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Fred Kennedy — writer, broadcaster, and professional chaos agent known to most of the world as Fearless Fred- sits down with Back to Pop to talk about making comics that absolutely refuse to stay in one genre.

Fred is the writer behind Dead Romans, a six-issue historical epic from Image Comics' Shadowline that follows Arminius, a Germanic prince raised as a Roman hostage who used his military training to orchestrate one of the most devastating ambushes in ancient history, the Battle of Teutoburg Forest, 9 AD. He’s also the writer of The Florida Hippopotamus Cocaine Massacre, a four-issue action-comedy from Mad Cave Studios that sold out its first printing before most people even knew what hit them. And he’s the creator, writer, and voice of Mud79, a fully produced Star Wars audio drama that takes the galaxy far, far away and runs it straight through Platoon.

Fred grew up in Belgium surrounded by real Roman ruins, built a career in Canadian radio and television, and has spent the last several years making comics that swing from historically rigorous to completely unhinged — sometimes in the same sentence. We talk about where history obsession comes from, how broadcast timing shapes the way you write a page, what it means to collaborate with an artist versus just handing them a script, and why the ordinary people caught in the machine are almost always more interesting than the chosen ones.

Also: the hippos. We definitely talk about the hippos. For more on the fearless one. Click here:

https://q107.com/show/fearless-fred/

https://www.instagram.com/fearless_fred?igsh=aDlxYTZkemc0ZmY3

Mud79 Fan Made Star Wars Story: https://open.spotify.com/show/7APxLkXWfXhvv1hzdY5zMx?si=h3mIyK7JTNSTMtt

Theme music composed by Ron Wasserman

Audio composed and edited by

Lauren M. Antoine

Website:

Composer Ron Wasserman

Back To Pop

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Ever had an idea for an action figure, or maybe you just wish one had been made? Well at Lecroy Toys you don't have to wait anymore, head over and tell Matthew we sent you! https://www.instagram.com/lecroystoys?igsh=MW1ndWE5cHhzaGQ3dw==

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This week on Back to Pop, we sit down with Adam Cahoon — artist, designer, and Senior Designer & former Production Lead at Vault Comics. Adam stepped into The Nasty, Vault’s horror-comedy about VHS culture and the “video nasties” moral panic in 1990s Scotland, taking over as sole interior artist from issue #3.

He’s also the designer behind the premium hardcover edition of He Who Fights With Monsters and the cover of The Two Week Curse (Book 1 of The Ten Realms), and the artist/co-creator of Greetings from the Maglev, a post-apocalyptic revenge story from Invader Comics.

We dig into what day to day, the invisible design choices that make a comic feel like an object instead of just printed pages, and how Adam built the “1950s title card” energy into the He Who Fights With Monsters typography. We also get into horror fandom, the challenge of stepping into a world someone else built, and the quiet, personal comics Adam’s been building on the side — superhero spas, cosmic consequences, and family mistakes.

In this episode:

•Designing The Nasty and taking over from original artist George Kambadais

•Inside the cover and hardcover design of He Who Fights With Monsters

•Building a cover for LitRPG/portal fantasy with The Two Week Curse

•Greetings from the Maglev and the pull of personal, self-owned work

•What makes a comic book logo actually work

Find Adam:

🌐 https://adamcahoon.com

📷 Instagram: https://instagram.com/adamccahoon

🛒 Greetings from the Maglev Vol. 2: https://invadercomics.com

🎙️ Back to Pop — the podcast that looks back through the eyes of those who were there.

Theme music composed by Ron Wasserman

Audio composed and edited by

Lauren M. Antoine

Website:

Composer Ron Wasserman

Back To Pop

https://lantoine2.wixsite.com/portfolio

Instagram/

https://www.instagram.com/backtopopmedia?igsh=MTd0dGNid2hjdWd5cA%3D%3D&utm_source=qr

https://www.instagram.com/4ronwasserman?igsh=MTR6ZGZ5dXJzYXN3eQ==

Support the show

Ever had an idea for an action figure, or maybe you just wish one had been made? Well at Lecroy Toys you don't have to wait anymore, head over and tell Matthew we sent you! https://www.instagram.com/lecroystoys?igsh=MW1ndWE5cHhzaGQ3dw==

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Some covers don’t ask you to pick them up — they grab you by the collar.

That’s exactly what happened with Honor and Curse from Mad Cave Studios. One look at the cover and the search was on: who made this?

This week on Back to Pop, we sit down with the artist behind that image — Nick Marinkovich, Canadian comic artist, illustrator, concept artist, and co-creator of Dead Romans (Image Comics Shadowline). Nick’s work carries grit, atmosphere, and cinematic weight — the kind of art that makes a panel feel like it has history behind it.

We talk about what makes a cover stop a reader cold, how a visual style gets built over years of sketchbooks and false starts, the discipline behind sequential storytelling, and what it really means to co-create a world from the ground up alongside a writer. Nick also opens up about process, pressure, deadlines, and the influences — comics and otherwise — that shaped how he sees light, composition, and motion.

If you’ve ever picked up a book purely because the cover wouldn’t let you put it down, this one’s for you.

Find Nick’s work: https://nickmarinkovich.com/

Follow Nick here: https://www.instagram.com/nick.marinkovich?igsh=aWJzZ3g5NW52MjRh

Including Dead Romans and his cover art for Honor and Curse, and keep supporting the artists making comics feel alive before you even turn the first page.

Theme music composed

by Ron Wasserman

Audio composed and edited by

Lauren M. Antoine

Website:

Composer

Ron Wasserman

Back To Pop

https://lantoine2.wixsite.com/portfolio

Instagram/

https://www.instagram.com/backtopopmedia?igsh=MTd0dGNid2hjdWd5cA%3D%3D&utm_source=qr

https://www.instagram.com/4ronwasserman?igsh=MTR6ZGZ5dXJzYXN3eQ==

Support the show

Ever had an idea for an action figure, or maybe you just wish one had been made? Well at Lecroy Toys you don't have to wait anymore, head over and tell Matthew we sent you! https://www.instagram.com/lecroystoys?igsh=MW1ndWE5cHhzaGQ3dw==