David Pepose Talks Space Ghost, Speed Racer & The O.Z. | Comic Crusaders Podcast #770

WEPA! David Pepose is back on the Comic Crusaders Podcast, and apparently the man’s solution to having too many deadlines was to collect MORE deadlines. Since the last time we chopped it up, David’s résumé has continued expanding across some seriously recognizable properties while he still finds time to return to the creator-owned stories that helped build his career in the first place.

This time, one of the big reasons we’re catching up is Space Ghost vs. The Herculoids, the new Dynamite crossover from Pepose and artist Jonathan Lau. The first issue hit September 16, bringing these two classic cosmic families crashing together while setting the stage for the next chapter of Space Ghost. Dynamite has already made the bigger destination clear: this crossover begins the countdown toward Space Ghost Season Three.

We’re also getting into Speed Racer and the challenge David seems to keep volunteering for: taking characters people have loved for generations and figuring out how to make them work NOW without acting embarrassed about what made them special in the first place. David’s current Speed Racer work for Mad Cave pairs him with artist Davide Tinto, and Mad Cave continues expanding the series and its collected editions.

Then we get back to something completely different, The O.Z. This is David’s own twisted trip through Oz, following Iraq War veteran Dorothy Gale into an Occupied Zone that looks nothing like the yellow-brick-road fantasy people remember. Pepose created the series with artist Ruben Rojas, alongside colorist Whitney Cogar and letterer DC Hopkins, and returning to that creator-owned world after everything that’s happened in his career gives us plenty to talk about.

That’s really where this conversation gets interesting. What changes when you become one of the writers publishers trust with characters that already carry decades of history? How do you modernize something without turning it into nostalgia cosplay? What does working on Marvel and major licensed properties teach you that you can bring back to your own creations? And when the opportunities start piling up, how the hell do you keep every character sounding like themselves while deadlines are trying to murder you?

*David has been on the Crusade before, so we’re skipping the boring reset button and picking up the conversation where we left it. Watch Comic Crusaders Podcast #770 and catch up with one of the busiest writers in comics as we talk Space Ghost vs. The Herculoids, Speed Racer, The O.Z., creator ownership, crowdfunding, reinvention and whatever other deadline David Pepose probably accepted while I was writing this paragraph.*

Follow David at DavidPepose.com and @Peposed across his major social platforms.
His official link hub is available at https://linktr.ee/peposed. Linktree

THE CRUSADE NEVER ENDS! WEPA!