I’m back, baby!

Things have been just…so busy. So I haven’t had much time to write (don’t expect an accountability update this time, sorry) and I certainly haven’t had time to put together a newsletter worthy of you, my brilliant and attractive readership.

But that all changed this past weekend when I was texting about comics with my friend and realized that I was accidentally doing an “A Lot to Process” interview, so I decided to do the interview on purpose. If you don’t remember because it’s been a while, A Lot to Process is my newsletter sub-series where I — a process junkie — talk about the creative process with my very creative friends. Fortunately, my friend I was texting is a talented comics writer with a great new book coming out soon!

Meet Caleb Goellner

According to his official bio, Caleb is an Eisner Awardwinner, writer, and cartoonist best known for his work on GHOST CAGE with artist and co-writer Nick Dragotta from Image Comics. He has written TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES, including the best-selling TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES x NARUTO series, plus SONIC THE HEDGEHOG stories for IDW Publishing. Caleb was born and raised in the Kansas City metro and currently lives with his wife, daughter, and two pugs in Los Angeles.

Caleb was never a Wizard staffer, but I always think of him as an unofficial Wizard guy. He was a freelancer for Wizard and ToyFare, and I met him for the first time at San Diego Comic-Con when he was hanging with some Wizard folks. Since then he’s written a ton of cool comics (seriously, his TMNT X Naruto comic was a huge hit) and now he’s got a fantastic new middle grade graphic novel called Minnie Pouches in the MicroRealm coming out in June from IDW/Top Shelf with artist Eric Life. You can read a preview (and watch a trailer) at the link here.

I got to read an advanced copy, and I’m happy to say it’s a blast — a perfect distillation of Caleb’s style (as seen as far back as his incredible Power Rangers riff with artist Buster Moody, Task Force Rad Squad) with kids’ comics, wrapped up in a high concept that’s basically “What if Polly Pocket and Mighty Max had a kid?” I accidentally started the interview by saying that (mild spoiler) I thought it was great to see a kids’ comic where the parents are fairly crappy people.

Caleb: Thanks so much, dude! I’d wanted to do a book with Minnie for like 10 years, but the overall story was definitely a subconsciousness-dump. The parents are definitely YouTube/social media commentary combined with my professional self-loathing and anxiety about bringing a kid into the world when I wrote it.

Weirdly, after I finished it I felt ready to have a kid at one of the worst points in human history.

Justin: So I guess you realized you'd never be as bad a parent as the Pouches

Caleb: Oh yeah. I think I finished writing it in 2023 and I was coming off a post-COVID 19 YouTube binge and basically wanted to make fun of influencer culture and TikTok.

They seemed like the perfect synthesis of my mental crossroads and so many of the rich homeowners around me.

Justin: So what came first - the high concept? The idea with the parents? How did it come together in your head?

Caleb: I started drawing the high concept years ago with the plan to just do it myself as a messy, lo-if webcomic. I always knew it’d be about a girl and her pets fighting to save her kidnapped parents from a monster guy. Different projects kept me busy for forever and eventually I got the opportunity to pitch a middle grade book. By that time I felt like I’d found my voice as a writer and my approach to humor and it was clear to me that the story was funniest with oblivious parents. I wasn’t impressed with tech leaders or YouTube parents, but became increasingly impressed with so-called “iPad kids” becoming decent teenagers despite all the world foists upon them. Minnie is kind of my response to the usual mismanagement of the present and future by selfish adults who should really be helping kids shine.

I needed an editor to shove the story in a market segment to nail the form factor. It really codified the choices. Everything I do is kind of meant to work at any scale or rating. It just has to be chaotic and funny and have zero romance.

Justin: So the high concept blended with something you felt like you wanted to say about the world, and then you had it?

Caleb: Exactly. That’s essentially my whole thing at this point. I start with a fun idea, then fill in the blanks with what’s on my mind about what seems to be going on. Sometimes the news is all anyone really needs for inspiration. Not to get all Joseph Campbell, but an engaging story tends to reflect the times and speak to the human experience. It’s why a lot of sure-things fall flat. There’s tension in the air, and even escapism needs to validate a reader’s point of view.

Justin: How did the opportunity to pitch for middle grade come up? What made you think that it was something you wanted to try writing?

Caleb: My editor Riley Farmer approached me, asking if I had any ideas. I think I submitted three or four, and Minnie was the one that shined. I worked in a library from the ages of 15 to 24 and did comics journalism for almost a decade, so I was really familiar with how everything from Dav Pilkey to Raina Telgemeier to Gene Luen Yang (extremely successfully) [appealed to] different age groups while essentially creating all-ages works and figured I could deliver on my weird idea for a sort of PG audience without losing any of the mayhem. Artist Eric Lide, who Riley introduced me to, had the perfect style to take things even further, and I just tried to make a book that might get banned by the kind of parents I was riffing on.

Justin: Once you had the concept and what you wanted to say, how did you go about figuring out the beats of the story?

Caleb: We broke up the book into chapters, as if it were released as single issues, and that helped me pace everything. I kind of dealt with each chapter as if it had three acts, which then roughly mapped to three fuller acts for the whole story. I thumbnail every comic I write in a notebook, so it’s really easy to visualize how many pages a given beat will take. I’m plot-forward like that, so I can refine when I get to finishing dialogue.

Justin: I was impressed by how many different alternate realities you crammed in. How did you figure out what those would be?

Caleb: All of the various realms are a bit like Mad Libs of some of the various stimuli floating around my head at the time. Eric really made them magical.

Justin: I feel like this book is very much your style. Do you remember back when you were first developing your style what went into that? Or was it just always very natural for you?

Caleb: I’ve tried to trust my instincts while still studying the things I enjoy. I used to want to break rules, but these days I find I’m really trying to appreciate what’s inherently fun while injecting my feelings.

Justin: Okay, last question: I feel like a lot of your comics feature pizza. Is that a signature, or do you just really like pizza?

Caleb: They do! It has a lot to do with how foundational the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles were to my earliest comic memories, and how much they continue to figure into my actual career. Plus, I think I might eat pizza every weekend, now that I think about it…

Justin: An important part of your creative process, I'm sure.

Caleb: Mostly it’s a survival food as a toddler-raising Costco dad on a budget.

Many thanks to Caleb for the interview! You can follow him on Instagram and Bluesky and definitely pick up Minnie Pouches when it drops in June!

That’s it for now, but hopefully I’ll be back soon(ish) with more. See you then!

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