I have complicated feelings of the U.S.’ campaigns in the Middle East. But I unquestionably support our soldiers who are willing to make sacrifices I can’t. I have family who are veterans, like my brother, and I couldn’t be more proud of them. But I’d rather we live in a world where I didn’t have to worry about their safety abroad in the first place. It’s too much to ask I know, but we can hope, right?
In the meantime, DC All-Access host Jason Inman, himself a veteran, has started a drive like no other. Teaming up with Comics For Soldiers, Jason hopes to make the worlds of our brave men and women a little more fun by sending them 10,000 comic books.
Besides explaining the nitty gritty details, I hit up Jason for a quick interview about how he got the idea, his time as a soldier, and the logistical challenges he’ll face sending all those dang funny pages to the people who need a laugh the most.
So myself and I think a lot of people who watch DC probably don’t know, but you actually served in our armed forces. Can you give us a little background as to what that was like?
Jason: Yeah, I did. I joined up with the Kansas Army National Guard when I was in high school, because I’m originally from Kansas, and I wanted to travel the world when I was young, and it sounded like that was the opportunity, and so I did that. Of course, during my time in the Army National Guard, we got activated to full-time duty, so I was in the active army for a little bit over a year, and I spent 2005 in Iraq as part of Operation Iraqi Freedom. Then after that, I got out. I did my 6 years and I got out and I finished college.
What did you do out there, and what was it like? My brother was in the National Guard so I have an idea how both lonely it can get and how rich the camaraderie can be.
Jason Inman: We did a lot of security convoy duty, which meant that we drove a lot. We drove as security to all these civilian convoys, so a lot of my Iraq was spending time in a Humvee, or behind a 50-caliber gun protecting civilians. I got to see a lot of the country. I thought it was unique to see a lot of the ancient castles and stuff like that, but lonely’s a great way to put it. It was very lonely.
Luckily at the time, before I left, bought an iPod. It was the one that only had the spinning wheel and I loaded literally every single song I had. I know this is a weird tangent, but I put every single song that I ever had on there, and I hid that iPod, I slipped it into my Kevlar vest. Not only does a Kevlar vest, is it useful for protecting your life, it also has useful iPod pockets.
That’s awesome.
Jason Inman: I spent a lot of time listening to music. I listened to a lot of music and I read a lot of books. Any time we had down time, I would read a book. I looked at Iraq as a place that I didn’t want to be, of course, but it’s also an experience that not many other people have ever had. Not many people can be like, “I’ve been in a war zone with a weapon.” Very lonely, but now that I’m 10 years removed from it, you know, it’s one of the things that I’m very proud of that I did, and I’m very proud that I got to be part of these awesome group of guys and serve.
So you’re starting up this charity to send comic books. A lot of care package drives don’t do that, specifically sending comics books. Can you tell me about the origin of where you came up with this idea? Is there a big demand for things like comic books from soldiers overseas?
Jason Inman: I try to be charitable every December, because I think that’s one of the best things about the holiday season and I was thinking, “What I could do?” And I remember when I was over there that I once got a care package, and at the bottom of the care package was this issue of Ultimate X-Men. I read that from front to back and I kind of give credit to that issue of Ultimate X-Men that sparked my interest back into comic books, like hardcore. Everybody goes through that phase, you kind of give up comic books because you find out that, “Hey, girls are really pretty” or “Hey, boys are really pretty.” Comic books aren’t as pretty. That happened to me, [but I still] kind of read comics here and there. I’d heard about Preacher after that point, but I stopped going to the comic book shop every week.
But after Iraq, I started going back to the comic shop every week. I really thought this would be cool, this would be something neat, because there are amazing organizations out there that send plenty of care packages to the troops. I could never do it better than them, so I was like, “Okay, what’s the niche that I could fill?” I started Googling, and I found this awesome organization called Comics for Soldiers, and I started submitting them an idea. I was like, “What if we sent 10,000 comics overseas to the troops?” They’re a very small organization but they were totally game. There are plenty of nerds in the military like me, and opening up a box of comic books may not be the jam of every soldier over there, but I guarantee you they’ll open it up and they’ll at least flip through them, because they’ll be like, “This is neat.” But then the nerds in their brigade, their battalion, their squad, will just eat them up.
I can imagine that would be a sweet moment. I picture the one nerd in the battalion who hasn’t read anything for awhile suddenly gets an entire run of like, Spider-Verse.
Jason Inman: Yeah, it makes their day. They’re just like, “Holy cow. This issue of Spider-Gwen that I’d never be able to have. Holy cow.”
What is your game plan to send out the books? What are the logistical challenges that you’re about to endure sending out these books to soldiers?
Jason Inman: Well, the logistics are mainly going to be handled by the organization, Comics for Soldiers. They’ve been doing this for the last 3 or 4 years, and they were set up in the memory of Sergeant Robert McDowell. So the logistics of actually sending the books to the troops is theirs, because they have the contacts, they have the time, and they have the drive to do this. I just wanted to help them out, because I don’t think many people think about donating comics and they were an organization that already thought about doing this. I was like, “Well, if I can at least take care of their comics problem, then all they have to do is just get them to the troops, and that makes their job a quite a bit easier.”
I’m pretty certain that they won’t all go out in January, because shipping overseas is very expensive and paper is very heavy. But if we can fill their comic quota for the next 6 months, that’s amazing, and that’s more than enough of a good thing.
There are very, very obvious parallels between serving your country and growing up reading comic books, and I was just wondering motivated you to join the military? Did your geek background influence you wanting to serve or were there other things that made you sign up?
Jason Inman: You know, I don’t know if my geek background influenced me to serve my country. I think it was kind of the opposite. Because when I was reading comic books in high school, it was very much like, “Don’t let your friends now that you read comic books, because they’ll beat you up,” you know? Wolverine lost his adamantium, and Superman has long hair and a mullet, but we can’t tell our friends that we like that. But you know, I think the what really attracted to me, was simply doing something that not many people do.
Because when I was growing up, I didn’t know anybody in the military. I didn’t know anybody that had gone through basic training. I didn’t know anybody that had been in a war zone, and so I was like, “Okay, if I sign up for this, I get to travel the world. They’ll pay for a good chunk of my college, and I’ll be able to do a lot of stuff that a lot of people don’t get to do in their normal day to day lives,” and that was very appealing to me. I guess that you could say that it appealed to the adventure side, which would be the closest to the superhero thing, so maybe the deep culture and the superheroes did seep into my brain more than I thought they did.
You mentioned in high school you kind of had to hide your geekiness a little bit. But today you’re the host of DC All-Access. Have you heard from your high school friends who now see you on YouTube talking about comic books for a living?
Jason Inman: I’m not friends with very many people from my high school, but I went to a very, very small high school. But I have heard from a couple of them, and mostly my early college friends, and a lot of them all say that like, “Oh, yeah, that makes perfect sense,” or “You being the host of DC is exactly where you were always going to be.”
Any last words about the drive? Anything people who want to donate should know?
Jason Inman: Comics for Soldiers will accept comic books at any time. They have all the information on their site, but for us, we’re trying to get them 10,000 by January 1st. It’s just a little goal that we put on ourselves. I’ve been getting a lot of emails where people have been asking me questions and the one issue I want to address is that they can be comics from any company. They can be comics that can also be paperbacks and single issues. We’ll take anything, and also a lot of people have been like, “Man, I’ve got like 3 longboxes and I’d love to ship them, but it’s too expensive.” Don’t send all the longboxes. I appreciate your drive and I love you for it, but don’t go broke over this. Medium flat-rate boxes are $12.66, and you can fit 55 comic books in there. If that’s all you can give us, great. That’s so awesome. If all you can do is shove 5 comic books into a flat-rate envelope, awesome. Any amount you wish to donate is great. Don’t make yourself bankrupt to help the soldiers. The soldiers will appreciate you for it, but they also want to come home and you actually do have a home.
You can visit Comics For Soldiers on their official website.