Gods. They're just like us. Neurotic, depressed, anxious, gossipy, and bitter, and nasty and petty sometimes. Probably some legit mental disorders banging around in there. So in a sense, we're all godlike. That's cool. It's Depresh Mode. I'm John Moe. I'm glad you're here.

Understand, I'm not talking about like the Christian god right now. I mean the Greek ones.

And they're the stars of Rachel Smyth's incredibly popular comic series, Lour Olympus. All the big ones make appearances in it, Zeus, Hera, all them, but the series is focused especially on Persephone,

goddess of spring, and her relationship with Hades, God of the Dead, and King of the Underworld.

In Lora Olympus, the world inhabited by the gods sometimes involves sports cars, tabloid newspapers, and cell phones.

It brings the comics up to date.

And comic here as a term doesn't necessarily mean funny.

Laura Limpis takes on themes of rape, harassment, abuse, and trauma, much like the original

myths do if you read them closely enough.

Laura Olympus is a number one New York Times bestseller now, and there are multiple

published volumes, but it started as Smyth's creation at an online comics platform called

Webtoon. Webtoon is kind of like the YouTube of comics, really.

Users all over the world submitting work they made themselves. The really successful and popular

ones can make money. The panels aren't displayed like regular comic books. Instead, they're all

vertical. You read them by scrolling. I spoke with Rachel Smyth about a lot of things,

and this conversation goes to some pretty deep and surprising places. We talked about making art,

we talked about mythology, of course, and school and social isolation, and depression, and

ADHD and night terrors. We talked about trauma, and we talked about being a workaholic.

You'll find it interesting if you're a comics fan,

and you'll find it interesting if you never read comics.

Also, you'll notice that Rachel laughs a lot at things that aren't really jokes.

We talk about that, too.

...