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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

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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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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==

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Writer Doug Wagner returns to Back to Pop and this time, he brings his artistic partner in crime with him.

Daniel Hillyard joins the conversation for a wide-ranging discussion on what it looks like when a creative partnership builds its own corner of the comics world, strange, violent, funny, and more emotionally honest than it has any right to be.

Together, they’ve made Plastic, Vinyl, Plush, and I Was a Fashion School Serial Killer. Now there’s Narco. And the work keeps getting bolder.

Marc, Doug, and Daniel dig into the DNA of their collaboration how they balance horror and humor, what makes a damaged character feel real inside an absurd premise, and why the strangest stories often carry the most human weight.

If you’ve been reading these books, this one’s for you. If you haven’t, this is a great place to start.

You can connect with Daniel here https://www.12gaugecomics.com/creator_danielhillyard

You can can connect with Doug here https://shocknoggin.com/about

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==