Gary Vee Interview | VeeFriends Comics | Why Comicbooks? Gary Vaynerchuk

Añadido: 2026-05-16

[00:00:01]How's it going, everybody? This is the Uncanny Omar from Nearmint Condition, the home of collected editions.

[00:00:07]To my right is a gentleman that probably doesn't need introduction, but just in case, it is Gary V. How are you, Gary? I am well, my friend. How are you?

[00:00:16]Doing well. Thank you so much for joining me today. I know you're a busy guy, busy schedule, ripping and running always. So, I have no idea how you have the time to sit here and talk to me about comics, but that's what we're here to do. We're here to talk about comics and why comics, and I have so many questions for you, and I'm trying to condense them down to just a couple that you can take the time to answer.

[00:00:37]Uh Yeah. How Yeah, why comic books? We were We were talking about VFriends. That's what we're talking about. Yep. Uh so, V- VFriends is a is something that you guys are publishing and putting out, and you've got wonderful people attached to the projects and wonderful people attached to the actual comics, such as Jim Rugg, who has kind of come out of from the hiding, I guess, cuz he hasn't been really doing a lot of things, and this is kind of his first published thing, and he's got to talk to him at ComicsPro, and he's excited to be working on comics again. How How did all that come about?

[00:01:16]You know, 5 years ago, I'm sorry for the empty shelves, everyone. I know you're accustomed to a lot of things. Usually, I have to I would have some great comics here to interject 5 years ago, I started this brand called VFriends, a world of 250 characters.

[00:01:31]And from the day I created it, I knew comics would be a very big part of it, because comics were a very big part of my world and my life growing up. Um I'm more known as a sports card trading guy, but in the '90s, uh I had multiple sports. I was a Fantastic Four reader in '88, '89, '90.

[00:01:54]Okay.

[00:01:55]I I bought a thousand I bought, excuse me a hundred a hundred copies of Carnage's first appearance.

[00:02:02]Which was good.

[00:02:03]Yes, I did.

[00:02:04]And I sold them at my baseball card show and did really well with them and always you know grew up on Justice League and Batman Adam West and loves was a I'm a very heavy uh superhero toy collector.

[00:02:18]So I have a massive Mego's collection and I have a ton of Secret Wars and Superpowers mint on card and I have cases and cases of Toy Biz uh action hero figures in my um in my attic right now and so I did a lot with superheroes from a collectible standpoint.

[00:02:42]And then I have four trillion Valiant covers comics Bloodshot number two and Turock number one and all that stuff and that was a mistake but comics was a bigger part and action heroes and superheroes were a bigger part of my world than I think the public knew. And when I built VFriends, I knew that trading cards was going to be a big part of how we built the brand but I knew that there was no way for me to actually build this universe without comics.

[00:03:12]Ultimately for anyone who's tuning in that's new, there's a lot of people that collected VFriends five years ago as a thank you to all my content or the things that I did as a NFT that got them a ticket to a three-year business conference as a as an investment or collectible investment in their minds because they thought I could actually make the universe work.

[00:03:36]But I knew for it to actually work like here's a little Jay Lee by the way.

[00:03:41]Motivated Monster or or Adventurous Astronaut Witty and Gritty like I knew that I had to tell the stories of these characters so that I had a foundation um you know of stories because the way the only reason you're wearing a Jurassic Park, you know, like like play or something >> Bubble bubble Yeah.

[00:04:05]Like, you know, like the only reason everything behind your thing, the only reason I have unlimited Batman and Iron Man and Superman rookie cards is because we fell in love with the character, not Stan Lee right? Not Bob Kane, not you know, Jim Henson not Walt Disney, but Mickey Mouse and Big Bird and Batman and Superman. And so I knew that it was going to get traction. It has gotten traction.

[00:04:32]There's a huge community around collectors. Everybody here, brother, that would go to eBay right now and type in B Friends and go to completed items, they would be stunned by how much activity and passion there is around our universe.

[00:04:44]But I've said pretty consistently now for a year that the comic books are the most important thing we're doing cuz this has to be way bigger than me for it to even have a prayer to be what I want it to be.

[00:04:55]And you know, you know, DJ Kauffman, Jim Rug, getting J. Scott Campbell to do the first cover, you know, all of this stuff is not by accident. Like we are being thoughtful. We're we're we're trying to onboard net new comic collectors. This is live right now.

[00:05:13]Watch this. How many people in the chat bought their first ever comic or became a comic collector because of B Friends?

[00:05:20]Please say me.

[00:05:21]And you know, and Omar, you'll you'll see right now. I think we're going to get several answers here. And so I think, you know, I think that has been a huge part of an excitement for me, right? Creating new collectors.

[00:05:35]Right? But also doing all the right things including to your point, I'm not sure, you know, I'm very flattered by you saying it, but you would be flabbergasted on actually how busy I actually am, but allocating this time to your show is a gift to me, not just me, you know, doing you a solid, because I want to earn over the next decade, I want to earn the respect of the comic community by showing up at Emerald City, by doing this show, but most of all, by putting out really good stories with really great covers and really great art. Um and so, you know, it's been pretty exciting. I I I want to thank the comic community as a whole.

[00:06:21]Anytime a businessman, if they don't really know where my heart is, comes into something new, there's always, and you know this, the comic community is going to be cynical to everything.

[00:06:29]There's so many flash in the pans, there's been so much bull crap, manufactured scarcity.

[00:06:35]So, I anticipated it taking us a very long time to get to where we are even right now, which is we're starting to get people in the comic world being like, "Oh, this is Hey, this might actually have a chance to be something." And I will tell you, Omar, because I work on them personally, the stories are the most important part of me for this for me. This is much more Jim Henson. I You know what I would say?

[00:06:57]I would say for me personally, the Stan Lee X-Men thing is a big part of it. You know, the mutants being outcast, talking about social issues.

[00:07:05]Most of the comics that I've put out and we've put out have real story behind them, real meaning around insecurity and confidence or accountability or why cynicism is lazy. And like, you know, just really important things and I'm proud, you know, uh of the stories we're putting out and I'm excited to follow the great men and women before me and create these good comic books, great comic books, and then ladder them up to animated shows and movies and amusement parks and we're really excited about the journey we're on and I um I was very affected by superhero culture um and I have a lot of it in me. I can I can I can nerd out on Plastic Man and Mighty Mouse and you know I I'm in it way more than people realize but I've been unusually quiet by my standards cuz I'm big showman in a lot of ways because I overly respect the community and I just want to kind of tortoise versus hare of it but I think our success has caught a lot of people off guard and has brought some cynicism I'm sure as well like why are these comics selling for so much?

[00:08:20]But we are working with great high caliber people.

[00:08:23]um Yeah. I'm I'm overtly in tune to going slow.

[00:08:29]um But it's going fast as well cuz there's a lot of good behind it.

[00:08:35]So you're you're playing a role in this.

[00:08:37]It's not just you starting a brand with your name. You you said you you actually are writing some of the comics? Is that correct?

[00:08:45]>> So So it's been really cool. We do these major comic The way we create our comics So I create I drew every single character that exists. The way this product launched is I with a magic marker I doodled my whole life. I doodled every single character in this world.

[00:09:01]And and then what's amazing is I videotape the way we do stories at VFriends is we do three four day two day offsites me DJ Koffman Jim Rug Katie you know Chris Bason Ali um and we and I've got many of the characters developed in my mind for five years.

[00:09:24]But I don't have every aspect some's blurry some are very distinct. I would say motivated monster comic number five I wrote I mean I I wrote it in my words and then it was written.

[00:09:35]But there's not a story that I'm not involved in. We videotape all of it. So, we're going to have incredible stuff for the documentary where I'm like, "And this is what Greedy Ghost and Windy Weasel are doing." Obviously, there's some stories where a Katie, a DJ, a Jim will have even more of their DNA, but there's not a single book that doesn't have 20 to 50% of my DNA in it. And when I say my DNA, I'm like, "This is the origin of this character.

[00:10:00]This is what this character is about."

[00:10:02]And so, it's been really fun for me cuz I've been digging even deeper into the relationship of, you know, Kirby and Stanley and all this stuff like and I'm like, "Oh, wow. Like, you know, some of the most important people in comic history were more similar like me. There was like They brought different things to the table. I'm not drawing it. I'm not writing every piece of dialogue.

[00:10:23]But, there's a couple of books coming out where I verbalized 85% of it. Um and so, yeah, I'm not the businessman and then hired good people to take care of this. I'm in this creatively in a really significant way including that I invented and created every single character.

[00:10:44]You know, the comics medium is a very uh uh energy-driven medium. It's It's people working together to make one vision come true. So, you playing a big part of it really surprises me because as as I said, I wasn't kidding like you are a busy guy. So, you having a story [snorts] that others come and draw and letter and color uh just kind of surprises me that you you have a hand in every single issue.

[00:11:16]Uh do you see yourself doing that in the long run? And how different How different is it now than when it started?

[00:11:23]I All the way through until all the origin stories are done. And then once the framework is set, as you can imagine, I want to give creative freedom for the people I team up with and work with you know in a meaningful way. So you know, I am I as far as like getting the 250 characters established I need to be in the origin, right? And so you know, again like that's why interviews like this are so fun cuz you can go deeper. For example, Clayborn98 said ask this to Gary his NFTs are a scam. He's a scammer. Gary's a fraud. I'm empathetic to that, right?

[00:12:02]NFTs have such a tough brand out there, right? Omar, but you know, if and I would never expect expect Clayborn98 to do the homework on this because I see so many people put out so many false things, but like if you go look at VFriends as an NFT not NFTs, like there's incredibly black and white data on how it's still one of the most meaningful ones in the game and things of that nature. And the same thing with comics. Like >> [clears throat] >> I'm aware that so many people will assume what I'm doing and your assumption makes sense to me. That would be my assumption if I saw someone, but if but unless people knew like my relationship with Green Lantern or Hobgoblin or like you know, I lived through when the Punisher and Ghost Rider were much more famous than Black Panther or Iron Man. Like no one would know that because I've not put out that content.

[00:12:56]You know, I promise you for Jim Rug. Jim came in he did he was going to work a little bit like on a side thing and then came to an offsite and hung for a half a day and left interested in going all in.

[00:13:10]You know, and you know enough about the real OGs like Jim and others. They're not going to do that if they think it's fugazi and there's been so much fugazi in the comic world over the last 40 years.

[00:13:21]You know, so again it goes back to earning the trust of the community and I think the best way to do that is by putting out really meaningfully good stories, great art. Um and uh I feel very confident in my storytelling ability plus having great partners around me. DJ Coffman deserves incredible amounts of flowers. Yeah, DJ's been at the game for a long time.

[00:13:41]He uh actually we interviewed him a few years back whenever he was doing things with uh the Spreadshop. Yeah.

[00:13:48]>> And he's he's been at it for a while. Uh Jim Jim Jim has been at it for a long time doing independent comics. So, it kind of surprised me the way that you two started working together. Not not really that oh, you got Jim Rugg, but the fact that you got Jim Rugg to come out of doing independent comics to do something like this. So, it's not just cuz I mean, let's be Yeah, just looking at your background and how much you make you could have gotten anybody to come and draw this, right? But the fact that you did it by getting somebody like DJ and getting somebody like Jim I mean, that means that you're in it for the story. And somebody said this and I was about to make this comment earlier. It's like the Marvel method on steroids.

[00:14:35]Well, I mean, the way that Stan Lee would write things was uh here is the basic plot, Jack. Jack would go and draw the stories and then bring back the paper, you know, the pages and Stan would write in the dialogue. And that was the Marvel method for a long time.

[00:14:48]And the way that you're doing it about like videoing it and talking about the stories with your creators. I mean, like I said, it's a group effort. So, that makes makes sense that you're doing it that way. Yeah, it's funny. Both Jim and DJ both gave me tremendous flowers. I was so humbled cuz I do res- massively respect their point of view. As they were going through the process, they're like, "Oh, this is really neat. This is a different style, right?" You know, like this you know, they mentioned the Mar- they they educated me more. I mean, I it was hazy to me. I won't I'm not going to claim anything that isn't. The Marvel method was a little more hazy to me. Obviously, I got very educated over this last year on many things, Marvel, DC, the history. But, um We have Yeah, we we have a similar process. I mean, I think, you know, and And by the way, people we've worked with like David Mack, you know, which which which we're starting to go deeper with. Even like I was incredibly humbled by the way I feel Rob Liefeld has really leaned in behind the scenes with me. I think he sees it. You know, it's it's, um, yeah, I I'm it's very clear to me what I'm trying to accomplish.

[00:15:56]Mhm. And I would tell you that a lot of it has to do with more Jim Henson DNA or X-Men. X-Men really gets me because that book using mutants to make social commentary of like, "Let's not hate each other cuz we're different." shakes me to my bones as I'm saying it out loud today.

[00:16:20]And and I've real purpose, the reason I'm so involved or in the stories is I have real purpose to what I want Accountable Ant to mean. And I have real purpose of teaching patience through Patient Panda. And I have real purpose on how I want to talk about tenacity and accountability and modern parenting and lack of judgement and what compassion really looks like. So, I couldn't rent out the truth.

[00:16:49]And so, um, we created a process that works for me. I think it touches on some stuff now in that golden era of Marvel.

[00:16:57]And, um, and I'm sure there'll be many more people in the future that do a process that works for them. So, we're not trying to replicate or advance or say it's on steroids. It's uniquely what works for us and it's collaborative with I I call it with conviction, right? It's collaborative with conviction. There are certain things that I need to be true in this character development, but I have so much love for all the different ideas my team has on these characters and they blend into each other and they become whole and it's a lot of fun.

[00:17:25]So, as I I I do uh collected editions here and you you you spoke right to my heart whenever you said X-Men uh because they are everything to me. Without those issues of X-Men as a kid, I don't think I'd be doing this what I do now on YouTube.

[00:17:40]So, how is it different now than when you first started? Because for anybody that hasn't read VFriends, for anybody that's not uh doesn't know what VFriends is, what the idea is. Like, how was the pitch originally and how was the pitch now for these comics that you're putting out?

[00:18:01]They're pretty in like we're we Look, we're only a year in, so you can only change so much a year into comics. The brand's out for 5 years. We waited a long time to I waited a long time to find my DJ.

[00:18:15]And and then it was like, "Okay, I'm ready."

[00:18:18]Um you know, right now they're kind of going down the path of how I saw it. So, for example, back to like what was needed to be true for me, I needed VFriends the comic, like the the VFriends brand, I needed that to be like Detective or Amazing Stories. It had to be the framework.

[00:18:37]And I and I needed to use those comics to be first appearance, right? Okay.

[00:18:43]And then if God willing, Notorious Ninja, Motivated Monster, Adventurous Astronaut, if they got real heat, we could spin it out and have Notorious Ninja number 1 2 3 4 5. So, the a year in, the goal was to produce incredible origin story first appearance comics, our golden age when I'm older one day, where like, you know, these were all the books that had the first appearances.

[00:19:10]These were the origin stories. And then be reactive if the world just overly fell in love with something and be prepared for spin-outs, which may then go into bookstores, may go elsewhere.

[00:19:22]Right now we're direct-to-consumer, we're on live shopping, we're starting to do a little wholesale because the other thing is we did bring an element of our trading cards DNA. So yeah, I saw the I saw that you guys are doing blind bags. Yes. This this was important to me because I'd be lying again, back to just being authentic. I love trading cards and I love a pack.

[00:19:44]And I love, you know, like the excitement of that and like the collectibility of that. So we So it was important to me that we had a VFriends brand that replicated detective and amazing stories, right? And then be prepared for the consumer to react and if we needed to Like for example, Rare Robot has completely sold out. We don't even have Rare Robot anymore.

[00:20:06]There's a lot of heat around that character, you know, Adam Sips makes an appearance, caught the attention of many. You know, do I then spin that out and do I make that a broad distribution? Does that go into distribution? These are the things I'm thinking through, but a year in um that's right. Thank you for that.

[00:20:25]Yeah, we've been in the trenches, trying to do the right things, meeting artists, meeting collectors, listening. Um but a year in, my friend, I would say it's been the course. Like what we set out a year ago has happened. We're putting out good stories that are starting to catch the attention of people that have no idea who I am or or even maybe cynical to my entrance. And they're like, "Wait a minute." You know, and every day you make good decisions, build a good team, the rugs of it all, somebody picks up a comic and like or goes to vfriends.com cuz another thing is I want people to read these stories. So 3 months after we put them out, the full comic is digitally available for free on vfriends.com/comics.

[00:21:02]You know, that's that's brought a lot of attention. People are like, "Wait, this is good." And when you have DJ and when you have Jim, and you Katie, and Face on, and then you and I'm very, you know, humbly I think I'm a much better fictional storyteller than anyone would ever guess. I know even people on my team were flabber- I can't wait to go look at those videos when I'm older.

[00:21:22]Just jaw to the ground like, "Where did that come from?" Cuz it's you know, you'll appreciate this. I think a lot of creative people appreciate this. My creativity part of my life has been a very private part of my life. My doodling was private. My my the way I read books, you know, when my my brother's 11 years younger than me, if he was here, he'd be like, "Well, I knew because when I was five, Gary would put me to sleep when he was 16 and he would just tell me stories that he made up from the dome on the spot." And so, it's been really enjoyable to like flex this part of my life. And I think it's going to end up creating a universe that, look, I have the biggest dreams in the world. I want to build a Marvel, DC, Disney, but even if I land that Transformers or Voltron or He-Man or something like that. I have like really big dreams and I I really think we can pull it off. And the best part is I think the stories sit in 1980s good.

[00:22:16]And I think there's an important time and need for that as well.

[00:22:22]So, you're a year in.

[00:22:25]If somebody wanted to get something like I I love the fact that Rare Robot is the one that is out of print.

[00:22:31]>> Yeah, exactly. Living up to his name.

[00:22:34]Uh if somebody wanted to get that, they could read it digitally through the website, but the physical comic is is out of print.

[00:22:43]You said you're doing direct to consumer. So, you you you've set up at New York Comic Con. And I'm curious, are you in interested in going into the direct market and book market uh to make this wide to to go through comic book stores?

[00:23:00]>> Yeah, for sure. I mean, Free comic book day next year is a big goal and ambition of mine to really support, you know, Lunar like I'm paying attention to everything.

[00:23:10]Nothing is lost. I'm very deep into what our optionality is. I'm also a real-life businessman outside of this. So, my relationship graph with the CEOs of Barnes & Nobles or Hudson News, like there's and honestly, like bringing it back to 7-Elevens and speaking to the CMO and CEO of 7-Eleven, like I'm dreaming quite big. I think what's what's really what I'm proud of at this point of my life is that and why two of the biggest characters in B Friends are Patient Panda and Patient Pig and most attributes do not have multiple characters is what I'm most desperate about is to earn earn the respect of the core comic book universe and I think that requires a pace that I'm thinking about and I'd like to get the brand universally known enough that it can sell through these stores when we actually put it there because you know this, selling comic number one, people will speculate and that will happen. But, what about two, three, four, five, six, seven? You know, and so Oh, yeah. And and by the way, this is a meta moment.

[00:24:17]Like I've been really paying attention to which shows do I respect? That's your point earlier.

[00:24:23]I don't look at the amount of subscribers or the amount of views or the amount of money or the amount of like to me it's you know, I was raised so well. I came from so little. I know the differences and so we're just looking to build this nice and slow but meaningfully. But, we definitely feel strong in our DNA and collectibility and in storytelling and um one step at a time.

[00:24:50]Well, whenever you guys hit the milestone of collected editions, I know a guy that would love to talk to you all about that. Actually, I I talked to Jim coming back to the channel to talk about his role in all of this and maybe I could have him and DJ on so people can learn a little bit more about B Friends.

[00:25:06]Yeah, we'll we'll have to set that up.

[00:25:08]And you want to keep this going, you want to keep being involved in all of this.

[00:25:14]And when you get it, I love the fact that you mentioned Free Comic Book Day and you're already thinking about publishing or I guess distributing through Lunar, which is I think one of the few choices you have these days with PRH and Lunar.

[00:25:32]So, I assume this is something that both DJ and Jim bring to the table like, "Hey, if we want to get the word out there, They bring incredible institutional knowledge.

[00:25:43]But I'm I'm a psycho when I do something, right? Like I knew this was happening 3 years ago and even before AI with Claude and open hand. Like it wasn't hard for me to do the research of you know, who are the tastemakers, who are the coveted artists, what is distribution, which retail stores are doing well.

[00:26:02]Where are these things selling? What is the current market of, you know, the things I grew up with with, you know, Hulk 181 and how's that doing? And like, you know, like, you know, it wasn't hard for me to pick back up the bicycle cuz I knew a lot in the '90s. I've been out of it for a long time.

[00:26:18]But that's exactly right. They brought incredible relationships and understanding.

[00:26:24]And and then I've also put in, you know, hundreds of hours of homework on the ecosystem and the current temperament. And and then more importantly, I knew that no matter how much I knew and how savvy we were and what we understood, that if we didn't put out great books with great stories with great art, like who cares?

[00:26:43]Uh that's what people keep coming back to, right? It doesn't matter how much you market something, if people don't keep coming back to that book, it doesn't it doesn't really matter, right? If people don't care about the characters, if people don't want to follow the story, it doesn't really matter how much you spend on marketing that first issue or second issue, right? Mark, listen, I'm I By the way, John, I know plenty about variant covers. Um uh Listen, I'm very fortunate. I run the most contemporary, most successful independent marketing agency in the world.

[00:27:19]I have 25 years of being good at marketing, and now I have the company that does the best marketing for the biggest companies in the world.

[00:27:25]All that marketing does is get people to know about something. Mhm. If that something is a piece of crap, you're just going to speed up everyone knowing you have a piece of crap.

[00:27:35]That's true. No, you're right. So so the DJ and the gym and the me actually being a person that has these stories in his heart, that's what mattered, right? And then being smart enough to and and a good partner to the cover artist, so it's not just a check or a bounty.

[00:27:52]There's like a relationship and a conversation and an understanding of what we're trying to do. So and then and then showing up for stuff like this, you know, I apologize I have to run. Um I know. Uh I uh I couldn't appreciate the opportunity to jam with you more, and I really appreciate a lot of people in the comments. I was kind of reading along to the best while focusing.

[00:28:13]Um I um I uh I just um I'm just grateful to be in this place.

[00:28:20]This was a This was a one of my favorite places to be in the '90s with all my amigo Kenner uh Secret Wars collecting and then the Toy Biz stuff and then the Valiant stuff, which didn't go so great, and Spawn and buying Wizard number one, you know, and looking up the prices and tough stuff and all that stuff. Like this has really been um a really fun journey, and this is just another deposit in that, and I appreciate the opportunity to talk to you, brother.

[00:28:48]I appreciate your time. Like I said, I know you're a busy guy, so yeah, thank you so much. I wanted to know why comics. That was my biggest question, and you answered that at the very beginning.

[00:28:56]Thank you everybody for joining. Go and check out VFriends. They have a website where you can read their comics for free or get their physical Bye, brother.

[00:29:04]Thank you, my friend. We're out of here.

[00:29:06]Have a good one, everybody.