The Queens of Nerdom Podcast

The Queens of Nerdom Podcast

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Ep 24: "AZ Tony Stark Interview"

/ 01:32:26/E24
Tay:

Sorry. I wasn't ready for that. Alright. And hack. Welcome, everybody.

Tay:

It is 4 o'clock our time, 7 o'clock Jenn's time, EST. And we are here, live to the group. I am Tay.

Jenn:

I'm Jenn, and we have a very special guest with us tonight, everybody. This is Arizona's own Tony Stark,

Jenn/Tay/Tony:

has

Jenn:

come to sit down and talk with us today, and, please join him with any questions that you guys have. He's here for it.

AZ Tony Stark:

Thank you so much. Thank you for having me. I've been looking forward to this. Well, I've been I was gonna say all week, but I've been looking forward to this all month. Should be a lot of fun.

Jenn:

Yay. I'm excited. Can't wait.

AZ Tony Stark:

You guys asked me, do you wanna know the question? I'm like, I don't wanna know the questions. Just tell me. Just tell me.

Jenn/Tay/Tony:

Alright?

Tay:

We're gonna go ahead and go and play our intro, and, we'll be right back. BRB. Alright. And welcome everybody to episode 24 for our Arizona Tony Stark interview. Welcome.

Tay:

Welcome. Welcome. Welcome.

AZ Tony Stark:

I was having so much fun watching that introduction. I I I don't know. Can we play that again? That was awesome. Good.

Jenn:

I'd love to. I I don't never get tired of it.

AZ Tony Stark:

Love it. I need to go back and watch all those movies, like, right now.

Tay:

Alright. You know what time it is. I know what time it is. It is shot o'clock. So, this is the part of the, you know, episode that we've taken from the smoke pit, just because that's where we got our beginnings, where we take our shots.

Tay:

So I will be taking a shot in my Dwight Schrute false glass.

Jenn:

Sorry.

Tay:

I will be taking a shot of, what am I taking? Crown Vanilla. Jen, what you got?

Jenn:

I have my drink up witch's class. It's what I always use. And then, I have my rum, my tropical rum as usual.

Tay:

I love that.

AZ Tony Stark:

I have my Jamieson out of my Jamieson shot glass. So, Jamieson, if you're watching, you know, I will do any kind of endorsement deal you want. But

Tay:

Alright. Well, to growth and, to an amazing interview that's about to commence. Pinkies up.

Jenn:

So fancy.

Tay:

Oh, I got a little spillage on that one. Oh, man.

AZ Tony Stark:

Alright. Feeling nice and fuzzy now.

Jenn:

Yes. Love it. Love it.

Tay:

It helps get the, the jitters out for sure. Alright. So, we are at the interview part of the session. So I'm gonna go ahead and ask the first question, and then it'll be, Jen, and we'll kinda go back and forth, and just kinda answer it how you feel. So

AZ Tony Stark:

You got

Tay:

it. First question I really wanted to ask is, how did you start cosplaying?

AZ Tony Stark:

How did I start cosplaying? Well, way back in my day wasn't called cosplay, but I worked for a company called New England Business Services, which is a paper company, kinda like like Dunder Mifflin. I literally was selling paper products. My my boss at the time thought I looked like Dean Cain, so he started calling me Clark because the movie the show that was out, Lois and Clark.

Jenn:

Yeah. Superman.

AZ Tony Stark:

You know, I mean, I back then, I hadn't had my eyes fixed yet, so I wore glasses. So I purposely bought glasses that look like his because I thought, hey. There's something that kinda looks like me. I kinda like that. So I started wearing the those glasses, and he started calling me Clark, and then everybody started calling me Clark.

AZ Tony Stark:

And then people who were new thought my name was Clark, so I was Clark. And then around 1997 or so, I guess, it was about 97, I I put together a Clark Clark Kent Superman costume for Halloween. And back then that you couldn't just go to every store. Like, right now, you can go to Walmart right now and buy a Superman t shirt. You find them everywhere, but I I couldn't find one by anywhere back then.

AZ Tony Stark:

And so I went to Walmart, and I found some craft foam. And I made my Superman emblem, and I found a a Hanes blue t shirt, and I sewed it on the you know, just stitched it on. And I remember Really? My my oldest daughter, she's 4 years old at the time. She, she walks by.

AZ Tony Stark:

She looks up, and she goes, I just put it on. She looks you're Superman? I said, yeah. And she goes, fly. Little stinker.

AZ Tony Stark:

The but, so that was where it first started, and and I got a huge, like, reaction where everybody thought it was really cool. So the next year, I decided, oh, I'm gonna take it up a notch. So I put together a, like, a legit I mean, right now, I'm thinking I'm saying it's legit, but at the time, it was it was, like, it was pretty legit. Right now, I I probably it probably wasn't looking back at it, but it was still pretty good. But, anyway, so I we went trick or treating, and my daughters were all I got them little Supergirl outfits, and and so we were all trick or treating together.

AZ Tony Stark:

And my wife had a super, a Supergirl costume on too. So we're like a Superman. And we went to my daughter's kindergarten teacher at her house, and she liked it so much. She's like, hey. Could you come to our to our class and maybe read to the kids or something?

AZ Tony Stark:

So I found some Superman kids books, and I went to her classroom, and I read to the kids. And the other teachers liked it, so I wound up reading to the other classes too. And then the 1st graders wanted the same thing. So I wound up going to their school, like, 6 times that within a couple weeks to different classes, and then they kept bringing me back every year. And then I started going to other classes and other schools, and so, this is when I was in Flagstaff.

AZ Tony Stark:

So I started doing that. This is about 1998 is when I started. And then and then I started getting invited to different charity events and things like that. And then around 2,000 so I did that up in Flagstaff. And then around 2010, I was I came down to a a Comic Con in it was called Phoenix Comic Con back then.

AZ Tony Stark:

And, AZ Power Girl, it was Kara, she saw me and says, you have to be our Superman. So I said, okay. So I started that that's when I started with the a z the j l a z, and I was their Superman doing their their, events for for a few years. I was, like, their their Superman, and I was I went to everything, and and I loved it. And we did a we would do 1 or 2 hospital visits a year, and then that led to my friend Zeph.

AZ Tony Stark:

He approached me about with the idea of Comic Care, and that was about 10 years ago.

Jenn:

Okay.

AZ Tony Stark:

But altogether, I've been doing this for a long time, like, 20 27 years. Wow.

Jenn:

How old? Dang. All because somebody called you Clark.

Jenn/Tay/Tony:

Yeah. It was like me.

AZ Tony Stark:

Yeah. And and a fun fact, a few years ago, Dean Cain was in town doing a making a movie,

Jenn/Tay/Tony:

and

AZ Tony Stark:

he he did a hospital visit with me. And I dressed up like like Superman, and he just was, of course, just Dean Cain. But it was funny when we showed up, he said he goes, wait a minute. Nobody wears my suit anymore. I'm like, I've always worn your suit.

AZ Tony Stark:

I still have your suit. In fact, I said, this belt, you signed it a few years ago. And he's like, oh my gosh. I'm like, but but yeah. And then and then, like, a year later, he and I were both guests at the Arctic Comic Con up in Alaska, up in Anchorage.

AZ Tony Stark:

And we got to ride to ride to their in the shuttle and stuff. So it was it was pretty cool. But but, yeah, he's he was super nice, and and it was fun to actually get to do a visit with the person that actually, for me, started it all. But

Jenn:

That's crazy. Did he remember signing your bill?

AZ Tony Stark:

You know what? I don't know if he he said he did. He goes, how was you? I I don't know if he did a round

Jenn/Tay/Tony:

of rain. But but

Jenn:

in the day

Tay:

He's a round of rain. I know. Right?

AZ Tony Stark:

Signed it. I was there with my daughters, and Okay. We he was doing meet and greets with people, but I just saw him up there with his manager. And I walked up, and I said, hey. Would is there any way you could sign my belt?

AZ Tony Stark:

And and his manager goes, oh, that's, like, 60 dollars that'll be $60 if you want him to sign anything in. And he goes he goes, wait a wait a minute. He goes, that's my belt because it was it's a certain style. Yeah.

Jenn:

And he goes

AZ Tony Stark:

he goes, I can sign this. And so he signed it, and then we'd signed up to do a meet and greet later. And then when when we met him later Mhmm. He remembered my daughter's names. He remembered me, and I just thought that was really that was really cool.

Jenn:

Yeah. It's like That is super cool.

AZ Tony Stark:

Anna, Alyssa, and Faith. He goes, I I thought I was wondering if you guys are gonna come to the line or not, but he remembered all three of their names. And I thought that was

Jenn:

really cool. Yeah. That is a cool that's awesome. I'm I'm glad I watched it now and yeah.

AZ Tony Stark:

So that supported me. Funny. You you you just never you always wanna be nice because you never know when it's gonna help, but, I mean, he's gotten some good press from me. I will never say anything bad about him because he was very nice to me when I met him. Very nice.

Jenn:

Yeah. That was, actually, Steve Colbert actually told, kind of a similar story where he first met Taylor Swift. And, he he he met Taylor Swift, and he's like, hey. I want you to meet my daughter. And she made such a big fuss over his daughter, like, oh my god.

Jenn:

You're so beautiful, this and that. And he said, I will go down in flames for that woman because she was so kind to my kids, and it really does, I think, make a difference that he remembered her daughter's names and that that just kind of I don't know. It kinda hits

AZ Tony Stark:

the nerve.

Jenn:

You know what I mean?

AZ Tony Stark:

As a parent, it does. And the the the funny thing is okay. Can I tell a Justin Bieber story real quick?

Tay:

Absolutely. Sure.

AZ Tony Stark:

Okay. So my girls all love Justin. My my oldest was a little bit, but she was still pretty cool about it. She, like, she wanted to go. So I took all 3 of them to go see Justin Bieber when he was here.

Jenn/Tay/Tony:

Okay.

AZ Tony Stark:

And we got good seats, and it was it was pretty expensive. It's not something you would do just but so I probably spent about a $1,000 taking my daughters to go see Justin Bieber. Yeah. And it's the famously, the the time when he got sick on stage and, like, threw up repeat like, a few times.

Jenn:

Oh, it was that show?

AZ Tony Stark:

Yeah. And and he he actually they actually stopped the show, and I thought it was over. I thought, okay. He's gonna come back out. And, he came back out.

AZ Tony Stark:

After he after a couple of minutes, he, like, cleaned himself up, and they they came back out, started performing, threw up again. I was like, oh.

Jenn:

Oh, I didn't know he did that.

AZ Tony Stark:

They stopped. They stopped, and then he came back out. Finished the whole set. He came back out and performed for another 45 minutes after that. And I tell you what, he may not be, like, the perfect person.

AZ Tony Stark:

He may not be, but that night, I thought to myself, son of a gun. That kid came out and and finished finished his because, otherwise, it would have been a 15 minute show, and that's all we would have taken from it was that he got sick. And I probably wouldn't have blamed him for anything, but the fact that he came back out and finished his set when I know whether he had drank too much or or or that he was really sick or whatever. I don't care why he was sick. He came out and he performed like a champ.

AZ Tony Stark:

He's he sounded fantastic. He did great and didn't just stand there. He was still doing all of his dance, his routines and stuff. Wow. I thought to myself, that's that's that means a lot to me for as a parent who Right.

AZ Tony Stark:

It's spent that much taking his kids and for him to come back out. Yeah. That's I I will never say anything bad about that, about him.

Tay:

Yeah. That Yeah. Is amazing.

Jenn:

So, one of our viewers, Deante , said that's worth ethic. So, I actually didn't. Yeah. And, 80 said bros are trooper for sure. I didn't I didn't know he came back out, so I just heard about him getting sick.

Jenn:

And I actually thought this show was canceled, so that's actually interesting you expanded on that, that he actually came out and finished. Newfound respect for him. Alright. Cool. I like that.

Jenn:

Alright. So so Tay asked you, how you got started. What are some of your favorite cosplay moments that you can think

AZ Tony Stark:

of? Well, I was every I I shared 1

Jenn:

Yeah.

AZ Tony Stark:

When I visit with him. A lot of people think it was when I met Robert Darren junior, Jr, and that was that was cool. It was cool. Yes. I'll tell you it was.

AZ Tony Stark:

He we had been invited to be on the red carpet for Endgame, which is awesome. Yeah. If you go you can go you can go back on the on YouTube. You can still pull it up. I was there Okay.

AZ Tony Stark:

Front and center in my Ironman suit where the whole thing we got to meet all the Avengers coming that that were there that night as they came through, shaking their hands, taking selfies. It was it was phenomenal. It was really cool. And over the years, I had tagged him a bunch of times. He had shared my pictures on his social media.

Jenn:

No shit. No.

AZ Tony Stark:

Cool. And that was neat. And and, actually, I had done a a tour where I had done 14 14 hospital visits in 14 days in 10 different states. And we had been leading up to that, we'd been working with his team about they wanted to chronicle it and do, like, a whole thing. But at the last minute, they they they said, we we can't do it because it's too close to Infinity War coming out, and so it got canceled.

AZ Tony Stark:

So I was kinda I was kinda bummed, but I was I knew that they were aware of me. Anyway

Jenn:

Right.

AZ Tony Stark:

When I met him, he walks up. He and I'm thinking all week. I'm like, I knew I was gonna meet him. I was gonna I was gonna shake his hand. What am I gonna say?

AZ Tony Stark:

Of course, he he cuts he's like he as soon as he sees me, he goes, well, it's about time. And he shook my hand, and I was like, oh,

Tay:

it's so cool. He remembered. You're like, that's so cool.

AZ Tony Stark:

Yeah. That was really neat. But the best thing I've ever had in costume, I was doing a hospital visit at, at the Arizona Burn Center. And I walked in. Okay.

AZ Tony Stark:

And there's a little boy, and, they didn't tell I don't ever know anything about who I'm visiting. I just, you know, I go in and I try and just take their minds off of it. I walk in and this this little boy is head to toe covered in bandages. You you literally there was no part of his skin he was showing. And he was in bed hooked up to everything.

AZ Tony Stark:

And, I looked over at him and I I and I'm like, hi, buddy. And he looks just Iron Man? I said, yeah. And he goes and he looked at the nurse and says, I wanna get down. I wanna get down.

AZ Tony Stark:

So she helped him, and it took couple minutes for them to to help him get out of bed and and to to move everything with him so he wouldn't get unattached to all of the the IVs that were in him. And, he he got up and we were play he were play I put on my helmet. I never put on my helmet. Put on my helmet and we're pretending like we're fighting with you know, my lights were coming on and stuff. He thought that was cool.

AZ Tony Stark:

And and I and I looked at and and and and and we just for me, it was just like another you know, it was it was another room. And then I look I turned around. All the the the nurses and the doctors, everyone from the floor was in the doorway. Mhmm. He had there had been a a fire their Christmas tree had caught fire, and, his his sister had died, and his brother had been bur badly burned as well.

AZ Tony Stark:

And he's burned out for 80% of his body, lost a bunch of his fingers.

Jenn/Tay/Tony:

Mhmm.

AZ Tony Stark:

It's just heart wrenching. Yeah.

Jenn:

He

AZ Tony Stark:

hadn't been out of bed. He hadn't gotten out of bed since that. It was it had been almost 3 months. He hadn't gotten out of bed. That was the first time he got out of bed.

Tay:

Oh my god. And

AZ Tony Stark:

to me, I was like I mean, so and then over the years, I went I went to a couple of his birthday parties afterwards, and and that was one of the things where I thought to myself, I was driving home, and I never get really emotional about that. Driving home, and it really hit me. And I was like, I mean, why did god let this child live through that? It's such such a horrible thing and he's gonna go through a whole life of pain and I just but then when I went back and saw him on his birthday, when I saw it back and saw him afterwards, he

Jenn:

has

AZ Tony Stark:

been great. The family just

Jenn:

Yeah.

AZ Tony Stark:

So strong. And that was on me. I didn't give him enough credit that he was Yeah. That he was that strong.

Tay:

Yeah. Just And

AZ Tony Stark:

And he's gone on. His brother went to the military. He's graduating from high school. He it was just they've done great.

Jenn:

I love that that you, yeah, kept up with him. That's awesome. And, you know, and you probably didn't realize at the time, like, what a big motivator. You probably just thought that, you know, I'm there to, you know, go see some kids at, you know, a burn center, but, you didn't you probably didn't realize that you were the reason why he got out of bed. And that's that is

AZ Tony Stark:

no idea until they told

Jenn:

me afterwards, and I

AZ Tony Stark:

was like

Jenn:

You're like, oh, that you should

AZ Tony Stark:

never know. Yeah. Just never know.

Jenn:

Yeah. You did that. That's awesome.

Tay:

Never know what kind of impact you have on today's life. Yeah.

Jenn:

Yeah. All because somebody called you Clark.

AZ Tony Stark:

I got it. Be to be honest with you, I love that. I mean, I've done so I've had I there's people who who do what I do, and and if they're lucky, have a chance to do go on one hospital visit like that. You know what I mean? And go on to just to visit 1.

AZ Tony Stark:

I've done 100 and 100 of hospital visit. I've been so blessed. Like, my life is completely changed because of what I've been able to do with that. And it's just I'm lucky. I'm blessed.

AZ Tony Stark:

I've met the right people at the right time that put me in a position to where I could do this. But I tell you what, I'm one of the luckiest people in the world. When I die, no one's gonna remember, yeah, he was he was a good stockbroker or, you know, he helped with people with their retirement plans. They remember, he's that crazy Iron Man that would show up and hand out comic books. You know?

AZ Tony Stark:

Yeah. Yeah. And and and I'm so thankful. I'm so I'm so thankful for that legacy and for that. And to be a part of of of Ring Comic Care, we've we've opened a new Comic Care up in Portland, Comic Care Northwest.

AZ Tony Stark:

We're looking to open another one in San Diego soon.

Tay:

Wow.

AZ Tony Stark:

But,

Jenn:

maybe you can just open one in Virginia.

AZ Tony Stark:

There you go.

Jenn:

I'm out here.

AZ Tony Stark:

But the but I'm telling you, it's it's just been it's been really neat. It's been special. And and I I'm thankful every day for the for the fact that that my friend, Zep, reached out to me, and and I said yes because he was he at first, I was like, who is this crazy guy wanting to meet with? I'm like, am I gonna go? I I I drive down he's wanting me to drive down to Goodyear to meet him.

AZ Tony Stark:

Am I gonna get killed down there? I'm like, I have no idea who this person is. But, so so thankful that he finally talked because he's trying to talk me into meeting him for, like, 6 months before I'm like, fine. I'll meet with you.

Jenn/Tay/Tony:

Right.

AZ Tony Stark:

But, but yeah. No. It was cool. Sorry. That was a long ago.

Tay:

No. Yeah. No. You're completely fine.

Jenn:

I'm glad that dudes are, worried about that thing too because that would be the first thing in my mind. I'm like, are you gonna murder me and, like, take my kidney or something? I'm like, why would you why is it so far away?

AZ Tony Stark:

I I and I apologize to anybody who who sends me a message or DMs me that I don't know because I don't even unless I follow you, I typically don't open them because some of them are kinda creepy. And, honestly, I guys are the ones that are

Jenn/Tay/Tony:

I get some

AZ Tony Stark:

of the weirdest stuff from some of my male followers.

Jenn:

Wow. I can I can imagine? Tay and I have had a few. Tay and I actually had somebody that, for some reason, thought we were into the furry thing, and I think they quickly realized we weren't. And I'm like, yeah.

Jenn:

That's not on our podcast page or anything. Not into dressing up like an animal

AZ Tony Stark:

or All the unsolicited pics that I get, it's

Tay:

Oh.

AZ Tony Stark:

Okay. Well done.

Jenn:

Good for you, buddy. Moving on. Yeah. Yes.

AZ Tony Stark:

Once a month, I'll go through it. I'll I'll go through it. I'll look to see if there's anything that that I should look at. But for the most part, I just bought once a month. I go in and just clear it all off.

Tay:

Yeah. Like, I didn't I I know firsthand, because I made the mistake of, reaching out via my personal account, and I had to get Jedi, you know, our, friend, Fitz Moritz to actually, reach out to AZ Tony Stark to be, like, hey, like,

Jenn/Tay/Tony:

she's good people. Like, it's

Tay:

not weird. So, this was, like, months in the making that, like, I was trying to reach out and, like, I was, like, being not even left on read, just left on read. And I was just like,

Jenn/Tay/Tony:

you know You

AZ Tony Stark:

mean I could've you mean I could've been on episode 12 instead of 20?

Jenn:

No. No. Totally not a gold chip. Totally not a gold

Jenn/Tay/Tony:

chip because I

Jenn:

I This is Yeah.

AZ Tony Stark:

So tell you just just so you know. I mean, so you know, I mean, it wasn't just you. I mean, it's like Gary.

Tay:

I don't know. Yeah. No. I can only imagine. But go ahead, Jenn.

Tay:

Sorry.

Jenn:

No. I mean, if if, like, our, popularity were as, large as yours, I mean, I definitely think that there's, some heavy filtering to do in the inbox. So, yeah, totally totally not a a dig there, but I can I can understand that because it's, there are a lot of people out there? They're very, what's a nice PC term?

Tay:

Different.

Jenn:

You're fucking crazy.

AZ Tony Stark:

That's a that's a yeah. That's a good one.

Jenn:

Fucking crazy. Yeah. They're crazy. And The

AZ Tony Stark:

the meanest ones, the meanest and the meanest and I love you guys. It's fine. But but TikTok, the meanest people I have have found are my follow some of the people that follow me on TikTok. And if you're gonna be that mean to me, why are you following me? But I have, like, a 1000000 followers on TikTok.

Jenn:

And Yeah.

AZ Tony Stark:

Some of the comments that I get and and they're on usually, it's on the if I have someone that goes, you know, off for, like, a a lot of views. Not all of them do, but every so often one will hit Mhmm. And it goes off. Some are so mean. I'm like, oh.

AZ Tony Stark:

And then I you look at their their their their account, and it's like a 13 year old kid. And you're like, I can't get too mad, but I can block you. But yeah. Yeah. It's so mean.

Jenn:

And some people just, like, live to troll you too, and I don't like, and Tay and I haven't yeah.

AZ Tony Stark:

He's like the Mexican Ironman. I'm like, I don't care about that. That's great. Thank you. He's like he's like he's like Mexican Brad Pitt trying to be Ironman.

AZ Tony Stark:

I'm like, win, win, win.

Jenn/Tay/Tony:

Thank you.

Jenn:

I wish you could

AZ Tony Stark:

be Brad Pitt. Can I can I put that on a t shirt? Can I quote you on a t shirt for that? I am the Mexican Brad Pitt being Iron Man. That's oh, thanks, man.

Jenn:

I like it, my dude. I like it. Mhmm.

Tay:

So I see that you're wearing a CommaCare shirt. Would you like to tell us a little bit about CommaCare and how you actually started? I know that you said that, like, this guy named Jeff reached out to you,

AZ Tony Stark:

and you

Tay:

met him in, Goodyear. I can't. Jeff. Sorry.

AZ Tony Stark:

Yeah. His name is Zef, like Jo Zef. His name's Joseph, but everybody calls him Zef.

Jenn:

Cool. Cool.

AZ Tony Stark:

Yeah. He was at the time, I was the I was I just barely started doing Ironman. In fact, so for years, people are like, you need to do Tony Stark. He thinks Tony. Like, I'm Superman.

AZ Tony Stark:

Leave me alone. I'm like, I

Jenn/Tay/Tony:

had no Right. I had

AZ Tony Stark:

no, you know, inkling to beat Iron Man at all. And then there was a a Veterans Day parade out in Anthem where I lived and they wanted an Ironman. And so I borrowed my an Ironman suit from my friend, Andy, who's the captain of America you probably see me with.

Jenn:

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

AZ Tony Stark:

But, he had an Ironman suit and I borrowed it from him. And that morning when I was putting it all on, we're about the same size. I thought it would fit me. But the helmet Mhmm. I'm like, hey.

AZ Tony Stark:

Is there a trick to this? I the helmet doesn't it's not even close. He goes, oh, I have a tiny head. There's a tiny head. Like, you coulda told me he goes, just put on some sunglasses.

AZ Tony Stark:

You'll be Tony Stark. It'll be fine. Just put the helmet under your arm. I said, okay. Because I have a big bobblehead.

AZ Tony Stark:

I wear like like, if I wear a get a helmet or a hat, I have to special order it.

Jenn/Tay/Tony:

He's got a peanut head.

AZ Tony Stark:

Yeah. So so so I I got out there, and and everybody's like, Tony, Tony, you know, we love you. And I was like, they know me. I'm like,

Jenn/Tay/Tony:

it was just so funny.

AZ Tony Stark:

I'm like, I'm never going back to Superman again ever. That's it. So I started being super I started being Iron Man. And then I soon after that, I got I went from having, like, you know, 700 followers to, like, 20,000 followers.

Tay:

Oh my god.

AZ Tony Stark:

Like, real quick. It just went crazy. At that time, people weren't weren't 3 d printing suits or anything. So if you saw someone with an Ironman suit, like, wow. You know?

AZ Tony Stark:

And and Ironman suits, we back then, were weren't weren't great, but they were okay. They were okay. And then they had the the goatee, and I don't look like Robert Down Junior, but I have but I have the same coloring, the same brown eyes, the same and if I do the Right. Goatee, it was enough to where people are like, woah. You know?

AZ Tony Stark:

So I so I, my my followers went, well so at that at the same time that that happened, Zef had this idea for for Comic Care, and he was looking for a face for Comic Care. He wanted he had an idea. He didn't want a big group. He just wanted a face. So he started reaching out to me and he's like, I don't wanna meet with you.

AZ Tony Stark:

I have something I wanna pitch to you. I wanna I'm like, who's this crazy guy? He wants to meet with me. And then I'm like, I kept whatever. And and then I I'm like, and then, finally, he just said, hey.

AZ Tony Stark:

I have a Dodge Viper that would be really cool for Tony Stark to take a picture with. Come on out. We'll do a photo shoot. And I'm like, photo shoot? Oh, well, okay.

AZ Tony Stark:

That's the that's the

Jenn/Tay/Tony:

bait I needed.

Jenn:

Question you're doing. Right? Yeah.

Jenn/Tay/Tony:

That's the bait

AZ Tony Stark:

I needed. How do you get how do you get Tony Conferis out there? Let's let's take picture. Well, we'll take pictures of you. I'm like, okay.

AZ Tony Stark:

I'm there. So so I went down there and I took my daughters with me because I thought, well, if he's gonna kill me, he's not maybe he won't kill me if my daughters are with me. That's

Jenn/Tay/Tony:

not true.

AZ Tony Stark:

My my youngest and my middle went with me, and we met him and his wife for breakfast at a little bagel shop down there. And then afterwards, we went and did a shoot. But over bagels, he said, hey. I've got this idea. He goes, I know you've done some hospital visits, but with the JLAZ.

AZ Tony Stark:

I said, yeah. I love them. It's awesome, but, I mean, we'd only did 1 or 2 a year. And, he goes, I want to set up a group where that's all we do. We're gonna do I wanna be a comic book delivery service to to kids in hospitals and long term care, and that's all I wanna do.

AZ Tony Stark:

We're gonna deliver deliver comic books to children. He goes, and I don't I don't want a big group. He goes, I want just you. And if we bring anybody else, it's because they're that someone special that we'll bring in. But if we bring anybody else, it'll be we'll be casting that character.

AZ Tony Stark:

Like, they cast a character at Disney because I wanna be the gold standard of of this. So

Tay:

It's amazing.

AZ Tony Stark:

That's all I need to hear. Let's do this. I'll I'm I'm in. And so that and that that was that was a little over 10 years ago. And so when we first started, it was hard to get into hospitals at first.

AZ Tony Stark:

But the minute we got into a hospital and they saw we walked in, Zeph was super professional. He was he he was my handler. He was making and and he knew that there are certain things we we do and we don't do when we go into into a room. We're not asking the child. We're not asking them how are they doing.

AZ Tony Stark:

Obviously, you're not gonna ask about you. They're not doing great because they're in the hospital. You don't ask them that. You don't talk about the food that they're eating. You don't tell them to get better when they you know?

AZ Tony Stark:

I hope you feel better when you leave because, unfortunately, some of the kids we visit will not be feeling better. So there's there's a whole list of things that you can that you can say and then things you shouldn't, And he had put a lot of thought into this.

Tay:

Yeah.

AZ Tony Stark:

There's a whole when someone joins CommonCare, there's a whole booklet that that they go through that that we put together that the things to the do's and don'ts on a on a visit. And it took me a while because the first thing you say when you meet someone I walk in. First thing I say when I'm talking to someone, I'm like, hey. How's it going? Not thinking about it because that's how we greet each other to think about it.

AZ Tony Stark:

You may wanna meet somebody for the first time and say, hey. How's it going?

Jenn/Tay/Tony:

Mhmm.

AZ Tony Stark:

You don't say that. So so certain things like that. So when they saw that we'd come in and we were really professional, and when and they say Iron Man's gonna show up, Iron Man show up. So for, like, the 1st year, it was just me, and we'd show up and but once we we went in, we would go in and purposely would go in small with a with just me and Zef so that they only had to give us one person to walk us around. It wasn't like some of the other groups that it was their big deal every year to do it once, and they would go in with 15 to 20 different superheroes.

AZ Tony Stark:

We'd go in with 1 and one handler. So they would give us 1 child life development person, and it wouldn't disrupt their shift. It wouldn't disrupt anything so that we could go in with just a small footprint.

Jenn/Tay/Tony:

We could see

AZ Tony Stark:

all the kids they had, leave a bunch of at first, we don't we didn't have very many comic books, so we'd just leave one comic book and a sticker for each kid.

Jenn:

Right.

AZ Tony Stark:

And now we have, through the generosity of people all over the country, we have over 200,000 comic books in our storage facility. So now if a kid likes

Jenn:

comic books,

AZ Tony Stark:

they get a stack. If they love comic books, I leave a whole box for them. So that's changed. But but but once they saw what ComicCare offered, then it was, like, it was easy. We we could they would they were trying to book us to come back before we left that that one, and then it was go to the next.

AZ Tony Stark:

And it was once we start once we got into the first one, dear dear valley, it was a hospital on Deer Valley. Deer Valley. Mhmm. Anyway, I forget the name. But that was the first one.

AZ Tony Stark:

Once we got in there, we got into all of them. And and So the child dev

Jenn:

the child development people are very, in the know, so they all talk to each other because it's a very, yeah.

AZ Tony Stark:

They're very protective too. They don't wanna just let someone, hey. I dress up like Iron Man. Can I come in? But once they saw that, like, hey.

AZ Tony Stark:

This guy is really good with the kids. They come in. They give comic books. When Iron Man shows up, it's it's he acts like Iron Man. It's we wanted it.

AZ Tony Stark:

He cast me as Iron Man, and then everyone that we brought in after that, it wasn't people are like, how do I join Comic Care? You don't. We find you. And and, like, the next person I brought in was was his name is Jeff Seeger, and I saw him at at at was it amazing AZcon? It was, it was another con that we had at the time that was, in addition to to Phoenix Comic Con.

AZ Tony Stark:

And I saw him, and he had a great great Spider Man and great look. But I just watched he was in a booth next to ours, and I just watched him with the kids. And he would he was great with the kids. He was great with their parents, and he was he would get down on their level and talk to them. And and and as Spider Man, I could and he was like he knew everything about Spider Man.

AZ Tony Stark:

He was just so good. Now I looked at Zeph and said, that's our Spider Man right now. That's our

Jenn:

Spider Man. Get

AZ Tony Stark:

me get me that.

Jenn:

Get him now. You know? Yeah.

AZ Tony Stark:

And then, through the years, I we were real slow and we still have very few. I only have a handful of people at Common Care that are that are that are crusaders with our we call them Common Care Crusaders.

Jenn:

Mhmm.

AZ Tony Stark:

And there's only a a handful of them, and then we have a handful people that work behind the scenes, short in comic books, being handlers. Fitz is a handler for us. But then I met Andy, which is our our Captain America.

Jenn:

Mhmm.

AZ Tony Stark:

And, he and I met each other and I started seeing and I saw him and he's a he's actually a seminary teacher, and he's got 6 kids, and he's bilingual. And

Tay:

Wow.

AZ Tony Stark:

He's amazing. And so I brought him as our Captain America. He may not look exactly like Chris Evans, but he embodies our I mean, Captain America like

Jenn:

Right.

AZ Tony Stark:

He's even he's he's so like he's he's he's a similar teacher, so you don't you he and you respect that around him because you know what his values are. So if Right. God forbid, a swear word leaks out around him, you're like, it's almost like language. He is Capri. He and I are Tony and Cap big time.

AZ Tony Stark:

So this year at Fan Fusion, we're doing we're doing a decade of smiles with Cap and Tony. We're gonna do a panel. So if you guys want a fan fusion, check out

Jenn/Tay/Tony:

the panel.

AZ Tony Stark:

But that's gonna be fun.

Jenn:

We definitely will.

AZ Tony Stark:

He is now yeah. He's now taken over for Zeph, and he's he's he heads up CommonCare. And he lets me just be the face, and I get to do the visits and just play. But, yeah, he's he's every bit of Captain America. For me, he's right up with Chris Evans as far as who Captain America is.

AZ Tony Stark:

He's he is Captain America. And everyone you see are we've we brought a new Spider Mans Spider Man characters in. My daughters have played my oldest was our Supergirl when she came in, and she had the look. And she looked great. And then my and then her little sister, when she was older, she became AZ Diana Prince.

AZ Tony Stark:

She is an amazing Wonder Woman.

Jenn:

I love it. Mhmm.

AZ Tony Stark:

She's good. She's followed. But they grew up watching me do this so that they I mean, day 1, both of them, the 1st day they did a hospital visit, they were better than me at at it. And and I I was so proud of that, but it's they they grew up around it. It's like a it's like someone who grew up with a dad who's a professional baseball player, and they grew up to be a professional baseball player because they grew up with it.

AZ Tony Stark:

You know what I mean? It's I I you can't stress enough that when you walk into it, you think, that's easy to visit a kid. You just walk in in your costume and you visit them. There's a lot that goes into it. We're reading a room when you walk in and and being able to to pick up on different social cues and to pick up on, okay, what's going on in this room?

AZ Tony Stark:

There's a lot that we're processing when we first walk in.

Jenn:

Right.

AZ Tony Stark:

But they made it look so easy. There's they my daughters did so good. Anyway, I gosh. What was the question again? No.

AZ Tony Stark:

No. No. Just

Jenn/Tay/Tony:

I know.

AZ Tony Stark:

I know. It's been on way too long.

Tay:

I have an extra question off of that. Is is this your daughter?

AZ Tony Stark:

That is my daughter, Jenna. Yes. She is AZ Diana Prince, and now she's, she does some Supergirl. She she does she does so many different. I mean

Jenn:

I love it.

AZ Tony Stark:

Yeah. She does a Kate Bishop. She did Kate Bishop last night for our and and I think her Kate Bishop is all is probably the best, but, she's she's so good. Yeah.

Jenn:

Yeah. That's my daughter. You could probably say that you learned the craft, but now it's it's in your kid's blood because they I mean, it's true. Like, I mean, they saw you do it, and now it's kind of, like, in their blood now. So Well,

AZ Tony Stark:

and there's that that and that they they they they've learned from me as as far as how what to do in a room, but they also were able to see, okay, how do I how do how do we put together a suit that looks legit and that looks good. And and and so they're, yeah, I'm I'm they've done really well. She's Yeah. And she is my daughters were all choir choir geeks like me. I I was a vocal performance major at any and they my daughters were all in show choir, and and she was, like, the always the best dancer in her show choir because they always did all the the choreography and everything.

AZ Tony Stark:

And she actually did the choreography. But she's yeah. They're very talented. Very cool.

Jenn:

I I love that. And and I love how you, mentioned about reading the room because, I I me, personally, I feel like with kids, especially, you know, when you're not feeling good, you almost kinda have to, like, match their mood and kinda get on their level a little bit, and then they they take a little bit longer to to warm up to you, I think, especially in in hospital settings. So, I I

AZ Tony Stark:

That's a really good point. In fact, for me, it's not enough that there's been some there's there's some great cosplayers who have a great look, but that's that's not what I'm looking for. Because I can if if someone's not if their look isn't quite right, I can help with that. They have to have good people skills. They have to be able to not not be awkward in situations and not say things that because we spent so much time and effort cultivating our our our reputation and cultivating our our relationships.

AZ Tony Stark:

If I pick the wrong person to go into a room and they say the wrong thing, that

Jenn:

can

AZ Tony Stark:

that can tarnish. That's also why it's taken so long to open up new comic care

Jenn:

Right.

AZ Tony Stark:

As as well new comic care sites as well.

Jenn:

Yeah. Well, yeah, you don't wanna to tarnish your name because, I like the fact, and not to not to get too heavy on the medical side, but, I relied a lot in the, child life development, specialist that I used to work with. And it's it's really, really important, the the words that you use with children because one word would be scary where it's not scary to an adult. And, and and just using, like, a different language with them is is, not I'm I'm getting, like, nursey preachy, but, it's really, really important that, you know, if something burns, you say it doesn't burn. It's warm.

Jenn:

You know, some simple things like that. Like, no. Hey. How you doing? Or say, hey.

Jenn:

What are you doing? And see what they're doing. Maybe they're into something. See you know? And it's kinda

AZ Tony Stark:

Right.

Jenn:

Yeah.

Tay:

It's open end questions. Yeah.

AZ Tony Stark:

And I'm talking to them about everything except why they're

Jenn/Tay/Tony:

in there.

AZ Tony Stark:

Like, who's your favorite superhero? And then, like, and if they pause, I'm like, you know, there's no right answer, but there there's an answer that's more right than other than other Iron Man's saying here.

Jenn/Tay/Tony:

Oh, I'll answer them.

AZ Tony Stark:

Like, if they're, like, they're taking too long to answer them like,

Jenn/Tay/Tony:

Iron Man. That's like

Jenn:

He's like, it's not you, but look. You can say somebody else is

AZ Tony Stark:

And I have I have all the same jokes that I tell over and over again. Like like, did you get the the mom or dad will take a picture. I'm like, did you get my good side? Like and then they start they start hemming. I'm like, oh, I I I'm like, it's a trick question.

AZ Tony Stark:

They're both good. It's okay. But,

Jenn:

I love it. So, so I'm not sure if you know, but Tay and I are gonna be at the the fan fusion, and we'll be dabbling in the the cosplay. So give us a heads up. What are what are some of your cosplay pet peeves? So this is, new for us.

Jenn:

So what's what's some of your pet peeves that you can tell us?

AZ Tony Stark:

Pet peeves as far as suits that I that I have. Or Pepese as far as what I don't like in my suits or, like, Pepese for other people? Or

Jenn:

Just just in general. Like, if you see if you see someone cross playing, what is something that you're just like, oh, dude. Like, why did you do that? Like, why?

AZ Tony Stark:

You know

Jenn:

Anything. I mean, it it could be really weird.

AZ Tony Stark:

It's such a it's such a thing where where I think it's it's people are so great about just accepting you for you, and that's great. But

Jenn:

Okay.

AZ Tony Stark:

Don't take it too far. Like like, there are some people who we'll take Deadpool for instance. Deadpool's super, super popular right now and has been for years. Okay. Not everybody can be Ryan Reynolds.

Jenn/Tay/Tony:

Mhmm.

AZ Tony Stark:

Don't try and be Ryan Reynolds if you're not Ryan Reynolds because a lot of that stuff doesn't come across that well. And, you know, and and and just make sure that you you you respect, and not that you wouldn't, but respect people's space. Like, ask if you want if they can take a picture with you. Ask if you can you can take a picture with them. Ask if you can, you know Mhmm.

AZ Tony Stark:

Before you put your arm around them, ask, hey. Is it okay? If someone's wearing an armor that you can tell that they've worked a lot of put a lot of time in, don't just throw your arm on them and then hang your arm the the weight of your arm on their armor.

Jenn/Tay/Tony:

Okay.

AZ Tony Stark:

Even if their armor can take it, that's just to me, that's yeah. That's why the the the sun's gorilla, I love him to death, but he's so rough with my armor. I always have my handler say stay between me and him. Oh. He's gonna come up and slap my shoulder, and I had him, like, rip my rip rip it a few times.

AZ Tony Stark:

I can fix it real easy, but I don't wanna have to do that afterwards.

Jenn/Tay/Tony:

Yeah. Right.

AZ Tony Stark:

But yeah. So so for me, it's just it's just, yeah, putting on costume doesn't mean you can you can act like you wouldn't normally act in a certain situation. So so a yeah. Do do they say cosplay isn't consent, but it's also to me, it's like cosplay doesn't give you the license to be a jerk.

Tay:

100%. Yeah. Is that

AZ Tony Stark:

is that it? I mean

Jenn:

So that that actually kinda brings me into another question. So when you cosplay, for you, would you do you play are you you, or are you acting as Tony for the day?

AZ Tony Stark:

It depends on it depends on who I'm talking to. For a kid

Jenn:

Okay.

AZ Tony Stark:

A little kid coming up and bright eyed and bushy tailed looking at me like that, I'm Tony Stark. I'm Tony Stark. I'm I'm saying and,

Jenn:

like Gotcha.

AZ Tony Stark:

Hello. They they they look they look at me. I'm like they're like, are you Iron Man? I'm like, yes. But you can call me mister Stark.

AZ Tony Stark:

So it's I totally stay in in in con in character.

Jenn:

Right.

AZ Tony Stark:

If someone a little older, they know darn well I'm not Robert Jordan Jew. They know that I'm not Tony Stark. You know, I I'll talk to also if they want us me to stay in character, I will. I'll I pick up on those cues and and, you know, I'm like, hey. You look great.

AZ Tony Stark:

This is awesome. What are you wearing? How did you do that? I start talking about their costume before they can talk about mine. And

Jenn/Tay/Tony:

and

AZ Tony Stark:

then they'll ask me about my costume. I'll tell them, hey. Yeah. This is EVA foam. This I put together.

AZ Tony Stark:

This is done with with the contact cement and EVA foam, and you have to seal it. Now I'll talk to them as long as they want me to talk to them about how I built it or or what goes into it. That's fine. But, it just depends. It's it's it's it's per it it depends on who I'm talking to.

AZ Tony Stark:

It depends on on what they're looking. Sometimes they come in, and they're completely in they're they're older and they they know exactly that I'm not Iron Man, but they come in completely in character. I'll stay in character with them just because that's what they're doing. So so you just kinda read the person when they come in.

Jenn:

Gotcha. So it kinda depends. And then you so just to kinda revisit, you said your pet peeve is kinda like people not respecting your personal space. It kinda sounds personal.

AZ Tony Stark:

You know, I mean Kinda more or less. You have people coming. I I've been grabbed. I've been I've been fogged fondled, ogled every everything gold. But and that's

Jenn:

Period. You

AZ Tony Stark:

know? It it happens. I mean, you have a thick skin, but at the same time, you know, and and, but, yeah, I think I think it's just the

Jenn/Tay/Tony:

Okay.

AZ Tony Stark:

You have the same you should have the same norms that you would outside of costume. Not like I said, and I know you would, but I'm just saying that's, for me, some people go into costume and then they they think that they can do things that you wouldn't do normally.

Jenn:

And Yeah. Right. Until I'm saying you

AZ Tony Stark:

can't because it is something where you're you're taking on the personality of your your your but but I at the same time, to only to a certain extent. You you still wanna keep anyway. As far as the costume itself, always build your costume from your feet up. Your feet have to be comfortable. If you don't if you can find some some some something some shoes that that that look like the part are perfect and they're comfortable, that's a win.

AZ Tony Stark:

Yeah. If that's not if if that's not possible

Jenn:

I love that.

AZ Tony Stark:

You find a way that you get comfortable shoes that you can build like some like like you can build around, like I did with my my my Wolverine. I have the most comfortable shoes for those, and I built boots that I that fit around those shoes. They're awesome.

Jenn:

Conventional shoes. Okay.

AZ Tony Stark:

Shoes are number 1. You don't wanna be in on your feet for 12 hours at a con in shoes that hurt your feet. So Okay. Yeah. My pet peeve is shoes that hurt.

AZ Tony Stark:

I've lost my Shoes. Yeah. Those boots right there, I built those out of EVA foam.

Jenn:

Oh. I looked at it. Okay. I love that.

AZ Tony Stark:

And I just recently started in years past, I've I have had I have suffered through so many cons with shoes that hurt my feet so bad. In fact, my Really? Right my right toe, I lost the whole nail after being in some Ironman boots that did not that just were terrible. And I was in the suit for, like, 15 hours that day. I lost the whole toe.

AZ Tony Stark:

It took 2 years for it to grow back. Still looks terrible.

Jenn:

I can't even imagine. Yeah. That's a

Tay:

I've lost the pinky toenail. I understand.

AZ Tony Stark:

Yeah. So so so comfortable shoes. Come start with comfortable shoes and build from there. But yeah.

Jenn:

So we have

Tay:

a go ahead. Sorry.

Jenn:

Go go ahead. Our, our friend Black has a question. He said advice for someone who is just getting into cosplay. What advice do you have?

AZ Tony Stark:

Well, it depends. Are you getting the cosplay just for fun? Are you looking to do something also that I say your first the first thing you wanna put time and effort into has to be a character that you identify with. Doesn't you don't have to look just like a character. It just be someone that you really like and you've always you have a passion for.

AZ Tony Stark:

That's that's the main thing because you're gonna put a lot of time and effort and in some cases, money into making this costume. So make it comfortable. Make it something you're comfortable being and make it a character that you'd love so that, you know, you look at it like, hey. I'm Batman. This is awesome.

AZ Tony Stark:

This is so cool. But, you know Badass. Pick, yeah, pick someone pick pick a character that you identify with, that you have a passion for, and just do the best you can with it. And then and then once you do that one, then you'll start looking around and seeing some other characters that you might like, and you go from there. But I think starting out, you just pick a character that you have a passion for.

AZ Tony Stark:

Have fun with it. It doesn't care if you look just like the character or not. It really doesn't. Just have fun with it.

Jenn:

Okay.

Tay:

I love that answer. I love it. So I wanted to know, how many Ironman suits do you actually have? Because I've seen a couple on your Instagram, but I just wanted to know exactly, like, how many.

AZ Tony Stark:

Well, not that many. Right now well, over the years, I've had he has 85 in the movies. I've probably had at least 20 different suits. But Oh

Jenn:

my god. Okay.

AZ Tony Stark:

But, yeah, I'm I'm like the George Clooney of of of cosplayers. I don't marry any of my suits. I date them. Or maybe yeah. Okay.

AZ Tony Stark:

So so the only the there there's this suit. This is from the Mark 43. I was telling you guys earlier. It's from the Mark 43, and this is the suit that we kinda started, cause, common care with 10 years ago. I'll never get rid of this suit, but the other ones, I've gotten rid of so many different suits.

AZ Tony Stark:

Right now, I have the mark 85, I have that 43, and I have the I have the mark 40. I'm working on a mark 7 right now. But

Jenn:

Okay.

AZ Tony Stark:

But, yeah, I I I don't I I you see all these pictures I've had over the years. I've had so many, and they come in my memories all the time. Like, oh, that was cool. That was cool. And and some of them were so uncomfortable.

AZ Tony Stark:

I'm like, I got rid of them because they weren't comfortable. Some of them Gotcha. Just warm out. Some of them, I just didn't like the the look as much as others, but, yeah, I go through a lot of them. I, if if to if if I lost the suit I had right now, I start working on a new one or or I've worked with Real Awesome Works over the years.

AZ Tony Stark:

And it's it's RAW. His name is the the the page is Real Awesome Works, but he also goes by raw. He is one of the best phone builders in the world. He's really good. So I've been working with him where now he'll he'll just send me something, and he doesn't paint it or seal it or he just gives me the raw build of the foam, and I do all the paint.

AZ Tony Stark:

I seal it. I paint it. I add the lights and and rig it the way I want it rigged because I rig my Ironman suits a little differently than most Ironman cosplayers do.

Jenn:

Right.

AZ Tony Stark:

Because I have to have a lot of mobility. I wanna be able to dance. I wanna be able to move. I wanna be able to stay in it for hours if I need to.

Jenn:

And Right.

Jenn/Tay/Tony:

For

AZ Tony Stark:

me, it's it's there's a lot of suits that are beautiful, and they've got so many different things. They've got all the electronics, and they have all the little servos and things popping out and moving. But I need something a little more practical, something that I can stay in for 3 hours at a time at minimum.

Jenn:

Mhmm. It's something

AZ Tony Stark:

that I can move around with, and I can that I have to do upkeep on, but I don't have to, like, worry about the circuitry on the thing. It's it's a whole different thing that I'm looking for. Anyway Sure. So so it it would it takes me about 2 months to build, an Ironman suit that I like. It takes

Jenn:

me about

AZ Tony Stark:

the same amount of time to get one from him and to to rig it the way I want it rigged and paint it. Anyway but, yeah, I have 3 suits right now, but I also have Batman and I have Wolverine and I have doctor Strange and I and all Shazam and Superman. I've got I've got a good I've got a good, closet full of costumes right now.

Jenn:

And, you have another one of my personal favorites as I saw that you had a yes. Doctor Strange you know, the we have a particular friend that is, has some issues with, doctor Strange. Not the cosplayer, obviously, but with the MCU. He shall remain nameless. But if you know Do

Tay:

you know who you are?

Jenn:

You know who you are. I do notice that you are I've seen you cosplay as Indiana Jones.

AZ Tony Stark:

Yes. Yes. I had a good time with that. We got we got hired by this every year, we get Sorry. So so every year, we get hired by the Scottsdale Princess Resort.

AZ Tony Stark:

And the 1st year we got hired, we were they wanted us to be just Avengers. So that was easy. I did Iron Man and and just we did superheroes all summer. And then the next year, they had a they they was out of this world, so we were astronauts, and they bought, like, legit, like, astronaut suits, like, the full thing with the helmet, the the the the the mirrored visor and everything. So and it's a good gig.

AZ Tony Stark:

I mean, it's like $50 an hour to show up and just, like, take pictures with people. I'm like, okay. I'll do that on the weekends. Sure. And then and then this what was it?

AZ Tony Stark:

Then then we did Indiana Jones. And this past year, we did Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Side note, if anybody's ever thinking about being a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle, don't do it. Ever. Don't ever do that.

AZ Tony Stark:

It's the worst costume ever. Will

Jenn:

you be listening? Don't do it.

AZ Tony Stark:

Latex rubber from top top to bottom. Like, go find yourself

Jenn/Tay/Tony:

a

AZ Tony Stark:

a body condom and put it on for a few hours. That's exactly what you're doing. You can't breathe.

Jenn:

Body condom?

AZ Tony Stark:

You're you're like, literally, we're taking the hands off and dumping out the sweat from them on our brakes. It is so I do. We were losing about £10 for every 4 hour shift we do. It was ridiculous. Okay.

AZ Tony Stark:

So yeah. But the year before that, we did Indiana Jones. It was super cool. So Indiana Jones was neat.

Jenn:

We we have Eric Johnson. He said he he, volunteers to be your short round if you, ever need more. Alright. Awesome. I think that kinda answered my question about, what's your least favorite part of cosplaying right there is, sometimes the suits are, I'm got, like, ridiculously hot and sweaty.

Jenn:

There was somebody before in Hollywood. Yeah.

AZ Tony Stark:

I say I've gotten really good at picking costumes or making the costume comfortable for me. Like

Jenn:

Okay.

AZ Tony Stark:

And the other thing is helmets. I don't like wearing helmets.

Jenn:

I don't like wearing

AZ Tony Stark:

helmets at all. So do you see most of my like, that was one of the most comfortable costumes I've ever had. That was Really? Comfortable. Oh, yeah.

Tay:

He was dancing in

Jenn/Tay/Tony:

it. Comfortable. Mhmm.

Jenn:

I like it. That does not look comfortable, so I'm surprised.

AZ Tony Stark:

Super comfortable.

Jenn:

Really? In fact,

AZ Tony Stark:

if you look at most of the armor costumes that I have, those are the ones that Iron Man or Buzz or any of those. Sorry. Excuse me. You're okay. People always like, are you hot?

AZ Tony Stark:

Are you okay? I'm like, I'm fine. Because because I've got an undersuit that's but usually just spandex underneath me, so that's not hot.

Jenn:

Right.

AZ Tony Stark:

Then there's gaps in the suit where I get lots of airflow. The, like like, our Captain America Captain America and Wolverine that I wore last night, that's that's thick material, and it's, like, 2 or 3 layers thick

Jenn/Tay/Tony:

Mhmm.

AZ Tony Stark:

On there. And, like, Captain America is and then he has a cowl that he wear or his Captain America helmet. Uh-huh. That that poor guy, he's way hotter than I am. And the and the fact that I can be Tony Stark without wearing the helmet, people ask me, why don't you put on the helmet?

AZ Tony Stark:

K. There's two answers to that. The first one is first one is the the real reason is I hate wearing a helmet, and it's hot, and it's terrible. The second one is the smart aleck answer where I say, well, any 19 year old any 90 year old kid can put on Ironman suit, put on the helmet and be Ironman. Mhmm.

AZ Tony Stark:

This takes, like, 50 years of of

Jenn/Tay/Tony:

seasoning to beat the one star. You know? You got

Jenn:

you make the the answer.

AZ Tony Stark:

Work for you at that point. So that that that's the smart aleck answer, but that's also true. But the the the real answer is when we first started, I did wear the helmet quite a bit, but I'd walk into a room where the kids would just it's a real aggressive looking helmet. If you look at Iron Man's helmet, it's like he has it's like he has, like, a frown almost right here. Right.

AZ Tony Stark:

And when you walk in, it's really intimidating for that's my mouse, by the way. It looks so sore. Cool.

Tay:

That's amazing.

Jenn/Tay/Tony:

But That's possible. But if

AZ Tony Stark:

you walk kids, it's very intimidating for the kids, and they would some of the younger kids would freak out. So real early on, we realized, like, for comic care, when we do visits, we just use the helmet as, like, a prop, and the

Jenn:

kids

AZ Tony Stark:

could hold the helmet in the pictures and stuff.

Jenn:

Okay.

AZ Tony Stark:

But, yeah, I stay away from helmets. I stay away from cowls. Even my Batman cowl is more like a helmet where those rubber latex cowls if you ever see a a someone cosplaying Batman Right. Give them all the sympathy and all the love because that's miserable. It's so miserable.

AZ Tony Stark:

You can't see. You can't turn

Jenn:

your head. Imagine.

AZ Tony Stark:

I said, I will never do Batman again unless I can make get something that's comfortable. And the Batman that I have now is so comfortable. I can spend 8 hours in that. No problem. But it's the first Batman that I've ever done where because the Batman suit that I have now is built like an Ironman suit.

AZ Tony Stark:

It it's it's armored and it has it has all the same pieces that my Ironman suits do. It's very comfy.

Jenn:

When you showed us earlier? Yeah. Yeah. Mind showing?

AZ Tony Stark:

It's an arkhamite style. Oh, Arkham Knight style. Oh. So it's it's kinda like an Ironman style. It has the gauntlets.

AZ Tony Stark:

It has the shoulders. It has the thighs.

Jenn:

Yeah. The And that's not heavy?

AZ Tony Stark:

Not at all. Not at all. Like, the whole thing weighs, like, like, £12 max.

Jenn:

Okay. Wow. That's not bad at all. Shoot. Yeah.

AZ Tony Stark:

The the EVA foam is super super light.

Tay:

So is this costume also made out of foam and your, Stormtrooper that was in the back?

AZ Tony Stark:

So the Stormtrooper is is is the it's that's got PVA like a plastic

Jenn:

on that. Okay.

AZ Tony Stark:

So that that one yeah, but but this is the the the suit that you see me in there there, that's that's EVA foam. All of my suit all of my Ironman suits I wear over the years and the ones that I'll continue to wear are made from EVA, the the dense foam. And it's just about how you seal it and and how you paint it to where it looks like metal.

Jenn:

Alright. Well, I mean, I've, I've watched Face Off, but I definitely, as far as, like, fabricating and stuff, you keep talking about EVA foam, and I'm like, I don't think I have any idea what that is. It's been so long since I I watched that. Is that what the It's, it comes in rolls. About EBA foam?

AZ Tony Stark:

Yeah. So it comes in rolls like this, and it's just it's foam, but it's pretty dense. And the good stuff is like like this is a good EVA foam. It's very

Jenn:

dense,

AZ Tony Stark:

hard.

Jenn:

Okay.

AZ Tony Stark:

So you cut you cut your you have your patterns. You cut you cut the foam. It's kinda like working with, like, paper dolls for when you're cutting the the patterns out. And

Jenn:

Okay.

AZ Tony Stark:

And then you glue it together. Some people use hot glue. I don't like hot glue because I think it's messy, and we live in a place where it's so hot that sometimes it can melt and come apart, fall apart.

Jenn:

Gotcha.

AZ Tony Stark:

Yeah. But, so I use contact cement for everything. And, use a I've used a wood burning kit to to put a lot of the detail into my into my builds. But, once you've got it built, then you then you hit it with a hot with with a heat gun Mhmm.

Jenn:

And you

AZ Tony Stark:

seal it with heat. That seals all the because if you look closely at a at, you can see it's it's got it's kinda porous.

Tay:

So when

AZ Tony Stark:

you hit it with the heat gun, it closes those pores up and it actually changes it actually has a shine to it then. Then you can seal it with a few different ways. You can seal it with, like, plasti dip, which is what I used to do on everything. You can use Mod Podge, and a lot of times, if you don't have a place that's ventilated really well, you can use Mod Podge so you don't have all the fumes, and that works really well. But the other thing that we found that I started using in the last few years is there's a as a sealant that people use for concrete that, you know when you see concrete that's really shiny?

Tay:

Yeah. Mhmm.

AZ Tony Stark:

That sealant, you use that to seal it and that gives you a really shiny base. When you paint

Jenn/Tay/Tony:

it, you

AZ Tony Stark:

can when you paint it, it almost looks like a like like like like a automotive finish, like an, the finish you'd have on a on a car.

Tay:

That's super neat. That's super neat. So, we actually did have Eric ask us a question earlier on, before the interview, and he had asked, what do you like best, pie or cake?

AZ Tony Stark:

Gosh. I'm a pie guy, but I love cake. I I mean, is it too much is it Tony Stark answer would be, is it too much to ask for both?

Tay:

Of course, you can have both, but we're asking

AZ Tony Stark:

you to If I could just have one, I love apple pie. I love I love Tennessee lemon pie.

Tay:

Do you like it in a la mode with, like, an ice cream?

AZ Tony Stark:

So yeah. And there's a triple berry I love what like, a triple berry, like a razzleberry pie as they call it. Mhmm. When that's hot with with vanilla ice cream

Jenn/Tay/Tony:

Oh, it's

Jenn:

so good. Ice cream.

AZ Tony Stark:

Oh, good.

Jenn:

So, you know, with your fabricating, have have you ever considered or do you have a YouTube account for fabricating? Because,

AZ Tony Stark:

Yeah. I've thought I've thought about doing that in the past, but, yeah, I there's just so many there's so many builders out there that do so good. Like, Sean Zhang, he does he he has some tutorials that I've learned so much from.

Jenn:

Okay.

AZ Tony Stark:

But and they're so like, Cosplay Mike. There's a bunch of them that on there that do so good. I don't know. For me, I think maybe it's just that I'm just I've been doing it for a long time, and I and I know a lot of tricks, but maybe it's just I I'm not like I look at them. I think they're so good.

AZ Tony Stark:

I'm like, I don't think I'm like, I don't know if I'm good enough to put it to do that. But

Jenn:

well, kinda like Eric Johnson said, that was actually the biggest part of why I used to watch Face Off is, I really enjoyed the fabrication part. Just watching someone, even from, you know, building a cosplay to even something, someone, making something at like molding something at a clay or whatever. Just seeing them work and, like, the end result. And, my, 2 of my kids are autistic, and they love watching videos like that. And, I absolutely wouldn't have, but once they watched it, I was like, man, this is cool.

Jenn:

Where'd you guys find this? And they tell me, and I'm like, oh. And, you'd be surprised.

AZ Tony Stark:

Sometimes when I'm building, I'll go I'll I'll do a live feed like like you guys saw me do today. I do I'll do a live feed while I'm building sometimes, and people people watch me build. And that's I'm just I'll look up every so often and answer a question here and there, but I just Right. Turn it on and start building. I think that'll be fun.

Jenn:

I think that'll be fun to

AZ Tony Stark:

do. I just this is one of those things that I I I think that I think I will probably always be doing this in some version. I I may get to the point where I'm too old to be a hero anymore.

Tay:

And girls, Xavier. I mean, shit. They use in a wheelchair. Like, you

Jenn:

can, professor.

AZ Tony Stark:

And I'll be pushing the cart for people, but but I'll always be building, and I'll always and and and and I'll always be making sure that that the heroes that are in common care look great. But, but, yeah, I think that that may be something I might get into later on. I think right now, I'm just

Jenn:

Yeah.

AZ Tony Stark:

My plate's pretty full with just setting up visits and going on visits and working and being a dad and all that good stuff.

Jenn:

Yeah. Oh, and our our buddy, Mac also says you can also go for old man Logan too. So, you know, there's always some fun

AZ Tony Stark:

stuff down the road. So much fun being Wolverine lately. Like, the last in the last week, I just finished my my new Wolverine costume, and I I love that. I I Right. Yeah.

AZ Tony Stark:

I've gotten a lot of good response out of it, and I like being I like characters that are very iconic. It's fun.

Jenn:

Right. For

AZ Tony Stark:

me, I like being I like if I'm gonna put a lot of time and energy into a character, I want it to be something like Batman or Ironman or or Wolverine, something like that.

Jenn:

Right.

AZ Tony Stark:

Superman where even someone who doesn't follow comp or isn't huge in the comic books will know who that character is. And the worst thing is to put in so much time into a costume for me, at least. It's putting a ton of time into costume and someone go, who are you? And and who are you then? Like, well so I I always look to do something.

AZ Tony Stark:

I like the the really iconic characters, but I've had I had so much fun. I I never thought I could pull off Wolverine. And then this past week, I'm like, well, actually actually, that is something I can do. So that's been fun.

Jenn:

Right. So So, William are go ahead. Go ahead.

Tay:

Willie in the comments, he's asking if that's going to be debuting at this year's, fan fusion is your, Wolverine costume.

AZ Tony Stark:

Yes. Wolverine will be I'll be there Saturday at the Comic Care booth as Wolverine, and I think I'm pretty sure we're gonna have Deadpool cameo there with us. Deadpool Cameo has been a friend of Comic Care for about 6 years now, and he has his own, charity as well, Cameo Courage, where they they so it works kind of in tandem with us. Like, we drop off comic books to the kids, and then he sets up their their charity sets up little reading corners for the kids that are that are comic themed. So if you see it, it's like they find a place in the in the hospital where they can set up and they they wrap the walls with all these it looks like it's just like the coolest place to sit and want read a comic book.

Jenn:

I love that.

AZ Tony Stark:

Yeah. So so so so we do we work hand in hand with Cameo Courage, and, it's a lot of fun. But Mhmm. He'll be at our booth, so we'll have and if you've if you've had a chance to see Deadpool Cameo, I mean, he gets his suits from the same studio that makes the suits for the for for the movies. And

Tay:

I hope no way. They're

AZ Tony Stark:

amazing. And he's built he he's built you would think that Ryan Reynolds is their standard. Like, the first when I first started working with him years ago, I geeked out so much. Like, every time I would do a photo shoot with him or do a hospital with him Yeah. I look over and like it's like Deadpool's hair.

AZ Tony Stark:

It's like the Deadpool's hair.

Jenn:

He's the Deadpool's hair. He's awesome.

AZ Tony Stark:

He's the best Deadpool care he does he's the best Deadpool in the country outside of Ryan Reynolds. He's so good. And he's done he's done things with with with Liefeld, with Rob Liefeld. He's done he's he's been recognized by Ryan Reynolds. He's he's really, really good.

Jenn:

Really?

AZ Tony Stark:

Anyway yeah.

Jenn:

I don't

AZ Tony Stark:

know Reynold. That's him right there. That's a lot of that's him dancing. If if the video started going, you can see us dancing there, but he's

Tay:

It's quite amazing.

AZ Tony Stark:

Yeah. But but, so so it was a lot of pressure for me to put together a Wolverine that could share the stage with his Deadpool. So that that's that's for me, it was like a lot. I and when I was putting the the Deadpool character together, I got I got the suit and it fit perfect, and And I was like, this is really cool. Mhmm.

AZ Tony Stark:

Like but it's perf it's so pretty right now. It can't stay pretty because this because

Jenn:

it

AZ Tony Stark:

should be, like, beat up and everything. Yeah. And here I am, like like, I got this brand new beautiful suit. It fits me perfect, and I have to start cutting it and, like, burning it. And this So I had my wood burning kit, and I'm, like, burning, like, full holes in it.

AZ Tony Stark:

I'm freaking out. I'm, like, I'm either gonna ruin this suit. I'm either ruining the suit right now or I'm gonna make it it's gonna be either really cool or it's gonna be garbage when I'm done with this. So, I I don't know. If you you'll see you'll see the pictures on my page.

AZ Tony Stark:

I I've posted some. We're gonna have some professional pictures that are being edited as we speak right now.

Jenn:

Okay.

AZ Tony Stark:

So you'll be able to see some of those, but I love how it's come out so far. But knock on wood, it came out okay. But, yeah, the when you're when you've got a brand new suit and you're, like, taking it, like, burning holes in it and slashing it and and, like

Jenn:

I can imagine.

Jenn/Tay/Tony:

Firing it

AZ Tony Stark:

with blood and and and spraying it with black paint. You're like,

Jenn:

like, cool. Especially when you spent, like, your own money, like, making this, and then you have to kind of, like,

AZ Tony Stark:

Well, yeah, that cinematic, I just do it. Not just the money you spent, but you're already contracted to promote a movie coming out with the we work with the marketing team, the Allied Allied Marketing. So we work with them, and they market just about all of the here at Super Hero movies, DC and Marvel that come out. So we're we're gonna be promoting for them, and we promote for Harkins, and we pro so we're doing all these promotions, and we're hired to do that. So

Jenn:

I'm like,

AZ Tony Stark:

well, if I screw this up, I'm gonna have I I have no choice, but I'll have to buy a new one.

Tay:

Yeah. And do this all over again.

AZ Tony Stark:

Oh, man. Oh. That and that's if it gets certain times. Mhmm. Anyway

Jenn:

So are we are we gonna be seeing more of your Wolverine and Deadpool, especially with the movie coming out soon? I was gonna say, I'm like, that movie's coming out soon. I'm like, we're probably gonna see you, like, like, something ridiculousness.

AZ Tony Stark:

Was just was just a one time just for the movie, and I probably do appearances for 3 2 or 3 weeks for the when the the movie comes out. But the the reaction I've gotten and the the results I got were I just I love that suit. I love it so much. That's gonna be a rotation for a long time, I think. I'm gonna keep it.

AZ Tony Stark:

With all of the with with that's the only big superhero movie coming out this year. And with all of the hype, I'm hooked on it too. The the the X Men 97 that came out with all the hype around, that's so good right now. If you guys haven't watched 97, you should watch that. It's really good.

Jenn:

Oh, okay.

Jenn/Tay/Tony:

With all

AZ Tony Stark:

the hype around that Yeah. It's, it's a good year to be an X Men. So this is my first X Men cosplay I've ever done, so I was just having a lot of fun with it right now.

Jenn:

Okay. Yeah.

AZ Tony Stark:

It was actually at our shoot last night. 1 of my friends brought his son, and his son was decked out in the same Wolverine suit I was wearing.

Jenn/Tay/Tony:

So we

AZ Tony Stark:

have a lot going with that.

Jenn/Tay/Tony:

Yeah. Yeah.

Jenn:

I love it.

AZ Tony Stark:

Tell me story right now, you guys. If you haven't seen it, go check it out.

Tay:

Yeah. No. It's it's it's amazing. And to see the Wolverine costume, because you had posted photos of it prior to dirtying it up, to seeing it now, with, like, the marks and stuff on it. It it has been, like, an amazing, like, just to, like, watch it, like, happen.

Tay:

So that's really cool.

AZ Tony Stark:

When it was clean, it looked good, but it just went flat. And I was like, I don't want it to be clean. I I wanted to look like I've and then when I when they put the put out the trailer and you could see, like, the bullet holes as well, I I literally had like, I freeze to that picture. I I left it, up on the screen for me. I'm like, look.

Jenn:

You know?

AZ Tony Stark:

I burned it right there. I, like,

Jenn/Tay/Tony:

ended up the hole there. I went on.

Jenn:

Well, I mean, let's let's just admit that Wolverine is never gonna be unscathed or unburned or anything. Like, he's always gonna have, like, no battle damage. Aren't you

AZ Tony Stark:

gonna aren't you gonna put any cuts on your I'm like, no. Because Wolverine, his

Jenn:

his shoes gonna get

AZ Tony Stark:

get beat up, but his face shouldn't have any cuts or bruises or he chronically heals up right away. Yeah. But it is kinda neat. I was able to to do when I did the bullet holes the way I burned it, it looks like there's still a bullet in there. Really?

AZ Tony Stark:

And we see it up close. And then and, like, all the bullet holes I I took, like, I took black and red and black paint and kept it real thick, and I just took a sponge and I just kinda dabbed it in there. Looks all yeah. So it's it's kinda fun. I had so much fun with that one.

Jenn/Tay/Tony:

That's awesome.

Jenn:

Like, even even showing people how you how you do that. Just just because, like, tan are are obviously not nowhere near your your caliber of cross play, but even just having, like, you know, videos of people showing us how to to do those things, because I went very, simply this year because it's my first time ever, doing that. But but, yeah, just even having somebody to that would show you, like, how to do something. That way, I don't, like, epically ruin a a cosplay outfit. I'm pushing you towards YouTube, so if you haven't noticed, I'm sorry.

AZ Tony Stark:

Oh, the the the one the nice thing is that you could just go and cut it, but for me, it worked great using a wood burning kit because because when you burn the holes and you and you use that to do the slices where so I didn't just take a knife and cut it because then you'd have the the material fraying and

Jenn:

and Yeah. And it would and it would controlled. Yeah.

AZ Tony Stark:

When you burn it, it cauterizes the material as well. So you don't have the material is not fraying and you don't have, like you know how how when you cut something, it just kinda, like Sure. Yeah. Yeah. And it can continue splitting even further.

Tay:

Mhmm. When you

AZ Tony Stark:

burn it, it caught it, like, cauterized it where it doesn't it doesn't do that. So that was perfect. That was perfect for me.

Jenn:

I love that you said wood burning because I used to dabble in word burning, so I actually have a kit. So I'm like, I'm gonna have to dabble with that later.

AZ Tony Stark:

Well, then it that's that's how I get all of the that's how I get put all the detail work on my foam work is that, I yeah. You you you can use the wood burning kit underneath the foam and then bend it, and then it's it kinda stays on stuff where you can get some really nice, like, ridges, or you can burn it on the top and then and just do lots of, like, detail work on it. It's it's so much fun. It's really satisfying while you're doing it. It's, like, pretty

Jenn:

cool. So did did someone did you just figure this out by trial and error? Did somebody actually show you?

AZ Tony Stark:

Over the years, I've had a lot of people that that that I know personally and a lot of people, like, on Okay. Watch YouTube videos. Like, Sean Zhang. I can't say him enough. Sean Zhang is if if I if if if, like, if you said, Tony, I wanna learn how to to do foam work, I would send you to to his YouTube video.

AZ Tony Stark:

Zhang starts with an x, seanxiangseang, s e a n, and Zhang starts with xiang. Anyway but if you go to his YouTube channel, he makes it so simple. Like, you you can buy his, his patterns for, like, $5 each or even some are even cheap, like, $3. You can buy the pattern on his Etsy, and then each pattern has a YouTube video where he does step by step, goes through with you, shows you how he burns in everything. Yeah.

AZ Tony Stark:

It is so it makes it so so and so that for me, he's he's like the this channel you go to for, like, I don't know, phone building 101. And that's that's your basic basic, and they look good. And he shows you from from the first step to the last step how to build each one of his things, and they look great. So so that's that's, to me, that's that's first step 1. And then once you get used to that and do a few of those, then you start using his stuff just as as a template.

AZ Tony Stark:

Like, I'll use, like, his stuff for just like a template for this Batman or a template for the Thor suit. I just did a Thor I call it Thorso. It's a torso. I did a Thorso for a friend of mine, and he wanted one from the dark world and there's no template for that. So I just use the base that I found from Sean, and then I then I do I use that as a base, and I use all of the and then I make my own, like, stuff on all of the detail work I do on my own just looking at pictures and free handing it.

AZ Tony Stark:

That's where it gets really fun. So you use that. You you go use that as your base and you just build off of that.

Jenn:

Yeah. So that's what it was kinda sound like. You kinda get the basics from him, and then it kinda sounds like you kinda got the the hang of it. So now you're kind of like, I got this. How can I do this?

Jenn:

Help. Exactly. Yeah. That's awesome. I I absolutely love that you fabricate your own stuff because, you know, I'm I'm very much in the realm of looking on Amazon and and Etsy and different sites of, like, trying to find myself right now and I'm not there.

Jenn:

Yes.

AZ Tony Stark:

I'll do that too.

Jenn:

It's okay. Yeah.

AZ Tony Stark:

Yeah. And really it depends. If it's a costume that I wanna keep for a long time Uh-huh. Like like the Wolverine, I will put a lot of time and effort into making sure. Like, I built the boots for it.

AZ Tony Stark:

I built the gauntlets for it because I wanna because I'm gonna keep it. Yeah. I'll put the time and money into a suit that I'm gonna keep. Yeah. But it's something where it's a movie that comes out, they just want us to promote it for the one weekend.

AZ Tony Stark:

I'll get I'll find something off sim cosplay or or 1 or pro cosplay, and it is what it is. I can make it and and I can doctor it up to look good good enough for the weekend. That's fine. I'll I'll be fine. Or, you know, the others there's other times when they they tell us ahead of time where, like, for when the first Dune movie came out.

AZ Tony Stark:

When the first Dune movie came out, there was no templates. There were you couldn't buy a costume. You couldn't do anything. And so I just had to go off of some some pictures I found off that they had from set photos. Just kinda do it by hand and just kinda freehand the whole thing.

AZ Tony Stark:

And, looking back, I'm like, well, they don't look exactly like like the ones that you bought that you can buy now, but we did them a year before you could buy them. And that was fun. So I was able to make the whole I did 5 different suits 5 suits for the premiere of Dune, the first Dune movie. And,

Jenn:

I I actually I actually didn't see those. Were you were you playing a particular character? Were you making the Yeah. Like, what were you

AZ Tony Stark:

So my my friend, Andy, he's our Captain America. His son looks a lot like the, what's his say? The

Jenn:

Is it Timothy Chalamet?

AZ Tony Stark:

Yeah. He looks a lot like Timothy Chalamet, and he grew us out. Yeah. Look. He's spot on.

AZ Tony Stark:

And my daughter played Zendaya. I I played, what was his name? I can't think right now. He his the actor was the one who played Thanos.

Jenn:

I can't

AZ Tony Stark:

think of the name of the character. Anyway, so we have

Jenn:

remember the character's name. If anybody remembers the character's name, please throw it at the net.

AZ Tony Stark:

Yeah. Thank you so much. I'm so terrible about that. But your friend. But but, yeah, it was fun, and it it was so much fun because people were like, wait.

AZ Tony Stark:

Who made these costumes? Like, I did. I made them. I made it.

Jenn:

I made them.

AZ Tony Stark:

Thank you very much. Thank you. And then we used them again for the Dune 2 when that came out. So we just finished using them again, and and that was a lot of fun. But but sometimes you have a pattern, sometimes you don't have a pattern, Sometimes it's just I so, okay.

AZ Tony Stark:

I'm just gonna I'm just buying this costume. I'm gonna make it look as good as I can. It's just for one weekend. I'll get paid enough to to to pay for the costume and then some, and then I'll sell the costume when it's done. And, but it just really depends.

AZ Tony Stark:

If it but if it's something that I'm gonna keep for a long time, that's when I'll I'll do the effort to actually fabricate a lot of stuff for myself.

Jenn:

And get made. Okay. Okay. Cool. Cool.

Jenn:

Cool. Cool. Good to know. Well, I, Tony, I absolutely learned a lot, and I've actually enjoyed so much having you here. Thank you so much for taking the time out of your busy schedule to talk to the queens of nerdom and, the That Feeling podcast network.

Jenn:

Fast.

AZ Tony Stark:

Are you kidding? We I we've been we've been talking for, like, almost an hour and a half now.

Jenn:

Yeah. Yeah.

Jenn/Tay/Tony:

We've been this week. Wow.

Jenn:

We have. We we try to make it painless when you you come on and, talk to us and talk to our peoples.

AZ Tony Stark:

Well, you only asked me, like, 3 questions. I talked

Jenn/Tay/Tony:

way too much, and then

AZ Tony Stark:

I and I was like, oh, wow. Why did I talk so much?

Jenn:

You know, I actually kept track of all of our questions. And, with you talking, I mean, yeah, I mean, I I I honestly was so entranced by a lot of your stories and, my my, no.

Tay:

No. No. No. I,

Jenn:

I mean, I can I can definitely identify with you because, the whole reason I got into nursing was because of kids? So I love that you you do the common care, and it definitely, resonates with me because I I love kids, and I I love taking care of them. And, I love that you you do that. So because I'm on the other or I have been on the other side of things. So seeing I can put myself in that position, seeing you come in and cheer up my patient, like, absolutely means the world to their, their care.

Jenn:

So I

AZ Tony Stark:

love that. You know what? It's not just the kids. It's not it it's their it's their parents. It's their siblings.

AZ Tony Stark:

They're in there for hours and hours all the time. So Yeah. They're there. Even we go into a room and the kid's obviously way too young for a comic book, I'm always making sure that I'd ask the parents, hey. Would you like some comic books to read while you're here?

AZ Tony Stark:

And and Right. 9 times out of 10, they're like, sure. So I it's not just the kid I'm not just leaving comic books for the for the kids. I'm I'm leaving comic books for their for their families too, for their for their parents, for their siblings. It's not just the so yeah.

AZ Tony Stark:

It's it's for the it's really for me. It's it's just as much for the whole family as it is just for the child that's in there.

Tay:

Yeah. It's a support system.

AZ Tony Stark:

Yeah. So many times I've had I've had someone I'm asking, I say, they're a little bit older and, like, would you like some comic books? And they're like, no. I'm like, well, do you have any do you have a little brother or sister? I'm like, yeah.

AZ Tony Stark:

I'm like, can't you go leave some for them when they come to visit you? I'm like, sure. So Yeah.

Jenn:

Well, I mean, there's, that's definitely something my my kids have started to venture in his books and everything. And and just, I'm an avid book reader. Tay can make fun of me. I know she wants to, but I'm an avid no. You can, though.

Jenn:

I'm an avid book reader, and I don't always delve into comic books. But I I love that, break from reality just to go into a different place and just just be. And I love that you bring that to them and give them a break from what their situation is and you know? I love I absolutely love that that you do that. I cannot give you enough kudos and and bows and applause for that.

Jenn:

I think that's awesome, dude. I I wish I still lived out in Arizona because I had 100%, like, I support you from Virginia, but, you know, I I think that's amazing. I think that's amazing. I love that you do that.

AZ Tony Stark:

I'm I'm I'm always very humbled when someone says something that like that to me or any of our team. I always and and I've always said from day 1, I have as much fun or more than the kids do. I really do. And for me, it's hard to even take credit for it when it's something that you're having so much fun doing. And, so it's it's it is it's very it's a fun thing.

AZ Tony Stark:

It's something I love. And and thank you to you guys for having me, and thank you to anyone who turned in and who will tune in. And and, yeah, I I appreciate all of you so much. But, thank you. This was this was as much fun as I hoped it would be and even more so.

AZ Tony Stark:

So so anybody who's thinking about coming on to your to your podcast, you guys, it's a lot of fun. Do it. And,

Jenn:

if anytime you guys want

AZ Tony Stark:

me back, I'm I'm more than happy to come back with you guys. This is great. Thank you so much.

Jenn:

Thank you. And we we definitely wanna have a post fan fusion, encore because, Tay and I and our, our bestie Willie will be out there. So So we'll definitely be looking for your booth, looking for you and, JJ, and I think Nick as well. So we'll be looking for our peeps. So we'll be looking for your booth, and and, hopefully, we can do some interviews while you're out there.

AZ Tony Stark:

I would say, if you're ever looking for for if you you mean as you go through, if you're looking for a guest, I mean, I would love to to recommend either Andrew Gordon, which is our AZ Captain America, or AZ Captain America and I can both come on at the same time, and he's amazing. He's really good.

Jenn/Tay/Tony:

Oh, lovely. Of us.

AZ Tony Stark:

We've been working with each other. We've done so many hospital visits together that I'm sure you'd get a whole different set of of of stories from from us as well. So we'd love to do that, and and this is a really neat way for us to share what we do. And thank you so much for the opportunity to give me the opportunity to share what Common Core does. I really appreciate it.

Jenn:

Yeah. I love that. Absolutely. Yeah. We'll definitely, we'll definitely come and find you guys, while we're out there, and I I really look forward to that.

Jenn:

That's gonna be awesome. Thank you.

AZ Tony Stark:

I thank you so much.

Tay:

Again, thank you for coming out, and thank you for everybody that tuned in. Falling Star, which is our tabletop role playing game or TTRPG for short, part 11 had, come out on Friday. So on 26th, we're still playing, you know, we have another 2 sessions forward, that the are going to be getting prior to everybody as it releases. So stay tuned for that. Check it out.

Tay:

It's, like, super fun. It's been an amazing time, being able to delve into that. Also, we do have the d f p n dot com site that is up and rolling, thanks to Black, from the smoke pit and, no gimmicks podcast. So we streamed live to that tonight. So super great to be able to be a part of that website and, really even to see, you know, USDN to be a part of it.

Tay:

And, I'm look for I'm looking forward to Smoke Pit doing their, 1st Fridays on that. Again, we have Phoenix Fan Fusion coming May 24th to 26th. As you guys have heard this entire time, Jen will be there, I will be there, and Willie will be there. We will all be cos playing, Monday Saturday. Maybe Sunday, we'll see.

Tay:

But right now, we absolutely know that Monday Saturday will be a thing. But thank you again, AZ Tony Stark, for coming out. Where can everybody find you just so we know?

AZ Tony Stark:

Oh, gosh. AZ Tony Shark, you can find me on Facebook. AZ Tony Shark at Instagram and AZ Tony Shark on TikTok. I think I have aaz20shark on Facebook on on on YouTube, but I don't really use that that much. Anyway but yeah.

AZ Tony Stark:

And you find Comic Care. Comic Care is you can find that. Comic Care is all one word, c o m I c a r e, so it's kinda split put together. You can find ComicCare on Facebook or Instagram as well.

Tay:

Awesome. Well, thank you so much again for coming out. It's it's been amazing getting to knowing you and, getting to knowing you. Anyway, getting to know you. And, we look forward to meeting you face to face at, Phoenix Infusion.

Tay:

It's been so

AZ Tony Stark:

Can't wait. Make sure you come by the booth. I'll be there the whole time.

Jenn:

Okay. Well, absolutely. Yeah. Take care. Alright.

Jenn:

Oh. And don't forget our, the d f p n dot com actually has a new website. So if you want to check us out there, the Queens of Nerdom has a link in there if you wanna check us out.

Tay:

Yeah. Peace.

Jenn:

Alright. Peace out. Bye.

Ep 24: "AZ Tony Stark Interview"

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