think it's really good for us to maybe transition our conversation towards the feedback, right? Because it's one thing to have the idea, it's one thing to say, We think there's a market, now we're seeing the market, and obviously, you guys are selling your books, which means that people are buying them, but I need to hear what's been the response, what have been, you know, the feedback you've been getting, when people are going ahead and purchasing voluntaryist?

Jack Llyod  
Yes. So, you know, it's been evolving over time, because during the first I'd say, half of my years doing this, a lot of it was kind of figuring things out, prototyping, doing some insider humor, like with the state zombies issue. And eventually, you know, while that was fun to try to do some insider humor, it's not necessarily, you know, expand as expandable into the wider market. So I decided to shift gears and actually just really focus on the Canon origin story, because the whole point is that my comic series is not some type of preachy thing in any way. It's not meant to be, you know, like Jack Chick tract or something, it's, it's actually a real story and, you know, a character development and conflict and a purpose and apply, it's just that my comic universe does what no other will ever do, which is, you know, turn the status norms of comics on their head, and not treat government as a default good, or just something that needs a little bit of correction, or just has some few bad apples. So that's really where I stand out is I'm willing to do things and to have character development and plots that nobody else will ever touch, you know, in this realm, and even if they come close, it's usually more so on the communist socialist bent. So I definitely think I'm doing something unique, you know, in that realm, and certainly with, you know, the improvements I've made and how hard work to try to listen and see what people are really interested in what would be better. Just reading through everything I could possibly can online, you know, from Reddit, to direct messages, you know, just improving things along the way to what makes sense. And now, from what I've seen, what I've heard from my fulfillment on this last campaign, which was the most successful ever, raising, you know, nearly a 20k that was, you know, great overall, so that the feedback I got from people there was that they really liked what we did with the remaster and how developed this universe is now so it's really something impressive and suddenly you can dive into and then at the end of it be like, Okay, I gotta know what happens next. So that's pretty fun.

Brian Nichols  
Now I I'm interested, I know my audience is interested Jack, you've started to paint the picture a little bit of the the actual comic series itself. Tell us a little bit about what this world is like, what what's what's the protagonist? What's the antagonist? What's their struggles? What's the the kind of the themes that you're, you're touching on? I would love to just to get some context here.

Jack Llyod  
Sure. So the comic book opens up with the protagonist, whose name is Jack Lloyd. And this is just, you know, a stage name down here, but it ties to the comic. So this character is set back in 2012. Just graduating from college. And there is a cosmic event that kind of shifts everything that this character thought, you know, he's going to be doing, he was coming back home to work on his parents farm before he was going to go and basically fall from an internship to a job. And that kind of throws things off for him. And all of a sudden the government is after him after he's affected by this cosmic event. And so the story really revolves around this character and his struggle for, you know, figuring out what it is that the government wants to do with him why and, you know, ultimately why the government comes in and kidnaps his parents. And so along the way, there's definitely other characters that come into play that help him there's questions of, of who, you know, is, is are people who you can trust. And there's, of course, the questions of what the government was was planning to do and why they're after these people who are affected by this cosmic event. So it's a ever expanding universe. It's something that there's a chronology to and there's a fixed timeline. So just like, you know, with other creators who are in the zone, there's no, there's no multiverse, you know, kind of thing, like everything has serious continuity, and important, you can't just like

Brian Nichols  
nuke one planet in one universe, and that, that you know, it That's okay, that was in universe 3742. That doesn't matter to the main storyline, none of that nonsense.

Jack Llyod  
Right. So that's, that's true. I've always held that for the story that I've always wanted to make sure that this had a valuable continuity and timeline where, you know, the the events prior matter for the future. And you know, I don't mess with that kind of thing. So, yeah, it's something that is very unusual in terms of the developments, because, again, you know, there's tons of superhero comics out there, obviously. So that's nothing new or special. There's tons of comments with this mystery about what the government's doing, and this or that, but there are virtually no comic books in this genre and in the zone, that actually dive into the nature of what the government is doing. And that question of what it means to be truly free, and how do people get to being truly free? And so that premise underpins a lot of the development and the action, and so on, so forth. So, you know, that's kind of a small snippet of insight into into how it goes.

Brian Nichols  
Absolutely. And trust me, I don't want you to give the farm away, right. Like, we want folks to have a reason to go out and purchase this comic series. And frankly, I think you know, where I wanted to maybe turn the second half this conversation is to talk about where you're doing well, and where other libertarians in the cultural arena have. Maybe not been doing so hot. But before we go there, Jacqueline, go ahead and give a shout out to today's sponsor, folks. You know them you love them. I hope you know my mom at this point is cardio. Miracle cardio miracle is our studio sponsor. And folks I've been using cardio miracle now for about four and a half, five months. And I say it every ad read yes indeed, the cardio miracle difference is real. So if you are like the millions of Americans out there who are feeling sluggish rundown, constantly fatigued well guess what? It's time to recharge not just your body, but your heart and an all natural safe way using cardio. Miracle cardio miracle is a scientifically crafted supplement that boosts nitric oxide levels to help promote healthy circulation and heart function and how it works by relaxing blood vessels cardio miracle enhances the blood flow and reduces inflammation. What that means is you're going to experience the benefits of improved delivery of oxygen and nutrients to power your days with energy, lower blood pressure, providing vital support to your cardiovascular system. And folks the advantages keep coming fall asleep faster, wake up refresh, protect your heart from damage and of course, say goodbye to feeling drained. So if you want to take control of your health and experience what optimize heart health feels like visit cardio miracle.com use code TBNS at checkout and you will receive a 15% discount on your cardio miracle order. So I gotta say folks like there is quite literally no risk here because Did I mention there's a 100% money back guarantee? That's right. So if you want to take part in the 52 life heart saving crucial ingredients that are out there in cardio miracle one more time cardio miracle.com use code T V NS for 15% off your order, cardio miracle, the finest heart health supplement in the world, Jack. Okay. We talked about you doing great. You're having success in the cultural arena. And I look at other libertarians out there and I'd say, Guys, what are we doing? So you're doing something right. Obviously there are others who maybe could use some guidance. So Jack, where are other libertarians missing the market? It comes to entering into these cultural conversations.

Jack Llyod  
So depends on the person, of course. But generally speaking, when it comes to customer service, and you know, product quality, those are those are two big deals that can readily be missed. So, when you're trying to provide something that it's unique out there, you got to make sure that whatever you're doing is somewhat competitive within the zone, whether it's an independent thing or mainstream. So, you know, you may have good ideas, but if you don't execute them well, for, you know, the zone that you're working in, well, it's not going to matter too much, because keep looking like yeah, that's not very, you know, good quality product, right, there's gonna be certain expectations of what people expect to see within something, you know, and somebody will have some, you know, patience for certain kinds of growth you with a new business. But again, at the end of the day, you want to make sure that everything you're presenting really looks competitive within the zone that you're trying to be in. And sometimes that is tough for people, if they think that what they're making is, is good or quality enough, if they if they think oh, well, I just like doing this thing. And they're not willing to have a growth mindset and look and see what else is out there and what the comparatives are and how you stack up, if you don't have that, then you might be missing your opportunities for how you can improve and, you know, stay competitive in that way. So, you know, for me and my own work, you know, I definitely paid attention to what people said, as I was learning and you know, definitely took cues about how to do things better when it when it came to lettering and spacing and certain design elements and, and, you know, worked my way through those things that which led to the remaster. So, um, that's something to always be mindful of, when you're trying to bring something to bear to everybody else, that you want to make sure that what you're offering actually is something that is competitive within the zone that you're offering it, you know,

Brian Nichols  
yeah, and value to man, like you're bringing value to the table. And this is just the reality, like, if you're just creating another product to be white noise, it's gonna be white noise, and you have to create something that's unique. That's and it's frankly addressing where there are concerns in the marketplace that aren't being addressed. And you're doing that and you're you're again, entering into the cultural conversation but in a unique way, and you're bringing value. I love that Jack and, and for the audience out there who's listening, I'm sure that they're, you know, they're all super curious at this point like this. This sounds great. I want to get involved. So Jack, where can folks go ahead and support you learn more about voluntaryist All that kind of fun stuff.

Jack Llyod  
So they can follow along@vollkommen.com That's v's and victory vo LCL mi si.com vollkommen.com. My main person website now that's Jack JCK V as in victory. Lloyd lloy D, Jackie boy.com. And, you know, between those, you see a lot of what I do or connect to different projects and things like that, because there's a lot going on with what I do just, you know, be on the comics, too. I just came out with and it's actually so fresh, I don't even have my official copy at that's the non, you're not for resale when the author's proof. But my latest nonfiction book just came out. And of course, you know, there's artful covers with that, which comes in the heels of my other two, libertarian voluntaries and definitive guide there. And then vision for a libertarian future. So my third nonfiction book also just came out recently. So with a lot of great fanfare off the past two. So yeah, yeah.

Brian Nichols  
Well, I think, and how about this, we'll go towards our final thoughts today, Jack, I'll kick things off before I turn it over to you. I think this episode, it just helps reaffirm what we've been promoting here on the program now for the past year. And for folks who've been with me for the long haul, you know, that I have sometimes avoided cultural conversations. I just didn't want to get involved, right. Like I wanted to focus on solutions. I wanted to focus on like, how do we how do we sell our ideas, but then I realized that we have to do both, right, you can walk and chew gum at the same time. And if you're not taking part, in the cultural conversations, somebody else is. And what happens is, is that when somebody else is taking part in leading that cultural conversation, they're now establishing narratives and those narratives, because they're based in culture, they become rooted in the identity of the people who are embracing it and absorbing it and promoting it. Now, I think back to like, think of Star Wars, think of Harry Potter, think of Lord of the Rings, like think of the culture, that that revolves around the mythos, think of I mean, I had Steven Kent here on the show, he wrote the awesome book, how the force can save the world. And he goes into the philosophy of Star Wars, and it's so cool, because he's digging into things from a very, very libertarian lens, and he adds value to that cultural conversation. But there are other folks out there who I know that there they will be more than happy to lead with their own narratives, right. And we see that happen where the progressive ideology will will seep its way into these different areas of culture and then tried to take over to lead with their narratives. You see, especially in the Harry Potter world, right? Like all the the millennials out there who were reading Harry Potter back when they were in school. Now, I would say what 70% of them are probably, you know, in their their mid to late 30s. And I would say they're probably leaning left if not overtly progressive Democrats. And there's a reason that we in the cultural space on the right side of the aisle, let's say and just using the right knee and in the pejorative sense, but like, we haven't had too much success in building culture. And with that, we're seeing the impact, not just at the the way that the country has been turning in terms of the electorate, but also in the way that our policies have had been really forming here over the past few decades. So I think what you're doing what Eric July is doing, what folks across the spectrum, whether it's in media, in the arts, whatever it may be, that are bringing real, like alternatives to these cultural conversations, not only is it like a value, add, it's imperative, because if we're not doing it, someone else says, and I'll make sure we're the ones setting the narratives, instead of responding to them. That's my final thoughts. Jack, what do you have for us on your end?

Jack Llyod  
Yeah, I think that being a part of the creative and cultural drive is absolutely important. And a lot of times, it's difficult or was difficult for people within the Liberty space to be as engaged or competitive, because they didn't have what I would consider to be a beautiful aesthetic to what it is that they present it, there's lots of people who are good with the, you know, economic side of things in terms of writing, or maybe philosophy in terms of, you know, again, just just books. But few and far between had the beautiful effects are needed both in presentation of a person and quality of product and art. So you need to have strong visuals that that really connect with people with whatever it is that you're presenting. And so as you know, correctly that a lot of times the people in the leftist progressive arena seem to have a stronger hold on that when it comes to Hollywood and mainstream entertainment. They seem to have the kind of cluster of all the great movies and shows and the fashion. And then often, you know, the art as well. And I think that has actually shifted, especially in the last 10 years, I think that we started to see a bit of a renaissance in creative opportunities and beauty within our own space. And I think that's been a part of people starting to move beyond just the philosophy aspects of economics aspects and applying it in the real world. And then people finding the resources to be able to fund those things. I think, for example, you know, Tuttle twins is a great example of that. The artwork, there was very excellent, made sure competitive they got with Dan Harmon to do their TV show, which again, the animation is mainstream, competitive. So, you know, when it comes to the success here, you need to have things that are, you know, rivaling what it is that you're seeing other people in the other idea space. And we've definitely seen that growth come up, you know, exponentially over time, as people have started to figure out how to do that, and have had enough people I guess, you could say, to be able to support those larger scale visions, you know, even I think of Larkin rose, he had just released a new movie called John's plantation, which I'd seen at pork fest. And overall, you know, cinema quality quality there was was pretty good. And so as the acting so, you know, in order to get there, a lot of times, you need the total population, to be large enough that they can help fund something that actually is that that level of good, you need to have the resources in order to do that. So we are definitely coming to the kind of shift where there's enough people in our space within this you know, libertarian paradigm, who are willing to be out there and to support people doing good work and help them be able to create these next level cultural pieces, you know, in movies and artwork and your comics, whatever, to be able to really start to compete with the mainstream.

Brian Nichols  
Jack Lloyd we could keep going on and on and on. But unfortunately, I looked at the time you're already hard pressed for time, which means we must be starting the goodbyes. So with that, folks, you know, to go ahead and follow me at BEA Nichols Liberty x.com Facebook Jack, where can folks go ahead and find you they won't continue the conversation

Jack Llyod  
again, Jack V. Lloyd, J C K V as in victory l o id.com. Or vol comic, that's V as in victory Oh LCL nyc.com Those are my two main places but then you'll find me anywhere and everywhere. I really am all over the internet in ways that sometimes I don't even know myself I get surprised when people like oh hey, you're in this you know, video of someone making fun of me and like okay, So are you showing up

Brian Nichols  
everywhere man, you're you're showing up in videos you're showing up and online. Heck, you were at Young Americans for Liberty last year, and you showed up right behind me. So you show up everywhere. It's awesome. Jack No, truly, I really want to re emphasize how great the work is that you're doing and how important it is right. So folks, if you enjoy today's conversation, and you agree that Jack's work is important, please go ahead and share today's conversation. When you do please tag your surely. Also now you can find us on a couple of different platforms. Yes, there it is. voluntaries series, go ahead and grab yours now you can find us on a couple of different platforms from a podcasting perspective. All your traditional mediums, YouTube Music, Spotify, Apple podcasts, wherever it is, you get your podcast, just hit that subscribe button. And also, if you're interested, we have like over 770 other episodes of the program. So go back to Episode One. Fast forward like six years to today. All those episodes, lots of awesome, awesome guests awesome, awesome conversations. Or if you want to go ahead and consume the video content, we can go ahead and do that on YouTube rumble sovereign wherever it is you get your video content, if it is sovereign, SOV arienne, which is Ben Swan, from reality checks entity. Congratulations, you're seeing today's episode before anybody else. That's your sovereign exclusive. But if you are joining us on your more traditional platforms like YouTube or rumble, hey, thank you and do me a favor, hit that subscribe button, little notification bell and of course, leave us your thoughts down below in the comments. Do you like getting involved in the cultural conversations? Is it uncomfortable for you? Would this be a tool in your tool belt for helping reach new people? We want to hear about it. So please leave your thoughts down below. But I think that's all we really have for you folks. So with that being said, Jack mentioned the amazing team over at the Libertas Institute, they they're the guys who produce the Tuttle twins. I'm gonna go ahead and include here if you're joining us on YouTube, my conversation with Connor boy AK from the Libertas Institute, great, great guy, and he talks about all the great work they're doing with the Tuttle twins. So if you want to go ahead and check out that conversation, stick around, we'll be popping up right about here. But otherwise, that's all we have for you today, folks. That being said, Brian about signing off here on The Brian Nichols Show for Jack Lloyd, we'll see you next time.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai