Imaginos Workshop is a creative engine featuring a diverse group of creators. Our media ranges from comics to podcasts to scripts. As our company motto simply states, "We Make Cool $h!t!"
Our next spotlight features the Simp Master Thirst King himself: Joe Cain.
A nocturnal creature, the wild Joe can often be found working tirelessly on his computer at 2 AM, adding sweet sound bites to the latest episode of The Honeycomb Hideout or working on his latest scriptwriting project. Like a sleep-deprived creative kraken, Joe slings words and sounds and illustrations alike into masterful works of story telling. He's also the originator of Nos, the Imaginos Mascot.
Joe has been on the creative scene for a while. Not only is Joe a founding member of Imaginos Workshop, but he also collaborated with our own Mark Dudley under a prior studio called DrunkenStyle Studios. He's also previously worked in a comic book shop and to this day is our expert source on all things comic. He's also hands down one of the biggest fan boys of our merry lot and is always eager to gush about the latest on the superhero and kaiju scene (said with all the love, Joe :) XOXOXOXO). The fastest way into Joe's heart is to proclaim avid enthusiasm for the Power Rangers series.
His previous and current projects stretch across a wide range of mediums, from our podcast, The Honeycomb Hideout, to his original comic, Paragon Panic. His dream project is to produce an audio serial/drama. And a film. And animated productions. Pretty much everything. Joe’s hunger for story writing and creation is impossible to sate.
While a spotlight can’t hope to cover the entirety of Joe’s creative portfolio, we rappelled through the ceiling of his bedroom at 3 AM to pick his brain about his current and past creations. He gave us some side eye, but decided to indulge us with an interview anyway.
Q: You’re one of the founding members of Imaginos Workshop. What made you join up with all the other founders?
A: Actually, myself and fellow co-founder Mark Dudley were already collaborating under his previous studio’s banner, DrunkenStyle Studios around the time that Imaginos Workshop was starting to come together. At the time, it had been just myself and Mark working together for awhile, but then we met and got to know Nik Emmadi as a fellow regular at our former home away from home Borders (RIP). Our other fellow co-founder Jon Ross was actually working at Borders at the time as well. Over time, we began to spitball ideas and start to see some creative chemistry happen, which was pretty great for Mark and I as I recall Mark was getting the itch to put together a new crew and I was... well, to be honest, I was pretty eager to be part of a creative group. So, all in all, we all came together thanks to Borders.
Q: Our lovable mascot, Nos, was actually your brainchild! What was your inspiration for this little dude and how did it get to be our mascot?
A: The funny thing is that Nos was originally the base design for a character named Ness I had created for a webcomic. Mark Dudley was actually in the process of trying to come up with a mascot for Imaginos around the same time. Originally, I had worked out a fun gimmick of Ness' species having designs on their bellies; Ness had a prohibition symbol (the “No/Do Not” circle with the line through it) because he was just a ball of cynicism. By that point, we had settled on IW's logo, so I had the thought of replacing the stomach symbol on Ness with the Imaginos “O”. From there, Mark took one of my sketches, performed some photoshop wizardry, added some different colors for contrast, and BOOM! Ness' mischievous, reality-hopping cousin, Nos, was born!!
Q: You’ve been the host for the Honeycomb Hideout for almost a decade now. How has it been to live and grow with the podcast through its lifetime?
A: Honestly? It's been a really emotional experience. I feel like The Honeycomb Hideout started out as a something very specific but, eventually, as I got older, the show started to evolve as I did. When the podcast first started, the first iteration was intended to be “Howard Stern for Geeks” but, through the years, the time eventually came when that mission statement no longer felt right. I wanted to do different things with the show, go in a different direction; less shock-jock, more contemplative discussion and/or debate. I started making those changes around midway through the second run of the show and those change eventually resulted in the current iteration, V3. So I'd say the show has been an almost direct parallel analogue for my own growth and evolution as my person. Can you tell this was a very personal response? 'Cuz it was. :D
Imaginos Workshop has collaborated with several individuals and businesses throughout the years. Through these partnerships, we have been able to bring quality media to both SE Michigan and the broader online community. Take a moment to check out our partners and their awesome products.
Partners
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