Who doesn’t love a great comic book? Marymount senior Kat Calamia has a popular YouTube channel where she reviews comic books, and has now began writing her own. After a successful Kickstarter campaign for her first comic book, Like Father, Like Daughter, Kat and Short Fuse Media are back at it with issue #2. With less than a week left in the second Kickstarter campaign, I was able to catch up with Kat and get the scoop on the new issue, the origins of her love of comic books, and my own future employment opportunities.
How and when did you first get into comic books?I don’t remember a time I didn’t like comic books. My dad was always a big fan of comics and when I was little he use to read his old silver age Superman comics to my brother and me. I just fell in love and wanted to read as many comics I could get my hands on.
The TV shows at the time also really helped me get into Marvel comics. I use to love the cartoon X-men Evolution and was obsessed with the Spider-Man films.
What made you decide to start reviewing them on YouTube? I started making video comic book reviews on YouTube in my sophomore year of high school with my best friend, Luke, calling our show Comic Duo. We were inspired by a website called Comic Vine. On that website Sara and Tony did video reviews weekly. Luke and I loved their videos so much that we wanted to make our own show.
My friend dropped out of comics about a year later, and I decided to make my own comic book show called Comic Uno. So my whole YouTube journey kind of started from there.
How did you first come up with the idea for “Like Father, Like Daughter”?I actually first came up with the idea in a screenplay writing class I took at Marymount. The summer after I took the class I saw the screenplay on my desktop and I really wanted to make the story into a comic book. So I started to transfer my idea into a comic script. On my YouTube channel I made a video looking for an artist and Short Fuse Media contacted me wishing to publish the comic.
What are some of your favorite comic books and comic book authors? My favorite comic book of all time is Spider-Girl. Spider-Girl is an else world story about the daughter of Spider-Man and Mary Jane, Mayday Parker. The series is Marvel’s longest running female lead comic book written by previous Marvel Editor and Chief, Tom Defalco.
What I love about this book and character is that May makes a lot of mistakes in her hero career, but she never gives up. She may not be the strongest hero in the world, but that doesn’t mean she has to stop trying to be the best hero she can be.
The list goes on and on with how many comic books I love, but Spider-Girl is my all time favorite.
How did you make the transition from popular YouTube reviewer to comic book author?That’s something that is still evolving. As a comic book reviewer your job is to critique comic books. Point out what you think was done correctly and incorrectly in a book. What you enjoyed and what you didn’t enjoy. You help people pick up good comics.
As an author you have to do the complete opposite. You can’t think about your critics so much because you have to learn that you aren’t going to make everyone happy with your story. You can’t please everyone. What’s important is that you are happy with your story.
The first Kickstarter beat it’s fundraising goal by a little more than a thousand dollars. Did you feel any pressure or anything to make sure the second issue and second Kickstarter have a similar outcome?Oh yeah we are feeling the pressure, but the good thing is that we made enough money with issue 1 that we were able to lower the price goal a little bit and hopefully we can do the same with issue 3.
But we want to grow our fan base and reach as many people as possible.
What can we expect from issue #2 of Like Father, Like Daughter?Like Father, Like Daughter is about a teenage girl named Casey Ryder. Her father left her at a young age to be a full time superhero. Invulnerable is the only superhero in the world. So everyone loves him, except for his own daughter. In issue 1, Casey inherits her father’s powers. This makes her become her own worst enemy.
In issue 2 we are going to explore more about Casey’s powers and how she will use them. We see that she has heroic instincts, but she also realizes that her father left her because of those same heroic instincts.
In this issue we will also be introduced to Wes the walking superhero wikipedia. He will become an important part of the book after this issue.
What is your hope for the rest of the Like Father, Like Daughter series? With every issue I hope we can expand our audience even more with this series. I hope people are excited to see all the twist and turns to come with the book, and I hope people love the characters as much as I love writing them.
In a few years when they eventually make Like Father, Like Daughter a movie or a TV show, can you please give me a job?Hell yes!!
You can donate to Kat’s Kickstarter here (https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/shortfusemedia/like-father-like-daughter-2-comic-book) and see her YouTube channel here (https://www.youtube.com/user/haydenclaireheroes)