#181 – Chat with Ramón K Pêrez

Breakfast puppies.

This podcast contains adult language and content and is meant for mature audiences. Listener discretion is advised.

The Glitter Boys.

Listening to you are.

Yes.

We're back with another episode of the Glitter Boys. And once again we are joined by someone awesome that isn't us. No. And that, I mean. Introduce yourself.

My name is Ramon Perez. I guess here I'm known mostly for my work at Palladium Books, but I've worked through comics, kids books, web comics, illustration, graphic design. I think my art career is taking me pretty much everywhere I can create art at the end of the day. Do you have a really bouncy chair, by the way?

I have extreme adhd, so I have a exercise ball that I sit on.

Oh, I used to. I used to sit on one of those for a while, but I think after a long day of working, my butt would get numb.

Oh, no. 100%. You are absolutely spot on. I only use it for recording or gaming because it's my fidget.

Oh, no, it's fun. Yeah, I remember they're great for the core too.

Yep.

Yeah, so that's me.

Awesome. So, Ramon, when our former co host, Matthew and I started this podcast, we were talking in our early days about, you know, one day we'll actually maybe have some guests on if people actually like listening to, you know, a bunch of nerds talk about Palladium games. And, you know, we were having our dream list and you know, Matt, he was like, oh, this person, this person. I was like, I want Kevin and Ramon Perez.

And I'm good.

So. So what you're saying is after this interview, we're ending the podcast is what?

We're done.

We're done.

Completed.

I love it.

So, Ramon, my first introduction to the art that you did for Palladium was when I was a teenager and I picked up a copy of Rift's New West.

Oh, yeah.

Which still to this day is my favorite book in the entire Palladium catalog. Primarily because of your artwork in that it defined my vision of Rifts.

I think if I recall correctly. I mean, forgive me, it's been a while, but I believe New west was my first Rifts book. But I can't confirm or verify that at this moment because I remember I had done a couple of Palladium fantasy books before that. I think one was a God's book, and I can't remember what the other one was offhand. And then I remember Kevin asking me, he was like, hey, we, we. I like what you've done on these other properties of mine. What I mean, or. Or can you do sci fi, basically? And I was like. I was like, can I swear on this? I was like, yeah. Like, I was just like, I love science fiction. That's what I grew up on. That's what my. So he put me on the book and was ecstatic that I could pull it off. I love that used world vibe that you got from Star Wars. That's what I grew up on. And I was also a big western fan. So literally, he just combined two of my favorite things in that book, Cowboys and Space Operas. And I just went to town, basically, and I had a lot of fun doing that book. And to be honest, it's still one of my favorite books as well that I've done for the. The Rift series of books. You know, each one has always a special kind of memory, to a degree. Like, I'm also. I loved working on Federation of Magic. Yeah, that was.

That was the book that I like. The pictures in there just jumped out of me even before. Like, I love New west as well, but the Federation of Magic book, like, the casters, the battle mage, different things. I was like, okay, these. These look badass. These are.

These are cool. And that was fun because by that point, like, Kevin had really had his trust in me. Like, I had a lot of freedom with Kevin. Like, he. As soon as he saw I could do what I did. You know, I remember with Federation of Magic at one point, like, they didn't really have a full script yet, but they were like. He was like, I need, like, seven magic classes. You know, I can't remember what it was at this point, but I was like, you know, he's like, I need seven kinds of. These are the rough ideas behind them. You go to town, will work around your art, basically.

Oh.

So I was like, one of those ones where. And I think, you know, you could probably see in the characters. I think I was into Braum at the time and a few other guys. I was just like, spiky helmets, masks, like, this whole cultish behavior and idea behind that. And so, like, yeah, that was like, with Kevin, I'd probably be working for him by a couple years by that point. I'm guessing. I can't recall now, but he had gone down to visit him a few times. There was a big trust thing there. And he, like, really just let me run wild with a lot of those books. I mean, as a young artist starting out my career, that was like. Like amazing. Just given that kind of freedom that I rarely have had again in my career, you Know when an editor or an art director or whatever, a client trusts you so much, they're like just go nuts. You know, we will work around it kind of thing. You know what I mean?

You mentioned the lived in kind of feeling like that. That dirty art flavor. I would say that that is probably the main reason I was so drawn to your representation of the Rifts world. It put you in what I consider a holy trinity of the Palladium Rifts artists who also. All three artists who do that kind of thing would be you, Larry McDougal and Eric Talbot.

Oh yeah.

Looking at the original Rifts book or looking at the Adventures in the Northern Wilderness books on the Palladium fantasy line. Those artists, they created this world that looked like people lived in it. It wasn't. And you did the same. It's not just like angry action poses or having, you know, holding a weapon at the camera kind of stuff. Yep.

I tried to create a snapshot like it was a moment in time. Like. So there was like something that had happened right before and you knew something more was going to happen after that moment or that shot. Yeah, in that. In that image. And it's. It's funny that you mentioned Larry actually, because Larry is probably one of the reasons I'm. I worked for Palladium really at all. Because as an 18 year old up here, was it 19. Right. You know, applied to college post secondary. And in my year, Larry McDougall was there. He had come back to college to learn color theory and really explore painting. So having we. We met and we started chatting. I can't remember if it was first or second year. I want to say it was more second year. But once I met him, I was like, oh, who are you? And it was funny because I'd seen his art as a kid. I never played Risk, but I. I knew a few of the books. A friend of mine had them. We played ad, we played TMNT and a few other things. So I'd been familiar with Larry's work a bit, but hadn't quite actually seen the breadth of it or met the man. And so when I met him, he was like, oh, you could totally work for Palladium. This company I work from. Like what's Palladium? You know. So he, he kind of introduced me to the idea of freelancing in the RPG world.

Oh wow.

It wasn't something that I was on my radar. Like I played the games, but I never considered it a career path. Like it just did not click in my mental landscape where I Was like, I can't work for these companies that I, you know, I'm buying these books from. Right. It just never occurred to me. I thought it'd be an illustrator doing ads for, you know, banks or TVs or, you know, whatever. It was like, it just didn't occur to me. Because of Larry, I was like, Kevin was one of the first portfolios I sent out after graduating.

I was just going to say, so what you're saying is Larry saved you from a lifetime of corporate art?

Yeah, exactly, exactly. Like, he definitely did. Point me. There's a couple other guys in the, in the, in my class at the time when another guy pointed me in the direction of comics, which, like I said, once again, I loved comics. But it never occurred to me that, like, I thought I had to go to New York and live in New York and work. You know, I didn't make that tangential leap. And because, I mean, really, there was no Internet back then. There was nowhere I could look up how to become a comic book artist or it was either you picked up a magazine or whatever. So, yeah, for thanks to a couple of individuals in my, my program that year, I actually was able to make those connections. I remember at one time we together, all of us, I can't remember if it was Larry was with us, but a few of them, we went to like, hit comic book shows and I got. Got introduced to that world. Even though I collected comics, I'd never been to a con or anything like that. I played RPGs on my, you know, growing up, I'd never gone to a gaming con or anything like that. So it was, yeah, very eye opening and kind of definitely changed the direction of, or at least accelerated the direction I, you know, shifted into quite quickly.

Your first con, what was the experience like for you as a young gamer go into your first Con on.

So I never really did cons before I worked in the industry. I did like one or two local shows about trying to get work. I did a. It was a Tron show at the time, which is now a big con called Fan Expo.

Oh, yeah?

Yeah. And back then it was just in a hotel room or a hotel. Creepy hotel room going on.

The whole convention's in a creepy hotel room.

One kid at a time gets scarred for life. And the other show was a Big Apple Con in New York.

Oh, yeah.

And so those are the only two shows I'd really done prior to really working in the industry. So when I, When I worked for. When I started working for Kevin, he was like, hey, do you want to come down for Gen Con? And I was like, what's, what's Gen Con? I have no idea. So I drove, I drove to Detroit and from Detroit I went with Kevin to Gen Con and later I would do Ohio gaming con with him, but did my first Gen Con. And it was when it was in Milwaukee at the time. And I was just never see anything like it before. I was blown away. The thing was massive, you know, like I'm meeting fans. I'd already done a year or two's worth of work for Kevin, so, you know, like people knew who I was. So I was doing like commissions at the show. People asked me to draw their characters. I'm selling original pieces, you know, meeting fans, going to dinner with Kevin and the crew. Yeah, it was, it was a crazy experience. And then also wandering around the show and meeting other artists, you know, buying like, like all this extra cash. I'd be like, I'm buying a sword here. I'm gonna buy a skull over here. Like just the weird stuff you buy at Cons. Right? Like, you know, and you're like going home. I'm like, I got three swords and a skull in my truck. I wouldn't get pulled over at the border.

What could go wrong?

What could go wrong? Exactly. Right.

Given some of the horror stories I've heard about crossing the Canadian border after Gen. Yeah, it can get rough.

Oh, man. Well, yeah, it was, it was definitely an eye openening experience and just meeting other fellow artists at the time. I met Wayne, bro. He was also one of Kevin's go tos at the time. Dave John. No, no, Dave Johnson. Oh my God. Like I was first name Scott. Scott Johnson. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I just got to know all these wonderful people. Right. So it was a great experience. And I was like in my early 20s. I'm like, I'm loving it. I'm just going on these road trips, seeing parts of America and different places. And then Kevin would often have guy weekends where we'd go down to a role play and go watch movies and all kinds of things. So it was wonderful.

The RPG rock star lifestyle.

How to be a rock star on a shoestring budget.

Yeah, pretty much.

More Coca Cola, less cocaine.

Oh, yeah, exactly. Bags of chips, Coca Cola, you know, 20 sided dice. We can roll it away. Yep. It was awesome.

Do you have any pieces that you contributed to the rifts? Okay, not even rifts. Palladium in general that you consider to be your best work?

Oh, definitely. I have a, a bunch of. I have A. I did a quite a bit of work for. For Palladium over the years. I think I was almost there steadily for like almost eight years. I think. You know, maybe like hardcore like a good six and then like off and on near the end. A lot of my favorite pieces. Like there's definitely. I mean New New West. I had a bunch like the. The cowboy with his boots up on the railing.

Yeah.

The full page splash that kind of inspired Machinations of Doom in the Rifter. And there's like a couple in like Federation of Magic with the. A mage walking down a staircase with like books and stuff all over the place.

That's the one. I have that pulled up right now.

And I love it.

It's been one of my favorite pictures ever because, you know, here's this Leyline walker or battle mage and he's walking into this room and they're shelving. Of course your. Your name is hidden on a book spine.

Yeah.

Your normal. And like it's one of those pictures that I've come back to over and over and over and over because there's just so much in there.

Yeah. I used to. I used to throw in so many, so many Easter eggs. Whether it was like friends or just oddball things into especially those like kind of rooms where you could just fill them with all kinds of knickknacks and trinkets. Another favorite was a double page spread, but it was like a thin one and I had like all the monsters I believe or something just like lined up all the different alien species. So like, you know, one of my favorite things back then and still these days is actually reinterpreting characters like. Like this is, you know, even some of the. You mentioned Larry earlier. Like I can't remember what book it was in, but there was a volume where I. I redrew a couple of his monster characters from earlier issues. And I was like kind of fun to go like back. Here's Larry's version. Now here's me interpreting this weird floaty bug. Weird character or this, you know, whatever it was. Right. So. And I've kept a lot of my favorites over the years. I. I definitely sold or donated many to Kevin's Christmas grab bags as well. I still have my entire run of the Machinations of Doom except page one which was given to. I think Kevin bought it for an employee of his at the time. And so yeah, definitely a lot of favorites. You know, there's a double page spread I did of just a big rifts war with these giant robots and stuff. And really, it was one of those things that Kevin, like I said, let me go to town on a lot of these things, right? So something I'd be like, can I do a double fade spread? Or could I do this or that? You'd be like, yeah, sure, go ahead, kid. You know. You know, I think I. I'm guessing, and I could be wrong, but I guess anyone. You probably saw the enthusiasm and you, like, the more enthusiastic you are as a creator, the better art he's gonna get at the end of the day, Right? Yeah. And then, like. And just, like. Yeah. Playing in different, like, Dog Boys and Coalition Troopers. There's so many fun things I've done over the years that I probably have a good set of favorites in every book. Like, even there was one. I think. I think I still have all the pieces still, too. I want to say it was after the Bomb, maybe.

Oh, yeah.

Or the sequel to the After Bomb, where I just. I mean, these are the things I did to entertain myself every so often was. I did, like, I think maybe a dozen or half dozen pieces in that book, but I used the same characters throughout all the pieces to kind of create a narrative with those characters. So just me playing, like, to kind of, like, okay, here's them at, like, a diner. Here's two of them interacting over here. And here's the. So just, like, fun things like that that kind of elevated certain books for me over the years.

So how did Machinations of Doom come to be?

So I know, like, when I first started working for Kevin, he had sent me, like. I remember. I think it was my. When I agreed to do the second job, because I did one job and I didn't hear anything for three months. I was like, oh, I. That up. And then he called me up one morning. He was like, hey, kid, you. You want to do, like, 30 images for our next book? I was like, sure. And then I was like, what's my deadline? He's got. You've got 30 days. I'm like, oh, God. Okay. So I just, like, tore. Tore into it, and I can't. I don't think that was us, but it might. Oh, no. It might have been World of. What was that? World of Darkness or something. He did some kind of, like, horror beyond the supernatural.

And the supernatural could have been.

I don't know. Yeah, I'm trying. Yeah. It's hard to remember the order of some of these, but I used to have a bookshelf with all the books, maybe. Oh, yeah. Nightbane. It could have been Nightbane, too. Maybe because I think he just lost. I want to say Kevin Long had left, and I was kind of coming in to replace a lot of Kevin Long's heavy lifting. Anyways. Yeah, I used to have a bookshelf with all the books in a row on them, but they're all packed away in box now because I don't have the room here where I am now. But I had them in chronological order. As I did them, I would just put the next book.

Oh, nice.

On the shelf. Yeah. So now they're. I believe they're packed away in my basement. But so I noticed when I got the books from Kevin, like, he sent me like about 20 riffs and palladium fantasy books just to have as reference, basically, because there was no emailing them or FTPing them or whatever it was back then. Right. So I just, you know, so going through them, I saw that two, I believe, two of the books had short comic strips in them. I think one was by Kevin Long and one of the earlier Rift volumes, and I can't remember when was made by Kevin. I think it's been a while since I've looked at them anyways, so I knew Kevin had like, obviously a penchant for. For comics, right. And then going down and going for these guy weekends to Detroit, you know, I definitely learned he had a love of comics. So we often bond about different, you know, eras of comic books. So when Wayne kind of brought out the idea of doing the Rifter magazine, and I think it was. I can't remember if Machinations premiered in like issue six or something maybe around there somewhere, I was like, before that, I was like. I was like, hey, what do you guys think about doing a comic book in. In the. In the Rifter? Like, I'd love to do like an eight page. This is me just trying. Like, I always loved storytelling. I loved comic books. And, you know, this was as greedily for me as it was for anything else was to. I'd love to do a comic book and play in this world. And it's also a way to cut my teeth on storytelling and, you know, learn that craft as well. So, yeah, I just proposed the idea to Kevin. He's like, well, we got a limited budget, so this is what I can give you. I was like, it was less than when I was getting paid for my illustrations for the Riffs books, but I kind of didn't care because it allowed me, like, once again to play and do something I was writing. At first I started co writing it with somebody, and then I Just took over writing, I think by issue the third installment. And then. Yeah, and drawing and everything, like lettering, like just the whole nine yards on the series. And like I gave, you know, Kevin a rough pitch idea for the story. I think it wavered off a little bit on a tangent, but with the idea of doing a second part later on to wrap up the next phase, which never happened, unfortunately, but it was great. Once again, this was, I think Kevin just giving me the freedom to play and try something, you know, and like, you know, he love. I said we both love comics. It was just a great way to do that. And I, I took the characters from that one piece I did in New West. I was like, okay, there's a story behind this piece. I love these characters. Let's make something bigger out of it kind of thing. And it was still one of the highlights of my career doing that, that book. Like I look back on that definitely, obviously grow an artist. But there's just such a raw energy because I was like, you know, it's like putting a racehorse out of the gate. I'm just barreling through, trying things, you know, experimenting with story panel layouts, character designs. Like, it was a lot of fun.

As a Rifts player. It was really fun seeing all of these things that we'd been so familiar with come to life. Like finally seeing somebody draw something using the, the Mountaineer, because I think that's.

The stuff I loved. I was like once again taking these things that were designed and making them like somehow work. Like, you know, I think like, oh, you can make your own vehicle. Obviously. You know, I want to use this weird three wheeled thing from, you know, how does it work on the inside? What does it look like? How do people fit inside of it? Like, I, that was like my, my nerd brain. Love that aspect of playing with these things. I remember I did get some flack a little bit from some fans going like, oh, that gun doesn't have this enough like damage to do what he did in that comic. But for me it was, I just, for me it was just like, I'm doing it for effect. I'm doing it for, you know, like I, to be honest, I've never played a Rifts game at all. I played, played in fantasy and I played beyond the supernatural with Kevin. I've never actually played riffs. I was just, wait, I was just winging it. You know, I read the books, the manuscripts as I got them, but I never actually, you know, I never looked at the gun going, well, this one looks like it does more damage than that one against this armor over here. I was just like three wheeled machine. I got a burster, a line walker, you know, a dog boy, all this stuff. Let's. Let's go to town kind of thing.

Well, like, I'm surprised they gave you flack over the. The weapons, the opening scene, when. Or one of the scenes when the burster, like just nukes everything in the room. Mechanically that doesn't work, but it's cool thematically. It was like, that's amazing. That is Drew Barrymore killing all the bad guys.

Right.

Which is basically, let's be honest, that's.

What the Mercer is.

But.

Yeah, no, I reread it last night.

Oh, nice.

And I was like, wow, this was riffs. This is Absolutely. Riffs.

100%.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Once again. Yeah. I guess it's just like when you have an adaptation of anything, you know, what works for the moment, for effect sometimes. Not necessarily as accurate as it should be, but you're doing it for the theater of it. All right. Exactly.

And critical hits happen. Darn it.

And it's you as a storyteller trying to tell this story. I've read fiction, I've seen shows where they try to follow the game material so closely and it doesn't tell a story. Right. It's a great game, but it doesn't tell a story. And you get bogged down by literally the mechanics of a game to try to tell a story. And it's like there's always a balance, for sure.

Yeah. I used to GM a lot of when with my crew and I, when I gamed regularly. And there was two of us that were kind of like the main GMs. And one guy, we always joke, we called him Rule Boy. And he. Because he was just like strict to the rule. And I was the guy who. I'd be like, roll it. I'll fudge it. Because I want the effect. I want the. The bombastic moment or the satisfaction of that moment. Like maybe the role didn't quite make it, but it was going to be a big moment and the characters are going to love it or whatever it might be, Right. So they kind of like, you know, you play more on an emotional level rather than always sticking to the rules when you have to. I think I took that into my. That writing process as well. I might not know the rules 100%, but, you know, I want this to be like a big ending moment. What happens, you know, the character's gonna nuke the whole bar or whatever it is. You know, and if you truly.

And if you truly succeed, they change the rules around what you did.

Yeah, I remember one of the things, I remember when I first started working for Kevin, one of the things he was always like, he's like, don't make any new characters or weapons. Just please don't do that. Don't make stuff up because you're going to make something up. And I got to put stats for it. So just use. You have all the books, you have the things. Just draw what's there. And I'm like, yeah, sure, no problem. First thing, I'm like making up the grackle tooth, you know, or like some weird gun thing. He's like, oh, now I got to do stats for this thing created or whatever it was. Right. So it was just one. It was these things that like, it was hilarious. But like, you know, like once again you're like, I just want to draw this weird monster thing. I don't know what this is. And like, you know, you go to town, you know, but it's fun. That's what it was. It was, it was like the wild west working for, for Kevin. Sometimes you just, you're. You're at the seat of your pants, creating, having fun. And, and I definitely, he, he's definitely got a passion for it too. He's a storyteller and a creative guy and like I think he imbued all of us with that excitement while we were there.

So what was after Palladium? Where did you go next?

Well, when I first so like after, I think working exclusively, exclusively with Kevin for probably two or three years and he kept me busy. Like I was non stop, like every book I was cranking out the ton of illustration and I loved it. Like it was a great way to cut my teeth. I started using that work to try to get other work. So I ended up working for West End games on some Star wars books. I for Steve Jackson games. I worked out there in nominee series. Another oddball jobs in the RPG world would come in. I did a lot of superhero work for. What was that company? God, I can't remember it now. Sorry. That came. It's been a while. And I did magazine work related to games. So I just kept building and building and then I went to CCGS when those started to get popular, working with West End games. Legend of the Five Rings, Tale of the Burning Sands or something I think it was called. Or. And then there was this kind of like this high point. And then I, I kind of saw. I don't know if it was the rise of video games because video games were kind of doing a steady rise at that point. And I think a lot of players attentions were going that way. Gaming just started to kind of dip down. Yeah, where, where rates started to go down. Like, you know, a job that you'd maybe get paid $800 or $1,000 for was now 600 or 400. And you're like, that's kind of weird. So you kind of like. I kind of saw the writing on the wall a little bit. And I also felt I was kind of repeating myself. Like near the end of my run up on Palladium books, I was like, I never thought I would say, but I was like, how, how many times can I draw a dragon and make it interesting? I was just like kind of burnt out on the material. Like after eight years I was like, okay, I think I need to step away and do something different. So I started to shift more into at that time, magazine work and kids books I started to do at the time. While I was at Palladium, I also started doing web comics work just to kind of get my funny bone out. I would be doing like these little online comic. One was called Butternut Squash and that kind of work. It was kind of like a Sunday funnies style comic book which got me working kids books. So that kind of took my 10, my, my career in that direction. That actually gave me a nice financial foundation where I got onto a couple of kids magazines. And I was basically doing a four, you know, four page comic every issue of this magazine on a monthly basis for like five or six years. I think it was. Wow. But as an artist, you know, living in an expensive city, that was great to have that expected paycheck every month. Right. And knowing that you could rely on. I'm getting four grand or five grand a month, whatever it is, for doing this one job every month. It takes. Takes me a week and a half or whatever it is to do. And then it gives me the rest of the month to do other jobs, whether it's gaming, fantasy, cover work, trying to get into comic books and that sort of thing. So I kind of use that transitory period to try to push my way into comics working for Marvel and DC and that kind of kind of work. And not with a lot of luck. Like I would do one or two jobs and really get nowhere with. They were fun jobs, but they didn't really blow me up onto the scene as quickly as I kind of blew up on in the gaming thing with Palladium. Right. And then I did that but called Tale of Sand, which that was in 2011. And that kind of blew me up with like, once again, this was someone who recommended me for this, this job based on my past body of work. And similar to Kevin, the editor on his name was Stephen Christie was the main editor. And we became friends and have remained friends since. But he gave me, like, complete freedom on this graphic novel. Like, and I think on my earlier comic book work attempt, I felt a bit constrained. Like, you're kind of like, oh, I'm working for Marvel. I'm kind of tightening up a little bit. Like I'm, I'm, you know, performance. Performance anxiety or whatever you want to call. Like, you're like, oh, God. So I still think I did good work, but maybe I didn't feel as liberal with what I was creating or as free. So when I, When I did Tale of Sand, the editor kind of gave me that freedom, which I think also produced some of my best work at the time, right. And that allowed me room to play and try new things and experiment. And then, you know, that book ended up winning a bunch of awards and then that those awards got me work at those same companies I was trying to apply to before and was not getting any. Any luck at. So, like, one of my first books after Tale of Sand was X Men, because the book had gotten such notoriety, right? They're like, hey, you want to work on X Men? I was like, yeah, of course I'd love to work on X Men, right? Like, you know, but it's just like one of those catch 22s. They're not going to hire you till they see the work and all this stuff and like, yeah, so it was an interesting ride and it has remained so since I've had the, you know, great opportunity to work on, like, a lot of the Marvel properties, but also dip weird things like Jane, which was like a romance graphic novel essentially, you know, playing around with that kind of stuff and then even returning to Palladium to do small jobs or like when we. When. When he. When Kevin collected the machinations into one volume in two. I think it was 2007 around there, I think, you know, and that was fun because I was like, oh, I get to new do a new cover. I get to like, tweak. I redid all the lettering for the book. Like, I fixed it up kind of. He did back matter. I did new art for. So it was like a lot of fun. Like, it was just continual kind of growing experience. But. And yeah, and it still hasn't stopped. Like, I'm always venturing into new avenues, trying new graph. Like, I love comics, the storytelling and you know, I even joked with Kevin last time I saw him. I was in Detroit last year for a con. We went out for dinner. I was like, what would be, what would the Rift's comic license be? Like, could I do comics? Like, you know, because I'm starting a. I started a publishing house here in Toronto. I'm like, oh well, that story I always never got to tell, you know, whatever it might be. So I'm always one of those guys who's just like. Like, you take the risk because you don't know what. You know, like if you don't take the risk, you're not gonna get the reward. So, you know, Kevin's like, let's talk, you know. Yeah, yeah. You know, like I think that would be a hell of good time. Right? So you never know what might happen until you, until you ask, you know, and, and see where things go.

I for one would. Would read the hell out of a Rifts comic. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because I've always wanted riffs in another format, you know, not just gaming, you know, a TV show, anime movie, whatever. And the machinations was like, oh, just gets. You started going on these ideas and these in person impressions of what's going on.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I. To go back to it real quick. Did you get to talk with Jim Henson?

Well, Jim was. Had passed by the time. Yeah, he had passed by the time I. Because he passed in the 90s, I believe. But I did get to, I think I did get to chat with his family. So I met his daughter Lisa Henson. I met his son Brian. And then I met like I went to the, I met the archivist for the Henson company who gave me a ton of like DVDs showcasing Jim's college work. And you know, like I'm. I'm talking with Lisa, going out to dinner with her in LA and getting insights on their family trips and wow. Into the desert and stuff. And his favorite like. So it's like, it's almost like I met him in a weird way. Like I. Yeah, I was so immersed in his, I guess life or, or aspects of his life. Like especially looking at his old experimental like early Pre Muppets, pre anything like his just experimental work where you'd be like doing college projects or whatever it was and, and really kind of seeing the struggles of a young creator trying to find his niche. Right. Like he was, he was doing short films, he was playing With Muppets, but nothing was really taking off until, I think it was Sesame street, then eventually the Muppet Show. Right. And I grew up. I loved, like, as a kid, I loved the Muppets to New Land and Sesame Street. So it was, like, so cool to discover this other aspect of Jim I didn't know existed because I knew his, like, Labyrinth and Dark Crystal and, like, I said, the Muppets and Sesame street and all that kind of stuff. I didn't realize there was this guy before that doing live action, weird shorts, trying to do films, working with a writing partner, trying to get these weird things off the ground. And, yeah, I just need to see someone. Someone's journey that was so reflective of my own at the time, because I was still trying to get my footing and try different things and do different things. And, like, you know, it was like. It was like that. Like, two steps forward, one step back, you're succeeding a little bit, you're failing a little bit. You're, you know, doors are opening, doors are closing around you. So it was very. I'm not sure the word I'm looking for is a very, like, not informing, but very. Just kind of symbiotic. There was, like, a empathy I could have to the material I was working on and all the stuff I was diving into by kind of seeing the same struggles in myself as I saw in him. And I think I put those in the book as well.

Yeah, I mean. Okay, so you've worked on Palladium riffs beyond the supernatural, we think.

I'm pretty sure. I think I worked on all the Palladium lines in the superhero stuff. Yeah, I think I pretty much touched on all the lines they had at the time.

And I keep pulling up the Star Wars Run Darth Vader that you did a bunch with. At least there's a great picture of Boba Fett, I think you did.

Oh, that's a. I did a variant cover for an issue of. I think it was variant cover for Darth Vader number one, but it was the Italian edition.

Everywhere online, because I kept running into it.

Yeah, I love doing that piece. It was. Yeah. I'm a big fan of the Bounty Hunters, and so Boba was always front and center in my love of Star wars. So getting to draw him and all the rest of the crew, it was fun.

So this is a weird thing to fanboy out about, but for some reason, the lizards from A Tale of sand have just always stuck with me from when I first encountered the book. And I mean, like, they're just background pieces, but for some reason. And it's minimal, clean line art.

Yeah, yeah.

But they're, like, very evocative. And for some reason, those lizards have stuck with me. Like, I might not be able to remember the book title of the book. It's the Jim Henson screenplay that, you know, Ramon Perez did that has those lizards.

Well, it's funny that you mentioned that, because I'm just looking over here, seeing I was looking for a book here, but I don't, I don't have it on hand here. I, I, I don't. I stole those lizards. Or there's those are me riffing off of the way Al Williamson did his lizards in. Because he would draw when he did the Star wars newspaper strip, and he would put these lizards all over the place. And I think I was just, I loved his work. And I was just like, I'm just gonna throw lizard. We're up in the desert. I'm just gonna throw lizards everywhere. I don't know how accurate that is, but I'm just like, I'm throwing them left, right and center.

Having been in camping in Outback, Arizona and walking out of my tent to a couple lizards looking at me like, what the hell are you doing?

I love it. Oh, my God, that's amazing.

So, yeah, no really weird favorite art piece. Your lizards from Tale of Sand.

Love it. Because they, because to me, they mean something to me too. So that's kind of funny that you say that. Yeah, I think, I think every good project has, like, a little nuance or memory attached to it in some capacity and like. Or it's an artist doing, like, a tip of the hat to a previous inspiration. Like artist they're inspired by or whatever it is. Like, certain things, like the list is from. From Al Williamson. Or the way I draw my hands sometimes is very. I stole from, like, Arthur Adams growing up because of the way I loved he did, you know, certain things and, and all that kind of stuff. Or like Mignola for spotting his blacks when I was like, you know, in the Rift books and just throwing blacks around, like, ink was the cheapest thing on the shelf.

Well, good job on that because I've actually, we've been quoted on this very show before saying that you had a really, really, really effective use of blacks in your art in the.

Oh, thanks, man. Thank you. I'd like to return to more that I haven't done that in a while. And, like, as I, you know, look back on something, you grow and evolve as an artist and things change. As the technology changes and your. Your clients change. Just something. As I moved away from black and white, I started to go more full color work. So I started to change the way I drew. But it's definitely something I missed. And I would love to return to that as well. I mean, also, like riffs also just lent itself to heavy blacks. You're like, it's dark, it's dirty. You know, let's have fun with it.

Speaking of New West, I just had a question. When you were going through the process of doing a lot of the artwork for that, were you not like copying, but like as a reference piece, looking at Louis l' Amour covers at all?

Don't know the name.

He's a famous western author. And while there are a bunch of different artists did the covers for his books, there was some very strict rules that it had to have that, that lived in, used feel to it. And while there's a couple pieces that you did where it's like, it's not the same in any way, shape or form, but it has that something's about to happen and the person looks like they live in the clothes they're wearing that. And so there was. I have seen a couple notes in the art for New west that seemed to call to it. But you know, it's also something that's in the zeitgeist of Western literature at this point.

So, you know, I mean, a lot of, like early. I mean, around that time too, I didn't even own a computer or anything like that. So unless I had something on my shelf that was maybe a cover of theirs or something, like, a lot of that was just me playing in my natural state. Like, I loved putting nicks and scratches, dents and bangs on things. I loved when people were talking to have spit flying out of their mouths. Like, it was just one of those, like, I remember, like one of the notes I get a lot from DC when I do DC cover. Sometimes I'm like angry Superman with a spit flying out of his mouth. Yeah. And they'll be, they'll be like, no spit, Ramon. Not on the COVID at least. You might spit in the book, but not in the COVID So I'm always like, it's one of my hilarious notes.

I get a lot of, I'm sorry, Clark, Kentucky. Totally a spitter.

When he's mad, I can totally see.

He'S a close talking spitter.

So. But that would just be. I just love that. Like I said, I grew up on Star wars and you know, Star wars and yeah, was one of my favorite. And that was like George just putting together a rough and tumble world, like a broken, you know, used landscape, you know. And I think I just translated that into my work. I love bringing that into play. And you know, I also grew up. My father was a mechanic. So I grew up, you know, a lot of fix, patchwork stuff, you know, working on me, working on the car with him, you know, getting greasy, you know, fixing things around. So they're, you know, taking that probably inadvertently. That knowledge base which was sinking in was definitely part of it as well, you know, to be honest with you.

Oh, oh, yeah, yeah, no, definitely that.

I can definitely see that.

Ramon, how did Stillwater come about?

Well, still water. That. Okay. So that was my last big creator owned pro project with Chip Sadarsky up here in in Toront, and that was through Skybound. Chip is actually. So the studio I run now, raid, which is where I'm sitting here in the video, was actually founded by Chip. So that's how I got to know him originally. He was one of the founding members of it and we, you know, became friends and you know, as industry, he went out for a long time to work in the newspaper industry and all that kind of stuff. But then when he made a return to comics, hit it big with sex criminals and then, you know, doing all the creative stuff he's doing, he's gone out of his way to work with a lot of Canadian creators, which, you know, God bless him for. He's been amazing for that and people within his communities, whether it's myself or Marcus to or Jason Lau or whatever it might be. So, yeah, I was approached by the editor from Skybound, you know, saying, hey, I'm, you know, calling on the behalf of Chip, you know, and you know, they put forward the offer then closely afterwards Chip calls me up and says, hey, you know, I gave your name to the editor. I want you to work on this book. What do you think? Think at that point, I think I'd wrapped up my tenure at Marvel. Like I'd done my last few things and I was looking for something different kind of once again, like, you know, I'm kind of burnt out on the superhero. What can I do that's. That's different? You know, small town horror, that's. That's probably the other end of the spectrum as anything else. So I, you know, I read his. I think at the time when I came on board, he had written already three issues and so I kind of got those, sat back and gave him a read and, and yeah, I kind of just signed on. I like the idea was like a finite series was like not an ongoing series that he had a. He had a vision for the end, which I also liked. I like books that finish, you know. So as much as I love collecting comics as a kid, as I've gotten older, I've always like, you actually don't. To be honest, even when I was a kid, one of my favorite things was buying limited series. Like, just like this is a four issue, a six issue, 12 issue, whatever it was. And they kind of stopped doing that after a while. I don't know why it was, but it was always one of my favorite. Like if you look through my long boxes as a teenager to young adult, it was like a bunch of series, but the majority of it was just miniseries that I just picked up because a nice, like sweet little chunk of a creative team.

Yeah, I, I was the same. I remember my, my favorite comic series when I was a child, tween teen. I don't remember how old I was, but I remember it was like a six issue limited series called Brute Force. About like.

Oh yeah, I remember Brute Force.

Yeah.

Giving robot prosthetics. It was cool as shit, but I liked it because I knew it was going to have an end.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And obviously a lot of that's kind of returned a little bit with image and they do a lot of, you know, shorter form. Same with Boom. But there was like a while there where it was just like continually ongoing stuff which kind of pushed me out of the Marvel DC stuff because I got. It's like I can't keep up with what's going on, continuity, all this stuff. So. So yeah, so yeah, I just signed on to that. And Chip, being local, it was great. If we ever needed to hop on, you know, a little visit to a local cafe or something, you know, and go over stuff and, and chat, it was great. And once again he, like, he gave me. He would just like run with it, like have fun with it. And you know, he, he wrote a solid strip being an artist himself. So yeah, he has a very natural visual language to his work. So it made for an easy, easy interpretation on my part. So it was funny. It was the only, I think the only thing that that book suffered from was it was released mid Pandemic. So like, even though I've gotten some great feedback and the Silver has some great super fans out there, I don't. I. It was hard to gauge how people reacted to that series, if that makes any sense, because like, not sure. But I think it came out in, I want to say early 2021 or maybe it might have been 2020. No, I think it was 2021.

It looks like 2021, Mark.

Yeah. So like just, just like right in the thick of it, basically. You know what I mean? So like, I think I did one con in 2021. I think it might have been Chicago, which was in. They moved C2E2 to the winter of that year. And it wasn't until 2022 when I think I did my first show where I met and saw to the material, you know, and stuff. So that one kind of came out in a vacuum, more so than any other book I've ever worked on. Because usually do a book and you're on the shows, you're promoting it, you're engaging with the readership and so you're getting like, you're on the pulse of how people are like, while you're creating it in the middle of it. Right. But it wasn't, I think the, the first regular amount of shows happened and I was right near the end of the run of the series by that point kind of thing. So I think the only thing that for me was kind of a, I don't want to say sad experience, but like it was. It would have been nice to actually be able to be out there while the book was fresh and, you know, coming out kind of thing. But I think it did gain its audience. I think it just might have not gained the audience it deserved at the time. Basically.

Speaking of that sort of thing, I was kind of wondering how did you end up getting involved in Bar McKenna's Jane?

So that one stems down to Stephen Christie, the editor I mentioned earlier, who was my editor on Tale of Sand. Like I said, we had become friends. I'd go down to la. He, you know, the publisher was in la. I'd go hang out. We, you know, just like I said, friends. And he. So the Jim Henson lot, where I would go to see Lisa in the, in the Henson crew had a bunch of offices on the lot and one of them was Aline Brush McKenna's office. And Stephen had informed me, like, hey, I'm working, you know, with Aline Brash McKenna. She, you know, was the Oscar winning screenwriter of. Of Devil Wears Prada. We're trying, she's trying to do a graphic novel. I'm like, oh, that's cool, that sounds deep. So, yeah, we're trying to find an artist and this, that nothing's clicking. She's met with a few different artists, nothing's worked out.

Note.

Would you be open to meeting her one of the next times you're down in la? And I was like, yeah, sure, yeah. So literally one of the. One of the. My visits just on, you know, going out to see friends, I took some time, we went over to her office, got to know her, and we. We clicked immediately. She had a. She was a fan of us, the early 40s and 50s illustration art, which was I was a big fan of as well. We. We talk shop, we vibe. And she kind of pitched me on what she wanted to do with, you know, Jane Eyre, which was one of her favorite books growing up, but she wanted to kind of modernize it into something accessible to current readers, you know, I mean, or current audiences.

And.

Yeah, and that one took a while in the sense that we. I think we're working on that one for almost, I want to say, two or three years before I even put pencil to paper on that one. Because the script kind of went on a few tangents. It kind of was like it was going one way and then we're like, oh no. She kind of was direct directing it this way. Then it would kind of come back over here. So, like, it was like an emotional. I just. I'm like, what did I sign on for? This was becoming more spy thriller and now it's like a romance. So it was like eventually, like, it landed where it landed. And. And once again, she was great because, you know, she was like, I don't know how to write a comic strip. And I was like, well, don't worry about writing a comic script. Write a movie script and I'll adapt it to a comic book, which I like. I like that freedom of like, here I'm just taking what you. You've created. I'm going to parse it out into panels, I'm going to parse it out into pages and all that kind of stuff. And so I did like a first pass layout, you know, roughed out the whole book. You know, I think I. It came out quite thick, so I had to tone it down a little bit. And then I kind of reworked the ending on some ideas I chatted about with the editor. And so then we presented those to Aline. And she liked what we'd done and kind of leveled them up with the dialogue. So it was a really nice. A very collaborative of workshop, you know, like, you know, she went away, did her part, handed it to me, I did my part and then we kind of discussed together and it evolved and it was Definitely. I, I love working on that book. It was, it was a very, probably the like, page count wise, one of the largest things I'd done to date in the sense that like, I think I came In, I think 240 pages, I could be wrong, but around there somewhere. And it was also just like, once again trying something different artistically. Like it was me going, I'm gonna pare my style down very like clean line or, or simple line, not necessarily clean line. And yeah, just try to create a particular vibe for the, the book. So like, it's funny because I've done and switched up over the years. Like, you know, I had this cartoony webcomic, I had Palladium, I have Jane, and I often have people coming up going, are you the same Ramon Perez who did Palladium? Yeah, I'm the same guy. Like, it's like, it's, it's like, like my erratic style choices, you know, which was kind of like a detriment to me at some time because I remember one time Marvel was like, we don't know where we're gonna get. We're like, your style shifts and changes. And I was like, yeah, but you know, it changes to meet the, the material at the end of the day. And that's part of the, I think Joy, being an artist, you're always. I don't want to draw the same forever. I want to mix it up and evolve and change and, and, and, and have that fun. Yeah, Jane was definitely one of those things. And it's great because it did get nominated for a few awards. Did not win, unfortunately, but it opened up like that graphic novel. Reached a very different audience than my normal work would. Right. Which is great. I think at the end of the day.

I loved what you did in that one with some of your off kilter perspectives. You used in some of the scenes to just. The dialogue is really straightforward. Nothing in what the characters are doing seems off, but the way everything in the background is just slightly off kilter gives the sense without like putting it in the forefront. And it was very well done.

Oh, thanks, man. No, thank you. Once again, it was like just like with Stillwater too. Like going back to Stillwater was like, you know, stylistically I didn't do anything crazy different, but like, just I tried, for example, that one because it was like a small town and you have that, that ennui of like in a town where you live forever, you're bored, nothing changes. So I wanted to keep the panel layouts not necessarily boring, but as simple as possible. So when things did get screwy, when I tilted the camera, you would actually feel it because you're like, whoa, okay. This is so different than what's been happening to this point, Right? Yeah. And Jane was like that as well. This is like a real life story of a girl leaving her town, going to the big city, getting caught up in something bigger than herself. And. And how do you tell that story? It's not only just in the art, but it's in the panel, like you said, Camera angles, layouts, panel shapes, all that kind of stuff, you know, So I definitely. Yeah, I definitely do try to go out of my way to have everything I do on the page inform the story as best as I can, or the reader's experience in that.

In that regard, I will say that my experience with Stillwater was fascinating because I had followed you on social media when it was out, but I just never got around to reading it until earlier this year. And when I started reading it, I consumed it in about two days.

Oh, wow.

And it kept coming back into my brain afterward because that. No spoilers, folks. But the last three pages of that comic change everything that you thought you were thinking about. And then. But that keeps coming into my brain because of the way that the story set up certain other things, that there's, like, this moral quandary of what has happened now. It still kind of creeps me out.

Yeah, I mean, Chip was great with that. I think it was also. For him, it might have been an experiment in subtlety, because a lot of this stuff is very bombastic and loud. Especially the superhero stuff, too, like. Or sex criminals. This was like a very subdued. It was like a slow burn thriller, you know, and when things got uncomfortable, they got really uncomfortable. Yeah, right. And if you actually thought about some of the things that were happening, you're like, oh, that's. That's a little bit fucked up. You know what I mean?

So when it came to Stillwater, it was unsettling the entire run for me because. Well, one, I worked in the town of Stillwater at the Psychiatric.

Oh, my God, that's hilarious.

And a plus for making pink a threatening color.

Well, that's Mike Spicer. I can't take credit for that. He did, but it was great. Like, even he. I always say, like, issue three or so around there is where everything comes together with that book. Like, I was finding the visual voice. I think Mike was. Was finding the color palette he wanted to play with. And I think around issue three or four is where it kind of all comes together. And by that point we had also caught up to what Chip had been writing. So like I said earlier on, he had already written three issues by the time I came on. And I think he did mention to dispute at one point. He. As he saw me drawing them and saw what I was putting in, he actually changed how he was writing the stories a bit because he felt like some of the earlier. The first three issues were a little bit too slow because once you saw them on paper, it was like. So he kind of actually, I think the series was originally supposed to be like three or four issues longer, according to his original pitch. And he kind of compressed and tightened it up as we were working on it because just to keep that kind of pace up that. So you don't. You didn't feel slowed down or anything like that. So it was interesting to work on that.

Do you have anything you're working on now that you want to promote now?

As it's a kind of a weird time, like. So right now I'm working on a large project. I've had an interesting past couple years and so my. My father passed away last year, so I'm kind of taking my time dealing with his estate right now, finalizing all that stuff. And it's always a lot more than you think it is when you. When you go through, you don't think about it, but when you go through, like, oh, yeah, all these things, they, you know, it's just a long list of things that hearing. And my father was organized, so that's, you know, kudos to him on that. Make my life a little bit easier. But so I'd be taking my time dealing with that. I would last end of last year and the year before. I was doing a lot of DC cover work. I did the Flash last year. That's probably the last sequential run I did this year. So right now. So, yeah, so dealing with. I've taken the time to deal with my father's estate and stuff, and I'm working just to kind of make ends meet. I'm working on some corporate work, which I actually don't know if it'll actually ever see the light of day in the comics world. Even though it's like a sequential comic. I'm working on developing for a client that's kind of. I'm under NDA, so I can't really say much. Right, we understand. But it's. They're building something cool. But even the editor was like, I don't know where this is going to live. Like, we don't know, we're just building and we're creating and it's going to live in a variety of places. But, but your book might come out on a shelf in a comic shop or maybe it comes out digitally with a video game or something. They just still, I think they're still figuring that out. So it's a, it's an interesting thing and, and I'm having a lot of fun with it and so that's taking me to mid next month to wrap up. That's I, I started in early January and it's allowed me kind of that focal point. But you know my, my hope is it wraps. I'm week off to kind of relax and recuperate and a couple years ago I did a kickstarter for web comic called Cuckoo Bur which was like an all ages kind of Alice in Wonderland thing. And life going sideways for a couple years has kind of put that project on the back burner. So I got a lot of angry emails. I got to deal with.

Life happens folks. Life happens.

Life happens. It does. And like it's a lot of work sometimes and it's amazing how quickly the days slip away. But this project which I'm doing now, knock on wood will theoretically allow me to take the, the summer off and wrap up Kookaburi. So it'll give me that freedom where I don't have to worry about where is the next paycheck coming from because the paycheck has covered my expenses for a short term. So my first goal after that project is done to actually finish Kookaburi, get that out to people, get them. And most people are happy to wait. They're being very patient, they're being very understanding. But there are a few loud voices every so often that will, you know, throw stones. So that's, that's the big thing I'm working on for myself. And alongside that I also run RAID here, the studio. It's a shared co working space for people in the creative industry. So we got a lot of artists, writers, animators, different skill sets here and we also work in publishing too. So we've been be putting out graphic novels and working towards comic books and some art books for this year. So I have a great team here. They've like over the past year as we grew here at Raid, I was able to hire on a few hands. So not everything is running and bottlenecking through me. It's now I have the freedom to step away and finish things like Kookaburra where I'm not like delegating and going over projects. I have people, not under me, but like on my team that can now handle that better than I can and allows me to step away and do what I need to do. So it's been like I said, an interesting couple of years, but super exciting and satisfying. So I'm excited to not only finish my graphic novel and then I've been writing other stuff over the years too. I have two other graphic novels I've been playing around with writing. One's kind of like a black comedy, the other one's a sci fi space opera, which is my first love of things to do. So I would love to dip into those things as the end of the year, right. As soon as I'm done, like cuckoo berry. If I could take a new thing and just work on it and focus on it and then get it out, it would be wonderful. And you know, there's always different cool ideas happening here in our space too. Like doing like an anthology magazine or you know, like I said, talking to Kevin or something and going, hey Kevin, like let's. What does a graphic novel for Rifts look like? What can we budget for that? Who could we get on board? And what does that look like? If, you know, if I don't draw, do I art direct and do I work with an artist? Like what's. And I love that kind of stuff. That's the, I think the, the adventure of, of the career I've had is like allowed me to try these things and you know, I don't have. I mean I have a bit of the luxury. I don't have like kids or anything like that where I'm not have to worry about. I gotta put something away for university or something. It's like, okay, I could take that money and invest in a project rather than someone's education. That's amazing. Yeah.

What was I thinking? Thinking.

Yeah.

No, but yeah, so there's lots of, lots of things in. In the go and I, I really hope to. I think this year is giving myself the freedom to finish up a lot of those things that have been kind of hanging over the past couple years and, and just, yeah, just really return to having fun with art again. And that's through. I think that's the next step is. It's funny how like can't speak for everybody. One of my favorite, like returning to your roots. Like I started off in the indie scene doing my own comics and stuff and now it's kind of like returning to that as an adult, but doing it on A different scale, which is kind of super exciting and liberating.

Yeah. Especially when you can do it on your own terms rather than. This is what I can. What I have to do to get my next package of Ramen.

Well, that's exactly it. Right. Like, you know, as an artist, throughout your career, like, I think any creative career, whether you're a musician or an artist, whatever, you're. You're kind of often living paycheck to paycheck because. Because you're struggling to find work. You're building up your clientele base or your. Or your music or your brand, whatever it is. And then when you finally hit, you're kind of beholden to your audience. And then you're like, that's another thing. Like you're. Now you're accountable and they're expecting things and there's like. You know, I think it's like, why sometimes you'll see like a musician step away, just do a solo album for themselves or something like that, or. You know what I mean? It's like you kind of get a lot in the. You know, my last 10 to 15 years has been. Not lost, but it was. I was in. I was at Marvel. I was doing monthly series, which are a hell of a lot of work. Oh, yeah. And. And then trying to do other jobs to make ends meet because you're, you know, paying off a mortgage or whatever it is. Right. So. And I'd be very lucky too. Like, I'm not. Not begrudging my. My career at all because, like, I've seen the world going to these conventions, whether, you know, whether it's my first ones in Milwaukee or going to Dubai a couple years ago and meeting a bunch of great artists. Artists and wow. You know what I mean? Like, so, you know, I've done all this stuff and it's like, it's. It's paid off. It's in dividend in different ways. Right. And certain projects like Tale of Sand, you know, which has been translated to like nine different languages, going to those different countries and promoting it in that language too. Right. So it's been an awesome ride, but now I'm kind of like. I'm like, okay, I need to slow down, chill out. Really just want to create something. What's my next Jane or Tale of Sand? What is my next thing that I want people to kind of remember me for?

Will it include the lizard?

Probably. The lizards will always be there in some capacity.

Well, Ramon, for folks who want to follow you online, what's the best place to keep abreast? Of your activities.

I think I've been doing a lot of thinking about social media over the past year especially. And I think I'm actually consolidating everything to my substack. Like I still have an Instagram account account, which is Ramon Perez, which. But I'm not really active on, I'm not really posting on it anymore. I just, I think I'm a little bit burnt out on social media. So I like the idea of once again going back to the roots. Like the idea of returning to like a blogger style thing where I can just be like, you know what, here's my one update for the month. Here's me doing a bunch of art. Here's some things I'm working on. So I believe it's just ramonprez.substack.com or it could be Ramon Capers, I can't remember offhand, but if you just probably search Ramon Perez substack, you'll probably find me. But that's where I'm gonna start probably producing most of my updates and sharing artwork and just kind of have a funnel. Rather than having a bit on Twitter, bid on Instagram, big on Blue Sky, a bit on, God knows, threads or whatever. I'm just like, I'm like, I don't know where anything goes anymore. So I'm just like, I want to consolidate and go to one place and keep it simple.

Well, bless you.

Yeah, you know, so I think that's the place. And then the cool thing is like you can either you can subscribe to the substack and use the app or just, you just sign up and it just shows up in your email and with my update and that's it. Nice and simple.

Yeah. And for our listeners, if you're looking for Ramon on substack, just go substack.comone Perez. One word and it'll pop right up.

Boom. I like it. Thank you.

Hey, anything I can do to help? Gotta keep my lizards coming.

There you go. There you go. Yeah, I hope to like, I really hope to use that platform in some way to engage with people a bit better than social. I think with all the algorithm and all that stuff where you're like half the people I follow, I don't see their work. And yeah, you know, it's just hard to engage with people. I feel like, you know, if this is a way I can go like, hey, you know what, here's some behind the scenes peaks on stuff. Here's what I'm developing. Come along for the ride. I really want it to be about my next decade in kind of evolving as an artist and creating things on my own terms. Right. And that's kind of, I feel where I want to be, and that's, I think, the best place for me to do it.

Well, Ramon, good luck to you on all of that.

Thank you.

And thank you once again. Thank you so much for joining us. This has been a delight.

Oh, it was my pleasure, man. Thanks for having me. Sorry it took us a couple of rounds to lock it in, but really fun challenge.

Yeah.

Technology of the 21st century. We haven't quite mastered electricity.

We didn't even get to all the Palladium stories. I thought we would, but there's so many. So maybe another time.

Yeah. Hey, we'd love to have you back. I mean, I. I'm sure that Nathaniel is not vibrating in place at the thought of another round.

What are you doing tomorrow?

And like, I didn't even touch on a couple other things I wanted to talk about.

So we're always happy to chat, you know, in a couple of months, we, you know, want to do it again. I'm. I'm more than happy to.

Absolutely.

Yeah. We'll check back in on you.

Awesome.

Well, thanks again, Ramone, and folks at home, thanks for listening. We will catch you next time.

Awesome. Pleasure being here, man. Cheers.

You've been listening to the the Glitter Boys, a Palladium Books fan podcast. Glitter Boys, Rifts, the Megaverse and all other such topics are the property of Kevin Sambita and Palladium Books. Please buy all their stuff and help keep them in print. In making more games, you can order [email protected] and their entire catalog is available digitally at drivethrurpg as well. Our opening music is 8bit bassin, lead by FurbyGuy from freesound.org this closing music is Caravana by Philip Gross, available at freemusicarchive.org all sound effects used are self made or acquired via Creative Commons zero license. If you like what you have heard, find us on Twitter and Facebook as theglitterboys. That's B O I S and check us out [email protected] glitter boys and also join us on the Breakfast Puppies network [email protected] Discord and if you want to help us out, please spread the word and help us build a community. Thanks again for listening. We'll catch you next time.