Cosplay, Curtain Calls, and Creativity (aka: Unveiling the Unexpected)

In Episode 3, we discuss our first comic con as a couple, how Jess became a theatre kid, and how a reoccurring dream gave Steph the idea for this podcast in the first place.

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Transcript

Speaker 1 0:07

Hello and welcome to another episode of Crush Cast . I'm Stephanie Lopez .

Speaker 2 0:12

And I am Jess Lopez .

Speaker 1 0:15

And today ? Well , honestly , we don't completely know what we're going to talk about , and that's the fun of it . You get to find out with us . So , um , welcome to Mystery Cast , I guess . Yeah , we've been working out a room for some time in our house that is supposed to be my office slash , the podcast room , yeah , and so far we haven't gone very far . But , um , I , in doing this recently , I have noticed all of the Comic-Con memorabilia I cannot say that word memorabilia that we've collected over the last , I don't know , several years .

Speaker 2 1:00

Many , many years of memorabilia .

Speaker 1 1:04

And I thought too much . This is what I thought to myself Did you ever expect to be at Comic-Cons or did you ever expect to know anything about what goes on at Comic-Cons ? And the answer to that was no , I did not . I never saw that for myself . Not that there's anything wrong with it .

Speaker 2 1:26

But I didn't . Yeah , nothing is wrong with Comic-Cons , no , they're awesome .

Speaker 1 1:31

They are , but I just never saw myself attending them or even understanding like most of what was happening there , like seeing some of the art and knowing what it meant . You know , like who the characters were .

Speaker 2 1:47

Going to the Comic-Cons has been really awesome for me for both of us now Because there are a lot of creative people there .

Speaker 1 2:00

We've now confiscated all of the toys that can roll around and make noise that she never wants to play with , might I add , until we're in here .

Speaker 2 2:11

All of the toys that she's been playing with recently have been noisy toys that were never around at all . They were under all of the couches when I say all I just mean two .

Speaker 1 2:28

There were three . There were three of them .

Speaker 2 2:31

Yeah , but up until tonight they were all under the couches .

Speaker 1 2:35

Right , so then they just miraculously appeared ? I don't know .

Speaker 2 2:39

They were placed strategically behind us so that , when we were recording , one of them would come over and start knocking it around .

Speaker 1 2:49

I love it and I'm leaving it in . Maybe We'll see . If I don't , I'll sound crazy , anyway , okay , so back to the story in hand . You were talking about Comic-Cons . Do you remember the very first Comic-Con that we attended ?

Speaker 2 3:06

Was it the one in Arlington ?

Speaker 1 3:10

It was in Arlington , but do you remember the year ?

Speaker 2 3:12

Was it 03 ? 03 .

Speaker 1 3:15

03 .

Speaker 2 3:15

03 . 03 .

Speaker 1 3:16

Yeah , that was my very first Comic-Con that I'd ever been to and I remember you were excited .

Speaker 2 3:25

We got to meet some really cool guests at that .

Speaker 1 3:28

Con we did . I don't remember who they were because I was too fascinated and too much into artist Allie to care about anything else . All I know is it was my very first one and I didn't know what artist Allie was and I didn't even know if . Did you know about them or About artist Allie .

Speaker 2 3:49

Oh yeah , oh yeah .

Speaker 1 3:54

I'd been to .

Speaker 2 3:54

Con's before , and it was okay to see the big celebrities there and stuff . At the time they weren't as popular or as huge as they are now . It was a lot of C-list actors and voice actors , yeah .

Speaker 2 4:10

But nowadays you go to a con and there are like you know A-listers there and it's crazy and I'm sure they're asking for tons of money for an autograph and a picture . But back then it was for me . It was mostly just I went to cons mostly for Artist Alley because I wanted to find . You know , I've been reading the mainstream comic Marvel and DC and I was big into image at the time and there were a lot of indie artists at the cons .

Speaker 1 4:43

Rob Liefeld was at this con . I remember because I took a picture of him for you . It was my long lens camera , yeah .

Speaker 2 4:51

Yeah , he was there , and I was a huge fan of image comics and especially extreme studios , and so that was really cool , and so my main reason was for going to visit those guys .

Speaker 1 5:07

Yeah , the people who were actually creating comic books .

Speaker 2 5:10

Yeah .

Speaker 1 5:11

Comic con is kind of morphed into , and I'm not going to say this is a good or bad thing . There's plenty of people that have been to these for way longer than I have that would probably want to weigh in . But the truth is is that they definitely are more pop culture oriented now , and you will find some . There are still some purists out there , I think . I feel like Staple in Austin is a little more pure in its form of like staying true to comic books and creators and indie creators , but for the most part they're pretty much pop culture cons and I'm not here to say whether that's good or bad or whatever . I still attend them . So , and one of my favorite ones is right here in our own backyard . So it's bell county Comic Con and it's coming up in August . You can get tickets and more information on that by going to bell county Comic Concom or you can find them on Instagram and Facebook . And if you're into anime , the creators of bell county Comic Con are doing a anime and sneaker convention and Asian food festival in February . So that's anime su-ne-ka-s-u-n-i-k-a dot com .

Speaker 1 6:35

But what I wanted to get to is artist alley within itself . Like that was so cool . I had never seen anything like that . All of the most of them were local . I mean , most of them were from Arlington and they had created , or you know , dfw and they had created all of these amazing things , like there were comic books and zines and like crochet monsters and toys and different things , and I mean I had never seen anything like it and never been able to like go up to these creators and just talk to them and have conversations with them , and even some of the I think Dark Horse and some other comic book companies had like people there that were reviewing portfolios and you could just walk right up to them .

Speaker 2 7:27

Yeah , If you had a portfolio , you could . They could give them a review and a critique if you were , you know , thick skinned enough to receive a critique . I took some work up there one time and I was told that it needed more detail . So I've taken artwork , I've taken portfolios to two cons , and the first one they said it needed more detail .

Speaker 1 8:00

Okay .

Speaker 2 8:01

And the second one , which I think you I still have the artwork for it that you've seen .

Speaker 1 8:06

I think you've seen it , yeah .

Speaker 2 8:11

I did . I drew it a long time ago and then I took it to a con years later and was told that it looked . The artwork was good , but the layouts and all of the , the way the panels were laid out and everything were kind of old school and that was because I drew it a long time ago .

Speaker 1 8:31

Yeah , and now a long time ago is an even longer time ago .

Speaker 2 8:35

Yeah .

Speaker 1 8:36

But here's that weird thing , like is it a long enough time ago that now it's back , or is it ? You know what I'm saying ? Cause that happens right , like some of my clothes that are in the closet that I will never be able to wear again , ever , ever , ever are now back . So I don't know , maybe I should give them to some young fashionista .

Speaker 2 9:01

I mean it could be back in style . I don't read comics as much as I used to .

Speaker 1 9:08

We can post it and we can see what they say .

Speaker 2 9:11

Oh , that's , scary .

Speaker 1 9:15

Okay , so we know something that you got me into , like , you definitely got me into that . It wasn't something that I was like , hey , I want to go check out this comic con , nope . So I'm curious was there anything that you got into because of me , or yeah , I don't know how else to ask that so was there ?

Speaker 2 9:41

Yeah , yeah , it's happened quite recently and that is theater . I said that really loudly .

Speaker 1 9:49

Yeah , you did . They would be very proud of you for projecting your voice . I don't know what was that laugh ? I said , oh , I don't know , I'm going to keep it in because yep , yeah , I kind of so .

Speaker 2 10:06

A few years back , Steph worked on Suzical right Yep , and she asked if I could do some . Was it T-shirt ?

Speaker 1 10:20

art first . Yes , and if you wouldn't mind coming to help on our work day , because theater always needs people y'all . The theater always needs people to help on their work days or just to volunteer at templesypictheatrecom Okay .

Speaker 2 10:35

Yeah , good , it's a labor of love , you will , it's work .

Speaker 1 10:41

It is .

Speaker 2 10:42

But it's very rewarding . It is so T-shirt design , the T-shirt design , and then Just the work day , just helping . And I guess yeah , Steph told them that I could draw stuff , and so I drew a bunch of Dr Suz type fish .

Speaker 1 11:06

I forgot , oh yeah . I forgot and they glowed in the dark . We used to them in a glow in the dark , yeah .

Speaker 2 11:13

I don't remember how many I drew . It was a lot .

Speaker 1 11:16

I had completely forgotten that I don't know .

Speaker 2 11:19

Soos , soos down . Yeah , that was actually fun . It did take a long time , but it was a lot of fun to do . So that was there was that one . I did a T-shirt for Clue Right when that came around After Clue there was a span of a few years and then you wanted to get back into theater and wanted to stage manage a show , yeah .

Speaker 1 11:48

So how I got back into that , though , was because our dear friends Jerica and Chilonny Stieger were in a production of the Addams Family at the Bastrop Opera House in Bastrop , texas , and we went to see that , and I thought it was such a fun show . I was really surprised , because I've never really been a fan of the Addams Family like on TV or anything like that , or even the movies , but this show was a blast , and I thought , if Temple Civic Theater does this show , I want to stage manage this show .

Speaker 2 12:27

It was so much fun . It was I like you . I went into that just not knowing what was going to happen and I had a blast . It was a lot of fun and I think for me that was quite a catalyst .

Speaker 1 12:44

Yeah , it was a little bit of a turning point for how you felt about musical theater , right ?

Speaker 2 12:50

Yeah , when I discovered that . Well , when Steph told me that Temple Civic Theater was going to do Addams Family , I was like , oh , that sounds like a lot of fun to be involved somehow .

Speaker 1 13:04

Yeah , so we have a . We're living the one car life right now . So I had reached out to the director and asked hey , can my husband come up here and like do his side gig stuff on his computer ? And so they didn't have to turn around and come back home .

Speaker 2 13:22

Right , that was it .

Speaker 1 13:23

You know and we .

Speaker 2 13:26

Because the theater is literally across town . We're on one side of the town and the theater is literally on the other side of town , and so it was quite a drive .

Speaker 1 13:37

I'm just laughing , though , because anybody from DFW or Austin or whatever going to be like rolling eyes , as my dad would say okay , anyway , I'm sorry .

Speaker 2 13:47

It took a full 20 minutes to drive all the way across town to get there .

Speaker 1 13:51

But yeah , so yeah .

Speaker 2 13:54

So the plan was to either drop Steph off , you know , drop her off and then just work from there on my laptop . You know , once everything was over , I would pack up and we would leave . I guess Steph told them that I could draw some stuff .

Speaker 1 14:12

They can sniff it out . Theater people can sniff it out . It's like also you had an iPad on you .

Speaker 2 14:18

I did have an iPad . People would walk by and see me drawing .

Speaker 1 14:22

We were able to put two and two together and deduce you were in the studio .

Speaker 2 14:28

They did deduce . It was a deducing .

Speaker 1 14:33

But I thought it was so cute that you thought that you were going to be an abled-bodied person that come in there and have these skills and think that you were not going to get roped in .

Speaker 2 14:45

That's when I was told that if you're there , you end up doing something .

Speaker 1 14:50

And you did lots of some things .

Speaker 2 14:52

I did . I did so . I was asked to do the t-shirt , which doubled as the program cover yeah .

Speaker 2 15:03

I did the poster for the show and I did some set work . I did some painting and some typography type stuff for the show . Like I was saying , I've worked on the set , helped work on the set which was designed , which was created , conceived by Paul Blackstop . He's an amazing , amazing human being . He is such a creative . When we talk about creative people , he is absolutely one of those types of people . He's just his designs for Adam's family and other things that he's worked on in the past and some of the newer stuff . It just blows me away . It's really creative , it's really clever .

Speaker 1 15:56

He and Natasha are visionaries for sure , like I would say that for sure .

Speaker 2 16:01

He's just been , he was just so kind and he's so patient .

Speaker 1 16:07

Really nice . We love you and we think you are incredible . And yeah , we just wanted to mention that yeah , you're an amazing person . So definitely part of the reason that just fell in love with theater . But since I said that you pretty much did , how did you find yourself falling for the old girl ?

Speaker 2 16:32

Well , it was that it was Paul , it was Natasha the director , everyone was just . It was so . We use the word creative a lot we do , but that's what this is about . There were so many creative people there , so many like-minded individuals really friendly , very open , very positive , and it was just a great experience being around so many people like that . Yeah , and it was the whole thing . You know , it was an artistic sort of thing .

Speaker 1 17:14

Yeah .

Speaker 2 17:15

Like an overall . It's a community .

Speaker 1 17:17

It is a community of artists and really it becomes a family .

Speaker 2 17:23

And yeah , I was pretty much hooked at that point .

Speaker 1 17:29

Yeah , I'm so glad that you had that experience , because I was like I knew that you would enjoy it , but I didn't know that you were gonna love it , and so that was just amazing how all of that worked out .

Speaker 2 17:43

We made a lot of good friends there . We did . It was definitely a life-changing experience . I wasn't sure how it was gonna fit in , but I found a way , or I was told how I was gonna fit in that was just kind of how it works , like that's how it was for me .

Speaker 1 18:06

I didn't know . I have always loved creating and everything , but I took theater as a blow off class . Yeah , I'm admitting that it's here , it's on , it's recorded , but I did and I didn't know that it was gonna change my life . So then it really did . It brought me out of my shell .

Speaker 2 18:31

It's done so many things and it got us out of the house a lot more .

Speaker 1 18:38

It did . It was awesome . So , yes , thank you to everyone at Temple Civic Theater for everything . We're so excited to come see Cinderella soon . You guys that haven't bought tickets yet for Cinderella it's gonna be awesome and you can do that at templestimictheatercom , and we hope to see you there .

Speaker 2 19:03

I did the shirt for that too .

Speaker 1 19:08

I would say that being married to you and watching you pursue art and design consistently for 20 , well , it'll be 23 years that we've been married in March and I have watched you do this for that long , and for me that's always been amazing , because I feel like I was all over the place I mean literally all over the place as far as what I wanted to do . I mean .

Speaker 2 19:47

There's nothing wrong with having lots of interests .

Speaker 1 19:51

No , I don't think there is either , but I had no real goals other than being creative , and that can drive a person crazy because it's like okay , that's great .

Speaker 2 20:05

Well , you could say that your goal was to learn as much as you could about those interests .

Speaker 1 20:12

I wish that I had known that at the time , and if I had framed it that way in my brain I might not have felt so nuts . But I mean , listen , I literally had to write down some things that I was involved in before I even kind of got on any kind of path , and so , okay , so I was a photographer , I wanted to be an event planner , I was a writer , I had an Etsy store for a hot minute . I wanted to be a singer , an actor .

Speaker 1 20:44

There was a while I thought about speech pathology , about teaching theater , about maybe pursuing my degree in music and being a vocal coach , like all of these things , and so some of those I did and some of those I didn't , but I just I had no , I had no real path , I feel like , and so I took a ton of admin jobs because I didn't understand how being creative was gonna pay any of my bills , and also I didn't really other than photography I didn't really have , which I actually got into a little bit later . I didn't really have anything else Other than acting and I didn't really feel like there was anywhere for me to do that here necessarily at the time . Yeah , but also I was a big scaredy cat , and that is a whole other podcast for a whole other time . But but I watched you do this and I don't want to say that I was envious , but , for lack of a better word , I guess it was like man . What must that be like to have a Basic idea of what it is that you want to go after ?

Speaker 2 22:05

well , that thing that I wanted to go after was Graphic design yeah illustration .

Speaker 2 22:12

So I kind of I wanted to , you know , be in that sort of field something creative , but that was probably the extent of it as far as Like a niche in any of in that area . I didn't know what I was doing . The thing that impressed me About you was that all of the things that you could do , you did very well , even though you might not have known you know what your path was at you , you didn't know what the path was going to be all of the other things that you could do , you did really well .

Speaker 1 22:50

See , and I wholeheartedly disagree I feel like I am Okay at lots of things and I'm not great at anything , except for , maybe , talking . That's been the thing my whole life . I can talk and I can listen , and I didn't have to learn how to listen . And At one point , are you gonna say something ? I'm listening .

Speaker 2 23:14

Well , I was gonna say I'm good at listening and not great at talking right .

Speaker 1 23:18

So I mean so look at us like with this podcast . Okay , we are sitting here doing this podcast together and I can definitely tell you that I never thought that would be a thing . Would you have ever thought no , no or people are gonna be listening to your innermost thoughts , or yeah ?

Speaker 2 23:37

no , because I Never thought I would have anything of Interest or substance to talk about . I Mean , I'm just .

Speaker 1 23:47

I'm just this guy man and I see where we're gonna have to talk about . There are so many podcast episodes that we've just created for ourselves . Here let's discuss imposter syndrome that's definitely coming but have always just been fascinated by creativity and I've always been creating in some way . And and what's really interesting about this podcast because we were talking earlier about how did it happen ? Look , how , how have we come across this thing ? And so for several years Maybe more than to me five is several , but I mean I'm gonna say even more than that I have this pretty consistent dream where I was a guest on the Tonight Show and , honestly , that didn't make any sense to me because and I mean it was a consistent dream that I've had Over the years . I've told you about it .

Speaker 2 24:54

Yeah , okay , yeah , I remember you talking about it before yeah a few years back . Was it the Jimmy Fallon version or the Jay Leno version ?

Speaker 1 25:06

Jay Leno hosted the Tonight Show , because I just go straight , I think , johnny Carson to Jimmy Fallon .

Speaker 2 25:13

Yeah , he did right did I just age myself .

Speaker 1 25:16

No , I think I just . I well , I just said Johnny Carson , so Jay Leno did it too .

Speaker 2 25:22

Yeah , after Carson .

Speaker 1 25:23

Yeah , see , I don't remember that because that's , that's good , because you know what we're staying positive . So those were your words , going back to the first podcast .

Speaker 2 25:33

I'll just say that nobody beats Carson .

Speaker 1 25:35

Okay so , but I don't you know what , I really don't know . I do remember several , several of those dreams being with Jimmy Fallon as the host , but anyway . So this happened over the years and and one of the things for me is I felt like maybe God was trying to show me something in all of this , because a lot of times , you know , people say I felt like God told me this or I heard God say this or whatever , and for me it is like I feel like I hear his voice through , or like he's showing me things through movies or TV or my dreams or whatever . And so it finally occurred to me to just pray and be like hey , why am I having this dream pretty consistently ? Because I was like I'm not going to be on the Tonight Show , but it kept coming up so much that I thought why does this keep coming up ? Like maybe I just need to pray about it and find out .

Speaker 1 26:46

And I can't even tell you the moment that it happened , but it was like a revelation to me . I was like you're not the guest , you're the host . And I was like , oh , that makes so much sense , because one of the things that I liked about Jimmy Fallon early on when he took it , took it on . I don't really watch the Tonight Show anymore , mainly because we watch , you know , netflix and Hulu and all that and . But right at first it was infectious to watch because he was having so much fun .

Speaker 2 27:23

He did a great job when he first started . I mean he's probably doing very well now . We just haven't watched in a long time .

Speaker 1 27:33

Right , but it was infectious .

Speaker 2 27:34

But when we were watching it it was , it was really cool and he was really into the guests and he was funny and you know the music was was really good yeah it felt sincere to me , like his excitement and everything felt sincere , and like I can't believe I'm doing this right Like .

Speaker 1 27:53

I can't believe . This is my job and this is what I get to do every day , and so I loved watching it for that reason . And so when I kind of got this revelation , if you will , about oh , I'm not the guest , I'm the host , I thought , oh man , that makes so much more sense to me , right .

Speaker 2 28:14

Me too .

Speaker 1 28:15

And because I want to know , like what makes you tick , like tell me your stories . And I'm kind of the person who might ask uncomfortable questions or off the wall questions or whatever . I that's just kind of been who I am .

Speaker 2 28:33

That's how you find out more about someone . I mean you could ask silly questions and you know , if they give you a silly answer , then you know . That's something that you know about them .

Speaker 1 28:44

Yeah , but then I'll go deeper , like why are you thinking like that or whatever ? I mean , it's just something I don't know . It's just always kind of been something that I've been interested in . But to someone who for years and years and years , loves all kinds of things and just doesn't feel like they're super amazing at everything and look , I'm not saying I'm the best host in the world Like we haven't had a guest on yet , so I have no idea how I'm going to be Not yet , but we're still getting equipment for that guy . So it's coming , it's happening . But I know that I have a lot to learn and I'm excited about that . That's one of the things that I love about the arts . You will never get to a point where you know it all . You will never , ever , ever get to a point with art or creativity where you can't , where you've learned it all .

Speaker 2 29:40

You learn something new every time . I've been using Adobe Illustrator for 20-some odd years and I still learn stuff almost every day . Shortcuts or you know , they add new things all the time . It's a learning experience every time .

Speaker 1 30:04

I'm so glad that we have it on like recorded . You said learning , it's a learning experience .

Speaker 2 30:12

I don't know what that is . That's my second central text is coming out .

Speaker 1 30:18

It's a learning experience . Oh man , awesome , okay , so yeah , but so now ? So now I'm the host , and what I think is so great about that is that I feel like I've found something that I can so purely enjoy that will encompass everything that I love , because I can talk about all those things with people who are doing those things . So , like , hopefully , I learn enough to be great at discussing these things with people who are great at doing the things that I love and appreciate .

Speaker 2 31:03

And you can ask questions that will Make them think about themselves that maybe you know , other people haven't asked them before maybe like that guy on Hot ones , hot ones . He asks great questions that guy .

Speaker 1 31:20

He blows my mind . I . Why can't I think of his name right now ? It's gonna really super annoy me . But yeah , that's the point that I Aspire to be where it's like nobody's ever asked me this question . I want to be that person where I'm that's a great question . Yeah , where I'm so in your business , that's a great question . So , yeah , that's , that's , that's the goal . So we'll see .

Speaker 2 31:54

We'll see we'll have to look up his name , because I feel bad now yeah .

Speaker 1 31:57

I totally feel bad . I mean , we do have phones that we can oh yeah , they're just right here next to us . But yeah , so that's to me it's just like , okay , I'm gonna , I'm gonna be able to talk about all of these things and that is so exciting to me . So stick around and Watch us grow .

Speaker 2 32:19

Sean Evans .

Speaker 1 32:21

Sean Evans .

Speaker 2 32:27

I'm gonna close out this podcast with a little thing called .

Speaker 1 32:34

Finish the sentence . I mean , actually I don't think I did .

Speaker 2 32:39

So , steph , I would like for you to finish the sentence . Okay , I Am married to Jess Lopez of course I know the history of the MCU .

Speaker 1 32:50

I'm married to Steph Lopez , of course .

Speaker 2 32:53

I want ice cream for dessert . I'm married to Jess Lopez , of course .

Speaker 1 32:59

I can identify fonts . I'm married to Steph Lopez , of course .

Speaker 2 33:05

I binge watch Gilmore girls .

Speaker 1 33:07

Yeah , you do .

Speaker 2 33:09

I'm married to Jess Lopez , of course .

Speaker 1 33:12

I have a favorite Battle Bot .

Speaker 2 33:15

Favorite Battle Bot . Which is who ?

Speaker 1 33:17

well , right now it's whiplash and Well , and also lockjaw , because he's the OG , he has an OG Mm-hmm . Yes . Last question Are you ready , lopez ? Yes , I'm married to Steph Lopez , of course .

Speaker 2 33:33

I was roped into co-hosting this podcast .

Speaker 1 33:37

Fair enough .

Speaker 2 33:43

Thank you for joining us on this week's podcast .

Speaker 1 33:45

That's right please consider joining in on the conversation by coming to our social media pages and Telling us what creative things you love or , if you're married , what's something that you got into after you got married . I'm super curious , like I know for Jess . Now he's eating ranch on his pizza , so that's a thing . I can tell you the backstory of the MCU . So so , yeah , we want to hear what you guys have to say and we would love to have you join in on the conversation . We're on Facebook and Instagram and and , yeah , thanks for being here , guys . Bye , bye you .