Latest / The Apocalypse Will Be Podcasted / Matt Dinniman Variety Interview & Reddit AMA

Transcript

Matt Dinniman Variety Interview & Reddit AMA · The Apocalypse Will Be Podcasted

0:00
Hello Crawlers! We have a very special announcement
0:03
today. We are actually going to be taking a little
0:06
bit of a break after this episode because we
0:09
are gearing up to cover Book 8, A Parade of Horribles.
0:13
Yes, so we are going to be switching over from
0:17
Book 7 to Book 8. We always really wanted to
0:20
start with Book 8 and we thought we would have
0:22
enough time to get through this inevitable ruin,
0:25
but we did not know when we started when... A
0:28
Parade of Horribles was going to be coming out.
0:30
It is much sooner than we anticipated. It is
0:33
much, much sooner. But we are very excited to
0:36
be going into book eight. And we wanted to give
0:38
ourselves a little bit of time to rest and then
0:42
also gear up and get ready for that. We're going
0:44
to be releasing our next episode on May 12th,
0:48
where we'll be doing a no spoilers first thoughts
0:51
review of book eight. And then we will carry
0:55
on from there as a full spoilers. podcast yeah
1:00
and we just want to add a note that up until
1:03
now we have not been discussing the pineapple
1:05
cabaret that is not possible going forward i
1:10
understand if you don't want to pay for the books
1:14
again if you're an audible user or you have a
1:17
previous edition but I would go to a books a
1:20
million and I would order a coffee and, you know,
1:24
read the books there or I would borrow them from
1:26
a friend. I would find a way to get my hands
1:28
on those chapters. But we are going to do a episode
1:32
talking about all seven chapters that have been
1:34
released so far. So that will give you a little
1:37
bit of a breakdown in some context. Yeah, it's
1:40
once you start reading Afraid of Horribles, you'll
1:43
understand why. We have to talk about it and
1:46
include it in our episodes moving forward. Otherwise,
1:48
things just don't really make sense. Correct.
1:52
I strongly feel that way. But we are so excited
1:54
for Book 8. The first chapter of Book 8 is definitely
1:57
one of my favorite chapters in the entire series.
2:00
And I just can't wait for everyone else to read
2:03
it. One of my friends asked, is May 12th a special
2:07
day for you because you have already read the
2:09
books? And I said, Absolutely, because I can't
2:12
wait for everyone else to have read it too. Yeah,
2:14
and I'm really excited for the Audible experience
2:17
as well. And also we needed to say up here at
2:22
the beginning that, so in this episode today
2:24
we're talking about the Ask Anything that Matt
2:26
did on Reddit a few weeks ago, as well as the
2:28
Variety interview that was done with Matt as
2:32
well a few weeks ago. And in the episode we say
2:35
Vanity Fair a lot, and then also Variety Fair.
2:39
And it's not really feasible to go back and fix
2:41
all of those. So just know that whenever we say
2:44
Variety Fair or Vanity Fair, we mean Variety,
2:47
which is the name of the publication that interviewed
2:49
Matt. Oops. Oops. So with that, we hope you enjoyed
2:53
today's episode. Hey, so today we're taking a
2:57
break from our usual format and we are doing
3:00
a little bit of a media roundup. to talk about
3:04
some new information that we've gotten from both
3:08
an AMA and a Variety Fair article with Matt.
3:12
And we're just going to talk about our feelings
3:14
about some of the comments and expand on them
3:17
a little bit. When we recorded this, Nikki was
3:19
like, are we really going to talk about keychains
3:22
for 12 minutes? But that was a couple of weeks
3:24
ago and the discourse around the keychains has
3:27
not died down since then. So I do think that
3:30
this is a good use of time. We're also going
3:34
to talk about keychains. Nikki, do you want to
3:38
explain for those people who don't know what's
3:40
going on with the keychains? Yeah, I didn't even
3:43
know that the keychains had come out. I didn't
3:45
even know that they were going to be a thing.
3:47
And then Brie came home a couple days ago and
3:50
was like, hey, I got you these keychains. And
3:51
I was super excited and wanted to take a video
3:55
of it. But yeah, I did not know that the Facebook
3:59
pages were just absolutely... rife with people
4:03
like posting about them and like trying to find
4:06
them in stores and buying out the entire boxes
4:08
and then trading them and trying to sell them
4:11
and like tripling the price and it's been a whole
4:14
thing well what's interesting is we are recording
4:17
today on monday which is the 16th of march the
4:22
night before st patrick's day um so Spoiler alert.
4:26
My mom is actually a Books A Million manager.
4:29
And the two places that they've been selling
4:30
these have been Five Below and Books A Million.
4:33
So I messaged my mom and I was like, hey, mom,
4:36
do you know anything about this? Has there been
4:38
any craziness in your store? And she was like,
4:41
oh, we've had those for three weeks. Yeah. So
4:46
like I first heard about it. Thursday four days
4:49
ago and like that's when people first started
4:51
posting about it on Facebook but it's apparently
4:54
been available at Books A Million and um Second
4:58
and Charles like way before that but my mom was
5:00
like my co -worker was just telling me about
5:03
Second and Charles and that he had been seeing
5:05
Dungeon Crawler Carl promoted pretty heavily
5:08
there yeah definitely because Like I said, my
5:11
mom's a books and millions manager. Bookstores
5:14
these days are actually secretly more about selling
5:17
merch than they are about selling books. Like,
5:19
I'm sorry, that's the sad truth, y 'all. I mean,
5:21
there's more profit in merch than books. There
5:23
is, unfortunately. You know, they don't have
5:25
to cut in those pesky publishers as much. Darn
5:28
those publishers. Might not be true. You might
5:32
have to pay the publishers a lot for merch. I
5:33
don't actually know that. Penguin Random House
5:35
is great. And I actually found out that they
5:38
are a customer of the company that I work for,
5:41
but I can't say anything else than that. Yeah.
5:44
But my mom said that she did not buy us any of
5:48
the keychains or say anything about them because
5:51
she thought that they were so stupid that we
5:53
would not possibly be interested. I told my mom,
5:56
of course, I want to know about. anything that's
5:59
DCC I don't care if you think it's you know stupid
6:03
or whatever like just let us know because my
6:05
mom does get 40 % off and I'll say I mean they're
6:09
cool you know I like anything dungeon crawler
6:12
Carl related if you haven't seen them they're
6:15
basically like these little plastic stars that
6:18
have liquid inside of them and then there's a
6:21
little like plastic dungeon crawler carl character
6:23
carl or samantha or prepatente or donut that
6:26
like floats around inside of it but it is kind
6:29
of like a cheap bauble in my opinion they are
6:34
very 90s nostalgia which is super in right now
6:37
and while a lot of people have been saying i
6:42
want higher quality merch which there's certainly
6:45
a lot of that on high zev and there's some really
6:48
really high quality like official dungeon crawler
6:51
carl merch that is coming out like actual scale
6:54
action figures and stuff not out yet but like
6:57
There are pictures of it and it does look really
6:59
cool. Yeah, I hear the apocalypse will be podcasted.
7:02
Might have some t -shirts as well. But I was
7:05
going to say as far as the keychains, they actually
7:08
are pretty 90s nostalgia, which is super in right
7:12
now. Yeah, basically the morning I heard about
7:14
them on Facebook, I just swung by a five below.
7:18
They were hard to find in the store. I hadn't
7:21
been in Five Below in a long time. It was very
7:23
overwhelming and very chaotic. And it's not all
7:25
Five Below anymore. No, but I had to ask someone
7:27
twice. And then the second time she was like,
7:30
oh, that's on our surprise toy box aisle. And
7:34
I was like, you have an entire aisle? But that
7:37
was... It's basically like loot boxes from...
7:41
video games where you don't know what you're
7:43
going to get well five below has an entire aisle
7:46
of that which i was not expecting um but it took
7:49
me a moment to find but we grabbed three and
7:52
we personally got a mordecai and donut thankfully
7:57
because i really wanted donut i would have liked
7:58
to get samantha but you know that's how things
8:02
go sometimes this might be way too much talking
8:05
about keychains at the beginning of the episode
8:06
and people are going to get bored and be like
8:08
where's your actual content No, I planned on
8:11
this. We promise we are actually going to talk
8:13
about the Variety Fair interview and the AMA
8:17
that Matt did on Reddit a couple weeks ago. OK,
8:20
well, just the last word on keychains. After
8:23
I texted my mom and she found out that there
8:25
was like all this chaos going on around them,
8:28
she texted the manager in the store and because
8:32
she was currently off. So she texted someone
8:34
who is currently working and they got the last
8:37
one in their store for us. which is also a donut
8:40
if anyone was wondering. Oh, they opened it for
8:42
us? Very generous of them. I did also see someone
8:46
on one of the Facebook pages post that they had
8:49
gone into Books A Million and found the box for
8:52
the keychains, but I think it was empty. But
8:55
apparently a former crawler had been in the store
8:57
before them and hid or placed Dungeon Crawler
9:02
Carl books around the store as like a little
9:05
breadcrumb trail leading to... A box of keychains,
9:09
which I just find highly amusing. I also find
9:12
it highly amusing that people are rightly calling
9:15
out that in a book that is anti -capitalistic,
9:20
maybe you shouldn't buy the entire box. Take
9:24
the ones you want and sell them at three times
9:26
the price to other crawlers. Plus shipping. Plus
9:29
shipping. Bree told me that someone was selling
9:31
them for $15 each, which if you get them at five
9:34
below, they're $5 and they're $7 or $8 at Books
9:36
A Million. Someone was selling them for $15 each
9:39
plus shipping. Like, come on, if you're going
9:42
to sell it for 300 times the original price,
9:45
at least do free shipping. You can ship that
9:47
in a flat envelope for like $2. Nikki is so personally
9:52
insulted by the shipping aspect of this. I am
9:54
highly insulted, yes, yes. In today's day and
9:57
age, it's free shipping or bust. Okay, so now
10:00
we're going to talk about the AMA that Matt Deniman
10:03
did on Reddit a bit. Definitely my favorite thing
10:07
from the AMA is someone asked him, what's the
10:10
secret to your success? And he said, put a cat
10:13
on the cover. And I can't agree with that enough.
10:17
Yeah, I mean, cats always sell. Great marketing
10:20
technique for anything on the great interwebs.
10:25
And for anyone who doesn't know, an AMA is an
10:27
ask me anything. And it's a somewhat common thing
10:30
for either well -known people to do on. reddit
10:35
or also people who just have very unique like
10:39
lived experiences for example the guy with two
10:42
dicks that did one a few years ago well the most
10:45
interesting one i ever read was someone who lived
10:49
through world war ii japan but you know also
10:53
guys with two dicks yeah all sorts of interesting
10:55
things all right so What else did we get from
10:59
that AMA? You threw me off so much with the guy
11:02
with two dicks that I need to come back for a
11:05
minute. That really derailed my line of thought.
11:08
I don't care if you leave that in. Alrighty.
11:11
I will not cut it in the edits. Which I do think
11:15
it's interesting because we are 100 % cat people.
11:18
We watched Homeward Bound the other day. It was
11:21
my first time watching it. Yeah, and we were
11:24
like, wow, we are into cats, huh? Yeah, like
11:28
I definitely enjoyed the dogs and found them
11:30
very amusing, but I was much more entertained
11:33
and much more emotionally invested into the welfare
11:37
and well -being of Sassy. But it just makes me
11:41
think, would a book about a talking dog be so
11:45
successful? And I feel like dogs are more popular
11:49
with people in general, but cats are more popular
11:52
with people who like to read books. I would say
11:54
that's probably true. And I think dogs can definitely
11:57
be like entertaining. I would say dogs can absolutely
12:00
be very entertaining characters, especially,
12:03
you know, let's say it was a dog instead of a
12:06
cat in Dungeon Crawler Carl. But dogs are generally
12:09
more like silly, maybe sincere, I would say.
12:13
Whereas, like, you're not going to have a dog
12:16
who's sassy like Donut is. Yeah, it is interesting
12:20
that sassy has been mostly assigned to cats to
12:24
the point that if there's a movie and book about
12:28
a group of animals, the cat is named sassy. So
12:31
that is interesting. Is that in other pieces
12:34
of media? Oh, definitely. Where the cat is named
12:37
sassy? It's a pretty common... I think it used
12:39
to be a pretty common cat name. I think people
12:41
are mostly more original and better at naming
12:43
their cats now. But I have a cat named after
12:47
an Egyptian queen, so maybe don't ask me. I mean,
12:50
it's like everyone used to name their dogs Spot
12:52
and Rufus. It's one of those things that I kind
12:55
of wonder, was that what popular media named
12:59
them? And so people started naming them that
13:02
because they'd seen them in books or movies,
13:04
or is it the other way around? Maybe a little
13:07
bit of both. Yeah, that's an interesting rabbit
13:09
hole sometimes as far as what started organically
13:14
and what kind of was influenced by media and
13:18
then became a thing like in larger communities.
13:21
It's interesting. Well, and it's definitely sometimes
13:24
the case that maybe it wasn't a common dog name
13:27
at the time, but the name of that dog in that
13:29
movie was because someone who worked on the movie,
13:33
that was the name of their dog. And that's why
13:35
that dog was named that. That became a very big
13:39
successful movie. And then everyone starts naming
13:41
their dog Spot. Yeah, but causation in Tropes
13:43
is definitely an interesting rabbit hole. Yeah,
13:45
it definitely is. So we learn a couple of character
13:49
things from the AMA. And we learn who Matt's
13:53
favorite characters are. Who are they? Quasar
13:56
and Samantha. I mean, that's not surprising.
14:00
No, I don't think so. And I think... I'd be interested
14:04
to see overall polling as to what people's favorite
14:06
characters are. I think Samantha might win out.
14:10
I think if you remove Donut, that Samantha would
14:15
win. I think maybe from the diehard fans, it
14:19
would probably be Samantha, Quasar, Prepetente,
14:22
but I think from maybe the more casual people,
14:25
it would be Donut. It also depends on where they
14:28
are in the series, I would say. This is a bit
14:30
of a digression, but this is a digression episode
14:32
to begin with. This episode is a digression episode.
14:34
This is more from a train, what do you call it,
14:37
a train of consciousness? Stream of consciousness.
14:40
Stream of, no, I was too busy thinking about
14:43
the fourth floor. Yeah, which this is being recorded
14:46
the week that we're going to Megacon. So this
14:48
was a little bit of an easy lift for us. We're
14:51
recording this on a Monday. We've never recorded
14:53
on a Monday before. What's happening? We had
14:55
a crappy weekend. That's what happened. We're
14:57
going to be out of town for the next two weekends.
15:00
Yeah. So we were talking about this last night.
15:04
And, you know, as someone who read the books
15:07
versus listening to the books, pseudo Russian
15:10
Samantha was a big surprise for me. I certainly
15:12
didn't picture her that way. You mean like by
15:15
the accent? Yeah. Yeah. Was there any commentary
15:20
by Matt on the AMA about what her accent is supposed
15:25
to be? I know Jeff probably came up with the
15:28
accent, but was there any? No, no comment there.
15:31
But Nikki actually suggested a voice actor for
15:35
Samantha, which is the actress who, insert name
15:39
here, plays Nadia in What We Do in the Shadows,
15:42
which is my... Absolute favorite TV show of all
15:46
time. It can make me less grumpy when I'm in
15:49
a really bad mood. But the actor who plays, insert
15:55
character name here, Matthew Barry. Matthew Barry
15:58
or Matthew Perry. I can fix that later. Fix it
16:00
later. Fix it in post. Yes. People are actually
16:03
suggesting him for Prepetente right now. I would
16:06
love to watch that. Is that Nadja's wife or husband,
16:10
I mean? Yes. Yeah. Let's just get the whole cast
16:12
of what we do in the shadows. Oh, my God. So
16:15
what we do in the shadows, Daniel, Carla, Carl.
16:20
Yeah. But Nadia would be like if she could just
16:24
use the same accent that she does and what we
16:27
do in the shadows. And like, even though it's
16:28
not a replication of Samantha from the audio
16:31
books, like, I think that would be a perfect
16:33
fit. I also think for the TV show. I don't think
16:36
that the voices that it should be a direct replication
16:40
of what we know and love from Jeff Hayes. I don't
16:44
think that's possible. No, I absolutely think
16:47
Jeff needs to be the voice of the AI. I would
16:52
be vastly upset and disappointed if anybody else
16:55
did the voice of the AI. I agree. And I think
16:58
that Seth MacFarlane is definitely going to want
17:01
to take a role in the series. And his pick for
17:04
me would be Mordecai. I think he would do a great
17:07
Mordecai. I think he could be good in a number
17:10
of different roles. I mean, maybe even like Quasar.
17:13
Somebody suggested that they would just do the
17:17
AI with Seth MacFarlane doing Stewie's voice
17:20
from Family Guy. I would start a personal letter
17:24
writing campaign both to Matt Deniman and Seth
17:26
MacFarlane and try to make them stop. I couldn't
17:30
take that. But I actually did have something
17:32
more to say on the TV show, which is at this
17:36
point, it is going to be live action, like no
17:39
arguments, like nothing going on. Although, you
17:43
know, some variety fair article, it is confirmed
17:45
to be live action. Yes. Although something that
17:47
Matt did point out is that TV shows can get yanked
17:52
at any time, no matter how far they are in production,
17:54
which if you're a Buffy the Vampire Slayer fan,
17:58
the reboot of that. cut this week even though
18:02
they had already shot a pilot they already had
18:04
like promotional stuff it is not going forward
18:06
yeah i mean it happens sometimes so that is something
18:11
to keep in mind but keeping in mind that it is
18:15
going to be live action that is not up for debate
18:18
one of my favorite tv shows of all time is castlevania
18:22
and i feel like if they could get the animators
18:25
from that it would be amazing that's yeah like
18:29
when I first heard about it being a TV show like
18:31
I think Brie and I both immediately thought that
18:34
if it was animated it would need to be done in
18:36
the style of Castlevania yeah that would be a
18:38
perfect fit yeah which is like kind of like anime
18:41
not anime but it's just the animation is so good
18:45
and like every frame is amazing so I definitely
18:49
have a deep love for animation but you know,
18:52
live action is what's happening. Well, and that
18:54
was, I don't know if we're necessarily like getting
18:56
out of order. I didn't review the entire outline
18:59
that Brie put together for this episode, but
19:02
in that Variety Fair article, Matt said in the
19:05
interview that if you polled, you know, maybe
19:08
a lot of the more diehard fans that they would
19:11
say that they want it to be animated. But if
19:12
you went just out on the streets asking random
19:15
people, the overwhelming vote would be for live
19:18
action. And there is on a wider, more general
19:22
public scale there is a bigger preference for
19:26
live action and there is kind of the view of
19:28
things that are animated that it's for kids and
19:32
that's just kind of a generally held opinion
19:34
and it's a wrong opinion but yeah there's definitely
19:38
some great media that's animated out there for
19:40
adults and there's some really ultra violent
19:44
media like blue eye samurai that i think would
19:47
be something else that is something that DC...
19:50
Invincible. I mean, shit tons of anime. Another
19:53
interesting character thing that we learned from
19:55
the AMA is that Matt often writes characters
19:59
that he plans on being a throwaway and does not
20:04
plan on them coming back, and Juicebox is one
20:07
of those characters. Fascinating. I mean, if
20:10
you kind of stop and think about it for a moment,
20:11
that kind of makes sense just from how her character
20:15
was initially. She was... literally a prostitute
20:18
in a brothel that Louie was making change into
20:20
different characters and like cartoon characters.
20:23
So that kind of makes sense why she might have
20:25
originally been intended to be a throwaway character.
20:27
Yeah, she's one of my favorite characters, though.
20:29
So I'm glad that she got to stick around. And,
20:33
you know, I think that Matt writes female characters
20:36
really well and that Juice Box is such a great,
20:40
well -developed character. And she has a lot
20:44
of depth. Just in case. Somehow up until this
20:46
point, someone has missed this. So Matt is what
20:49
is known as a pantser. And that means that he
20:52
just writes things by the seat of his pants.
20:54
He does not have a grand plan for how the book
21:00
is going to play out. He doesn't know how book
21:03
nine is going to end. I thought he knew the general
21:06
ending. Oh, no. No, and I will just say that
21:11
he said that he didn't have an idea as to what
21:15
the end of Book 8 was going to be, which is stunning.
21:19
I can't wait until everyone reads Book 8 and
21:22
that embargo is off. He said in the article that
21:25
the ending of Book 8 is one of the dumbest things
21:28
that has ever happened. I wouldn't say it's the
21:32
dumbest thing, but as far as like the ridiculousness
21:34
of what happens at the end of book eight, I can
21:37
agree with what Matt was getting at there. It
21:40
is preposterous. Can't say anything more. Yeah,
21:44
definitely. But I mean, I think that you can
21:47
see some things pointing to that, such as the
21:51
name of the book for book eight changed halfway
21:53
through. Yeah, it was originally going to be
21:56
Carl's Book of Boom, I think. Correct, yeah.
21:59
Yeah. And I think, I mean, either that or Parade
22:03
of Horribles work. I think Parade of Horribles
22:06
is better. I don't think Book of Boom would have
22:08
worked for the finished book. Correct. Yes. Hard
22:12
to talk about without doing spoilers. But once
22:15
you read the book, you'll understand why it's
22:17
a better title. And I was just going to say,
22:19
speaking of like throwaway characters, we've
22:22
talked about this in a prior episode, but Donut
22:23
was originally going to be a throwaway character.
22:25
And also just to touch on like what Bree said
22:29
a moment ago, Matt writes female characters really
22:32
well pertaining to Juicebox. And if you stop
22:35
and think about it, I would say the majority
22:37
of the influential characters in the series are
22:41
female characters. I think if you sat down and
22:44
wrote it out, I think it's more female characters
22:47
than male characters. Yeah, I had this slated
22:50
for later in the episode. But one of the things
22:52
we are going to close out with today is some
22:55
of the statistics. involving the books as far
22:58
as readership and that sort of thing and right
23:02
now there are actually more females reading the
23:06
new color carl than there are males and i will
23:09
just say personally that that's part of why i
23:13
wanted to have a podcast that was us is because
23:16
i did feel that there was a lack of female voices
23:20
going on in the discourse and i wanted to contribute
23:22
to that I'm also super nerdy about books. Far
23:26
nerdier about books than I am. I can only recently
23:30
say that I am a book nerd. Brie has the vast
23:34
claim on that going back to her very adolescent
23:38
years. When did you start reading a lot? Three?
23:42
Four? No, I started reading at five, which is
23:45
about when people start in my family. But I would
23:49
say I was probably eight or nine at the point
23:52
that I started reading. multiple chapter books
23:55
a day yeah and you just never stopped no no never
24:00
stopped which it is something interesting because
24:03
something else that matt said in the variety
24:05
fair article is that he did have people coming
24:08
up to him and saying your books made me fall
24:11
in love with reading and you're one of those
24:13
people am sure am but we're going to touch on
24:16
that a little bit more later so what did we learn
24:19
about his writing style or not his writing style
24:22
but uh His writing method. He likes writing in
24:26
public his screamo music. I am assuming he uses
24:30
headphones or I feel like we would have heard
24:33
about this some more. Yeah. Yeah. So he said
24:36
he likes to play like heavy metal, death metal,
24:39
screamo music while he's writing. And also that
24:43
he tries to go to a different coffee shop like
24:47
every day. And he never likes to be in the same
24:51
place writing more than a day in a row, which
24:54
is interesting. I guess keeps things fresh and
24:57
actually kind of matches up with his cancer writing
25:00
style. Never knows what's going to happen. So
25:02
he doesn't doesn't want to be in the same spot
25:03
every day. Well, he also doesn't want to be stalked
25:07
by fans. Well, and, you know, he can also do
25:10
that because of where he lives in Washington.
25:12
They have a lot more coffee shops there than
25:15
other parts of the country. There is a distinct
25:17
lack of. coffee shops in Atlanta, though that
25:19
is getting better. Yeah, that's where my sister
25:21
lives. And she has some wild things to say about
25:27
Seattle's coffee culture. They have topless coffee
25:30
shops. They do. And I'm like kind of mad that
25:33
my sister lived in Seattle for like 10 years
25:35
and didn't mention this to me. Right. Yeah. We
25:37
got to get out there for other reasons. Sister
25:40
we just talked about. Yeah, exactly. Exactly.
25:43
Yeah. So and I do like that Matt listens to like
25:47
Screamo music. while writing and trying to focus
25:49
because that's something that I've done for a
25:51
long time is, you know, listen to death metal
25:53
and stuff while like studying for school and
25:55
stuff. And people are like, I don't understand
25:56
how you can like focus while you're listening
25:58
to that. And I'm like, that just makes my brain
26:00
be quiet. And then, you know, I got into dubstep
26:03
and like now it's dubstep and people are like,
26:04
how the hell do you listen to freaking dubstep
26:06
while you're trying to like work or focus? And
26:09
I'm like, it just blocks everything else out.
26:11
Nikki listens to really obnoxious dubstep. Let's
26:14
be very clear about that. It's good dubstep.
26:17
But yes, it is very obnoxious. So I'm just going
26:20
to read this part, but I wanted to highlight
26:23
it because I feel like this is something that
26:26
gets brought up in the Reddit and Facebook groups
26:30
extremely often. And this is a definite answer
26:34
or definitive answer. But this is like straight
26:38
from the man himself. When the AI gave Carl stock
26:42
certificates in book four. Did that affect his
26:45
legal standing in such a way that made him able
26:48
to get the Faction Wars spot? Or would they have
26:51
been able to do it even without the stocks? Matt's
26:54
answer is no, he would not have. Quasar would
26:58
not have been able to start the crowdfunding
27:00
campaign without them. That is really cool to
27:03
know. That is what I thought when I did research
27:07
around how they were able to. a faction wars
27:10
team under you know the princess posse and i
27:12
was like i'm pretty sure that these stock certificates
27:15
affected carl's legal standing da da da da i
27:18
wasn't sure but i was pretty sure so huzzah this
27:21
episode is going to be stupid long and who knows
27:24
depending upon how we're feeling we might just
27:27
record another episode that's like a quick one
27:29
-off about this afterwards we definitely need
27:32
to talk about death of a author in uh no It's
27:37
a trope. Okay, sorry. It's a trope. Okay, I was
27:40
being literal. No. Okay. No, although we will
27:43
get back to that in a minute. But we definitely
27:46
need to talk about death of an author and the
27:48
amount of social relationship that Matt has with
27:52
his fans more in depth, which we're definitely
27:55
part of and probably part of the problem and
28:00
also hopefully, you know, improving on the discourse.
28:02
Yeah. And like we keep talking about. different
28:06
topics and different points of dungeon crawler
28:09
carl and like coming up with ideas of like special
28:11
interest or special focus episodes that we want
28:14
to do and like i think that's something that
28:16
would be enjoyable i think that's something that
28:17
people would enjoy but also like unless we were
28:20
doing multiple episodes a week or weeks where
28:24
we sometimes had multiple episodes we're never
28:26
going to get through the fucking books if we
28:28
do that yeah but also like we have some weeks
28:30
when we're out of town when we have other stuff
28:32
going on whereas like i could just talk about
28:36
that for 30 minutes yeah no problem yeah definitely
28:39
and like i know some i know pretty much all the
28:43
other podcasts about dungeon crawler carl are
28:45
doing multiple chapters per episode and i some
28:49
of their lengths of their episodes reflect that
28:51
being well over an hour that's just not quite
28:55
the format that we want to do and we are thinking
28:58
about changing our format in some different ways,
29:01
but I don't think that we're ever going to get
29:02
through the books at the speed that some of the
29:04
other podcasts are. And I think I'm, I'm happy
29:07
with that. And I mean, you know, the TV show
29:10
is coming, but after book eight comes out, there's
29:13
only one other book. So we don't want one book
29:16
split into two. Yeah. Part one and a part two.
29:18
Yeah. Which Nikki asked me about this the other
29:21
day and I literally told him, Hey, let's save
29:25
it for the podcast. So basically. Well, so my
29:30
question was, I was like, if he's going to do,
29:32
it's going to be the ninth book, part one and
29:35
part two, it's not going to be 10 books. I was
29:38
like, that just sounds like 10 books. Why do
29:42
a part one and why do a part two? I don't understand.
29:44
The reason why is because publishers expect books
29:46
to follow a certain format and they expect them
29:50
to have a climax. So basically, there's a certain
29:55
amount of words. that publishers are looking
30:00
at when they publish books. And this is actually
30:04
later down in my episode notes, but the typical
30:07
book is 70 ,000. So A Parade of Horribles is
30:11
200 ,000. So like it's already twice what an
30:15
average book is going to be. So basically what
30:19
doing a part one and part two gives the author
30:22
the ability to do is tell the story. in a way
30:28
that makes sense for the story rather than going
30:32
with the format that a publisher would want.
30:34
So like basically if you're doing a part one
30:37
and point part two, it can just end at 200 ,000
30:41
words. Whereas if you're doing a book nine and
30:45
a book 10, sometimes the publishers will make
30:48
like kind of shoehorn in something to be a climax.
30:52
And this isn't books. It's in the movies. But
30:55
in the Hunger Games movies, book Mockingjay got
30:58
split into two movies. And there wasn't a climax
31:03
to be at the end of that movie. Like part one.
31:08
Yes. So basically they had to like make the part
31:12
where like they're getting bombed and like go
31:14
into the shelter, which is more of a time for
31:16
like Katniss to self -reflect than anything else
31:18
in the books into a climax for that movie. Okay.
31:22
Okay. I guess that makes sense. Yeah. How many
31:25
times did I just say that word? It's a word that
31:27
has more than one meaning. Interesting. It has
31:30
two very distinct meanings that are also pretty
31:33
much the same. Yeah. But like, so from a story
31:36
perspective, having a part one and part two,
31:39
like gives you a lot more freedom as an author.
31:41
And does that mean that those books are still
31:44
going to come out at separate times? Yes. It
31:46
doesn't mean we're going to get part one and
31:47
part two at the same time. Even if they were
31:49
done at the same time, the publisher still isn't
31:51
going to release them at the same time. They
31:53
just wouldn't do that, right? Correct, yes. So
31:56
even if Matt came to them and said, here's all
31:58
of it, they're still going to release it separately.
32:00
Yes, but the Game of Thrones books, or correctly,
32:04
A Song of Ice and Fire books, A Piece for Crows,
32:07
and Dance of Dragons was originally one book.
32:10
And the publisher told him, no, this is two books.
32:14
This is 2 ,000 freaking pages, my guy. Which
32:16
is kind of... jarring when you're reading them
32:20
because since it's like broken up into characters
32:23
there's just characters that just aren't in book
32:26
four yeah interesting okay we got to keep moving
32:29
because we are like halfway through page one
32:32
of three of our notes um so nikki just asked
32:36
because i put in my outline some questions about
32:38
my best boy And I meant the AI because that's
32:42
how it was framed in the AMA. But usually best
32:45
boy in our house is our cat Salem. So he was
32:48
very. Well, yeah, I thought maybe it was about
32:50
Matt Deniman's cat or dog or something. I don't
32:54
know if he has cats or dogs. I assume one or
32:56
the other or both. No, no. Tell us more, Matt.
32:58
Okay. So the questions that were asked. First
33:02
one is what's the AI's favorite book? Of Mice
33:04
and Men. What do you know about Of Mice and Men,
33:07
Nikki? I feel like I know things about Of Mice
33:10
and Men, but like I could have it really mixed
33:13
up with another book. Well, it is a book that
33:15
is often required in the U .S. as required reading.
33:19
But actually, fun fact about Nikki, they were
33:21
never in the U .S. public school system. Yep.
33:23
I was homeschooled up until ninth grade. I was
33:26
homeschooled poorly. And then I went to high
33:28
school in Costa Rica in a private school. So,
33:31
yeah, I didn't have a normal required reading.
33:35
Schedule. So Of Mice and Men is required reading
33:39
for a lot of people here in the U .S. It's a
33:42
John Steinbeck book and it is super depressing.
33:46
It is really messed up. It's about the Great
33:50
Depression and someone with a mental disability
33:54
who is so strong that he can't help killing people
33:59
and animals by accident. And it ruins all the
34:03
dreams of him and his caretaker. So, wow. That's
34:08
crazy. If you haven't read Of Mice and Men, maybe
34:12
consider looking into it. Maybe not. It is super
34:15
depressing. Just read the cliff notes. Yeah.
34:18
Sounds like that's what I'll do if I feel like
34:20
I need to get a full feeling of the book. But
34:23
I'm way too busy reading Dungeon Crawler Carl
34:25
all the time, researching for the podcast. But
34:29
yeah, I was just kind of like, Of course, that's
34:32
the A .I.'s favorite book. And also, I hadn't
34:35
thought about that book in a long time and I
34:37
regretted thinking about it again. All right.
34:40
So what is the A .I.'s favorite TV show? The
34:44
4400, a TV show I'm not familiar with. Very interesting.
34:48
So we have watched that. I thought we watched
34:51
the 100. No, we've watched the 4400 too, separate
34:54
TV shows. Okay, what is that one about, Jog My
34:57
Memory? The 4400 is about people who have been
35:01
slowly disappearing over time, and then they
35:03
all come back at once, but they all have magical
35:06
powers. I feel like I know about that TV show.
35:09
I don't think I've watched that. You watched
35:11
it, babe. Okay. Hey, I don't know if we've talked
35:14
about it before. I have a really, really bad
35:16
memory. It is a great recurring topic in this
35:21
household. Okay. Do we have any more commentary
35:24
about that? No, I don't think so. But it's an
35:27
interesting TV show. I think it kind of went
35:29
off the rails story -wise, but it started out
35:31
strong. The next question that this person asked
35:34
is, were all of these questions asked by the
35:35
same person? Yes. Okay. Very generous of Matt
35:38
to answer all of them, though he did not give
35:40
very in -depth answers. Can the AI orgasm, parentheses,
35:44
without a host? Matt said yes. Okay. Okay. Interesting.
35:50
Is what the person asking there referencing that
35:52
scene in the books where Carl's in the Embrace
35:54
Temple and the priest or whatever of Embrace
35:56
is washing his feet and the whole dungeon shudders
36:00
at a certain point? Is he talking about that
36:03
priest being kind of the host? I don't know.
36:07
This person definitely had their own agenda in
36:11
these questions. The next one is, is the AI into
36:13
foot whipping as a kink? And no, the answer is
36:18
no, which... You know, makes sense, I guess,
36:21
if you think about it. When will the AI's massive
36:24
and diehard fan club make an appearance? Matt
36:27
said, question mark. Oh, interesting. I guess
36:30
there's maybe some fan club for the AI, like
36:33
there's different fan clubs for various characters,
36:35
like outside of the dungeon in the books. Like
36:39
the Princess Posse. Like the Princess Posse,
36:40
or like Ellie has a fan club, etc. I don't think
36:43
that a fan club for the AI has ever come up,
36:46
so. That explains maybe why Matt responded with
36:49
question mark. Oh, does the AI like flowers?
36:53
Because he hasn't decided yet regarding biological
36:56
life forms. Oh, come on, AI, I like flowers.
36:58
I feel like it has a lot of opinions about biological
37:01
life forms. Does he mean non -sapient biological
37:04
life forms? Because if so, that would actually
37:06
stand. Because at various points when Carl like
37:10
picks up a rock and looks at it, the AI is like,
37:13
yeah, it's a rock. I don't know why you're making
37:16
me tell you about this. Yeah, it's a piece of
37:19
toast. Fuck you. So I guess maybe the AI, maybe
37:22
it has more of a disdain for non -sapient biological
37:25
life forms. It doesn't sound very interesting
37:28
because they don't do much. So going on to questions
37:31
from the AI. So something that is crazy is that
37:34
if you've been following what's going on for
37:37
a while, you know that these books started out
37:39
as self -published. And one of the things I read
37:42
in the Variety Fair article that I thought was
37:44
so insane is that only like a thousand people
37:47
read the Anarchist Cookbook when it first came
37:49
out. That's wild. It is so wild. So basically,
37:54
Matt didn't even have a literary agent until
37:58
people started contacting him about the TV show
38:00
and like asking if they can make a TV show. Interesting.
38:03
He was starting to talk to them and like they
38:05
were like, do you not have a publisher and a
38:09
book agent? And he was like, no. And they were
38:12
like, oh, let's do that. And then we can talk
38:15
some more. Yeah. And now he does. And he's very.
38:20
Very successful. Yeah. Well, I mean, the first
38:23
book was published in 2020 during COVID. So it
38:26
can't have been that long. Five years, six years,
38:29
eight books. And yeah, the majority of these
38:32
books were or these books started getting published
38:35
during COVID. And part of the reason for that,
38:39
I mean, I guess actually the main reason for
38:41
that is because Matt was making a pretty substantial
38:46
living by going to. cat shows and drawing portraits
38:51
of cats for the cat shows and then he was also
38:54
selling paintings or drawings of cats on etsy
38:59
and he was actually making over six figures doing
39:02
that but covid happened and cat shows stopped
39:04
happening and so he lost that stream of income
39:07
he was still making sales on etsy but yeah that's
39:11
when he started really writing dungeon crawler
39:13
carl yeah It is super interesting. And I mean,
39:17
COVID just really changed things for a lot of
39:18
people. And a further tangent here, people go
39:22
crazy for anything Matt has put out, any like
39:25
variations of the books, etc. I have not seen
39:28
anybody post anything online of like, hey, I've
39:33
got this picture of a cat that Matt drew. Maybe
39:36
the AI accelerated them all. Where are they?
39:38
Where are they? I want to see one of these. I'm
39:40
sure I could find a picture, but like no one's
39:41
like trying to sell those or or bragging about
39:44
like I have this cat picture that Matt grew.
39:47
Haven't seen it. Maybe the people who bought
39:49
those started reading the books and got super
39:52
offended by how he betrayed cat shows and now
39:55
want nothing to do with them. Or maybe they don't
39:56
even know that it was done by Matt because, you
39:58
know, I'm sure his Etsy wasn't being like, I'm
40:01
Matt Deniman. It was just like. name of like
40:03
store about cats and so they don't even have
40:06
any frame of reference and this is going on way
40:08
too long this episode's already like an hour
40:10
so something else that got brought up is Matt
40:15
got asked does he know the ending of Carl in
40:20
case God forbid something happens to him before
40:24
he finishes the series I think that we have made
40:27
it pretty clear in this episode that the answer
40:29
to that is no he definitively said to that question
40:33
that he doesn't even know how the series is going
40:35
to end? Correct. And I kind of have two digressions
40:39
about other authors that I want to go into there,
40:42
which is the first, Brandon Sanderson. So we're
40:48
this idea of when an author dies, another author
40:52
picks up their series and finishes it for them.
40:57
Started with the Wheel of Time series. And insert
41:01
name of author. died and brandon sanderson who
41:05
is a famous um sci -fi writer basically agreed
41:09
to step in and finish the series and write the
41:13
rest of the books because he was a huge fan of
41:15
the wheel of time series um if you know great
41:18
apparently so i if you know me personally wheel
41:22
of time is one of my least favorite books i've
41:23
ever read i actually have strong feelings about
41:26
it I do. I read nine of those books to impress
41:29
a boy in college. And this is something that
41:33
I regret terribly. And when he broke up with
41:36
me, I immediately stopped reading the series.
41:39
But I actually stopped reading at book nine.
41:43
I believe that Brandon Sanderson started writing
41:46
them at either 10 or 11. And people actually
41:49
say that I stopped at the worst part in the series
41:52
and that they are massively better. once Sanderson
41:56
starts writing them. Is that because he pulls
41:58
back on the super weird religious stuff? I don't
42:00
like Wheel of Time. I can't even get into that.
42:02
There is so much happening in those books that
42:05
I can't even address that. I don't know. Maybe
42:08
the weird religious stuff is the good parts of
42:09
those books. I can't say. But interestingly enough,
42:14
so Brandon Sanderson has been asked if... George
42:17
R .R. Martin gave the blessing for Brandon Sanderson
42:21
to finish the books. And Brandon Sanderson says
42:24
that even if J .R .R. Martin was completely on
42:27
board with that, he wouldn't do it. And I've
42:30
read the statement that he put out on why he
42:32
wouldn't do it. I can guess why. Very carefully
42:35
written. But do you know why he wouldn't do it?
42:38
Well, my guess is just because there's like...
42:40
and so much like hype and so much pressure for
42:45
these books to be finished and everyone has like
42:47
so many strong opinions and strong feelings like
42:51
invested in it that i think that that's just
42:52
like too much fucking pressure that's not it
42:54
at all oh uh brandon sanderson is the world's
42:57
most famous mormon interesting okay um so the
43:00
reason that he And like I said, the statement
43:04
he put out was very carefully worded. He said
43:07
that the Game of Thrones books were just not
43:10
what he was interested in and not compatible
43:12
with his style of writing. And I think what he
43:15
was saying is they are too violent. There's too
43:18
much sex. There's too much strong language. Too
43:21
much hedonism. Yeah. There's just a lot in those
43:25
books doesn't align with his worldview as a Mormon.
43:30
Which actually kind of makes sense why he finished.
43:32
uh wheel of time you don't know anything about
43:34
wheel of time so i don't know how you're you've
43:36
just told me a lot that there's a lot of like
43:39
religious stuff in those books so and i that
43:42
that that leads me to believe that maybe they're
43:44
a little more not pc a little more like pg No.
43:48
All right. Probably not a lot. Weird polyamorous
43:51
relationships. That's all I'm going to say. All
43:53
right. I know nothing. I am Jon Snow. Anyways.
43:57
But so I think that like, you know, once again,
44:00
God forbid, if something did happen, Brandon
44:04
Sanderson would also not be a good fit for Dungeon
44:08
Caller Carl because of the Mormonism. Interesting.
44:11
Yeah. Okay. I can see that. So in the Variety
44:15
Fair article. Matt was asked about kind of the
44:19
difference between the AI in Operation Bounce
44:22
House and the AI in Dungeon Crawler Carl. And
44:25
he had some interesting distinctions talking
44:28
about kind of the different types of AI that
44:30
those are. But he kind of got onto a larger tangent
44:34
just talking about like how AI is being used
44:38
in current day. And, you know, he kind of started
44:42
talking about like AI art. AI visual art and
44:45
you know that there is such a big stigma against
44:48
it and I think understandably so but one of the
44:51
things that he said is you know people always
44:53
say like oh AI art is stupid it looks like shit
44:57
you know blah blah blah it looks so bad and Matt
45:00
said no it doesn't it looks really good and it's
45:03
just going to keep getting better and I think
45:06
that like it is kind of easy to tell sometimes
45:09
if something is AI art or not but like As soon
45:13
as anyone can tell that they're like, oh, it
45:15
looks like shit. This is AI slop. It looks so
45:17
terrible. But if you told them this was drawn
45:21
by a human or if you went back like 15 years
45:22
ago and you showed that to someone, you're like,
45:24
oh, I made this. They would say that that was
45:27
like one of the most beautiful things they'd
45:28
ever seen. They'd be like, how did you do that?
45:29
Like this attention to detail is flawless. Like
45:32
some AI art is bad. Some of it has like really
45:35
obvious errors, but like it can be really, really,
45:40
really good. Well, and we had our own run -in
45:43
with this where a couple of people have thought
45:46
that our cover art for our podcast was AI. It
45:50
is not. We paid an artist to do it. We didn't
45:54
pay them $500. I mean, it's worth $500 as far
45:58
as the quality. It's great. The amount of work
46:01
they put into it was they spent a lot of time
46:05
on it and did a lot of back and forth with me
46:06
and a lot of edits and their services were worth
46:09
more than what I paid. I gave them a sizable
46:11
tip as well as on top of what they charged me.
46:14
Yeah. Just an aside in the asides episode, one
46:17
of the drafts, they drew me as Imani, which was
46:19
interesting, but not what we asked for at all.
46:22
Well, they didn't know anything about the books.
46:24
I showed them like the cover from this inevitable
46:26
ruin and was like, you know, this, and then I
46:28
sent them like reference pictures of donut. And
46:30
I just don't think they quite like understood
46:32
like what I was asking for. Yeah. Well, and it's
46:37
interesting because. Somebody in one of the Facebook
46:40
groups called our cover art AI slop. And I think
46:44
that people have just started saying that for
46:47
things that they don't like or things that maybe
46:50
they don't feel that someone could be that talented
46:53
out there. I don't think that most people can
46:56
really tell the difference. Right. I think that
46:59
sometimes it's easy to tell, you know, oh, my
47:02
God, their hand is like weird and messed up.
47:04
That's obviously AI. But like if someone actually
47:07
spends the time to use an AI generative tool
47:10
to actually tweak it and like for the final product
47:13
that's put out to not have those obvious errors
47:17
or glitches that it can be indiscernible or even
47:21
better than what someone else made. Hey, that's
47:24
a perfect segue to our next section that we're
47:27
going to read. And this is a long one, but I
47:29
think that there were some really good insights
47:31
that we got from this. Vanity Fair article, and
47:34
I do want to share some of them. So Mark Lawrence,
47:37
who is an author, he has a blog that he wrote
47:39
in August 2025, not very long ago. You can look
47:43
at it right now. There's eight short stories
47:45
up there. Four of them are written by famous
47:48
authors. Four of them are written by AI, and
47:51
they're all mixed up. You don't know who's who,
47:53
and you're supposed to vote and guess. And if
47:56
you look at the results, they're absolutely terrifying.
48:00
They are really short stories like hundred word
48:02
stories, but that's where AI is going. So the
48:06
question has to change to assuming AI is just
48:10
as good or better than humans at some things.
48:13
Should we still be afraid of it? And I think
48:15
the answer is yes. Absolutely. Do you want me
48:19
to read this next part as well? Matt goes on
48:22
to say, first off, the whole purpose of art is
48:24
to celebrate another human's vision. The whole
48:27
purpose of looking at a painting is to see through
48:30
someone else's eyes for a moment. And when you
48:33
remove the human element, what's the point? Corporations
48:36
aren't going to give a shit because they want
48:38
a picture of a chair on their website and they
48:40
don't want to pay someone $50 to draw a picture
48:42
of a chair. Fair. So they're just going to go
48:44
to AI. So this argument is never going to solve
48:46
anything, but that's my argument. We are slowly,
48:49
slowly, slowly squeezing the humanity out of
48:52
the one thing that humanity shines best at. And
48:55
that is our creative, our artwork. Yeah, and
48:58
I think that that's really important to understanding
49:02
Dungeon Crawler Carl and understanding the points
49:05
that he's trying to make there. Yeah, and I think
49:07
that he makes those points more clearly through
49:10
Operation Bounce House. That's a bigger point
49:13
of what that book is getting at is specifically
49:16
kind of the flaws of AI as it's relevant in current
49:21
society. The AI in Dungeon Crawler Carl is like,
49:24
not really relevant to how ai is currently affecting
49:28
things it is it is a much more sentient self
49:32
-aware being than anything that we're used to
49:34
no but i mean these things are progressive yes
49:38
and um i mean the ai and dungeon crawler carl
49:41
is like the ai that everyone's afraid of of like
49:43
terminator taking over the world right but realistically
49:47
how far are we from there very very very far
49:51
Society has progressed in the last hundred years
49:54
in ways that people have found absolutely unimaginable.
49:57
My great grandmother was born in 1910 and no
50:00
one had a car. Yeah. I mean, people say that
50:03
like, I mean, there are like conspiracy theorists
50:06
out there that like say that the advancements
50:08
in technology from in the last 70 years, if you
50:11
look at historical advancement of human technology
50:14
over the last several thousand years, that the
50:17
only way to explain the advancements we've had
50:19
in the last 70 or 80 years. is aliens like there
50:22
are a lot of people who believe that I've had
50:24
a drunk person at a party try to convince me
50:26
of that yeah like it's there's like entire like
50:28
it's a thing like there is a lot of like information
50:32
and articles and stuff that people have written
50:34
about this online I very much so agree with what
50:38
Matt is getting at here and that it is understandable
50:41
why people don't like AI art because it is replacing
50:46
the one thing that is human and that is the point
50:49
of art is is the feeling, the emotion that goes
50:51
into it. And AI doesn't have any feeling or emotion.
50:54
It is just extrapolating on data that is being
50:57
put into it. And that is why for me, for us,
51:01
like when I, I could have very easily had AI
51:04
make a logo for our podcast, but that has no
51:08
feeling that has no meaning to it. And it was
51:10
very important that I had another human being
51:13
do this. But yeah, like art is feeling, it is
51:18
human. And I think that it is actually kind of
51:21
a like a recurring theme in literature and movies
51:26
that like aliens come to Earth and they're like,
51:29
oh, people are humans are so stupid and they're
51:31
so pointless and like they're so blah, blah,
51:33
blah. And like and then they find the beauty
51:36
and they're like, oh, what's what's so significant
51:38
of humans is the care and compassion that they
51:41
have. And if you look at a human to human on
51:44
a small scale, they have such passion and hope
51:47
and kindness. And I think that that is in a way
51:51
like a metaphor for art. Yeah, I think it can
51:53
be. And that kind of ties into one of the last
51:56
things I wanted to talk about today, which was
51:59
it wasn't in this AMA. It was kind of an emergency
52:03
announcement that Matt put out a couple of weeks
52:07
ago on Reddit. So Matt is very involved in the
52:11
subreddit for Dungeon Crawler Carl. Politics
52:14
is 110 % banned. topic in there as is the case
52:19
in a lot of groups yes um and that was dictated
52:22
by matt and he said that that is his private
52:26
corner of the universe and that that is his rules
52:30
for how he wants to keep things i will say we're
52:33
a little outside of his corner of the universe
52:35
so politics is something that i feel is very
52:41
related to dungeon crawler carl and it is Yeah.
52:44
And like Matt's not going to say that it isn't.
52:47
Definitely. He says that he still hopes to win
52:49
people over, which I completely understand that
52:53
sentiment. But I can't believe I'm saying this.
52:56
Maybe he's more of an optimist than I am. But,
52:59
you know, I did just kind of want to address
53:02
that. We understand his view on that and we respect
53:08
it. But kind of for our corner of the universe,
53:11
which is this podcast. Yeah, definitely. And
53:13
I mean, we still try and stay away from like
53:16
very strong or very specific political like digressions
53:20
or statements in our podcast. I think a lot of
53:22
people do that unless their podcast is about
53:25
politics. But like when that stuff was popping
53:28
off in the Dungeon Crawler Carl subreddit and
53:30
Matt had to make a statement, he was like, look,
53:32
guys, I understand that there is a lot of political
53:35
allegory in Dungeon Crawler Carl. I want this
53:38
space to be free of political discourse. And
53:41
he said. hey when operation bounce house comes
53:44
out my political views are going to become a
53:47
lot more transparent and we have deleted out
53:51
a lot of tangents that we went on that were related
53:55
to politics just because We felt that they weren't
53:59
really relevant to the episode that we were doing
54:02
that week. Not that we're ever really relevant,
54:05
but it was more off topic than usual. Well, and
54:08
also we're usually like five episodes ahead in
54:12
what we're recording. So like the episode that
54:15
we record today is going to come out like five
54:17
or six weeks from now. So by the time you hear
54:19
it, it's kind of outdated. I think even if it
54:22
did get edited out, I think you can tell from
54:25
our tone of voice and our demeanors that we recorded
54:29
right after Alex Peretti got shot. So the one
54:33
other thing that I just will say about our politics
54:36
and our podcast is that trans rights are human
54:40
rights and that's really important to us. It
54:42
is. 100%. A lot of our friends and people that
54:45
we know very closely are trans and non -binary.
54:48
So trans rights are very important to us. Trans
54:51
rights are human rights. One of the other questions
54:54
in the Variety Fair article was basically like,
54:58
do you experience pressure when writing these
55:01
books? And like, does the pressure ever get to
55:03
you? Matt had this to say that people will come
55:07
up to him and be like this book changed my life
55:09
this book I can't stop thinking about it it's
55:11
everything to me he said that he has people tell
55:14
him that they've been suicidal and they're putting
55:16
off killing themselves because they're waiting
55:18
for the next book to come out and like that is
55:21
a lot of pressure and you know kind of what he
55:23
was talking about is he understands why sometimes
55:26
authors stop and like they don't finish their
55:29
series because the pressure just gets too high
55:32
and gets too big and it just some writer's block
55:35
and just completely like shuts them down he said
55:38
that overwhelmingly like that just gives him
55:40
more motivation yeah well and he obviously has
55:44
an input in a desire and I think most authors
55:48
would say a need to write that not everyone has
55:51
like for some people it's definitely more compulsive
55:54
yeah I think that's the case for Matt I think
55:58
it is too so you know when he says I have people
56:02
tell me they've been suicidal and they're putting
56:03
it off. So Stephen King actually had someone
56:07
write him a letter from jail and say, hey, I'm
56:12
on death row. I'm going to die. But I have to
56:15
know how the Dark Tower series ends. And his
56:18
response to that was, I don't know why you think
56:21
I know how the Dark Tower series ends. Is that
56:25
all he told the poor guy? I mean, I'm sure he
56:27
wrote a much nicer letter. But the story of the
56:29
Dark Tower series is actually super interesting
56:32
because basically Stephen King wrote five books
56:35
and then he got writer's block. And he thought
56:39
that he was never going to finish them. He just
56:41
couldn't come up with any ideas. And he actually
56:45
got hit by a car and had a near -death experience
56:48
while he was out for a walk one day. And he basically
56:51
came out of that and said, I have to finish these
56:55
books. This can't be unfinished. Which I am a
56:58
mega Stephen King fan. I absolutely love his
57:01
books. It's true. The Dark Tower is not for me.
57:04
Yeah. No, that's really interesting. I didn't
57:07
know that. Although you probably told me that
57:08
at some point, but it's interesting how things
57:12
come to be and the reason why things end up getting
57:14
finished. I think that for Matt, this is just
57:17
such a passion for him that I don't think that
57:20
there's anything that could stop him. from finishing
57:23
this series other than the unspeakable thing
57:26
and something that I think is interesting and
57:29
I think pretty specific to Matt and Dungeon Crawler
57:33
Carl and like I'm sure that this isn't exclusive
57:36
to Matt Deniman in these books I would say that
57:39
overwhelmingly Matt has a much more like direct
57:43
link to his readers and like to the individual
57:46
readers of these books and authors of other very
57:51
famous and very successful book series that was
57:53
kind of the parasocial thing i was talking about
57:55
i think is worth more explanation and more conversation
58:00
than we can right like i i don't think that i
58:03
don't know their name but the author of the hunger
58:06
games books had like this direct link to their
58:09
readers like as they were finishing the books
58:13
Maybe at the beginning, but by the time they
58:14
were finishing them, they were probably so big
58:16
that they weren't regularly engaging with their
58:18
fans on Reddit on a day -to -day basis. Well,
58:22
and I know that Matt did this a couple of weeks
58:24
ago in New York, but apparently something he
58:27
used to do is every city that he went to a convention
58:29
in, he would drop what bar he was going to be
58:32
in. Invite fans to come hang out with him. Yeah,
58:36
well, and back then, in the earlier days, it
58:38
would be like... three four five people that
58:41
would show up um yeah matt's a really nice guy
58:44
if you get to meet him like he's so nice he is
58:47
he unfortunately will not be in megacon he's
58:49
in edinburgh which that sounds so much better
58:53
let's just change change plans go to edinburgh
58:55
instead yeah i don't think we can do that in
58:57
three days all right so we've got some stats
58:59
you have some stats and this is kind of talking
59:01
about how the books have blown up so before book
59:04
seven was published there had been 500 000 Total
59:08
sales. There has now been 7 million. So from
59:11
book six, Eye of the Bedlam Bride, to book seven,
59:15
500 ,000 to 7 million. Yes. And it was 90 % male.
59:21
And now it's only 40 % male and 60 % for users.
59:25
And at that point, it was 90 % male. And now
59:28
it's only 40 % of readers are male and 60 % are
59:32
females. And I know another thing that was said
59:36
in that. article was that now it's primarily
59:39
women reading the books and then those female
59:43
readers are getting their husbands or their male
59:45
partners to read the books so it's this like
59:48
interesting like flip of metrics it was also
59:53
noted that over a million people individual people
59:56
are projected to read a parade of horribles when
1:00:00
it comes out i don't know like what that projection
1:00:02
number comes from probably from peace sales yeah
1:00:06
So like a million individual people are projected
1:00:08
to read that book. Whereas like the seven million
1:00:10
sales is like total sales of all books everywhere
1:00:14
for all seven books. Yeah, that's just absolutely
1:00:17
crazy. And then there is a final quote that we
1:00:21
wanted to read to close out the episode. Do you
1:00:24
want to read that or you want me to? You know,
1:00:26
this was a bit of departure in episode format
1:00:29
for us. It's just what worked for us this week.
1:00:32
But we definitely have some other topics that
1:00:35
we'd be interested in going into, like the Fermi
1:00:38
paradox or death of an author. So just drop us
1:00:41
a note if this is something that you'd be interested
1:00:44
in hearing more of. Or do you want us to just,
1:00:47
you know, stick to the text of the books? That's
1:00:49
a completely valid answer, too. Well, and also,
1:00:51
like, I've had the idea of doing, like, specific
1:00:53
deep dives. So, like, a specific, like, theme
1:00:57
of a book or, like, a specific... plot point
1:00:59
of a book or doing like a character deep dive
1:01:02
analysis those are things that like I've been
1:01:04
interested in doing but I don't know if it's
1:01:07
would be interesting to you all or also going
1:01:11
to take away from like our ability to cover the
1:01:15
books and get through all the books yeah definitely
1:01:18
so with all that said we've got this final part
1:01:21
from variety fair that Brie's going to read when
1:01:23
you were a kid did you ever take a blank piece
1:01:26
of paper and just start doodling That's what
1:01:28
this is. It's definitely getting more challenging
1:01:31
because I'm running out of space on the paper,
1:01:33
but we're getting there. New achievement. You've
1:01:37
listened to another episode of The Apocalypse
1:01:39
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