We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Amit Tishler a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Amit, so great to have you with us and we want to jump right into a really important question. In recent years, it’s become so clear that we’re living through a time where so many folks are lacking self-confidence and self-esteem. So, we’d love to hear about your journey and how you developed your self-confidence and self-esteem.
I embraced my weirdness, and defined my view of failure and success. Knowing who I am, and what I want, did wonders for my self-esteem. I believe that the first step of gaining confidence is defining what confidence is, or at least what it means to you. To me personally, confidence doesn’t have to come from knowledge or by mastering a specific skill. It comes from trusting your ability to figure things out on the go.
It’s important to note that success is a relative, and persona, ever-shifting goalpost. I built my professional career with a roadmap, and a clear set of goals. Failure is just part of the learning process, so embracing it, instead of fearing it, allowed me to take on new challenges with less hesitation…and that’s what confidence is, right? The willingness to fail faster, learn faster, and come back stronger and smarter each time.
Let’s take a small detour – maybe you can share a bit about yourself before we dive back into some of the other questions we had for you?
I spent my entire career working in the intersection of media and technology. I started off as a 2D animator and production artist, and my endless zigzagging between interactive entertainment and traditional media eventually led me to co-found a venture backed media-tech startup, PopBase, with a couple of partners, and become a skilled cross-disciplinary director. Over the last decade I’ve acted as a creative director, producer, writer and designer for both branded and original games, interactive experiences, authoring tools, comic-books, TV shows, audio dramas and more. Things got extra interesting when my partners and I sold our startup, and my writing career suddenly got a massive boost. I finally had the bandwidth, skillset and business savvy to make headway, and ended up scoring a series of publishing deals, giving my own original creations a chance to bloom.
My debut title, the critically-acclaimed, award-winning historical fantasy comic EDENFROST, was published in 2024 by Mad Cave Studios, and allowed me to break into the comic industry. Shortly after, a supernatural horror thriller I co-created with Elliot Sperl, THE LAST WARDENS, was also published by Mad Cave, and almost immediately got two adaptation deals. Said deals led to the creation of an Encyclopocalypse and Strickland Media produced audio drama, as well as an original tabletop RPG by Studio Far Horizons. THE LAST WARDENS audio drama brings together a star-studded cast of cult icons, influencers, and gaming legends, which helps with cross promoting the tabletop game and comic series…basically, this whole ordeal turned one of my first original titles into a multi-media franchise in less than a year! The Last Wardens graphic novel and tabletop RPG come out on March 11th, 2025, and the audio drama will be released later this spring. Both Elliot and I are attending Emerald City Comic Con for panels and signings on March 8th, to promote this multi-product launch. But that’s not all!…we also have 3 additional co-created titles coming from both Humanoids Publishing and Papercutz, and right now I’m developing a whole new slate of solo projects for my next big push.
I’ve been documenting my journey, writing think pieces and giving a behind the scenes look into my creative process on my personal blog: Mindsplatter, which celebrated its 2 year anniversary last November! If you want to keep up with my work, and understand the man behind the content, that’s a great way to do it.
Links:
EDENFROST – COMICS (Mad Cave Studios): https://madcavestudios.com/product/edenfrost
THE LAST WARDENS – COMICS (Mad Cave Studios): https://madcavestudios.com/product/the-last-wardens-paperback
THE LAST WARDENS – AUDIO DRAMA (Encyclopocalypse): https://encyclopocalypse.com/products/the-last-wardens
THE LAST WARDENS – TABLETOP RPG (Studio Far Horizons):
https://www.thelastwardensgame.com
POST-MORTAL – GRAPHIC NOVEL (Humanoids Publishing): https://www.backerkit.com/call_to_action/ac2d5ea1-5558-4cc7-b82d-cfa41a8ef04e/landing
MINDSPLATTER: https://www.amittishler.com/mindsplatter
There is so much advice out there about all the different skills and qualities folks need to develop in order to succeed in today’s highly competitive environment and often it can feel overwhelming. So, if we had to break it down to just the three that matter most, which three skills or qualities would you focus on?
Networking, business-savvy and market research! The ability to understand an industry’s inner-workings, identify its consumers and operators, and know how to navigate its trenches allowed me to do what I love, by mastering what I don’t. Entertainment is a privilege, and no one owes anyone success in this field, regardless of talent. We don’t live in a meritocracy, and every professional creative must, at some point in their career, face the reality that they are, in fact, a service provider. As such, artists are essentially a business, whether they’d like it or not.
It sounds obvious, but I feel like many creative professionals see the business part of the equation as an antagonistic force that stands in opposition to their core values. Resistance to learning and understanding the industry you operate in, beyond subjective observation, is just plain silly. I’m a huge fan, and heavy consumer of all the mediums I operate in, and I definitely look the part! But I invested a lot learning, understanding and respecting how the business works, and that gave me a competitive advantage, so I would highly encourage other creatives to do the same.
One of our goals is to help like-minded folks with similar goals connect and so before we go we want to ask if you are looking to partner or collab with others – and if so, what would make the ideal collaborator or partner?
Turning THE LAST WARDENS into a small multi-media franchise taught me a lot about what’s possible when it comes to managing my creations. With multiple original comic titles slated for release in the next few years, Elliot and I are always sniffing around for business partnerships with products and companies who can benefit from hopping on our moving train, by gaining access to the wealth of existing content, marketing and distribution networks associated with any our upcoming or existing releases. Production companies, consumer product licensees, and any other entities in search for emerging IPs with some legs, pre-set release dates and a whole lot of growth potential, are always welcome! What I usually look for is goal alignment, and a “rising tide lifts all boats” philosophy. Audio, video, tabletop games, novelizations, merchandising, I plan to explore them all in the next few years, and I’m always open to interesting opportunities…so, if this and it sounds relevant to your current endeavors, dear reader, let’s talk!
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.amittishler.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/amit.tishler
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/tishler.writer
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/amittishler
- Twitter: https://x.com/WrathOfTish
- Other: Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/amittishler.bsky.social
Image Credits
EDENFROST was created by Amit Tishler, and Published by Mad Cave Studios, with art by Bruno Frenda and lettering by Taylor Esposito. THE LAST WARDENS comic series was created by Amit Tishler and Elliot Sperl, and Published by Mad Cave Studios, with art by Rui Silveira, Colors by Francesco Segala and lettering by Frank Cvetkovic.
