KLC Press Reviews: Chip Zdarsky's Substack

(it ain't great)

When Ryan Stegman and Donny Cates first invented Substack, they had no idea it would be this popular. So popular, in fact, that other comics creators have been inspired to join in on the fun! But do they share the same quality standards that we do at KLC Press? Well, we’re about to find out in this brand new segment that finds the boys taking a deep-dive on other creator’s Substacks. Up first: Chip Zdarsky >:)

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Donny Cates: Hey everybody, this is Ryan and Donny's Half-Assed Substack Podcast. Today, apparently, we've been told by the powers that be that we are to be reviewing other people's Substacks. Which is weird and feels odd for me, as Co-Founder of the company Substack.

Ryan Stegman: Mhm. Owner.

Donny: Yes, Owner and Founder, President, and CEO of Substack. It's weird to be, you know, commenting on this kind of thing. Ryan, do any come to mind, off the top of your head, that you may want to single out? This will become an ongoing series where we delve into "the 'Stacks" as they were.

Ryan: I think that we should do Chip's Substack because, he subscribed me to it, even though I didn't want to be, he just, like, added my email. And so I've been seeing it for a while and it really sucks.

Donny: Yeah. That's what I've heard.

Ryan: I say we take a look at it. Okay, so the first post here is "All Night Long." And apparently he's got a new book called The All-Nighter, which, unfortunately, has really nice-looking art with Paris Alleyne coloring. Well, Jason Loo is drawing it, Paris Alleyne is coloring. Paris has colored some of my stuff before and he's great.

Donny: Is it like The Midnighter? Because I like that book.

Ryan: Yeah, it looks like a rip-off of The Midnighter.

Donny: From The Authority? Yeah. Now, Ryan, if I were to, hypothetically, obviously- I'm being a silly goose right now by saying this- if I have actually never been on Substack...and I just have people who do these kinds of things for me, and I've never, you know... hypothetically, if I had no idea how to even go and look at that, how would one do that?

Ryan: You go to zdarsky.substack.com.

Donny: And then I have to put in bitcoins?

Ryan: Yeah, if you have any bitcoins or NFT's, you send them to Chip and that's pretty much it.

Donny: And then he talks to you?

Ryan: Well, funny that you mentioned that, let me get to this other post. So he's got this new book, The All-Nighter- looks great. Probably isn't well-written. But the art looks really good.

Donny: Sure. Yeah.

Ryan: He also has a thing here where he's pimping his new Daredevil book from Marvel. It has a beautiful cover by Marco Checchetto.

Donny: Is he on Daredevil now?

Ryan: Yeah, I guess so. It looks like there's a lady that's Daredevil now though, that doesn't make any sense. But, this is one of my favorite things that I've seen Marco draw, it's unfortunate that he's being wasted on this. Anyway. Here's the one that I want to get to- "Chats and Sass," this post by Chip Zdarsky. HMM. He's got this thing where he's going to be talking to people on YouTube, and he's gonna let paid subscribers in to talk to him.

Donny: No, Ryan, no. You're on our page right now.

Ryan: No, I'm not.

Donny: Dude, scroll up. That's our page. That's the thing that we invented.

Ryan: I'm telling you, I'm looking at it right now. “Chip Chats.”

Donny: ...What?

Ryan: There is no mention of us or how we created this idea. But, apparently, it's okay for him to just copy everything that we do. So that's what's going on over there.

Donny: Alright, well, hey, we should probably... um... fuck. Okay, you know what, I think we're at a place right now, we should probably not put this episode out. Just because, legally, we don't want to be on record saying anything. I'm gonna have to talk to our attorney.

Ryan: Yeah, guys- Ethan and Griffin in the backstage here- don't put this out.

Donny: Don't put this out or anything because, I don't know how this kind of stuff works in Canada or if we have extradite him or something like that. But that's... that is...

Ryan: …You know, now that we're off the record, I guess we can kind of say what we're really thinking about it. It's just like… how he has kind of a weird body.

Donny: Yeah, it's weird. It's like skinny fat.

Ryan: Yeah, and he's constantly showing it off? And he comes on our stream and always ruins it.

Donny: You know how people are always saying that I'm really sexy?

Ryan: Mhm. They say the same about me.

Donny: Yeah, it's the same with you. We're in all the Top 10 lists of, like, the hottest dudes in comics. I'm always, you know, number one or number two if Jorge is around or whatever, you know. But then... they'll put Chip on there. And...? He looks like, if you remember that machine in the first X-Men film where they put them in there and they took the powers away and the senator turned it into liquid?

Ryan: Yes!

Donny: Yeah, it looks like they did that to me.

Ryan: Right!

Donny: Or if I picked the wrong cup of the Holy Grail and just held on to it for like, half a second and took it off.

Ryan: Yeah, I agree with that. I think that he kind of looks like he should be in the show Phineas and Ferb as a bad guy.

Donny: Or he looks like he could be grown-up Skeeter from Doug.

Ryan: Haha! [Doing Skeeter impression] Hey, Doug.

Donny: Ha.

Ryan: Good impression, right?

Donny: Yeah, it's really good. Well, I think this has been a great episode of Ryan and Donny's Half-Assed Substack Podcast.

Ryan: Oh, wait! We got to give it a rating. You have to rate it out of five submarine sandwiches. How many submarine sandwiches do you give Chip's Substack?

Donny: None. Because it’s ours! Okay, you know what? I'll either give it none or all of the submarine sandwiches because it's full of phenomenal, brilliant ideas that we came up with.

Ryan: Oh, you know what's cool? When we sue his ass, we are going to get all of his Substack money.

Donny: Well, we gave him that money. So we're just going to get it back.

Ryan: Oh, yeah, that's right. I forgot we own Substack. (Fuck.)

Donny: (I know, I know. It gets hard.) Well, this has been more aggressive than I thought it was gonna be.

Ryan: Chip has a weird body.

Donny: Yeah, I didn't think we were gonna talk about his body as much as we did. It's okay though.

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