Why IP and StoryTelling are Essential to Building a Brand in 2026

0:00The 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 Jim Henson, not Walt Disney, but Mickey Mouse and Big Bird and Batman and Superman. And so when I built We Friends, 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. This is the Gary Vee Audio Experience. How's it going, everybody? This is the Uncanny Omar from Near Mid-Condition, the home of Collected Editions. To my right is a gentleman that probably doesn't need introduction, but just in case, it is Gary Vee.

0:42How are you, Gary? I am well, my friend. How are you? 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 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. Yeah. Why comic books? We were talking about V-Friends. Yep. Go ahead. V-Friends 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 because he hasn't been really doing a lot of things and this is kind of his first published thing and he's got the topic of the comics program and he's excited to be working on comics again.

1:43How did all that come about? You know five years ago sorry for the empty shelves everyone I know you're accustomed to me having a lot of things usually I would have some great comics here to interject five years ago I started this brand called V Friends a world of 250 characters 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. I'm more known as a sports card trading guy but in the 90s I had multiple spurts. I was a Fantastic Four reader in 88, 89, 90 and then I bought a thousand I bought, excuse me, a hundred copies of Carnage's first appearance which was a good decision.

2:33Yes I did. And I sold them at my baseball card show and did really well with them and always grew up on Justice League and Batman, Adam West and I'm a very heavy superhero toy collector. So I have a massive Migos collection and I have a ton of Secret Wars and Superpowers mint on card and I have cases and cases of toy biz, action hero figures in my attic right now. And so I did a lot with superheroes from a collectible standpoint. And then I have four trillion valiant comics, Bloodshot number two and Turek number one and all that stuff. And that was a mistake. But But comics was a bigger part and action heroes and superheroes were a bigger part of my world than I think the public knew.

3:30And 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. 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 an investment or collectible investment in their minds because they thought I could actually make the universe work. But I knew for it to actually work, like, here's a little Jay Lee, by the way, motivated monster or adventurous astronaut or witty and gritty, like, I knew that I had to tell the stories of these characters so that I had a foundation

4:24of stories because the only reason you're wearing a Jurassic Park play or something like that. Bobble, Bobble. Yeah. 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 Jim Henson, not Walt Disney, but Mickey Mouse and Big Bird and Batman and Superman. And so I knew that it was gonna get traction. It has gotten traction. There's a huge community around collectors. Everybody here, brother, that would go to eBay right now and type in BeFriends and go to completed items, they would be stunned by how much activity and passion there is around our universe.

5:13But I've said pretty consistently now for a year that the comic books are the most important thing we're doing. Because this has to be way bigger than me for it to even have a prayer to be what I want it to be. And, you know, DJ Kaufman, Jim Rugg, 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 trying to onboard net new comic collectors. This is live right now. Watch this. How many people in the chat bought their first ever comic or became a comic collector because of VFriends? Please say me. Omar, you'll see right now, I think we're gonna get several answers here.

5:56And so I think that has been a huge part of an excitement for me, right? Creating new collectors, 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 really great covers and really great art.

6:44And so, you know, it's been pretty exciting. I wanna thank the comic community as a whole. 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's gonna be cynical to everything. There's so many flash in the pans, there's been so much bull crap, manufactured scarcity. 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.

7:24This is much more Jim Henson. You know what I would say? I would say for me personally, the Stan Lee X-Men thing is a big part of it. You know, the mutants being outcasts, talking about social issues. 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, 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 was very affected by superhero culture and I have a lot of it in me.

8:19I can nerd out on Plastic Man and Mighty Mouse and I'm in it way more than people realize but I've been unusually quiet by my standards because I'm a big showman in a lot of ways because I really 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? But we are working with great high-caliber people.

8:55I'm overtly in tune to going slow. But it's going fast as well because there's a lot of good behind it. So you're playing a role in this. It's not just you starting a brand with your name. You said you actually are writing some of the comics? So it's been really cool. We do these major comics. The way we create our comics. So 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. and then what's amazing is I videotape the way we do stories at V friends is we do three four day two day off sites me DJ Kaufman Jim Rugg Katie you know Chris Bason Ali and we and I've got many of the characters developed in my mind for five years but I don't have every aspect some is blurry some are very distinct I would say Motivated Monster comic number five I wrote it in my words and then it was written.

10:05But there's not a story that I'm not involved in. We videotape all of it. So we're gonna have incredible stuff for the documentary where I'm like, and this is what Gritty Ghost and Witty Weez 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. This is what this character is about. And so it's been really fun for me because I've been digging even deeper into the relationship of, you know, Kirby and Stanley and all this stuff.

10:40And 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. But there's a couple of books coming out where I verbalized 85 % of it. 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 hey everybody hope you're enjoying the podcast right now make sure you follow the podcast that's why I'm interrupting let's keep going on this show but follow the podcast it'll make my mom super happy you know the comics medium is a very energy driven medium.

11:28It's people working together to make one vision come true. So you playing a big part of it really surprises me because as I said, I wasn't kidding. Like you are a busy guy. So you having a story that others come and draw and letter and color just kind of surprised me that you have a hand in every single issue. Do you see yourself doing that in the long run? Yes, at least. How big is it now than when it started? 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 in a meaningful way.

12:14So, you know, I, as far as like getting the 250 characters Merricker's established, I need to be in the origin, right? And so, you know, again, that's why interviews like this are so fun because you can go deeper. For example, Claiborne98 said, ask this to Gary, his NFTs are a scam, he's a scammer, Gary's a fraud. I'm empathetic to that, right? NFTs have such a tough brand out there, right? Omar, but you know, if, and I would never expect Claiborne98 to do the homework on this because I see so many people put out so many false things. But if you go look at VFriends as an NFT, not NFTs, 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.

13:03And the same thing with comics. 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 unless people knew my relationship with Green Lantern or Hobgoblin or I lived through when the Punisher and Ghost Rider were much more famous than Black Panther or Iron Man no one would know that because I've not put out that content I promise you for Jim Rugg Jim was going to work a little bit on a side thing and then came to an off site and hung for a half a day and left interested going all in. And you know enough about the real OGs like Jim and others.

13:51They're not gonna do that if they think it's fugazi. And there's been so much fugazi in the comic world over the last 40 years. 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. And I feel very confident in my storytelling ability plus having great partners around me. DJ Kaufman deserves incredible amounts of flowers. Yeah, DJ's been at the game for a long time. Actually, we interviewed him a few years back whenever he was doing things with the Spreadshop. Yeah, exactly. He's been at it for a while.

14:28Yeah, and then - 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 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 this. I mean, let's be 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.

15:10it's like the Marvel method on steroids. But the way that Stan Lee would write things was, 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. And the way that you're doing it about videoing it and talking about the stories with your creators, I mean, like I said, it's a group effort, so that 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 because I do 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?

15:51You know like this you know they mentioned the Marvel they educated me more I mean 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 we have a similar process. I mean, I think, you know, and by the way, people we've worked with, like David Mack, you know, 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, yeah, it's very clear to me what I'm trying to accomplish.

16:33And 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 because we're different, shakes me to my bones as I'm saying it out loud today. And I have real purpose. The reason I'm so involved in the stories is I have real purpose to what I want accountable aunt to mean. And I have real purpose of teaching patients through Patient Panda. And I have real purpose on how I want to talk about tenacity and accountability and modern parenting and lack of judgment and what compassion really looks like.

17:22So I couldn't rent out the truth. And so we created a process that works for me. I think it touches on some stuff now in that golden era of Marvel 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. 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.

18:03So as I do collected editions here and you spoke right to my heart whenever you said X-Men 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. So how is it different now than when you first started? Because for anybody that hasn't read V-Friends, for anybody that's not, doesn't know what V Friends is, what the idea is, like how is the pitch originally and how is the pitch now for these comics that you're putting out? They're pretty in, like, look, we're only a year in, so you can only change so much a year into comics.

18:45The brand's out for five years. We waited a long time to, I waited a long time to find my DJ. And then it was like, okay, I'm ready. 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 and I and I needed to use those comics to be first appearance right okay 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 one, two, three, four, five.

19:33So 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. 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. 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. But yeah, I saw that you had to do a blind bag.

20:12Yes, 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 and I love you know like the excitement of that and like the collectability of that so we so it was important to me that we had a V Friends 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 there's a lot of heat around that character you know Adam Sips makes an appearance a character that's caught the attention of many.

20:51Do 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, that's right, thank you for that. Yeah, we've been in the trenches trying to do the right things, meeting artists, meeting collectors, listening. 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 were 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.

21:28Somebody picks up a comic and like, or goes to vfriends.com because another thing is I want people to read these stories so three months after we put them out, the full comic is digitally available for free on vfriends.com slash comics. You know, 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 Katie and Faisa 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 flabbering. I can't wait to go look at those videos when I'm older. Just jaw to the ground like where did that come from?

22:04You'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. The way I read books. When 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 gonna end up creating a universe that, look, I have the biggest dreams in the world. I want to build a Marvel, DC, Disney.

22:39But even if I land at Transformers or Voltron or He-Man or something of that nature. I have like really big dreams and I really think we can pull it off and the best part is I think the stories sit in 1980s good and I think there's an important time and need for that as well.

23:01So, you're hearing, if somebody wanted to get something, I love the fact that Rare Robot is the one that is out of print. Yeah, exactly. Living up to his name. If somebody wanted to get that, they could read it digitally through the website. Yes, sir. But the physical comic is out of print. You said you're doing direct-to-consumer, so you've set up a New York Comic Con, and I'm curious, are you interested in going into the direct market and book market to make this wide, to go through comic book stores? 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.

23:46Like, I'm paying attention to everything. 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 & Noble 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 really, what I'm proud of at this point of my life is that, and why two of the biggest characters in VFriends 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.

24:32and 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? And by the way, this is a meta moment. I've been really paying attention to which shows do I respect? Back to your point earlier, 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.

25:11I 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 collectability and in storytelling and one step at a time. Well, whenever you guys hit the milestone of collected additions, I know a guy that would love to talk to you all about that Actually, I talked to Jim about 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 I would love that Be friends Yeah, we'll have to set that up And you want to keep this going You want to keep being involved in all of this And When you get it I love the fact that you mentioned Free Comic Book Day And you're already thinking about of publishing or I guess distributing through Lunar, which is I think one of the few choices you have these days with PRH and Lunar.

26:10So I assume this is something that both DJ and Jim bring to the table like hey. Yeah, they bring incredible institutional knowledge. But I'm a psycho when I do something, right? Like I knew this was happening three years ago and even before AI with Claude and OpenAI, 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? Where are these things selling? What is the current market of, you know, the things I grew up 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 because I knew a lot in the 90s.

26:53I've been out of it for a long time. But that's exactly right. They brought incredible relationships and understanding. And then I've also put in hundreds of hours of homework on the ecosystem and the current temperament. 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? 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 really matter. 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.

27:42Mark, listen, I'm, by the way, John, I know plenty about varying covers.

27:49Listen, I'm very fortunate. I run the most contemporary, most successful independent marketing agency in the world. 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. All that marketing does is get people to know about something. If that something is a piece of crap, you're just going to speed up everyone knowing you have a piece of crap. That's true. No, you're right. So the DJ and the gym and the me actually being a person that has these stories in his heart, that's what mattered. And then being smart enough and a good partner to the cover artist so it's not just a check or a bounty.

28:30There's a relationship and a conversation and an understanding of what we're trying to do. And then showing up for stuff like this. I apologize, I have to run. I know. 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