Transcript
Monstrous Adventures and Movie Magic (Hour 2)
Nite Lite with Pete Schwaba and Greg Bach · Thu Oct 9, 2025
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Welcome back tonight, light folks.
Our Thursday night edition, it is great to have you here as we start off act two here.
We did, it's a Thursday night, which means we just did the popcorn pick of the week.
My guest is Matt Miller.
He is a Milwaukee film critic.
We will be back to Matt in just a minute.
But his pick was a great one.
It was Good Boy.
And you can see it in theaters right now.
It's remarkably well reviewed.
It's rated PG-13 and it's not a long watch.
And Matt said it was very tight and just a really, really good movie.
So I'm probably going to check it out this weekend too.
That's a great popcorn pick.
Coming up in just a few minutes.
Children's book and comic book illustrator Rob Momarts will be here in the studio.
We'll talk to Rob about some of his work and his process.
If you missed hour one, our question of the night is what is your favorite Matt Damon movie?
It was Matt Damon's birthday this week.
I think it was yesterday.
He's 55 Conrad.
about.
Really?
Yeah, I don't know why.
He's got one of those faces.
We also talked about Conrad's dreams.
He dreams about Matt Damon and his wife.
So according to Dave anyway on the stream.
And then we also talked about how I didn't shower today.
I wet my hair for a podcast and it just felt like I had showered.
And by the time I realized I hadn't showered, it was too late and I had to come to Green Bay.
So we will, your job Conrad when Rob is here will be to monitor the aroma I'm giving off.
Hopefully I don't have.
Yeah, okay.
All right, let's get back our guest is Matt Miller.
We've got a few more minutes with Matt and I'm anxious to talk about a couple of films with him Matt All right, let's start with one battle after another.
This is like what I was reading yesterday, you know
possibly six actors nominated.
They might tie all about even Titanic for 14 nominations.
Like there's a lot of buzz whether
I think so too because I mean just the first thing that comes to mind is Benicio del Toro like kind of always good but kind of not wasted but he didn't have a huge part.
I can't see that drawing a best supporting actor nomination.
I mean he is I think I think he is a supporting actor nomination the problem is we've kind of contorted the definition of supporting actor in over the last recent decades to basically like co-leads getting supporting I mean people forget that supporting actor used to truly mean people you know who were supporting characters in movies right um so I do agree that his role is probably too small and not flashy enough
to win over the current kind of body of voters and stuff like that.
I just think it's not going to get that many nominations because we are in October and there's still three to four more months of movies to come out.
Interesting.
You know, part of the problem is also one battle after another is a Warner Brothers release.
So is Sinners, the other front runner for Best Picture right now.
And, you know, it's really hard for a studio to maintain two really good campaigns that are going to be fighting against one another.
I mean, they're going to be putting up Michael B. Jordan against Leonardo DiCaprio.
They're going to be putting both those movies up for Best Picture.
They're going to be putting Ryan Coogler in PTA, Paul Thomas Anderson up.
against each other.
There are going to be a lot of competitive races going on within the studio, much less when you add in every other category that's to come.
So it's a long Oscar race.
It's an interesting movie.
I think it's a very good movie.
But yeah, the idea that it's going to sweep all the categories, we got a lot of ball game left.
Great point.
And one of my other favorite films this year was Sinners.
And you could argue Michael B. Jordan had more to do.
He played two roles.
But Leo DiCaprio is really good.
I love it.
Like when I heard, I always get scared when I hear comedy thriller, comedy action, because I feel like it never delivers on either front.
This, the comedy is all out of the character and the situation.
It's the comedy I love.
And it really worked in one battle after another, in my opinion.
Overall thoughts, you said you liked it, but is this up there with Paul Thomas Anderson, one of your favorite films of his?
I really love Paul Thomas Anderson.
I don't know if he's one of my guys who it's like if I'm picking the best filmmaker currently alive.
I don't know if I choose him, but he's in the running.
Sure.
So it's hard because you know, how do you compare a movie that I've only seen once and has only been out in theaters for a few weeks to of there will be blood or a book he writes.
I do think this is
You know, you brought up the tone thing, and I think that's what's so impressive about One Battle After Another is that it is very funny, very thrilling, all at the same time, never kind of detracting from one another.
It's tense, it's exciting, it's goofy, it's all these things in one package, and it's a three-hour movie, basically.
It's, I think, two hours 45 minutes.
it feels half that long.
The thing flies by and you reach the end of the movie and you're like, roll it again.
Let's do it.
Let's do that one more time.
It's just so propulsive, but without sacrificing, you know, the character and sacrificing tone and sacrificing the ideas it's going for.
I think I had a great time watching it.
I'm looking for I'm hoping to see it again this weekend.
Hopefully the Brewers wrap things up tonight.
to go see that movie, but I'm a big fan of it.
I think Sean Penn's terrific in it.
I think Chase Infinity is terrific in it.
It's just I think Leonardo DiCaprio, I think manic comedic doofus Leonardo DiCaprio is my favorite type of Leonardo DiCaprio.
I think he's at his best when he's being loose and not trying to impress you.
Um, so I, I liked Leo and I mean, Benicio is kind of already iconic with, you know, just a few small beers.
So I, I, I think it's a real hoot in the holler of a movie and not to bring things back to the Oscars because, you know, it's art.
It's not all about awards,
I do think it's going to be very interesting that you're going to have this and sinners right now are kind of the big competitors because they're both
really auteur, vision-directed movies in the studio.
There are movies that are going after big ideas, complicated, complex themes smuggled into very entertaining studio projects that wear their politics and their visions on their sleeves.
And it's going to be hard for voters, I think, to kind of choose between those two, because I think there's a lot of people who truly love what Sinners did, being an original movie, you know, making the money it did, and having the things to say that it does.
And now you have one battle after another, also PTA being like, I can make a Hollywood blockbuster, and it rules.
That's so well said.
And like Sinners, I would almost give Sinners the nod in how ambitious it was.
odd with the vampires and the twins and like there's so much going on in the sets and the costumes and everything but having said that pardon me I just love one battle after another I think it's you can't I don't think you could go wrong with either one of those movies but I want to ask you to Sean Penn's performance like at first
He was kind of doing this weird mannerism.
And I'm like, oh, that's an interesting choice.
Is it weird?
Is it over the top?
And by the end of the movie, he was just that guy.
He's so good.
And the choices he makes are kind of like that could be construed as a risky choice with what he did with his mouth.
And he was kind of a little neurotic, but man, did it work.
He's so good.
If he didn't totally go fully into that character, the way he did in terms of like the inner stuff, like I think
That performance could have been so irritating.
Yeah, exactly.
It could have been all show.
It could have been all, you know, Eddie Redmayne style.
I've learned all these mannerisms.
Look at my acting.
But the thing about Sean Penn's performance is that it really goes under the surface that all those ticks are designed to be like this is a man who's just like exploding from the.
Yes.
in all of his rage and complex complications like he's an evil bad gross dude but like he has these weird piccadillos that he just
cannot deal with and cannot emotionally process.
So he just is imploding as a human being.
Yeah.
And all that stuff is fascinating to me.
It really is.
And again, it wouldn't work if he didn't invest that character with an actual character.
If it was just ticks, it would be horrible.
And we've seen Sean had delivered those kind of performances, you know, we've seen him do shallow, tiki.
borderline offensive performances in the past.
This is something where it's like, you know, you got into the character and the ticks serve the character.
Great, what very well said.
I could talk for another 10 minutes on that movie, but I want to ask you before we let you go about the smashing machine.
Like I said before the break.
Dwayne John, he's got to drop the rock, first of all.
Are you a wrestler or are you an actor?
Just if you want to be taken seriously.
But you know, he dropped all this weight and the critics liked his performance.
He got a standing ovation at Cannes.
What did you think of it?
Is it a good movie?
It didn't do great at the box office, but that doesn't really mean it's not a good movie.
I think it's a good movie.
I understand why people would kind of be thrown off by it because it is a mellow movie.
Um, and you don't, it's a tender movie, which you don't expect to say about a biopic about a UFC fighter starring the rock.
Right.
But it is, it is a movie about the, the kind of men at the, the cusp of the start of this massive multi-billion dollar industry now and kind of, you know, these men who can only, who only get one another and only get this weird compulsion they have towards the sport.
And it's like a softer spoken the fighter and it's a very weirdly withholding movie in terms of it doesn't give you the big cathartic moments It doesn't give you the big obvious plot beats that you're kind of expecting and I think obviously that's the kind of stuff that's gonna frustrate people But it is a movie.
It's one of those annoying movies where it's like the stuff that will frustrate general audiences is the stuff that I as a critic who watches
who's seen too many of these sports biophics and has watched all these, that's the stuff where I'm like, oh, that's what makes it interesting is that it's not doing the stuff you're expecting it to do.
But if you're a regular audience member and you want to see, you know, a classic biopic, it's not going to give you that.
So I really liked it.
I liked its tenderness.
I think the rock is really good in it as well.
Um, I will see if it has the stability to get him the nomination that obviously he really wants.
Sure.
We'll see a lot of, like I said, a lot of ballgame to go.
And, you know, it's a lot of, it is a small performance in a way.
And the Oscars don't tend to like small performances in underperforming poorly, middlingly received movies.
So in a year with Leo DiCaprio and Michael B. Jordan and Timothy Chalamet and Marty Supreme, who's supposed to be terrific.
Is there going to be room for a good rock performance in a divisive movie?
We'll find out.
But I think it's good stuff.
I think if you know what you're getting into, if you know that it's more of a soft spoken kind of, you know, a harmonious chaos kind of tone picture rather than a classic biopic, I think you might enjoy it.
But just kind of know it is not going to give you the big fist pump.
Man, what a great movie that the sports movie is defined by.
Matt.
Great stuff.
I wish we had more time, but we'll save the rest of this for next time.
It's always great to talk to you about movies and great popcorn pick of the week.
Thank you so much, buddy.
And let's do it again soon.
That's Matt Miller, ladies and gentlemen.
Great stuff.
Wow.
Sir Conrad, when are you going to run and see that movie?
Smashing
Till it comes out.
Streaming.
talk about that when we have more time to get over it.
It was, yeah.
Okay.
Or is that all that needs to be said?
It was okay.
In the 920, goodwill hunting.
Do you like apples?
One of the best movie lines ever.
I think that's Connie Feldman, because she dropped us a stream comment
too.
Yeah.
Thank you, Connie.
Matthew from Anomaly Falls in the 262 says, the Martian, most of the scenes
is just him on Mars.
Good movie.
That and Good Will Hunting because I am a huge Robin Williams fan.
Well done, Matthew.
Thank you, buddy.
We are coming right back with children's illustrator, comic book illustrator, Rob Beaumarts.
He's here in the studio.
We're coming right back.
It's Peach Wabba and Nightlight on the Civic Media Radio Network.
You're listening to Civic Media.
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I am Pete Schwab, and this Thursday's show is going way too fast.
Our question of the night, folks, is what is your favorite Matt Damon movie?
What is your fattest Matt Damon movie?
That's where I
was going
with that.
There's so many.
It's his birthday this week.
He turns 55 in the 920 Andy from Green Base's Dogma.
Best cast ever.
Must be an important actor to spend almost 900 billion rescuing his fictional characters.
900 billion, wow.
Guy did his homework.
did a deep dive there.
Thank you, Matthew.
Thank you, 920.
And then let's see if we can bang out one more of these.
Tom from Jackson and the 4144 versus Ferrari.
Yeah, great movie.
I don't even know anything about racing.
I'm not even a racing fan, but that movie was just so well done and really well acted by Matt Damon and Christian Bale, I think it was.
All right, ladies and gentlemen, we are going to turn our attention to
illustrations, in comic books, kids books.
My next guest joins me here in the studio and he is a renowned artist of, in all those genres.
And he joins me now here in the studio, Mr. Rob Momarts.
Yes, correct.
Did I say it
right?
Yes.
Okay, I have to tell my name to everybody, Schwab.
So I sometimes I get nervous too.
Like someone will tell me how to pronounce it and I'm worried I'm going to say it the wrong way.
So I'm glad I got it right.
What
is Schwab?
Is it German or?
Oh,
man.
Con, how much time do they have?
People have asked me that.
And it's sort of the very quick answer is the Kashub people were from the Danzig region between Poland and Germany.
OK.
And that's where Schwab is from.
So they were their own people.
But the simple answer is just Paul is German.
OK.
That's what my grandpa used to say.
I don't even think he knew.
I'm mostly Irish, but that's.
Are you sorry you asked?
No, it's interesting.
It's good to have you here.
Tell us a
little bit about
yourself.
This is what a great job you have.
Creative, you get to draw.
I mean, tell us about that and tell
us about you.
Yeah, it's basically a dream job.
It's something I've always wanted to do my whole life.
I started out many years.
I was a graphic designer.
I worked for an agency downtown here.
It's no longer around archetype.
and was there for several years.
And then at one point, I was offered a job working for one of my freelance clients, which was a game company, Cryptozoic.
They're located in California.
And I've been working for them for 14 years now.
So it's pretty crazy.
But I work from home and I'm also basically a freelance illustrator as well.
And that's where I do my children's books and I do character design.
Lots of different little projects here and there covers for kids publications.
It's scholastic, that kind of stuff.
But yeah, I've been doing this for a while.
I mean, I've been actually freelancing since I was a teenager in high school.
I started out doing illustrations for pre-internet mail order catalogs.
Drawing candles and soap and that kind of stuff.
Oh, that was in high school.
Yeah, it was kind of nice extra money That's a good high
school.
You're drawing and making money.
Yeah, it was great Yeah, caricatures and all that kind of stuff.
I'm not very good at caricatures, but but it was better at it back then but Yeah, so
so were you is this a situation where you you love being a graphic artist too and this is a side hustle or you have a preference of what
you do creatively?
Well, illustration, I don't do really much graphic design anymore here and there.
And for my own, the stuff that I do, it's really helped me as far as like layout skills.
And once in a while, I will design posters for things.
And then like, you know, when I do work on a comic book project that really does help hand lettering, page layout, and also
when I do like bookstore events or I usually create these little ads, like for my latest book is the Mummy, Man and Waffles, The Dire Deeds of Dr. Goggle, which is so
great.
Even you have trouble
saying it.
Yeah, it's a long title.
That just for like local events to advertise, I'll do like little like fun little web ads and social media ads, that sort of stuff.
So yeah.
So we're gonna talk about
your books, but do you write the stories too, or just illustrate them?
Just an illustrator.
I'm finally getting into writing.
I'll get into that a little bit, but the author for these books is, right over there, if you see that.
Steve
Bailey.
Steve lives out in New York.
Him and I become good friends.
We talk on the phone quite a bit now, and we've never actually met each other But we have a lot in common.
We're both into B horror films and we're hoping that we can there's only gonna be two books for this series But we're hoping that we can work together on another project because he's working up some ideas right now, so
There's your on the
stream if you're watching on
the stream
mummy man and waffle I love that the monstrous adventures of mummy ma'am mummy man and waffles How did you?
How did you guys find each other if he lives in New York?
You're here in this collaboration.
Is it hard to do that long distance?
Not
really.
Well, we were actually put together by Harper Collins.
Oh, okay And I'm not sure when they had hired Steve or bought his story.
He had the first book written already
And I think it maybe started the second book too.
And I'm not sure how they found him.
But then I currently have any, I love, currently, we'll be working together for about four years.
I have an agent and they approached her on my availability if I was interested in working on it, definitely.
Previous to that, I worked on a six book series with Penguin.
Uh, which is the Claude, um, this is a long title to Claude evil alien warlord cat series and there's six books there.
So that, that was, I think the first book came out in 2018.
I think I know it was before the, the pandemic because I was working on the other books during the, the shutdown and.
Let's pick up right there.
We're gonna do the the news and we'll come back and we'll tell you more about these great books Rob has brought them with him We'll talk about those his process and all kinds of fun stuff.
This is nightlight with peach waba on the civic media radio network
So great to have you with me on this Thursday night.
Lots going on in Wisconsin.
We got Cubs Brewers starting in about a half an hour.
And we'll see what happens.
Are you a baseball fan, Rob?
I am not.
OK.
I didn't really grow up with it.
You're better
off.
I'm a Cubs fan.
I
think I'm in for disappointment tonight.
But the Brewers are pretty hot.
But we'll see what happens.
Craig Anthony Kinnit.
On the stream, my guest is Rob Momarts.
He is a children's book illustrator, a comic book illustrator, does just amazing work.
If you're watching on the stream, here's the cover of his book.
I have to look at the title again.
The Monstrous Adventures of Mummyman and Waffles.
Great title.
And the art, put that up again, Con.
It's just so great.
It's just, look at that.
That is just beautiful.
Thank you.
I have a few more we'll show, a few more of your pieces that you've done.
And they're just,
They're great, but Craig says, Pete, I absolutely adore Rob and his illustrations.
Everyone I've seen is so darn charming.
What Matt Damon is to acting.
Rob is to illustration and then some.
Wow, that's, I paid Craig to write that.
I hope he's
a friend of mine.
Craig's a good guy.
He's been on the show.
Thank you, Craig.
And I agree, based on what I've seen, no question.
Sidney on the stream says, the majestic Matt Damon had a voice only feature.
Very well done, Sidney.
Thank you, sir.
And Andy says that his previous text, he enjoyed the dead of winter with Emma Thompson.
He said, it's a current movie that flew under the radar.
Thank you, Andy.
And Amanda, okay, here we go.
Amanda Nimmer.
And she's the one who introduced us.
Yes.
So Amanda says, my son, Jack is watching and he loves the book series.
Oh, great, Amanda.
Hello, Jack.
Hope you're having a great night.
And yeah, this is great.
I mean, some of the things you draw, Rob, like, Conn, I sent you those other two.
Let's put those up.
This is part of a Halloween series you did.
Yeah, that's me and my daughter when she was
little.
I can
relate to that.
That's great.
She's a weird little kid.
That is
like really colorful and beautiful and horrifying all at the same time.
She looks like she's gonna grab her dad's tongue or
juggler.
I used to find Barbie dolls like laying around and she'd do these little dioramas or setups and they were always doing really bizarre things.
Kind of creepy.
Here's another one.
This one, again, is just beautiful, but really scary.
Yeah.
That's grandma, I assume, funeral.
They're awake.
They have a lot of different illustrators during the Halloween season.
On social media, we'll do these drawing challenges.
And then each day, they'll have a drawing prompt.
And I think that one was, this was from a few years ago, but it was something about a departed aunt.
or something like that.
I can't, yeah, but...
And
it's like her
spirit, for those of you on the radio, I know this isn't a visual medium, but it's a woman in a casket and her spirit is coming out of the casket and she's grabbing these kids and she's laughing like
with a crazy look.
That's great.
The portrait and the background mirrors the...
Oh, yeah,
it is very creepy.
Is that stuff like what do you like to draw like you draw kids books?
So I would imagine it's at times you have to tone it down a little bit or is Is that what
you was your passions?
I like stuff that kind of has like a little bit of an edge to it like Children stuff that it has a little creepiness to it.
Yeah,
that's why I like these mummy man books because they're I mean, it's pretty pretty innocent
stories, but there's some there's some pretty creep weird creatures like in the first book there's a Foot monster that has like a thousand toes or something like that and then this the latest book there's a His name is escaping me that the Cthulhu guy The fame what is his name though?
He was a early 20th century horror author.
Oh,
but there's a duck duck Thulu character in this
That shows up at the end of the book.
That's kind of kind of bizarre a giant duck creature
So
do
you feel like when you when you write these books?
If you tend to lean towards the edgy I applaud you for doing what you love, but they are kids books Are you limiting your audience or is there are there enough people out there that don't care if their kids see stuff?
That's creepy
Yeah, that I'm not sure of you really.
I mean, I know a lot of times I haven't really
Got any notes from anybody to like dial anything back.
I try to keep things pretty Pretty light-hearted, but I just I just like that the creepy edge.
It seems like
there's a balance like
yeah,
this is creepy But it's not gonna give a kid nightmares.
Maybe like but maybe it will
one all years ago.
I did it I did a for a small publisher a children's book series that the two main characters one was a raven and one was a squirrel
And when I did the first character designs for that, the publishers thought they were like, these are a little kind of scary.
You need to dial them back a little bit.
But yeah.
And did you?
I did.
When I look back at those pictures, I kind of laugh when I see them.
That's
funny.
So let me ask you this.
I was thinking about this earlier when I was looking at your website.
Is illustration AI proof?
because I'm sure AI can put out anything, but you really bring character to these characters through your drawing and I don't know, would they have the nuance that a real human author could bring or illustrator?
Well, there's
some pretty, I mean, it's kind of easy, it's still slightly easy to pick out like the AI.
art.
And I know there's a huge pushback from publishers with AI.
I know that a lot of like the big publishers will not accept any sort of AI art.
And I know recently, I can't remember exactly what happened, but there was a at a comic convention, there was a guy that was selling AI art.
And I think they they escorted them out of the convention.
Oh, wow.
So
Yeah, I
mean, yeah, I
mean, it's just, you know, stealing images from off the internet and create.
And I know some cartoonists that their work was stolen.
And there's a guy, Mark Parisi, he does a comic series called Off the Mark, I believe it's a, well, someone took one of his dog comics and changed the dog breed slightly using AI.
And it was posting it on some
dog sight or something like that.
And he got wind of it.
You know, it was a cease and desist type of thing.
But yeah,
it's kind of scary.
My guest is Rob Momarts.
He is a children's book illustrator and a comic book illustrator and a graphic designer.
And he does a really impressive work here.
We've just been looking at some of the stuff since he's been here in the studio.
And I have to ask you, who are your favorite or what were your favorite?
You just talked about your daughter as a senior in high school.
What books did you read your kids?
What were your favorites?
Oh, we have so many children's books.
Well, this being Halloween season, we have a huge collection of Halloween books at home.
And my daughter's favorite book, she still, she hasn't memorized is the Jerry Seinfeld's Halloween book.
Oh, wow.
Based off his Halloween bit that he did.
Yeah.
And
But that one, we read all the time.
It came with a CD you could listen to also.
But yeah, all of the, there's so many, trying to think of any specific
titles.
In our house, we like the book called Rattletrap Car.
I don't know if you ever heard about that, but each one of us would play, would read one of the parts and it was like a rural country.
car was like patched together and making all these funny sounds.
And then I, one of my favorite books that we got was before we had my son was a book called Guess How Much I Love You by, with two bunny rabbits and
They're talking about, you know, will you always be there for me, dad?
That
kind of stuff.
That's a
great book.
And if I saw it now, I'd probably weep openly,
but you know, these
books are so
special when the kids are young.
Oh yeah, definitely.
I mean, there's still a few books like that.
Me and my wife, we're just talking about the Kissing Hand book.
Oh yeah, yeah, sure, yeah.
You've received out the raccoons.
It's for kids that are starting, you know, at a school or reading
for
kindergarten or whatever.
And that's another book that's still, it's, you know, kind of.
kind of makes me tear up a
little bit.
All of those, good night, moon, like when I was a kid and let me know who you're, I would love to know who your influences were.
My brother and I and my sister would all read these Peanuts books.
We had like an encyclopedia of Charlie Brown books and we would get lost in them.
And do kids still do that?
Like as an illustrator, you know, and maybe it was different with your kids at home, but it sounds like you guys read a lot as opposed to watched TV.
And we kind of did both.
We did both too.
Yeah.
We had a nighttime ritual where we would read every night.
Well, you know, I'd either read to both kids or with them together.
But yeah, trying to think the...
I guess as far as like influences go, like that when I grew up, like cartoonists that I liked was like Sergio Aragonese, the guy from Mad Magazine.
He did
like all like
the little, his stuff used to be on member.
in the 80s that bloopers show.
Yeah.
Dick Clark.
I love this.
His all his little and they had they animated his cartoons that would were the in between
gags or
whatever.
But he was known for Mad Magazine and but he had that really super detailed.
He was a really quick artist so he could scratch out all these really elaborate environments.
And but he did a comic series and he still I think he's still he's eighty six or eighty seven years old now.
still working.
And he did a comic book for the past 40 years or so called, Grew the Wanderer.
So it's sort of like a take on Conan the Barbarian, but it's
a
funny medieval fantasy type barbarian story with dragons and fun stuff like that.
Did you grow up like reading like when I was a kid, I remember we would go to my grandma's cottage up north and my older aunts and uncles had
It seemed like thousands of like Archie comics.
Yes, and
I would get lost in those.
I loved Archie comics a lot of kids like superheroes did what?
Aside from that magazine.
What were your what did you gravitate?
I read Archie to I had all those little digest books or whatever
Betty or Veronica Probably Betty.
I think
Betty.
Yeah,
I like that.
She was just a regular
nice rich I was like high maintenance.
All right, we're on the same page.
That's serious breaking news
But yeah, as far as like comics go, I remember I always was attracted to the things that kind of scared me.
Like I remember I had, I bought an issue of Batman from like a campground store
or something like
that.
And I remember reading it and looking at the pictures and being like,
Really creeped out by it.
It was like took place in an insane insane asylum asylum And it was these real like intense and I remember asking telling my mom that you hide this from me.
I don't want to look I was like five or
six.
So you were still reading it
Yeah, but it creeped me out, but then the creep show comic I remember I would always get that remember the movie
Yeah, yeah,
they had a comic book that
went
along with it and it was in the library and I used to always check that out and read it and It the pictures and it really scared me
Where I always get it every time I went to the library didn't stop you Yeah,
where can people find the monstrous adventures of mummy man and waffles and then you have a series to the I don't know if I'm saying this right quality the cat
Claude Claude Claude evil alien warlord cat.
There's actually six books You can find those.
Well, I know lion's mouth downtown here
You could find the Mummyman books there.
Otherwise, they're pretty much available wherever books are sold.
I mean, as far as ordering them online.
That is Claude.
K-L-A-W-D-E.
I never would have guessed that.
It's
kind of a cool spelling.
We'll check these out.
These are great.
We'll ask you about some of those when we come back.
We're going to do a really short break.
And I want to ask you about your process when you get creative in your space, when we come back to it.
So we'll do that.
My guest is Rob Momart.
He is a comic book and children's book illustrator.
And he likes the creepy stuff, folks.
And what better time of year to have him on right now?
This is Nightlight with Pete Schwabba on the Civic Media Radio
listening to Civic Media.
Find the latest news, information and archives of all your favorite shows on the Civic Media website, civicmedia.us.
I'm Pete Schwab, and this is Nightlight.
We're in the home stretch here tomorrow night, folks.
It's a bar band Friday Night.
Terry Barr will be here with some great music and some fun chat.
And Conrad, you're part of a new show.
The sports, tell us about that, because we've got a couple of guests from that
Make the call.
Yeah,
That'll be fun.
That's tomorrow night on Nightlight.
And Monday night, I'm excited.
Jamie McShane will be here.
Jamie's been on the show before.
He's a good pal of mine.
He is on the show Task right now on HBO.
And he is the top dog bad guy.
And he had a great scene last week where he...
spoiler alert killed someone but there's only when he's on Monday there will only be one more episode of tasks so we're not gonna say any names or spoilers but please listen to that interview Monday.
Jamie is a phenomenal actor and he's always fun to have on the show.
Right now we have a few more minutes with our current guest Rob Momarts here.
He is a children's book and comic book illustrator and he does really outstanding work.
And you're like the most buff children's author, would you say?
What do you bench?
What do you put up?
400?
Conrad, look at this guy.
And?
Buff?
No.
I don't really bench.
I don't have anybody to spot me.
Well, you don't look like you're missing any workouts.
And Conrad can bench 470.
Was I off by my 200 pounds?
Yeah.
No, he does what, 275?
275, wow.
How'd you know that, Rob?
Because he said it, like I heard it last week.
Oh yeah,
we
were talking about that.
Oh, thanks for listening, that's great.
So, you look like you could lift a house.
Oh, thank
you.
And that probably comes into play never when you're writing children's books, but it's...
You could write a superhero character based on yourself.
All right, so tell us about your process, Rob.
Do you draw every day?
Do you lock yourself off?
Or do you like a coffee shop atmosphere?
What is your creative process?
Yeah, it's kind of like a coffee shop atmosphere.
I drink a lot of coffee during the day.
So I kind of overdo it.
But I have a weird schedule.
As I get older, it's harder for me to stay up later.
But I used to stay up.
We hours of the night working on when I wasn't working as a graphic designer full-time I'd stay up and work into the wee hours and then show up to work the next morning and be really tired and Couldn't do that anymore.
But yeah now as I get older we had stuffer but like I Like I for my day job as I work as an illustrator.
So I work on all my work work projects nine to five or eight to five and then at night Yeah, then I work on my personal stuff
and freelance work.
It's a long day.
You need coffee sometimes.
This stuff is nice.
It's like a hobby to me, but when I'm under a tight deadline, then it's not so
fun.
Let me ask you something.
When you're doing this, because I used to go back and forth when I was writing more,
I would love to pour a glass of whiskey and work.
And then they say, right, drunk at its sober.
I wasn't drunk.
Or when you're on a low amount of sleep, can that help your creativity?
Because you're getting kind of a weird place.
Or do you feel it's best to have a good night's
sleep?
Well, it's best to have a good night's sleep.
When I do get decent amount of sleep, I feel really energetic in the morning and I'm a little more clear-headed.
I get really easily distracted when I'm sleep-deprived during the day.
So I get antsy and I keep looking at my phone and looking at the horrible news that's going on all the time.
Or checking little social media stuff
or texting friends or whatever.
Oh, let me take it out of
you.
But when I find that I get a decent night's sleep,
I feel a lot more focused and zeroing in on my work and the day goes a lot faster too.
It's
definitely better for your health.
I'm
creatively, I wonder if there are people who prefer, pardon me, once in a while slipping into those zones or whatever, but do you have, you said you watch TV with your kids too as well as read to them.
Do you have favorite kids shows or movies that you liked watching with your
kids?
Well when my kids were little I'm trying to think we watched a lot of stuff And it was fun showing them all these movies that I grew up with cartoons.
Isn't that fun holiday
specials
and things like that like When my kids were little I introduced him to like Emmett Otter's Jug Band Christmas and the the Muppet Muppet family
Christmas
family, which you can only get pirated copies of now
really
yeah, because it's got like all the
properties that Disney does not own, like
Craig O'Rourke and Sesame
Street and stuff like that.
But I would introduce my kids to all the stuff that I grew up watching and it was just kind of fun to see their reaction and what things they liked.
I got my, at one time when my kids were little, I got them into the old obscure cartoon.
fund are the barbarian, which was not in the early eighties.
It's a really bizarre, apocalyptic cartoon.
It's, it's, it's weird.
But, uh, I remember we, we had like the entire, it was like one or two seasons or something on DVD and we'd watch that and the kids got into that, but.
That's cool.
So I'm totally with you.
When they reached that age, like I couldn't wait, you know, first it's like, I can't wait to show them the sandlot.
And obviously, Toy Story is a kid's movie, but like, I couldn't wait to show my son collateral with Tom Cruise and Jamie Foxx, you know, stuff like that.
But...
I'm going to ask you, we'll find out in just a second where you can buy Rob's stuff, you guys.
But right now, I'm going to close out with a couple texts here that we got on our question of the night.
Your favorite Matt Damon movie, John from Madison says, Peter, way too many to pick from.
Matt was great in Jersey Girl, and Karlin was in it for a big bonus.
Oh, yeah.
But the Borns are the best.
Hard to argue with that, John.
Thank you, sir.
Bridget from the 818 says, little darlings and the outsiders.
question with Matt Dylan because he's got a great catalog as well Sydney politics on the stream says any civic media station Airing the game.
I
believe W. I. S. Is right
now.
Okay, Oshkosh Sid check that out.
W. I. S. S. And then probably our scene W. R. Jan Can you get it on the stream?
You can get it through the app.
Yeah, I just I'd say
I recommend just going through the app
and just kind of checking out.
But WISS, I do believe.
All right, very cool.
So once again, Rob Momarts, thank you.
Thank you to Matt Miller.
Thank you for all your calls and texts.
Check out Rob's books, The Monstrous Adventures of Mummyman and Waffles.
And then the Claude series.
Did you bring Claude books?
I did not bring.
No.
All right.
Well, Google Rob, go to your website.
Give us your website.
We got a wrap up.
It's
robmomarts.com, R-O-B-B-M-O-M-M-A-E-R-T-S.
No one will ever remember that.
But trust me, folks, he's worth a Google.
This guy's amazing.
And he benches 890.
All right.
Come back sometime soon, Rob.
It was great having
you.
Thanks for
having me.
Thank you to everybody for being here.
We're coming back tomorrow night.
Good night, Wisconsin.
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