Part 1: From Ungradable to Bad Idea with Dinesh Shamdasani

In this two-part series, we speak with Dinesh Shamdasani, CEO and Chief Creative Officer at Bad Idea, an experimental new comic book publisher. Dinesh co-founded Hivemind, an LA-based production company that produced the acclaimed sci-fi series The Expanse for Amazon Studios and The Witcher for Netflix. He also spent 10 years leading the rebirth of Valiant Entertainment, the best-selling comic book publishing house behind the largest, independently owned superhero universe – as the company's CEO and Chief Creative Officer. Under his watch, Valiant released its first-ever feature film: Bloodshot, starring international superstar Vin Diesel. 

In Part 1, we chat with Dinesh about:

• his background and family, being Asian in Hong Kong, London, and America, and we compare his experience at USC with Brian's  (2:40) 
• his love of movies, how he broke into the movie business, and his journey with Valiant Entertainment (21:48)
• Toyo Harada, a villain from The Harbinger series, whose look is based on our very own Brian Lin (40:25)
• why he founded Bad Idea, what he hopes to achieve, and how to preserve and grow the comic book art form (48:20)