Peter Bagge Tom Beland Brian Michael Bendis

Chester Brown Ed Brubaker Charles Burns

Kurt Busiek Colleen Coover Howard Chaykin
Jim Crocker Dirk Deppey Renee French
JC Glindmyer Steven Grant Roger Green
Roberta Gregory Paul Hornschemeier
Tony Isabella Barbara Kesel Ron Marz
James Kochalka Erik Larsen Jason Marcy
Mark Millar L. Nichols Denny O'Neil Harvey Pekar
Sean Phillips Joe Quesada and Jimmy Palmiotti
Ted Rall Greg Rucka Johnny Ryan Robert Scott
Seth Dave Sim Walter Simonson James Sturm
Ty Templeton Rob Vollmar Mark Waid
Mike Wieringo Brett Warnock Josie Whitmore
Barry Windsor-Smith Larry Young Christopher Allen

Conversations with ADD:

The Comics Interviews of Alan David Doane
with an Introduction by Christopher Allen
and an Afterword by Jason Marcy

a comicbookgalaxy.com production
 Table of Contents

Preliminaries Erik Larsen 139

Jason Marcy 143
Foreword by Christopher Allen 3 Mark Millar 149
Introduction by ADD 5 L. Nichols 153
Denny O'Neil 159
Interviews Harvey Pekar 166
Sean Phillips 173
Peter Bagge 6 Joe Quesada and Jimmy Palmiotti 176
Tom Beland 16 Ted Rall 182
Brian Michael Bendis 20 Greg Rucka 190
Chester Brown 28 Johnny Ryan 200
Ed Brubaker 30 Robert Scott 202
Charles Burns 35 Seth 216
Kurt Busiek 39 Dave Sim 221
Colleen Coover 59 Walter Simonson 224
Howard Chaykin 62 James Sturm 230
Jim Crocker 67 Ty Templeton 234
Dirk Deppey 79 Rob Vollmar 244
Renee French 84 Mark Waid 249
JC Glindmyer 87 Mike Wieringo 259
Steven Grant 96 Brett Warnock 263
Roger Green 100 Josie Whitmore 267
Roberta Gregory 102 Barry Windsor-Smith 270
Paul Hornschemeier 106 Larry Young 275
Tony Isabella 108
Barbara Kesel 113 Appendix
Ron Marz 117
James Kochalka 124 Interview with Christopher Allen 277
Interview with ADD 282
Afterword by Jason Marcy 288

Conversations with ADD is Copyright © 2009 by Alan David Doane and published by Comic Book
Galaxy, 24 Larose Street, Glens Falls, New York, 12801. For more information, visit
www.comicbookgalaxy.com or email alandaviddoane@gmail.com.
Foreword by Christopher Allen

I‘ve known Alan David Doane about nine years now. In that time I‘ve seen him labeled or accused of
many things. At times, although I can‘t recall him ever asking for it, I‘ve come to his defense, and at
times, not, because we‘re all guilty of bad behavior, especially from the relative safety of the keyboard.
Alan is an agent provocateur, and while he may not write something always looking for a well-
reasoned rebuttal, he‘s certainly looking for a reaction. In other words, Alan wants to engage with the
reader. He wants him or her to feel his passion. For most of his online writing, that passion has been
focused on the medium of comics. His writing often carries such a fury to it that people remember
that more than the positive, and yet I have rarely seen anyone else write with such enthusiasm and
love for a book or creator. If a creator‘s work speaks to him, that creator will have no greater
supporter than Alan. Even at his most vociferous and dug-in, this is a guy who‘s eternally curious
about the possibilities comics offer. It‘s this curiosity and need to engage that finds its greatest
expression in this volume.

The first and most obvious aspect of the book to catch my attention is the breadth of work here, the
varied voices. From a peerless artcomix cartoonist such as Seth to genre stylist Brian Michael Bendis,
caught at this point beginning the move from creator-owned crime stories to being one of the prime
architects of Marvel‘s superhero universe in the Aughts. They‘re here, as well as Kurt Busiek, Chester
Brown, Mark Waid, Erik Larsen, and many others.

That brings up another quality of the book I find fascinating—the way it catches the comics creators,
from the early to mid-2000s, at certain distinct points in their careers. Sure, Peter Bagge and some
others don‘t seem to be doing anything all that different here in 2009 than they were in 2004 or
whenever, but the aforementioned Bendis, and Ed Brubaker, have seen their popularity and
opportunities expand, along with the inevitable critical backlash increased popularity brings. Erik
Larsen went from a splitting time between Marvel work-for-hire and his own creator-owned stuff, to
concentrating only on his Savage Dragon and becoming Image publisher. And then there is the
poignancy of an interview with the late, much-missed Mike Wieringo, as well as examples that would
be heartbreaking if they weren‘t so commonplace, where a creator speaks with great enthusiasm and
hope about upcoming work that proves unsuccessful. Very publicly, Barbara Kesel and Ron Marz,
here interviewed about the then-new comics company CrossGen Entertainment they‘d joined, saw
their dreams shattered. In a much less public way, I had my own hopes dashed when I was hired to
write a superhero comic for a start-up publisher, only to see them fold their tent before a single issue
was published. I only mention my own story because Alan was nice enough to include a short
interview he conducted with me for Newsarama.com as Appendix One of this book. Better yet, he
asked if I wanted to delete the question about the then-upcoming comic in question, and we came up
with the idea of just replacing that with more of a ―what happened to that comic?‖

To be honest, as closely as I‘ve followed my friend Alan‘s writing over the years, enough time had
passed since most of these interviews were conducted that I‘d forgotten just how many cool people
there were, and this isn‘t even all of them. I‘m impressed by all the ―gets‖ here, but more than that,
I‘m impressed by the quality of the discourse. As I was reading an early draft, Alan asked if he should
cut this person, or this anecdote, and I told him I really liked it the way it was. If he had been
interviewing Peter Bagge for a magazine, even a magazine known for in-depth interviews like The
Comics Journal, Alan still may have found some of his own anecdotes and revelations about his
family edited. But to me, that stuff is some of the best material, because it really emphasizes that this
book is just what it says it is, conversations. Of course, the subjects are the more important part, but
interviews inevitably reflect the personality of the interviewer, especially here, where in all or almost
all the cases, Alan chose these people to interview. So while the book has the benefit of having lots of
talented and famous or semi-famous people in it, it‘s still every bit as personal as Alan‘s prior two
books, or his blog, or anything else he writes. Is a retailer like Jim Crocker or Robert Scott, or a
relatively unknown cartoonist like L. Nichols, any less important than Mark Waid or Charles Burns?
No, because Alan‘s approach is the same with all of them: Let‘s talk about something we both love,
comics, and let‘s talk about it honestly and with passion. It comes back to that interview with Alan in
Appendix Two, where he says that if you‘re not doing it with passion, why fucking bother?

I consider myself fortunate to have met Alan when I did. I think both of us would laugh at the notion
of him being a role model, but in terms of writing I still find him an inspiration. It‘s funny; for the first
few years of CBG, I was reading tons of comics, keeping up on as much of the superhero stuff as I
could and all the latest daily news and gossip. When you read this, I‘ll be forty, and today after work I
went in a comic shop for the first time in probably two years, looking for DC‘s Wednesday Comics and
maybe some stuff for my kids, and I was bewildered by much of the stuff I saw on the shelves, just
how much ugly junk was being pumped out and how few beautiful objects there were to entice me.
And writing that, yes, I do feel like an old fart, especially looking up from my computer to shelves of
old fart comics collections like Walt and Skeezix and Terry and the Pirates. But I follow Alan‘s
lead. I still keep my eyes and ears open for the vital and new and different, and when I write about
something, it‘s with passion, or why fucking bother?

Here‘s hoping Alan continues to bother, and with the passion I know he has for the medium of
comics, I don‘t think there‘s much to worry about.

Christopher Allen
August, 2009

(Christopher Allen is the Captain America to Comic Book Galaxy’s Avengers; he wasn’t there on Day
One, but so distinguished himself with his skill and leadership (and constant whining about the
noble boy sidekick he lost in World War II) that people forget he replaced The Incredible Hulk within
the first few issues. He (Chris, not The Incredible Hulk) has written for The Comics Journal,
Kevin Smith's Movie Poop Shoot, NinthArt and PopImage; he was also the Features Editor of
Comic Foundry and was one of the judges of the 2006 Will Eisner Comic Industry Awards.
Christopher Allen has two children, lives in San Diego, California, and blogs at
www.chrisallenonline.com.)
Introduction by Alan David Doane

Comic Book Galaxy has been many things since its inception in the late summer of 2000. It started
with my idea of gathering together the very best writers about comics that I could find and putting
them all in one place; starting with seven or so contributors, the site has over the years expanded and
contracted numerous times (more like a universe than a galaxy, I admit), and it currently serves
mainly as host to the comics blog I‘ve written since 2002. But one thing has remained constant in that
time, and that‘s the ability the site has given me to exercise the deep curiosity I have about every
aspect of the artform and industry of comics. Here in my third eBook, I‘m compiling almost all of the
interviews I‘ve done over the years as the prime outlet for that curiosity.

Compiling this project, thinking about all the cartoonists, writers, artists, editors and retailers I have
interviewed over the past ten years I‘ve been writing about comics, really made me realize how
extraordinarily lucky I have been. I have gotten to talk about comics with dozens of people whose
work I have ever respected and loved in the 37 years (and counting…) that I have been reading
comics. It‘s been a pleasure and a privilege to take down this small part of the grand oral history of
comics, to pick the brains of my heroes, and to learn more about the artform and industry of comics
than I could have ever imagined possible at the age of 6, back in 1972, recovering from having my
tonsils out in an upstate New York hospital, when my mom brought me my first-ever stack of comics
that led to a lifetime interest and obsession. And even more gratifying is the fact that, over these years,
there‘s been an audience interested in reading these pieces. So, whether you‘re new to all or most of
this material, or you‘re experiencing it again in this form after reading it online, thank you for your
interest, thank you for your feedback, and thank you for making it all seem like it‘s worth all the time
and energy it takes to make something like this happen.

Thanks to everyone who made these interviews possible, most especially Eric Reynolds, Peggy Burns,
Milo George, Alex Bialy, Matt Brady, Michael Doran, Jason Brice, Chris Hunter, Mike Rhode, and
obviously, the interview subjects themselves. Thanks for friendship, guidance and wisdom to Rob
Vollmar, d. emerson eddy, Renée French, Brian Florence, Jason Marcy, Neilalien, Johanna Draper
Carlson, and Bruce Baugh. My undying gratitude to Eric Reynolds at Fantagraphics and Brett
Warnock and Chris Staros at Top Shelf for their support in ways large and small over lo, these many
years. Big thanks to Milo George for giving me my first shot in the pages of The Comics Journal,
and to Dirk Deppey, Michael Dean, Kim Thompson and Gary Groth for letting me play in that
sandbox from time to time in the years that followed, literally a dream come true for me.

Special thanks for Christopher Allen for his help in putting this project together, his editing and
suggestions, for being my very best friend on the comics internet, and for putting up with me for all
these years.

As I was writing this introduction at my desk in our family living room, I paused and leaned back
from the keyboard, doing some math in my head. My son noticed and asked me, ―Tired of writing?‖

Not so far.
Peter Bagge, 10 March 2000

Peter Bagge is one of the most prominent

alternative comics talents ever. His Neat Stuff,
Hate and The Bradleys comics combine manic
energy with an unusually firm commitment to
storytelling.

Alan David Doane: Tell us a little bit about

your background, how you got into
cartooning?

Peter Bagge: Well, that would go back more than

20 years, I drew comics of course when I was a kid.
Then I enrolled in art school, and tried a little bit
of everything. Didn't enjoy doing anything except
for cartoons, so I dropped out of art school and
concentrated on doing comics full time. After a few
years I started doing well enough that I was able to
quit my day job.

Where did you go to art school?

The School of Visual Arts in New York City. I'm New York born and raised.

And that was a discouraging experience in terms of cartooning?

It was mixed. It got me into the city, it got me out of my nowhere hometown, and I met my wife there,
made a few friends. Overall it was a waste of money that I couldn't afford to spend, and just being in
New York City and by making some new connections at the school, I befriended some cartoonists
outside of school. I would just simply go to their house and pick their brains for free. For example Art
Spiegleman. I could have stayed in school and had Art Spiegleman as a teacher and sit there amongst
30 other students and pay through the nose for the experience, or I could knock on his door and bug
him face to face myself for free. (Laughs). So I opted for the latter.

That must have given you some extraordinary insight into the workings of the business.

He was a terrific answer-man, knew everything about comics. I also befriended these guys that did a
magazine called "Punks." It was the first fan magazine of the whole Punk movement, which was
actually run by a bunch of cartoonists. I made a lot of contacts through them.

You mention that you ended up quitting your day job to go to comics, just out of
curiosity what was the day job?
Oh, I had like 16 of them (laughs), y'know, just one idiotic retail job after another. The last one was a
bookstore, just worked at a bookstore for a couple years.

In my experience there's nothing that's going to send you into a solitary career like
cartooning more than working in retail.

(Laughs). Right, right, dealing with the public.

Was Hate the first comic book of your own that you did?

No, around 1985 I started doing a comic book called Neat Stuff, which was my first solo comic. Also
at that time I was the managing editor of a comic book anthology called Weirdo, which was Robert
Crumb's magazine, so I got to work with Robert Crumb, too, which was terrific. Back in the mid-‗80s I
started my own solo comic book, then around 1990 I switched to Hate, which was my own decision,
because the other comic book, Neat Stuff, was doing pretty well. But I just had this idea for Hate, so
I made the switch, and the rest is history.

How would you characterize what Hate allowed you to do that Neat Stuff wouldn't?

What Hate was all about basically, I zeroed in on one character. Neat Stuff was like a one-man
anthology. I worked with all different kinds of characters, and one group of characters was the
Bradley family, which was a semi-autobiographical-satirical-suburban-dysfunctional family. And they
had a teenage son named Buddy Bradley, who was becoming more and more the focus of the whole
series, mainly because he was the most autobiographical. So what I did with Hate was I just aged him
a few years, moved him out of the house, so there was a young single guy, a 20-something "slacker,"
even though back in 1990 that term didn't exist yet (chuckles), and just made every story basically
follow his foibles. And "Neat Stuff" sounded too positive. I wanted a more angst-ridden name like
"Hate." It's nice and short, made for a nice short, snappy little logo; it's easy to remember. So it's for
reasons like that that I made the switch.

Hate was pretty successful in terms of being a non-mainstream comic book, what was
your experience when it first came out, was it immediately apparent it was going to be a
hit?

Well again, the title I was doing before was doing a little bit better all the time, but yeah, things took
quite a big jump as soon as I started doing Hate. And I wish I knew why. I don't know why it
suddenly just caught on so quickly. I guess people like a comic book that zeroes more in on one
character and it's easier to describe, and easier to remember a name like Hate, just all of those
reasons. For some reason it just clicked, and it just kept selling better and better, until it reached the
point where it was the best selling alternative comic book. Although you have to make it clear to the
audience that's not saying much (laughs), it still sold like one-tenth of what Superman was selling at
the time.

Which of course is selling about one-one-hundredth of what it was selling fifty years
ago.

Right (laughs).

Did the success of Hate take your career or your life into any unexpected places?

Yes. Back in the '80s it was still a real struggle for me, my wife was still working and still making a lot
more money than me, I just always thought it was always gonna be a real struggle. At that point, back
then, my only hope and dream was to be able to make at least a comfortable living doing comics. And
Hate certainly made that possible, Hate wound up selling more than I ever thought a black-and-
white underground comic book by me would ever sell. And yeah, it did open up at least a lot of other
possibilities. For example, I started talking to a lot of Hollywood people about doing a movie or a TV
show, things like that, which still comes up all the time. It's a bit of a double-edged sword (laughs)
since obviously in all these years there still hasn't been a Hate movie or a Hate TV show, but I'm still
in contact with these people and still have deals coming and then dying all the time.

And yet in light of the success of TV shows like The Simpsons and King of the Hill, it's
difficult to imagine that, done right, a Hate or Buddy Bradley cartoon wouldn't be
enormously successful.

Right. No, I think it would do great. And actually I've gotten pretty close twice. Once with MTV, and
then last year I went through the whole development process with HBO. But it's a crap shoot in a lot
of ways, there's just so many shows, including cartoon shows, that are in development. There's a 98
percent failure rate once you start working on developing a TV show, because all of these networks
and cable stations have so much in development that it's just a matter of luck whether your show's
gonna be able to squeeze its way all the way through the funnel or not. Plus another thing too is I
don't live in Los Angeles, I can't schmooze 24 hours a day, (laughs) like I probably should be doing if I
was that determined to get a TV show.

You mention The Bradleys being autobiographical; there are some extraordinary things
that happen in the series, I'm thinking especially for example, of the guy who ended up
killing himself accidentally.

Mm-hmm.

How much of that came from real life? Or did you find that the story really was
branching off into non-biographical areas?

Almost everything that happens in Hate is based on true stories. Either something that happened to
me, or something that happened to somebody I know, with some fiction thrown in to glue it all
together. The last several issues of Hate, which a lot of readers thought was getting pretty grim, and
which it was...was pretty much inspired by me having to go back to my hometown to attend a couple
of funerals. I hadn't been there in a while. My father died, and then my older brother passed away
recently. So, twice I had to go back, and saw a lot of my old buddies, and they pretty much were the
inspiration for Buddy Bradley's friends. They never left their hometown, and they just have all these
ridiculous little semi-legal or blatantly illegal scams going...it was just ridiculous (laughs). I just
couldn't believe that they got themselves stuck in this weird little trap, and then from my vantage
point can't see the forest for the trees.

That's the thing, there are these people leading these, to quote somebody, "lives of quiet
desperation…"

Yes (laughs).

But for some reason completely unaware of a simple enough option like, oh, I dunno--
move.

Right. Yeah. And to me, they all resent me because of the fact that I got out of town, and I'm doing
something creative, and relatively exciting. To them, that's all "luck," like I'm "lucky." Of course, luck
had nothing to do with it. I just moved (laughs). I was willing to starve, you know?

Have they read the comic?

A few of them have seen it. I don't think any of them make a point of going out to the comics shops
and getting it. That's the problem, as you probably know, with comics it takes a certain amount of
dedication. You really have to be passionate about the format.

That mindset fascinates me. You're got a comic book about these people, inspired by, or
whatever. It sounds like it sticks pretty close to the details in some regards, and yet the
subjects don‟t read the stories they inspired. I don't understand that.

Yeah, that's--like, where I live now, I have a nine year old daughter and occasionally I'll write a story
or for some special assignment I'll do a true life story that would actually star some of her friends and
her friends parents. I did a story once about how one time her and her friends and a bunch of the
parents, we all took them to see a Spice Girls concert, and I did a comic strip about it. There's my
daughter and her friends and all her friends parents, and I told them "I did this strip and you're all in
it." And they go "Oh, that's nice." And I showed it to them, and all they want me to do is with my
finger point out exactly where they are. (Laughs) they don't even want to sit and read the whole thing,
"Just show me where I am."

That's something I guess. Are we going to be seeing any more of the Bradleys in the
future or are you pretty well done with that?

I can't really see, at least any time soon, doing Buddy Bradley or the Bradleys in comic book form
again. As you know the comic book business is in horrible shape. I've actually even made some other
proposals to Fantagraphics and to DC, the two companies I was last working with, where they even
turned me down (laughs). Like all of a sudden I'm a risk. While at the same time I still have all these
possible development deals with production companies to make not only--there's a Hate movie
possibility, and a Yeah! TV show deal that I have. Plus I've been talking with an awful lot of people
about doing a web TV show. And even if these things don't pan out I'm making good money just with
the development fees. It's almost like I'm in the business now of not making TV shows (laughs).
Which pays great, so I'm having a hard time turning my back on the money that I'm making, plus
freelance illustration stuff. So right now I have to say I'm concentrating more on getting a web TV
show going than doing a new comic book. So if you see the Bradleys again hopefully it'll be on
television.

Hopefully they'll be moving in some way.

Right. And a few things that are for real, Adobe's web site, starting in April I'm gonna have a little
animated cartoon show on that, it's gonna be bi-weekly, it's gonna be these old characters of mine
who are also very autobiographical. So lots of things along that line.

I wanted to ask you, some of the enormous talent that's been published by
Fantagraphics, Crumb, and the Hernandez brothers, Dan Clowes --

Chris Ware...

How does it feel to be among, I don't mean this in a negative way, but it really is kind of
an elite.

You just named all of my all-time favorite cartoonists, so of course I'm very proud to be a part of that,
and still am part of that company at some level, and I just thought they were just doing terrific stuff.
Them along with another company called Drawn and Quarterly, whose lineup I like a lot. It's no
coincidence that they were publishing such good stuff because back in the early ‗80s not only the
mainstream publishing companies but even some of the smaller start-up companies back then
seemed to operate more from sort of a mainstream mode, where they still wanted you to do some kind
of a genre, they still tried to, even if they let you retain the rights to your creations, they still had
certain expectations. Whereas Fantagraphics, while they have suggestions and opinions, they pretty
much, once they agree to let you do your own comic book, they let you do whatever you want. You can
pick the format, the title, it can be about whatever you want it to be, they give you total creative
freedom, absolute total creative freedom. And they've landed flat on their faces more often than not,
but some people just couldn't deliver with that much freedom.

I would have to say I'd rather read a failure created under those circumstances than a
success created generally under 90 percent of the work-for hire.

Right (laughs).

Really, seriously, I think the failures are going to be more interesting than the huge
commercial successes.

Right, no, of course, I agree with you. So some people under those circumstances, myself included,
and of course the Hernandez brothers, and Dan Clowes and Chris Ware, they just absolutely
flourished.

Dan Clowes being an example, too -- I don't think anybody that picked up the first four
or five issues of Eightball would have been able to predict the direction that he's taken it
in today, and yet -- I certainly don't object to it. It's much different than it was in its
early incarnation, but it's still riveting.

Right. And now he's actually right at this moment as we speak making a Ghost World movie. So that's
a first. Like, of all the titles they've had that have been optioned, which have been many, this is the
first time I can think of where one of them is actually going to be made into something.

Yes, in fact, that movie is the reason why my interview with him has been put off
(laughs).

Just as well, I guess he'll have a lot more to tell you once he's done.

This is true. While we're talking about Dan, can we talk a little bit about the Hateball
tour that you guys did? What was the experience of that like?

It was fun. It was incredibly brief, mainly because of me, because I had a three-year-old daughter at
home, I just didn't want to spend that much time on the road pretending to be a rock star. It was very
funny, because it was almost promoted like we were rock stars, even though we were just a couple of
cartoonist-squares. So it was very funny for us, two guys who are used to being wallflowers, who were
always ignored all our lives, to go from place to place and have people going crazy, and just getting so
much press. We loved it on the one hand, but we also made a real effort not to let it go to our heads.
We kept laughing about it, because it just seemed so unreal, at the time. It seemed very unreal, you
know (laughs). Of course, now everybody's like sick of us. Now when I do a signing maybe three
people show up (laughs).

That speaks more about the promotions department of whatever it is you're signing
than the actual quality of your work.

(Laughs) Yeah, well, plus anybody who wanted my autograph, they must have gotten it on that stupid
tour.

Going back to Hate for a minute, the format of that and the style in which you were
producing it changed over the run of the title, what was the reaction of the public to
that, do you think it was a good idea going from just being a one man show to having
collaborators and going from black and white to color?

Yeah, I definitely think it was a good idea. I'm glad I started it the way I did. It's not like I wish it was
in color the whole time. When I started it out I actually wanted it to look like just your typical, old,
underground comic book. The Freak Brothers-type comic books and early Crumb comics that were
published on toilet paper. I really wanted it to look like that. But I also had always wanted to do a full-
color comic. But as long as my titles were struggling, sales-wise, that just wasn't economically feasible.
But then once Hate was selling enough that it was economically possible to make it in full-color I was
like, "What the heck, let's make it color." But yeah, I deliberately made a lot of changes to go along

with that. I started working with an inker for various reasons, and it changed the whole feel and tone
of the comic book. I could understand why some people like the old ones better, but I just wanted to
try something different anyway. It's almost like it became a different comic book. The mood and feel
and pacing of the stories, they all changed quite a bit.

For the better or for the worse?

I think for the better, in that I think Hate would have gotten a bit boring and redundant if I'd kept it
black and white. I felt like I simply needed to make a change, I thought that the last couple of black
and white comics, I saw a certain repetitiveness creeping up. So I wanted to try a whole new different
approach that actually allowed me to tell more involved stories, for technical reasons that the casual
reader couldn't pick up on. The stories did get a lot more detailed and heavy; there was a lot more
story in the color Hates than there were in the old black and white ones.

Was that just a consequence of you having more time because you weren't doing the
inking?

No, it actually was because, believe it or not, I had a three-tiered, I had a standard format in the black
and white ones where each page was broken up into three tiers, and when I switched to color it broke
up into four tiers. And even though there was a lot less cross-hatching, it actually became denser.
There was just a lot more going on per page, so I was able to fit in more detailed stories with more
complex storylines than there were in the earlier issues.

You mention Yeah!, which is published by DC, you're working with Gilbert Hernandez
on it, how'd that come about?

That came about simply because right at the time that I decided to end Hate at #30 a year or two
years ago, I got a phone call from an editor at DC, who just asked me if I'd wanna try doing a title for
them. And originally they wanted me to come up with something for their Vertigo line, which is their,
kinda like, Goth-kooky-spooky adult line. But I couldn't come up with anything that would fit into
that. But I mentioned the idea Yeah!. And how Yeah! came about, it's about an all-girl rock band.
And part of the reason I wanted to do that was because at the time my daughter was seven, and she of
course couldn't get into Hate at all. She kept bugging me to do a comic that a little girl would want to
read. So it's kind of like she threw the gauntlet down. I was like, "All right," (laughs). So I pitched this
idea of doing this, you know, it's like a cross between the Spice Girls and Josie and the Pussycats.
And I pitched it to DC and they said "Sure, we'll give it a try, why not?" Something DC made clear to
me right off the bat was they did not want me to draw it. Even though my comic sold fine...

"We love your work, but..." (Laughs).

Yeah, well, they said right off the bat, that that cartoony drawing of mine just doesn't fall into the DC
Universe at all.

That seems kind of a short-sighted attitude.

Well, at least they made that clear from the start. The other thing too is that, whatever I did for them,
it had to be monthly. And I'm not a fast artist at all, so there's no way I could have drawn the thing. It
made me think about what I could do with another artist, and since I wanted to have kind of an
Archie feel to it, I figured one of the Hernandez [brothers] would be perfect to draw it, and Gilbert
agreed to do it. And I was real happy with it, I thought it was hilarious, but unfortunately it sold
horribly for two reasons. One is, little kids just simply don't go into comics shops anymore, and
especially little girls (laughs). So the target audience just didn't see it. The second problem too, is I
just assumed that my old Hate fans and Gilbert's Love and Rockets fans would just automatically
like it, just because we're doing it, but they hated it, for the most part.

Neither fish nor fowl, right?

Yeah, yeah. The thing just tanked. I mean, there were some people that loved it, but for the most part
we just couldn't deliver like we thought we could. #8 just came out and the next issue, #9, is gonna be
the last one. We're negotiating, of all people, with Will Smith's production company to make a TV
show out of it.

That's terrific.

It'd be funny if, here it was the worst selling comic in DC history and it'd be funny if it became
(laughs) a successful television show.

I've become aware -- my daughter is six, and I have a son who's four -- one of my
ongoing concerns, you say young girls don't come in comics shops, well obviously mine
does. But one of the problems is, if this was a regular monthly book with a two-dollar
price tag, I have a real hard time buying something for my daughter that's two dollars
knowing it's probably gonna get ripped to shreds within an hour.

Oh. (laughs).

This is my sort of ongoing crusade, that these companies need to really re-think the
format that they're putting these things in to. And also the promotion angle of it --
frankly I really hadn't even heard about Yeah! until it had been canceled.

Right.

And again, if I am gonna buy a book for my daughter, something that obviously is aimed
at her like that, would be something that would get lapped right up, I never even saw it
in a comics shop. I just don't understand why they go to the expense to create these
things, then under-promote them, over-price them in terms of the marketplace as it
exists, it seems like they just don't get it.

No, they were charging two-ninety-five for Yeah!.

That's insane.

Yeah, no, it was totally insane. And when I complained about it they'd say "Well, even at $2.95 we're
losing money on it." But when you sit down and do the numbers, they're losing money on every single
one of their comics.

I can envision buying a comic for my daughter that has, say, four, five, six issues worth
of material in it that's three or four bucks, that's got a heavy enough cover that it's
gonna withstand the abuse of a six and four-year-old. But to toss her one of these little
pamphlets that's just made to be shredded, it makes me despair for the future of this
artform. I've been reading comics since 1972, and it seems to me we're at a time now
where it's never been closer to just complete disinterest on the part of the public at
large.

For whatever reason, the cost of printing anything is just huge, unless you can print in the millions,
and you just can't sell millions or hundreds of thousands of comic books, so you just can't bring the
price down to a reasonable level like it was when we were kids. At the same time too, how can you
possibly compete with all this electronic media, which is for free, as far as the kid's concerned. You
turn on the TV, you turn on the computer, and you see stuff that is like comics, only it moves around,
you don't have to make struggle of reading it, stuff is moving, and it's for absolutely free. So how can
you compete, at least as far as a kid is concerned.

The artform of comics is too engaging not to survive if you promote it correctly. But
there's got to be a value for the dollar. The average comic book, if you hand it to a kid
they're going to be done with it in ten minutes.

Yeah.

If you're expecting to charge three bucks for that when they can rent a video game they
can play all weekend for that same three bucks, it's definitely a losing proposition right
out of the gate.

Yeah, it certainly is.

So, you mention the web comics, do you think that might be a solution?

Yes. Well, already, just simply working on it, I hope it lasts, but right out of the gate I'm making more
money off of it than I can off a comic book whether it's work for hire or my own thing. So just to
simply work on it, try it out, people are throwing an awful lot of money my way (laughs). I had one
thing, so far I had one comics feature that appeared on the web. It was on this satirical website called
Suck, and I did a feature for them. They sent me to an infomercial convention where they gave out the
Oscars for best infomercials. So I did an illustrated feature for that. And I just got bombarded with
more mail than I've ever gotten in my life. Because way more people are seeing it than have ever seen

a single issue of my comic book. I got so much enthusiastic mail for it, and I've got a lot of mail from
people who were or are big fans of mine but they haven't seen my comics for years, and for obvious
reasons. They're in their 30s now, they no longer live right above the comics shop, they're somewhere
out in the suburbs, they've got a mortgage, they've got families, and the last thing they have time for is
to drive downtown, pay for parking to go into a comics shop that might or might not be all sold out of
the latest issue of my comic.

So, here they turn on the computer, which they have to turn on every day whether it's at work or at
home, and then for absolutely free just sitting there in their basement or sitting there in their cubicle
they can see stuff by me. They didn't have to go out of their way, they didn't have to pay any money.
And meanwhile, that web site's paying me really good money. So yes, I do think the web is (laughs), it
not only will, I think it already is, making comic books pretty much obsolete. Except that people do,
there is that visceral element of holding a comic book, especially if you grew up reading comics,
there's a love for that medium, that there's always gonna be a small amount of people who are just
very attached to it and who love it. It's certainly not a viable, relevant artform like it used to be. I think
it will simply remain something that caters to a very small group with very specific tastes. It's gone the
way of poetry, what can I tell you?

Maybe the paper comic books'll end up becoming sort of the portable, archive version
of the web comics, where the stuff that you do on the Internet is eventually reprinted in
the comics.

Yes, absolutely, absolutely, that at least makes it economically worthwhile for someone like me.

And it almost would be roughly analogous to how comic books got their start except it
would be the web stuff instead of the Sunday funnies.

Exactly.
 Tom Beland, 10 March 2004
One of the biggest success stories of the past few
years in the world of independent comics has been
Tom Beland's True Story, Swear to God.
Unapologetically romantic, funny as hell and a joy
to look at, Beland's comic book manages to appeal
to a wide variety of readers by telling an intensely
personal story that celebrates the joys and wonders
of a romantic relationship without sacrificing the
truth of what it’s like to try to make your life work,
entangled with the needs and wants of another
human being.

Alan David Doane: As an autobiographical

cartoonist, how do the people in your life
react to being depicted in your work?

Tom Beland: It's funny...the people who you'd

think would be the most interested in this stuff,
family and friends, are the ones who don't know
what issue I'm on, or that there's a trade paperback
or anything. When they FIND OUT, they're very
supportive, but otherwise, they don't go looking for
it. Which is weird, because these are the people who
saw you drawing at the dinner as a kid and talked about how cool it would be to you to be a cartoonist
one day. Then when it happens it's "oh, you've got a book out..?" [Laughs]. I compare this to the last
Lord of the Rings film, where the hobbits save the world and are riding into the Shire, all decked-out
in their hero bling and looking all proud...and to the older hobbit sweeping his porch, he looks at the
four heroes and has this "aaahhhh those fucking kids are back" attitude. I nearly DIED when I saw
this, because whenever I go back to Napa Valley (my Shire) I have to admit that I always expect people
to be jacked about me coming home and wanting to see my work...and it never happens. It totally puts
you back into reality. They also think that the Eisner awards are in honor of Michael Eisner.
YeeEEeeg. But when they DO find out a book is out, they're very cool about everything. My brother
Joe is a great supporter.

True Story, Swear to God seems to have achieved universal acclaim...how has the
book's success affected your life and your approach to your cartooning?

I think that it's allowed me to meet people I'd normally be way too shy to say hello to. In San Diego
last year, I had Wil Wheaton come to my table and hang out there for a bit and I was like, "You're
Wesley Crusher!!" I'm a Trek fan, so this was very cool. I mean, this guy's hanging at my table and
telling me he wants to do what I do...and HE'S BEAMED DOWN! Who else do you know that has
BEAMED DOWN? When Kurt Busiek walks over to say hello, it fucking blows my mind. Every time.
Doing a panel discussion with Craig Thompson was a big thrill for me. Paige Braddock is great to
panel with too. But the absolute highlight for me was meeting Sal Buscema. Huge fan. Gigantic fan. I
thought he cranked out more comics in the '70s than anyone when I was a kid. He was all over the
Marvel books. I jumped from my seat, said hello and had a picture taken with him. I totally geeked-
out. The photo is hanging in my office.

The bizarre thing of the success is when other artists bring their portfolios for me to review. My style
isn't in super-heroes, so I'm not exactly the place to go for advice. But I'll look at it and tell them if the
anatomy is weak or they need to work on their perspective and backgrounds.

Do you have any ambitions in comics beyond TSSTG?

There's a project I'm really trying to get to that was written by Neil Kleid about a robotic boy on a
quest. It's a great story and I'm sketching during my free time on it. I'm also working on a side
TSSTG project titled CLIB'S BOY about my childhood leading up to my parents' death while I was a
senior in high school. There's a lot of comedy, but also a lot of emotional pages that are very difficult,
yet therapeutic at the same time.

You uprooted your life in the U.S. and moved to Puerto Rico to be with the woman you
love -- tell me what that change has been like.

Best decision I ever made. Period. It allowed me to cut loose the anchor that familiarity can bind you
to. I was able to live in a new place and take chances with my work. I hope that makes sense.
Sometimes, your family, friends and co-workers only remind you of what you haven't achieved in life.
The focus is more about "you should've tried this" or "why haven't you done that?" and when you
leave that atmosphere, you begin to get it done. At least that's how it was done for me.

Lily. Jesus, where do you really begin with her? She's the one who told me to make my comic strip
‗zines and when I told her I didn't know how to do that, she told me to go learn how. I did and then
BOOM, we got an IGNATZ nomination for Best New Zine. When it came to printing my first comic
book, again, I didn't know how to do it and she told me to just give it a shot. I did and then BOOM,
Eisner nominations. Everything...EVERYTHING I've achieved in this business is because she told me
to get off my ass and try.

If you have a person in your life that wants you to succeed, you have to listen to them. I don't care if
you're depressed, can't draw cars, no one else is buying your work, whatever...that one person believes
in you. They want to see you do the best you can do...and the one thing you should focus on is making
them proud they believed in you. It's that easy.

[Beland‟s self-publishing imprint] Clib's Boy is a one-man show so far. Tell me about
the hazards and advantages you see in self-publishing.

Hmmmmm...okay. Issue #1 is the easiest thing to publish. I don't care HOW MUCH blood, sweat and
tears went into completing it. It's the easiest book to publish. It's new. It's your first work. There's
energy to burn in that issue and it's great to see it hit the stands and see people buying it in
conventions. But then you never see issue #2. The writer's still working on the story... even after a
year. The artist is dragging his ass or doesn't like the next script and wants to have a bigger say in the
plotline. It's evolved into a job. And if you're doing both, it's a huge load. By issue #3, the drive is hard
to maintain. Sales aren't the same as Batman, so you get bummed out and want to quit.

The thing that you have to do in self-

publishing is get the work done.
Period. Get it done.
Getitdonegetitdonegetitdone.
Because issue #1 looks retarded
sitting by itself after a year and a half.
Any reader you obtained has moved
on. There are lots of other great books
on the rack and if you can't
get the job done, they'll move on.
They don't want to know what the
excuses are...especially if they keep
piling up. And this is what you've
always wanted to do! Never, ever
underestimate that...doing what you
want to do. Quit putting everything
off and get it done. This can also be
said for the bigger publishers. How
anyone can invest in a Kevin Smith
comic book these days is baffling. He
never finishes what he starts, but when it's announced he's writing a series, everyone's all
ZIPPIDYDOODAH!! And when he's on Leno, he's going on about his love of comics. But how many
series has he finished? Good lord. He gets issue #1 and #2 out, then he pulls a Nightcrawler act and
BAMFS out of the schedule. Do a completed series, THEN solicit it THEN get it out. Kevin should
know better and so should Marvel.

Brian Bendis writes a BILLION titles a month and they hit the stands when expected. If not, he's right
there to tell you why and it's there a short time later. Look at his workload, the quality of his stories
and give props to making his deadlines. He's Stan Freakin' Lee. So get the work done. Get the books
out. A page a day. That's what Terry Moore told me. That's what I do. The advantage is you're the
boss. You decide how it reads and how it looks.

But because of that, you make sure that the buyer is going to like this book. Make the book, wait a day,
then reread it from a BUYERS point of view. Here's the thing: someone goes to the store on a
Wednesday and they have twenty bucks. They buy their Spidey books, Fantastic Four, Batman,
Powers, Gotham Central, Promethea, New X-Men and that leaves them about three bucks left.
Out of all...ALL the remaining comics on the rack, this person can only afford ONE BOOK. So you
have to make them want to give up Runaways, Rose and Thorn, Arrowsmith, Bone or any
other impossibly cool book and buy yours.

If after reading your book again, you see flaws the reader will see...you have to fix it. You have to be
totally honest with yourself on your work. You have to know it's worth if before they do.

I have to say, Alan, that there's something else that sucks about self-publishing. You make a book, call
it "Super Hero Happy Hour"...it's a hit...you're on a roll...and then you get a legal notice from
Marvel and DC saying that they own the rights to the term "Super-Hero" and now they want you to
change your name to "Hero Happy Hour." I've never seen a more asinine thing in my life than this.
Buying the trademark on this term does absolutely fucking nothing to help comics. Nothing. It's
nothing more than a way to bully the smaller indie publishers. And then they won't even comment on
it...but will go on and on about how their companies are "indie friendly." It's a load of crap and I'm
embarrassed for Marvel AND DC for doing something so ridiculous. They should focus their attention
on getting books out on time and getting their talent to complete mini-series that are a year late.

When you're a small press publisher, you don't have the money to take on larger publishers and so
you're forced to change the name of your book because of two moronic publishing companies can't
find any other way to ruin the industry. There was nothing positive to come out of owning a
trademark on such a general term. That's why I love APE and SPX and MOCCA. The big companies
aren't there and it's the real deal. People making their own comics because they LOVE COMICS.
Brian Michael Bendis, 01 February 2000

Brian Michael Bendis has written seemingly every Marvel title for the past few years, but at the
time of this interview I mainly knew him from Image’s Sam and Twitch, and a Daredevil story
arc that was planned at that time to be illustrated by David Mack for the Marvel Knights line. Little
did we know how much more Marvel work would follow. Bendis has become a mainstay of the
company’s superhero comics, but after a decade of reading his comics, I still look the most fondly on
Fortune and Glory, published by
Oni Press and detailing an early
attempt at getting a movie made from
one of his comics.

Alan David Doane: It's difficult to

know how to credit you, you're a
writer and an artist and now a
filmmaker, and there's really a lot
that I want to talk to you about. It
seems like the last week or so it's
been very hard to read any kind of
a press release that hasn't had
your name included in it.

Brian Michael Bendis: I know, isn't

it disgusting? It really is, I'm gonna go
crawl under a rock and you'll see me in
the spring.

Basically, I've got a checklist of

things I want to ask you about
here, if I forget about anything
and you want to plug something,
just let me know.

Okay.

I first became aware of your work

through Fortune and Glory,
subtitled A True Hollywood Comic
Book Story...

Yes.

The tale of how one of your comics got optioned to be a movie in Hollywood. Before we
get into the actual movie tale, tell us a little bit about the genesis of the comic.

The genesis of the comic came from what was a -- I'm from Cleveland, I don't live in L.A., and I don't
have a lot to do with the Hollywood system. And after some good fortune where one of my books got
some nice, decent, mainstream media press, like in Spin Magazine and such --

Now, which one was that?

Jinx and Goldfish both. They sort of came out within a year of each other and people were talking
about them in the same breath. They're my first crime novels, and people were liking them and being
very nice about them and they were getting some nice press and what happened was, after the press
came, Hollywood came calling and I was getting a myriad of bizarre phone calls, and half-offers and
interesting notions and eventually actually, Miramax Films did option the work, and the process of
the whole situation to Miramax was just filled with nonsense and silliness...the best part, of course,
was Miramax, who has been very good to me, but all the people in between who were trying to get to
it. It was fascinating and silly -- it was just ridiculous phone calls, and ridiculous meetings and the
whole process got me so many anecdotes. I mean, literally 150 pages worth of cartoon anecdotes. I
said, you know, it'd be a waste to take this material and waste it.

One of the best scenes in Fortune and Glory is when those phone calls start rolling in.
Tell us a little bit about what it was like the first time you picked up the phone and
somebody that you had never heard of was telling you how great you were.

Well yeah, it's almost like that scene in The Big Picture where that agent says to Kevin Bacon, "You're
a genius, I haven't read your work but I'm never wrong." It's the same thing, I mean, they call you up,
they've not read your work but they're telling you how much they love you and how much money
everyone's gonna make and what a genius you are and then they realize they haven't even read the
book. They literally give you a ten-minute speech about how they're the perfect place for you to be,
and then "Could you send us a copy?"

So it's as flattering as it is insulting?

No, it's not flattering at all, it's ridiculous, it's nothing, it's air, it's ether. It's just nonsense.

Okay, so it's just insulting.

It takes a while for you to figure it out. At the time you go, "Hey, look who's calling!" Because I
remember when no one was calling, and what that felt like. But they were ridiculous phone calls, and
literally everything in that book is true. That's the funny part; I wasn't padding it for a gag.

The thing that really struck me about it is, reading Fortune and Glory cold for the first
time, not really having an awareness of your work, every single moment in the book has
the ring of truth.
Yeah, I wasn't patting myself on the back, and I wasn't going for the cheap gags. I was just trying to
relate the information. Because the other funny part of it was, the readers of my books, which are a
very nice group of people, every time I meet them, any e-mail I get, if they hear there's a Hollywood
connection to your book, they always want to hear about that. That's very interesting to everybody.
And I realized it is interesting to a lot of people. It would be interesting to me. If someone sat down
and told me this story, I would be fascinated. So I thought, okay, that'll be my next book.

At what point in the process did you realize rather than making a movie here, possibly
I'm gonna end up making a comic book about trying to make a movie?

It's funny, in the middle of what will be the third issue of the comic, the end of the comic, I had
already decided to do the comic book of it. And I was really hoping by the end of the time that it takes
to make this comic that I would have a happy ending, which was very Hollywood of me. So it's hard to
say, I did decide that--you know what's funny? A development executive at Disney and I were having a
nice, friendly chat and I was telling him some of the nonsense meetings I had had, and he was
laughing hysterically, and he said "There's your movie!" And I said, "There's my comic, that's what
that is."

Fortune and Glory is not something just for comic book fans, it's not just for people that
want to know behind-the-scenes music stuff; there's such a truth that you bring out in
just what it's like to get close to making your dreams come true.

Honestly, this is one of those things where I can't say that I was so aware that this was going to
resonate so well for people. I really didn't know. You put stuff out that's of interest to you. You think
you've got a good yarn to tell and you tell it. I'm very surprised how well this has been received.

So now the irony is, that it turns out you are making a movie.

Yeah, it is, and still with Miramax. Our book Torso, which is based on the Torso Killer murders of the
1930s and Elliot Ness's chase of them...

It's a true story, right?

It's a true story. Here in Cleveland, it's one of Cleveland's dark secrets. After the Untouchables (era),
Elliot Ness actually moved to Cleveland and was running the police force, where he did most of his
most amazing stuff. And it was there that he was faced with the work of the first serial killer that ever
worked on American soil, and was called the Torso Killer. And at the time, it was the hugest deal. It
was as huge as Jack the Ripper. And it was one of those things that people sort of forgot about. It
didn't sort of hold up to the test of time. But the story, on every level, is totally fascinating. And we're
working on the script now for Miramax and Todd McFarlane, and McFarlane Entertainment is
producing it. It's been pretty pleasant. And Miramax is happy because they're the heroes of my book.

How did you get involved with (McFarlane's) production company?

Honestly, I've been at Image for a few years, and he's one of the co-founders of Image Comics, but I
had no communication with him, he had no knowledge of me, and literally out of the blue one day a
couple of years ago he called me up. He had just read Goldfish, and just said "I want to be in
business with you." And he made some outlandish promises, and I went, "Yeah, okay." And literally
he has held up to every single one, it's amazing. He said "I'm gonna make a movie with you." Well,
we're making a movie!

It was just announced that you're going to be doing a Daredevil series...

Yeah, I'm doing a little arc on Daredevil, which is one of Marvel's highest selling books. It's kind of a
very nice place to be, I'm sort of right in between Kevin Smith's run and Bob Gale's run. And I'm
working on it with a good friend of mine, David
Mack. I've already finished that, I did that in
secret over the last six months. I'm very, very
psyched for people to see that later in the year.

Would you like to give us a hint as to what

the story might entail?

The story is being tailored for David Mack's

artwork, that's all I'm gonna say. You have to
announce these things so early, that by the time
people read it they've already decided what it will
be. Sort of like when Star Wars came out, people
already decided what they thought it should be,
so when it comes out no matter what it is it's not
good enough.

Well, you've got to admit they were right

about Jar Jar Binks.

Oh, yeah, they were right about that, but you

know what I'm talking about; hype is a killer. I
liked when The Matrix came out, there wasn't --
people weren't all focused on it. Just put it out,
and let people go "wow," you know?

What else have you got coming up?

Monthly I write Sam and Twitch for McFarlane Entertainment. They gave me a monthly crime
comic just to go nuts on, and it's a dream job. Creatively it's such a good experience, there's no
rewriting, there's no editorial interference...

That's an interesting case, too, because historically, I don't think I'm revealing any
secrets to say that Spawn books haven't exactly been critically acclaimed, and yet,
pretty much universally your work on Sam and Twitch is being praised.

And again, it's one of those situations where this is a book where absolutely no one expected a thing
from. A knock-off book of Spawn, no one thinks a thing of. And so, it was fun for like a year ahead of
time to have seen the artwork, which I don't do, but to know the artwork's killer, to be proud of the
story, and just to like, let it come out. And people are all like, "Hey, you don't suck!" It's kind of nice.

What is the angle you come at those characters from?

I literally write them as human as possible. I don't do any Abbott and Costello nonsense. More times
than not, in Spawn they're comic relief. I absolutely removed that element from their dynamic.

I was wondering, did you feel constrained by the previous--I almost hesitate to use the
word "continuity" of the characters?

No, no, you know, that's one of the things he explained he really had no interest in us continuing
along those lines. That he'd done that already, and that he as a publisher is trying to mature his
product and he literally hired people he thought who could deliver the goods. And he wanted one of
his books to be like a hard-boiled crime comic that felt like Goldfish, and he said "Let's get that guy!"
I gotta tell you, it's been very pleasant. I have a lot of friends that work at Marvel and DC on some
really high profile books, and there's constant rewriting behind the scenes without anyone--they
rewrite the person's stuff without telling them, and they don't take their name off it, it's not very
creatively conducive. None of that happens. (McFarlane's) very, very creator-friendly because he is, in
fact, a comic book artist. So why would he treat comic artists badly?

It seems to me one of the things that is hurting mainstream comics right now is this
sort of return to the Mort Weisenger days of the editor sort of guiding the story, which
we've seen in X-Men, Spider-Man, Superman--most of the major, major titles from the
Big Two seem to be --

It's funny, because I've, like, avoided it. I think it's always sort of been there, I just think you're
hearing about it a lot more because what you've got now is creators like myself and David Mack who
decided not to pursue mainstream work as a way to pay the rent, and instead focused on creator-
owned books they owned outright. There was no editorial supervision, for better or worse. So you got
guys like us who did our own thing and now Marvel and DC come lookin' for us to do our little, give
them the Barton Fink feeling, right? And then, on the other hand you've got these other guys who've
been trying, "All I want to write is Cape and Boots-Man," and they get to do it, and it's not the
dream job that they imagined in their head, which was to have this creative freedom to just do your
thing. So, the two worlds are clashing; it's the creator-owned guys who have a lot of freedom because
we're used to it and demand it and get it. And then these other guys who don't get it, and find out that
other people get it and get upset. And start yelling on the Internet, "They rewrote me!"

The Internet seems to have had sort of a mini-revolution on comics in the last couple of
years, what do you think --

Well, I like it because up until very recently, I was strictly an independent comic book artist. That
means I'm working in a black and white medium, and it's very, very hard to get your book on the
shelves in most stores. It doesn't mean there isn't interest in it, it's just harder to convince a retailer
that it's worth them spending their non-refundable money on your book. And with the web site and
message boards and Internet sites it's much easier to get your book into their hands. Anyone around
the world who's heard about it and wants it. And this is a very hungry audience that will do anything
to get the book, and I appreciate that so much. On that level it's very good. The other thing comics has
that a lot of other mediums have, except for maybe like country music, is a lot of accessibility for fans
to get to the creators. There's a lot of chit chat amongst the two, if you want to talk to literally anyone
in comics you pretty much can. At least the nice guys (laughs).

And that, historically, has not been the case.

At conventions it's always been the case. I mean, you never see a Rock and Roll music convention
where all the rock stars are out and you can get their picture signed.

But when you think about the pre-EC days in the „40s and „50s when it was just sort of
assumed by the readers that these things just appeared out of the ether, that there was
no human being involved.

Yeah, and most of the time there wasn't even credits in the comic. It's much different now, it's sort of
accumulating. It happened in the '80s with people like Frank Miller and Chaykin and other people,
like, make a real name for themselves. It's such an identifiable name that people seek out that name.
Stan Lee did it, I mean, Stan Lee's name was all over the place. And it sort of accumulated with the
height of the Image craziness in the early '90s where they brought the Rock star status of a comic

book artist to the highest level, and with that came the highest bunch of nuttiness, too, which they all
admit to. Everything's sort of calmed down a little, but more times than not it's the creator that is as
important a property as something like Spider-Man or Batman. Sometimes who's writing Batman
is much more interesting to the general comic book audience than just Batman. And that's what
Daredevil's been going through lately with these killer writers that they've had on it, Bob Gale wrote
Back to the Future, he's writing comics, Kevin Smith, independent filmmaker. It's not just the
character, it's who's doing it. That's what you get.

Can we talk a little bit about your background? How is it that you found yourself
working in comics?

I always wanted to do it. I was doing it since I was a wee little kid. I was, like, publishing my own
books in third grade. Bad ones, but nonetheless...I read them as a kid, mostly superhero comics, and
just as I said, I so badly wanted to be George Pérez, I so badly -- to me this guy was like a rock star,
he's Bruce Springsteen. I'm reading his stuff every week, I'm like, oh my God, I love this, I want to be
this guy. And you just start practicing and practicing and practicing. But for me, as I got older, I lost a
little bit of the superhero edge. There wasn't as much interest to me as just telling interest stories
were. And crime fiction became a genre that I have a great affection for, and a talent for, and an
understanding of. And I went to the Institute of Art here in Cleveland, which is sort of a fancy, fine
arts school which would have nothing to do with comics and were quite annoyed by my existence and
a couple of my friends, all of which broke into comics and are successful. But we all had a hard time in
class. But I did train, and I broke into comics while I was in college, I did a couple of self-published
books for Caliber Press, which is a lot of my friends like David Mack and Mark Andreyko, have all
moved on from. We all met there at Caliber and after a couple of years there, after I sort of like found
my voice or like the beginning of the road to where my voice would be, I moved on to Image where
I've been ever since.

How do you reconcile the sort of doom-and-gloom predictions of many people that the
industry is in its death knells with the seeming boom for someone like yourself who is
really a hot property at a number of different companies?

You know what, the comics market overall is down, and a lot of it has to do with the major companies
not coming to grips with the fact that kids aren't reading comics anymore. You go to comics shows,
you go to comic book stores, you don't see one kid in there. Kids are playing video games. If I was a
kid, and I could be Spider-Man instead of reading Spider-Man, I would be playing video games too!
So comic books should be, and the more successful ones are, tailored to adult, or young adult,
audiences. These are people that have an appreciation for the artform, and don't want to be talked
down to.

But how do they develop that appreciation if they don't develop the language skills of
reading them as kids?

Some do, some don't. I have a lot of fans that just got into it because they weren't getting what they
wanted from film or from music, it's just a way to tell a story that people either glom on to or they
don't. I know a lot of people who didn't get into comics until college. They just didn't understand how
varied the medium could be. If you see a lot of superhero comics and superheroes are of no interest to
you when you're a kid, and then you get into college, and your roommate's got a bunch of Peter Bagge
Hate! comics laying around, and you read them and go "I love this! I really love -- are there more of
these?" And you find out there are forty titles that are of equal interest and merit, and then you've got
yourself a comic reader. Almost everyone I've talked to -- Sam and Twitch is not for children. It's
not being marketed toward whatever the predetermined age of the Spawn audience is. It's being
written for adults. It's a crime book. It's not a, "here, let's talk down to people" kind of thing. And I'm
writing a book I would like to see, and I think if more people just wrote books that they would want to
see and stop trying to second-guess what the audience for Cape and Boots-Man is, then it would be
easier for people to be proud of being a comic book reader. It's still got that, what do you call it?

Stench?

Yeah, it's got a stench about it. (ADD laughs). And it's funny because no matter how many great
comics are put out a year, and really the last couple of years have been, as far as quality goes, quite
phenomenal, really have for a medium that's sort of in a sales slump, the quality is way high. And one
of the reasons is when the going gets tough, a lot of people scamper. So you have a lot of lesser talents
who were just in it for the buck running away, but the people who were very passionate about the
medium, they stick to their guns. So you got rid of a lot of crappy artists and writers, and a lot of good
ones that stuck around. Because they're not gonna let the market determine their value.

I think two of the most amazing books I've come across in the last couple of months,
both were from Oni. Fortune and Glory, and also Greg Rucka's Whiteout.

Greg Rucka's fantastic. Absolutely. Here's a guy -- you know, it's not good marketing sense for a
novelist to be making comics. This guy loves comics. And he wants to tell stories, and it's a great way
to do it.

Whiteout should be collected in some sort of either digest or inexpensive graphic novel
format and be available in the checkout aisle of your Price Chopper, or whatever.

One of the reasons I went with Oni for my Hollywood book, my usual home is Image, number one I
had a very nice relationship with those people and I believe very much in their company and they
were very successful in doing some stuff that people said would not work. It was very obvious to those
who read stuff outside the industry that Clerks would work as a comic book, and that Greg Rucka's
work would work as a comic book. Also when I do Fortune and Glory, the obvious independent
film/comic book connection made it very easy for people to understand what my point of view was
going to be for Fortune and Glory. And the other thing was that Oni's got a very strong intention of
getting their comic books into bookstores and not into the Humor section which drives me insane.
You know, that gutter for all comic books?

Every time I see a graphic novel in between Dave Barry and Andy Rooney, it's like
fingernails across the chalkboard.

Robert Crumb next to Wonder Woman -- drives me insane. And you know how many times some
grandmother goes in and buys someone a present and they get them the wrong comic because she
doesn't know the difference between Robert Crumb and Wonder Woman. So it's really funny
because locally I've had Borders put Jinx and Goldfish in the crime section, after explaining to them
at great length why it doesn't belong in the humor section.

Now, how do they do there? Do the people find them?

Guess what? They're all gone, every single copy. Gone. The random, casual crime fiction reader who
just goes into bookstores on a Friday night looking for a thrill is gonna pick it up and go "hmm."
They're buying it because they weren't embarrassed to find it in the humor section next to, you know,
Krazy Kat or whatever it is. That's one of the things about my relationship with Todd McFarlane is,
I'm one little guy trying to push people into feeling this way. Here's a guy who not only agrees with all
these things we've talked about, but he's got the money and resources behind him to actually do it.
And I'll hold on to that coattail. It's a very positive thing.
Chester Brown, 24 February, 2004

One of the best and most unique graphic novels of 2003 -- or any year, for that matter -- was Louis
Riel. Chester Brown's insightful biography of one of
Canada's most iconoclastic historical figures was
also a huge leap forward for Brown, and for comics
as an artform.

Many of your earlier works focused primarily

on stories from your own life,
autobiographical stories. What did you learn
from autobiographical cartooning and what
caused you to shift gears into this latest
mode?

I learned that when you do stories about your own

life, the people around you get mad at you for
depicting them wrong. So, doing someone else's life is
safer...they tend to think that I've gotten certain
details wrong and don't like the clothes I have them
wearing or the opinions I have them proclaiming or
whatever...

Louis Riel is a key figure in Canadian history,

but most Americans, I don't think, will be too
familiar with him. Can you tell me a little
about what attracted you to him as a subject?

Well, when I began the project, politically, I was an anarchist, and so I was attracted to the story of
someone who had tried to, or who had led two rebellions against the Canadian government. That was
probably the primary attraction, although, also I've had an interest in issues about mental health and
schizophrenia. My mother was a schizophrenic and so the whole part of the story that dealt with Riel's
own craziness and his incarceration in a mental institution, that part appealed to me, too. I felt that
I'd be able to do something interesting with that. He considered himself a prophet. He called himself
the "Prophet of The New World" and he basically tried to setup his own new religion. And that had
people thinking he was crazy.

You had to compress certain events and characters in telling this story...tell me why
that was necessary and what kind of judgment calls you found yourself making in the
process.

It was necessary because I wanted to limit myself to about two hundred pages and comics need more
space than prose does. You know, in prose, you can describe something quickly in a sentence, but if
you're to depict what happens in that sentence, it might take a page or more. So, to really tell a
biography fully, you'd need maybe, like, a thousand pages to tell it rather than the two hundred that I
gave myself, but I wanted to limit myself to around two hundred pages because I knew that it would
take a while to do even that much because comics are kind of time consuming; it took me about five
years to do the project as it was and if I'd have done a thousand pages, it would have been that much
longer, so, yeah, I needed to kind of compress events and combine characters and all that kind of
stuff...

The book was originally serialized in pamphlet form as a series of ten comic books
before, ultimately, being collected in this hardcover graphic novel. Since the book holds
together so well as a single lengthy work, how do you feel about serializing it? Would
you follow that format again?

I originally wrote out a script for the book beforehand and I thought it was going to work well as just a
single work and I didn't really want to serialize it in comic book form. That was done at my publisher's
suggestion because it did help finance the project as it went along,
but, probably my next work I'm not going to serialize beforehand, I'm
just going to release it as a graphic novel and that'll be the first that
the public sees of it.

This project took a long time to do and it may be some time

before your next graphic novel appears...how does a
cartoonist support himself in these periods, when you're
working on these really lengthy works and you don't have
regular work appearing on a regular basis in the
meantime?

I do get royalties from my older books, the money still does come in
from that and sometimes from unusual sources, like foreign editions and that kind of thing. And, also,
while doing the book, I did get a grant from the Canadian government, so that helped, too. I think this
might have been the first graphic novel that did get a grant from the Canada Council For The Arts, but
it kind of opened a door there because now they have an official category in their grant system for
graphic novels.
Ed Brubaker, 27 January 2004/13 August 2006

Ed Brubaker has written some of the most involving and entertaining comics I’ve read in the past
ten years, including Sleeper, Gotham Central, Catwoman and his current crime title for
Marvel/Icon, Criminal. The latter comic so impressed me that it prompted me to launch a
dedicated blog, which you can find at criminalcomic.blogspot.com. In 2009, Brubaker’s neo-noir
film Angel of Death was released on DVD. This interview combines two discussions I had with
Brubaker, in 2004 and 2006.

Alan David Doane: Your career began largely with independent, often autobiographical
comics far removed from the harrowing, superpowered paranoia of Sleeper. Track the
evolution of your career from then to
now.

Ed Brubaker: It's not that easy to do,

really. I started out wanting to be a
cartoonist, and spent most of my twenties
doing that, working on Lowlife, which was
very personal. During that time, though, I
started writing comics for friends to draw, as
well, because I'd always been more
comfortable as a writer than an artist. I'm a
very slow artist, and rarely pleased with my
own work. So being a cartoonist was sort of
about finding stories I felt were worth the
time it would take me to draw them. I rarely
if ever told anecdotes, like a lot of autobio
comics did, because it seemed pointless to
spend six months drawing an anecdote.

The more I wrote stories for other artists, the

more ideas for stories I got that I would
never want or even be able to draw on my
own. Then Eric Shanower got me into
Vertigo in the mid-‗90s, which was my first
real paying gig, and I had fun doing it. This
led to more offers of writing work from DC,
and as I was getting into my early 30s, and
getting sick of being dirt poor, it was nice to
be able to earn money doing something I
was good at and enjoyed. And this, of course,
has led to some screenwriting and opened
other doors for me as a writer in other fields that I'm just beginning to explore.
Part of being able to have a career as a writer for comics and the biggest departure from the early part
of my comics career, of course, is that I no longer dismiss genre work as automatically bad. I like a lot
of crime fiction and some sci-fi, and I think in my 20s, when I was at the height of my art-fagginess, I
felt guilty for liking stuff like that. As I got older, I just stopped feeling that way. I love Philip K. Dick
and Ross Macdonald's writing just as much as Milan Kundera or Raymond Carver's, and sometimes
more, because they're less pretentious.

Reading some older Wildcats issues recently, I was struck by how much the art of Sean
Phillips has changed. He was an incredible artist then but his work with you on Sleeper
far transcends the high standard he set back then. What do you feel he brings to the
creative partnership?

Sean brings a depth of understanding and subtlety to what we do. He knows how to draw facial
expressions that make you sympathize with the characters on the page, and he knows how to establish
mood. One of the hardest parts of working in comics as a writer is finding an artist who understands
what you're trying to get across. Sean does, as do several other artists I've worked with. And he's fast
as hell, which is rare, too.

What's the best thing, for you, about your current working relationship with
DC/Wildstorm?

I guess the stability. Knowing there's paying work available to me, usually work I enjoy. It's allowed
me to buy a house and support a family. That's pretty nice.

What's the worst?

That's a hard one. I suppose I'd like a bit more marketing support for my work. I seem to write some
of their best reviewed and most award-nominated work, but they don't seem to push it very much
sometimes. A lot of this is changing, of course, with the success of the Sleeper TPB and how much
more mainstream mags like Wizard are writing about my work lately. Of course, as I've said before,
they will never push any of our work as much as we'd like them to.

If you could do one thing to improve the comics industry, what would it be?

That's easy, I'd cancel three quarters of the mainstream superhero books and publish a lot of different
genres like the publishers did in the ‗50s when superhero comics stopped selling. I think we're just
slicing the pie into more pieces every year, and while there are some good superhero books out there,
there's simply too many to fit on the average comic store's shelves, so is it any wonder a lot of good
ones don't get stocked? I don't know if this would work, because the Direct Market is such a disaster
anyway, but I think it would be nice to see a more diverse offering in stores. Or maybe we should just
make the whole market returnable. That would be great, because then retailers wouldn't have to rely
on subscriptions from their customers and could afford to stock a wider variety of material in their
stores. I know there are economic reasons this doesn't happen, but I think it's criminal that this is the
only entertainment industry that puts all the risk on the retailer, not the publisher.
I know from reading A Complete Lowlife that you may have (allegedly!) committed a
crime or two yourself in your wayward youth. Certainly your portrait of an
underground criminal organization in Sleeper was one of the most compelling and
convincing in the history of comics. What so fascinates you about the criminal world?

I don't know, for sure. I grew up on military bases during the early part of my life, so maybe there's
something subconscious about seeing this other world, that's so outside what I was raised in. But part
of it, I'm sure, comes from my teens and early 20s, where I was basically, a lowlife, and knew a lot of
small time druggies and criminals, and got a few distinct and memorable experiences with some more
serious criminals and spent some time in jail. I don't want to be a part of that world, believe me, but
it's a lot of fun to write about. I always want to write about the criminals who, as far as their morality
goes, they steal, or kill, but they're good people somehow anyway. That's an interesting dichotomy, I
think.

You spent a long time writing mostly for DC/Vertigo before moving to Marvel on such
titles as Captain America, Daredevil and the forthcoming Criminal (among
others)...what can you tell me about how different it is to work for these two giant
comics companies?

Well, I think my experiences at DC really taught me a

lot of things that have made my experiences at Marvel
better, honestly. I know what it feels like to be in the
trenches on a few monthlies, and I know how to deal
with editors and letterers and the whole system. So, I
think, because Marvel doesn't need to hold my hand,
I've had a great time there. But this is not to be a
knock on DC. I was always treated very well there, for
the most part.

The main difference, looking at it, is that working at

Marvel, I've just cut loose on the books more, because
of the things I learned at DC. So I feel like I came in
fully-developed and ready to go, and Marvel has
allowed me to do that, to great success for me and
them.

Sleeper seemed to go far into the extremes of

human behaviour -- lust, greed, murder,
betrayal. I'd expect we'll see more of the same
in Criminal, but short of duplicating "The
Sleeper Formula" (for lack of a better term), how will Criminal be different?

Criminal is casting a much wider net, in a way. Sleeper was very much about one man and the
elaborate trap he was in, and Criminal is about a bunch of different people who all live outside the
law, or under its radar, at least. And since they're all new characters, it's like I get to just unfold this
whole new world in the pages of our book. But also, to go in a different direction than Sleeper, most
of the characters are pretty realistic. I think even our first main character, Leo, is more realistic than
most of the criminals you see in movies or comics, because he uses his head and doesn't want to be
involved in violence, and he really doesn't want to go to jail.

I would have read Sleeper for the rest of my life, if you and Sean could have continued
to produce it. How long do you see Criminal lasting, sales allowing, and what do you
think is built into the concept to give it long-term potential?

Well, Sleeper was never designed to go beyond where it did. In fact, I originally intended it to only go
12 issues, but Jim Lee wanted us to do more of it, so I changed the ending of the story and came up
with the twist of Lynch waking up, and then we had another run. The ending of the final issue was
always the ending I was building towards, though; nothing was cut short, creatively.

But with Criminal, since the

canvas is so unlimited, I could
see us doing it for five or more
years, at least, if it's successful
enough, between US and foreign
editions. I've got outlines for
stories through to about 30
issues already, and more
scratching their way out of the
back of my mind all the time.

And honestly, I think the cast of

characters and the 'world' of the
comic is what'll give it those legs,
if it gets them. I've been building
up to this stuff for so long, so
much of it is fully-formed in my
head, and the characters in the
first two arcs are so well-defined
to me, that I think it's going to be
a really unique comics
experience. It's different than
anything I've ever done before, I
know that. It's this
bizarre combination of twists on
crime story plots, and this almost
vérité-style comic writing,
watching these characters go
through their lives, and really
fleshing out this underworld they inhabit. It's been a lot of fun, and I hope it's as addictive to readers
as it is for me and Sean.

Clearly part of the problem with Sleeper was that it was being mainly marketed to
superhero fans -- what efforts are you and Sean (and Marvel, one hopes) making to get
the word out about Criminal beyond the Direct Market? And how can readers help?

I don't know that that was the problem, I think the problem was possibly that it was connected to a
universe. It was a challenging read, with a non-superhero style of art, in a superhero universe that was
on the wane at the time. It had a lot of knocks against it, and all credit to Wildstorm, they kept
plugging away and letting us do the book because they liked it, and it got nominated for four or five
Eisners. I think just not enough people saw the book at their stores, that it got sort of lost in the
shuffle of other DC and WS books. I didn't honestly see it being marketed to the superhero fans. The
only ads we had were in other Mature WS books, and once in a few Vertigo books. I wish it had been
that simple.

So, knowing that going in, and knowing the DM is my prime target for the monthly book, the main
thing I've been trying to do is just get word out about Criminal any way I can. I'm using and abusing
the internet. I've worked for the past two years, working my ass off, building a bigger name for myself.
I'm very lucky that Sean is coming off Marvel Zombies, which was a huge hit, too, because between
us, Sean and I are known by more retailers than we ever were before, so now is the perfect time to try
something new, I figure. I've been trying as much as I can to remind retailers of what we've done for
them lately, basically, and that our overall fanbase has increased considerably. I mean, both Cap and
DD are steadily climbing up the charts by thousands at a time, not drifting down it, which is the
norm, and I want retailers to be thinking about that when ordering Criminal. I'm even pushing
Criminal in the letters pages of DD and Cap, to make sure my newer readers know about the book,
too, because I've learned you can never push a book enough. Bendis tells me he still meet people who
claim they're his biggest fans, and they never heard of Powers. "Aauugh!" right?

So I've been asking fans all over the place to print out the PDF teaser we made for the book and bring
it to their retailer, and talk to them about it, and so far I've heard a bunch have actually done it. Some
of these fans have been printing the teaser in their college papers, even, apparently, which is even
better. Oh, and Kirkman offered to run the teaser in this month's Walking Dead, in full color, even,
so that'll get us in front of another 25,000 people, a lot of them retailers.

But beyond that, I'm lining up a lot of print and online interviews. I've got a big feature set-up with a
pop culture journalist for the Seattle Times, and his stories often get picked up and run all over the
country. With the way articles about comics go lately, I'm optimistic about those chances. And I'm
working to get a lot of the weekly papers around the country to write features around the time we
publish. It's a lot of hustling really, and asking readers and friends to do some hustling too. I honestly
think we're going to do pretty well with the book, and I've already been fielding a fair amount of
interest from Hollywood, but I figure better safe than sorry.
Charles Burns, 28 December 1999

Charles Burns is one of the most unique talents ever to work in comics. His style pays tribute to
many of the creators of the past, but is at the same time unique and modern. His Black Hole series
was collected by Pantheon and was one of the most impressive graphic novels in years. At the time
of this interview, Black Hole was still being serialized by Fantagraphics.

Alan David Doane: Your work is almost indescribable. It's strange and it's beautiful, it's
simple and complex -- how did your style evolve?

Charles Burns: Really slowly, I guess; there was always a certain line quality I admired in other
cartoonists, just a kind of slick, hard line. And I kind of just very slowly developed that over the years.
It's kind of this gradual progression. And as far as the storytelling and the drawing style, it's a fairly
traditional comics style as far as the way the stories are broken down, but then kind of this, I don't
know, another surface to it, or kind of, a complexity to it, a visual complexity that I try to attain.

There's a definite sort of simplistic uniformity to

the layout, but what goes on within the panels...I
swore I'd never ask a creator this question, but
where the hell do your ideas come from?

Well, that's what I was asked every day when I was

growing up as far as, like, kids looking over my shoulder
when I was drawing. It's just built up really slowly. In
my most recent stories -- I have a comics series called
Black Hole, and it's a fairly long, ongoing series that's
based around the Teen Plague. In the most recent
stories, they're really much more based on
autobiographical information, growing up as a teenager,
and actually including a lot of my socialization, growing
up, even though it's fairly (well) disguised. Anyway,
again, it's hard to point to any single source. And I never
have a perfect answer for that question (laughs).

The Teen Plague makes an appearance in the Big

Baby book, was that the earliest appearance of
that idea?

There may have been an earlier story, a shorter story --

but as far as that whole scene, that was the first long story. And then I realized it was just an idea that
was large enough that I wanted to explore, so this most recent series Black Hole has been, I'm a little
over halfway through, I've got seven issues that I've finished, so it's a long sprawling saga of the Teen
Plague. The most recent story is more character-driven, as opposed to just; my earlier stories tend to
be more based on some bizarre setting or bizarre ideas.

I've read El Borbah and Big Baby, and you seem to give a lot of thought to the plot and
the underlying tension that's going on -- as far as the plot of the whole Teen Plague
storyline, is that informed by your viewpoints about sex and being a teenager?

It's kind of exploring that kind of tension. The Black Hole story has this whole kind of disease
allegory, but on the other hand it's mainly just about people coming of age, the characters coming of
age. And that kind of, trying to deal with that, the horror of dealing with adolescence, being in a
situation where you're not a child, but you're not quite an adult, and the whole disease metaphor, if
you will, is really like a catalyst for that kind of, pushing that to a further extreme. Making all those,
making the situation stronger than it already is. Pushing it.

Almost every one of these stories seems to be a metaphor

for something else, and it's not always incredibly obvious
what that --

(Laughs) Well, it's obvious to me...

Well, yeah, of course...

Comes bubbling up out of my sub-conscious I guess.

It seems like a lot of the adults, especially in the Big Baby

book are these sort of threatening presences...is that how
you saw adults growing up?

In a certain way they are, just treated as foreign entities--in some

cases threatening. There's one story in Big Baby where he goes to
summer camp, so there's just these kinds of -- you're right, these
kind of threatening characters that are the adults that are in
charge of everything.

It's almost like the Big Baby character, Tony, is just beginning to experience this secret
world of the adults that's this kind of twisted disgusting thing.

Right, it is the one theme that kind of runs through all the stories, is his trying to come to grips with
that adult world, or trying to figure out--whether it's him watching a TV movie and being confused by
the themes that are going on in that, or watching his next-door neighbor take a swing at his wife;
whatever those things are. It's him trying to process that information, trying to come to terms with
that adult world. And it generally does come off as being this fairly horrific outlook, what he gets back
is very horrific.

It's an interesting contrast to me that in the El Borbah book, which is almost

unrelentingly negative --

(Burns laughs).

In terms of the endings of the stories, I mean I don't think I'm insulting you to say
there's no uplifting comment on human nature --

No, no...

And yet, the end of the summer camp story in the Big Baby book, there's almost a
redemptive feel to it – that Tony had a mission for the cause of good.

Right, right.

As you were doing that, did it seem like you were developing almost a new theme in
your work?

A lot of it has to do with the type of storytelling I'm doing. The story you mention is more recent and
the El Borbah stories are a little bit older. El Borbah was a character that just kind of stumbled
through these pseudo-detective stories, and yeah, you're right, it was more played for very dark
humor, and then I think the Big Baby story, more recent, is kind of delving into his personality, his
character, instead of just being this...El Borbah's this kind of stumblebum guy who uses his fists
instead of his brains, he's just played for laughs. And Big Baby does have this, more rounded out
character, even though he looks totally alien (laughs). And in the Black Hole stories too I'm really
trying to reach into the characters and have them speak more, have them a larger part of the plot as
opposed to just y'know, cipher or stereotype characters.

Has there been a reaction from the audience in terms of

which storytelling style they prefer, and are they
following you along on this journey?

I haven't done El Borbah for at least 10 years or so, and there's

always people who come up to me and say "When are you going
to do another El Borbah story?" So, there's certainly people who
like the character and the storytelling. On the other hand, from
people whose opinion I trust and appreciate, I've had the most
response from the Black Hole series, as far as like the
storytelling, the characters, the art--the whole thing all kind of
put together. But there's always going to be people who prefer a
particular character, or a nostalgic look at the El Borbah
character. My mom likes El Borbah more than the stuff I'm
doing now (laughs).

I haven't read Black Hole, you say you're developing the characters more -- you're
getting more into their heads I take it.

Yeah, and having it not so plot-driven, much more character driven. And also, the fact that I'm doing
what's going to end up being a 12 or 13 issue story, a 350 page story, I'm working hard at keeping all
the plot threads pulled together and the characters worked out very thoroughly.

I was trying to spot your influences -- the panel layout and inking style reminded me
quite a bit of the EC style -- were they an influence?

As far as the page breakdown and that real rigid style of storytelling. Even though I've recently drifted
away from that kind of way the page is broken down...it certainly is influenced by the EC comics,
especially Harvey Kurtzman's stories, that had a very rigid...the way they were broken down. That
style of Johnny Craig and other EC artists, Will Elder...very kind of dark...

The work that you do with the blacks, you must go through a bottle of ink for every
story, right?

It goes through pretty fast (laughs)...I think I've slowly, over the years, just moved towards just having
big, strong black and white images. There's a couple of occasions where I've had pieces or stories
colored, and ultimately realized I'm not really crazy about the results. I mean, I do the color covers,
but as far as...I enjoy the look of black and white. Low-fidelity comics.
Kurt Busiek, June 2000
Kurt Busiek and George Pérez are largely responsible for the renewed interest I had in comics in the
late 1990s. Having had children earlier in the decade, from 1993 to 1998 The Comics Journal was
the only comics-related publication
that I made a point of staying current
with. But having loved Pérez’s
Avengers work in the 1970s, when I
got word that the title was being
relaunched with Pérez doing the
artwork, I had to see what was up.

Busiek was virtually unknown to me,

but he quickly became one of my
favourite corporate superhero comics
writers. He, and Mark Waid (see
elsewhere in this eBook for his
interview, conducted within a couple
of weeks of this one) seemed to share a
respect for history and love of the
characters that, combined with great
storytelling chops, resulted in some of
the most readable Marvel titles in
some time.

Busiek, of course, is also the prime

mover behind Astro City, one of the
few superhero titles I still follow to this
day. This was one of the longest
interviews I’ve ever done, and also one
of the most pleasurable. We talk a lot
about Gorilla Comics, an imprint
Busiek and Waid started together.
Like many comics imprints, it came
and went fairly quickly, but at the
time it seemed an important moment
in comics, and the story of how it came together remains interesting to me for what the comic book
industry does, and doesn’t, allow it top talents to do for the betterment of not only their own lives,
but for the betterment of the comics industry as well.

Alan David Doane: Could you tell us a little about how you started writing comic books?

Kurt Busiek: I was not a major comic book reader when I was a kid, but when I was in junior high
school, I started picking up comic books for some unknown reason, and started getting into Marvel
Comics on a regular basis. And shortly thereafter I realized it would probably be fun to write 'em and
people got paid to do this and actually did it for a living and that sounded like a great job, so, for the
next few years I did all I could to learn how to write comics.

Mostly a friend and I, I wrote comics and he drew them, and by the time we'd gotten 60 pages of stuff
done, we'd progressed from absolutely, horribly awful to having some idea of craft and storytelling
and pacing. So when I was finishing up college, I wrote some sample scripts and sent them to DC
Comics, and the editors there liked them enough to give me a shot at writing a Green Lantern
backup story, and that was my first professional sale. And from there, I sold a script to Marvel for a
Power-Man/Iron Fist fill-in that would up being the first issue of a 12-issue run, and that was my
first ongoing series, and I just kept going from there.

You first rose to prominence in the minds of most readers with Marvels with Alex
Ross...

Yup, that was only 11 years after I broke in...

An overnight sensation. Tell us a little bit about what it was like going from working
regularly but I guess not really being as well-known as you are at this point, to having
that success with Marvels, what was the transition like there?

Well, it was a very odd transition, because while we were working on Marvels, of course, we had no
inkling that it was gonna be a big success. We were convinced that people were really only gonna buy
issue #2, because it had the X-Men in it. But we were just doing this project the way we wanted to do
it because we thought it was a good story and we would have fun doing it. So, during the whole
process of working on the book, which was a very work-intensive, research-intensive book.

I was making very little money and taking forever to turn out scripts, and even after we were done
when the book was coming out, it was a year before any royalties came in, so with all the great reviews
and all of the rewards and such that we were winning, it was still a time of economic struggle. And
even after it came out, I wasn't all of a sudden deluged with offers of more work. There was actually
very little, because most editors looked at Marvels and said "Yeah, that was really good, but the book
I'm editing isn't that kind of book." And they jumped to the conclusion that that was all I could write.
It wasn't until a few years later that I started getting so many offers of work that I was turning stuff
down. That was very pleasant, but it was just a larger version of the same process I'd been undergoing
for the last ten years, which was keep working, keep doing stuff you enjoy doing, keep trying to do the
best you can, and I was simply doing it on bigger characters.

I would assume you were relatively certain that the Marvels-type story wasn't the only
sort of tale that you had to tell. How did you develop the writing skills to be able to
handle the wide variety of different storytelling techniques that you've used on titles as
diverse as Marvel's Avengers or the Ninjak series?
I am simply interested in comics as a storytelling form, and I've never been one of those guys who
wants to write the same kind of thing over and over again. I didn't get into comics because I had one
particular kind of story I wanted to tell. I got into comics because I love the comics form, and I want to
do all kinds of things with it. So during the period before Marvels that I was struggling to do
anything I could, I wrote everything from humor stories, to horror stories to superhero stories to
Mickey Mouse stories, and that gave me a nice practical education in writing a lot of different varieties
of material.

But I've also always read a lot of different varieties of material and been very interested in doing lots
of different kinds of stuff. The sort of human interest of Leonard Starr's On Stage or the high
adventure of Milton Caniff's Terry and the Pirates. I've always wanted to do that sort of thing so
I've always studied that along with whatever I was working on at the time. And the more chances I got
to do something different, something that stretched craft in different ways, the more fun it was, so I
would actually seek out that sort of thing.

I'm gonna guess that you would agree with me that the wider the variety of diversity of
the types of stories that are seen in comics, the more likely the artform is to thrive,
wouldn't you say?

I certainly hope so. Right now we're stuck in kind of a holding pattern, where the wider variety of
diversity you've got doesn't actually have a way to connect to readers who are interested in it. But
that's something that we need to work on and hopefully we'll find a solution for it.

I know that one of your very longtime friends is Scott McCloud, the author of
Understanding Comics and he also released just recently Reinventing Comics. I'm
gonna assume you've probably read that?

Actually, no. I read the first draft of Reinventing Comics and had some lengthy conversations with
Scott about how to rework it, much as we did with Understanding Comics. But I haven't seen the
final version, it just came out this week, and I'm kind of hoping for a free copy.

One of the things he goes into, he gives sort of, a treatise I guess, on the possible futures
of the artform, obviously diversity being a key role in that. I'm wondering if the two of
you, as lifelong friends, if you see yourselves as working two different corners of trying
to save comics.

We certainly started out that way. Scott was the hometown friend who drew the comics that I wrote
when we were practicing how to create comics. When we both broke in to the comics field, Scott was
very determined to stay independent, never do anything that he didn't own, never do anything he
didn't have complete control over. While I was doing work-for-hire for the major companies working
on characters I enjoyed reading about when I was a teenager. And Scott occasionally referred to us as
Mr. Inside and Mr. Outside. But then the year that Marvels was winning all the awards was also the
year that Understanding Comics was winning all the awards too.
Luckily we were rarely in the same category. And we felt like God had simply looked down on us after
20 years of argument and said "You're both right, now shut up and move on!" And shortly thereafter I
was doing creator-owned work and Scott was writing Superman Adventures. So I don't know that
we're still working different sides of the same street, as it were. We're both interested in finding new
ways for comics to reach new audiences and we have different ideas, not necessarily on how that can
be accomplished, but on where in that process we each want to work. I'm a passionate supporter of
the idea that trade paperbacks being sold in bookstores and on the Internet and outside comic book
stores, in places where people who don't already read comics might see them, is a great way to attract
new readers. And Scott, of course, is very, very tied up in the idea of comics on the Internet, which I
also think is a great way to reach out to new readers, but it's a difficult economic model right now.

He makes a pretty good case in the latter part of Reinventing Comics for methods in
which comics could be read over the Internet, and he does concede, I think, that the
technology isn't quite in place yet to make it completely practical, but that the
likelihood is that in another year or two we're gonna be able to see the types of things
that he's sort of predicting.

I certainly hope so. The idea of solving the problem of

micro-payments has been a year away for about five
years now. And I keep hearing that it's solved, but it
doesn't yet seem to be operating the way people like
Scott envision it operating. I'm sure we'll get there. I
guess my approach is that until we're there, I'm
perfectly happy pursuing other avenues, and Scott is
practically Messianic about the Internet, and he would
like to push it along just as fast as possible. I'm
content to let him push it along as fast as possible and
I'll push the trade paperbacks too.

I completely agree with you that an affordable

and economic solution in terms of trade
paperbacks is a great idea. I've got two small
children, they're four and six, and I've talked
about this before in other interviews. I have a
real hard time paying three or four bucks for a
flimsy pamphlet that I'm gonna hand to them
that I know is gonna be corn flakes the next
day. I'm sure you're probably aware Marvel
announced the last week or so the digest
format that they're gonna be releasing...?

Backpack Marvels, yes. I think it's a great idea. It's actually an adaptation of something that Marvel's
Spanish licensed publisher is doing. They have a series of digest-sized reprints called Bibliotecha
Marvels. Each of which collects about seven issues of classic Marvel material in black and white. And
every time somebody from Marvel has gone over to Spain for a convention, they tend to come back
with a couple of these things going "Look, look, these are really neat!" Enough people have done that
now so at Marvel they said "Why don't we do this?" (Laughs) "This is a really nice package, we can do
it inexpensively, and it's a great way to make available a package that offers value for money."

Marvel's been having good success with the Essentials trade paperbacks, which is another package
that's designed to offer value for money; to break out of the cycle of two dollars for a comic book, or
pretty much two dollars times however many comic books are in a trade paperback. The Backpack
Marvels, if they work, they're 150 pages of material for six or seven dollars, so in size and shape and
price and length, they're not terribly dissimilar from a paperback book. So they're much more in a
category that non-comic book readers are used to.

You mention, too, the distribution issue. As I say, I've got two small children and I
frequent shops, so they're exposed to them on a regular basis. But I find when I have
had the opportunity to pass out comics (to kids), they devour them. I think the artform
is naturally attractive to young readers.

I agree. We give away comics instead of candy for Halloween. And every year we have kids coming to
our house and they're delighted to get comics because they don't ordinarily see them and we have
people who come back every year, "This is it! This is the house where they give away the comics!" You
know, they'd rather have a comic book than another candy bar. But they don't see comic books for sale
anywhere, so how are they gonna be turned into regular comic book readers?

I guess one of my fears for the future of comics, really, is we may have already lost a
generation of readers.

I actually think that might be a good thing. We lost a generation of readers after a long process of a
downward slide that narrowed the readership further and further. And then, with the creation of the
direct market, we found a way to serve the existing readers very well, but not bring in new readers in
any great quantity at all. And that actually gives us, in terms of the wider audience it practically gives
us virgin territory. We're not trying to convince those readers that comics are more than just
superheroes because they don't think of comics as anything. And if we present something that they're
interested in, that looks like fun to them, they'll enjoy it without a preconception that comic books
have to be Spider-Man or Superman, because they don't know that.

Did you read Fortune and Glory, the Brian Michael Bendis book?

I've read, I think, the first two issues of it. The third one is kicking around the house somewhere, but it
disappeared into the files before I read it.

See, I have a real hard time believing that when that's collected in trade paperback, that
if they stick that in the Hollywood, the performing arts section of bookstores, that it's
not just gonna do blockbuster business. Because it's a terrific read. But it gets between
a Superman and Incredible Hulk graphic novel, it's gonna die.
Right. The question is, where does this stuff get racked? If something like Maus got racked in history
or biography or Judaica, where it did really well -- but if it got stuck in humor or graphic novels,
nobody who was interested in it would really see it. But things are changing there, too. Back in 1985,
when Dark Knight and Watchmen were coming out, the big complaint about getting comics into
bookstores was they all got racked in humor. Now it's 15 years later and the big complaint is that they
all get racked into the graphic novel section in the science fiction area. Well, at least we got a section.

I guess that's a step up.

Once we produce more books, keep more in print and have more diverse material available, then we'll
need more than a section. But it's all a case of building the critical mass that gets us moved on to the
next step.

Tell us where Gorilla Comics came from.

Actually, Gorilla Comics started with a conversation between me and Mark Waid. Mark was frustrated
with working with work-for-hire editors who'd been changing his work for the worse, and he wanted
to find a solution. At the same time, I was looking at my current Marvel contract coming to an end
shortly, and I was itching to do more creator-owned stuff, more stuff that I had greater control over.
So I was facing the problems that, if I'd put another creator-owned book out, Astro City had done
quite well, I was happy with that -- but, every time you put out a creator owned book, you're putting
out one book in a sea of 750-1000 books that come out that month.

And it's very hard to get people to notice it. And I suggested to Mark that, if he wanted to do creator
owned work and I wanted to do creator owned work, if we did it together, then the news story that
hits is "Waid and Busiek Form New Imprint." And that would get more play and more notice and give
us a better chance of having our stuff reach readers who'd give it a try. And of course the natural next
step was, "If two is good, more is better!' So we decided that, if the two of us were gonna do this, why
don't we get other people to do it and make an even bigger splash. So we contacted other creators we
thought would be interested doing something like Gorilla, and they were, and so we got going.

You mention, and I hate to tell tales out of school here, Mark Waid was originally
supposed to do this interview with us --

That bastard!

Yeah, well, what are you gonna do? I suspect it's as much my fault as it is his that he
isn't on the phone right now, but we'll find out at some point...you mention the
frustration that he had with his work being changed. I always felt when he came back to
Captain America, the second go-round that ended not as well as one would have hoped,
with Marvel editing his work in a way that he didn't agree with, I didn't understand
then and I guess I don't understand now, maybe you could enlighten me as to the
mindset of the company, when they have somebody who they bring in as a big name and
promote it as the salvation of the title, and then go out of their way to drive them away -
- it seems like they do that again and again and again, it's not like it's an isolated
incident. What do you think is the motivation of the company in a situation like that?

I don't think that the company's motivation is actually to

drive somebody away. It's more a case that they get very
nervous about big projects. When Mark and Ron Garney
were on Captain America the first time, Captain
America hadn't been selling very well, the idea was, we
want these guys to come in and boost the sales on the book,
and they're good and they've got energy and they've got
ideas, so let 'em do what they want. The second time they
came (on the title), Captain America had just been coming
back from the year of Heroes Reborn, the Rob Liefeld and
subsequent creators' Captain America had sold very, very
well indeed.

And Marvel was desperate not to see those books drop in

sales. That if those four books came back to Marvel and
didn't do phenomenally well, then it was very possible that
upper management was gonna decide farming them out to
popular creators and giving them control of the characters is
obviously the best way to do it, and they'd lose the characters
again. So they were very, very cautious about Captain
America and Iron Man and Avengers and Fantastic Four, and were very worried about how
they could keep the sales up. And unfortunately, it's just a truism of the industry that when publishers
are worried about something, they meddle. We had lengthy discussion about whether Tony Stark
should have a moustache, whether he should be clean-shaven, whether he should have a goatee,
because they were so nervous about whether Tony Stark with a moustache would be perceived as old-
fashioned and therefore not saleable. And I for my part was concerned that a clean-shaven Tony Stark
doesn't look like Tony Stark.

Well, the Young Tony was very popular.

Yeah, there you go!

Again, reinforcing my theory that there's no sense of history there. Not necessarily even
in the sense of a respect for what went before, but also paying attention to the mistakes
that went before.

Actually, I think they pretty well knew those were mistakes. But I don't think that their figuring was
the teenage Tony Stark was a sales failure because he didn't have a moustache, I think they thought he
was a sales failure because it was a horrible idea.
To make him young and hip. Which was why they didn't want him to have a moustache,
I guess that's what I'm trying to get around to.

I think you're making a leap in judgment there.

Okay.

Certainly making him appear younger and more cutting edge, say, 32 year old, is not the same
commercial process as making him 18 years old (laughs).

Gotcha.

The business with Captain America, they just wanted to make sure that Captain America was
going to fit what they thought would be the most saleable approach for the character, and Mark's
ideas for it didn't match that. Often, in a work-for-hire situation, normally you don't hear about what
goes on between an editor and a writer because it doesn't actually cause a great deal of controversy,
it's part of the process. I submit a story and the editor says "I like this, but can we change this, this
and this." And it's rare that that kind of editorial control erupts into something difficult, normally it's
just part of the working process. In this case and in other cases that have been notable recently, it has,
but the upshot of it all is the characters belong to the company, and the editors are supposed to be the
stewards and guardians of those characters.

I think that an editor who's working with a writer who isn't doing the kind of thing that that editor
thinks is best for the book shouldn't actually spend too much time trying to get the writer to do
something differently. At the point that it's clear that this is not something that that writer is gonna be
comfortable doing, is the point at which you need another writer.

With Gorilla, is there any outside editorial force, or are you, as the writer and owner of
your books completely in control?

We would actually like to have an editor at Gorilla, but the structure of the company hasn't allowed it
yet, because of the financial backing situation. Each of us is in editorial control of our own book. We
bat ideas back and forth. So, when I'm working out a Shockrockets plot, I'll run it by Stuart
Immonen, and put Stuart in the position of being the story editor, so I'm getting feedback from
somebody. Mark will work out his Empire stories with Barry Kitson and occasionally he'll call me up
and run an idea past me and we'll talk something through. Each of us has a sounding board, someone
who will perform the function of an editor. But those sounding boards don't have control. They aren't
gonna say "No, you must do it this way!"

Just like Stephen King's editors don't tell him "Steve you gotta change this chapter." If they think it
doesn't work, they say "Steve, take another look at this chapter. I think you might want to do this
instead." And if he agrees with them, he can do it. If he doesn't agree with them, he can leave it the
same or do something else, but the editor there is working as a first reader, as a set of eyes to give a
judgment on the work that the writer of the work can then react to in whatever way he feels
appropriate. In work-for-hire, when the editor is the representative of the person who actually owns
the material, then the editor has a lot more power, the editor can say "No, you will do it this way." And
the freelancer can either do it that way, or find another job.

I don't think that that's inherently a bad way to work, I think that's really an inescapable ramification
of the idea of company-owned characters. If I'm writing the Avengers, I can't suddenly decide "Yeah, I
want to blow up the moon," without it affecting all the other books that the company's working on,
not to mention leaving the Watcher homeless. So that's
something that the company gets to decide, whether it's what
they want for their universe or not. Whereas in Astro City or
Shockrockets, I get to be the final authority. I get to say
"We're gonna do it this way," and I don't have to worry about
what effect it'll have on others. I mean, in Shockrockets I
do consult with Stuart, because Stuart is co-owner and Stuart
can say no to something and he and I will find a workable
solution. But that's a

much more collegial process than if I'm writing something for

Marvel, Marvel just absolutely owns all of it and can change
anything they want to change. I've been luckier than Mark
has been, I haven't had many bad editorial experiences, but
that doesn't mean that I'm not aware of where the power lies.

Let's talk a little bit about Shockrockets, your Gorilla

title. Which came first, Gorilla or Shockrockets?

Gorilla.

So Shockrockets was specifically created for the company?

Yeah.

Where did the inspiration for that come from?

I had been talking to Stuart Immonen about doing work together. We already had a project we wanted
to do, but we didn't want to do it as the Gorilla launch book. And that's Superstar, which we'll be
doing next year. So we were going to create something together that we were gonna do as our first
book for Gorilla, I just asked him, "Stuart, if you could draw anything at all, what would you most like
to draw?" And he immediately answered "Big machines." For some reason, he'd been reading some
old 1960s drag racing comics and was really enjoying the hardware and the focus on the vehicle, and I
like that approach too, and so we started talking about what was the appeal of technology and
machinery, and we spun out an idea about a teenager picking through a dump full of ordinary trash
but also alien technology, and picking out stuff that he could make his flying motorcycle even cooler
with.
That would be a kind of interesting introduction to a world where technology is kind of more
advanced but still has that clunky, garage, do it yourself feel that is so much fun about the drag racing
comics that Stuart had been reading. From there, we built on outward, if that's our introduction,
what's the world like? Where does this technology come from that's in the dump, why was it there?
And we came up with the idea that there was this war, and there was this technological defense team
that had saved the earth and was now protecting the earth. And once we got to that point, we kind of
went back into some earlier ideas that I'd had. At one point, I played around with the idea of pitching
DC on a new Blackhawk series, based on my perception that the Blackhawks are pretty cool, as long
as it's World War II. Because World War II airplanes are really neat. But in the modern day, airplanes
are a little old fashioned. Comics and science fiction hardware has gone so far beyond even the cool
jet, that the Blackhawks always seem a little old-fashioned. And if, instead of having airplanes, a new
generation of Blackhawks had these cool science-fictional, anime-mangaesque aerial fighter craft,
then that might touch the same chord of "Hey, that's cool," that back in the ‗40s the airplanes did.

One the one hand, I thought this would be kind of a neat idea, and on the other hand I never really
pitched it because, I'm an old-fashioned guy, I like the Blackhawks in planes. And the Blackhawks in
cool manga ships didn't quite feel right to me. So I just shelved the idea. But once Stuart and I were
talking about a global defense force, of some sort of cool alien technology and human technology
hybrid, I said "Hey, there was this idea I came up with a few years back, what if we do something like

that?" And so, that became the Shockrockets. And certainly there are other influences there, there
are similarities to the Thunderbirds there, there was a Japanese anime show that I used to watch back
in the ‗70s called Starvengers, there was another team of crack pilots in cool ships, although if I'm
remembering correctly I'm pretty sure the Starvengers, their ships linked up and became a giant
robot in true Japanese cartoon tradition.

Well, you can't go wrong there.

Yeah, and we didn't want the Shockrockets to do that, but we were drawing from a lot of different
places, and it seems that my youthful reading of the works of Robert Heinlein had some effect too,
because once the first issue came out we just started hearing from people left and right saying "This is
like Heinlein in comics form! This is like Heinlein!" And it wasn't anything conscious.

There's a lot worse things you could hear, too.

Oh, absolutely (laughs). Absolutely, I'm not objecting at all.

As I say, it's a very appealing story, and it also -- the lead character is somebody who I
think young readers will be able to sort of invest themselves in, in a way that some of
the early Image Comics -- while I think the younger readers were going "Wow, look at
the pictures, they're really cool," there was nobody likeable or sympathetic at all in the
books. And I think why, in the long term, in my opinion, those books won't be
remembered as art.
In creating Alejandro, we had started out with that image of that kid in the costume, we knew we had
a kid, and we knew it would make a good emotional road into the series, if he's an outsider joining the
Shockrockets team. And that way we're seeing it through his eyes, because he's new to it, and we're
new to it, too, as an audience, then we're gonna perceive it better through his eyes than through the
eyes of somebody experienced, somebody who takes it all for granted. I'm a firm believer that if a
story doesn't have a human core, if a story doesn't have something that can hook into human
emotions and human experience and make you go "Yeah, I know what that feels like," then it's not
really gonna work as a story. So, Alejandro just seemed like the best way to do that. We ended up
making him a little on the surly and bitter side, largely because I'd just been writing Justice in the
Avengers and there was a considerable amount of fan reaction that didn't like the fact that he was so
gosh-wow about the Avengers.

And yet, who wouldn't be in that kind of situation?

Yeah, well, that was my theory. This was a guy who'd been doing a very good job working with people
who he considered his peers, who had now just been given his dream. And it's not that the people in
the Avengers are better people than the people in the New Warriors, but, if he's working alongside
Namorita, it's like, yeah, she's a girl about his own age, there's no threat there. There's no, "Gee, do I
measure up?" It's different when you're standing next to Thor. And ever since you've been a young
kid, Thor has been one of your idols, and I think that's gonna rock you back on your heels. But still, I
didn't want to do that sort of thing again, so we made the determination that Alejandro was not going
to be somebody who was gosh-wow impressed with the Shockrockets. Instead he was envious of
them. He was somebody who lived a life of privation and hardship, and looked on the Shockrockets
as the lucky stiffs who got all the good food, who got all the comfortable beds, and had the kind of easy
life he wishes he had. So yeah, he's in some awe of them, but that awe translates as a certain level of
bitterness and cynicism, and of course he's dumped into the team and finds out it's very, very different
from anything he'd expected. Which, again, it rocked him back on his heels in a different way. And
that became a very interesting character to write. He's not the nicest guy on the planet. He's not an
unsympathetic guy, but he's not a clean-cut straight shooter.

You mention Justice--it seems like when that plot was resolved, it was something you
had been working to right from his introduction in to the team. And one of the things
that I've noticed in going back and rereading your Avengers run is that, it seems like
you and George have pretty well worked things out far in advance before we end up
seeing them a lot of the times. Is that how you generally work, have you got things
usually plotted out far in advance?

Not really plotted out far in advance, whenever we start something rolling we know where it's going.
For instance, with Justice we knew that he was going to have a difficult time fitting in to the
Avengers because he was starstruck. And eventually he would have to get over that in a story where
he would see that the Avengers have, without denigrating them as heroes, that they have frailties and
feet of clay just like he does. And at the same time we knew we were gonna be contrasting this with
Firestar, Justice's fiancée, who joined the Avengers without really wanting to, without being terribly
impressed with the Avengers, because this wasn't what she wanted to do with her life, and the
Avengers made things so much better for her, that she embraced the dream that Justice was
struggling with, and that because she didn't have that awestruck attitude he did, she didn't have any
impediment to working well in the team. So we knew that there was gonna be a little problem with the
fact that he wanted to be an Avenger and she didn't, and she early on turned out to be a much better
Avenger than he did, because she had a different set of expectations.

So we knew that we were gonna be playing that out and resolving it, but we didn't know precisely how
we were gonna be doing it. We just knew that we needed to hit certain beats along the way. Just as, for
instance, in the latest issue, we bring back a surprise character that people perhaps weren't expecting
to see, and we know where we're going with that. Several times in the last few weeks, in conversations
with Tom Brevoort, I've revised how all the various beats of the Yellowjacket plotline are going to play
out. I know what those beats are, I know where we're going with it. But when George decided to leave
the book and we needed to bring in a new artist, we changed around our plans for what the storylines
are gonna be, so all the running plot threads, Yellowjacket, the Triune Understanding, the Vision,
things like that, kind of got braided differently, to play out in the new material. So it's not a case of
having everything plotted out in advance and knowing mathematically that "At this point we'll do this
and at this point we'll do this," it's more like knowing, "We do this, and the next step is this," and once
we get to that next step, however it comes up naturally, the next step after that is this, and we'll build
to a resolution that's this. But the context for each of those beats will be worked out as we go along.

You've got some flexibility built into the process there.

Yeah.

You've probably got one of the most prominent online presences of anyone in the
creative community in comics...

Probably, yes.

I was quite surprised after reading that Avengers issue to see that there was some
confusion in the minds of the readers over who exactly Yellowjacket was there at the
end – obviously you're not gonna give anything away here, but my impression,
immediately, I felt that it was because of the way that he was drawn, was that this is the
Yellowjacket who we last saw in Avengers Forever. Am I wrong in thinking that this is
what we were supposed to think? (Busiek laughs) Or, say no more and that will tell me
that maybe it is supposed to be vague.

It's not so much supposed to be vague--I'm a little amused at the idea that many people have decided
that this Yellowjacket much be plucked out of time because of the costume he is wearing. If this was
some sort of new manifestation of Yellowjacket, why couldn't he wear whatever costume he wanted to
wear? In any case, you will be learning more as we go along. Really, the intent of the end of Avengers
#30 was to make people go, "Whoa, hey, how does that work?!"
It really came out of left field. My personal bet was that that was Captain America
hiding in the shadows. I guess most people thought it was the Living Lightning, and it
turned out to be probably one of my all time favourite characters, simply by dint of the
fact that my all-time favourite Avengers issue was #161, where Yellowjacket had been
manipulated into taking on his Ant-Man persona again. And it's a blast to see George
drawing Yellowjacket again.

I've had a great time, because, I think the

Yellowjacket costume is one of the best
costumes in comics, I think it looks great.

Was that John Buscema that originally

designed that?

Yes, or at least, John was the first artist to

draw it. I don't know if Roy Thomas sketched
it out, or John worked it up, or what. But it
was first drawn by John Buscema. And
unfortunately, Yellowjacket -- the identity
Hank (Pym) has been in when he's had
breakdowns, at such momentous occasions,
that it just doesn't seem logical that Hank
Pym would willingly become Yellowjacket
again. So that's a difficulty because, it's a
great costume, it's a cool name, I'd certainly
like to use it, but it's not the kind of thing
where Hank's gonna wake up one day and
say "Hey, I think I'll put on my Yellowjacket
costume, after all, the memories I associate
with that are so damn good." So I started
looking around for other ways to deal with it.
And the first of those was, when we did
Avengers Forever, I realized we could pull
Yellowjacket from just before Avengers
#60, and that would get my favourite
Yellowjacket, because much as I like the Yellowjacket costume, I like the one without the goggles
better. And I like the attitude, and kind of --

The leering?

Smirkiness of the character, in those two issues he's just a real sparkplug. So we put him in Avengers
Forever and Carlos Pacheco went to town drawing him. He had him always chewing gum, and
leering at people, and he just really channeled the John Buscema body language from those first
couple of issues and presented the character in a very vibrant way, much more of a distinctive
personality from normal Hank. And people really liked that, so we found a way to do some more with
it. And I won't say what that is, but it allows us to have not only Yellowjacket, but somebody who's
very much like my favourite Yellowjacket, the arrogant glory-hound Yellowjacket, running around in
the book at the same time as we've got Hank Pym.

It's interesting, when we talk about Marvel and the Avengers, you obviously, for all the
great creator-owned work you've been doing recently, you obviously still have a great
knowledge of and affection for the Marvel universe, and you're certainly in, maybe not
a unique, but an unusual situation in terms of writing not only one of Marvel's top
titles, but also being able to do Astro City, which is being published by DC, and
Shockrockets coming through Image. Is this something you envision being able to do
for a long time, working for the three biggest comic companies?

Well, it certainly hasn't seemed to be a problem so far. Nobody at Marvel wants me to stop doing
Astro City, because Astro City is one of the books that made my name as big as it is, and that helps
them sell Avengers. Nobody at DC wants to really see me stop doing Avengers because Avengers
is a very high profile book and that helps sell Astro City. I'm sure that if I went over to DC and did a
high profile book for them instead of Avengers, they'd be just as happy with that, maybe a little
happier, but in the meantime nobody wants to be a hardass about, nobody wants to say "No, you
cannot do that if you are going to do this." Because comics have changed since the days when
publishers wanted to be in complete control of freelancers. Right now, Avengers is an important
Marvel book. But there have been a lot of years where Avengers hasn't been selling all that well.

Right now, Avengers is selling very well, and that's partially due to the fact that it's the Avengers,
it's partially due to the fact that it's George Pérez drawing it, it's partially due to the fact that it's me
writing it. And nobody really wants to mess with that equation. Right now Garth Ennis and Steve
Dillon are doing the Punisher, and it's hugely successful. It's, in fact, more successful, sales-wise,
than Preacher. and it's that combination of a well-respected creative team that's got some audience
interest behind them, and a character that's got a lot of fans. The two of them together are larger than
the sum of their parts, and Avengers has been benefiting from that (same scenario). So instead of
Marvel getting proprietary about everything and saying "You must work only for us," Marvel wants to
accommodate me and George and other creators so that we'll be happy doing books like Avengers,
and they'll be able to keep that process going, of popular concepts allied to appropriate creative teams
that have some fan interest behind them.

I've seen in other interviews with you where you've talked about the difference between
doing a book like the Avengers, which you've talked about, maybe the skills come a little
easier, than doing a book like Astro City, which I guess my take on it would be that it
seems to be a more personal work for you -- not that the Avengers isn't great, it is, and I
enjoy it a great deal -- but it seems like you've invested huge amounts of your
commitment into the work that you do on Astro City. Can you talk a little bit about the
difference between the two modes of writing?

It's actually really just a procedural difference. The Avengers, at base, is an adventure story. The
major question that needs to be answered in any Avengers story is, what happens next? And what
happens next needs to be interesting and all, and the characters need to be engaged in interesting
plotlines and stay in character, and that good craft stuff, but it's essentially a plot question. Who's the
next villain? How are they going to react? What happens next? And those are stories that I can write--
it's not a matter of easier or harder, those are stories that I can write pretty well, I think. Whereas
Astro City, the stories are all about internal narrative. The stories are all about how people react to
things, and what they're thinking, what they're feeling, and what changes happen in their life. Astro
City, despite the fact that it has superheroes running around punching people in it, is very seldom
about what happens next. It's about, "So, how do you feel about that?"

And that's a very different kind of story structure. It's a very different kind of thing to write. And the
difficulty I've been having writing Astro City has to do with my chronic health problems. I have a
chronic sinus infection, and when I've got that going on in my head, it's harder for me to concentrate
on the kind of delicate balance that a character-based series like Astro City requires. It's not a matter
of the craft of structuring out the page or pacing out the issue, it's a matter of setting up everything
you need to know about the character, so that when you do start asking the "So, how do you feel about
that" questions, everything is in place so that the audience can react in sympathy, or out of sympathy
with the character, depending on what's needed for the story. That's a trickier piece of craft. I wouldn't
say it's better or worse, it's simply a different approach. And when I'm ill, it's an approach that I am
simply not capable of delivering on. When I'm dealing with a sinus infection I can sit there and spend
two solid weeks working on an Astro City story and getting nowhere--and I've done it. Whereas with
the Avengers, I can always fallback on "what happens next." That the themes and character
ramifications and looks into the human condition are the subtext in Avengers, and they kind of
happen naturally along the way. In Astro City they're the text, and I have to do them consciously.
And with my health situation the way it is I can't always do that.

And I'm unwilling to write lousy issues of Astro City because I happen to be sick that week. It's a
difficult situation for other people to understand, because they don't actually share the mindset I have
when I'm working on different kinds of stories. I recently -- well, not recently at this point, but I read
an interview with Robert Towne, the screenwriter, and Towne apparently had terrific recurrent
allergy problems that left him in a period of several years where he was unable to write original
screenplays. He could script-doctor, he could take an existing screenplay, a structure that already
existed, and rewrite it, and make a lot of money that way and exercise his craft and his creativity. But
because of the way his allergies were affecting his mind, he simply couldn't structure out a new story
on his own. And he said in the interview that nobody got that, and I read that and I went, "I know
exactly how you feel, pal."

I bet. Do you find that the audience has been patient with you during that time?

Well, they're certainly frustrated, but the difference is, there are a lot of books that are late, and
there's no apparent reason those books are late except that the creators just didn't get 'em done. And
when those creators are asked "Where's the book," they say "Oh, you know, we'll get to it, we'll get it
finished, we're working on it. Don't bug me." And the audience gets annoyed with that.
Especially when one of those people is doing 18 other things.

Um, well...

Hypothetically speaking.

Yeah. But in the case of Astro City, I've always been pretty upfront about it. I don't say "Oh, we're
having production difficulties." I say "I'm sick! It's my fault!" (laughs).

And again, that's pretty hard to argue with. And certainly, I don't think you're looking
for sympathy, but it's an explanation, and it's certainly a reasonable one. And for my
money, Astro City, I think it's worth waiting for a quality issue for you to resolve your
problems than getting something that's substandard, and so far I haven't seen a
substandard issue of Astro City.

Well, I'd like to say the same thing. I see them from a different perspective. When I look at an issue of
Astro City, I don't see a finished work, I see the struggle that went into it. And the ones that have
been much more of a struggle to write, don't feel as clean to me as the ones where I was in control
right from the start. So it's a frustrating experience to me too. And certainly there are readers out
there who have said "Kurt says he's sick, but he's doing Avengers every month, so I'm not sure I buy
it." And I just wonder, gee, Astro City wins me awards, sells real well, pays very well, stays in print
forever, why would I be stupid enough not to write it, if I could? But these are guys who just can't see
that distinction that writing Astro City is different from writing Avengers. Not better or worse, but
different.

You know, to them, I should be able to sit down in four days and write something. Doesn't matter
what it is. If it was horror, write horror. If it was a character story, write a character story. If it's an
Avengers adventure, write an Avengers adventure. "It's all writing, it's all the same thing." But it
isn't. It's a different approach, it's a different mindset, it's a different way of thinking. And at times it's
just very, very difficult for me to deliver on the kind of mindset that Astro City requires.

You talk about the feedback from the readers, and of course you're online quite a bit in
terms of responding to readers in the newsgroups. How do you think the Internet has
changed, if it has, your approach to the way you do your job?

It's hard to say how it's changed the approach I take to my job, because the Internet started being a
part of my life at the same time as I started to do a lot more mainstream, high profile work. I was
introduced to the Internet while I was out in Maryland visiting my friend Lawrence Watt-Evans and
doing a signing for Marvels #1 or #2, I forget which at this point. And he showed me the discussion
that was going on GEnie [an early internet bulletin board] about it. And I thought this was great, you
know, this was like getting all the mail on the comic, but getting it two months early.

So when I got home, I signed up for CompuServe and GEnie, and started reading the feedback, and
I'm sure that it's had some sort of effect, but on the other hand the work that I've been doing, the kind
of books I've been writing, went through a very big change over the couple of years I was ramping up
on the Internet as well. But in the long run, I'd say that it's -- it's a more efficient process of getting
reader reaction than the old letters to the editor, but it's not all that different in terms of what effect it
has on the work. if everybody's complaining about one particular character, then maybe I'll do
something about that, but I would do something about that if everybody was complaining in the
letters to the editor too. I like the Internet because it's kind of an instant gratification thing.

Your Marvel editor, Tom Brevoort, is also fairly prominent in some of the same
newsgroups that you are...do you think that he, in his role as editor, places as much
importance on the online commentary as he does on somebody who's willing to slap a
stamp on an envelope and mail in a letter?

Probably not. The amount of effort it takes to slap a stamp on an envelope is not very high, you know,
it's not much of an effort, but it's some effort. It's more effort than it takes to type up a "Man, this
sucks! It's Tuesday and you haven't fixed the problem that was there on Monday" e-mail. There's a lot
of stuff that gets vented on the Internet that simply gets vented because it's easy. And the thing I was
saying before, at one point Tom and I were commenting on the fact that someone would gripe about
something they didn't like in Avengers, and a week later they'd gripe again about how it hadn't been
fixed yet. Now, there hadn't been another issue out.

"I looked at that same issue and it's still there!"

Yeah. And we started going, "It's Tuesday, and Simon Williams is still a jerk, it's Wednesday, and
Simon Williams is still a jerk!" It's a monthly book, guys. But -- these are people who get on the
Internet every day. And if that's what they're feeling, they'll say it again. And then they'll say it again.
And then they'll say it again. And I think it distorts the picture. It ends up looking to people who
frequent that newsgroup or message board or whatever, like there's this massive crusade to stamp out
whatever piece of the book that these guys don't like, and it turns out it's four or five guys, repeating
the same stuff over and over and over and over.

There's maybe 250 posts a day in the Marvel newsgroup--that can't possibly represent a
very big percentage of the actual people that are actually reading the Avengers.

Oh, no, no. If the people who posted on the Usenet Marvel group were representative of the audience,
then Untold Tales of Spider-Man would have been Marvel's best-selling title.

Okay, so we can see there is sort of a filter that you would look at before going "Oh, they
don't like it, I better change this."

Yeah, yeah. Also, there's times when, if people online don't like something, my reaction is "Eh, you're
wrong." But if we're getting--for instance, when we introduced Triathlon, the main reaction to
Triathlon was "We hate his costume." I heard that online. Came in in the mail. I heard it at
conventions. It was just consistent. Everybody said it. They hated his haircut, they hated his goggles.
So, we changed his costume. Took away the goggles, gave him a different haircut. That's when I
started hearing from people, "Why'd you take away the goggles? The goggles were the best part!" But,
something like that, we consistently heard the same message from all quarters. Much as, for instance,
in Avengers #2, when the Scarlet Witch showed up in that medieval gypsy kind of costume thing, the
reaction to that costume was phenomenal, everybody loved it. So a few issues later, we decided "Let's
put her in that costume in the regular day. People really like it." George put it in a couple of issues
earlier than I thought he was gonna put it in. I was planning to plot in a "And now she puts on the
costume" (scene), and George just put it into the next issue, and I covered it in dialogue.

Since then, we have heard vehemently from people who don't like that costume, want it changed
immediately, want her to go back to the original costume, want her to go back to the costume she was
wearing in The Crossing [storyline], whatever -- but, we only hear that from a certain number of
people on the Internet. The mail that we get, most of the people who comment on the costume seem
to like it. It gets good response at conventions, and even when, on one of the Avengers message
boards somebody decides to do a poll about the costume, "Boy I hate this costume, doesn't everybody
agree with me?" He comes out like, 4, 5, 6 to 1 in favour of the costume. So if you didn't actually weigh
the various responses we get, you'd think, "Avengers fans out there just hate the costume." And it
turns out that, no, there's some Avengers fans out there who hate the costume, and they're really loud.
But when you actually look for people's opinions, more people like the costume than dislike it. So,
sorry guys, you're loud, but -- too bad.

It would be very easy to assume that the feedback you're getting on the Internet is accurate, but it
would be a bad way to produce comics to continually react to that sort of thing. Ultimately, you've got
to take all the feedback you get, however it comes in, and weigh it and do what you think is best. I
recently did a poll on various newsgroups, asking who people out there thought were the greatest
menaces in the Marvel Universe at large. I didn't tally up all the votes and decide, "They all think this
guy's the best, so we'll use him." I just looked at the responses and said "These names come up a lot.
Okay, I can come up with stories for a couple of them. This guy--he comes up a lot, I don't like him, so
I'm not gonna use him." And I'll tell stories that will be the best stories that I can tell, but I'll be using
the fan response as catalyst, not as marching orders.

George Pérez is leaving the Avengers (after issue #34). I believe that you were a fan of
the Avengers when he was drawing it originally during the 70s...it must be just a dream
come true to be able to see your stories illustrated by this man.

It has been magic. I write stories, and when they leave my keyboard, they're Kurt Busiek stories. And
then when they come back in pencils, they're Avengers stories. They gotta be Avengers stories, look
at 'em, George Pérez drew 'em! The rush of excitement at seeing George's pencils come in based on my
plots has never abated.

He's leaving the title because of health concerns, and we wish him well -- it does open
up the question of what's going to be in the future for the Avengers. Do you see yourself
sticking around for a while here?

It looks like I'll be sticking around. Originally, there certainly was a temptation to say, "Well, you
know, George and I will have done up through issue #34, and had a great time doing it and he's
leaving, so maybe it's time for me to go as well." But on the other hand, there's also the temptation to
say "What can we do next, what can we do that's exciting and different and takes the book to a whole
new place with a different look and a different style and writing approach to go with that different
look." So Tom Brevoort and I talked over what kind of thing we'd like to do with the Avengers post-
George. I said, you know, if we could find the right artist, somebody that I would be comfortable
working with, then I'll stick around.

How was Alan Davis chosen to succeed George Pérez? Did he come forward or did you
or (Avengers editor) Tom Brevoort go to him, or...?

Tom and I talked things over and worked up a short list of who would be ideal to draw the book after
George's departure (and no, I won't tell you who else was on the list). Tom called Alan, and Alan
signed on.

What strengths do you think he will bring to the title?

Well, the part about being a terrific artist doesn't hurt...But more specifically, Alan's not only a terrific
draftsman and a powerful storyteller, he's also very good at classically-heroic characters, so
Avengers should be ideal for his approach. They're big, they're bold, they're larger-than-life and
they're very human -- and Alan's top-rank in all of that. I've been a fan of his since he was just starting
on Captain Britain, and I saw his new costume designs in the Marvel UK offices. I've loved his work
ever since, and I'm delighted to be working with him at last.

Will his style require a different approach from you than George's?

Sure, I expect so. I try to write to the strengths of whatever artists I'm working with, and I'm sure I'll
wind up doing things I wouldn't have done with George drawing the book, or avoiding things that I'd
have tossed at George without thinking twice. But it's an organic process, and I can't analyze it out
beforehand -- I'll just be visualizing Alan's work while I'm plotting, and that'll affect things. And of
course, as we work together, things will change and develop through experience. But we will be taking
a new direction in the book -- it'll look different, it'll feel different, so it seems like the right time to
rethink the way we've been doing the book, and try to stretch some different creative muscles.

That's not to say I haven't been happy with how things are going with George -- but this is a new run,
a new era, so let's do some new things. I don't want to talk about it in specifics yet, since Alan's first
issue won't hit 'til January, but Tom and I have been talking about how Avengers would be if it were
created today rather than in '63, and we're very strongly trying to make it a new and different book --
much of what I've done so far has been influenced by earlier eras, as we've been reestablishing what
the book is all about, but I think it's now time to stake out some new territory, to take the foundations
we've been reestablishing and build something new with the team's rich and solid history as a base.
It'll be big, it'll be dramatic -- and it'll feature a lot of Avengers. Not an army of 'em, since Alan
doesn't want to draw that and I don't want to write it, but an approach that'll let people see a lot of
familiar faces, and some lesser-seen ones along with the classics.
We've got story structures that could take us past #50, and more stuff worked up we could do after
that -- and it's stuff that'll involve everything from outer space to Subterranea, from intrigue to all-out
war, and more beyond. We've got one hell of a roster of villains slated to appear, and plans to start of
with a bang and then just keep building from there. It should be fun.

Anything different or special planned for the fill-in issues between George leaving and
Alan coming aboard, ala the "Un-Avengers" issue recently?

I wouldn't call 'em fill-ins, since they're integral to the book's development -- they're drawn by guest
artists, but they're very much part of the ongoing Avengers saga. John Romita Jr. will draw the first
post-George issue, which will be our "Maximum Security" issue, then Steve Epting will draw a two-
parter that sets things up for the new series direction and features a return to Slorenia -- and then
Alan will come aboard as the Avengers take a whole new approach to protecting Earth. And I'm
delighted to be working with both of them -- I loved Steve's art on Avengers during the #300s, and
I've been a Romita Jr. fan since Iron Man. So we've got our big summer blowout with George, then
the Maximum Security event, then a showdown in Slorenia that'll make the Avengers rethink their
mission and how to accomplish it, and then the launch of "a whole new era of assemblin' excitement,"
as Stan might put it. Sounds pretty good to me -- all the more because I get to write it!

To wrap up, back to Gorilla Comics for a moment -- where do you see Gorilla being a
year down the line and maybe five years down the line?

It's very hard to tell. A year down the line I hope those of us who are doing regular series will be
rolling on with those regular series, and those of us who are doing various miniseries will be keeping
up production on those. Our original plans on Gorilla have altered somewhat, because we didn't go
into this looking to be self-publishers. We went into this looking to be in control of our own work. But
we wanted to find a publisher or financial backer to do the administrative stuff. And we found a
financial backer who, after we'd already started going, had trouble financing, and as a result we ended
up self-financing the company, which puts a lot more of the administrative weight right on our
shoulders. And that makes it a lot more work and a lot more time-consuming.

If a year from now we're working with a financial backer who's taken a lot of the business weight off
our shoulders, I'd be happy about that, and things would develop in a very different way than if we're
continuing to self-finance. If nothing else, it's really hard to publish other people's work when you're
telling them "Sure, you can do something here, but you gotta pay for it." So ideally, I would love to see
Gorilla become the comics imprint where I do all my creator-owned work for the rest of my career,
and keep it in print and have a great time and develop ongoing working relationships with promo
guys and production guys so that from project to project I know that it's going to be well-delivered.

But whether that's something that'll happen is just something we're gonna have to--we're gonna have
to keep surfing on the current industry situation and see how things develop and how we can react to
the various changes that come along. I don't think anybody can tell you where they're gonna be five
years from now.
Colleen Coover, 16 March 2004

Small Favors is the most fun pornography money can buy, so over-the-top in its exuberant sexuality
that it comes back around to innocent again. I was delighted its creator decided to answer the Five
Questions.

Alan David Doane: Is

doing a magical lesbian
comic a lifelong dream
come true?

Colleen Coover: Doing a

comic is, yes! The rest came
later. I‘ve always wanted to
do comics; one of my earliest
memories is drawing scribbly
little ―Batman‖ strips at my
Great-Grandmother‘s house.
It just happens that the first
major work I‘ve done in
comics is an erotic romantic
comedy. Small Favors came
about at a time when I was
ready to start working on
comics seriously. I looked
around and saw that there
were damn few adult comics
for women to enjoy. I prefer
all-girl action in my porno,
but with very few exceptions
Sapphic sex is generally
treated as voyeuristic
entertainment for men. The
whole ―looking through the
keyhole‖ thing. So I would
often find myself, a woman
watching or reading girl/girl
porn, being addressed by the
director or creator as though I
were a man. I felt I could
make a book that women like me would like, without alienating a male readership.

But my first priority has always been not to create a porno comic but to create GOOD comics. My next
project, which I‘m working on now, is for readers of all ages. It‘s called Banana Sunday, written by
my boyfriend and creative partner Paul Tobin, with all the art by me. It‘s a high school adventure with
comedy and romance and monkeys! I‘m really excited about it.

Have you ever thought up a story or scenario for Small Favors that you decided was too
wild to print?

Well, you know, it‘s all stuff that I find sexy, so I don‘t ever have to stop myself and go ―Whoa! Too
far!‖ After all, my main character is a young woman in love with her own personified conscience, who
varies between being six inches tall and normal girl-size, and sports absurdly large pigtails! I do have
criteria for what can and cannot go into the book. I made a decision early on that I wanted women
who identify as lesbians to have the same personal access to the fantasy as bisexual women like me. So
there are no men in the book. Again, this is not in order to alienate male readers, but to avoid creating
that Peeping Tom sort of feeling I mentioned before.

I never include any sex play that would turn me off, just for the sake of including extra kink. Activities
that normally involve the use of a toilet, for example, hold no appeal for me sexually, so you won‘t see
them in Small Favors! Finally, I feel strongly that there in a book created to celebrate the joy and
laughter that good sex is all about, there is no place for the darker side of sex. So no jealousies,
diseases, unplanned pregnancies, drugs, and ESPECIALLY no violence or rape.

What do you think is behind the near-universal appeal of two cute girls together?

I don‘t know… I know sex experts have offered all sorts of theories about why straight men like all-girl
action, and people say that the majority of straight women admit to being bi-curious, but I don‘t like
to think too much about it. I feel like too much analysis would ruin the fun, you know?

Now, the whole premise of Small Favors is what has become almost a mantra for me: Pretty Girls
Make People Happy! And really, it‘s just TRUE, you know? I‘m not talking about sex, here. If you‘re
walking down the street and see a really pretty girl with a zillion-watt smile, it just makes you feel
good! You don‘t have to be consumed with lust to appreciate that.

So it‘s not surprising that when you put pretty girls in a sexual situation, those same good feelings get
sort of transferred over. I think you would need some awfully powerful hang-ups not to get some
pleasure out of it!

What's the reaction to Small Favors from your family and friends?

The thing about my family and friends is that they KNOW me! Two weeks ago, Paul and I went to a
burlesque show in New York with my sister and her husband. My mother loaned me my first erotic
literature (Delta of Venus by Anais Nin) when I was fourteen! (I never gave it back, so I‘m not sure
―loaned‖ is the right word…) Nothing I do in a comic book is going to really shock them, and they‘re
very proud of the attention Small Favors has received these last few years.
Most of my friends and associates are either comics professionals or customers at the comics shop
where I have my day job, so again, not likely to be surprised by any of the wacky highjinks in my cute
little sex comics. And people who have problems with the thought of ladies having happy fun sex
together are not people I‘d be likely to be friendly with.

When I do get a weird reaction to Small Favors, it‘s usually from total strangers. I‘ve occasionally
heard the comment ―you don‘t think of a woman doing a comic like this…‖ at conventions and such. I
really have no answer to that. They don‘t mean it to be nasty, I think that sometimes people just forget
that girls like to think about sex! And there‘s a common idea that all porn is exploitive of women, so
that can be a tough concept for them to get over.

Who are your favourite comics creators and what about their work appeals to you?

Milton Caniff. All-time favorite. I especially love Terry and the Pirates. His work was so rich; even
an expository ―talking head‖ strip would have depth and drama. And action scenes were full of motion
and excitement! His cartooning skills gave his adventure-strip realistic style life and dimension. I
could write a five-page essay on all the stuff I‘ve learned from studying just one daily strip‘s original
art. As a sucker for romance, I consider him to be one of comics‘ greatest masters in building romantic
suspense.
Los Bros Hernandez. A lot of people have remarked that they can see an influence in my art from
Jaime or Beto. Honestly, I couldn‘t tell you which of them has influenced me more. I tend to think
that it‘s pretty even. I deeply admire Jaime‘s technical skill and clean lines, and Beto‘s more organic
art is full of character. The great thing I look to the Bros for is their brilliant sense of design. I‘ve never
seen a page from them that didn‘t work as a complete work of comic art, independent from the rest of
the story.

Guy Davis. He‘s always been so good, and lately he seems to have blossomed into a one-man Art
House! I liked his issue of Hellblazer (the young punks of London hearkened back to his lovely
Baker Street work) and Deadline was one of my favorite superhero-type stories of the last couple of
years. Just this latest issue of Metal Hurlant alone has him doing two completely different, totally
brilliant short pieces! I especially liked the Tardi-esque ―Photo-taker‖ story.

Ai Yazawa. Her Paradise Kiss is currently my favorite manga by far! Her art is so pretty and her
character designs are so varied and the storytelling is great and clothes clothes CLOTHES! I want to
go shopping every time I read!!! More shoes! More skirts! More hair dye!

I could go on forever. Darwyn Cooke‘s work is so yummy; like Caniff, his illustrative art is rooted in
strong cartooning skills. Also Javier Pulido, Jordi Bernet, Cameron Stewart, Dean Haspiel, Craig
Thompson, Clifford Chiang, and on and on and on.
Howard Chaykin, 2005

When I was reading comics as a teenager

in the 1980s, everyone I knew was aware
that the hot writer/artists in comics were
Frank Miller, Walter Simonson, and this
guy, Howard Chaykin. His American
Flagg redefined comics for readers in the
'80s, a landmark series set in a believable
near-future that, these days, seems all too
real. At the time this interview was
conducted, the series was about to be re-
introduced to new readers in collections
jointly released by Image Comics and
Dynamic Forces. Chaykin's resume in
comics goes much deeper than Flagg,
though, from the early pioneering graphic
novels Empire, The Stars My
Destination and others to comics work
as diverse as Sword of Sorcery, the
first comics adaptation of Star Wars, his
brilliant re-creation of The Shadow, the
deliciously subversive Black Kiss, to
more recent fare like American
Century, Mighty Love, The
Challengers of the Unknown and the
creator-owned Wildstorm title City of
Tomorrow. Chaykin has also enjoyed a
long career in television, heavily involved
in the production of The Flash, Viper,
Earth: Final Conflict, Mutant X and other
series. He described himself as having a
"youthful attitude problem," and attitude has in large part defined his comics work, a defiant,
iconoclastic body of work that ranks as among the most unusual and exciting in comics history.

Alan David Doane: When did your interest in comics begin?

Howard Chaykin: I‘ve been obsessed with comics since I was four years old -- when an older cousin
laid a refrigerator box filled with comics on me -- and I loved comics uncritically for an awfully long
time after that.

If you remember, what was in that refrigerator box of comics, anything stand out in
your memory as being particularly influential in how you saw comics?
Not really. The box contained mostly superhero comics -- with a smattering of westerns and horror --
not, as I recall any ECs, but more the imitation stuff -- the kind of crap that might convince any right
thinking mom that Frederic Wertham had a point. Now that I think about it, those horror books were
a big disturbing turn off -- which might very well account for my disinterest in horror -- in film, fiction
and comics.

What were your earliest days in comics like? What was true then that isn't now, and
what remains constant?

When I became a professional comics artist, there were still a number of anthology books, where a
newcomer could develop in relative obscurity. These days, a guy has to be ready to kick ass from right
out of the starting gate. Another difference is simply societal. There‘s a loss of interest in narrative on
the part of the artist -- which, since I believe that much of the writing in comics should be done by the
artist, is a crying shame. And back in the '70s, the money was lousy, we got no royalties, and we didn‘t
get our originals returned -- three situations that changed in my time.

What kept you in comics during those early years when the work conditions were so
poor, what got you through?

The work was the reward -- and we all lived cheaply.

You mention the lack of interest in the narrative on the part of many of today's
artists...tell me what you think makes for good, compelling comics, and why you think
that's been lost?

It‘s impossible to answer with specifics, because the details are themselves case-specific -- but it just
seems to me that most comics artists who‘ve come into the business in the last twenty years or so --
with some very conspicuous exceptions -- have no interest in the storytelling aspects of comics.

The kind of talent I‘m talking about is more interested in endless splash pages, or trading cards --
mostly posed imagery that brings to mind professional wrestlers glowering at each other or
bodybuilding competitions -- as opposed to narrative based forms like fiction, the drama, opera or
musical comedy -- all of which can share in the heightened reality of storytelling with visual imagery.

Who are the comics creators you see as being the most influential on your own work
and on the artform itself?

The men who influenced me were Gil Kane, Alex Toth, Joe Kubert, Carmine Infantino, Bernard
Krigstein, Johnny Craig, and Wallace Wood. Outside of comics, I worship the work of Robert Fawcett,
Noel Sickles, Austin Briggs, Al Parker and Harry Beckhoff.

Many of these men were profoundly influential on comics in general -- but I believe the single most
influential talent to enter the business in the past twenty five years is probably Michael Golden.
Although nowhere nearly as prolific as many of his peers, his work has been picked over, plundered
and absorbed by a mob of lesser men -- none of whom can hold a candle to him. Golden is a brilliant
draftsman, designer, and storyteller -- a living master of the craft.

You shared studio space for a time with Walter Simonson and other artists. What are
the benefits and problems that result from a working environment like that?

There were no problems that I recall. Rather, we were all marathon talkers, and, to paraphrase a line
of dialogue from The Maltese Falcon on a drawing of Sydney Greenstreet by Walter Simonson, we
were men who liked talking to men who liked to talk -- and we talked about everything. I‘m not sure
there‘s quite as eclectic a group of people in the generations that followed ours.

Along with guys like Simonson, Miller, Sienkiewicz and a select few others, you were a
creator who really was able to inject a very personal vision into comics long before
creator ownership was even possible. What sort of problems did you encounter in
trying to create the sort of comics that you enjoyed doing? What sort of trail do you
think you and creators of your caliber blazed in the 1970s and '80s?

I believed then, and continue to believe now, that I could never have done AMERICAN FLAGG! for
either of the two majors. The baggage dragged around by both companies would have obviated such
an odd book. Flagg! was met with confusion at both major companies -- and regarded as odd at best,
or downright weird at worst. In the long run, however, it served as a template for comics today -- in
terms of layout, texture and density of form -- so I‘m both very proud and a tad bitter.

American Flagg stands as a landmark in comics history, one of the most iconoclastic
and dynamic titles of the 1980s, if not of all time. Image and Dynamic Forces are re-
releasing this work at last. What are your feelings about Flagg two decades later?

I recently re-read the Flagg! stuff -- and I‘m delighted it holds up as well as it does. I‘m also
astonished at just how labor-intensive it is -- this was a buttload of work, for god‘s sake. None of this
is to say that I don‘t work my tail off today -- but in a time when the only options were xerography and
literal paste-ups and mechanicals, this was a serious production heavy job -- and I‘m talking about
before it ever got to First‘s production department.

In doing a little research online before starting this interview, I was really surprised to
see the many and varied titles you've written and/or drawn in your career; surprised
not only by the number of titles, but the general high quality that I associate with most
of them, notable Black Kiss, The Shadow, Blackhawk, even going back to a very early
favourite of mine, DC's Sword of Sorcery. When you reflect on all the comics you've
created since you started in comics, what are the ones you feel proudest of, and why?

First off, thanks for your kind words. I‘m proud of the work I‘ve done, but I also believe that one of the
reasons I‘ve been able to keep working -- and at a fairly high level of polish -- is a constant reinvention
of my approach and my attitudes. I don‘t play favorites -- each of the projects you‘ve mentioned was
the center of my universe when I was working on it -- and required a specific set of ideas for its
completion.

Other than Flagg, are there any other works of yours that you would like to see
presented anew to today's generation of readers?

I love the TIME(SQUARED) stuff along with a graphic novel I did for Heavy Metal, entitled THE
SWORDS OF HEAVEN, THE FLOWERS
OF HELL.

What comics creators working today, if

any, do work you enjoy reading?

I read Alan Moore‘s stuff, and Brian Azzarello,

too -- particularly when he‘s partnered up with
the brilliant Eduardo Risso. I like what
Straczynski is doing on Supreme Power --
and I‘ve also recently been introduced to Brian
Bendis‘s work. He‘s terrific.

You've made a second, and presumably

much better paying career in TV. How
did you segue into the industry, and how
different is it from working in comics?

I moved to Southern California in the mid '80s

to get into features, thanks to the attention I‘d
garnered with American Flagg. I did a few
movie scripts, then stumbled into television,
and stayed there for thirteen years. As to how it
differs from comics, I give you a quote from the
esteemed Dr. Hunter S. Thompson: "The TV
business is cruel and shallow money pit, a long
plastic hallway where thieves and pimps run
free and good men die like dogs. There is also a
negative side."

Television is far less a meritocracy than a political landscape. You‘ve got a show, you hire a friend,
your friend hires you when he‘s got a show. It‘s also much more difficult to get the work than it is to
do the work in television. Once you‘re hired, the process teaches you how to do the work -- which, in
television, is frequently more about where and how money is spent on an episode, and about servicing
the cast and standing sets.

Comics, on the other hand, are far more labor intensive as I‘ve indicated above -- and the hiring is
more often than not more directly related to a subjective excellence -- standards we may not agree on,
but that most of us can understand -- at least from a commercial perspective.

Quite a few of the TV series you've been involved in, including Mutant X and The Flash,
focused on superheroes. I find that interesting, since so much of your comics work is
NOT about superheroes. Can you tell me what it's like bringing the superhero genre to
TV?

The show business likes to pigeonhole its players. Since I came out of comics, then it stood to reason
to the powers that be that I must be a superhero guy. It should be borne in mind that in general,
comics are perceived by films and television not as a medium but rather as a genre -- where Rob
Liefeld and Harvey Pekar live in the same universe. Go figure.

Therefore, I took the work I was given and did the best work I could. As for superheroes on television,
it‘s fairly difficult, since the executives of most of the major studios are convinced that the audience
members they‘re after don‘t give a damn about superheroes, except in the context of summer
blockbusters -- and I‘ve come to believe that perhaps they‘re right.

It seems lately you're back in comics in a major way, with the Flagg! re-release,
American Century, Mighty Love and other recent works. Tell me about your Wildstorm
comic City of Tomorrow: What can we expect, and how did it come about?

As I speak -- or rather, type, I‘ve completed issue six of THE CHALLENGERS OF THE
UNKNOWN -- and I‘m about to start CITY OF TOMORROW. It‘s a six issue creator owned
miniseries -- a suburban western -- in which COLUMBIA, an idyllic community is terrorized by two
robotic organized crime families, until TUCKER FOYLE, the prodigal wastrel son of the community‘s
founder returns home to make peace with his father and, against his own better judgment, to tame the
town-in the course of which he falls head over heels in love with a gorgeous female robot.

After City of Tomorrow and your other current work, what else are you looking forward
to doing in the near future?

I‘ve got a Western and a crime book lined up -- both of which I‘m pretty damned excited about.
Jim Crocker, 19 February 2004/20 February 2008

I first made the acquaintance of Jim Crocker on The Comic Book

Industry Alliance's Delphi Forum, a discussion group for
retailers, creators and other industry figures. I found his posts
there to be insightful and intelligent, and was very interested in
watching his experience as he guided what was then a new
business, Modern Myths, a diverse and incredibly well-stocked
comics shop in Northampton, Massachusetts. I've visited Jim's
store a few times and gotten to know him in person and by e-
mail, and have developed a great respect for his approach to
comics retailing and life in general. I've visited only a handful of
truly progressive comics stores that try to serve a full range of
customers with as wide a range of comics as possible, and
Modern Myths, as far as I can see, points the way to the future of
comics retailing. After you've read Jim's interview, compiled from two separate pieces in 2004 and
2008, see if you don't agree.

Alan David Doane: What drives you to be a comics retailer, and what would you say is
the primary mission or vision that informs the way you manage your shop?

Jim Crocker: Like many careers, it‘s something I ended up doing sort of by accident. In college, I
was convinced I was going to take my theater degree on to New York and direct plays. A job on a small
used bookstore that sold comics sidetracked that and I eventually figured out I really enjoyed the job
more than the plays I was doing in the evening, and, possibly more significantly, was better at it.

The major motivating force behind my doing this every day boils down to the best effort to reward
ratio of any job I‘ve tried, including theater work. I work as hard at this job as anyone else does at
whatever else they do, but retailing, or at least good retailing, means that a complete stranger walks
into your place and leaves happier than when they walked in. It happens dozens or maybe even
hundreds of times a day, and every time, it‘s a reward for doing what I do, parceled out throughout
the day. Whatever other petty hassles or daily grind I have to push through to get my work done is
paid off by that particular dividend.

It‘s also nice to see my cube-drone buddies sigh with wistful envy when they ask what I do for a living.

First and foremost, I want to run a store that looks and feels like a well-run independent bookstore
you‘d find in any relatively progressive college town or small city. We can write and speechify and blog
until we‘re blue in the face that comics are Ready for Prime Time, but if we don‘t have places that
women, kids, and new readers can feel comfortable and welcome, we‘re not going to make much
headway.

I spent several years working for the Borders mass-market bookstores, and after that it became pretty
clear to me how a specialty store could succeed in their shadow by taking page from their own book,
which was to look at what worked in independent bookstores and then replicate it on a mass scale
using their size as an advantage. So we looked at mass-market bookstores and replicated what we
could while using our size as an advantage. We offer everything they can that we‘re able to: liberal
return policies; no-obligation special orders; convenient operating hours; parking; clean public
restrooms; racking by genre including a dedicated section for young readers; gift certificates; credit
card acceptance; computerized inventory; and offset what we can‘t with the advantages traditionally
touted as the ways for comics shops to compete: a wide selection that includes used and out-of-print
titles and a knowledgeable staff. Hopefully, the balance will appeal to both longtime fans and new
readers, which is what we‘re shooting for.

More generally, we‘re an independent bookstore that happens to specialize in sequential storytelling,
so we look to other successful independent bookstores for ideas about advertising, community
outreach, and how to deal with competition from the chains, as well as cherry picking the best ideas
from the Direct Market. It‘s a genuinely mixed blessing when people walk in and remark that ―I didn‘t
realize this was a comic shop… it looks like a regular bookstore.‖

What is the biggest challenge facing you as a retailer?

In a nutshell, and not to be obtuse, it‘s whatever I didn‘t expect to be a challenge, because that means
I won‘t be prepared for it. The deck is stacked heavily in favor of large chain businesses in our
economy, and every indication is that this situation is getting worse as opposed to better. There‘s a
reason that small businesses have such a high modern failure rate, and it‘s that even the well-funded
ones don‘t have the capital to make too many mistakes or endure more than one or two unexpected
sales-impacting events. Add on necessary but uncontrollable costs, particularly health care and
weather-related stuff (our snow removal will cost a small fortune this year, for example), and that‘s a
lot of pressure that doesn‘t have anything to do with actually selling comics.

The challenges inherent in the DM I deal with daily and they don‘t frighten me because I can plan for
them and have great resources (like the CBIA, Comics and Games Retailer Magazine, and private
industry e-mail lists) to consult for help and bounce ideas off of. It‘s the issues outside the purview of
those discussions that cause the most trouble.

Or, with apologies, ―It‘s the economy, stupid.‖

What do you believe the best method is to develop a growing customer base?

There are a number of ways to do this, and other retailers recommend many of them to me. I‘m not
nearly as good at guerilla marketing as I probably ought to be. We advertise less than we should.

Ultimately, my belief is that if I run the best store I can that word of mouth will go a long way to
helping drive new customers to the store, because once they‘re in the door, we‘ll secure their business
if they‘re even remotely interested in what we‘re selling, and that the viral nature of people with
common interests will help without too much active intervention from us. When we ask how people
heard about us, we get a majority answer of ―a friend told me about you/I heard about you online/etc‖
over all the other responses. (My very favorite response is actually ―I saw you when I drove by‖,
because it means someone stopped just because they saw ―Comic Books‖ on the sign, without knowing
anything else about us specifically, and they‘re often the most pleasantly surprised.)

I am one of the people who believes that while we certainly need to expand the scope of our ambition
beyond just our traditional fan base, chasing a mass audience like the kind enjoyed by, say, sports, or
mainstream movies is not an efficient use of our time. We need to target the folks most likely to spend
money in our store, as opposed to throwing
ads at the wall to see what sticks.

That said, it‘s my belief that the best effort

that can be spent in ‗market development‘ is
in getting out of the store and into the
Community to make your presence known
in places where you‘re likely to have an
impact. One of the reasons we decided early
on that we would have a staff is so that we
could do just that. By attending
conventions, especially ‗non-comics‘
conventions like local SF and media Cons,
we can actively go to potential customers
rather than waiting for them to find us.
Active participation in the local college
events and various fandom groups means a
potential pool of new customers every
single semester, already predisposed to
explore new stuff.

Separately, but related to this, is the fact

that we sell graphic novels online. It‘s a
pretty simple site but it lists everything we
carry new, and every sale we get through it
helps support the larger mission of the
store. Right now, it‘s a very small portion of
our sales, but it just about pays for all of our
internet-related expenses, and is growing
slowly. Internet outreach like our modest
little proto-blog on LiveJournal and updates to our own website are particularly cool because they
help keep in contact with both sets of customers at once and serve to reinforce the mission I
mentioned above, but in a different context.

Tell me about the last great graphic novel you read.

The great GN I read most recently was Pedro & Me, which I reread in its entirety as a result of a
contentious discussion regarding content advisories and warning labels on comics that‘s going on in
another forum. It holds up as one of the more human, affecting, and uncharacteristically emotionally
vulnerable comics I can think of. Anyone who thinks that gays are somehow different than the rest of
us should be tied to a chair and forced to read this book until they get it.

I read so much stuff that‘s so different it‘s really hard to nail down a single choice. Off the top of my
head, I‘ll say: LoEG 2 for collected GNs of genre stuff that‘s appeared in periodical first, Planetes for
manga, and Real Stuff for Literary/OGN.

I also just had a chance to really thoroughly read Peanuts: The Art of Charles Schulz, the
retrospective by Chip Kidd, and I have to say it was like an epiphany… I haven‘t gone back and read
Peanuts in over 15 years, and rereading them now in the artfully designed context this book places
them in left me nearly speechless with how genuinely seminal that work was. I was certainly looking
forward to Fantagraphics‘ forthcoming Complete Peanuts, but now I‘m actually hungry for it,
which is a good thing, because I think it‘s a project that has a real possibility of generating some
renewed popular interest in the classic comic strips more generally.

You live and work in a community (Northampton) that welcomes and embraces
diversity, and in a state (Massachusetts) that is about to grant equal marriage rights to
all, gays and lesbians included. I'm wondering how you feel about this and what impact
you think it will have on your store and your community.

The specific issue of Massachusetts affirming equal rights for all citizens will have a pretty significant
impact on my store in particular. Northampton has the highest concentration of lesbian citizens
outside of San Francisco. This and the presence of the "Five Colleges" in the area make for a pretty
progressive viewpoint regarding literature and the arts, and offers our store a unique opportunity to
get comics into the hands of readers who are ready for them but would probably never have cause to
enter a "traditional" comics shop.

We currently have one employee who is a lesbian in a long-term relationship who plan to get officially
married when the state has worked out all the details, and two of the major stakeholders in the store
are also a lesbian couple (who just celebrated their tenth anniversary!) living in Vermont under the
auspices of the Civil Unions there who also plan to wed in Massachusetts when the option becomes
available in May of this year.

Modern Myths specifically includes sexual orientation and gender status as protected classes (along
with race, religion, physical handicap, national origin, etc.) in our diversity policy for hiring as well as
companies we do business with, and has a standing company policy of offering benefits to domestic
partners. Obviously, we're personally interested in the advancement of equal rights for gays and
lesbians, but from our perspective it also makes very good business sense. We don't wear our political
affiliation on our sleeves, and we do our best to leave discussions of contentious subjects like politics,
religion, or the Red Sox at the door when we enter the store, but the obvious presence of a lesbian
working in the store and a good selection of GLBT-friendly comics make it reasonably clear what our
position is, and the community notices.

I think it's not unreasonable to expect that this situation will also mean a further influx not only of
GLBT people seeking to gather in a region that respects their rights, but will also help to further build
the larger progressive community that will grow up as a consequence of the influx, as the friends,
family, and support networks of those folks move to Massachusetts along with them in some cases.
That we're set up to welcome them is not a coincidence, and a strategy that is not only in keeping with
the spirit of the community of which we're a part, but also a sound business decision likely to help us
secure new readers in a generally affluent, literate, and progressive customer demographic willing to
spend significant entertainment dollars with businesses who welcome them and offer them something
that speaks to their issues.

How has your philosophy of comics retailing changed in the past few years?

Well, it hasn't, all that much, really. The biggest changes are in terms of adjusting to the changing
marketplace, most notably the increasing deluge of product. We've definitely gotten more picky in
terms of new books we bring in, and in being okay with letting titles that haven't sold in more than a
year simple go our of stock when they finally do move. Having to adjust our business model to deal
with too many comics is a problem I don't mind having, though.

Tell me how you came to be a comic shop owner?

Like most of my peers, I started reading comics at a very young age. Unlike some of them, I stopped
reading for a few years when I hit high school but eventually got back into them in college when I
started working at a used book store in Connecticut. My career path led to the mass market retail
book trade, eventually landing me in Ann Arbor, Michigan, at the Borders Group corporate
headquarters as a publisher liaison.

All along I maintained an interest in comics and gaming, if not necessarily an obsession. While living
in Ann Arbor, my wife -- my fiancée at the time -- got a job at a local shop that I started regularly
patronizing and chatting with the manager. When he decided to return to grad school, he asked if I'd
be interested in managing the store...they agreed to match my Borders pay, so I went to do that, which
eventually led me to my own shop after several years working for that company, including opening a
satellite store.

How many other stores/outlets for comics are there in your immediate area? What is
your relationship with them like?

Right now, there are two or three local stores that can reasonably be considered "competition." We all
specialize in different areas and have a different feel, so as far as I can tell, there's no animosity and
even little sense of real competition. I send folks to either on occasion if they're looking for stuff we
don't have, and I know they will occasionally do the same. Some of the other shops in the area we will
refer customers to include the local art supply store and the independent general-interest book shops
here in town.
When we first opened, there was an "old school" comic shop of long-standing in the area that has
since closed, along with another short-lived shop started by its former manager. It's our company
policy not to speak ill of our competitors in any way, and I strongly believe we compete fairly and
without malice, but it's impossible not to accumulate some resentment by your mere presence when
someone's favorite shop closes down, whether you had anything to do with it or not. We try not to
worry too much about it, and go about our business professionally as best we can.

What would you say distinguishes your store from others in the Northampton area?

I guess it's our emphasis on a "bookstore" model, that probably comes from my background in the
book trade. Many customers have explicitly mentioned our section of used graphic novels and trades
as a strong draw.

As you know, the issue of some publishers selling their wares at conventions before
Diamond ships them to the direct market has recently been much-discussed among
those of us that care about such things...have convention sales affected your business in
any way?

Short answer is yes. New York Comic Con and MoCCA both mean that we have customers walking in
apologizing for buying stuff there who would have made purchases at our store. For what it's worth,
the effect is particularly pronounced in the games industry, which has a San Diego-style event every
year in Indianapolis, and these same arguments have been going on for a decade or more. Without a
clinically-controlled double-blind long-term experiment to verify results, we're only ever going to have
anecdotal stories. My hunch after years of witnessing the back-and-forth is probably this: retailers do
take a hit when product is released early at shows, but the effect is largely local, and not as bad to their
bottom lines as they emotionally feel like it is. Early release at shows does help publishers with
publicity, but it doesn't help nearly as much as they emotionally feel like it does.

If customers of yours buy something at a convention, but had previously pre-ordered it,
what do you think is the best way to handle it?

Make a mental note and put the book out on the shelf for someone else to buy. If it happens very
frequently, perhaps bring it up with the publisher. The product we sell is available pretty much
everywhere, and while it does feel...disingenuous for publishers to sell product direct before we can
get it, it's not a lot different than Barnes and Noble getting a new trade a couple days before us, or
similar.

How much of a problem are convention sales for retailers overall?

I can't speak definitively for other retailers, only myself; but with that said, I suspect it varies very
widely depending on their business model and proximity to the big cons. A friend of mine in
Indianapolis says he basically doesn't sell any games in the two weeks on either side of that huge game
convention. I imagine it can be a hassle to be in San Diego or right in New York City. Then again, we
make a huge amount of money setting up at three or four local cons ourselves, both to sell
merchandise and drive traffic to our store and web site. I understand that some folks don't want the
hassle of what essentially amounts to setting up a second business model, but it is one way to make
some lemonade with the local Cons that affect sales.

Do you think publishers need to change their convention policies? Is there any
incentive retailers can offer in order to mediate a compromise?

A blanket policy of not offering to sell any book that is not also available to the retail channel to sell
seems to be the most fair way to address the problem, but of course I have a bias. That said, even if I
get the book the Wednesday before the show, many folks will probably wait to get it there anyway as
they hold off on making purchases for budgetary reasons or want a copy for the author to sign. If
nothing else, the books should be available the Wednesday following the show. A several-week gap is
just not professional and makes retailers look like they're behind the curve, which is a disservice to the
good stores that actually bother to stock the sorts of titles we're talking about here.

All that said, I really don't think there's anything that stores in general can offer as an incentive, other
than a general sort of goodwill and commitment to consider projects from those publishers more
carefully than they might others. In the bits of this discussion I've seen so far, I haven't really seen any
publishers offer their own ideas or plans, and I think that's what's needed here.

What kinds of comics would you say your customers are looking for most often? How
wide a variety are they looking for?

Well, all kinds, I guess. We sell more trades and collection, dollar-wise, than we do periodical comics,
and that's always been the case since we opened, so there's that aspect. The weekly regulars are mostly
looking for superhero stuff, while the "casual regulars" tend to be committed to particular ongoing
series in trade, like Y, Hellboy, et cetera.

Non-superhero media ties-ins have been an increasingly potent force lately, as Buffy Season 8 has
been our best-selling periodical comic since the first issue and continues that dominance through a
dozen issues so far. We also see periodic short spike in interest based on coverage in places like the
New York Times Book Review, and particularly NPR publicity, which is a reasonably potent cultural
indicator here in New England.

What do you do to stay knowledgeable about the comics your customers are interested
in? What publications do you read? Websites?

Publisher's Weekly and ICv2 fairly religiously, Newsarama and CBN occasionally, mainstream media
wherever I notice comic-related topics or interviews -- Adrian Tomine was on Terry Gross a couple of
weeks ago, for example. I also just try to strike up conversations in the store, and generally read
through Previews pretty much cover-to-cover two or three times in a month to let it sink in and
percolate. We also aggressively solicit publishers to send us previews, galleys, and other good advance
publicity. I'm also involved in ComicsPRO, the comic retailer's trade organization, and that can be a
good source of inside info sometimes.

How many employees do you have?

Myself, full time, plus one full-timer on salary and two part-timers.

Do you require your staff to stay knowledgeable about upcoming product? What tools
are available to help them to answer customer questions?

Yes, within reason. Everyone is expected to read and familiarize themselves with the new issue of
Previews each month and have a general working knowledge of the various sections and most
important creators. We have always-on internet access at our register and encourage our staff to use
Google and the distributor and publisher sites to get information. We also try very hard to maintain
good, transparent records that everyone can access, so that all staff will know things like what we've
got on order, when it might arrive, and the current status of any given customer's special order -- all
systems typical of good mass-market bookstores, and well within the reach of serious independents.

What would you estimate is the ratio of male to female customers in your store?

We've never done a reliable survey. I'd guess twenty to thirty percent of our customers are women.

What is the ratio of male to female on your staff?

Three to one.

Do you use distributors other than Diamond? What strengths and weaknesses do you
see in purchasing stock through other sources?

Yes. I think that it's important to understand that Diamond is actually two companies: a fulfillment
source for the brokered publishers, and a more traditional "distributor" for everyone else. When it
comes to the "Big Four," along with the major manga companies, Diamond is far and away the best
source for independent retailers. When you get outside them into the smaller presses -- including the
big mainstream publishers who are rapidly expanding their graphic novel offerings, then there is real
competition from mainstream book distributors like Baker & Taylor and smaller regionals like Cold
Cut. Many larger stores also have direct relationships with publishers, but our volume allows only
infrequent orders for us, so we rarely go that route.

There's three important factors I consider in a decision to us any supplier, and that's cost, availability
of inventory, and ship times. Diamond does a decent job on the first two and a poor job on the last,
but the fact that I'm already ordering from them for all my Marvel and DC anyway means they'll likely
get a good share of my "indie" comics dollars as well simply by virtue of the convenience of
consolidation.

The first thing I always see when I come in your store is the kids' comics section. How
many of your customers are kids or parents buying for kids? What are the best-selling
kids‟ titles at Modern Myths?

Again, we haven't surveyed. We're in a college town, and our store is on a road that's not easily
accessible to kids, so it's a small percentage, probably less than five percent, but they're a
disproportionately important constituency, as is the case everywhere else in our society. In this case, I
am assuming that you mean under-12s by "kids," which is primarily what that section is aimed at.
Bone, The Simpsons, and Tintin and Asterix are probably our best movers from that section.

Do you offer subscriptions or a pull list to customers who pre-order through the
Diamond Previews catalog? Do you offer them any sort of incentive for pre-ordering?

We do offer subscriptions. We do not discount from cover price, but we offer what we think of as
"service incentives." We never require any sort of down payment or deposit for special orders, we give
a free copy of PREVIEWS to interested subscribers -- thought at may go to an at-cost copy if the price
goes up any further -- plus a twenty percent discount on collecting supplies like bags, boards, and
boxes, and we have a couple of specific "satisfaction guarantees." If we ever miss a book on your list
and you have to get it elsewhere, the following issue, or one comparable value, is free. We also offer a
full return for credit with any book you're unhappy with -- this is basically a guarantee that covers our
recommendations, and encourages folks to try new titles. We also like to think that the weekly
reorders, email list maintenance, and having our books out promptly are all value-adds as well.

You don't offer discounts, although some retailers do. Why did you develop your
approach to discounting, and how has it benefited your store?

Our approach to discounting is simply based on running the numbers. To run a professional general
interest comic shop that pays its staff a fair wage requires a certain margin, and the prices that most
publishers set their books at make that a workable proposition. We're not going to second-guess the
people who make the books as to what they ought to be priced. That said, we do try to have options for
price-sensitive customers, including used books, back issue sets, and a twice-annual dollar back-issue
sale.

What is the best experience you've ever had with a customer?

I think that it's the cumulative effect of a parade of people who leave the store smiling that has the real
impact, rather than any single anecdote I can recall.

What is the worst?

I've never really participated in those sorts of discussions with my peers...you get ups and downs in
any situation where you're inviting other people into your space, so I try not to dwell too much on the
problem customers. We've been very lucky in never having had anyone be violent or even verbally
abusive much thus far. The worst experiences are when we catch a shoplifter, of course. Obviously,
that's the textbook definition of "bad customer." It's also enough of a community that family tragedies
do impact us. I've twice -- so far -- gone and bought large collections from the survivors of regular
customers who died unexpectedly. That was rough, but also oddly gratifying that the families said
words to the effect of "he would have wanted you to do this for us if anyone had to..."

Journalist Tom Spurgeon recent commented that retailers “should be selling the most
comics in any format,” and yet when it comes to manga, for example, most of them are
not. Your store seems exceptionally well-stocked when it comes to almost all sorts of
comics, but do you think the majority of comic book stores, in your opinion, adjusted
well to the development of the graphic novel market?

Majority? Probably not, but I do think it's instructive that how direct market shops adjusted to that
development is one of those things that a lot of customers now use to figure out how "good" a store is.
Such judgments are largely subjective, but a good selection of trades now seems to have become one
of those "default settings" that most customers use to judge us by.

What advice would you give to your fellow retailers in terms of dealing with the graphic
novel explosion?

Start with rigorous inventory control and a serious dedication to properly handling all special orders.
You don't need to -- I'd say you can't -- stock every in-print title from every company, including
Marvel and DC. Rotate old stock out, either by trading or liquidation, on some kind of semi-regular
basis. Take advantage of alternative sources of supply, and start dealing in used graphic novels. That's
a really condensed version of hours of conversation and boring inventory management discussions,
but those are the basic principles.

It seems like most direct market comic shops attract mainly male superhero fans; how
can direct market shops better attract readers of non-superhero comics? Do you feel
the direct market as a whole has a responsibility to?

I think they do a better job of attracting a general audience by making themselves over to look and feel
as much like a mainstream specialty retail boutique as they can manage with the resources available
to them. Walk around a Barnes and Noble or a Waldenbooks -- even a cooking store or specialty shop
like Hot Topic -- and see what they have that you don't, and try to either offer that or an alternative.

As far as "responsibility," I don't necessarily believe there's a moral imperative or anything; if people
want to run professional, clean, well-lit superhero boutiques, that's fine, as long as they understand
they're limiting their audience and work with that. My belief is that the shops that embrace the entire
medium and not just one admittedly-lucrative section of it will be the best-equipped to grow and
prosper, because they'll have the widest potential audience to go after. I do believe that Diamond gets
a bad rap in this. They could certainly do more, but at the end of the day anyone, largely regardless of
format or subject matter, who can make the cut gets in to Previews to have a shot at reaching the
direct market, though there are legitimate arguments to be had as to what that cut ought to be.

What are the likely long-term consequences if the direct market doesn't grow out of its
superhero-dominated paradigm?

I'm not as pessimistic as I know you are about this. The direct market has been "superhero-
dominated" since its inception, and I'd argue that it's much less-so today than ever before, thanks
largely to manga and the success of non-superhero properties at the big brokered publishers. We
probably sell more Vertigo titles than any other single imprint, Image has spent the last couple of
years developing some really interesting titles they never would have gone near in the '90s, back when
they were Marvel wannabes. And Dark Horse doesn't even really do superheroes anymore, unless you
count Hellboy. If a market that's 60 percent superheroes pays the bills so that I can stock Kochalka
and Tezuka and Tomine and Wolverton, that's fine. That said, comic shops do need to realize that all
that "other stuff" is what gets people looking at the graphic novel section at Barnes and Noble. If they
can't offer it, they're running a real risk that the guy whose kid wants Death Note will grab Civil
War since he's there already.

Your store seems to devote much more space to graphic novels and other sorts of
books, with a minimal emphasis on floppy, monthly comics. Tell me why this is, and
what effect it's had on your customers‟ behaviour?

We still devote plenty of space to periodical comics -- 40 linear feet of wall space -- but we self-
identify as a book store, and try to organize the store accordingly. I'm not sure what effect it's had on
our customers' behavior, other than to maybe encourage them to explore other sections, and maybe to
mellow them out a bit with regard to getting it now.

Do you think, as a whole, the direct market for comic books is functioning well? What's
its long-term prognosis?

I think that it functions well as long as Diamond functions well, and that's the elephant in the living
room. Right now, the system works pretty well, and Diamond has management right now that has a
pretty good understanding of the symbiotic relationship the vast majority of direct market stores have
with them. If Diamond goes down, most independent direct market shops go down with it, but the
reverse is equally true, despite Diamond's efforts to push into mainstream book distribution. Long-
term, as long as there are monthly comics, the single-store business model will survive. The format is
too time-, labor-, and inventory-intensive for too low a margin to be really attractive to mass
marketeers, so as long as we can add value with expertise and service, the good shops will be around
as long as comics are.

What is the direct market doing right?

In addition to what I just mentioned, many publishers are venturing outside the superhero comfort
zone and bringing great new ideas.

In what ways could it be improved?

An industry standard for titling and abbreviations would be nice, though highly unlikely. The usual
complaints about interrupted series, long wait times, self-indulgent creators, etc. The entire industry,
particularly retail, is grossly under-capitalized.

Do you believe the majority of comic book stores demonstrate professional business
standards? Can they be competitive with mainstream bookstores such as Borders and
Barnes and Noble?

Again, the "majority," no. But the best stores are right there, and there's more of them every year,
which I think is a big leap from a decade ago. I think that they can compete with the right business
model for the technical reasons I gave before. I guess we're proof that it's possible.

Do you feel a majority of direct market shops actively seek out customers of all ages,
genders and interests? If so, how? If not, should they?

Majority? No. I think they're shortsighted not to, but again, I can't really get worked up over a moral
or ethical imperative to do more than deal fairly and truthfully with customers and suppliers. Beyond
that, people are free to run their businesses as they see fit. I want to note that despite my repeating
this, I also don't think that means they get to exempt themselves from having the standards of
mainstream retail applied to them. If you don't have a public restroom, you're being disingenuous if
you cry foul when people would rather shop somewhere that does.

I'm not sucking up when I say Modern Myths is just about the perfect comic book store:
A clean, welcoming environment with literally something for every member of my
family and all ages, genders and interests. But I'd imagine you see things you'd like to
change or improve. Where do you hope the store will be at in a year, five years, ten
years down the line?

Okay, you are sucking, up, but I appreciate the kind words anyway. Trust me that for everyone who
agrees with you there's someone else who really dislikes one of the very things you're praising. We do
try to keep learning and making adjustments as the market demands and our customer base grows.
To some extent, most retailers create the store they would want to shop in -- which is why it's so very
hard for most of them, myself included, to take criticism constructively. That's what I do here.

It's always hard to say where we'll be down the line, but we're currently working on an e-commerce
solution that'll let us do some selling over the internet. Expansion to additional locations is always
there in the back of my mind, but there is considerable risk involved that the current economy
discourages, and finding good management and the proper location are the biggest hurdles. I think
just about all small businesses are holding their collective breath to see what happens in November,
and we're not in that much a hurry that we can't wait until then to see what the next half-decade
might look like.
Dirk Deppey, 02 February 2004
At the time of this interview, The Comics Journal's webmaster and master blogger was probably the
most widely-read comics commentator on the comics internet. Many blogs and bloggers have come
and gone since then, but Dirk remains one of the most well-informed, curious and interesting, and
his blog is one of my first stops every weekday as I try to figure out what the state of comics is on
any given day.

Alan David Doane: What drove you to create ¡Journalista!?

Dirk Deppey: A desperate need to give TCJ.com a reason to exist as something other than
brochureware. I moved to Seattle, Washington from Phoenix, Arizona three years ago, ostensibly to
take up the position of "catalog editor" for Fantagraphics Books, but also with the implicit
understanding that my skills would be needed to revive The Comics Journal's moribund website.
When I got here, I discovered that previous
attempts to do something with the site had left
it with a reputation among staffers as an eater
of time and sanity -- a reasonable assumption,
in hindsight, since there was no site-specific
staff, and work thus had to be performed by people who already had full-time duties. As a result, no
one was particularly interested in creating new content for TCJ.com. At the time, it was clear that if I
wanted to do anything with the site, I'd have to do it myself.

My first experiment with the website was a message-board forum dealing with comics theory, which
went nowhere fast. After that, I gave the site a top-to-bottom makeover, redesigning the homepage to
place the focus squarely on the print magazine and consolidating the content already online. My next
step was the Audio Archives, which was an attractive idea for two reasons: (1) I foolishly thought that
it wouldn't require a lot of work on my part, and (2) The Comics Journal's collection of interview
audiotapes is probably the single largest oral history of the American comics medium in existence,
and really should be preserved in digital form for historical purposes before it melts into magnetic
mush. (Online excerpts aside, I have my doubts as to my ability to complete the job. I've produced
over 200 compact discs of interviews in the past two years, and am maybe 1/20th of the way through
the collection. Clearly, this is a decades-long job I've set for myself. Wish me luck.)

The Audio Archives brought more traffic to the site, but only on a monthly basis. I wanted to make
TCJ.com a little more indispensable than that, but had few options given my budget (zero) and staff
(me). I've long been a fan of politically-oriented weblogs, and given how solidly superhero-centric
most comics news-sites were (and are), it seemed to me that there was a need for something that kept
people informed about everything else in comics -- especially the business side of things. Given this, a
comics-related weblog was really a no-brainer. I needed something that would bring The Comics
Journal back into the online conversation concerning comics, and a regular day-to-day look at the
medium in its various permutations fit the bill quite nicely.

I spent some time working out the kinks in the idea. At first, my biggest concern was that I would
effectively be turning the website into "Dirk Deppey's TCJ.com," and my original plan was to write the
weblog pseudonymously under the handle "¡Journalista!." Managing editor Milo George nixed that
idea right away, thankfully. Given budgetary and server-space limitations, I also decided early on to
handcode the blog rather than use a pre-existing software package. Since my previous job as
webmaster for a group of sports-related websites had turned me into a fast HTML-coder, this was far
less of a burden than it sounds, and the weblog is still created without automation to this day:
archives, RSS feed and all. It's all done with templates, folks. Anyway, I blogged for two weeks without
formally linking it to the website, just to prove that I could handle the workload, and then presented
my efforts to Milo, Gary Groth and Kim Thompson. All concerned were impressed enough with my
efforts to give me the go-ahead to continue, and I've been writing a weblog ever since.

(I should also point out that I've continued to receive strong support from Milo and Gary for my
website-related efforts, as demonstrated by the recent addition of Dan Holloway's review column,
and Kim's given me an astonishing amount of leeway in scheduling my catalog-editor hours to
accommodate all the Journal-related work. It's their support and understanding which makes it all
possible, and I don't say that nearly enough in public.)

I think most people who are interested in this sort of thing consider your weblog to be
the one indispensible one every weekday -- Christ knows, I do -- what's the view like
from up there at the top of the comics blogosphere?

I'm having a blast. ¡Journalista! has been far more successful than I ever expected. In the past fifteen
months, traffic has grown considerably, and the weblog's homepage now attracts between 1300-1500
unique visitors per day -- small potatoes in Internet terms, but healthy enough for a comics-related
webpage where the biggest draw isn't a perpetual Marvel/DC blowjob. Furthermore, if the online
reaction and my own email is any indication, a major chunk of the readership seems to be composed
of industry professionals, as well as online and mainstream print journalists who use it to keep track
of day-to-day events. I regularly get email from creators and editors from all of the major publishing
houses, from a wide number of retailers and others in the Direct Market foodchain, from university
professors and academicians, and from writers and editors for magazines ranging from Publishers
Weekly to The Village Voice, as well as over a dozen metropolitan newspapers -- someday, if I get a
spare moment, I may even have a chance to answer some of it. Like the print magazine it represents,
¡¡Journalista!!'s audience is small but absurdly influential in proportion to its size.

¡Journalista! is frequently referred to as a news-site, but I think this is a misleading label. The biggest
reason for its success has been the content aggregation it offers, rather than anything remotely
resembling original journalism. The weblog is first and foremost a means of keeping track of other
people's coverage of events in the medium, without having to wade through a lot of press-release
puffery, and it would be insufferable arrogance on my part to pretend that my role in the internet
ecosystem involves anything greater. I seldom commit acts of original reportage. I've created several
minor uproars now as a pundit, but that's clearly not the key component of ¡Journalista!'s success.

What do you think comics blogs offer readers interested in comics that they can't get
from magazines, websites and message boards?
If you follow comics as compulsively as I do, weblogs have become essential reading, a fact due in
large part to the democratic, almost Darwinian opportunity they provide. Anyone can start a weblog,
after all, but nobody's forcing people to read them. It's only by having something significant,
informative and entertaining to say that one can attract a readership these days; those that do it well
earn their success accordingly -- write well and write often, and other weblogs (and their readers) will
notice, which in turn will get others to notice, and so on. Because of this, there's an enormous rangeof
opinions and perspective available out there, and the conversations produced in the blogosphere have
often been quite valuable. I'm particularly fascinated by
manga-bloggers at the moment. I've been aware of manga for
years, but I'm not particularly knowledgeable about the
subject's intricacies, so I'm learning a great deal from people
like Shawn Fumo and Adam Stephanides right now. Likewise,
there are a few comics retailers out there writing weblogs -- see
Jim Crocker and Dan Shahin for examples -- but I'd really like
to see more following suit. Given the enormous changes
currently reshaping the industry, the perspectives retailers
could offer are conspicuous by their absence.

Almost as valuable -- certainly as entertaining -- have been the

reactions to the rise of the comics blogosphere among pre-
existing writers and journalists, who'd clearly gotten used to
being the only voices out there attracting readers. Have you
noticed how defensive such people have gotten about the
perceived encroachment upon their territory? Suddenly
everyone has a printing press, and this is driving some who'd
been doing it for years more than a little nuts. The fact that
bloggers are just as likely to criticize the "legitimate" comics
press as they are anyone else in the field is undoubtedly a major component in this state of affairs.
Even Rich Johnston, a good reporter who got his start on Usenet (and of all people should therefore
know better), recently made a persnickety attempt to divide "the comics blogosphere" from "the
comics stratosphere," almost surely irked by the perceived threat to his status as a celebrity pundit.
Do you think there are online yo-yo enthusiasts going through similar identity crises right now? The
longer you think about that, the funnier it gets.

You're a Fantagraphics employee and therefore subject to the presumption of arrogant

elitism -- yet you love Morrison's New X-Men and rightly chastised me for spoiling the
big reveal in my blog. Tell me about the comics you love and what about each of them
that you find unique and appealing?

Where my own reading habits are concerned, Morrison's New X-Men – as well as Ellis and
Cassaday's Planetary -- are probably the exceptions to the rule. My love affair with superhero comics
was never all that strong to begin with, even as a child, and ended during early adolescence. I can even
pinpoint the moment it ended: the second issue of Chris Claremont and Frank Miller's Wolverine
miniseries. The issue concluded with a fight between the title character and a group of ninja on a
kabuki stage, with Wolverine's girlfriend seated in the front row. The fight was depicted as being a
bloody clash of blades, and ended with Our Hero ruminating over the pile of bodies he'd just created:
clumsily inserted into the interior monologue, in what was obviously another letterer's handwriting,
were the words "They're lucky they're still breathing," or some such. I puzzled over this obvious and
nonsensical editorial afterthought for a few moments, until finally concluding that it was only natural,
given that Wolverine was, after all, a children's comic. I then decided that I was getting a little too
old for such things, and promptly abandoned comic books for several years, only returning once I
discovered that there were other things artists were doing with the comic-book form. Superheroes
have always been a little ridiculous, a fact amplified by the way the various tropes that make up the
genre have accumulated and ossified over the decades, to the point where their creators often forget
why they exist in the first place. Why masks and capes? Why secret identities and crimefighting? Why
secret hideouts, why attempts to take over the world? For the most part, it's just assumed that This Is
What They Do, and as a result the reader is given no greater reason to accept such things. You're
either already an initiate – and need no further explanations -- or an outsider, in which case there's no
real reason to buy into such clichés in the first place. I can appreciate something like Moore and
O'Neill's League of Extraordinary Gentlemen as entertainment, but I have no real enthusiasm
for the genre for its own sake; I'm not so much "biased against superheroes" as simply disinterested in
the topic unless the results are especially entertaining and original. Only in a world where
superheroes are seen as The One True Genre could this be seen as an elitist perspective.

I have no innate bias against most other forms of genre fiction, either, but if I had to boil down what
attracts me to literature into a single, snappy catchphrase, it would be "give me something real." I
don't care for Dave Sim's early barbarian parodies, but his deft political and religious satires reward
multiple re-readings. I like Ennis and Dillon's Preacher not so much because it's a modern-day
Western as because it says something interesting about the bonds and limitations of friendship, and
for the interesting perspective it brings to the table concerning American culture. I like Ellis and
Robertson's Transmetropolitan for its knowing optimism in regards to technological change as
much as for Ellis' ability to successfully riff on Hunter S. Thompson -- Makoto Yukimura's Planetes
recently grabbed my attention for similar reasons. By contrast, Jaime Hernandez really didn't have
that much to say about such things in his early "Mechanics" stories, and consequentially I greatly
prefer the ones he created after ditching the Rockets and concentrating upon the Love, where he does
have a significant and fascinating perspective.

The more a work speaks to me as an adult, the more of an impression it leaves. Eddie Campbell's Alec
tells me something about life that is refreshing and invigorating -- I always find myself appreciating
other people more after re-reading it. Chester Brown's I Never Liked You provides me with tools that
help put my own often turbulent adolescence in perspective. I go back and forth on other merits of
Craig Thompson's Blankets, but its depiction of the author's early experiences with religion mirror my
own, and resonate meaningfully on that level alone. I could spend all day explaining why I appreciate
the comics of artists like Phoebe Gloeckner, Gilbert Hernandez and Chris Ware -- or Garth Ennis'
War Stories, for that matter. Such works tend to stay with me more than most genre works not
because there's something inherently wrong with genre, but because they more fully provide me with
what I'm seeking. Literature at its best helps me to understand, appreciate and engage the world
around me. Give me something real.
One of my favourite ignorant quotes is this: "¡Journalista! at tcj.com gets snobby
praise but is almost all but useless, filled as it is with The Comics Journal's biases
towards almost utterly obscure work." Tell me why the uphill battle against this sort of
stupidity is worth fighting on a daily basis.

Even ignoring the insane notion that popularity is some weird sort of quality barometer: Marjane
Satrapi is obscure? Art Spiegelman is obscure? Joe Sacco is obscure? Osamu Tezuka is obscure? Chris
Ware is obscure? Harvey Pekar is obscure? Jules Feiffer is obscure? Robert Crumb is obscure? Only if
your sole point of interaction with the world around you is a comics shop. Comics shops are obscure --
that's the problem. The attitude displayed in the above quote reflects an ideology which is at the root
of much which is generally wrong with the world of American comics. [Comics blogger] Neilalien
recently expounded upon the theory that comics shops were for superheroes, while bookstores are for
everything else. The big problem I have with this theory is that it sacrifices long-term growth and
stability for short-term satisfaction and self-absorption. It essentially reduces an entire network of
distribution to the role of "secret clubhouse" for a small, stagnant group of aficionados by maintaining
a hostile and defensive front towards anything that doesn't fit into their narrow field of interests.
Meanwhile, an entire new generation of readers is growing, convinced that comics are sold in
bookstores, packaged in pocket-sized digests and read right-to-left. At this point the notion that kids
just don't read comics, once held as gospel within the industry, has now been decisively refuted.
Teenagers, even teenage girls, have no problem with buying comics -- they simply have little interest
in anything the American comics industry has to sell. Where will the next generation of Direct Market
customers come from? Business-wise, it's a dead end. I have no doubt that the Direct Market can
maintain its current customer base for the next couple of years. Five years? Likely. Ten years?
Possibly. What about after that?

Right now, comics shops are a closed circuit; the products it sells are overwhelmingly targeted
towards a clientele that is exclusively devoted to a single genre, and whose favorite titles require an
enormous familiarity with the minutiae of continuity in order to appreciate them. This satisfies the
existing readership, but at the expense of anyone else. The problem is that as time goes on,
tomorrow's comics readers will eventually supplant the current generation, and there'll be no more of
a reason for them to enter a comic-book store than there is currently. If you don't already have a jones
for superhero comics, why would you be caught dead at Bob's Hero Hut? As the Direct Market's
existing clientele ages and withers away, so will the American comics shop. Any other form of
business would be alarmed at the prospect of never again attracting a significant body of customers --
yet this is exactly what Neilalien is asking creators, publishers, distributors and retailers to accept as a
good thing. If you value the weekly trip to your local comics shop -- and I do -- this attitude is worth
fighting on a daily basis because to do anything else is to place a time limit on how long your local
comics shop is going to be around. I have my doubts as to the likelihood that such a fight will succeed,
but I don't view them as sufficient reason to give up. Mind you, I'm Arizona white trash, from a family
that never knew when to walk away from a fight; your mileage may vary.

[ Note: Neilalien asserts that his views are misrepresented here, and I am accommodating his request that I invite
interested parties to visit his weblog at neilalien.com for more information.]
Renée French, 2004

Renée French is one of those creators who grabs my attention with every new release, never failing
to fascinate me with her dreamy, strangely familiar visions of a reality that is at once comforting
and unnerving. Her breakthrough work was Marbles in My Underpants from Oni Press, but she
really blew my mind with The
Ticking, published by Top
Shelf. I also recommend you
give her children's books Tinka
(credited to "Rainy Dohaney")
and The Soap Lady (from Top
Shelf) a look for their visionary
subversion and lush, stunning
visuals. It was her inspiration
and fearlessness that prompted
me to face up to my own darkest
medical fears and write the
story “Cyst,” which appeared in
Strange Whine, my first
eBook. No one’s mind works
likeRenée’s, she is sui generis
and one of a kind.

Alan David Doane: What

was your childhood like?

Renée French: Pretty happy. I

worried a lot, and thought about
death a lot. When I was around
eight I designed and made
diagrams of a bed with a bullet-
proof enclosure and breathing
holes and a compartment for
food and water, and an escape
hatch that lead to a hiding place
under the floor. I think later on I
got rid of the bed idea because it
was too elaborate, and just
stayed with the door in the floor,
hiding place idea. I wasn't very good at getting to sleep, but I was happy. I drew a lot and when I was
six or seven I discovered that if I drew a place, I could sort of go there in my head and stay for a while.
That was a big deal for me.
How would you describe your comics to someone who doesn't know you or know
anything about comics?

I've tried lots of times but haven't figured out a way that works. In social situations I get asked what I
do and when I explain, mostly I get a blank stare...crickets...and then they turn and talk to someone
else at the table. I can hardly even explain my comics to myself.

In what way does your real life infiltrate your comics?

Not much at all. In the early '90s I did a couple short auto-bio stories about when I was little, and that
was it for my auto-bio phase. Now, my real life doesn't end up in my comics much at all. I do have lots
of nightmares and remember my dreams almost every night and those dreams are a huge part of my
comics. I don't use the dream itself as a the story - I don't think a person's dreams are that interesting
to other people - but I do use the imagery from my dreams throughout my stories. Sometimes a dream
image will be a starting point for the story, but more often I think the dream images just fit in to
certain parts of what I'm trying to tell.

I was just thinking about my sketchbook which has lots of drawings of things from my 'real life' and I
was thinking about some drawings I made at a Chinese restaurant here in the Silicon Valley. There
were some huge geoducks [large clams] in the seafood tanks near the door and I stayed there staring
at them - they were really cute - for a long time trying to figure out their anatomy. A woman who
worked at the restaurant came over to talk to me about the geoducks and I asked her, "Where does the
water get sucked into the body, and where does it leave the body? And what is that slit right there?"
and she said, "You like seafood?‖

Anyway, that geoduck ended up in a drawing I made for Blood Orange #2 and it ended up in the
drawings and even mentioned in some of the dialogue in The Ticking. So, I guess that‘s how my real
life infiltrates my comics.

What work of yours to date are you proudest of, and why?

It would have to be The Ticking for Top Shelf. I just finished it a few weeks ago and it'll be coming
out sometime in early 2005. It was definitely the hardest book I've ever done. I had to step away from
it again and again because it was making me crazy. About half of the way through - please see
question #3 for possible contradiction - I realized that my relationship with my father was all over the
story. Not in a literal, story-line way, but emotionally it was there all over the story. It was obvious
after I saw it and I had to stop for a while. Also, this book forced me to let go of some storytelling
security blankets I'd become comfortable with over the years in my work. I think it's always good to
get rid of your security blankets.

How did your children's book career come about, and what sort of creative reward you
find in doing work so different from your approach to comics?

Technically, my first children's book was The Soap Lady for Top Shelf, but it wasn't meant to be for
 kids initially. It was meant to be a picture book for adults, in a
children's book format. But as I worked on the story and drawings, it
started to really feel like a kid's book, and I thought they might be
attracted to the weirdness of the main character. It's a little scary, a
little strange and with an old fashioned lesson. So that one was sort of
accidentally for kids.

Then, after The Soap Lady came out, I was working on some comics
and doing illustration work for the OpEd/Letters pages of The New
York Times for Peter Buchanan-Smith and an editor at Atheneum
[Simon & Schuster] saw one my illustrations on the OpEd page. She
contacted me about doing a kids book for them.

I brought an idea and some sketches for Tinka to the Simon & Schuster offices in NYC and it went
from there. I found the process of doing a children's picture book very different from my experiences
in the comics business. It was a serious adjustment for me, but it worked out really well. I'm working
on my second picture book for the same editor/art director/publisher team and it's called K's
Woolyman. I'm working on the drawings now - the manuscript is finalized, and I love being in the
world of this book.

I've found that I can't do both comics and children's books at the same time because switching back
and forth from one world to the other is too difficult. It just doesn't work. And the creative reward?
The creative reward I get working on the children's books is the same reward I get from working on
my comics. I think the thing I love most about writing and drawing stories, is immersing myself in
those worlds on paper and being able to spend my days there.
JC Glindmyer 05 November 2004

I was 15 years old when I took my first part-time job,

working a couple of days a week for Unicorn Comics in
Saratoga Springs, New York. For $15.00 a day in trade
for comics, I manned the register and did whatever else
was needed to help out the owner of the store. I grew
fascinated with the details of the comics business, and
was dazzled by all the great comics the store carried.
Decades later, I remain intrigued by the behind-the-
scenes analysis and complex set of variables that make
up how a store approaches its interactions with its
customers, with its distributors, and with the
publishers, creators and others who are all intimately
involved with the product they sell.

J.C. Glindmyer is the owner of Earthworld Comics in

Albany, New York – the comic shop I got my books at
every week at the time of this interview. JC has a broad
knowledge of the business and its history and a keen
business sense that marks him as one of the few
genuine, professional business people I’ve known in the
industry.

Alan David Doane: You've been involved in comics retailing for quite a few years now.
Tell me how you've seen the business of comics change during your time as a retailer.

JC Glindmyer: I‘ve been involved in comic retailing in one aspect or another since 1983. I started
setting up at conventions to sell off some of my doubles I had acquired over the years. After being
downsized from my full time job, I ended up becoming a stay at home father for my then five-year-old
son and two week old daughter. Around this time a good friend bought Earthworld from the original
owners and hired me part-time. After about two years, he decided that owning a business wasn‘t for
him and I ended up purchasing it.

In any business, times change, buying patterns change, and if one wants to survive, you have to
evolve. From Phil Seuling introducing the direct sales market, to higher production values for comics,
to the rise of the trade paperback as an indispensable product line. Change is a constant, especially in
this business. Although we still carry and sell back issues, once a large part of our business, has now
been overtaken by sales of trade paperbacks. Manga has already started to make some movement, and
like it or not, it‘s not going away. Shonen Jump is now racked with traditional magazines like
Newsweek and Maxim in newsstands, even grocery stores. Wizard and Toyfare are sold in
Electronic Boutique. Take into consideration it‘s been twenty years since Dark Knight Returns first
came out and many of readers were people who were in their teens and early twenties. Most of them
have grown up and some of them work for movie studios, toy manufacturers and video game
designers. Thanks to these other mediums, not only are comics are starting to get more recognition
and acceptance, now they‘re gaining some legitimacy as a true entertainment medium.

In the late '80s, Frank Miller‘s Dark Knight Returns raised the bar for comics creatively, as well as
presentation-wise. Along with Alan Moore‘s Watchmen, comics had to evolve to keep up with the
changing tastes of readers. And as comics have changed, so was they way they had to be sold.
Although the standard 32-page comic is still the main product for us that sells, it‘s the graphic
novel/trade paperback that is starting to gain prominence. Many mass-market bookstores now have
sections devoted to graphic novels. In order for a comics store to compete, we have to stay on top of
the product line. Barnes and Noble can put out all the exclusives they want, like the Marvel
Masterworks paperbacks, but when a customer wants more, they‘re going to have to go to a comic
store. When a customer wants to know the difference between Amazing Spider-Man and
Ultimate Spider-Man, it‘s unlikely a clerk at Borders will be able to tell them. We can tell
customers what other titles Neil Gaiman has written and what series followed Warren Ellis‘s
Stormwatch. I also doubt that these places would carry some of the independent and alternative
titles like Cerebus, Strangers in Paradise or Optic Nerve. In this aspect, these places can‘t
compete with us.

You say Manga is growing, "like it or not." Do you like it, or not? I've seen some
retailers who have totally embraced it, and others who are so hostile to it that it seems
to imperil the future of their enterprise. Where do you stand on it, and how do you
implement your philosophy in your store?

It really depends on how you classify Manga. If you mean imported Japan translated comics, It would
depend on the title itself. It reminds me of when someone asks for the biggest influences on American
comics. The traditional answers start with Dark Knight Returns, then Watchmen and possibly
Maus. After that answers vary wildly. It‘s no different from Manga. You start off with Akira and
Ghost in the Shell, Lone Wolf and Cub broke through to traditional comic readers. Again after
that, opinions vary. Although I‘m not a huge fan, it doesn‘t mean I can‘t appreciate what the creators
are trying to do. There is a certain energy and flow to manga. It‘s a style that only works in the context
of the subject matter being presented. However, if you‘re referring to Americanized manga, I find it
sort of lifeless and almost insulting. Trying to apply a manga style to an American comic is akin to
putting an Anglo Saxon in blackface for a minstrel show. Having a manga style Spider-Man or
Superman book would not work in this country. Marvel‘s Tsunami line, which included manga-
esque versions of Namor and the Human Torch, was a disaster. When an artist tries to put a
manga style to an established title, sales suffer. When Kia Asamiya, a respected artist in Japan, took
over Uncanny X-Men for a few issues, customers rejected it. And the final sell though numbers
were the lowest for that title I‘ve seen. Mixing genres is always a tough act, especially when it comes to
comic fans, they like their heroes to look a certain way.

"And I say "like it or not," because as I mentioned before, times change, and there‘s always a new
generation of comic readers. If I started carrying things just that I like, I wouldn‘t have much of a
selection. Manga is no different from carrying independent comics or adult comics. It‘s a call every
retailer has to make in establishing his store‘s identity. In order to serve your customers better, I feel
that you have to have a variety. To refuse to carry a specific product line that you personally don‘t like
is not in the best interests of your customers or your business.

The past few years your store has hosted what I consider to be highly successful Free
Comic Book Days, real family events with special guests contests and a genuinely fun
atmosphere. Tell me how FCBD is working from your perspective and what your hope
is for future FCBDs.

Free Comic Book Day was a brilliant idea that came at the right time, but you get out of it what you
put into it. FCBD originator Joe Field gave us the idea, and it‘s up to every store to decide how to
make it work for them. Almost every company has an "event" or special thing they do once a year to
promote their business. We decided to make FCBD our event, the one people, even our employees
look forward to every year. And we‘ve been pretty lucky, every year it rocks the house.

I‘ve heard other retailers say that they haven‘t seen any tangible results from FCBD. If you walk into a
store and some sleepy clerk mumbles to you about taking a free comic, you‘re not going to walk away
thinking much of the store or comics in general. On FCBD, You walk into Earthworld, we welcome
you to FCBD, and offer you three comics to start off with. If customers want more, we point them to
the back of the store, past displays of new comics, toys, graphic novels and other enticing goodies, to
another employee who will ask relatively easy trivia questions in order to get more comics. Most
people ended up leaving with a minimum of a half dozen comics, a lot of them kids brought in by their
parents. And it‘s a great thing to see more and more kids on FCBD. For many of these kids, this might
not only be their first trip into a comic store, but possibly their first exposure to comic books. And
while they‘re there, in addition to seeing a ton of comics and other neat stuff, they see people smiling
and laughing. And we have gotten a few people to return as customers.

This year we even invited customers to become a part of Free Comic Book Day by soliciting
submissions for a mini-comic we also sponsored and gave out. I was pretty impressed with the quality
of the submissions and the obvious love of the medium these creators had.

If there‘s one thing that really steams me, are retailers that complain about one thing or another about
this business. Don‘t get me wrong, I‘ve done my share of it, but that‘s when you have to decide
whether you‘re going to be part of the problem or part of the solution. I‘ve heard retailers complain
about how a popular book isn‘t selling for them, or how FCBD does nothing to immediately increase
their business. They offer no options, no solutions, just damning criticism. Anyone can sit and whine.
As my mom always said, "If you can‘t change the way things are, you have to change the way you think
about things."

I‘m glad to see FCBD 2005 will return to the first Saturday in May. Without a major comic related
movie tied to this date, I think this is going to be the ultimate test for future FCBD events. I honestly
don‘t think the average customer will remember that the first three FCBD days occurred on the
opening day weekend for these movies.
My position is that I don‘t expect to make money off FCBD. I doubt we‘ll sell enough stuff on this day
to fully cover expenses. I don‘t really see that as the main goal. For us, FCBD works because we like to
think of FCBD as a celebration of the medium and the people who enjoy it. I‘m also very fortunate to
work with great people who get behind it -- Alicia, Jesse, Alex and John -- this is our livelihood and we
have a lot of fun doing it. As long as there is a FCBD we‘re going to have a great time because we‘re
doing something we truly love and customers can pick up on that.

How do you utilize your staff to best

serve the store, and what do you
look for when hiring new recruits?

It might be tough to find someone with

product knowledge, but even it‘s tougher
to find a good employee. I used to just hire
people who had read or knew comics, but
not every fanboy has what it takes to work
in a comic store. At one time I had my
sister in law work for me part time and
she no had no product knowledge, but she
worked hard and worked fast. Now I look
for someone who wants the job and will
do the job. I look for people who are polite
and sociable since they‘ll represent me
when I‘m not in the store. And although
they don‘t have to dress up, they have to
be presentable and clean. I would try to
hire someone who I would want to either
wait on or help me in a store.

Although I usually have one person do a

specific job-one does back issues, one
does cycle sheets, etc, , all of them know
how to step in and do other tasks when
needed.

What is the biggest joy you get from

selling comics?

Two things, good comics and people who truly enjoy them. Out of all the books that are released, I‘ve
found very few that I would personally look forward to every month. Every week I try to sift through
most of the stuff to get an idea what we have and what we can recommend. I enjoy turning on a
customer to a title and having them return next week excited about it and asking for more. As I
mentioned before, this personal touch isn‘t something big chain stores can‘t do with their customers.
The other thing is some of the customers themselves -- people who truly enjoy reading comics. Not
someone just purchasing a handful of doubles for speculation, or automatically buying them to keep a
run going. Despite personal tastes, be it Eightball or Youngblood, everyone has a favorite comic.
People who read comics will always enjoy reading them.

I remember one guy in his early twenties on a bike looking for a hot (at the time) issue of Amazing
Spider-Man. He said he missed that issue, couldn‘t find it anywhere and wanted to read how the
story ended. I told him that we had it, but was a few dollars over the cover price. He didn‘t care; we
pulled it from the back issue bins where it was bagged and boarded. I handed it to him and he had a
big smile on his face and said "at last!" After he bought it, I asked if he wanted a bag, he shook his
head. He then proceeded to take the book out of the bag and board, and handed it back to me saying I
could have it back. And then he did the unthinkable. He folded in half, put it in his back pocket,
hopped on his bike and rode away. While some people in the store looked at this in disbelief, I just
smiled, this dude was my hero. He didn‘t care about condition or value; he just wanted to read the
story.

How do you handle the opposite of the guy on the bike, the customer who wants to buy
5 or 10 or more copies of something because they know it'll be worth a fortune? It
seems like someone comes in almost every day looking to make money on comics, and
usually it's not anything that's worth a damn. What do you make of the speculator
phenomenon?

We don‘t get that many speculators since the ‗90s crash. Many of them scampered away or moved on
to something else when they realized that their 20 copies of X-Force #1 weren't ever going to be
worth a fortune. There‘s still a few people who will come in and buy two or three copies, but for the
most part these are very few and far between. In the rare instance when someone does buy a half
dozen or so, it‘s usually a book that I ordered heavy on anyway, like Astonishing X-Men #1 or the
first issue of the Jim Lee Superman. If there was a case where someone was coming in and wanted
to buy all my copies of Gotham Central, for example, I would stress that we reserve the right to
limit any multiple purchases. It‘s not something I‘ve had to invoke in many, many years. In fact, I‘d
probably offer to special order additional copies for that customer on future purchases.

And honestly, how many truly successful speculators are there? In the 17 years or so I‘ve done this,
I‘ve yet to meet one.

What is the biggest hazard of being a comics retailer?

Comics that don‘t sell. Every week we do a weekly inventory to see what books sell and how many. We
use cycle sheets that helps us track the sales history for any given title for a four-week period. That‘s
usually the shelf life for an average monthly comic book. If you don‘t react to poor selling titles as
soon as you can, you may as well be burning your money.

Ordering mistakes can be devastating. Sometimes it‘s hard to guess what will fly and what will die. We
have to order about two to three months in advance (at this time I‘m just finishing up my order for
December). There are extremely rare times where a comic will be offered that is the equivalent of
printing money (see Wolverine: Origin or even Green Lantern: Rebirth). Other times there will
be a comic that on all appearances has the looks of a winner, but when it comes out it stinks like a
week old herring. The Truth was a good example; it had an interesting premise with a great artist.
When it came out it turned out to be heavy and preachy with the artist using a different style,
channeling Sergio Aragones -- and worst of all, no appearance by Captain America. The majority of
comic readers soundly rejected it, and we ended up eating the first three issues.

And just because something worked the first time is no guarantee lightning will strike twice. The
Marvel 9-11 benefit book, Heroes came out and we sold a lot of copies -- more than the more highly
publicized DK2. When it was followed by three (!) Call of Duty series, most customers who
purchased Heroes were nowhere to be found. The supernatural aspect of the books put off a lot of
people who were expecting a comic about Police, Firefighters or EMS workers -- sales quickly
plummeted.

I remember when The Death of Superman came out and there was all the hoopla about how an
American Icon is now gone. People were buying this book by the handful in the hope that it would be
worth money some day. A few months later, when it was announced that Superman would return,
many retailers went heavy on it banking that it would be just as big. Unfortunately when it came out,
there was little interest and many places were stuck with boxes full of unsold copies. A few places even
went out of business because they couldn‘t pay for the books. You have to keep your eyes on the
numbers, because no matter how many or how few comics you sell, you still have to pay for the books.

What's the biggest surprise you ever had in terms of unexpectedly large sales?

I was actually surprised to find out the answer myself. My first answer was going to be The Death of
Superman until I checked past sales figures. The winner? The Marvel book Heroes. It was barely a
month after 9/11 and the memories were still fresh. We started out ordering something like 50 or 60
copies. Often comic stores will get 40 to 50 percent off the cover price of the book. We didn‘t get much
of a discount on this book -- about 15 percent -- the cover price was $3.50 -- and we ended up paying
$3.00 for each book. Then the publicity came -- the television interviews, the newspaper articles, the
phone started ringing off the hook asking if we had this book in stock. We were totally unprepared for
the sudden demand for this book. Everybody wanted this book, people who never been into a comic
store came in looking for Heroes. Police officers, Firemen all bought multiple copies for family and
friends. Bookstores tried to call us and order it from us. Luckily, we were able to reorder copies to
meet the demand. For the next few months, especially for the holidays, this was a book that would not
stop selling. After numerous reorders we ended up moving about 400 copies. There was an on line
seller who was selling these things for over cover price. I e-mailed him expressing my reservations on
making a profit on this type of book. To his credit he reconsidered and offered them to his accounts at
cost. We ended up forwarding the profits we made on the book to the Red Cross. This was the only
time I can remember that not only did a comic make the news in a positive way, but people from
outside the comic collective embraced it.

Do you feel publishers ever manipulate retailers into over-ordering titles that for one
reason or another are unlikely to perform well? Other than cycle sheets, is there any
way to protect against that? Clearly cycle sheets can't help with first issues...?

Well, that‘s their job, to try to get us to buy into their hype. It‘s the only way they can get you sucked
in. And you can only get conned if you want to be conned. It helps knowing who the players are. DC is
the loyal cute housewife who will do what she can to make you happy. Marvel is the slutty girlfriend
who will drop you like a hot potato when something better comes along. You have to order with your
eyes wide open with attention paid to what your sell through numbers are and not from a sales rep.

Actually if you know what to look for cycle

sheets can help with a first issue.
Although first issues are a gamble, the
trick is to try and find something that has
come out before that would have similar
appeal. For example, if there was a new
Colossus series, we‘d match it to
something like Nightcrawler. For
Doom Patrol we matched it to the
previous series then added a few copies
for fans of John Byrne (yes, there still are
a few...). Pulse we matched to Alias
numbers. For Strange, we matched it to
Dr. Strange numbers and added about
50 percent to include readers of
Supreme Power, another title written
by J.M. Stracyznski. Not every customer
picked it up, but in the end the numbers
come pretty close. Sometimes this
formula doesn‘t work. With John Romita
Jr‘s Gray Area we compared numbers
for an average issue of Amazing Spider-
Man. We cut it in half since there was no
established character, but John Romita Jr
does have a following. Unfortunately they
didn‘t follow him there and the book was
a dud.

A trick that some publishers use is to offer

variant covers for ordering certain numbers of their books. The more you order, the more variant
cover‘s you‘ll get. Marvel has been using this tactic more with titles like Astonishing X-Men and
more recently, the New Avengers. Often these books are the same price as the regular, sometimes a
bit more. And the ratio tends to vary wildly. Sometimes it‘s like one special cover for every 10 to 15 of
the regular book ordered. Depending on the ratio, by charging slightly more for the variants, they can
offset the price of the regular books. Sometimes not -- the recent Wolverine #20 offered one special
cover for every 65 copies ordered! After some calculating, it wasn‘t worth spending another $65.00
for a special cover that we‘d have to sell for the same amount just to break even.

There‘s different ways publishers try to hawk their wares aside from Previews. I usually get scads of
e-mails from independent publishers with either links to a website or attachments. Every week both
Marvel and DC send us a newsletter by e-mail listing upcoming titles with final cut off dates. When
DC truly believes in a project, they tend to go out of their way to push or promote it. Sometimes it‘s in
the form of a free giveaway comic, like in the case of the recent free Fallen Angel issue. On the rare
occasion, someone from DC‘s direct sales department will call me personally to push a project they
truly believe in, the last time being New Frontier. DC continues to be a publisher that tends to
believe in their books and will take that extra step to promote a project they feel is worthwhile. And
because they don‘t do it often, it‘s a tactic that usually works.

Tell me what publishers and creators can do to get your attention and help you sell
their comics for them, and any ways in which they fail to do that?

A few comic companies don‘t really know how to promote some of the comics as well as they should.
Sure, you‘ll see something in a local newspaper or even Entertainment Weekly, but we have to be
more aggressive and competitive, especially with video games, movies and other things. One of my big
peeves is the lack of promo posters for upcoming releases. When you go to a movie theatre, one of the
first things you see are large movie posters promoting upcoming films. Even after you leave the
theater, you‘ll remember the posters or even a preview you saw and you‘ll want to come back to see
that particular movie. You want to get the customer excited and you want them to come back.

There are companies that go out of their way for retailers -- DC Comics, first and foremost. If we need
a second print of a popular title DC will listen and oblige. Identity Crisis is a perfect example of this.
We sold out of the first issue, but the following three issues were still available. Instead of losing
potential readers, DC made it a priority to supply us with a second printing to keep up the momentum
and more importantly, meet customer demand. The DC Horizon promo items are pretty helpful too,
giving customers a chance to bring home mini previews of upcoming releases. Dark Horse made it a
point to send us a bunch of Hellboy movie posters for the sneak preview for us to give away. Crossgen
used to send us large autographed posters. Beau Smith at IDW Comics goes above and beyond
making sure we have promotional postcards and posters to give out to customers as well as previews
of upcoming releases to share with customers. These guys have the right idea and are willing to work
with us to sell their books.

There are even individual creators who decide to make it personal and will reach out to store owners
to help promote their project. Years ago Kurt Busiek offered up a then rare copy of Astro City ½
with a punched hole with a ring to attach a chain or string to it and place it next to the register. While
checking out, customers had a chance to read the short story and liked what they saw. In response to
that promotion, we easily got around a dozen new readers for that book. Brian K. Vaughan has offered
signed comics to (successfully) help promote Y the Last Man and Ex Machina. Joe Casey sent out
Xeroxed copies of the upcoming Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes series. These guys realize
that comic stores are the first line of defense and will make it a point to go the extra mile to hand sell a
series they believe in.

These are the people I enjoy doing business with, I feel that they actually my "retail partners."

To borrow a comparison from Highlights for Children, for every Gallant there has to be a Goofus.
Marvel fails as far as being a legitimate "retail partner." They seem more interested immediate profit,
instead of long team goals.

Marvel's current plan for their comics is to sell them as trade paperbacks in mass-market bookstores.
They rush out these collections of comics, as little as two weeks after the final issue of the series is
released. This ends up cannibalizing sales of the regular books and gives the traditional comics reader
no incentive to buy the monthly books. It‘s starting to affect the content of the books themselves. It‘s
even gotten to the point where the monthly comics are little more than split chapters from a book.
Reading them separately is like tearing up a novel into five parts and reading them one month at a
time. And many times Marvel won‘t keep some of their current trades in print. These trades are
supposed to help support the monthly titles, not replace them.

In comparison to DC‘s Identity Crisis, the closest thing Marvel has right now is the Avengers
Disassembled. Now, correct me if I‘m wrong, but I thought one of the reasons we do what we do is
to sell comics. I have customers looking to pick up this storyline and since Marvel strictly prints to
order, there is little chance on getting any additional copies. For the most part, I agree that not
overprinting every comic is a sound business move. But when you have a major storyline or event,
especially one that‘s making you money, you‘re going to want to make the most of it. And you want to
do it while the demand is there. Marvel sends us weekly e-mails saying things like "Avengers is selling
out! But you can still have time to up your orders on the subsequent issues!" This makes no sense,
why would I order more of a comic that I have no previous issues to build new sales upon? Based on
what was sold before, Avengers Disassembled will only sell a specific amount of comics, and not
much more. They have effectively stunted their own sales growth. Meanwhile, five months later, every
single issue of Identity Crisis continues to sell at a brisk pace. And numbers don‘t lie -- at this point
I‘ve sold about two copies of Identity Crisis for every one of Avengers Disassembled.

And it would help if Marvel did have a more reactive sales department. There are a few books they
publish that get lost in the shuffle with no promotion. The current mini-series Powerless is a good
example of this. This is a book that is different and is well done, but not many people know about it.

Our main job here is to sell comics, preferably to people who‘ll read them. When a book is good, I‘ll
push it to customers. When it‘s great I‘ll back it up a 110 percent. But I can only do so much, I‘ll try to
sell the hell out of a comic, but if I get no support from the publisher, it‘s a losing battle. But as a kid,
heroes like Batman and Spider-Man taught me that you never give up. And I didn‘t get into this
business to lose.
Steven Grant, 2004

Steven Grant is a master storyteller, in more than one sense of the word. He's also been around
comics for a good long time, giving him a great store of anecdotes with which to reflect on the
industry -- at least a couple of which he shares below, and even more of which he shares weekly at
Comic Book Resources. I grew up
reading many of his comics, like his
various issues of Marvel Team-Up
and the original Punisher mini-series,
but I truly began to appreciate his gifts
when he wrote the ahead-of-its-time
Edge for artist Gil Kane (collected in
hardcover by iBooks and including the
never-before-published fourth issue)
and one of my favourite comics of the
1990s, X-Man with artist Ariel
Olivetti.

Alan David Doane: Your new

TOTALLY OBVIOUS collection of
columns is an online venture that
allows readers to buy and
download the entire run of
MASTER OF THE OBVIOUS
columns you did for Comic Book
Resources. What's reaction been
like from readers?

Steven Grant: Decent. I haven't

pushed it much, I should mount a
promotional campaign, create banner
ads, get endorsements, all that. The
comics market is still be a bit shy about
books on .pdf, but other markets are big
on them. But I did it for the people who
regularly e-mail me asking where a
collection of the essays can be found,
and now I have somewhere to send them. It's not making me rich, but the people who want what's in
it are getting what they want.

Tell me about the most disastrous or bizarre editorial decision you've experienced
during your comics career?

Maybe I'm just tired today, but I'm trying to think of some that were personally disastrous for me and,
aside from the usual cancellations and that sort of petty usual crap that's part of the freelancer
experience, I can't. I've been relatively fortunate in staving off most bad editorial decisions, though
fighting them usually didn't put me in solid with editors. Since I fended them off there's not really
much point in rehashing them publicly. Probably the most disastrous one was Marvel's decision to
take Mike Zeck off the PUNISHER mini-series; when we started we told them how much time the
art would take, but then the business end decided they needed another book out that month and
suddenly the book was scheduled and the production schedule became retroactive, putting both of us
weeks behind. But that was more a business decision than an editorial decision, and whatever doesn't
kill me makes me hungry, right? One bizarre decision was Marvel's decision to have me write THE
LIFE OF POPE JOHN PAUL II. It was decided long before anyone bothered to mention it to me; I
found out about it one Friday afternoon in Ralph Macchio's swimming pool and apparently by then it
was already fete accompli, except I didn't even know they were doing a POPE bio. The funniest
editorial decision was on an issue of WHISPER I did at First Comics. The editor at the time, a very
nice woman named Laurel Fitch, calls me about a line I've written, a bit of Texan slang quoted
verbatim that they were having language problems with: "I wouldn't piss up her ass if her guts was on
fire." I always thought that was a wonderful turn of phrase, but First had a "language code" (for some
reason they never applied it to NEXUS, but they kept calling me on things) which basically said
whatever can be said on prime time network TV could be said in their comics and what couldn't,
couldn't. At the time, it was still verboten to say "piss," though NEXUS had previously run "piss off,"
so I figured, okay, we're cool on the word now. Except we weren't, and they half heartedly rationalized
that my dialogue represented piss as a biological function and Mike's didn't. But Laurel had a
compromise suggestion: "I wouldn't SPIT up her ass if her guts was on fire." I lackadaisically said,
sure, what the hey, and as soon as I hung up the phone I laughed so hard, long and uncontrollably
that my wife eventually came into the office to make sure I wasn't having some sort of attack. I told
her and she started laughing uncontrollably. In what world is "I wouldn't spit up her ass..." an
improvement? The imagery is even worse. But that's what ran. Fine with me.

Oh, wait. Just thought of one that was both bizarre and disastrous. I'd just started writing
SPECTACULAR SPIDER-MAN at Marvel, this was '94 or so, and the first three issues came out
pretty well. Meanwhile, an old friend of mine, Hildy Mesnik, had just become an editor at Marvel and
asked me to take over NIGHTSTALKERS, the spinoff from TOMB OF DRACULA that has
become part of the "Midnight Sons" sub-group run by Bobbie Chase. I wasn't keen on it because I'd
never done horror comics and Dan Chichester, who'd been writing it was a friend too, but Hildy told
me Dan was leaving the book whether I took over or not and she really wanted me on it, so I agreed.
About as soon as I turn in my first plot, Hildy's given an ultimatum by Marvel editorial, since she was
editing both Midnight Sons books and BARBIE books that she had to choose one or the other. And
she chooses BARBIE, suddenly leaving me on a book I don't really want to do with an editor I'm
completely unfamiliar with. Worse, they're just about to go into a Midnight Sons linewide "major
crossover," so I don't want to leave them in the lurch. I decide I'll stick through the crossover and then
politely bow out, which I did. Meanwhile, they're trying to get other Marvel comics to do stories
involving the crossover plot, but nobody's biting, only one book (I forget which) is hooking up and the
"major crossover event" is starting to smell like a huge dud, and since I'm also writing
SPECTACULAR SPIDER-MAN they beg me to crossover. I figure sure, why not? I come up with
the plot for the first part of an arc that'll go through both months the Midnight Sons arc is running,
and it goes through pretty much unscathed. Except right around that time I also inform the new
NIGHTSTALKERS editor -- I think it was Marcus McLaren -- that I was really only doing the book
as a favor to Hildy, and with my workload it'd be better if, after the crossover, it were handed to
someone else. Suddenly, at the eleventh hour -- and I don't know whether my resignation from
NIGHTSTALKERS had anything to do with it -- Bobbie Chase bounces my SPECTACULAR
SPIDER-MAN plot because she has suddenly
decided events have to match not the month the
book comes out but the week -- and that particular
week none of the Midnight Sons heroes or villains
are available. I figure, fine, there are only two
Marvel books even acknowledging the crossover is
going on, so what does it matter if it's only one?
The only problem is those two issues of SPEC
have already been solicited as being part of the MS
crossover, so if we change the contents the book
becomes automatically returnable, and Mark
Powers, who had just become a full editor on the
book, doesn't want that on his permanent record,
even though he already has permission from on
high to make the book returnable. And he was
right, for him, because whatever they tell you
that's the sort of thing they'll remember and hold
over your head later. On top of that, by the time all
the decisions are made, I've got about two hours to
come up with an entirely different story with an
incredibly peripheral tie-in to the crossover or the
schedule will completely ball up. The story I
cranked out was indeed incredibly peripheral, not
to mention flat out bad, with the conclusion worse.
Mark and I never did really get our footing after that and a couple issues after that I was off SPEC
SPIDEY because simply nothing was gelling. That was arguably the most insane moment of my
professional career. I don't blame Mark; he was caught up in circumstances just like I was.

After a career spent writing for Marvel and DC, you've been doing some interesting
graphic novels and comics for Avatar, Cyberosia and other publishers. What are the
creative benefits of working outside the corporate comics "mainstream?"

Creatively? Mainly you get to make your own mistakes, instead of someone else's.

You're doing some adult comics, what some might call "porn." Tell me what you think
you bring to the table, and what you hope to achieve in this arena.

Let's not mince words: it's porn. I'm not sure I brought anything to the table, but I'd never written
anything like that before and I wanted to see if I could. It was an excuse to do crime comics, mainly,
since there are few other markets for them and I wanted to do some; if there's graphic sex involved,
that's not out of the realm of crime comics, though ultimately the sex has to take center stage. I
wanted to see how well I could integrate the demands of porn with the structure and pacing of crime
stories. I haven't seen the results yet so I don't know if it came out okay, that's up to readers to decide,
but I generally liked what I did. The stories and characterization were much more structured and
formal than in most porn stories, and my goal was to have the stories stand up as stories even if the
sex was taken out.

That's about as much as I hoped to achieve. I can't say I'll never do any more but I don't have any
plans to at the moment. It's a fun place to visit but I wouldn't want to live there.

Oh, the paycheck. That was the other thing I wanted to achieve.

You spend some time in many of your columns at CBR assessing the current American
political landscape with no-holds-barred commentary. After three years of George W.
Bush, how do you see the U.S. and what do you think is at stake in the November
election?

I think the U.S. comes across as frightened and panicky, which is an overreaction even to 9-11 and
certainly not the way you want the rest of the world to see you if you're genuinely concerned with your
own security. What Bush has projected to the rest of the world hasn't been strength but irrationality
and weakness. What's at stake? Our philosophy of what America's supposed to be about. If you look at
the record of this administration -- really look -- both domestically and internationally their agendas
have been driven by thuggery and opportunism. This election is where Americans get to decide
whether thuggery and opportunism are what we want to be about. If it is, that's fine, but let's stop
trying to tart it up as something else. I prefer to think America should be about something better than
that, but, ultimately, I'm not the one who gets to make that decision. Which isn't to say I think John
Kerry will necessarily be all that much better than Bush -- there isn't really that much difference
between Republicans and Democrats -- but if Bush is re-elected he'll proceed as though it's a mandate
and we're rubberstamped his bad behavior. Kerry, if nothing else, just due to his circumstances will be
forced to be much more answerable than that.

Not to mention John Ashcroft, who seems to actively hate the Constitution, will be out as Attorney
General and it's unlikely Kerry will stock the Supreme Court with Scalia-esque arch-conservatives. It's
hard to believe Kerry will do worse on homeland security than Bush, since most of what Bush has
done is a dog and pony show...
Roger Green, 27 June 2008

The one good thing to come out of Al Gore's creation of the internet is the fact that I am able to
communicate online with great people like Roger Green. I saw him almost every week back in the
1980s, when as a teenager I was buying my comics at the legendary FantaCo Enterprises on
Central Avenue in Albany, New York, but I never really developed any kind of relationship with the
great guys that ran that store -- I don't know why I never really chatted them up, shy, I guess, and
maybe a little intimidated (hey, these guys were also comic book characters, in Smilin' Ed
Comics!) but they were always professional, helpful and kind to my teenaged self, and I have fond
memories of seeing Roger, Mitch Cohn, Rocco Nigro and the late and much-missed Raoul Vezina at
the store on a regular basis.

Now, if you read comics, chances are you've probably seen a FantaCo
publication or two (or twenty) from time to time in your comic book
travels; it seems like the Chronicles series (of which there were five, plus
an annual) remain pretty ubiquitous, and if the checklists are now
charmingly outdated (imagine an X-Men checklist that includes only
Uncanny and scattered appearances in a few other titles?), the interviews
and articles remain great comics journalism that holds up well. A few
years back Roger started blogging, and we ended up in touch, bonding over our very different but
very much-loved memories of FantaCo. I'm grateful beyond measure for having had the experience
of being a customer at one of the greatest comic book stores ever, and even more grateful to know
Roger and Rocco now, just 27 years after the first time I walked in the door at 21 Central Avenue
and said to myself "Holy shit, look at all these comic books!"

What is your favourite comic book story?

Yeesh. I must admit a fondness for the Defenders when Gerber was writing it, and I love a good
origin story (Spider-Man, Hulk), but ultimately, I end up with Giant-Size Man-Thing #1.

When reading comics, do you focus on the writing over the art, the art over the writing, or both
about equally?

Serviceable art will allow me to read a well-told story. The most beautiful art will not save a terrible
story line. One of the comic books I hate the most has to be Spider-Man #1. The McFarlane art was
tolerable at best, but the story was so gawd awful, I stopped buying the title after three or four issues.
Given the fact that I LOVED-LOVED-LOVED Peter Parker/Spider-Man, it was painful, but necessary.
This was NOT the Peter I knew. The Spider-Man was more like Spawn. Loathsome.

When the Pinis used to come to FantaCo to do Elfquest signings, Richard used to rail against the
comic fanboys who cared about art to the exclusion of story, and I thought he was absolutely right.
That said, sometimes the art DOES move me. I was buying Sub-Mariner during Bill Everett's second
run, and I loved the look.
Who do you think is the greatest comic book artist still alive today and why?

Well, besides Fred G. Hembeck, who should be considered just based on the sheer number of
characters he's drawn? I'll cop out and say Art Spiegelman because he helped bring the comic form
out of the comic book ghetto.

What's your happiest memory of working at FantaCo?

I almost always loved when our publications came in, but I'm going to pick something rather arcane.

There was a graphic novelization of

Stephen King's Creepshow drawn by
Berni Wrightson in the mid-1980s.
Having connections in both the comic
and horror markets we knew, both
instinctively and from comic and
horror film stores we dealt with that
there was still a demand for this title.
The publisher, we ascertained, still
had many copies of the book. I wrote
to the publisher- nothing. I called the
publisher - I was told the book was no
longer available, which I knew to be
untrue. Finally, I reached someone
who acknowledged that they had
copies but that it was not worth it for
them to send it out only to deal with a huge percentage of returns.

So I said, "What if we bought them non-returnable?" I thought the guy's teeth were going to fall out.
"Non-returnable?" So, we took 100 copies of it at 70% off the $6.95 cover price, put them in the store
and listed them in a Fangoria ad, and blew through them. So I called again and said, can we have
another 100?" By this point other stores were clamoring for this book, so we ordered an additional
500, and sold it to these horror book stores, and a few comic book stores, at 40% non-returnable. The
stores got to sell a book they could otherwise not get, we made a decent profit even wholesaling
someone else's book, and we kept the Wrightson book from just being remaindered. My persistence in
dealing with this publisher was, strangely, my favorite FantaCo moment.

What do you think is the single best publication FantaCo released in its history?

While I have a strong affection for the Spider-Man Chronicles, which I edited, I'm going to say
Gates of Eden, which Mitch Cohn edited. No, I'm NOT going to pick The Amazing Herschell
Gordon Lewis and his World of Exploitation Films, no matter how much you beg, Alan.
Roberta Gregory, 3 March 2000

Roberta Gregory is the creator of the now-defunct comics series Naughty Bits, a terrific title that
featured the adventures of such
characters as Bitchy Bitch and her lesbian
counterpart Butchy Bitch. Fantagraphics
published Naughty Bits and has also
released a series of trade paperback
collections, which I can't recommend
highly enough.

Alan David Doane: How many years

have you been doing Naughty Bits?

Roberta Gregory: I think the first issue

came out in 1991, so I think almost nine
years now.

But you've got a long history in

cartooning before that?

Oh, yeah. My father used to write comics

for Disney, so we always had comics
around the house when I was a kid, so I
kind of learned to read with comic books. I
was doing them all through school and my
first published work was in the early ‗70s. I
had a comic strip that was based on the
women's movement. Humor and the
women's movement was not a concept that
was put together at that time, y'know, so, I
was always kind of doing things that were
a little bit different. My first stories were in
underground comics from San Francisco
in 1974, and ever since then I've had a lot of appearances in different comic anthologies, women's
comics. It wasn't until 1990-1991 that I got my own ongoing comic book, and it's been coming out
quarterly pretty much ever since.

How did Naughty Bits come about?

Originally I just did some odd short stories that weren't really related to each other, they didn't really
have a strong character or a theme running through them. Actually the first story was a really oddball
story I did kind of based on Robert Crumb. For years he's done these comics that kind of come
straight out of his id, where men are abusing women, only it's very funny. So I thought "okay, how
could he have gotten away with it for so long?" What if a woman did a really goofball, screwball comic
book about women abusing a guy, would they think it was just as funny? Would it have that license to
be funny because it was cartoonish? So I did this really weird story about these women who sexually
abuse a guy, only it's done in this really goofy style. So I kind of threw that out, and Fantagraphics
thought it was great, they kind of built a comic book around that one story.

What was the reader reaction to that?

Well, women laughed and most guys were usually kind of stunned and frightened by it. A few guys
just thought it was great. It really did get a wide variety of reaction. Which didn't really surprise me
that much.

Naughty Bits has an ongoing storyline featuring continuing characters. Has your style
evolved over time, do you find your interests and subject matter have changed?

Not really. The earliest stories I did that were more realistically drawn are kind of real-life stories with
kind of a twist. Although Bitchy Bitch has gotten really more screwball and over the edge sometimes.

That's got to be a very cathartic character and strip to write.

Oh, it's lots of fun. It's just a blast. I mean, I usually don't write the story until it's maybe a month or
two away from publication so it's usually something that's fresh in my mind, or a theme that's going
on in my life, or something that I really had in my subconscious for a few months and can really fill it
with realism. These aren't stories that I've written years ago that I'm finally getting around to drawing,
these are all things that I'm doing usually in a panic because a deadline's coming up. I surprise myself
sometimes when my book comes out. It's stressful but creatively it's a blast.

Is there an autobiographical component to Bitchy Bitch? As true to life as it seems, I

can't imagine that there isn't.

I suppose some. I mean, some of the things that annoy her annoy me. In the issue I'm doing right now
she's really ticked off about how modern culture's basically geared toward people with lots of money
which really ticks me off too, being a person that does not have a lot of money at all, you know. The
incidents aren't -- actually, when she fell in love with Chuck I was in a relationship with somebody, so
I was kind of using some of those emotions, so...kind of incidentally, there can be some stuff that's
realistic, or maybe the way I'm responding to a situation, but...I haven't spent 20 years in a dead-end
job like she has. I definitely feel like I'm a much more happy, fulfilled person. If I was as miserable
and as blame-heavy as Bitchy Bitch I could never get any of this done. I would just not be self-
motivated enough to do a comic book four times a year.

Bitchy Bitch doesn't ever really seem to be happy, per se. She sometimes takes joy in the
misery of others...

Every so often she does have her moments, like when she first has this relationship with Chuck, she's
pretty blissful. And then I think there's the storyline where she went on vacation, and once she
actually let go of the idea that she had to meet a guy on vacation, the last day she actually, she felt
good.

That was a terrific story, too--the guy that ended up following her around...

Oh, man, yeah.

In reading that story it wasn't immediately apparent that that character was going to be
a continuing theme, was that something you knew was going to happen ahead of time or
was that something that just came out as you were writing it?

It just came out later on, I thought, "Oh, God, this guy is just too good to disappear." There's
Toadman, who is a fella that in the very first issue she goes on a really bad date from Hell with him.
Five issues later he shows up at work, which is kind of every woman's greatest fear, some guy you
never want to see again, like, working with you now. Kenny (from the vacation story) is just a much
more fun person to do. I actually want to another story with Kenny just because he's such a great
character. But usually I don't have these stories all plotted out, from the first issue, usually I'm kind of
in a panic going "okay, okay, I've got to do another story, what's been going on with Bitchy Bitch?"
Some of this stuff just kind of comes out at the last minute, and through the magic of creativity under
stress I guess, it actually all fits together and I'll find out later that it tied into something in an issue I
haven't read in about four years. It's kind of fun, stressful but fun.

Other than the obvious entertainment value, is there anything you hope that your
readers come away with from your work?

I get a lot of response from guys saying they're just so thrilled to find out what really goes on in
women's heads, or at least, you know, some women's heads. I think the point of my story is not that
the world is a horrible, grim place but if you're a person like Bitchy Bitch that sees the world as that
kind of a place, it will be.

Like garbage in, garbage out?

Pretty much. It just amazes me how different people can live in the same world and just interpret it so
differently, you know.

How has the Internet changed the way you interact with your readers?

I think it makes it more accessible. Just the fact that three or four years ago if anybody wanted to see
the existence of my work they had to go to a comic book shop, which are few and far between. And
now, on my web site it links to this web site for Oxygen, this network that has Bitchy Bitch cartoons on
it now. And then that links back to my page and then the Fantagraphics page has scenes from all of
my comic books in it. It's definitely made things more accessible, I don't know if it's sold more books
or upped my income any or anything, but it's--conceptually, it's amazing that somebody could just
type in my name and all of a sudden, you know, see my work. I have to hear something a few times
and then see some visual references before something sticks into my brain just because there's so
much visual and auditory and mental overload nowadays in culture.

How have you sustained this alternative comic book in the face of what's been a rough
few years for the comic book industry?

I've had a few scares where sales have gone down some and Fantagraphics has considered canceling
it. I think it still makes them more money then it makes me, it doesn't make me all that much.
Working on the animation, that's brought, not a huge amount of money but more sort of a low-normal
income (laughs) that a lot of people can live on rather than a poverty-level income. Plus, I have an
apartment in Seattle that's kind of unusually cheap that I've been in for ten years, needs a lot of work,
but--I guess the secret of living on your creative output is learning to live on next to nothing, which
(laughs) I'm really good at.
Paul Hornschemeier, 23 February 2004

Paul Hornschemeier is one of my four or five favourite cartoonists of all time. His work was first
brought to my attention by former Comic Book Galaxy writer and BLUESMAN co-creator Rob
Vollmar (who gets his own interview closer to
the end of this project), and from his earliest
work in Sequential to Forlorn Funnies to
his most recent graphic novels through
Fantagraphics, Hornschemeier’s work is
always fascinating and always changing.

Alan David Doane: What spurred your

interest in comics?

Paul Hornschemeier: The first thing I drew,

at age 4, was a cartoon. What spurred my
interest in comics as a viable medium to tell
something beyond a cliché was reading Ghost
World one Christmas (1997) and realizing that
this thing I had done since before I could spell
my own name (which is a hell of a name to spell,
let's face it) could be something so incredibly
significant and stuffed with meaning and
beauty.

What do feel you've gotten out of the

artform, and what if anything would you
like to give back to it?

I can't say what I've gotten from it, Alan, beyond intellectual excitement and some insight into other
people's lives and beliefs, but I hope to give examples of different ways things could take shape, and,
the BIG HOPE, a few good stories that escape simple gesturing and experimentation.

How have your artistic influences impacted on your development as a creator?

I think I have been very influenced by the film Yellow Submarine (yes, The Beatles cartoon), and by
Jim Henson, as well as Maurice Sendek and Edward Gorey. There is something in the sad, drooping,
floating worlds, sprinkled with explosions of manic color and heat, that seriously colored the ways I
expressed things, even at a very young age. I think these people influenced the method by which I
translate the world into images, even in my mind, before any paper is brought into the equation.

Why is design so important to you? What do you think the elegance your work and its
presentation possesses conveys to the reader, if anything?
A cartoonist is a designer, if s/he is anything. A designer is simply taking elements and employing
those elements to convey a message, bringing separate components together to form a unified voice,
to play upon the mind of the readers in a
certain way. I believe every element of the
book needs to be analyzed: it is what carries
and contains the story. And I think every
element (paper color, paper weight, colors
of ink, line quality, page layout, etc.) all
serve as ingredients in the larger cognitive
experience. Nothing should be ignored out
of laziness. If you do not choose to address
certain issues, let that be by choice, because
it will certainly play a role in the perception
of the audience.

What kind of relationship, if any, do you see yourself having with your readership?

In all honesty, very little. I see myself producing the stories to take care of something in myself, which
is horribly selfish, and I can't understand why people support these sorts of things, but I thank them
profusely for it. I care immensely for people and am very appreciative of any praise or criticism I
receive, but I can't stop writing these things down. It's sort of awful, really.
Tony Isabella, 16 February 2004
There aren't many people that have seen as much comics history as Tony Isabella, or who are so
generous in sharing their experience and wisdom. After decades working in and commenting on the
industry, his is a singular point of view, and he is fearless when it comes to calling it like he sees it.

Alan David Doane: Your recent statements about Black Lightning seem to inflame a
certain underinformed segment of the online comics community. Given the murky
nature of many contractual questions in the comics community, and the enormous
inequity between publishers and creators, what would you like readers to know when it
comes to the issues, both as they apply to you, and in general?

Tony Isabella: I‘d like the readers to

know that creative issues are not always or
even often the cut-and-dried ―work-for-
hire‖ which publishers make them out to
be. I‘d also like them to realize that they do
a great disservice to creators and their
creations when they attribute some sort of
parental benevolence to those publishers.
Both creators and publishers are looking
out for their own best interests, but I
believe the interests of the readers are
better served by creators than by
corporations.

As for how the issues apply to me

personally, a quick Google search will
doubtless bring readers more information
than can possibly be good for them or me.
I‘ve answered questions over and over
again, and answered them honestly. If
some readers choose to disparage me as a
result, so be it. I knew that was a distinct
possibility when I went public.

What's your fondest memory of

working at Marvel and/or DC over
the course of your career?

I can‘t narrow it down to just one.

Getting to work with Stan Lee at the start of my comics career was a youthful dream come true and I
still remember the first time that he complimented me on some turn of phrase in something I‘d
written.

As an editor, it was thrilling to give first

or early assignments to writers and artists
who then went on to have long and
fruitful careers.

I once had a fellow writer come up to me

and tell me that a scene I‘d written in a
comic book spoke directly to the
problems he had been having in his life
and that my ―advice‖ helped him get
through those problems.

My Black Lightning writing, especially

the second series of stories I did with
Eddy Newell, remains something of
which I am very proud, no matter how
much DC shafted me in the process. My
first series of BL stories inspired at least
three readers to become teachers. It
doesn‘t get much better than that.

I got to work with many of my comics

heroes and became good friends with
several of them. Developing SATAN‟S
SIX with Jack Kirby gave me a chance to
get to know him and Roz a little better
near the end of their lives. If I could get a
laugh out of Jack, I knew I was doing my
job well.

This subject could be an entire interview in itself. For all that the comics industry does to demean,
diminish, and destroy creative talents, I don‘t regret devoting my efforts to it. I entertained a great
many readers, made some good friends, and achieved enormous satisfaction from my work.

What's your least fondest memory about working in the so-called "mainstream?"

The day I got fired from BLACK LIGHTNING, the second series, by Pat ―the Rat‖ Garrahy...and the
weeks that followed.

I don‘t want to go into much detail, but I was angry and depressed for months afterwards. There
wasn‘t a person at DC who hadn‘t come to realize that hiring Garrahy had been a terrible move on the
part of the just-promoted Mike Carlin. I was shocked that Paul Levitz and the other executives upheld
my unjust dismissal...because they had admitted to friends of mine that they knew it was an unjust
and unwarranted dismissal. Against all fairness and logic, they held to the company line that you had
to back editors over freelancers, even knowing that Garrahy‘s career as a DC editor was going to be
relatively short. As it was.

To add further insult to the injury, I quickly learned that every editorial door at DC was closed to me.
They circled the wagons in support of an editor - Garrahy - who most of them neither liked nor
respected. It was absolutely insane, especially since, again, many of these editors were telling friends
of mine that they thought my dismissal was unjust. It was a bad time for me.

I still get angry and even depressed about that stuff from time to time, but those are momentary
lapses of mercifully short duration. I‘ll talk about it when I feel I must, but I don‘t expect anyone at DC
to make it right...or to even recognize that they should make it right.

That would be the quickest way for DC to get rid of me once and for all. If they tried to make it right,
the shock would probably kill me. And then they‘d probably take out a nice ad in COMICS BUYER‘S
GUIDE mourning my loss. Cynical, aren‘t I?

One more thing. I only answered this question because you‘re a pal of mine. However, having
answered it, I must now make my doubtless futile attempt to ward off the usual online idiots...

Yes, I have personal grievances against DC Comics. Those personal grievances are not as important an
issue as DC‘s mistreatment of so many of its minority characters or the mainstream comics industry‘s
mistreatment of creators. If you have a quarter of a brain in your heads, you‘ll realize that.

Dismiss me as a bitter old crank if you must, but don‘t allow that to be the end of your discussion of
those issues. I'm no good at being noble, but it doesn't take much to see that the problems of one
writer don‘t amount to a hill of beans in this crazy industry that demeans its characters and their
creators. Someday you'll understand that.

What's your assessment of the current state of the comics industry, in regard to its
treatment of creators and in general?

In the interest of keeping this answer from becoming a book, I‘ll define comics industry as the
traditional DC/Marvel/Dark Horse/etc comics industry.

Certainly SOME creators are being treated well, some because they are the flavors of the month, and
some because they keep producing successful (as defined by the diminished expectations of the 2004
market) comics. However, it should be noted that continued success is, by no means, proof against
abrupt termination. Look how many great writers and artists of the past two decades can‘t get work,
not because their efforts didn‘t sell as well as those of the newer kids, but because editors and
publishers perceived them as being old-fashioned and of no interest to the readers. Not that the
editors and publishers have much of a clue as to who their readers are and/or where they will find
new readers.
I miss the days when one editor would work with one writer
and one artist to create great comics. Even with three
storytellers, there was a clarity and a unity to the comics.
These days, creatively, it seems to be all group-think and
mimicry. Manga is selling, so let‘s clumsily weld faux-manga
stylings to our classic characters. We oughta be in pictures,
so let‘s write our comics as if they were screenplays and cast
aside some of our best and most unique ways of telling
stories. We can‘t just let comics be comics; they have to be
like something else.

Keep in mind these are generalized comments as per your

question. There are still some brilliant editors and even
publishers in this industry. But, overall, I don‘t believe the
skill levels of comics editors and publishers have kept pace
with the skill levels of the better creators. I‘d even
characterize this situation as a crisis, one which hampers
seasoned veterans and promising newcomers alike.

Earth-2 died for nothing.

As for the current state of the industry in general, how sad is it that we practically orgasm when a
comic book sells the hundred thou copies which comics routinely sold in decades past? We‘ve lowered
our expectations as we‘ve raised our prices.

American comic books, especially most of the periodicals, are not a good value for customers. The
minimalist storytelling styles now in vogue mandate mediocre stories stretched to fit as many issues
as will fill a trade paperback. I completely understand the long-term importance of those collections,
but these stories should be good and rich enough to justify six or eight issues instead of the collection
being used to justify the six or eight issues. Many of them aren‘t.

American comic books can overcome the value gap by either being so satisfying the customer feels
he‘s getting entertainment equal to what he pays for them...or by offering him as many pages-per-
dollar as he can get from SHONEN JUMP or manga collections. Creators and editors have to be
better and more productive.

American comic books can also stop repeating themselves endlessly. The multiple Batman/Spider-
Man/X-Men titles are stealing sales from each other and from titles that could otherwise be a
healthy second tier for the publishers. How many Spider-Man/Doctor Octopus mini-series and
specials can we reasonable expect to sell in the couple months the second Spidey movie will be in
general release? Why do we think successful movies based on comics will sell those comics when
they‘ve almost never done so in the past? And why am I asking the questions when I‘m the interview
subject?
What are your creative plans for 2004?

I‘m counting on every editor and publisher in the industry calling me with offers of work once you
post this interview.

Failing that, my plan is to create new characters and tell stories with those characters. I‘m currently
developing three comics which would kind of fit into the genres of super-hero, horror, and crime.
When I complete the first scripts and series bibles, I‘ll shop them around to various publishers.

Once these properties fail to sell as comic books, I‘ll rework them into novels and/or screenplays.
Because I think it will be a lot more cost-effective and time-effective if I can get rejected three times
with the same properties.

In addition to my comics writing plans, I have signed to write my weekly ―Tony‘s Tips‖ column for
COMICS BUYER‟S GUIDE through 2004. I‘m also working towards getting my ―Tony‘s Online
Tips‖ columns to post every Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday at WORLD FAMOUS COMICS.
Humble though these venues may be, the relationships are among the most satisfying and supportive
of my career. I hope they continue for many years to come.

I should also mention that Bob Ingersoll and I are eagerly awaiting sales reports on STAR TREK:
THE CASE OF THE COLONIST‟S CORPSE. If this ―Sam Cogley Mystery‖ of ours is successful, it
could turn out to be the first in a series of Sam Cogley mysteries. Since we had a blast writing the
character and crafting the ins-and-outs of this sci-fi whodunit, and since we received wonderful
encouragement and support on this novel from our editors and publisher, we would love to go back to
the future and do it again.
Barbara Kesel, 2000

This interview, and the Ron Marz one that immediately follows, was conducted in 2000 after the
announcement of CrossGen Comics but before the first batch of titles had been released. The short
history of CrossGen was filled with drama and conflict, and although the company is now long-
defunct, I thought it would be of historical interest to see how two architects of the CrossGen
Universe were looking at their work when it was in its earliest, most optimistic phase. My original
introduction began, “For the past few months, at a dedicated site in Florida, a team of comics
creators has been busily preparing a new universe in the hopes of drawing in readers and
recapturing the imaginations of readers who have grown unsatisfied with the standard superhero
comics fare.” Those hopes were dashed, but at the time these interviews were conducted, no one
could have guessed just how hard they would hit the rocks.

Alan David Doane: How did you get involved with

CrossGen?

Barbara Kesel: From my particular point of view, I didn't

know anything about them at all. And then last year at the San
Diego -- well, now it's called the ComicCon International but
those of us who are long time goers know it as the San Diego
Con, I have for years been doing a little seminar on comic
book script-writing. A combination pep-talk, information, just
sort of general diatribe on the industry. This happened to
coincide with CrossGen looking for a head writer, somebody
to sort of maintain their continuity, oversee the development
of the storylines and kind of keep track of all that. So I kind of
became a target for a job I didn't know about before I knew
about it. And they apparently spent about 24 hours trying to
track me down there and finally did.

That sounds like an awfully big job.

It's not all that big and it's very similar to things I've done before both at DC and Dark Horse. But it's
mostly thinking, planning, creating and making a whole lot of memos about it. I mean, part of what
we do -- Mark and Gina had created together a series of archetypal ideas. They had looked over
generations of comics production, and readership and sales, hence the name "Cross Generation," and
had keyed in on a few basic ideas that always seemed to do really well and be very well received by the
audience, and said "How can we take this as a core concept and put it together in a way that brings it
to life, makes it something we want to publish and read, and have out there on the market?" So that's
what's been our job.

The story of CrossGen is unlike that of any other company in the history of the artform -
- tell us a little bit about how this company came together, and maybe where you think
it's gonna end up going.

This company came together as Mark's attempt to essentially save the comics industry by reinventing
it. But the biggest single difference we have with CrossGen versus any other company is most of the
companies work on a piecemeal basis with freelance writers and artists who don't work in the offices.
In this case, rather than change the art teams every few issues or so, Mark decided to bring all the
creative staff in-house as employees, so we're all working six feet from each other. The artists literally
work in pinwheel-shaped quads, where they have mega-sized cubicles big enough for an artboard and
a desk, set around a circle. One quad is an empty space with a computer for online access, and the
other three have artboards, but they're all right there. So we're working together constantly, there's
never any questions as to what the writer meant in a plot, there's never any question as to what the
penciller meant to put down and draw on a page, and when it comes to the coloring stage, all the
artists can be right there to say "Here's what we gave you, here's what we wanted you to exploit in this
scene, and here's what it all means." So, putting all those things together means that we're going to
have the strongest possible end result in terms of the entire story being entertaining and readable by
an audience.

It almost sounds too good to be true -- it must be a creative person's dream.

It is a creative person's dream, and it's not something that could happen across the board, because
Mark happens to have the atrocious amount of money necessary to set up something like this in
advance. Often new start-up companies are dependent on the money from their first sales to remain
in business. But because of the sale of his last company to Ross Perot, Mark happened to be in a
position where he could take aside a certain amount of money to start it up, and not have to get it back
immediately. To sort of allow that to be paid back over time as opposed to, right from issue one.
Which puts us in a position of being able to carry on long enough to establish a very strong base in the
industry. Not just anybody's gonna be sitting in that position.

What was the reaction like when you told some of your fellow colleagues in the comics
industry you were signing on?

"You're doing what?!" (Laughs). There had been some vague industry rumors running around about
CrossGen, but no one really knew too much information. Except with most people it was just a slack-
jawed, responsive "But you don't do it that way. (Laughs) How can they do this? How can they stay in
business? How will this work?" But most people are very encouraging, most of my friends know that I
check things out pretty well. So they knew that if I was moving cross-country and dragging my
husband with me to do it then I must know something they didn't.

What about CrossGen will keep it going in the long run?

The biggest fundamental difference I think, between this and a lot of start-ups, and I don't want to
paint them all with one brush, because many of them started up from many people for many reasons;
yes, Mark wants to make this a viable business, but what is most important to him...he is a reader, he
is a classical scholar and he is a comic book collector. He wants these to be good comics that read well,
that he's proud of producing, and that people actually read and enjoy, not just collect. And that's very,
very different from just putting the stuff out to get profit off sale. Or just putting the stuff out to
exploit a certain artist's work. He's looking at creating a comic book company that serves the comic
book reader. And I think very few people have been in a position to really focus on that part of the
market.

It seems there's been a lot of thought put into the story that's going to be unfolding over
time for the readers--what's that been like for you, to help develop this universe?

I come from a background of gaming and creating plays, and comics and things where you very often
do generate much more of a universe to keep alive the fake reality of what you're doing so it seems
richer to the audience than if you're just doing it on a fly-by-night basis and make it up issue by issue.
So that process had been somewhat familiar to me. I've never worked quite the same way here but
there's a strong similarity to any group of creative people getting together and saying, "Let's pretend."
But also, what we've done here is--the weirdest part is knowing that our issue #1s are only the tip of
the iceberg as far as the real story of this universe. And that's kind of weird to be in a position of
looking out there and going "Wow, you only know this much." (Laughs) And to really, strongly
attempt to make sure that just that little bit of the iceberg is a complete and satisfying story. We're
trying to work this for readers two ways. We understand that not everything anyone publishes is going
to be of interest to everyone. So we want to make sure that our universe pays back a reader who reads
everything with a lot of information and a lot of story and a lot of things that are played out piece by
piece in different books that add together into a big picture. But we also want to make sure that we
don't cheat a single issue reader. If you have someone who says "I only like Sigil," we want to make
sure that within the title Sigil we don't cheat you. There might be crossovers, with characters going
from book to book, we don't have anything definitely established across the board, but there's at least
one incident so far. Or a character'll move from one book to another. But when they do that, you can
read it in each book as part of the story. You might get a sense that something else is going on
somewhere else, but the story will not end with "Go see Sigil-Man #2 for the ending of the story,"
because we think that that's a cheat.

It does seem like a lot of the companies have gone out of their way to drive away
readers with --

It's a marketing tool. It's a marketing tool to use a strong-selling title to beef up the sales of a weak-
selling title by sending people over from one to another and get you to sample. What they're betting
on is the fact that everything they produce is good enough that you'll end up liking the second title and
want to collect that one also. But, it's one of the things that we've decided is a cheat and we won't do it.
The other thing we won't do is sell variant covers. That's another tactic people use generally to build
up sales on a lower book, or among comics published by artists just for the novelty and enjoyment of
allowing someone else to play in their own universe. But the philosophy here is that if the artist is
good enough to do the issue he's good enough to do the cover. That's not a good marketing move,
really. It's been proven you can make more money doing it the other way. So there's a nice integrity
issue there, but we won't do it that way. Our focus is long-term and not short-term. We don't want to
d anything atrociously stupid, but at the same time we're planning to be around for years to come.
We're not hoping we'll be around; we're planning to be around.

Where would you like to see CrossGen a year from now?

Pretty much just doing the same thing it's doing right now. We'll probably have added a couple of
titles by then. But we also do not have plans for a geometric increase, which is often another mistake a
lot of companies make, I think, as they try to expand much more rapidly than they can manage the
growth and change. We have a steady growth planned, and I think that's a wise thing to do.
Ron Marz, 2000

As noted in the intro to the Barbara Kesel interview, I spoke to the CrossGen writers in the run-up to
the debut of the company’s
first batch of books; nine
years later, in August of
2009, and specifically for this
eBook, I talked to Ron Marz
about his CrossGen
experiences and where he’s at
now. We start with the 2000
interview, and conclude with
the new segment. My thanks
to Ron for taking the time to
provide a sequel/conclusion
to our nearly decade-old
interview, and to John
Belskis of the comic book
store Excellent Adventures in
Ballston Spa, New York, for
his help in contacting Ron.

Alan David Doane:

CrossGen is about to
come out with its first
major release...can you
tell us a little bit about the
company and how you got
involved?

Ron Marz: Superhero

comics really dominate the
market. What we're doing at
CrossGen is more oriented
toward fantasy and science
fiction storylines rather than
just superhero stuff. Our
books have heroes in them,
but they tend not to wear
costumes under their clothes and pull open their shirts to reveal big "S's" under there.

Speaking of which, you spent quite a few years working for the home of the Big S, DC
Comics, most notably on Green Lantern. How did you come to jump from DC to
CrossGen?

I met the CrossGen staff, what staff there was, at last year's San Diego Comic Convention. And I met
the head honcho down here, Mark Alessi, who's the guy who started this sort of "mad scheme," who is
also the guy who had the money to bankroll this mad scheme. My initial reaction was, well, "There's
no way I'm moving to Tampa to work at a completely off-the-ground sort of venture." And the more I
got to know Mark, the more we discussed the situation, the more it made sense to me that this was an
opportunity for me to be in on the ground floor of something, to help build a new company and to be
more than just a freelance cog in the machine.

This was a chance for me to be at a company that I was gonna be part of the decision making process,
that I would have input on all the decisions that were ultimately gonna effect my life and the life of the
members of my family. Whereas when you work for Marvel or DC, you're kind of a replaceable part, in
that new writers, new artists always come in and work on this stuff, the characters are what is always
evergreen. So here I had a bit of a chance to be a more fully-functional part of the company, and my
wife and I talked about it and we decided to take the plunge.

Was it scary, to leave behind what I would imagine was the relative security of your gig
at DC to move on to this unknown entity?

Well, it was certainly a gamble. I won't tell any bald-face lies, obviously the financial package was
enough to induce me to leave that relative security. But as I really got into the job I found myself
thinking that this was a lot more secure than that freelance lifestyle where you're really at the mercy of
factors that you don't have a whole lot of say, in what happens to you. You're at the mercy of decisions
made by the company, you have no input into those decisions whatsoever. So ultimately I ended up
feeling like this was safer and more secure than Marvel or DC, even though this place had never put
out a book before.

What was the reaction of your fellow creators when you told them you were going to
this new company?

A lot of people that weren't really aware of what was going on down here just thought I was absolutely
insane, people, my closer friends, people that are a little bit more in tune with the direction that the
industry is headed in right now said "Geez, I know it sounds like a risk, but it sounds like you're doing
the right thing." I think it's scary to take that leap away from the way things have always been done,
but I like to think that hopefully in a few years I'll look back and pat myself on the back for having
foresight.

What makes you confident that CrossGen is in it for the long haul?

To be very frank, there's a pile of money here to make sure that this place gets off the ground properly.
And I know it's not something that's generally talked about, but Mark Alessi, the guy that is running
the place, is a multi-millionaire from his previous business ventures, and he set aside enough cash to
make sure that we can do this, and do it right. I know it sounds very sort of cold and harsh to talk in
real world terms about comic books, which are sort of fanciful entertainment, but this is a business,
and there are real world concerns that go along with it, and one of them is you gotta make sure you
have enough money to do things properly. I'm feeling really pretty confident that--our launch is
coming up and we're putting all that we can into that and getting the word out, getting the
promotional machine running so that people are aware of our books.

If we can make people aware of our books and get people to try them, we'll be okay, because I think
our books are pretty good.

Let's talk a little bit about those books. I take it you probably had a pretty big role in
formulating not only the titles you'll be writing directly but probably the overall
universe of CrossGen?

I guess I'm part of the "brain-trust" or whatever you'd want to call it, along with Mark and his cousin
Gina, who's the Chief Operating Officer here. The two of them really put the bare bones of the
universe together. Some general concepts and then some ideas for the monthly titles, then when I
hired on, it was myself and Barbara Kesel and Brandon Peterson, along with Mark and Gina in a room
for a week, kind of putting some flesh on those bones that were in place, and at some points it just
meant literally putting flesh on those bones, at other points it meant breaking those bones and
completely starting over. I think we had this loose framework initially, by the time that week was over
with, we had a universe in place.

Are you confident you have a storyline in place for the line that is going to be
compelling to the readers in the long term?

I guess I wouldn't be here if I didn't think so, and if we don't it's sure as hell my fault. I think we've
done what people always give a lot of lip-service to in comics, which is: We've constructed a universe,
we've constructed our books so that you're don't have to read every one. You don't have a gun to your
head. You don't have to read an issue of Mystic and then finish that story in an issue of Sigil to
understand what's going on. Our monthly titles will be self-contained, they'll make sense in and of
themselves, but if you want to follow more than one book in the line, you're gonna start to see some
pieces of that overall framework start to fall into place. You'll start to see some of the higher levels of
story that we've got built into place that will play themselves out over a number of years. That was one
of the goals of that week-long universe-building session, was to not just come up with the four titles
that we're going to be publishing on a monthly basis, but to understand how all of those titles fit into
the overall context of our universe, and how to play out all of those storylines over a long period of
time.

Tell us a little bit about the titles that you're going to be working on.

The first one is CrossGen Chronicles, which is our launch issue. That's sort of an appetizer to what
we hope is gonna be the main course. It's a 32-page story that introduces a lot of the different
characters that will be appearing in the monthly titles, and that's got artwork by Claudio Castellini,
who is actually the only non-Tampa employee that we have. He's based in Rome, and it just seemed
like the situation was going to be much easier if he stayed in Rome and did his work as he was used to,
and sent the pages in. It's just a gorgeous looking book.

Hopefully that will whet people's appetites for the books that follow, the first of which is Mystic, which
I'm writing, Brandon Peterson is penciling, and John Dell is inking. And that's very much kind of a
book in the vein of Doctor Strange, and those sorts of magical characters that have appeared in
comics. It's about a young woman who is suddenly granted a huge amount of magical power, and that
book is set on a world where magic is the rule rather than the exception. The entire planet works on
magic, so it's a very sort of fanciful world. Visually it's modeled after Paris in the 1920s, which is sort
of these deco and art nouveau influences in the architecture and visuals of the entire book. That one's
-- I've always been a big Doctor Strange fan, so has Brandon. I think that's kind of the book that he
and I have always in the back of our minds wanted to do. And just never had a venue to do it. So we
get to pursue all this magical, sorcerer stuff, and not be tied to the traditional way of doing a magical
book, which is, you've got a magician like Doctor Strange or Doctor Fate over at DC, and that
character is the exception, that character wields magic, the rest of the world is mundane. We've just
hopefully amped up that situation where the entire world is magical, and hopefully the readers will be
completely drawn into that world.

The other book that I'm writing is Scion, which is penciled by Jim Cheung and inked by Don
Hillsman, and that's more of a traditional fantasy sort of book, at first glance. It has sort of a medieval
veneer in terms of the visuals. That look is really just a facade for a very advanced technological
civilization. Again, this isn't set on earth, this is set on a world completely separate from earth. That
book tells the story of Ethan, who is a young prince of one of the two main powers in the world that
are always at each other's throats. And in the first issue of that book, events transpire that Ethan
unwittingly sets into motion, puts these two powers at war with each other. So he's in a position of
having to shoulder this responsibility of dealing with this conflict that he has unwittingly started. As
an underlying theme in that book we deal with concept of genetically-created "lesser races" which are,
for easy comparison's sake, they're the trolls and the ogres and the dwarves of this fantasy world, but
they've been genetically created and they're very much second-class citizens or in some cases, slaves.
So we had that sort of undercurrent of social commentary in the book as well. And at some point
Ethan will be forced to maybe consider that predicament as an even greater problem for him to solve
than the petty warfare of two kingdoms.

Are you having fun?

I'm having a ball. It's a little bit different way of working than I'm used to; I used to get up in the
morning and walk down the hall, and that was my morning commute. Now I actually do have a
commute. I come into an office, I work in the same building that the artists work in, and we're all sort
of one big happy family. It was a little bit different to get used to but I think ultimately the finished
product is a lot stronger for having all of us here, and it's--this is really sort of a peak behind the
curtain for anybody who walks in the building because this is what I think people generally believe
comic books to be done like, we have a studio full of little elves that produce these things. And that
hasn't been true in decades in the greater part of the industry. Now, it's true here, and I can walk out
there and see the stories that I've written being put down on pages, it's like watching my imagination
come to life. It's a treat to come into the office every day.

2009

I first interviewed you nine years ago to talk about what, at that time, was your new gig
writing for CrossGen and your part in creating the universe the company's comics took
place in. When I asked you if you'd like to update that interview, you mentioned that
people seem skittish about talking to you about CrossGen, and I'll admit I was afraid I
might be opening up old wounds, but you seem pretty much at peace with the subject.
That surprised me, so I'll ask you, why do you think people expect you to not want to
talk about CrossGen?

I think people expect me, and other ex-CrossGen employees, to be mad or skittish about the whole
thing because it was ultimately a failure that ended badly. Yes, everybody got dinged for some money,
some people for a considerable amount. But I think there was a lot on the plus side of the ledger too. I
was generally very happy and very invested in the work I did, and it was a great experience to work in
the same studio with the rest of [my] creative team. It was very collaborative, with quite a bit of
creative freedom. The creative teams were in charge of their own books to a great extent, which is a
luxury you don‘t often get from the Big Two in the current all-event-all-the-time climate. More than
anything, the friendships that were made or continued there are really important to me. No job is
perfect, but being able to work with your friends everyday was pretty cool.

Do you think most creators who worked for the company are as easy-going about the
topic now, years after it shut down?

I think more are than aren‘t, but that‘s just my sense of things. It‘s not like I took a survey. I know
Mark Waid still seems to have some anger over it, but he butted heads with Mark Alessi on an almost
daily basis. Waid was more confrontational than I was. I was a little more pragmatic, because I
learned early on that Wednesday afternoon‘s stupid decision or dictate was very often forgotten by
Thursday morning, so I didn‘t waste time and energy arguing them with the boss.

Each person‘s experience was different, of course, but on the whole, I think the more you look at
things in the rear-view mirror, the easier it is to see the good. And it doesn‘t hurt that most everybody
on the creative side has flourished post-CrossGen. Marvel‘s publishing line would look a lot different
right now if they hadn‘t scooped up most of the CrossGen artists.

Can you tell me a little bit about what the day-to-day work experience was like there?

You showed up in the morning, sat down and did your work, just like any job. For the artists, that
meant working on whatever page was in front of them that day. For the writers, it meant writing
scripts, as well as story meetings and a weekly writers lunch. Each team also proofed their own books
once a month before they were sent off to press. Other odds and ends would come up, but your
principal job five days a week was to produce comic book pages.
Can you tell me when you realized that the company would not last, and how that
affected you?

It became obvious the money was running out when our checks started to show up late. There were
ongoing promises of investor money materializing to keep everything running, but I realized it was a
pipe dream. Prior to the bitter end, when there was maybe a chance to salvage things, Alessi actually
brought in a couple of really smart management people from his previous company, the one that had
made him his millions.

One guy in particular interviewed every single person at the company, in order to come up with a plan
to reorganize the company and give it a better chance of survival. He gave his recommendations to
Alessi, which included cutting the number of titles and laying off people who weren‘t performing up to
snuff. From my understanding, that plan had a decent chance of keeping the company afloat. But
Alessi ignored it, went home over the weekend, and he and his fiancé, who was the general counsel for
the company, came up with their own plan. Without going into the details, their plan didn‘t fix any of
the problems or problem children, it excused them. That‘s when I really knew the handwriting was on
the wall. About a week later the layoffs and salary cuts came down. The ship was going to sink, and I
saw no reason to be on it when it did, so I resigned the following Monday and went back to freelance.
The company limped along for a few months afterward, kind of a slow, agonizing death.

What work that you did for CrossGen would you say you're proudest of?

Hard to pick any one thing, really. I like all the titles I worked on, and it was great to not be doing
superheroes with 40 or 50 years of baggage and continuity attached to them. We got to do some
different things, and the creative teams were their own editors. If I had to pick one thing, it‘d be my
last issue of Scion, which I think was #39. Jim Cheung and I did it as an homage to Hal Foster‘s
Prince Valiant. Each page was set up as a spread, in the style of Foster‘s Sunday pages, and Jim did
just an amazing job on it. It was [DC‘s] Wednesday Comics six or seven years before Wednesday
Comics.

Any regrets at all about your CrossGen experience? Anything you'd have done
differently?

I regret the way it ended, obviously, and the fact that people got hurt financially. The real problem was
that the company expanded too quickly, growing much more rapidly than our audience. Almost all of
us who had management-type positions advised against it, but ultimately those decisions were made
by Alessi. It‘s more complex than that, and personalities and office politics and all of that come into it,
but the short version is ―too much, too soon.‖ He wanted to be a big player, competing with Marvel
and DC, within a few years, and it wasn‘t realistic. In fact, when Alessi started talking publically about
his intention to take down Marvel and DC, everybody on staff was going, ―Um … what?‖ We had all
signed on to be more of a boutique publisher, maybe be #3 in a decade, so this was all news to us.
Alessi tried to compete and grow by spending money, and ended up blowing through all the dough a
lot faster than any of realized. The promise was that we had enough operating capital to run a zero
profit for five years. Obviously that turned out to be not the case.
It‘s a shame. It could have been something. It could have worked, especially in light of how Hollywood
fell in love with comics shortly after CrossGen‘s demise. We had what I think was more art talent in
one place than ever before. But a combination of hubris and foolishness took it down.

Has there been any long-term benefit that you gained from your CrossGen experience?

Supervising an issue from start to finish, and being hands-on with the whole process, was a great
learning experience. The chance to see the art being generated, and work with the rest of the team,
instead of just being part of an assembly-line process, was tremendous. The chance to do non-
superhero stuff was great, and the chance to work alongside guys like Brandon Peterson, Jim Cheung,
Bart Sears, Greg Land and everybody else was great. As I said, the friendships that came out of the
place are very important to me. Something like ―Samurai: Heaven and Earth‖ would never have
existed if I hadn‘t met Luke Ross during his time at CrossGen. I feel like I gained much, much more
than I lost.

What advice about the comics industry would you give creators just starting out in their
careers?

Do what you love. Sounds trite, I know. If your dream in life is to work on the same Marvel and DC
heroes you grew up reading, go for it. But these days the industry has a lot more opportunities than
rehashing the same old superhero tropes. It used to be that you made your bones at Marvel and DC,
and then went off and got the opportunity to do your creator-owned work. Now it‘s almost the
reverse. Guys make their mark by doing an Image book or something with a small publisher, or even
online work, and use that to get in the door at the Big Two. I think it‘s ultimately more satisfying to do
you own thing, rather than just work-for-hire. Figure out what really matters to you, what inspires
you, and pursue that. Being the next guy in a long succession of creators to work on a particular
character is a pretty cool thing, but it‘s not the only thing.

I know you're committed to Witchblade from Top Cow for the immediate future, what
other projects are you working on now?

I‘m doing Witchblade monthly, I‘ve started on a Magdalena monthly for Top Cow that will debut
in April 2010, as well as an Angelus limited series that debuts in December of this year. Beyond that,
I‘ve got Top Cow‘s ―Artifacts‖ event next summer, a few creator-owned projects at Top Cow, and
―Pantheon City,‖ which is another creator-owned thing coming from Dark Horse.

Is there anything in comics you'd like to do that you haven't done yet?

I don‘t have a burning desire to work on any particular character, though I‘d do a Tarzan or John
Carter book in a heartbeat. I‘m more interested in continuing to try different things, especially
creating new things. A writer has the luxury of balancing his workload with both work-for-hire and
creator-owned, and I intend to keep taking full advantage of that.
James Kochalka, October, 2001

Where the hell do I begin talking about James Kochalka? I’ve followed his work almost as long as I
have been writing about comics, and created a blog exclusively devoted to his work,
kochalkaholic.com. I have interviewed this cartoonist, musician, husband and father 6, or maybe 8
times in the last decade, and remain obsessed with the way he sees the world and the way his very
best work translates that vision to comics. What follows is one of the most interesting interviews I
conducted with the man, just weeks after the September 11th, 2001 attacks on New York and
Washington, an event that informed the entire conversation.

James Kochalka: Guess what I'm doing right now.

Alan David Doane: What are you doing right now, James?

I'm (laughs) flossing my teeth.

You are.

Yup (laughing).

Well, I know from reading your

comics that hygiene and taking
care of your body is something
that's very important to you.

Yes, well, I would like to save my teeth

for my whole life. (laughs)

Yes, because you may need them

later on.

Yes, I think I will. (laughs)

I'm not entirely certain what the mechanics of talking on the phone and flossing your
teeth at the same time would entail, but --

Well, do you hear the clicking sound?

Yeah, I wondered what that was.

I'm all done now (laughs).

James, the first thing I want to ask you about is the events of 11 September. I'm
wondering, as a cartoonist whose work has often portrayed your interest in the world
beyond yourself, has this had an effect on your work?

Well, I do keep my daily diary in comic strip form, so it's had a direct effect on that.

Have those strips appeared anywhere yet?

No, they haven't.

How many have you done that have involved these current events?

Probably maybe seven. I don't know the exact number, I'm guessing. Usually no event occurs which is
big enough to make it into my diary (laughs); I mean, usually it's just the minutiae of my daily life.
Now, the minutiae of my daily life is affected by the terrorist attacks, so, it has made it into the diary.

Earlier this year you released the Sketchbook Diaries, which is a daily diary of your life,
of what's on your mind on a given day. This is something you've been doing how long
now?

Since October, 1998.

And you've never missed a day?

Well, during the second year, I missed like two months (laughs). I quit doing it. This was at a point
where I couldn't find a publisher for the strips, they weren't appearing anywhere, they weren't
running as a strip in the newspaper yet, and I was starting to get depressed about "Why was there any
point in even doing them, no one was ever going to see them." So I quit for a month, and that just
made me more depressed (laughs). So after a month or two I started doing them again. And I haven't
missed a day since then.

When 11 September occurred, was that the topic of your strip for that day?

Oh, yes, it was.

What were you doing when you found out what had happened?

Well, I was actually making plans to go to the Small Press Expo, which is a comic book convention in
Bethesda Maryland, which was gonna happen the following weekend. I was e-mailing a friend about
our plans to meet up there, or something, and my wife called and said to turn on the television, and
then of course all the plans were flushed down the toilet (laughs).

What did you think when you first saw what was going on on TV? What went through
your mind?
I turned on the television, and the first thing I saw was the World Trade Center collapsing, so it was
pretty shocking; to go from being completely innocent one second to seeing the World Trade Center's
collapse the next second. I'm going to Portugal in two weeks for an exhibit of my artwork over there,
at a comic festival, and I'm a little bit worried. Ordinarily, you travel to another country and people
can't necessarily tell if you're an American or not, so you're kind of safe in that you're anonymous, but
of course, they're going to be announcing to everyone on the news and everything that this American
cartoonist is there, so it's making me kind of nervous.

It's fascinating to me the attention that comics gets in other places.

Oh, yeah, that's true. If a cartoonist from Portugal came to Burlington for some comics festival, the
newspapers, the television, they wouldn't care one bit.

How well are you known there in Burlington? Burlington is a fairly progressive
community...I would imagine that there must be a certain level of people there who
knows who you are and what you do?

Yeah, well, I do have a weekly strip in the newspaper, and I've had a couple number one songs on the
local radio station, so I think there's some -- popular understanding of who I am (laughs).

It's fascinating to me to go from being a cartoonist to being a rock star, because being a
cartoonist, I think for many if not most cartoonists, is a fairly solitary endeavour, and
yet, being a performer of music, especially of the type of performances that you give, is
pretty exhibitionist in nature.

That's true. Most cartoonists are much too shy to ever do anything like perform live on stage. And
actually, I was incredibly shy when I was a kid. I didn't dare to get up in front of the class and do show
and tell or anything like that. Somehow -- I got over it (laughs). I guess the thing is, when you get up
on stage, you've got either two choices: You can either crumble, or you can just go for it. And once I
learned that, if you just go for it, that things work out pretty well, people are impressed to see any
level of confidence by someone on a stage.

When you get up in the morning, on the average morning, do you think to yourself
"Today I'm gonna be a cartoonist," or "Today I'm gonna do music," or, how does that
work?

Oh, no, it's really both every day. I mean, probably the first thing I do is be a musician, because I sing
in the shower. I often write new songs in the shower. Then I'll sit down and draw. And then maybe if
I'm gonna record that day, I might go over to a friend's house to record. I draw every day and I make
music every day.

What are you currently working on as far as your upcoming cartoon projects?

I have several. I guess the most important right now is Pinky and Stinky, which is about two pigs
exploring the moon. It's an all-ages graphic novel and I've been working on that all year. I thought I
would be done by May, but here it is October and not done (laughs).

How far along are in finishing that up?

Well, I think I'm getting near the end, I have a pretty good idea of what the end will be at least and, I
don't know, I might be more than one hundred pages into it.

Is that your longest work to date?

Oh no, no. I think that most of my graphic novels tend to be about 172 pages, around there
somewhere, so this one might end up being a little shorter than normal.

Oh, all right. It just seems like many of your books that have been packaged as graphic
novels or individual stories that are sort of collected...or am I off base there?

No, you're off base (laughs).

How does that happen? Now, musically, you've got a new CD coming out. Can you tell us
a little about that?

Well, it's called Don't Trust Whitey…

Where does the title come from?

Well, everyone knows you can't trust Whitey... (laughs).

And why is that, James?

Cuz he's always trying to keep us down! Well, you know, the truth is that Don't Trust Whitey is, in
itself, a racist statement, which nobody understands. So I'm kind of poking fun at it a little bit.

With the cover...?

Yeah, the cover of the CD is a little white frog in the center, looking quite innocent, surrounded by
many, many multi-colored frogs all around him, all staring at him accusingly.

Is that a visual metaphor for the racial tension?

Oh God... (laughs)

Or am I putting too much into that?

No, if anything, it's the visual metaphor for my own personal feelings. I don't think the white frog
would necessarily symbolize all white people, but, like, for instance, when I went to graduate school,
which was at the height of PC-dom, you couldn't turn around without being told that as a white male,
you had some kind of strange privilege that no one else had or that your ideas didn't even matter
because you were a white male.

So it was kind of a reverse prejudice then?

Yeah, except I wouldn't say it's reverse, I'd just say it's prejudice.

That's true. All right. And would you say that this has continued to affect your career
and what you've been trying to accomplish?

No! (laughs)

I didn't think so...

The institutional racism... that works just fine in my favor. (laughs)

Yeah, because you‟re kind of working almost underneath the radar, wouldn't you say?

Yeah, no really, yeah. Yeah, as a white man with no power, I'm not really necessarily discriminated
against but I'm not really helped either. It's almost like the whole issue is a non-issue for me.

You've been a cartoonist for how long now? About ten years? Longer?

Well, really, my whole life.

But in terms of actually having the work out there...

Yeah, I think maybe '94 my first published comic came out, maybe '95.

And it seems, from checking the internet, that there's a real international audience for
your work. How do you see that?

That's true.

Why do you think that you're so appreciated in other places?

Well, I decided a few years ago to, that one of my goals was to be published in Europe, so I just started
from scratch, from the bottom. Most people wait until they're successful here and then people notice
them and ask them to be published over there, but I just started sending out submissions to different
publishers. I started at the bottom sending short submissions to various 'zines and comics magazines
in Europe and built a career from scratch over there just like I did here. It's only beginning to sort of
pay off now. I have a new graphic novel coming out in Portugal, it's a reprint of one of my earlier
American ones called Paradise Sucks, and in France, the small publisher called EgocomX is
publishing my book Kissers. Both of those should be out this year, I think.

What's the reaction like when you go overseas to one of these comics festivals,
something that really is..., although they do have comics conventions here in the United
States, I'm imagining it's not not even really comparable to the much more inclusive
festivals overseas...?

Well, that's true. Whereas comic book conventions here in the US seem to be mostly about...

Superheroes?

Well, not only that, but retailers selling old comics, that's what comic conventions are here.

Flea markets.

And the ones that I've been to over there, well, I guess
I've only been to one, but it was...and the other ones,
well, I've only been to one but I've had four exhibits of
my comics artwork in Portugal...their conventions
there tend to be more like art exhibits. They might
have a couple of retailers but, for the most part, it's like
walking into a museum, except the artists are there so
you can actually meet them.

How much on an audience have you built up

here in the United States, and not so much in
terms of numbers, but in terms of appreciating
the work? Is it comparable to the appreciation
that you get in other countries?

Actually, I'd say that appreciation is stronger here. More people know who I am here. They're only just
barely beginning to learn who I am in the other countries and only the very most intense comic
aficionados know who I am in other countries. I would say I haven't really broken the... I don't know.
There's probably only like three thousand people on the face of the earth that know who I am, I don't
know.

Talk a little bit about the synergy between your comics and your music, because many
of your songs and the CDs, Monkey Vs. Robot or Carrot Boy, The Beautiful, you can
enjoy either the CD or the comic book or both. I think it's kind of unique in the way you
use both of those mediums to sort of complement and contrast each other.

Thanks! (laughs) I think that, for me, music speaks more directly to my physical body. Music vibrates
and you feel the vibrations and I think that that has a certain physical effect on you. Whereas comics,
they seem to speak more directly to your mind. To fully communicate the full range of emotion, the
two-pronged attack seems the best.

Not only communicating, but perhaps satisfying a need in you?

Oh, yes. Absolutely. It's not really about communication at all, it's much more about satisfying an
internal need of myself.

But don't you think that the best artists created for the entertainment or whatever
purpose for the artist and the joy is in the fact that other people are able to appreciate
that work?

Oh, yeah. Absolutely. You know, there's a real trouble in... You shouldn't really make art for the
audience and I find that it's a trap that happens to me, like, if I have a book, like my book Monkey
Vs. Robot is probably my bestselling book, but I find myself thinking, "What else can I draw that will
sell as much as Monkey Vs. Robot did" which is a stupid way to think. I should just do whatever it
is that I want to do and if the audience wants to come along, they can and if they don't, they won't.

Some of my favorite stories of yours are the Magic Boy stories because they're
autobiographical, they're about you and your life, I mean, obviously often times fanciful
interpretations of events, but I think that they are among the best things that you do.
Are we going to be seeing more Magic Boy stories in the near future?

Yes, I'm half done a new Magic Boy graphic novel. I was working on it last fall and I stopped in
January to work on the Pinky and Stinky book, so there's a half done Magic Boy graphic novel
that is yet to be finished and it will be finished someday, but I can't say when, I don't know.

How does that work? All of a sudden, were you hit with the Pinky and Stinky lightning
bolt and had to get to that? A bolt from the blue?

Well, yes, well, I wanted the Magic Boy graphic novel to come out this past summer and I talked to
the publisher who was going to do it and he just knew that he didn't have time in his schedule for it, so
I was thinking, "I don't want to finish this book now and then wait a year or two years until it's ready
to come out. I'll just put it off until it's closer to a time that he can actually publish it."

Your work is so personal and visceral; oftentimes, it must be frustrating to have to take
those business considerations into account...

Yes, awful. (laughs)

Have you ever thought about utilizing a medium that might get you more immediate
feedback, like doing an internet based comic strip?

Well, I have thought about putting my, it'd be nice to put my daily strip up on a website everyday but
it also feels like more trouble than it's worth. I travel a lot and every time I travel, I wouldn't be able to
put it up during that time. Also, I have no idea how to do it. (laughs) [Editor's note: This obviously
later changed].

You mentioned that Pinky and Stinky is an all-ages graphic novel. One of the other all-
ages works you've been doing the last couple of years is Peanut Butter and Jeremy
comics...

Yeah.

Anything new coming out with them?

Yes, actually, I have in my local newspaper, Seven Days, I have started serializing a new Pinky and
Stinky comic, which will be eventually collected either as an issue of Pinky and Stinky or in the
eventual Pinky and Stinky book collection, but we‘re working towards a book collection of Pinky
and Stinky.

What's the reaction been like to that?

People really seem to like it. Just a few comics creators have commented to me that they didn't
understand why an artist such as myself would want to do that.

Really?

Yeah. Why I would want to do a kid's comic, I don't know. They couldn't seem to see the value in it at
all.

Number one, nobody ever seems to say that about Jaime Hernandez who does the
Measles comic and also does some very adult work, and number two, it seems to me, a
natural outgrowth of the things that you do with Spandy in your Magic Boy strips, your
cat. In fact, I assume that Peanut Butter is pretty much a stand in for Spandy...?

Well, Spandy doesn't actually act much like Peanut Butter, but I get all my information about cats
from Spandy, it's true in that case. And also...

I'm picturing you sort of sitting there taking notes as the cat is explaining to you the
secrets of the cat world...

Also, the human in Peanut Butter and Jeremy is me, I never show the face but...

That's kind of a Peanuts thing...

I show the human sitting at a, well, in the most recent one, I do show the human sitting at my drawing
table, although you can't tell that it's a drawing table from the cat's angle. The cat thinks that the
human is her boss and that he works in an office, but it's just not the case.

I noticed, especially in the first one, but really with both of them, that, although it is an
all-ages comic and certainly can be enjoyed by kids of all ages, I think that there are
some pretty sophisticated themes that you could read into it without a whole lot of
work, especially in the first one, the sort of manipulation by Jeremy of Peanut Butter,
while it's sort of scandalous at a juvenile level, I think they can also be interpreted as
sort of the small betrayals that adults visit upon each other...

Absolutely. The first issue is particularly intense, I think, because it's a kid's comic that has a gun in it
and kid's comics don't usually have guns in them.

Did you go through any crisis of conscience in deciding to do that or...

Yeah, well, no, afterwards, in my defense, I didn't know I was drawing a kid's comic when I drew it!
(laughs).

Was there any thought about taking that out?

No. And, actually, although parents freak about over it, kids seem to understand completely what it's
all about. I mean, they know that guns are bad and they know that Jeremy's bad. They seem to
understand the point of the story.

I think, a lot times, adults, especially adults talking about children that aren't their
own, take it for granted that kids are nitwits, that they don't "get" a lot, and kids "get" a
lot more than people give them credit for. And I would have to guess that most children
have been exposed to, on TV or movies or cartoons, they know what a gun is when they
open up Peanut Butter and Jeremy and they know that they can be dangerous.

Right, and I think that the story makes it pretty clear just how dangerous they can be. I mean, the gun
accidentally goes off in the story. Any kids that get shot, it's mostly due to guns accidentally going off,
which reminds me, my nephew was shot through the neck this summer by one of his friends. He's
pretty much okay, but it's amazing. It missed all of the important things, it missed his spine, the
jugular vein, voice box...

How did that happen? How did they come into possession of a gun?

He was over at his friend‘s house and his friend had, like, four or five guns that belonged to four or
five different people in his bedroom and I don't know exactly why he had them, but he had them and
he was telling my nephew about how he saw this skunk the other night and how he had pointed the
gun at the skunk and he was saying, "I was as close to that skunk as I am to you..." and that's when he
shot him through the neck. But he didn't do it on purpose, in fact, the safety was on, but apparently
guns can sometimes go off when the safety is on.
There's an important lesson right there.

Yeah.

Some of your other projects that are coming up, we talked about Pinky and Stinky and
Don't Trust Whitey, which will be out, you said soon, what's the date that that will be
available?

Well, here's the thing with Don't Trust Whitey, I just got the orders from Diamond Comics today,
which is the distributor that distributes to every comic book store in the country and Diamond
ordered more copies of Don't Trust Whitey than I have, so I have to manufacture more, which,
hopefully, will only take a week or two and then I'll send them off to Diamond, so...

Is that a good problem to have, James?

Yes, it is! It's very good. (laughs)

I have this theory that there are good problems to have in life and it sounds like that
would be one of them.

Yeah. It's stressful though and I'm having a hard time actually getting the people from the CD
manufacturing on the phone. They tend to not answer their phone, which is really frustrating, but it's
an all right problem, to have to sell out of the CD.

We talked a little bit at the beginning about the events of 11 September and how they
had affected your daily cartoon diary. Can you tell us a little bit, obviously we can't
show the strip here on the radio, but can you tell us a little bit about what that first one
looked like and maybe how you approached creating it?

Well, l the first one was actually less important than some of the ones that came after because I was so
shell shocked I couldn't really express what had happened. I'm actually looking for my diary right now
so I can open it up and I can maybe explain to you better if I can actually see them in front of me.

Yeah, that's fine. Take all the time that you need.

Well, in the first one, I just have a real simple, sort of elegant little drawing of the World Trade Towers
and one's on fire and in the next panel, it's just a little tiny plane by itself in the sky, so it's at the point
between when the first one hit and the second one was hit. And then the rest of the strip is me in the
shower begging God to help us and the last panel says, "I don't even really believe in God" and I'm
saying, "Please, please..." That's the first one...

I don't have a hard time picturing the people that did that, asking God to help them...
That's what is really horrifying about it. I guess I don't understand how someone can
turn something that can be as sublime and rewarding and helpful as spirituality and
use that as an excuse for mass murder.

Yeah, I don't understand that either, but everybody does it.

Can you tell us about some of the strips that followed that one? You seemed to think
that there was one that was particularly relevant...?

Oh, no, I guess not. (laughs) I guess that was pretty relevant. Actually, some of them get kind of silly
after that. Well, the one I just described to you actually has a silly title, it's "A Day That Will Live In
Super Infamy" because I was, well...

Well, that kind of points out the... There really are no words. No one has come up with a
name that has stuck for this event, I don't really think that there are many people that
have been able to eloquently express the feelings that this has filled them with. So
you're searching, obviously, for a way to deal with this in words and I don't think that
it's something can easily be dealt with in language.

That's true, and I have got two fears. I can't imagine that I'm actually scared of terrorism, but I am.
Like, I got a package yesterday and it was a strange package by someone I didn't know, which I get all
of the time, but I was suddenly gripped with a fear that it was going to be a bomb...

And this is what they want, of course...

Yeah, it was kind of amazing. I was very surprised to suddenly start to panic... I didn't even want to
open it, but, you know, I did, and it was just a video tape from one of my fans.

How did you deal with, in the days that followed September 11th, did you find yourself
watching the news a lot or did you avoid seeing it...

Yeah, I was pretty much watching it non-stop. The hardest thing about being unemployed or self-
employed or whatever it is that I am as a cartoonist, was that other people got to go to work, they
could sort of maybe forget about it for a little bit, but I had to just stay at home and sit there and think
about it all day long and I basically couldn't draw because I couldn't stop thinking about it, and I'd
just cry, like, ten times a day...

You're not the only cartoonist to tell me that, by the way. Someone else of my
acquaintance told me that he hasn't been able to work since this happened.

Oh, that's terrible. I miraculously got better the Saturday following the attack and, for me, what really
was the turning point was that we woke up in the morning, we turned on the TV, and we saw a
commercial instead of just non-stop news. We were like, "Great! A commercial!" and we turned it on
and we were happy for the rest of the day and since then I've been happy, except with occasional,
short panic attacks about terrorism, it almost feels as if nothing ever happened.
Do you envision, at any point other than the daily dairy strips, do you envision
addressing this in any way?

Well, I did a strip for this book 9/11...

Who was publishing that?

Alternative Comics. They also publish my book Peanut Butter and Jeremy. But the strip that I did
for that, it might be a little upsetting to people. It's about a about a candelight vigil that I went to and
just how pathetic and uncomforting it was.

In what way?

Well, nobody had any idea what to do and people would try to start singing patriotic songs but no one
knew all of the words and there was a "redneck" element there that was trying to get people to chant
"U-S-A" but nobody really was interested in chanting "U-S-A". Like, these two guys would chant "U-S-
A" three times and then stop, then there would be an awkward pause... Nobody had any idea what to
do.

It's funny you should mention a "redneck" element. I read an article in the New York
Times magazine about the Taliban, written by someone who was in Afghanistan and
met the Taliban members, the sort of "rank and file" Taliban. These are guys who run
around in pick up trucks with machine guns, and all I was really struck with was "This
is the Dukes of Hazzard gone Islam…"

Yeah! (laughs) That's one of the things that scares me. I think that there's a fair number of people,
that if given the chance, would actually like to setup a regime, sort of like the Taliban, here in the USA.
I mean, I'm really pretty afraid that, in the name of fighting terrorists, we're going to see all of our
freedoms stripped away...

Well, this is what concerns me when I see, for example, the President trying to
demonize the people that did this by referring to them as "evil-doers." These aren't guys
that got up that morning and said, "I'm going to be evil today." These are guys who
justified what they were doing with religion and when we justify what we're doing with
religion, that worries me a little.

Yeah. Apparently, Egypt had did some studying to see what kind of people become terrorists and it's
people who feel disenfranchised and cut out of the loop, and we've got those people here in the USA,
too. For instance, like the rural, survivalist people that feel the government is wronging them in some
way...

And God knows that the government does enough that is wrong...
Yeah, it's not that the US government isn't doing bad things to people in Arab countries, I'm sure that
they are, however, the people in the Arab countries, they're disenfranchised or whatever they feel,
they blame everyone of their problems on the US, which is simply not true. A lot of their problems are
their own country's
fault.

It's bizarre to me, I

don't know if you've
ever watched King Of
The Hill...

Yeah.

The Dale character,

who's sort of the
militia type,
constantly paranoid
about the
government... Since
that show has been
on, I can't tell you
how many people
like that I've met. It's
astonishing. I never
really realized that
stereotype before
until I saw that show.

Yeah, they're everywhere. I mean, that's why shows like The X-Files are popular because everyone
believes that the government is doing something terrible. Conspiracy theories are very, very popular.

I'd like to ask you about, I don't know how much time you have left here, but if you have
time for another question or two... Earlier this year, a story of yours, and I think that
this was a first on any number of levels, a story of yours appeared in a Marvel comic
book. Can you tell us a little bit about how that came to be?

I did a Hulk comic, a black and white comic that was published by one of my publishers. It was sort
of alternative cartoonists doing their takes on Marvel superhero comics, and it was obviously illegal
and a copyright violation, but we just went ahead and did it anyhow, and then several years later,
someone at Marvel saw it and really liked it and called me up and said instead of suing me, they'd like
to buy the story, and I suggested that I redo it from scratch, in full color, and they said, "Sure." And it
was in the Hulk Annual that came out in September.

What was the response to that from Marvel fans? Did you hear anything?
Well, I read on the Internet most people seemed to like it. Basically, in my story, the Hulk is caught in
a rainstorm and he's slipping and falling down in the mud and getting angrier and angrier and
angrier... Someone posted on a message board that that can't possibly have happened because Stan
Lee says that the Hulk is a force of nature, more powerful than a hurricane, so a mere rainstorm isn't
going to stop the Hulk...

I think you pretty much disproved that in four pages.

Yeah, it was just such a silly thing to say. No matter how powerful you are, you can still slip and fall
down in the mud.

See, this is the thing I love about your work, James, and I'll come right out and say that
I love your work -- is that you can say, in a seemingly simply story, some of the most
profound things and that four page Hulk story, you showed that the most powerful
being on the planet can be undone by some rain and some mud.

It's true. It's funny, I wasn't thinking of any deep meaning in that when I did it, I suppose, but you
could apply that to all sorts of actual events in the real world. For instance, the Soviet Union fighting
in Afghanistan, one of the most powerful countries in the world, basically slipping and falling down in
the mud.

And look where that's gotten us now, you know, ten years after the fact, or twenty years
after the fact...

So hopefully, we're not going to slip and fall down in the mud, but it's certainly possible.

Is there any talk of any other future involvement with Marvel or any of the other
mainstream publishers?

Not really, although I'd love to do it. I actually proposed a new Hulk series to Marvel that they... It was
kind of too way out there for them and I don't think that they completely understood what I was
talking about (laughs).

That's disappointing to hear, that they would go out on a limb to put that story in the
annual and to not continue it out and see what happens.

Oh, I know. I guess I can't expect them to understand what my work is really about, but...

Well, obviously that one reader didn't.

Yeah (laughs), but I was a little disappointed, like when I called the guy I thought they would at least
be able to listen to what I was saying, but they seemed to listen past me. They were already on to their
'no', you know, before I could even explain what the... They were more interested in telling me what
their ideas for the Hulk were than they were in listening to what my ideas for the Hulk were. And their
ideas for the Hulk were terrible (laughs)!

And generally have been have the last over the last thirty or forty years.

I mean, there's no reason for me to call up to Marvel and listen to their pitch to me about what the
Hulk should be like. I mean, it doesn't make any sense.

Well, it sounds like there may have been a little desperation there to try to..."I gotta
convince somebody that this is a good idea! Kochalka! You!"

Yeah (laughs), that's exactly what it was like.

That's pretty amazing.

And then they swore me to secrecy (laughs).

Oh, well, we won't tell anyone then. Shhhh! Alright then, so the next thing that people
should be keeping an eye out for, I guess then, is Don't Trust Whitey?

Yeah, that should be in comic book stores in a few weeks, end of October, beginning of November, I
hope it should be in stores. Also, at the end of October, beginning of November, it will be at one-
hundred-fifty or so college radio stations across the country, so it'd be a good time to call up and
request it.

What are some of the songs that we can look forward to hearing on that CD?

Frog On Top Of A Skyscraper...hard for me to remember, I'll have to look at the CD...

Do you have a favorite on this one?

Nay-nay And Woo-Woo (laughs).

Really?

I think so. It's about two horses, well, it's about being lost in the desert looking for two horses. It's
really crazy sounding. It's got a simple Casio drumbeat as the basis and then it's got layer and layer of
bassoon and flute and all sorts of stuff like that on top of it. It's a crazy, crazy song.

I look forward to hearing it.

Awesome! (laughs).
Erik Larsen, 2001

Erik Larsen is one of the original Image creators, and the only one to write and illustrate his
original title since the beginning of the company to the present day. At the time of this interview,
Larsen had just turned Savage Dragon's world inside out by relocating title character to a brutal,
parallel Earth; he was also working on two projects for Marvel; The Defenders, with Kurt Busiek,
and The World's Greatest Comic Magazine, in which Larsen revisited the Lee and Kirby era
with a slew of talented collaborators.

Alan David Doane: Can you give us

a progress report on The World's
Greatest Comics Magazine?

Erik Larsen: (Laughs) It's progressing

slowly, how about that?

How much work have you got

done on it so far?

Very little; it's actually -- there's a

skeleton plot that draws through all 12
issues, so that we know where we're
starting and where we're going. and how
things are progressing. The first three-
and-a-half plots are fairly far along, and
it's just a matter of, right now, me doing
my chicken scratch thumbnails for
everybody, and then deciding who's
gonna go first and who's gonna go
where, stuff like that. Bruce Timm has
pretty much said "Hey, put me in every
issue," so, that is good. Keith Giffen's
the same thing. So, basically, what we're
trying to do here is, for four different
artists every issue...so an artist will do
five or six pages, depending...

Are those going to be broken up

into different story segments?

I'm pretty much gonna just try and tell a story the way I would tell a story anyway, and hopefully the
segments will fall in such a way that it'll work itself out. Generally, comics don't have a tendency to
ramble too long anyway, so it should work itself out okay. I'm trying to really follow the template that
was set by Stan (Lee) and Jack (Kirby), so it should work out all right. We'll see what happens.

Are you picking up on specific plot threads or are you just sort of trying to recreate the
style of Stan and Jack?

All of the above. We're going right after issue #100, World's Greatest Comic Magazine picks up
directly after issue #100, so if you read #100, you can go "Oh, the Fantastic Four are leaving in an
Army airplane and going back to New York. Fine. I get it." And then it'll pick up directly from there.
So they're still in the airplane coming home, and wacky hijinks ensue. And really, we're just sort of
looking at "Well, where is Marvel Comics at that point?" Where are all the different pieces of
everything. And there'll be stuff in here that Jack never drew. Like Captain Marvel's gonna be in here,
sort of the Gil Kane version of Captain Marvel at that point. Jack never drew Captain Marvel to the
best of my knowledge.

Between your recent work on Thor and some of the stuff you've been doing on Savage
Dragon, I guess it's pretty clear you've got this Kirby thing that you've been needing to
work out.

(Laughs) Dragon's not as Kirbyesque as people seem to think, and I think it's mostly because --

Having Kamandi in the first rebooted issue?

I know, but it's not like suddenly there's squiggles on people, and people don't suddenly have those
big Kirby knees and all that sort of stuff, it's just that the storytelling is much more conventional...I'm
having Chris letter it like Mike Royer (laughs), but I would hope you wouldn't open this up and go
"Wow, this is just like a Jack Kirby comic!" because, man, I'm really failing if that's...

I think it's a positive thing, because you're imparting some of the energy and creativity
without seeming to rip him off. From my point of view, I think it's a successful sort of
interpretation of that influence.

Yeah, well...Am I exorcising my Kirby demons? Perhaps. (Laughs) But I've kind of been doing that for
a long time, so...

Has the reader reaction to the Savage Dragon reboot been generally positive?

There have been a lot of people that have come aboard with the reboot, and are just discovering the
book for the first time, for those people, they're loving life right now, and it's kind of a cool, weird
universe that they're completely unfamiliar with. Some of the people who've been reading it for a long
time, this is, "Oh, cool, finally we're going off and doing something different. We've been in the same
location and same whatever for quite a while now, this'll be neat." And then there's some that are like,
"Captions? Thought balloons? Oh my God, you've ruined everything!" Well, whatever. (Laughs).

Why did you think it was necessary to restart it at this point?

I don't think it was necessary, but it was something I wanted to do, and when I started thinking of
what I hadn't done, and really the possibilities -- what happened was, the character Darklord was
introduced as a character who had affected history. Once I got thinking about what the ramifications
are, and what it would all be, it just became so intriguing to me that I'm like "I gotta do this!" I want to
explore these stories. These stories seem more interesting to me than where I had been going.

I was very intrigued by a thought

balloon in the first rebooted issue,
where the Dragon wondered if perhaps
this isn't the first time he's changed
reality. Do you plan to explore that
question in the future?

I'm planning on exploring damn near

everything, you know? I'm trying to get to all
of it. There just ends up being an awful lot.
Over the course of the first 75 issues of
Dragon I probably introduced 200 bad guys.
If I was just to methodically reintroduce them,
and not create any new characters at all, I
could be up to #275 basically before I even
covered everybody that's in the book already.
I've just been kind of--too creative, I guess--
(laughs). I've just been too busy, like, "Oh, this
would be cool." Throwing things out there and
not really exploring things as much as I could.
I oughtta do some of that, get around to
exploring, delving into a lot of the characters.

It strikes me as -- I can hear the joy in

your voice, describing the creative
process.

(Larsen laughs).

Of the original Image creators, you seem to be the only one who's just still enjoying
making funnybooks.

I'm still enjoying it; I don't know that the other guys aren't enjoying it. I'm still the only guy on the
same title, but really, if you look back eight years ago, I may be the only guy other than Dave Sim
who's doing the same title at any company. It's been a long haul, it's been a lot of years that have gone
by here. For the most part, people in the comic book industry move on after a couple of years of doing
something, you know? And when I started doing this book, John Byrne was doing Next Men. Well,
he's since finished doing Next Men, done Wonder Woman, come over and done Spider-Man
and now he's not doing Spider-Man anymore, he's made two or three moves, and I'm still doing the
same book. And he's a guy who sticks around for a while. Other people have made five or six different
jumps in the timespan that I've been doing (Dragon). It's really not just Image, it's everywhere.
People just don't stay on books anymore and don't build on what they've started. I'm enjoying it a hell
of a lot.

How many years do you think you have of Dragon stories to tell?

However long I'm living. (Laughs).

Spoken like a committed artist.

I mean, really, the idea is that this is my life's work, and I think that there may get to be a point in my
life where suddenly the sales aren't to the level that they oughtta be, and the bills aren't being paid.
But I don't see there being a period where I'm not gonna be doing the Dragon, that a year will go by
where I won't be doing it. So, in the worst case scenario, every year there'll be a six-issue Dragon
miniseries, you know? And the rest of the time I'll be randomly doing other stuff, so I can afford to do
my Dragon thing.
Jason Marcy, 02 February 2002/07 June 2006

Jay's graphic novels are autobiographical, blunt, occasionally dirty, and funny as hell. He's a keen,
often furious observer of human behaviour, but his love for his family and his affection for the work
of James Kochalka both speak to a more whimsical and human side that was on spectacular display
in his well-received third book in the Jay's Days series, Pasta Shop Lothario. That graphic novel
delved into both his fascination with his teenage co-workers and the birth of his son -- see, the guy's
a perfect example of the dual nature of man. After the first part of this interview, in 2002, Jason
Marcy because a genuine friend of mine, and we even collaborated on a story in his book MY DAY
IN THE LIFE OF JAY. The story I wrote and Jay illustrated was a mostly-true recounting of the
long weekend my family and I spent with Jay and his wife Kris and son Xander in 2005, probably
the greatest vacation my family has ever had. I’m
forever in debt to the Marcy family for their
gracious hospitality and for showing us around
their little corner of Canada, and I’m as much a
supporter of his terrific autobio comics as ever. He
isn’t as well known as many of the cartoonists
featured here, but you could do far worse than
investigating the comics of Jason Marcy, husband,
father, pasta-maker and pervert.

Alan David Doane: I get the impression that there's not much difference between your
real-life self and your character in Jay's Days. Would you say that's true?

Jason Marcy: I'd have to agree. I mean the differences are real subtle. I notice it more in the dailies
I've been doing, where I'm a little less "refined" so to speak.

The dailies...you've begun a daily cartoon diary inspired by James Kochalka, is that
right? Are those being published anywhere yet?

Well, my publisher has the first book in hand, as we speak, but no real date yet for release. They ARE
coming out though. Yeah, Kochalka has been a real inspiration with these, though they're as different
as night and day from his.

Different in what way?

Well, James is a bit more whimsical, where as I'm a cynical, pessimistic jackass! I don't know the way
to explain it properly...I think he's a little more introspective than me, really fascinated by the day to
day little things in life...hmm. I dunno.

James can be downright neurotic, though, too, if you've read some of his stuff like Tiny
Bubbles. But he always seems to find the bright side of things.
Yeah, well, I'm the same way; neurotic I mean. We have that much in common. I'm overly fascinated
in a lot of the strips by my bodily functions and how they work as I get older. Heh. There's a lot of
scenes of me walking around with my bare ass hanging out. I've even got some frontal nudity going
on, much to my wife's dismay!! But I think I TRY to stay positive about things.

So when did you get started cartooning?

I was all of a wee lad of 19, actually! Before that I was more of a writer wannabe, even flirted with
journalism, a bit. But yeah, I thought I was a freakin' genius at 19. Boy was I wrong!

Having read some of your mini-comics from the mid-„90s, I have to say that although
your artwork was rough early on, it seems like the honesty and humour was always
there. I'll forgive a lot if I get a laugh out of something or if it makes me think, and
you've apparently had that down for quite some time.

I can hardly look at those early days. I mean, I was swiping from my earliest autobio exposure Joe
Matt. Oddly enough, it was those books that had me hating James Kochalka's work for awhile. He
really slammed me in a review way back when, and I just could not see the appeal of his work, until
his interview in Comics Journal! But yeah, I've always tried to keep that honesty there. It's VERY
important to me not to lie, or present things in a light they didn't have. I've barely tweaked any of my
autobio actually. I don't know where that comes from.

Well, I see a real similarity to Harvey Pekar in your willingness to let your worst
character traits twist out there in the wind...do you think he was an influence?

I've always loved Pekar. I call him the "Master of the Mundane," as in he can take the smallest, most
ridiculous thing and do a story on it. I wasn't exposed to him until a few years after starting out on my
autobio adventures. Of course, Our Cancer Year is his most revealing work, and heart wrenching.
Joe Matt's kind of losing his appeal, though. I mean, the guy is SO DAMN SLOW!! Also, when he
revealed he changes things "for dramatic effect", it really turned me off. But yeah, I still read, cause
he's just, well, just such a DIRTBAG! And in person you can't really see it! It's funny! I've a lot of
people I respect though in the genre.

What kind of reaction have you gotten to Jay's Days Volume One?

It's been fairly positive. I mean, people are reading it, for sure. I've had a few dissenting voices, usually
people who are IN the book. My sister was apparently VERY unhappy with how she was portrayed in
the story of my Uncle's death, but it was HOW she was, you know? I'm still learning to deal with that
type of stuff. But in general, you know how small the comic world is. It's been very difficult to get
heard, you know? I mean, I'll do cons, and get very discouraged. By this point, you think I'd be used to
the casual glance overs of the superhero zombies, but it still can be discouraging. But when someone
buys the book, and I can connect not only with the book but a PERSONAL up close thing, it's nice.

Well, I think that a large part of breaking through is just self-promoting and making
sure everyone knows what you are doing. In comics, "If you build it they will come" is
not a viable philosophy. I think the more you get word out there, the more people will
respond. My wife, who does NOT read comics, sat down this morning and read a good
portion of Jays Days 2 and found it compelling and funny. Luckily with the Internet,
making yourself heard is as much work as sitting on your ass and typing.

Yeah, exactly. I'm a real big proponent of getting out there and hitting as many shows as I can. I know
it's the easiest way to connect a face to the product, to show people you give a damn about them
enough you're willing to haul ass and go to shows to meet them. It's odd how you mention that your
wife was reading Jay's Days 2 and liking it. My wife has a co-worker at her job who has read the first
book like five times, and she is DEFINITELY NOT a comic fan! So yeah, I think autobio is a great way
to show people that comics aren't all guys in capes and tights beating the piss out of each other! I
always get a thrill out hearing of people who've read Jay's Days and dug it even though comics are
the LAST thing they'd read.

Do you find readers respond to some types of stories more than others? I really like
your more personal stories, like the Chelsea story about your cat, or your concerns
about your health and the health of your loved ones. I find those more involving than,
say, the record store ones. Are you finding any sort of indication from the audience of
which way you might want to take your work?

Hmm. That's a good question. It's a mixed bag, actually. People really respond to the emotions of
stories like the Chelsea tale, or when my Uncle died. I was getting a lot of, "Damn it, you made me
cry!" from friends and strangers alike. Still others like the humor of the more Pekar-ish record store
stories (where they're told from a different person to me). I don't get a feeling of where they want me
to go. I don't want it to be a sobfest all the time, but yeah, people tend to talk more about those
stories. I know the inker on Chelsea (Joe Meyer) had a HELL of a time doing the job, cause he lived
with us for six months, and LOVED the cat. I like to keep it mixed up, mainly for my own sanity. I
think a lot of people whose work I admire (Ariel Schrag, Dennis Eichorn, Joe Sacco etc.) do the same.

I'm glad you brought him up. I really like the depth Meyer brings to your work.

Yeah, Joe does a good job, though he tended to "overink." A lot of the stuff you've read will be slightly
touched up. But yeah, he's a great inker when he really applies himself. he's also my best friend!

What comics do you find yourself reading regularly?

Let's see... I'm getting back to the guys in tights a lot lately, but let's start out with the obvious: PEEP
SHOW, Anything James Kochalka does. A lot of autobio titles and alternatives. Naughty Bits.
HATE (even though it ain't regular no more, I know...) Assassin and the Whiner, an AMAZING
autobio book by Carrie McNinch, a digest book. TRUE STORY SWEAR TO GOD. Superheroes?
THE AUTHORITY, THE ULTIMATE line from Marvel, geez! I'm drawing a BIG blank
here...BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER, BONE...it's interesting to note I'm the ONLY alternative
buyer at my store!
That's downright depressing. It seems like you've got pretty diverse reading tastes,
though. Have you gotten any reaction yet to your work from any big publishers or pros?

Well, I forgot John Porcellino, of King Cat Comics. He really enjoyed the book, and I'm a drooling
fanboy of his stuff. Lennie Peterson who does a daily newspaper strip called "The Big Picture" really
liked it. Other than that, I made an appearance(well, my book) on the cover and interior of CBG's
COMICS COLLECTIONS issue, which was an unsolicited honour.

Your covers are extremely eye-catching.

(Laughs) Yeah, you could say that! Jay's Days 2 has a very disturbing cover, I don't know if you've
seen it. My wife was mortified by me scratching the hemorrhoid on my ass for that. Oh geez...I try to
do things that are that way. I do all the color proofs and such. It's very important the book looks the
way I want it to, in and out! I really think the cover has to be there to draw people in. If it gets too
cluttered, it doesn't work. Keep it simple stupid is the way to go. My publisher has been GREAT using
his skills to jazz up the look.

What's it been like trying to get distribution for the book? I know some alt/indy
creators have told me horror stories that have me wondering why anyone would even
bother trying. Has it been hard to get the book out there, or has it been relatively easy?

I'm glad you asked that. It's been a real pain in the proverbial buttocks! For example, my other book,
POWERWUS, was recently TURNED DOWN by Diamond because they said it was "too much like
Dick Tracy." Now, Powerwus is a spoof of the superhero genre! There's no question it's been hard.
The ONE store I thought would carry it in the Toronto area, THE BEGUILING, didn't even have a
copy of Jay's Days! Distribution has been spotty, to say the least. Cons have really been our biggest
exposure, though I don't rule out Diamond as a useful tool. They are the biggest distributor to comic
stores. But if you're not Marvel or DC, well...Yes, it's been all the horror stories, and last night, for the
upteenth time, I questioned just why I DO comics.

Have you thought about maybe offering the daily strip on the Internet to spread the
word?

Well, that's EXACTLY what my publisher is doing, or going to be doing, though he's breaking down
the first two books into "dailies" to help promote sales. I'd love to see the dailies on the web, maybe
not all of 'em, but enough to spark interest. Spreading the word is the key, you're right. I'm pretty
much game for anything.

So when does Jay's Days 2 hit stores? And how can people get it if it doesn't appear in
their store?

Well, we're looking at maybe the next three weeks for it to hit stores. It's currently in the pre-press
stage right now, so the way my publisher works (usually VERY fast), it could be out next week!
Definitely by the end of February, I'd wager. You can also get the book from ordering it through the
company website. I may also have a limited stock on hand. The book will also include a September
11th story I did in the span of maybe two days, if you compress the hours spent.

What did you learn about yourself from the stories turned by your friends and loved
ones for MY DAY IN THE LIFE OF JAY?

That people seemingly like me more than they hate me! I was really okay if folks wanted to go open
season on me in a bad way, and it didn't turn out like that at all. Not that people didn't get in their
licks mind you, but I was touched by the feeling expressed in some of the works. Ron Gravelle's comes
to mind, and of course Joe Meyer's. Jeremy Kaposy handed in a top notch dissection of the "Jay
experience" in my mind, kind of an eye opening thing really. Even Andrew Foster came through in the
end with a bitingly real Jay moment.

As for those who either

only know me through my
comics or through cons,
well, they were great. Chip
Zdarsky, Kagan McLeod,
Ben Shannon...hell they
were all great pieces. In the
end it was an amazing
experiment, so much so
that I've now turned my
attention to a book with my
scripts/other folk‘s art, like
a Harvey Pekar project.

You've recently been

working with
cartoonist Chip
Zdarsky on your book
design, what have you
learned from Chip?

Chip is very much a perfectionist, and he's been hard on me, y'know? "Why did you do this like that?"
and "How come you don't know this stuff, Jay?". He's been great actually. In fact, all the guys from the
Royal Academy of Illustration and Design have been awesome in their support of my little efforts. No
doubt I've exasperated Chip a lot, but he's been very patient and helpful. I'm miles ahead with my
understanding of Photoshop, Illustrator and Indesign because of him, and in a very short period of
time.

You're going the Print on Demand route for your two new books after working with a
number of small-press publishers. Tell me what brought you to POD.
It's really how the other books were done too. I decided on POD because right now it facilitates my
immediate needs, which is low print run graphic novels at reasonable prices. I don't need say a
minimum of three hundred books for a couple of thousand dollars. If and when I solicit these books,
I'll go from the orders and print exactly what I need. A lot of people have been haranguing me on this,
but right now, it makes financial sense to not over order a book, and POD gives me the freedom to
order whenever I need product with minimum hassle.

Your other new book is JASON MARCY'S BOOK OF HATE. Tell me what fills you with
hate more than anything else in the world.

Huh. It's hard to say really. I often get filled with petty jealous feelings over others success. I really
hate that part of me. In the big wide world, I'd probably say general intolerance, and again I cover my
own times when I feel that type of thing too. The book really covers a lot of what HATE can mean to
me, I think.

I get as excited about a new Jay Marcy comic as I do about one by Harvey Pekar, James
Kochalka or Robert Crumb, just to name three creators whose work, I think, has been
an influence on yours. And yet, you haven't achieved the readership levels of those
perhaps better-known cartoonists, and you've talked about that on your LiveJournal
and in your comics. Yet here you are with two new books on the horizon, plugging
away. What keeps you making comics after all these years?

What else am I gonna do? If I keep plugging, maybe someone'll take notice and say, "Hey, that bald
guy ain't half bad." and come and rescue me with a book deal or something. Comics are in me to be
done, so to speak. Gotta create, gotta use my voice to let the world know I'm here in a way I can. It's
this or catching chickens as a side job. Hey, that may pay better.
Mark Millar, 2004

At the time this interview was conducted, writer Mark Millar had made his mark on The
Authority with artist Frank Quitely and made it even more popular and controversial than it had
been in the hands of series creators Warren Ellis and Bryan Hitch. Millar's name quickly came to be
associated with dynamic, violent and unpredictable superhero comics. He also was able to get
competing publishers to allow him to publish a line of comics called "Millarworld" across corporate
borders, to levels of success I don't think anyone was expecting, including Millar himself. He and
artist Bryan Hitch recreated Marvel's Avengers for the Ultimate line, turning The Ultimates into
an adult, action-packed comic book that won over readers and redefined what could be
accomplished with decades-old corporate superhero icons. When we did this interview, Ultimates
2 was just around the corner.

Alan David Doane: With Wanted

nearly done, the excellent Chosen
having completed its three issues,
and Unfunnies seemingly missing in
action -- what's your assessment of
the success of initial stage of the
Millarworld line of comics, and what
future do you have planned for it?

Mark Millar: I'm blown away. Seriously.

This has all gone down about ten times
better than I could have expected. These
are pretty much the most critically-
acclaimed books I've ever written and the
sales have been literally twice what we
were all expecting. Wanted has gone into
second, third and fourth printings of the
individual issues and the north American
printings of Wanted #1 are now close to
100,000. X-Men numbers. It's just insane,
especially given that most new, creator-
owned books are doing 8,000 and 20,000
is considered an outrageous success.

We've had really good mainstream

publicity for these books and both Wanted
and Chosen were snapped up as movie
deals before each series even ended so I'm
honestly just pinching myself. I took a big
gamble in the sense that I did most of this
stuff for free and the rest for a much-reduced rate. I've still lost money so far, but we've just had the
first of the Wanted movie payments and that's placated my wife a little. She just couldn't believe I was
taking six months off Marvel projects shortly after we bought a new house. In hindsight, it was pretty
idiotic, but these books had been rattling around in my head for a couple of years and I needed to get
them out there.

Millarworld Phase Two is scheduled for Spring 2006 and I'll be doing the same thing again. That is,
dropping well-paid work (for a little longer this time) and focusing on at least five new titles. I've
already got the artists lined up and, the big lesson I've learned from phase one, will make sure they're
mostly in the can before publishing. Artists, no matter how good their intentions, are always slower
than they think. Except Anthony Williams. He draws like Barry Allen runs. The Unfunnies just got
held up because we had some legal problems which have since been sorted.

The Ultimates returns this December for a second volume, and all I hear in the comics
shop is doubt that the book will stay on schedule. Despite that, no one argues that the
book isn't absolutely beautiful, and even though I have been extremely aggravated by
delays on some titles in the past, you and Hitch managed to keep the quality so high that
it really doesn't both me much. What are your hopes for the second volume, and what
(if anything) do you think has been lost by not keeping the first volume of the title on a
regular schedule?

Amazingly, we didn't lose any readers. That really amazes me because I would have given up on a
book with such an erratic schedule. It was just insane. However, Marvel were absolutely brilliant
about this. It made them more money than just about any other book and anyone else would have had
ten fill-ins by now, but [Marvel] really took a bullet for us and pleaded with the board every month to
give Hitchy the time to make this as perfect as we all wanted it to be. Their argument, and I think it's a
correct one, is that they'll make more money from the trades and the hardcovers if nobody messes
with the creative team. This has certainly proven to be the case so far and, like I said, the sales stayed
rocks-solid even when the issues were three and four months late.

One thing I think we lost was a little momentum. Sales were stable, but they would have kept rising if
we'd been out there every month and I think we'd be topping 200,000 by now. It'll be interesting to
see how volume two sells because the book is forced into a monthly schedule by the ten month hiatus
while Hitchy gets many, many issues in the can. It's actually annoying when I hear people say the
sequel will be late because we're in a completely different situation from the original.

When Ultimates #1 came out, Hitchy was just finishing Ultimates #2. It was really near the
knuckle and so, when he had some personal stuff crop up, the schedule was killed because there was
no issues in the drawer. He took 26 months to do the equivalent of around 15 issues (which is a little
better than bi-monthly) and so we figured that if we gave him a six issue head-start then these 12
issues would have no scheduling problems. He'll have finished [Volume Two] #6 by the time #1 is
published and, since we have them in the drawer, it's impossible for these books to be delayed. What's
Marvel going to do? Burn 'em?
There is a perception on many message boards that rape and jokes about rape are a
frequent element of your comics. Is it true or false, and what is the reason for this
perception?

Wanted, Chosen and The Authority all had rape references, sure, and The Unfunnies had child
molestation so I think it's fair to say that it's cropped up a few times. But so what? Each and every one
of those comics had fifty murders to every rape and nobody ever mentions them, despite the fact that
rape and sexual assault is a far more common crime than murder. That really strikes me as odd. I
think American audiences are quite interesting in that they can handle
almost any amount of violence, but the moment the violence becomes
sexual violence it immediately becomes an issue. Europeans don't
really think about this stuff as much.

Still, I've written plenty of, er, non-rape books too like Superman:
Red Son, JLA, Superman Adventures, Spider-Man,
Wolverine, Paradise Lost, The Ultimates, Ultimate X-Men
and Sonic The Hedgehog. Actually, I did have Tails fuck Sonic up
the arse in one issue of that, but it was definitely consensual.

I recently read and enjoyed the hell out of your all-ages

Superman Adventures comics; with such an obvious affinity
for the characters and such a gift for crafting exactly the
kind of stories they should be featured in, what the hell is wrong with the comics
industry that you aren't currently writing Superman comics?

That's a really interesting question. I'm honestly as happy writing Superman Adventures as I am
writing Wanted. I don't see one as bring better or more literate than the other and there's a real buzz
to not only writing about a character I love like Superman, but also writing something that kids can
enjoy. I wouldn't let kids near half the stuff I've written so it is quite lovely to pass these little books
out to children when they visit the house. I'm a comic-writer, after all, and all the Mums are kind of
confused why I can't let their kids see the kind of things I've been writing. That's honestly a bit
embarrassing sometimes.

That said, I was never as poor or treated as badly as when I was writing that stuff. I got nominated for
a couple of Eisners, sure, but Eisners don't pay the bills no matter how often you wave them at the
bank. The animated books pay the lowest rates at the Big Two and you can forget about royalties.

I really loved writing that stuff, but those eighteen months were the most poverty-stricken of my
entire professional career and my stuff used to get re-written a lot because nobody at the Big Two has
any respect for the guys doing those books. They're critically-acclaimed, but sell absolutely nothing
and the less you sell at a big company the less weight you have. The less you sell, the smaller your
chances of getting other projects approved. I spent as much time writing proposals in '98 and '99 as I
did writing scripts. And you don't get paid for proposals. I just got dicked around to such a huge
extent that I planned as escape route from comics in 1999 and sold a TV show to Channel 4 here in the
UK. It was horrible. Then The Authority happened and I finally got my break. That's the honest
answer. I'd love to do those kind of books, but nobody buys them. I'm really happy with the work,
though, and appreciate Dan Didio pushing to get these collected.

I mentioned earlier that I thought Chosen was excellent work; in fact, it's one of my
very favourite Mark Millar comics so far. In large part, I think that's because you were
creating your own characters and were free to take the story anywhere at all that you
wanted it to go. Obviously many comics creators don't get that opportunity when
working for hire for corporate comics companies. Ultimately, which mode do you find
more artistically satisfying, and how do you assess the pros and cons of the work-for-
hire trade-off?

It's funny. I was talking to Azzarello about this a few months ago and he was saying I'm wasting my
time writing stuff like The Ultimates and Wolverine and it's all just whoring, that I should just do
creator-owned, but that would drive me nuts. There's this ethos that there's a purity in books that
aren't superhero books or books that don't sell, but my tastes are very mainstream and, fortunately,
the kind of book I like to read and write just jibes with what the public at large seem to want to.
Wanted was my little shot at an indie-crime book and it ended up selling X-Men numbers. Chosen
was my little Vertigo-style book and it's ended up selling more than half the bat-books. I'm not
ashamed of this because I think it's good for a writer to reach as many people as possible.

I see no shame in writing Captain America or Wolverine. The bulk of what I read could be
described as superhero material and that's been the case since I was four years old. It's where my
interests lie. It's why I got into this business. I didn't break into comics to write fairytales or crime
comics. I have close to no interest in that stuff whatsoever. For me, THAT would be whoring because
prostitution, at least in my definition, is doing something for money that you don't want to do. But
this is what I've always wanted to do. I'd write Spider-Man for half my usual rate.

That said, it's nice to have the balance. I was getting a little bored prior to the Millarworld stuff and it
just felt great to cut loose and go nuts. Then again, it's been nice to slip into Wolvie, Spidey and
Ultimates 2 after writing all the semi-realistic stuff. So that's my answer. They're both satisfying and
they both have their frustrations, but at least I can go back to one when I get fed up with the other.
L. Nichols, 23 June 2008

I love it when a cartoonist's work enters my consciousness and refuses to fade away. That's what
happened to me when I first discovered the work of folks like Jim Rugg, Jason Marcy and Paul
Hornschemeier, and it happened with Brooklyn's L. Nichols. I reviewed her Jumbly Junkery #4, and
found I kept thinking about her comics. So I sent off some questions, and got back some fascinating
and thoughtful responses. I have great confidence that her work will become well-known and well-
regarded in the years ahead, and I urge you to seek it
out.

Alan David Doane: I'd never heard of your

work before Jumbly Junkery #4 popped up in
my mailbox. Tell me about your background
and how you got interested in creating comics.

L. Nichols: I've been drawing all my life, but I feel

like I got to comics somewhat late in the game. I drew
my first comic back in 2001, but I didn't really start
drawing comics concertedly until 2004 (when I was
20, 21 years old). I was living in Cambridge, England
at the time on the Cambridge-MIT Exchange and I
was so miserable from the culture shock, lack of
friends, and general drudgery of Cambridge University
that I finally started filling up the long-empty sketchbook I had brought with me. This is where the
ragdoll character originated, as well, actually...from those sketches and doodles. I had been drawing
this character in various situations...like one panel comic-type-deals...and it dawned on me that I was
drawing myself and using it as a way to deal with the stress of living abroad.

As for transitioning to drawing comics from just drawing characters/places/still life/etc...I think it
was a combination of finally having broken down this idea I had in my head that comics were either
funny or involved superheroes. I never was the superhero type (except for my childhood love of
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles), and I never thought of myself as someone who could consistently tell
gags, so I just kind of wrote comics off as something I thought I shouldn't do. But in high school, my
friends introduced me to things like Johnny the Homicidal Maniac and Sandman and then American
Splendor came out a few years later and it finally hit me that comics were a medium in their own right
and didn't have to involve humor or superheroes if I didn't want them to.

When I got back to MIT, I took a class called "Understanding Comics" taught by Henry Jenkins where
I really started to appreciate and explore comics. The things I was introduced to in that class really
shaped the way I grew as an artist. I still think it's funny that I went to school to be a mechanical
engineer and came out really wanting to draw comics. I don't know that my parents find it so funny.

It surprises me to hear MIT had a course on comics -- can you tell me a little bit about
what you learned?

People often have the misconception that MIT is this nerdy place only for math and science, but it's
got an incredible humanities department as well. In fact, one of the writing professors, Junot Diaz,
just won the Pulitzer Prize. The comics class I took was under the Comparative Media Studies
program. The goal was to explore the various different ways in which comics can be used as a medium
as well as examine the broader cultural history and social impact of the medium. At least, I think this
was the goal. I was notoriously bad at actually showing up to class.

Poor attendance aside, I learned a lot in the class about the history of American comics...from early
newspaper comics like Hogan's Alley and Little Nemo to stuff like Sandman, Watchmen, et
cetera. It was a wonderful introduction to comics for me, particularly since I hadn't read many before
taking this class. One of the classes/discussions that really sticks out in my memory is when we
discussed Watchmen and how it really took the superhero genre and examined it in this new light.
Like how the part where the guy has his hero costume hidden in the closet makes this play on the idea
of an identity being closeted, et cetera.

More generally, we talked about how the CCA really changed things for horror comics and how the
underground comics movement started. We talked about how newspaper rivalries influenced the
development of color comics (the yellow kid in Hogan's Alley). We talked about fan culture, about
appropriating things like Disney characters and making spoofs of them. I mean...we covered so much
in the class! To this day, I have revelations in my own work that come out of something we discussed.
I still kick myself a bit for not going to class more regularly.

What comics were you required to read for the course, and what did you get out of your
exposure to them?

There was lots of reading for the course. I can't possibly remember everything we read, but some of
them were various bits from Little Nemo and Hogan's Alley. It really blew me away seeing this
older stuff, seeing how experimental they were back then. Marvels. Dark Knight Returns.
Daredevil, the David Mack one. Watchmen. All of them interesting takes on the superhero genre.
Made me really think about the genre and how you could use various preconceptions to play with the
reader. The David Mack Daredevil book also got me thinking about how art could be changed and
used in new ways in comics.

Sandman. I thought it was amazing how literary the medium could be! I still love reading these.
Blankets by Craig Thompson. His use of framings in the book is lovely, as well as the brush work.
Hippy Bitch and Bitchy Bitch by Roberta Gregory, various Tijuana bible type things. It was great
seeing some of the old underground/alternative stuff. Chris Ware's Jimmy Corrigan really inspired
me design-wise. Understanding Comics, of course! And Comics and Sequential Art by Eisner
got me thinking about comics in a more theoretical sense.

Safe Area Gorazde by Joe Sacco and Hellboy by Mike Mignola really changed the way I thought
about page layout in a formal way. Fables. Something about the idea of fables in the modern world
just dragged me in.

Additionally, Henry was

kind enough to let me
borrow comics from his
personal collection. It's
kind of hard to separate
what I read in class from
what I read out of class,
because it's all this big
year-long blur of "oh man
I can't believe I didn't
discover this sooner
because it's incredible. I
have to read everything
now!"

Particularly, I fell in love

with
independent/alternative
comics. After I exhausted
the limits of Henry's indie
comics collection, I
started spending way too
much of my own money
on books. I still spend way
too much, but it never
feels like enough. At least
drawing comics is easier
on my bank account.

I know from our email

discussions that you
have a day job -- how
do you fit time to
create comics into
your schedule?

I am obsessive when it comes to drawing, so I try to figure out ways to use every bit of spare time I
possibly have to draw. For example, I live in Brooklyn and take the subway to work in Manhattan.
This translates to ~1.5-2hrs/day spent on the subway. When I can get a seat on the subway, I can
usually manage to pencil most of a page on the way to work and pencil most of a second page on the
way home. If I'm standing, things are a bit slower going, but I still usually try to sketch out my page
layouts in whatever way I can figure out. Leaning against the doors or against a pole is a good way to
have both of my hands free. Since most of my work is in my moleskine sketchbooks, this is
convenient.

Otherwise, my wife is just very patient with me and is willing to put up with my consistent drawing
habit. If it wasn't for her, I wouldn't be anywhere near as productive as I am. She works more hours
than I do, which allows me to have my part-time job(s) and leaves me more time for drawing/making
art than I would otherwise have.

Do your co-workers know you are a cartoonist? If so, what do they think about it?

Yeah, my co-workers know. I don't really hide the fact that I draw from anyone. I sometimes draw
during my lunch break if I have something I really want to get down on paper in the few spare lunch
minutes I have. Jumbly Junkery #4 also sat under my desk at work for a few days in a box after I
got it back from the copy center. I had to carry it back to Brooklyn in three separate trips, so they
watched me load up my backpack when I was leaving work. I think they all find it amusing that I draw
cartoons and make comics.

Are there any cartoonists you would say have been an influence on your approach to
comics?

Oh man. This is a hard question! Jhonen Vasquez's Johnny the Homicidal Maniac was the first
cartoon that I remember really stuck with me and is what inspired my very first comic. A few years
later, I discovered Daniel Clowes. His work really resonated with me at the time. I still love the way he
tells stories. Chris Ware and Paul Hornschemeier's simple lines with their choices of colors really
influenced the way I thought about color in comics. Mike Mignola's overall simplicity and use of ink
made me start thinking differently about how ink can be used to shape a space. Joe Sacco's use of
layout to draw the eye around the page really shaped the way I think about page layout. Winsor
McCay's comics really influenced the way I think about the use of panels and frames. Jason Sho
Green, while not a comic artist, per se, really changed the way I thought about the use of line
thickness in an ink drawing. I mean...there are a whole bunch of excellent cartoonists out there! I've
learned something about making comics and drawing cartoons from every comic I read.

I've also been influenced a lot by more traditional artists like Paul Klee, Wassily Kandinsky, Marcel
Duchamp, and Alexander Calder. I'm a huge fan of Futurist typography; this has somewhat shaped
the way I think about type/words on a page.

Do you read any comics currently? If so, which ones do you like, and why?

I love Hellboy. Mike Mignola's art never ceases to amaze me. I'm also really into Fables, though I'm
a little behind in the story. Otherwise, I just tend to buy whichever comics have art that catches my
eye. I'm a total sucker for beautifully drawn comics and good design. I still try to buy all the Chris
Ware stuff I can. I love Seth. The Mome anthologies are wonderful; it was the cover design that made
me want to buy one in the first place. Kazimir Strzepek's The Mourning Star is one of my more
recent purchases, which I thoroughly enjoyed.
What's the reader reaction been like so far to your comics?

The reaction has been better than I ever imagined. A lot of people are like "oh, I can totally relate" to
the ones about depression or sexism. My friends are the ones who convinced me to make mini-comics
in the first place. They would look at my sketchbooks and be like "when can I buy one of your books?"
I only hope the response continues to be so good.

Are you happy creating minis or would you like to try other formats?

I love making mini-comics, but I really want to make something longer. I have this Elvis comic I've
been working on as well as a collection of comics about a clown family. I also have this idea of making
a series of scenes/pages that aren't bound, but rather come as a set with instructions to shuffle
randomly before each reading. Sort of an experiment on randomness and piecing together a meaning
from the pieces given. If comics are sequential art, then what happens when the sequence isn't fixed?

Where would you like your comics work to take you over the next few years?

I'd love to be making bigger and better things. I want to work more with color. Being in some
anthologies would be incredible. Otherwise, just sticking to a quarterly publishing of mini comics; I
want to develop more discipline and produce more work. I'm always pushing myself, and I hope to
never stop.

You work in a lot of different styles, how do you decide what look is right for any given
story?

Another hard question! It's a lot of trial and error. Sometimes it depends on what tools I have around.
If I can't find one particular brush or if one pen is clogged and I don't want to take the time to find or
fix it, the I just use what I have available; I'm quite impulsive when it comes to making things. Some
of my style decisions are based on the subject matter of the comic. Like, if a comic deals with a rough
topic, sometimes I want the art itself to look rougher, et cetera. Otherwise, I'm always experimenting
trying new styles, trying to figure out what works and what doesn't. I generally go with my impulse.

You have a short story called "Red Eye" posted online that is full-colour and gorgeous
to look at. What tools do you use, and what's your approach to colour work?

I drew "Red Eye" using this weird menagerie of markers and pens -- highlighters, Tombow colored
dual-tip markers, Pitt artist brush pens, Crayola markers, Micron pens, etc. Whatever I could get my
hands on, really. Portability was a must for that comic, as I drew it mostly on the subway or sitting in
cafes. Markers are surprisingly good for subway drawing.

I also really love to use watercolors. There's something so dynamic about them. I'm ever grateful for
my fifth grade teacher teaching me how to use them.
Sometimes, though, I use stuff like xylene/acetone transfers with textures I've photo copied. I really
want to do this more, actually. I love how messy and unpredictable it can be. Gouache is something
I've just recently started experimenting with, and I have plans for making a comic using only gouache.
It would be about a robot.

You do other sorts of art as well, from photography to that felt alligator on your
website. Do you prefer one kind of art to express yourself over any others? What do you
see as the benefit to you creatively in working in the different art forms?

Generally, I prefer drawing. It's what's most portable and is what I spend the majority of my time
doing. My other passion is making sculptures, particularly out of wire. I give some of them gears,
cranks, motors, et cetera, so they move. Sometimes it feels like the desire to work in various media is a
curse rather than a blessing, as it takes away the time I could spend focusing. As much as I try,
though, I can't seem to stop making stuff!! But, I don't know, maybe it's similar to working in different
styles of drawing? Some things are best stated with words and pictures. Sometimes you just need a
picture. Sometimes only motion works. It's just a feeling you get deep in your gut when you know
something is the right way to make it. I don't know how to explain it any better than that.
Denny O‟Neil, 31 January 2000

Denny O'Neil has a long, storied history in comics, and especially with Batman. At the time of this
interview, he had been the editor of the Batman line of titles for some time, and recently had
overseen the "New Millennium" overhaul of the line in the wake of the year-long No Man's Land
storyline.

Alan David Doane: The Batman

line's overhaul -- what was behind
that and what can readers expect to
see?

Denny O'Neil: Well, part of it was a

desire to keep our stuff as contemporary
and as close to the cutting edge as
possible. We'd been doing it the same
way for about 15 years, and our design
guys and a lot of people in the office had
ideas for new kinds of content, new looks
for the books, it just seemed like a good
logical time to do them. And we're
coming off a year-long storyline; another
thing I wanted to do was send a message
to the readers that it's a new game now. If
you haven't checked us out lately, check
us out. You may be surprised at what you
see.

How successful was No Man's

Land? It was a pretty radical
experiment.

It was as radical as anything we've ever

done. And it was a big success, to almost
everybody's surprise. There was not a
great deal of optimism around the
professional comic book world that we
would succeed. I had a lot of doubts
about it personally, but it seemed like such an interesting idea, that it just seemed to me that we ought
to try it. It was a wonderful success and I can brag about it because I had very little to do with it.

That's answers my question, I was going to ask you if that was your idea. Where did the
dictum come from then?
One of my associate editors, Jordan B. Gorfinkle, came in one Monday morning with a 12-page
outline that he had done over the weekend, on his own, with no prompting from me or anyone else.
And he handed it to me and said "You're gonna hate this, but read it anyway." I thought, "Wow, we're
really gonna be working without a net if we climb onto this little tightrope." But -- nobody's ever done
anything like this before. We -- my office was sort of on automatic pilot. We knew that we had been
working together so long that we could put out good, professional comic books every month without
exerting ourselves very much. We also knew from experience that eventually our disinterest would
show through to the reader. One of the ways that you can focus your energies is undertake a project
that has a very large probability of failure. Well, No Man's Land certainly fit that bill. So we decided
just to go for it. I presented it to my bosses with very much the same attitude that Jordan presented it
to me, like, "This is pretty far out, you're probably gonna hate it." And as I said they had a lot of
reservations about it but they told us to go ahead and try it. And the readers had a lot of reservations
about it initially.

But after the first month's worth of books came out I think we had made converts of them. Our sales
went up, insofar as in the comic book world there is such thing as critical acclaim we got plenty of it.
Overall, the most successful stunt we've ever done; not only because it was financially successful, but
we learned a lot from it. We learned a lot about our audience, we learned a lot about what we're
capable of doing. It was a very good year.

In addition to the overall storyline of Gotham City being separated from the United
States, there were some pretty dramatic resolutions at the end in terms of the effects on
some of the main characters. Can you talk a little bit about that?

Yeah, we were working off a very loose outline. And when we started working on the last month's
worth of books, we realized that they were gonna be anticlimactic. The big questions would be
answered by that time and we would spend a month tying up loose ends. So I went to two of my
writers, Greg Rucka and Devin Grayson and made that observation. I asked them if they could do
anything about this. And the two of them came up with, I think, an extraordinary three stories to not
only tie up those loose ends, but to present a new but logical problem and a very dramatic resolution.
And they worked in a way that I think would have been impossible even maybe five years ago. They
collaborated, one of them in Brooklyn, and one of them in Portland, by computer. By an instant
message program that allowed them to really work line-by-line on a collaboration some 2500 miles
apart.

You've been working in comics since the '60s, is the introduction of computer
technology the biggest innovation that you've seen in the production of comics?

No -- it's certainly changed the way we work a lot, we do most of our coloring on computers now.
When I'm working as a writer I think the biggest change it's had in my modus operandi is I don't
necessarily have to have the entire story figured out ahead of time anymore. If I have the beginning
figured out and some rough idea of where I want to go, and I'm under deadline pressure, I'll just start
writing the first scene, knowing that with a computer if I, when I do get the ending figured out
completely, it'll be very easy to go back and change the earlier part of the story if that's necessary. It
won't be a half a day's retyping as it would have been in the old days. But the biggest change in the
comic book world has been the introduction of the direct sales system. When I started we were a
newsstand medium, we were completely at the mercy of a very inefficient, and alas sometimes
corrupt, system for getting our stories to the public.

With the introduction of the direct sales system, where there are some 2500 stores that specialize in
comic books and related items, that's enabled us to target our audience, to work more efficiently, get a
lot more results for our effort. I don't know that comic books would exist as a periodical medium in
the year 2000 if the direct sales system hadn't come into being.

Has the direct sales system made it harder, though, to generate new readers? I'm
thinking in terms of little kids -- I can remember growing up in the '70s, there were
comic books virtually everywhere, the grocery store, the newsstands, and now it seems
like they're not quite as available as they used to be. And even though, as you say, the
audience is targeted better, it doesn't seem as if they're as widespread. Any comment on
that?

Yeah, that is a problem. We have trouble, for example, reaching younger audiences. Because a young
suburban mother is not likely to wander into a comic book store looking for entertainment for her 6-
year old. We publish some books that are aimed at younger readers, they're not among our best
sellers, although I think they're very good. I think they're some of the best things we do. But we have
trouble finding the audience. That is a problem. On the other hand, it would probably be a problem
without the direct sales system because newsstands just are not an efficient way to do this anymore
for a lot of reasons, some of them financial and some of them, the fact that there aren't as many
newsstands. When I was a kid, every second block in St. Louis, Missouri had a little Mom and Pop
store, and that little Mom and Pop store had a comic book rack. Well, that stopped being true, like,
maybe in the early '50s.

And as I say, when I was first getting into comic books in the '70s, they still were a lot
more widespread than they are now. Can you envision a solution, in terms of thinking
out of the box, to get the comics, especially some of the younger-skewing titles, into the
hands of kids?

That's not my department...I do, of course, think about it. And I wonder if computer sales might not
be some kind of answer. It is, I think, a big problem. We have to expand our reader base. We need to
let the world know that comics are a mass entertainment, an accessible entertainment, not just for the
elite few. And of course part of that is getting them out where people can see them. But that is an
enormously complicated problem and thank God it's not my problem. And I want to emphasize that
without the direct sales system we would have been dead in the water a long time ago.

It just seems like with the enormous popularity of things like Pokémon, there is a
Pokémon comic book, and the popularity of some of the animated TV shows based on
the DC characters, Superman/Batman and Batman Beyond--I mean, the kids obviously
know these characters exist. I'll give you an example, though, a couple of years ago I
was dropping my kids off at the babysitter, and my daughter asked me when I was going
to be picking her up. I said, "I'll pick you up at this time, we have to stop at the comics
shop." And the other kids at the babysitter's were just astounded that I was going to be
buying comic books. And they asked me what I was going to be getting -- they really
thought I was kidding, that a man in his 30s would be going to be buying comic books.
The next day I brought them a big stack of comics that I thought were age appropriate,
the Hulk and Superman, that kind of thing. And their eyes just lit up. It was very
obvious to me they had never even been exposed to the actual comic books themselves.
They knew of the characters but not the comics.

Yeah. They know about Superman and Batman and

Wonder Woman and Spider-Man from television. I
was taking a train trip between Chicago and St. Louis a
few years ago, and in the dining car I got seated across
from a nice guy who rebuilt automobiles. And he was
astonished that comic books still existed. I mean, he,
about my age, he remembered them from when he was a
kid costing a dime, and just hadn't seen them for 30
years, and was amazed when I told him not only they still
existed, but they sure didn't cost a dime anymore
(laughs).

That's one of my pet theories, that

entertainment-wise, the value of what they're
getting, when a kid can buy a comic book for 2.50
or three bucks and get the entertainment of ten
or twenty minutes as opposed to renting a
videogame for an entire weekend, it seems to me
some thought needs to be given to repackaging
them in terms of giving a better value.

Well, there's a lot of talk about that, and I think you're absolutely right. If you love comics the way I
do, then you don't mind paying 2.50 for a 22 page story. If you're just looking for casual
entertainment, for that 2.50 you can rent a movie or come close to renting a movie or buy 1/5th of a
video game. There's a million ways to get entertained these days. Again, it's a problem that is not
mine. It concerns me, but my expertise is just on the editorial end, not on the marketing end.

Speaking of which, let's get back to Batman. You mentioned earlier Greg Rucka and
Devin Grayson, both of whom are fairly new to writing comic books. Can you tell me
how they got involved in working on Batman and what you think they bring to the
character?

Well, I can answer the second part of your question first; they bring huge amounts of talent. They are
enormously professional, very easy to work with, full of ideas, very cooperative. They are an answer to
an editor's dream. As to where they came from, radically different places. I first heard about Devin
about three years ago when one of my colleagues, Scott Petersen, had encountered her through some
amateur fiction she had done, I guess he'd gotten it off the Web, I don't exactly know how Scott
became aware of her.

Anyway, I looked at these short stories and I thought "Yeah, this person can really write." And she
does seem to have a real insight into our characters. But, y'know, she's somebody who works in a
hospital in Oakland, California. I just didn't think about her as a potential contributor until Scott
decided to try her out on a ten page story and she did it very well. And then she came to New York to
take a class. I took her to lunch, and I was very impressed with her, and she was so eager to learn, she
hung on every word. We started giving her some work, and you would see the improvement from
script to script.

So in a year or a year and a half, she was solidly ensconced as a professional writer. As far as Greg
goes, oh, maybe five years ago, when I was just looking for something to read in an airport, I came
across a novel called Finder. It was a private-eye novel, and I read private-eye novels. So I took a
chance on it, and I read it, and thought "Gee, the jacket copy says this guy's only 25. If that's true, my
God, by the time he's 30 he's gonna be as good a writer of this type of thing as anybody on the planet.
I made a mental note to look for the next Greg Rucka novel. About a year after that he walked into my
office. He was friends with somebody in the marketing department, had read some of my comics in
college, a young professional writer just doing what young professional writers do: meeting editors,
checking out the scene. I took him to lunch -- I do a lot of business over lunch.

And I was really impressed with -- 30 years ago I met Samuel R. Delany, Delany was in his early 20s,
became one of the most brilliant science fiction writers of the 20th century, and not since meeting
Delany had I met a young novelist who so impressed me. So I asked Greg if he would like to try a story
for me, and he would, and two weeks later it came in and I had to no editing on it at all. About that
time we were just launching in to No Man's Land, so again we took a chance. This guy seemed to
really have an instinctive grasp of how to do comics, and we already knew he was a good writer from
reading his novels. He has been a Godsend to me. Full of ideas, completely professional, full of ideas,
completely cooperative, a charming guy -- married to a good writer.

I'm editing her first graphic novel. And in the meantime, Greg has published three other novels and is
working on another one even as we speak. As well as writing Detective Comics he's going to do a
Wonder Woman project and he has a couple of limited series in the works for us.

His Detective issue this month that marked the relaunch was a great story, and
especially, Devin Grayson's first issue of Gotham Knights, that story was very special. It
almost seemed like such a great idea, I mean it has sort of a modern twist to it in a way,
but also it just seems like such a great concept that it's a wonder in a way that it had
never been done in 60-plus years of Batman. Were you impressed by that story when
you first read it?
Absolutely. I mean, it didn't have the same impact on me as it did on you, because we had talked
about it a little bit first. But I thought that she completely succeeded in what she set out to do. That's
gonna be one of the most interesting series we've done, because there will be a lot of stories that will
stand alone, like that first one; but, if you stick with it for a year you'll see that she's had another
agenda all along. It is probably the most character-driven set of comic book stories anybody's ever
done. It has been one of the interesting things about working with Greg and Devin, their stuff is
character driven. I learned to do comic books the other way, you start with a plot or a gimmick, and
you kid of trim the characters to fit.

They always start with the characters. Devin's way of

beginning a story is to go into a room and put
appropriate music on and lean back and then just say
to the character "Okay, tell me a story. Tell me about
yourself." And kind of daydream her way into the plot.
Whereas, when I was a young writer I learned to think
of a plot gimmick first, and then we'll figure out a way
to make the characters fit. So the modern young comic
book writers are working the same way the
playwrights and novelists do.

Can we expect to see some of the other

characters that are in the Batman universe
such as Azrael and Batgirl --

Yeah, issue 3 -- is it 3 or 4 -- as a matter of fact, is

Azrael and Batgirl, teaming with Batman.

You created Azrael--and have been writing

him for quite some time now…

Yeah, over five and a half years.

That is quite an impressive run, especially these days. What's kept your interest in that
character?

Oh, he's kind of my baby. As you said, I did create him. It's a pleasant little monthly assignment. We
keep thinking of new ways to develop him and get him in trouble. He's different than any other
superhero, in that he has a real identity problem which is as yet unresolved. Remember, he started out
as a bad guy when we did another of those year-long storylines about -- gee, I guess it was six years
ago now--he was the heavy in that. Batman had become disabled, had made the mistake of letting
Azrael take over the identity of Batman and Azrael for a lot of complicated reasons was very unstable
psychologically, crossed the line, let people die. Batman had to come out of retirement and reclaim his
identity. When I created the character I thought he would be for that story alone, and I was kind of
surprised when they asked me to do a monthly book.
On the other hand, it was kind of an intriguing assignment, a guy who didn't exactly know who he
was, had powers that he didn't understand, and was constantly torn between a real inbuilt need for
violence, and a realization that violence is really not an answer to anything. So we keep playing with
that dichotomy. Even now, we haven't run out of stories to tell about it.

You've been involved with Batman for quite some time now, did you ever think your
relationship with him would last this long?

Oh, no, no. (Laughs). Absolutely not. I was a young writer with a small child, and a non-working wife,
living in the East Village in the '60s, and someone introduced me to Julius Schwartz at DC Comics,
and Julie let me write a couple of Green Lantern stories and a couple of Batman stories, and I
enjoyed doing the Batman stuff much more than the other writing I was doing at the time. It amazes
me that I'm still involved with this character so many years later. Batman, for the last 14 years has
pretty much dominated my professional life. I've written a few short stories and other kinds of comic
books, and some other things, but basically I eat live and breathe Batman for at least 40 hours a
week, and I am not complaining. I know there are millions of writer-editors who would kill to change
places with me. Batman is a wonderful creation, he's a wonderful storytelling tool. So many different
kinds of stories you can tell about him or using him as an element in them.

You've kind of answered the question, has it been gratifying to spend this much time
working with Batman?

Given who I am, I can't imagine a better, more interesting job than the one I've had for the last 15
years. I work with bright, creative people, I am telling stories, I mean--as an added bonus, it has
enabled me to travel extensively, something I never thought I'd do. So yeah, I mean, we all have to
earn our daily bread. This is a pretty good way to do it.
Harvey Pekar, 05 October 2005

A key figure in the history of alternative/underground and autobiographical comics, Harvey Pekar
is one of my personal heroes. He has spent a lifetime getting his lyrical everyman series American
Splendor out into the world, despite frequent challenges presented by his personal life, his full-time
job (that he is now retired from), and his health. American Splendor is without question one of
the greatest comic book series in history, and it was truly an honour and privilege to get to talk to
the man himself. This interview was conducted around the time his hardcover Vertigo graphic novel
The Quitter was released.

Alan David Doane: Comic book readers have known about Harvey Pekar for many years
following your life and times through your series American Splendor. The greater
public at large learned about your story through the American Splendor movie a couple
of years back. Tell me what effect the movie had on your life and your approach to your
comics?

Harvey Pekar: Like I say, I‘m just living the way I

used to live. I live in the same house, I eat the same
food, I dress the same. Y‘know, there‘s not much
difference. I‘m trying to do as much writing as I
possibly can – you know, comic book writing and
prose writing because I do reviews and some essays.

Which do you enjoy more – the comics writing

or the prose writing? Or is it just two totally
different…

I mean comics writing is more important to me than

prose writing most of the time because in comics
writing I fell like I sort of have kind of an innovative
style, and I want to extend that. It‘s important to me
to do kind of new things. The prose stuff that I do –
stylistically it‘s pretty straightforward, although I get
really worked about some of the stuff, you know like
politics or music reviews or book reviews – things like
that. But nobody would have heard of me if it hadn‘t
been for comics. I‘m very lucky, and very thankful
that I got a few breaks that enabled me to have a
career in comics.

Since the movie came out, there have been

quite a few really big collections of your previous comics work in addition to your new
book, which we‟re going to talk about in a few minutes. Do you think these collections
are helping you to expand your readership?

Yeah, I know they are because they‘re selling fairly well, and that‘s something I should say – since the
movie, my book sales have really, you know, skyrocketed. I mean going from practically nothing into
respectability. I mean I actually for the first time in my life, and I‘ve been doing comics for many,
many years, I‘m actually making royalties. I feel like that‘s quite a luxury.

Yeah, but it‟s a luxury you‟ve certainly worked for with all the years … just from reading
your stories… all the years of worrying about paying bills and trying to make the comic
successful, it must be quite gratifying.

Yeah, it is very gratifying, but it‘s like I‘m too old to really believe it. You know, every time I get a
check or something like that, it‘s a joke. I go back into my old way of thinking, my pessimistic way of
thinking, which is not good. But I dunno. I guess after you get to be a certain age, some people can‘t
change.

Have you received any feedback from new readers? People that have maybe started
picking up your stuff since the movie came out?

Oh yeah, I get a lot of positive feedback all the time. Yeah, from new readers. And I enjoy it. My
number‘s in the phone book, so that in case somebody wants to call me after they‘ve seen the movie at
4:30 in the morning on HBO and tell me how much they enjoyed it, they can do that. I hate to miss
out on some praise, you know.

Sure, I think all creative people like to hear what people about their work. Who do you
think the average reader is that you‟d like to reach with your comics work?

I think I have a larger audience in the general book-reading public, than in the comic book area,
because comic book fans are, for the most part, superhero fans and my stuff is not about guys going
about in spandex suits, punching people and stuff. And so they tend not to be all that interested in my
work. I mean, it‘s not escapist, and that‘s what they‘re really looking for is escapism. General readers
– since my stuff has come out in trade paperback and it‘s been available at regular bookstores – that‘s
when my sales really started to go up.

Your work is sort of the opposite of escapism --really completely immersing yourself in
the human condition rather than trying to forget about it or ignore it.

Yeah, that‘s what I try to do. You‘re exactly right. Thank you.

And I have to say, one of my favorite scenes, and maybe this is a chance to ask you
about that, one of my favorite scenes in the movie is that scene right at the beginning
with little Harvey going trick-or-treating in just his regular clothes and all the other
kids dressed up in superhero costumes – that seemed to me like it was a comment on
your place in the comics realm.
Yeah, well, actually, I didn‘t script that. I just told them… the credit for that scene should go to Bob
Pulcini and Shari Berman, the writer-directors. But what I told them was when I was a kid, I didn‘t go
much for playing around and for frills and stuff like that. I used to go trick-or-treating with the other
kids, but I wouldn‘t wear a costume, you know, because that seemed like it was kind of childish or
something, or I was above it or something like that, so that‘s where they got the idea for that.

Paul Giamatti did such a wonderful job in the movie channeling your character, and I‟m
just wondering, did you stay in contact with
him? Did you enjoy his performance?

Oh, I enjoyed it. Yeah, he‘s great. Yeah, I‘ve stayed in

contact with him, although, you know, the more time
that elapses between the end of the movie‘s run and
the present, the less I see of him, or have contact with
him and the other people in the movie. That being
said, I just had breakfast with a couple of HBO
employees. I mean, it was just a marvelous experience
making that movie. I get asked a lot of times about
how Giamatti went about learning to play me, and
how he did such a great job, and people assume that
he came out to Cleveland, you know, a few weeks early
or something, and just shadowed me all the time, and
you know, picked up my gestures and things like that, but in actuality, he just got that from videotapes
of me, I guess on the Letterman show, and the written work that I‘ve done. He‘s really a master.

Yeah, that one scene in the movie, where he is watching you… he‟s sort of semi-off-stage
and watching you… he seems to be taking such delight in being in your presence that
you got the feeling that he really developed a great affection for you. I think that really
came through.

We like each other a lot. He‘s very nice guy, and a real likable guy. There‘s no doubt about that, and
still, although he‘s gotten more acclaim, still an underappreciated actor, I think. I think he‘s one of the
best out there.

Yeah, I think the first movie I saw him in was the Howard Stern movie [Private Parts],
if you‟ve seen that. He played this vile character, but he did it so well.

Yeah, yeah, the guy where he put on a slight southern accent. Yeah, I remember that.

Well, your new book is The Quitter. It‟s published by Vertigo Comics and with
illustrations by Dean Haspiel. It‟s described at one point, I think maybe on the back of
the book, as sort of a prequel to the movie and having just finished it last night, that
seems really apt. It does cover the period from that Halloween scene up until where the
rest of the movie really begins, covering a large chunk of your childhood and really
filling in a lot of holes. Can you tell me how the idea for finally doing a long-form
autobiography like this came about?

Yeah. Actually what happened was the illustrator, Dean Haspiel, was the person who put me in touch
with Ted Hope who was the producer of the movie. He was doing some freelance illustration work for
Hope and he told him that he had done some work me, and Hope said that he liked my work and he‘d
be interested in doing a movie based on it. So, my wife and I called and we had a deal with them. I
thought, ―Good, we‘re going to get some option money.‖ I didn‘t, in my wildest dreams, think that
we‘d be able to sell this movie because who‘s going to invest a couple million dollars in a movie based
on a comic book that sells maybe 3,000 copies a year. But amazingly, Hope was able to sell HBO on
the thing, and it‘s like a storybook kind of tale after that. I mean, it won awards and everything, so at
the end of it all, I called up Dean and said, ―Look, I really appreciate your tipping Hope off to me. Is
there anything within reason that I can do to pay you back?‖ And he said, ―Yeah, let me illustrate a
long work of yours.‖ So I said OK, but I didn‘t off-hand know of anybody who would be interested. He
had contacts with DC Comics, more specifically with their Vertigo line which is supposed to be their
more intellectual kind of stuff, and because people were still talking about the movie, he was able to
interest some editors in my doing something. At first, I thought … they were telling me that they
wanted me to do something that was fiction, y‘know, and they even said something with a romantic
interest and stuff. I tried to do that, you know, like write fiction based on my own experience, but I
just saw where for me it would work so much better if I just was as accurate as I could be and didn‘t
gloss over anything. So I wrote the comic like that and just hoped that they would see that it was
better that way. And happily they did. They liked it a lot and they really got behind it and the
promotion they‘ve done with this book is just incredible. I mean, you know… they‘ve gotten it
publicized so well and sales so far have been just terrific, even before the thing‘s been released. I
mean, it‘s staggering to me.

I have to say, that it‟s surprising -- you mentioned that Vertigo‟s sort of the intellectual
line of DC, but even for a Vertigo title, it really is a strikingly touching and human work
that really offers some profound insight into your life. I for one am grateful that they
published it. I‟m grateful that you took the time to write it.

Well, I think that Vertigo‘s looking for more stuff like it, in case anybody out there is interested. Some
of the stuff that they‘ve done actually hasn‘t really varied that much from standard comics, but I know
that the editors there would like to develop a lot more independent lines. I‘m hoping that comics do
continue to expand. I was just at a Small Press Expo a couple of weeks ago and I saw some really fine
stuff out there, but it was like it was all self-published or the publishers were really small, and I wasn‘t
aware of anybody. Guys were coming up to me and handing me examples of their work, and when I
got it back home and got a chance to look at it, I was really impressed, but then I was kind of
depressed because nobody knows about these people.

But is that not where you were in, say, 1975-1976?

Yeah, that‘s where I was… well, I actually thought with the coming of underground comics in the late
‗60s, well mid-‗60s actually I guess it started, that comics would be forever changed. I thought when
people saw that you could write about just about anything you wanted to in underground comics, they
wouldn‘t be so under-utilized. In fact, nothing much has changed, and that‘s pretty distressing for me,
that still superhero comics are at the top of the heap, you know, like so many years later. Ok, if people
want to like superhero comics, that‘s fine, but the superhero sub-genre doesn‘t dominate any other art
form, and it certainly shouldn‘t dominate comics.

And I think we‟re really in a transitional period right now, and have been probably for
the last couple of years, where the greater comics industry, including stuff like the stuff
that you do, is expanding into areas like mainstream bookstores and libraries, but the
comic shops are kind of entrenched and dug in and continuing to emphasize the
superheroes. Meanwhile, also comics from Japan, I think, is another area that‟s seeing
some expansion everywhere except the comics shops. I dunno, I‟m starting to see a
pattern where perhaps the comics shops are going to be the ones that are left behind as
everybody else gets into all the other kind of comics that are out there.

I think they have been hurting. I know a guy who worked with one and lost his job – the place went
under. Statistically, there are a lot fewer comics shops now than there were maybe a couple of decades
ago. It looked like there was going to be a kind of revival in the eighties, but then it just slowed down
again.

Well, there‟s got to be hope though if DC sees a place for The Quitter in its lineup, don‟t
you think?

Well, but people have to offer them stuff like that. And they have to accept it to. Some of the stuff that
I saw, that I was impressed with, would impress a lot of regular comic book readers as being pretty
avant-garde. There‘s a lot of free-association and things like that in it, and I mean, people haven‘t
even accepted James Joyce‘s Ulysses after all these years and if they see stuff like that in comics,
they‘re going think it‘s not commercial. There are these commercial considerations. A large company
like DC will just go so far; they want to see something proven. If my movie hadn‘t gone over as well as
it did – it made some money and got a lot of artistic approval – if that hadn‘t a happened, I wouldn‘t a
had a chance with DC.

But I do think it‟s an incremental thing though. I think that because The Quitter is a
success, maybe next year they‟ll print two or three like that, and year after that, maybe
four or five, if it continues to resonate with readers.

Well, I hope so. But then on the other hand, I look back on all the good work that was done in the late
‗60s by people like Robert Crumb, and Frank Stack, and Spain Rodriguez, and really first class stuff.
In my opinion, that was the most fruitful of periods in comic history and yet nothing came of it. The
hippies that supported the movement became yuppies after we pulled out of Vietnam and it just went
down again. So I‘m not takin‘ anything for granted. I‘m gonna to try to take advantage as much as
possible of the opportunities I have to write varied kind of stories, like I‘m doing one about a woman
who went to Macedonia to find out why there was peace there, and there wasn‘t peace anywhere else
in the former Yugoslavia. I‘m trying to do quite a variety of things, but I dunno, a lot of people are sort
of afraid of that thing. Especially the publishers are afraid of them.

Is there any chance perhaps, some of the artists whose work you encountered at the
Small Press Expo, maybe you‟ll do some work with some of them?

Well, that would be just … if I did, they would just be illustrating it, I‘d be writing the stories. I
sincerely think that some of those people out there are very good and deserve to be recognized
nationally. But with all avant-garde art in the past century, it‘s been very hard for the general public to
accept. I mentioned Ulysses, I could mention Arnold Schoenberg‘s work – 100 years after he started
doing the stuff -- it‘s still not accepted – atonal music that is. People still don‘t like non-objective
paintings. There used to be a time lag that used to be overcome between the time a piece of art came
out, a challenging piece of art, and the time the public would be able to figure out where it was coming
from. But now, it‘s like a permanent time lag. It‘s like there‘s just no acceptance by the general public
of anything that was done after like 1925 or something.

At least as far as comics go, I guess maybe I have a little more of an optimistic view, and
again, looking at as kind of a transitional period over the last couple of years, where
we‟ve seen companies like Fantagraphics and Drawn & Quarterly start to pick up
business in the bookstores and start to make some inroads with libraries and things
like that. I really think that there‟s an awful lot of good comics that are being published
today especially by companies like Fantagraphics, Drawn & Quarterly, Pantheon, the
publishers that you‟ve been working with… I‟ve been reading comics for over thirty
years and it does seem there‟s always, if you know where to look, and it is sometimes
hard to find it, but there always is good quality work being done and it seems to me
we‟re seeing a lot more mention of it in the media and the press in the last couple of
years, and that kind of gives me hope, I guess.

Well, I hope you‘re right. I have a tendency to be pessimistic, and I hope you‘re right, and I‘m not
convinced. I‘m just going to try to do as much as I can to put out good work. I also try and interest
editors in some of these young artists I run across and I hope that some of their work will be more
widely read.

Well, as far as your own work, what does the future hold for American Splendor as a
brand? Will there be any more single issues? Or just books for a while?

Yeah, I think so. I‘m working on something with DC… we‘ve just laid the groundwork for a deal … they
wanted me to do like four 32-page comic books a year, and maybe collect them at the end of the year,
or something like that, in a trade paperback. So I need a place to do shorter stories – that‘s mostly
what I‘ve done are shorter stories -- but I want to continue to write, now that I‘ve had the opportunity,
continue to write the longer pieces too, and I have two more works, longer pieces, in the process of
being done and I plan to write more.

I‟m very, very glad to hear that, as somebody who‟s been reading your work for about
twenty-five years now. As long as you keep writing it, I‟ll keep reading it.

Well, thanks a lot. I appreciate that very much.

It‟s really been an honor and a pleasure to talk to you Harvey. I appreciate it and best of
luck with the new book.

Thanks very much for your kindness. Take it easy.

Thanks, you too.

Sean Phillips, 2004

I'm definitely a fan of the less-is-more school of

comic art, guys like Alex Toth, Darwyn Cooke
and this guy, Sean Phillips, all of whom can take
a minimum of lines and a masterful
understanding of page design and mood to
convey any situation the script calls for. Phillips
and writer Ed Brubaker have had my full and
complete attention starting with Sleeper and
continuing with Criminal. At the time of this
interview, there were six issues to go on Sleeper's
second season, but Phillips and Brubaker were
already looking ahead to creator-owned work
that turned out to include Criminal and
Incognito, both published by Marvel/Icon.

Alan David Doane: Who would you say the

biggest influences on your style are, and
what did their work contribute to how you
approach your art?

Sean Phillips: Growing up in the seventies,

almost every comic seemed to be drawn by Curt
Swan, Jim Aparo or Sal Buscema, so they were
probably my earliest influences. But a relative
unknown was my biggest influence. A man called Ken Houghton who drew a lot of British comics
from the sixties to his untimely death in the late eighties, taught a comic class at my school when I
was about thirteen. After weaning me off of wanting to draw only barbarians and super-heroes, he
started me pencilling short stories for British girl's comics. Stories about schoolgirls or gymnasts or
Victorian orphans, great training to get me to draw anything. British comics used a lot of the same
artists who also worked for Warren magazines, so people like Jose Ortiz and Esteban Marato were
also big influences when I was growing up. More recently artists like Mike Mignola, Duncan Fegredo
and Kent Williams have taught me a lot with their work.

Sleeper seems to have developed a small but loyal following throughout its two seasons;
are you frustrated that the book hasn't reached a wider audience, and why do you think
that is?

True, despite almost universally great reviews, the monthly doesn't sell that great, but neither do most
other new comics that aren't a spin-off of existing franchises. Ed's already spent a lot of time and
effort promoting this book, there can't be many comic fans out there who haven't heard about the
book, but still not many pick it up. However the trades are doing well, with both the first two going
back to press, so maybe people are actually waiting for the trade.

You and Ed Brubaker have formed a genuine creative partnership that seems greater
than the sum of its parts, with your work on Sleeper seeming to me to read like the
work of a single creative vision. I know you have more projects planned with Ed, tell me
what you like about working with him and what the impact of your partnership has
been on your art?

I try and make all the writers I work with look good, but with Ed on Sleeper we've definitely got
something special. Ed is writing the sort of stuff I like to draw, introspective, moody characters who
spend a lot of time frowning. I usually get bored on any project after the first period of excitement of
starting something new, but Sleeper is keeping me interested. Part of that is not knowing what's
coming up in the story, I purposefully asked Ed to keep me in the dark on that, but also, he's been so
slow on scripts that I've been able to fit in a few other little jobs here and there. Drawing Sleeper is
very involving and tiring, taking a few weeks off to draw an issue of Batgirl or Wonder Woman is
like taking a vacation. I come back to Sleeper recharged and raring to go.

Stylistically, my art with Ed has changed because of the sort of stories we've been telling. With
Sleeper, and before that, Batman: Gotham Noir, the subject matter made me want to try a more
old fashioned, impressionistic way of drawing. Instead of drawing every brick or rivet, I wanted to just
imply all that detail of a city like Gotham or New York, where an interesting brush stroke could
suggest so much. Getting the right brushstroke is a lot harder than I thought it would be though.

Not long ago I went back and re-read your Wildcats stuff, and was really impressed by
how wonderfully you told those stories. Clearly, though, your art has changed since
then. Tell me a little bit about what spurs evolution in an artist, and how do you see the
overall trajectory of your development as an artist?

My style usually changes because of the demands of the story,

but also I can't help but be continually influenced by everything I
see, be it in comics or film or fine art. I'd hate to get to a point
where I thought I'd learnt everything I needed to to make
comics, and my work just stagnated. Nowadays, change is more
gradual, but hopefully it will always be forthcoming. Most every
morning it feels like I've forgotten how to draw overnight and
will have to fake it again another day. My next project with Ed, a
mini-series called Black Sails for IDW, will be painted, but
hopefully different to anything I've painted before. No idea how
different, though, as Ed's still writing it. I'm sure the story will
inspire me to try something new, different but unfortunately
very difficult and time consuming.

Is there anything in comics you haven't done yet that you'd like to accomplish? And
what, if anything, has held you back to this point?
Everything is left to accomplish for me. I'd like to do my little bit to get comics out into the
mainstream, where any kind of story could be told in comics. Actually, just to get my wife to read one
of my books would be quite an accomplishment!
Joe Quesada and Jimmy Palmiotti, 23 December 1999

This was one of the first comics-related interviews I ever conducted, and at the time, of course, I had
no way of knowing how Joe Quesada’s role in the Marvel Knights imprint (along with then-partner
Jimmy Palmiotti) would lead him to a long run as editor-in-chief of Marvel Comics, a position he
holds to this day.

Alan David Doane: We're heading into the second year of Marvel Knights -- can you tell
me how the imprint came to be?

Joe Quesada: Then-(Marvel) President Joe Calimari

wanted to talk to Jimmy and I about what it was that
we were bringing to our self-publishing business, we
have a company called Event Comics, and what would
we see as outside publishers as ways of improving
Marvel.

Jimmy Palmiotti: He saw what we were doing, and

we were doing things a little bit differently than a
bigger company handles the business and he just
wanted to get our insight and just sort of pick our
brains during that dinner.

JQ: Right, sort of an outside approach, and then

sometime during a subsequent meeting, we started
talking about "What if we made this a possibility, what
if we brought you guys down here--" into the offices to
actually work as an outside publisher working within
Marvel, working with Marvel characters. I guess you'd
call it, contractors, Jimmy? Packagers?

JP: Packagers-slash-talent scouts.

The characters that you chose, Daredevil, the Punisher, the Inhumans -- tell me if I'm
leaving anybody out...

JQ and JP: Black Panther...

Black Panther. Were those chosen by Marvel or did you pretty much get to choose,
"This, this, this and this."

JP: We had a list of characters we wanted, Daredevil was the main character Joe and I agreed on
that we had to have in order to make the deal go down.
JQ: Yeah, that was the real linchpin for us.

JP: As far as The Inhumans, we both thought we had an interesting take on it, and Black Panther
and the Punisher, I've worked on a lot of Punisher books myself -- we had a bunch of other
characters, but these are the ones that were decided on. But Daredevil, as Joe said, was the linchpin.

JQ: It was a just a matter of us sitting down and saying--first of all, they weren't gonna give us
Spider-Man, and they weren't gonna give us the X-Men. And we didn't necessarily -- we would
have taken Spider-Man gladly (chuckles), but I don't know if we would have wanted the X-Men, but
-- it was one of those situations where we sat down and said, what really needs help, what do we think
we could really excel at. Where are our strengths? And our strengths tend to lie, I think, in the realm
of the less super-powered type characters and more in the realm of characters that are more urban
based, and more grounded in reality, and probably would be easiest to produce as a movie as well,
because they are so realistic in their sensibilities.

As far as Daredevil, I'm going to guess the Frank Miller era had a lot to do with the fact
that you guys wanted on there?

JQ: It had something to do with it...I mean, Frank had a good run on Daredevil...but, y'know, so did
Stan Lee, and Roger McKenzie and Denny O'Neil. Whenever there's somebody good on the book, the
character really, really excels, but it's one of those characters that really needs, I think Jimmy'll agree
with me really needs somebody to handle it with care and look at the character, because he's very
complex, he's not just a guy who puts on a cape, or puts on a leotard and jumps off buildings. There's
many layers to the character. He's one of the few characters that's overtly religious in tone. He's very
much within the realm of possibility.

Speaking of religion, the guy you tapped to write the book was the director of Dogma,
Kevin Smith. Did he come to you, did you go to him, how did that happen?

JP: We had a relationship with Kevin back and forth, helping him out with some artwork for
Mallrats, and helping him on the set of Chasing Amy...

JQ: Yeah, we actually wrote Clerks, but nobody knows that...

JP: We didn't want to say anything because Kevin, that's his big movie, so...Um, but we pretty much
were dealing with each other on a different level, helping out Kevin with some art, and we actually
approached him in his home town about writing Ash, which is a book that we put out through Event.
It didn't get together that way, but later on when we had the Marvel deal, Joe gave him a call.

JQ: We knew that he was as much of a fan of the Daredevil comics as we were. And being that he
originally had agreed to write an Ash story, and before we got the opportunity to get around to that
this Marvel Knights thing came around. We just figured, "Let's ask Kevin, this might be really, really
fun. And much to our surprise--here's a man whose movies are grounded in comic book folklore or
geek-lore, and nobody's ever really asked him to ever write a comic book. it just seemed like such a
bizarre thing that nobody would confront Kevin and say, "Hey, would you want to write, like,
Batman? Superman? I mean, you are a fan." So we were kind of the first guys to really talk to him
about it. But it was also a mutual-admiration thing. He liked what we were doing, we loved his
movies, and it just sort of came to be that
way.

Did Kevin provide you with a full

script or how did that work?

JQ: Since Kevin hadn't written comics

before, people were thinking "Well, here's
a guy, he can write movies, of course he
can write comics." And it's not like that.
That's like saying just because you can
direct movies you can direct commercials.
It's two different worlds and two different
techniques. So Kevin came in with his film
background and wrote from that
perspective. And Jimmy and I were like,
okay, this is where -- obviously comics, you
have to sort of condense things, and give a
Reader's Digest version, and Kevin's
movies tend to be very verbose, so there
were times we were like, "Kevin, within the
context of a comic book, this is kind of like
stating the obvious." Because the pictures
might be showing what it is that you're
telling. So it was a give and take kind of
situation, in particular in the first couple of
issues, where...again, some people judged
Kevin very harshly on those issues,
because they expected him to be like Alan
Moore writing Watchmen right out of
the box. And they keep forgetting that
although he's written movies, this was his first comic book.

JP: It was a definite learning experience for Kevin.

JQ: Right. And as we got towards the middle of the run, his scripts came in and they were more comic
book friendly, in terms of like less fiddling had to be done with them. It was pretty much all there -- he
understood the medium because he's a reader and he's a huge fan, but that still doesn't mean you
understand the art behind the format, so to speak. So, he eventually caught on, as anybody with talent
would catch on.
There was some controversial stuff in that initial Kevin Smith-written story arc, not the
least of which, throwing a baby off a building and killing one of the mainstays of the
book for 30-plus years...what was the reaction on Marvel's part, were they afraid at all,
when you went to take these steps?

JP: To tell you the truth, when we approached Bob Harras, the editor at Marvel, with Kevin's outline,
especially with having Karen (Page) get killed, he was like, "Okay," if we justify it, if there's a good
reason why it happens...

JQ: No meaningless deaths, you know what I mean, in some respects, Marvel sort of gave us the
green light on it because it was also a much-maligned character. I mean, the Karen Page character had
gone through hell, in particular through the Frank Miller run, I mean, she became a heroin addict-
porn star, not necessarily what you would consider a Marvel, Comics Code kind of character...

JP: No Mary Jane...

JQ: Yeah, she's no Mary Jane. In essence, this was a character with so much water under the bridge,
just make her death meaningful. Make it have repercussions all throughout the Daredevil universe.

JP: The thing is, when she was killed, we had a lot of response...because it was done so well, Kevin
and Joe did a great job really making the death seem like a real, like somebody has passed. People
sent us tons of email and letters, and they were either "Oh, my God you killed her -- I couldn't believe
it, I was in shock. I loved the story but I'm very upset. I lived with this girl for so long..."

JQ: Which was actually exactly the response we wanted.

JP: Right. And then there's some more like, "How could you do that? How dare you!"

JQ: Which was also the response we wanted. The one good thing is, it was never met with, "Oh, well."
(Laughs) We didn't get that. "Glad she's dead. Oh, well."

JP: No, people really cared, and that's when we knew the storytelling was really kicking in, because
people really cared about her and the death, and it really hit them hard. We had some people going
through tough times in their life, and they were associating it with what Kevin wrote. We got a lot of
really good letters.

JQ: We got some letters from people who actually had recently lost girlfriends, fiancées, whatever it
may be, and they said that it touched them tremendously. And even subsequent issues after that we
got follow-up letters from people saying "We're so happy you didn't trivialize it and what the
character's going through is very much what I went through --" the whole mourning process and stuff.
And that's really a tribute to Kevin and his wonderful handling of dialogue and human nature.

Are you guys pretty well committed to staying on Daredevil for a while here?
JP: We're committed to the contract -- it's obviously up to Marvel when the contract expires to
renegotiate and go on to the next thing. We take it one contract or one year at a time. The second year
we have it pretty booked up, we pretty much know almost everything we're doing. We just take it a
little at a time. The company has had its own ups and downs and we're hanging in there and trying to
do the best job we can.

JQ: And things change on a major daily

basis here, so...people that, for lack of
couth here, people who may be here
today who think we're doing a bang-up
job may not be here tomorrow. And it
seems like that's stabilized to some
extent...ultimately it's on Marvel's
shoulders but also more importantly it's
on our shoulders. Are we...when it
comes to the point where Jimmy and I
are asking "Can we contribute anymore?
Do we have anything fresh?" If the
answer's "no" then you can be sure we
probably won't be in these (Marvel)
offices.

Tell us a little bit about your

upcoming work as writer on Iron
Man, Joe.

JQ: I heard about Kurt (Busiek) leaving

before the general public did, so weird
enough that that night--you're always
looking for something new to do, and
that night I went home and didn't really
think about it and had an Iron Man
dream.

JP: Uh-oh.

JQ: Yeah, it was one of those. Jimmy has like Yasmine Bleeth dreams, I have Iron Man dreams. I'm
sorry, but I don't dream about comics, y'know, I dream about missing deadlines, that's about it, I have
nightmares about (that). But for whatever reason, I woke up and I actually remembered this dream
because it was so out there, it just -- y'know, it was a comic book dream, but it was a story. And on the
drive to work, I was like, y'know, there must be a reason why I thought of this. And I just walked into
[Iron Man editor] Bobbie Chase's office, and I asked her, "Would you listen to a proposal? I know
that Kurt's leaving." And she's like, "Sure." I just said "I'm not asking for any special favors, I'm not a
known quantity, outside of the artistic side of it, just give me a fair shot." And she loved the proposal
or (laughs) so she says. But, that's how that sort of came to be. In terms of the characters, I'm using
one of the characters Kurt created, and I'm bringing back an old Iron Man friend who will eventually
find out is not friend, but foe.

Now Jimmy, have you got any projects away from Marvel Knights that you're working
on?

JP: I'm working on a thing with the new company Black Bull
Comics, which is owned by Gareb Shamus, it's called
Gatecrasher. It's written and co-plotted with me and Mark
Waid, and penciled by Amanda Connor, who happens to be
my girlfriend, and inked by me.

That must save a lot in shipping the pages back and

forth.

JP: (Laughs) Yeah, or after I ink it, she kind of walks in, like
Joe, it's the same method with Joe, like after I ink it, Joe and
Amanda go, "Can you do this, can you change that?" Which is
a perfect situation for an inker. I don't start with a blank page,
so whatever I do, I don't mind if it's touched up and fixed up,
because actually the artist has a certain vision of the work, so
it's good for me. I'm also laying out an issue of a Magneto
special for when the X-Men movie comes out, with Mark
Texiera will be working from my layouts, which is kind of fun
for me, because I don't really get to draw that much, so it's
kind of a neat little side project.

We should also mention the Daredevil Visionaries book out in stores now...

JQ: And there's also going to be a hardcover, Jimmy, right?

JP: Right, the hardcover comes out in February.

JQ: That's from Graffiti Design.

JP: It's amazing.

JQ: Also included with that, and this may be the first time they've done this in comics, there's a CD-
ROM included with this with Kevin, Jimmy and myself. We recorded close to four hours worth of
commentary on the Daredevil project and some page by page analysis and issue by issue analysis,
that's gonna be cool.
Ted Rall, 28 August 2001

Ted Rall is a fearless and furious shit-stirrer of the first order. His editorial cartoons and political
writing leave no reader undecided, you either love him or you hate him. I love him.

Alan David Doane: Ted, I'm going to come right out and admit that, up until a couple of
weeks ago, I was not that familiar with your work. I know I had seen it before, and had
seen mention of your lawsuit against Danny Hellman in the Comics Journal, but on a
whim I picked up MY WAR WITH BRIAN not long ago, and then Legal Action Comics,
and suddenly, my life seems to be filled with Ted Rall-related comics.

Ted Rall: That's understandable...I don't appear everywhere.

Tell me how long you've been cartooning.

Like most cartoonists (I suspect), since I was a kid.

I was first published for real in the pages of the
Kettering-Oakwood (Ohio) Times when I was 16
years old and did a lot of work for college papers at
Columbia during the early '80s. But I only became
serious about cartooning as a profession in 1987,
when I began the three-cartoon-a-week schedule
that I maintain today. That's when I realized that I
would be a cartoonist whether or not anyone was
interested in running them.

What was the subject matter of those early

cartoons? 16 seems early to start getting
paid work.

I was a pretty standard-issue political cartoonist,

cross-hatching and labels, all that stuff. I modeled
my work on the infinitely more-talented Mike
Peters at first.

How many papers is your current strip

syndicated in?

I currently appear in 140 newspapers and magazines.

Three strips a week might not seem like many to some readers, but when you have to
get down to it, I imagine it's a lot of work. How do you keep yourself energized and
interested?
It's like anything -- you have to love it to be properly motivated. I also draw freelance cartoons for
Time and other places so it's really more like five a week...I could draw more if I didn't have to spend
so much energy concentrating on administrative matters like sending out invoices and that kind of
thing. If you have a paucity of ideas, this is a very difficult job.

So you have no assistants helping you, either with office matters, spotting blacks, it's all
you?

(Laughs) Definitely, it's all me. If I hired someone to help me with the art, my drawing would be a hell
of a lot better! My wife does help me by dealing with editors, as well as coloring some of my color
stuff. But the cartoons most people see are done top-to-bottom by yours truly. It also helps that I'm
really angry about a lot of things and that cartooning is the best way I know how to express that anger.

Now, it's funny you should mention anger. My partner in Comic Book Galaxy often
comments that I do my best work when I am enraged, and while it's not a state of mind
I enjoy being in, looking back over the last few years, it seems he's right. I think the
truth and rage are a potent combination.

Well, the truth often stimulates rage -- so much of life is filled with stupid, petty people doing stupid,
petty things that's it's impossible to ignore it unless you're a self-alienated moron.

Do you find the anger ever wears at you?

Sometimes I wish I could just smoke pot or whatever it is that most people do to be okay with the way
things are, but I've given up trying to be someone I'm not a while back. I think it's important to know
who your enemies are and cast appropriate blame and demands for retribution at them. That way you
don't become a victim, but rather an example. Too many people let wrongdoers off the hook, and I
think that wears at THEM.

Rage certainly seemed to fuel MY WAR WITH BRIAN. Tell me how you decided to turn
your miserable high school experiences into a graphic novel.

First of all, it's junior-high, with a little high-school thrown in at the end. It evolved out of an article I
wrote for the New York Press when they were still publishing a lot of first-person narrative stuff. After
that ran I got lots of e-mail from the former victims of bullies, and it occurred to me that my
experience was far from uncommon. Quite to the contrary, everyone either bullied or was bullied back
then, and it's a perfect training ground of brutality for the dog-eat-dog world of adults. If kids were
forced to act more civilly, it would probably have a hugely positive impact on society overall. Anyway,
I thought that doing a graphic novel, a single story, would allow me to explore aspects of bullying that
prose -- at least my prose -- didn't permit.

Has "Brian" ever seen the book, that you know of?
I have no idea, but I may find out Saturday. I'm going to my high school's 20th reunion then.

You should take copies to hand out to your old classmates. Although the last page might
get you in some hot water.

Some friends suggested that, but I've decided not to. I don't like it when artists or anyone tries to
promote their business at social occasions. This must be a residue of my polite Midwestern
upbringing.

Now, if we can, let's talk about your lawsuit against Danny Hellman. I'll give you what I
understand of the case, and you correct me if I am wrong. You wrote an article that was
critical or negative in regard to art spiegelman, and Hellman decided to pull a "prank"
(his word for it, I believe) by creating a mass e-mail that he attributed to you and that
you contend was libelous. Is that correct?

That's part of it.

Okay, and I'm sure you're legally restricted to what you can say, but can you fill in the
gaps for me? From reading Hellman's side of things, by his own admission in LEGAL
ACTION COMICS, it strikes me that at the very least he is guilty of identity theft. If he
had sent out those mailings through the US Mail, in my opinion I suspect he'd have
been busted for mail fraud, as well.

I can't speak to the mail-fraud analogy, but what he did was clearly illegal under New York State law.
Two judges have already told him that in open court. It's also profoundly immoral and disgusting. In a
nutshell, Hellman launched a carefully-coordinated campaign of intimidation and harassment against
me for one reason: He didn't agree with my opinion of his idol Art Spiegelman as expressed in my
article in the Village Voice. He's a fanboy. First he posted the entire article to the Comics Journal
website, a clear violation of my copyright. Then he asked readers of that website to "vomit" on me in
exchange for a $500 cash bounty. More seriously and believably, he engaged in a sober-toned
discussion with LA resident Tony Millionaire whether I lived in LA or New York in order to find and
vandalize my car. Anyone who read their exchange would agree that they were serious.

How did you come to read this exchange between Hellman and Millionaire? Was this
publicly posted?

The exchange between Millionaire and Hellman WAS publicly posted.

The e-mail spam which went to at least 36 people twice for a total of at least 72 e-mails (the list keeps
growing as recipients disgusted with Danny Hellman step forward) was signed by "Ted Rall" and went
to my fellow cartoonists, editors and other people involved with comics. If you read it, Hellman
carefully copied my writing style. And when I attempted to notify the recipients of this listserv that
they were the victims of a hoax, he copied the trailer information at the bottom of my e-mail and sent
out a SECOND impersonation spam to "confirm" that it was legit. That's when I realized that this
person would not stop.

Here's what I don't understand. Hellman's legion of defenders claims the e-mail only
went out to his friends, and that they were in on the gag. So I fail to understand how the
entire thing was ever made public? If there were true, would they not have protected
Danny by not making it public?

Danny's defenders are lying about the "friend" thing. Only a tiny portion of the recipients were
Danny's friends -- many, like TCJ editor Kim Thompson, despise Danny. Also, the listserv he used,
onelist.com, had the list on its publically-available website, so the whole world could read it. At one
point typing the words "Ted Rall" into a search engine yielded his "private" prank. Danny claims that
he had created a "private" listserv, but this is patently not true. And even many of the Danny "friends"
who'd received it didn't know that I hadn't actually authored it.

It took more than 24 hours to track him down, but ultimately a little detective work did the trick. My
lawyer served him with two sets of cease-and-desist letters. He responded by promising to take the
listserv down immediately and sending out a retraction. But when the "retraction," which was
incredibly snotty and unrepentant, didn't go to the most important recipient, the op-ed editor of the
New York Times, I knew that he was scum. And when he failed to take down the listserv more than
three days later, I knew that he wasn't going to undo what he'd done. Nonetheless, I gave him TWO
WEEKS to undo the mess he made and go away--at that point, all I wanted was a few hundred bucks
to cover my legal fees--and he ignored me and kept right on going. Other people familiar with
Hellman told me he would never, ever stop. So I did what I'd told him I was going to do--I sued him to
defend myself from his hostile, aggressive assaults.

How has this matter affected your cartooning career?

More than anything else, this proved to be an immense distraction, followed by an immense expense.
I turned in my last graphic novel, 2024, more than five months late because of Danny Hellman's
shenanigans. A big part of this is that Danny Hellman continues to slander me with his crack-jack PR
campaign; if not for that I could simply let my lawyer do the heavy lifting while I concentrated on
cartooning. Hellman has given me an awful choice--get bogged down in endless arguments about this,
or let him set the tone with his repeated lies. This is time-consuming and exhausting, but it beats the
alternative. On the other hand, it has provided me with endless additional material about betrayal,
spin and evil on a firsthand basis, which does help my cartooning.

I mentioned LEGAL ACTION COMICS in my column this week, and stated simply my
opinion that Hellman did something wrong, and that rather than seeing dozens of
cartoonists pile on one of their own, it might be nice to just let the courts decide the
case. I woke up to an e-mail from a cartoonist I otherwise admire calling me a "fucking
idiot," so it seems like in the industry, you may be fighting an uphill battle. I've been
under assault for days now because of my brief statement of opinion.

Well, the important thing to understand is that there is no such thing as "the cartooning community."
People who do and read daily comics, magazine gag cartoons, editorial cartoons, Marvel Comics and
underground comics have little if anything in common. Danny Hellman's allies are all in that last
group, and they're loud, but most cartoonists don't know, much less care, about this case. That being
said, most people in editorial cartoons and comic strips consider Hellman's behavior reprehensible. If
this were a popularity contest, I'd win, but it's not a popularity contest, it's a court battle.

Also, Hellman's allies are really people who worship Art Spiegelman, and they're defending Hellman's
attacks as payback against me for questioning their God. And of course there are plenty of morons
who would be furious at Hellman had he done the same thing to them but don't care because it
happened to someone they're not friends with. It's misplaced loyalty, selfishness and old-fashioned
stupidity all mixed up in one icky bundle. I mean, imagine if I had sent out a spam to Art Spiegelman's
editors and colleagues under his name, trying to make him look bad? Imagine which side those
assholes would be on then!

The other factor, it seems to me, is that it was done over the internet. Somehow these
things that would be actionable and reprehensible in the real world seem to get a pass
from many people because they are carried out with a new technology that we haven't
quite acclimated ourselves to. Does that make any sense to you?

It does, absolutely. It's been noted that people say things to each other in "flame wars" that they
wouldn't dare say in person because they feel cozy and safe typing at home in their underwear. I think
some of these people feel that anything goes online--though most people take what goes on on the
Internet very literally and seriously. In Hellman's deposition he was asked whether he'd take an e-
mail seriously, or as seriously as a written letter, and he basically said he wouldn't. But most people
DO take it seriously. When I get an e-mail from "alandaviddoane," I expect it to be from you. And you
know what? It is. Hellman is my first exposure on online identity theft.

Sure, and as far as I am concerned, a threat is a threat. I fail, honestly, to see how this
has dragged out so long in the courts.

And you're right -- who cares if someone threatens to kill you online or by phone or in person?
(Hellman did that online, at TCJ, as well.) It's equally scary, all the more so because the thug in
question is hidden and you can't gauge what they're really all about. [It's drawn out so long] because
New York state's court system is overburdened -- there are 60,000 cases pending in my courthouse--
and because Hellman keeps filing motions whose sole purpose is to stave off the inevitable. It'll come
to trial within 6 months, probably, or 2-1/2 years after the fact, which is about average.

As you noted, a lot of alternative and underground cartoonists took part in Legal Action
Comics...have you gotten much support from your peers?

I don't want to give anything away at this point; suffice it to say that I am more than pleased with the
way my friends and colleagues have come to my aid.

All right, then. Let's talk about something a little more upbeat -- tell me about your
recent projects.

Whew! Okay -- well, as I mentioned, I have a new graphic novel out, 2024, which is coming out in
paperback now. It's a parody and updating of Orwell's 1984, with a heavy emphasis on the dumbing-
down of America. I also have a new cartoon collection, SEARCH AND DESTROY, which collects
150 cartoons from the last five years. And I just finished editing a really cool anthology of 21
alternative cartoonists that's coming out in the spring of 2002. I'm going on book tour now--leaving
tonight, actually--and when I get back I'm starting on a
(prose) novel. Oh, and, there's talk of doing a REAL
AMERICANS ADMIT: THE WORST THING I'VE
EVER DONE! PART 2...though I haven't decided
whether or not to do that yet.

What made you want to tackle the themes of

2024?

2024 was something I'd started and given up on

several times over the course of the last 15 years. I
always thought Orwell provided an excellent template
for a futuristic dystopian vision of the world but that
totalitarianism wasn't the big threat right now. Finally,
after lots of false starts, it occurred to me that
everything is the OPPOSITE of 1984 -- the problem isn't
an evil government trying to keep free-thinking folks
down but rather stultified media-fed drones dragging
down society and by extension government down to a
lowest common denominator from hell. That's really
the basis of 2024 -- it's all about empty consumerism
substituting for actual living.

Do you offer any solutions for this problem, short of knocking stupid people upside the
head?

I don't think there IS any other possible solution...do you?

Speaking as someone who has been a broadcast journalist for 15 years, no, probably
not. The media in general does try to encourage stupidity and conformity, and people
are all too willing to be patted on the head for "going along to get along."

And the irony is that editors and producers justify their LCD dross by claiming that, while they would
happily put out intelligent, challenging stuff, they don't because their audience is too stupid to
understand it. It's perfect!

What topics do we see covered in SEARCH AND DESTROY? Is it mainly political in

nature? Who are you searching for, and who are you destroying?

It's a collection of my syndicated newspaper cartoons, so the topics are all over the place -- Clinton,
Gore, Bush, globalization, friendship, terrorism, you name it. There are consistent themes, but I'm too
close to the material to objectively discern them.

How are you enjoying the governmental coup d'etat, while I have your ear?

Well, I enjoy it as a cartoonist, but as an American I am repulsed by the fact not only that Bush and
his Supreme Court suck-ups pulled off this illegal coup but that we're all sitting still for it. Gore is the
president. Bush should be behind bars, awaiting trial. If anything demonstrates the exquisite apathy
and resignation of the average American, it's the willingness of the public to let this go.

I'd have to agree with you there. I see the media (the left-wing media myth is exploded
by this, by the way) as utterly complicit with the illegal overthrow of the lawful
government every time they refer to Bush as "President."

Yes, that's true. The more you repeat a lie, the truer it becomes. Not to mention the assumption,
almost from day one of the post-election crisis, that Bush would become President -- it was only a
matter of figuring out how he'd pull it off.

Actually, I saw the assumption in the media a year before the election. I can remember
discussing it with Barry Windsor-Smith during the primary, and telling him "I told you
so," after the election. Bush had obviously been anointed a year before the election was
ever held, and it was just assumed (or more accurately, telegraphed) by the media that
he was the guy.

I did sometimes get that feeling but attributed it to leftie paranoia. But the message was clear and
uniform after November 7th, that's for sure.

Now, this prose novel you mention. Have you done much prose writing? Where did this
come from? Was it your idea, or was it suggested to you?

I write a weekly column, as well as longer feature pieces (see my, er, piece on Art Spiegelman, for
example!) now and then, whenever some publication will condescend to running my stuff. Also,
"Revenge of the Latchkey Kids," my Gen X manifesto, is mostly prose. The new novel is still secret--
don't want to embarrass myself in case it turns out to suck and I trash it -- but it's my idea, with the
notion of doing a novel encouraged by my beloved agent.

Any last thoughts as we wrap up the interview, Ted?

Just one, vis-a-vis the Hellman case: What disappoints me more than anything else is that people
think it's reasonable to accept one point of view without checking out the opposition. Danny would
have no allies whatsoever if they bothered to check out the other side in detail, but the facts are
inconvenient. I've learned from this; now I refuse to take sides until I've given the opposition a chance
to speak in detail. I recommend that kind of objectivity to those too busy or lazy to do the same.

Well, I recommend people check out your side on your web site and Hellman's on his,
and to both of you, I give you my profound hope that justice is done when the case is
resolved.

I am certain that it will be. It's terribly unfortunate that the two of us have had to spend so much time
and energy on this -- well, in Hellman's case it's a choice, but whatever.
Greg Rucka, 25 February 2000

Greg Rucka’s Whiteout and Queen and Country comics blazed new trails in non-superhero
comics, and earned my highest recommendation. His series of novels featuring Atticus Kodiak,
which I had not read at the time this interview was conducted, are fast-paced, a bit idiosyncratic,
and pulse-poundingly exciting. I await every new release like a kid on Christmas, and strongly
recommend them to you as well.

Alan David Doane: You are, right now, involved in quite a few projects, probably more
than I even know about --

Greg Rucka: (Laughs).

But you write a couple of fairly prominent comic book series, you're working on
Detective Comics featuring Batman and a series called Whiteout. And you're also a
novelist -- "real books," as we like to call 'em.

That about sums it up.

How the heck did you get involved in such a

diverse career?

Well, I got into comics because I'd been a fan, I guess

that's the way most people get into comics. And the way
I'd actually gotten the opportunity to do the work was as
a result of the novels. I got into the novels because I
have that pathological illness known as "Writing."
There's no real cure for it.

How many novels have you written now, is it

four?

There are actually a total of six that I've written. Four

have been released from Bantam Books about a
character named Atticus Kodiak. And then a fifth came
out in January, which was a novel of a year-long
Batman storyline that ran during 1999, called
Batman: No Man's Land. That's published by Pocket
Books. And another comic book company, Dark Horse
Comics, is actually going to be bringing out a short
novel about a character named Grendel Prime. That'll
be released in sometime in early summer.
And that's based on the Grendel comic book?

Yeah, for those people who might be aware of Matt Wagner's work, the Grendel stuff gets broken
down into sort of a contemporary storyline and a far-future storyline. This is a novel that takes place
in the far-future storyline.

That's interesting because it seems that one of the common threads of your work
whether it's comics or novels is this sort of crime fiction genre detective stories; is that
going to be carried over into this story set in the future?

Abstractly, in a fashion. Matt Wagner, who created the Grendel universe is a huge fan of the pulps,
as am I. And a lot of the crime fiction influence that I have, and that manifests in my writing, comes
from such sources. So, what we've got is ostensibly a science fiction novel, but it's really a very pulp
novel. I mean, we've got people crashing through doors with guns, and there are beautiful women in
dangerous situations, and the odd decapitation…basically everything you'd want from a good pulp
book.

Are there any pulp authors that stand out in your mind as having been a particular
inspiration?

I could roll off an arm's length list, but when it all comes down to it I always drop back to the
traditional group that gets lumped as "The Black Mask Boys." I'm a huge fan of Raymond Chandler,
obviously; Dashiell Hammett. Walter Gibson. Those are the names that normally just rattle off.

How do you balance the writing the comics with writing the novels? Are there different
skills you need to drag out for one as opposed to the other?

Yeah. With a novel, there is a luxury of time and space. And I cannot draw at all (laughs), so whenever
I'm doing a comic book, that's a very collaborative effort, versus a novel which is pretty much my own
baby from front to back. One of the things I love about working in comics is actually…there is an
element of an intellectual problem to scripting, which is…for example, if I do a Batman story I'm told
I have 22 pages. And in the course of those 22 pages, I want to get from point "A," the start of the
story, to the end of the story. And ideally in that time and in that space, tell a story that was not only
exciting, but is also emotionally engaging. It's kind of like playing an abstract game of chess in a way.
And that's really neat, especially compared with the free form of novels.

How do you divide up your workday, do you write at home?

I do. Right now I don't divide it up very well because I'm a new father. My wife and I had our first
child about a month ago…

Congratulations.

Thank you very much…

Enjoy this time when the child is sort of at your mercy, that changes very quickly, Greg
(laughs).

I think it's already changed, I feel that I'm at this child's mercy already, as the schedule has suffered.
Normally what happens is I work on "the project of the day." When I'm working on a novel I try to
clear as much time out of the schedule and then daily write to a fixed word amount, somewhere in the
neighborhood of three- to five-thousand words a day. And if that's uninterrupted, I can do that seven
days a week, I can get a novel done within a month.

So that's (true for both) comics or a novel?

Yeah, with comics it's somewhat similar but with comics there isn't really the word count issue. I use a
word count for the novels because it's that free-form. What I'll do with a comic book is normally try to
get as much done in the course of the day as I can. If the script is going very well I can get one finished
in under a day, and if it isn't going well it can take me up to two, three weeks.

When you're working on a story, be it a comic or a novel, how much of the tale do you
know before you sit down to write, how much of it do you already have figured out in
your head?

It normally depends on the story. There's certain ones, a good example would be Legends of the
Dark Knight #125, a Batman story, I knew far in advance of actually writing that story exactly what
was going to happen, almost on every page. And writing it was relatively simple as a result. More often
than not I like to go into just about anything I'm writing with an idea of where I'm headed, where I
want to end it. And especially with the novels I find that I have to do that or I else I get horribly lost.
With the comic books it tends to be a little more open-ended, mostly because of the nature of the
form, and the fact that I can say "You know what, this really isn't a one-issue story, I'm gonna make it
a two-issue story." And for the most part the people who edit my comic book work are very open to
that.

Let's talk a little bit about Whiteout, can you tell us a little bit about the milieu that's set in?

Yeah, Whiteout is a murder mystery set in Antarctica. And the main character is a United States
Deputy Marshal named Carrie Stetko, who is for the most part an unpleasant and antisocial person.
And she finds a dead body in the middle of a continent that really shouldn't have anybody on it, and
has to determine who killed the body and why. That's it in a nutshell. It's more nuanced than that of
course, but --

Carrie seems to be extremely well thought out, I'm guessing that she's a very real
character to you. Was she based on anyone real?

She's not based on anybody I know, but -- anyone who follows my work at all will determine very
rapidly that I like writing strong female characters. I enjoy that interaction for me. Maybe it's my
attempt as a male to understand women (laughs). Carrie isn't really based on anybody I know but like
all characters that I write, there are elements of her that come from people I know. There isn't any one
person that I can cite.

How much research did you do when plotting out Whiteout? Not only is the story
meticulously plotted, but it's also -- you get a real feel of verisimilitude from the story.
When you're done reading you really feel like you know what it might be like to spend a
few months somewhere you really don't want to be, like Antarctica.

That's vindicating. I did a lot of research, actually, for the initial series. I did a lot of reading, accounts
by people who had who'd wintered over at the South Pole at Amundsen-Scott Base, I read a variety of
the explorers biographies or their journals, I watched an awful lot of Nova and National Geographic.
And I even went so far, I think, I rented an episode of Pole to Pole, where Michael Palin finally reaches
Antarctica. I researched a lot because the details of the continent--and the continent is really a
character, certainly in the first series, more so in the follow-up series Whiteout: Melt. I wanted to
make sure I got as many details as I could correct. Especially since I hadn't been there, and whenever
I'm writing anything like that my greatest fear is that somebody who knows will read it and be like,
"Well that's totally wrong."

As you say, the setting really is a character.

In the first (series), the setting, as a
character, takes a big bite out of Carrie.
Don't want to spoil it for people who haven't
read it, but you certainly show the
consequences of what even a moment's lack
of attention could result in, in that setting.

Yeah.

How big a moment was that for you when

you were planning it out? Did you know that
was coming going in to it or did it sort of
come to you as you were writing along?

That came to me as I was writing. The moment

you're talking about happens in the second issue of
the four (in the first series). And I knew how the
first issue was going to end, and I didn't know how I
was going to get her out of the situation that she's in
at the end of that first issue. I had this wonderful
idea of the situation I wanted to put my protagonist
in, and I had no idea how she was going to escape it. And when I sat down to write the second one I
realized that it was going to be...it would be awfully convenient if she got out of it without a scratch--
and fairly dishonest. I don't think it would have been believable. So then I looked at the options and it
sort of became causal. Sort of came out of the story directly at that point.

And it really plays a big role in the rest of the tale. Is it a pleasant surprise when a detail
sort of jumps out like that and ends up sort of becoming a major part of the story?

Absolutely; it's one of the joys of telling any story, following instinct and determining that the instinct
was good (laughs), and sort of running with it from that point.

Are you planning future stories in the Whiteout universe?

I think I'm giving Carrie a rest after this. when we finished the first one the publishers at Oni and the
artist I work with, a very talented guy named Steve Leiber, both parties came and said "Let's do
another story about Carrie." And at the end of Whiteout I had felt that her personal story had pretty
much reached a good resolution. I didn't want to tell another story if I didn't feel that it had to be told.
And then the idea for Melt appeared, and I was like, "Okay, this is a story that Carrie should tell, and
there's a character issue that does need to be resolved here so I can address that." But at this point, I
think--she's been through a lot. I think I want to give her some time off. I'm not precluding the
opportunity to do one at a later date, but there's nothing planned right now.

As a reader, it seems to me, I think there's tons more stories that you could tell about
her character, so I hope that eventually you get back to that.

I'm keeping an eye open. The current hope with Oni is actually to do a series with another character
from Whiteout, with Lily. And to start that at some point later this year.

She was a spy, right?

Yeah, and I'm a big fan of espionage stories. I guess it goes hand in hand with being a big fan of
mystery and crime stories. So I'm hoping to do sort of a spy comic that would be somewhere in
between James Bond and John LeCarre. So it would be--oh, this is going to sound pretentious--it
would be a "smart" spy series, I suppose.

I'm glad you said John LeCarre, I was afraid you were going to say Austin Powers.

No (laughs). The first issue that I have in mind, and actually I'm going to start scripting it in the next
week, the spy, Lily, has to kill somebody. And the whole issue, she'll do the assassination at the start
of the issue, and the rest of the issue is her having to get out of the country. As all of the law
enforcement and the military in the country that she's done this in mobilizes to stop the assassin. and
I want to intercut that with the political tension that arises as a result of the job. So it will jump
between her in-country and back to London where her controllers are having to deal with a lot of very
angry people in the government.

All right, you've got me hooked.

Cool!

Let's switch gears a little, how'd you get involved in writing Batman?

It's a vaguely nepotistic connection. I came to Oni Press by way of an introduction from a friend who
worked at DC. And that friend introduced me to the then-editor in chief of Oni, a guy named Bob
Schreck. I did Whiteout, Whiteout came out after my second novel and before my third one, in
between Finder and Smoker. I was in New York visiting this friend at DC, and I had been asked if I
had any interest in writing Batman and I said yes. So this friend went into Group Editor Denny
O'Neil's office -- Denny is the Batman Ruler, and brought my first two books with her to pitch me.
And apparently got as far as "Denny, I don't know if you've read --" and Denny got out from behind
the desk and demanded to know where she had acquired the second book, because he'd read the first
one and hadn't been able to find the second and he really liked my writing. That led kind of very easily
to a lunch with Denny, and we hit it off, and that opened the door.

No Man's Land was your entry into the Batman universe of writers -- was it
intimidating to not only now be writing one of the most famous, iconic characters in the
history of mankind, but also to be doing it in the middle of a fairly important storyline
that sort of determined the future of the character?

Yeah, very much so. And even now I wonder if I did right by Batman and by the fans. It was a very
daunting place to be dropped into the middle of, because No Man's Land had been at that point pretty
much plotted but none of the scripts had been turned in yet. And I had done a test script for Denny
that wasn't a No Man's Land story, and it was very well received. And at that point he turned around
and said "Okay, start giving him No Man's Land work." So all of a sudden I was being handed outlines
saying "in these issues, the following things have to happen. Do it however you like." Not really
knowing enough to make sure that I was getting all my details correct. And I mis-stepped a couple
times over the course of the year, and oh, boy the fans were very quick to point that out.

Is that a restrictive way to work? It doesn't sound like it would be very conducive to the
creative process to have to sort of meet those landmarks, or was it just sort of a small --

Oddly, it was kind of liberating. Where I am right now I get to write pretty much whatever I'd like to
for Detective. Last year when they gave me an assignment, there was a sense of "we are all moving to
a place." So there was an outline from which to work. And since that's how I tend to write my novels,
I'll outline my novels in a very detailed fashion before I start them -- it was a style of writing that I was
familiar with. And once again it goes back to sort of the chess game analogy, which is, "Okay, these
things need to be accomplished." It becomes an element of -- it's like getting pieces of a recipe and
being told "Okay, make the soufflé." The soufflé may be bad or good, but all these ingredients need to
go into it.

You gotta have the eggs; make sure the eggs are in there, Greg.

Yeah. And it's fun. It's a different kind of writing, but it's a lot of fun.
What's your vision now that you're free of the constrictions of No Man's Land, have you
got an overall vision of where you want to take the characters?

I'm not overly concerned with the health of Batman and Bruce Wayne. Those characters, and I do
view them as vaguely separate, are in very good hands. There are plenty of other writers aside from
me who work with them and I think Batman right now is in a very good place. There are characters
that surround him, and they're the ones that I worry for. For example, Commissioner Gordon, I feel
has -- he needs care. He has been much abused, I think, in the past several years. He's somebody that
I really enjoy writing. And because of my crime bent, one of the things that I've certainly brought to
Detective is perhaps -- not a very strong sense of mystery to the stories, but they are almost
universally crime stories, dealing with aspects of crime, dealing with the police in Gotham City as
much as Batman. And that really is another element I'm intrigued by. What it's like to be a police
officer in a city where there's this vigilante running around basically doing your job better than you.
Where does that put you? And how do you reconcile your job with the fact that if things are going
badly somebody's going to go up to the roof and turn on the giant lamp that'll put a bat up in the sky
and call for the cavalry.

And knowing your affection for crime stories, I was pleasantly surprised to find Ra's Al
Ghul pop up in this most recent issue of Detective that's out, one of my all-time
favourite villains.

Oh, Ra's is great.

Was it intimidating to be writing this and then handing it for editing to the guy who
invented him?

Oh, yeah. (Laughs). Oh yeah. I'm also doing a mini-series about one of the Bat-characters, Huntress.
A Huntress/Batman mini-series called Cry For Blood. And in that mini-series I'm using a
character named The Question, and Denny wrote the definitive work on The Question, so it's very
daunting to write a script and then hand the material to the guy who created these people and be like,
"Is that okay?" And the best compliments I've received are when Denny sends me a note or calls me
back and says "That's really good. I wouldn't have done it like that, and I should've," or "That's exactly
what I would have wanted to see." It feels great.

Speaking of the Huntress, there seems to be, and I want to be careful how I say
this…she was one of my favourite characters back when she was Bruce Wayne's
daughter, which was a long, long time ago and there's been a lot of revisionist history
since then. In the last few years there seems to be a backlash against her character by a
lot of fans. Is it a difficult task to take her on and try to make people enjoy her?

Well, this is probably gonna get me in trouble. I like that character a lot, and as I said earlier I like
writing strong female characters. She is very much that. And that is one of the things that has held
over from the original incarnation of the Huntress as the daughter of Bruce Wayne and Catwoman.
So, when I write her I just want to be fair to her. I want to tell a good story about her and I want--I see
a lot of depth to that character, I want that depth to come across. Now if readers respond to that,
great. If they don't, we'll know. They won't buy the book and I will be told, "Okay, Greg, do not go near
Huntress again." Since DC writes the check they get to say that and I listen.

Is that just my observation, the reaction to her, or is that something you've seen as
well?

No, I think that's a very correct assessment. There are a lot of people that really don't like that
character for a number of reasons. There are instances where writers have done things with her,
myself included, that have outraged fans. Comics are very interesting in that the fan investment in the
story and in the characters is exceptionally strong. And with the addition of the Internet now,
feedback now is so ever-present and so ready. Almost everybody who's a comic fan feels they know the
characters, and they know what they would do, and they know why they would do them. And they're
exceptionally unforgiving if they feel a writer or artist has misinterpreted the character one way or
another. They feel very strongly about their interpretations. And it is sometimes an uphill battle to
argue that "This is an alternate take on the character but this is just as valid as the take that has been
presented before."

You mentioned the hardcover novel of No Man's Land…how daunting a task was it to
compile a year's worth of comics into one single book?

Very. (Laughs). That's the quick answer.

I noticed and I applaud you for crediting all the writers and artists that were involved in
No Man's Land over that one year. Did you just have to go through all those comic
books and take notes and put it all together? What was the process there?

Pretty much that. When I started writing the novel, not all the comics had been completed, though the
outline was in place and a lot of the material had come in. So, one of the first things I had to do was
determine what things I was going to cut. Because there was no way I was going to be able to take 60
issues with all the characters, and storylines and plot points and turn it into a cohesive novel under,
say, 2000 pages. And a novel requires different things than a comic maxi-story. There had to be a
throughline that was easy to follow, and I wanted to introduce some thematic elements. So I did a lot
of cutting. Almost everything that remained or everything that was cut, the choices were very
deliberate and I tried to incorporate as much as possible.

It's very jarring, to go as a reader of novels and a reader of comic books, to combine the
two as a reader, I can't imagine what it's like as a writer. But you very quickly assuage
those problems. The reader gets very quickly enmeshed into the storyline, and accept
that yes, these are comic book characters, I have to kind of switch gears in my brain,
and sort of picture this now. My favourite scene so far is when the Joker and Two Face
escape from Arkham Asylum --
I love that scene. That's a scene I'll read when I'm doing readings and signings.

Was that in the original comics?

It wasn't. And this goes right to the point, which is, I wanted to make certain that the novel was going
to be accessible for people who never read comic books. And I didn't want to sort of nod and wink to
the reader and say "It's just a comic, these are silly characters." I figured that if I took it as seriously as
possible, and I tried to present it as factually as possible, to introduce an element of realism to the
material, then the reader would respond to that. And comics or not, they would at least enter into the
story with an open mind. The sequence that you're talking about was really important because those
characters had to be introduced very early on, as they're both very critical to the overall story. And I
wanted to get across again, very quickly, what was motivating them, how they work, why the Joker is
so dangerous, and also why he's called "The Joker." And Two Face is a personal favourite as far as the
villains go, he is my favourite villain.

You really handled, especially his dialogue, amazingly well. It's very difficult to explain,
but they really came to life in a way that they never have in the comics for me, especially
the Joker, who I have always had a hard time accepting. Maybe it comes from growing
up with Cesar Romero on TV.

Me too, actually, I find him an exceptionally difficult character to work with.

Thank you! I'm glad it's not just me.

No, it isn't. And I have a theory as to that. With Batman, one can--the conception of Batman is such
that one can make mistakes with the character and the reader will forgive it. You can, for example, get
say one word out of every ten of dialogue wrong, and the reader will go, "Ehhh, okay." With Joker his
conception is, I think, so individual to different people, that it's very hard to say what makes a good
Joker portrayal. But they know a bad one the second they see it. I never really understood the
character until I was writing the book. And in writing the novel I thought I got a good grip on him.
Because, it's all about the joke.

Yes, and that was also the key theme in one of the most obvious, excellent Joker stories
that comes to mind, the Alan Moore --

Yes, The Killing Joke.

And also, I think, Paul Dini has a pretty good handle on that.

Paul is actually, I think, the guy who writes the definitive Joker today. I actually met with him during
the No Man's Land writing before I had to do some Joker stories. And I said "I have no idea how to get
in on this character, help me." And it was he who said, "Well, it's always the gag, he's always setting up
the next gag. And the audience that he most wants validation from is Batman." He resents like hell
that Batman won't laugh.
That's a terrific, terrific insight into that character. And something that's sorely lacking
in probably 80 to 90 percent of the stories about him.

I think so too.
Johnny Ryan, 29 February 2004

If there’s a creator in comics with less respect for, well, everything than Johnny Ryan, I have yet to
encounter their work. His Angry Youth Comics almost defies description, but I always find it
defiant and outrageous.

Alan David Doane: What's the value of anger in youth?

Johnny Ryan: It's always been

the natural way of things. Young
people reach a certain age when
they look around at their world
and see how boring and shitty it is.
They want to destroy it. All the
great movements in art were a
result of this.

Is there any subject you've

ever considered doing a strip
on but decided it was too
controversial to tackle?

Usually, if I second guess an idea

as being too controversial then I
know for sure that I should do it. I
think part of a "comedian's" job is
to get people riled up.

What's the last really

disgusting thing you did or
saw in your personal life?

My girlfriend's brother came to

visit last night and brought along
a "co-worker." The "co-worker"
smelled like ass so bad I thought I
was going to faint. Before he left
he left a big black loogy in my
sink.

Who would you say are your biggest influences, and what did they contribute to your
style?
There's a lot, but I'll try and comment on a few. Robert Crumb: Probably my main influence. His
sketchbooks are filled with lots of funny, wacky and terrifying stuff. If people think I'm disgusting and
retarded they need to read this shit. This guy's the master! Peter Bagge: The best writer in comics
ever. His dialogue always seems so natural, sharp and real. I try to aspire to that. I also worked on a
couple issues of the now deceased SWEATSHOP, so I'm sure a few of his "tricks" rubbed off on me.
Kaz: This guy's been doing his weekly strip UNDERWORLD for over 10 years and it's still fantastic.
I love his stubble-covered urban landscapes. When I'm drawing the garbage strewn all over Loady
McGee's shack I usually use Kaz strips for reference. Ernie Bushmiller: NANCY is probably my
favorite comic strip ever. I love the way it looks. I love the way all the gags are completely retarded
and simple. It's just the way a comic should be. Gary Panter: This guy's a madman. I love the way he
combines high-brow and low-brow art. I recently got one of his mini-comics in which Henry "The
Asshole" Webb is trying to escape from a crazed squirrel that really really wants his "nuts." It's such a
brilliant yet simple idea. A tale as old as time. Man vs. Nature. I wish I thought of it. I often find
myself reading his stuff and thinking that.

Some others are Dan Clowes, Charles Schulz, Tony Millionaire, The 3 Stooges, Sam Henderson, Ivan
Brunetti, VIP, Little Rascals, Mad Magazine, etc...

What do you see as "The Johnny Ryan Legacy" to the comics artform?

Comics don't have to be serious, meaningful, award-winning objects of art. They can be infantile, ugly,
retarded and stupid.
Robert Scott, 16 February 2008

Robert Scott is the owner of San Diego’s Comickaze comic shop (pictured below), as well as the head
of the Comic Book Industry Alliance, a national group comprised mainly of comic book retailers
within the direct market. Robert and I have both had strong opinions about retailing and buying
comics, he from the perspective of a longtime retailer, and myself from just about thirty years of
experience as a consumer of comics in and out of the direct market. We have often disagreed on
what the future of comics retailing should look like, but I think we both agree that we'd like that
future to be bright and to include an even larger audience for comics than currently exists. At the
time of this interview, I had been passionately lobbying for better, more professional and inclusive
comic book stores (something I still feel strongly about), and this interview (and the Jim Crocker
one earlier in the proceedings) came out of that effort.

What is your background? Where did you grow up, and what was your childhood like?

I'm a native San Diegan, having lived almost exclusively in San Diego for 45 years. Both of my parents
loved to read for enjoyment and with their help I started reading very early. Most of my reading was
whatever the folks had around the house and although my father was an avid sci-fi reader, the only
comics he ever brought home were titles like Star Trek, Dark Shadows and Ripley's Believe it or Not,
but even those were probably limited to sick bed reading. My wife and kids don't really understand
my love of comics but my daughter did intern at IDW last year.

When did you start reading comics?

I didn't really read any superhero comics until I was around 12. I had a friend whose father brought
home stripped cover issues from the supermarket he worked at. Mostly DC fare and the only one I
really enjoyed was Superboy and the Legion of Superheroes. I didn't really become a fan of the
medium until Junior High although the first attraction this time was monetary. I saw a friend offering
another student $10.00 for two comics that said 25 cents on the cover. Having collected sports cards,
it made me curious about what made comics worth more than cover price and I thought if I read
some, I might notice some commonality. Soon, I was so enamored with the stories I was reading that
future value was no longer the motivation for reading comics. Most of what I was reading was Marvel
but occasionally I'd check out the Legion or Warlord and every once in awhile I'd get ahold of some
Crumb or Freak Brothers books too.

In early 1980 while at college, I was growing pretty bored with comics and almost quit reading them
for good. Fortunately I came across Heavy Metal and Marvel's Epic Illustrated. It was the first
time I actually thought of comics as art and realized that comics for adults didn't have to be
synonymous with drugs and sex, although those still seemed to creep in. Those magazines saved
comics for me.

I wrote and published my first comic work, The End for AFC Studio, in 1999 and co-published
Wasting the Dawn with IDW Publishing in 2005.

How did you come to be a comic shop owner?

The friend who tried to buy those 25 cent comics in Junior High School and I had always felt that we
were destined to be comic moguls. Meeting back up again in college we began buying quantities of hot
projects like Wolverine, Titans/X-Men, and Alpha Flight #1, from local retailers at a discount
and after a short wait would begin trading them back to retailers for store credit, essentially making
our hobby pay for itself. Soon we were looking for better deals and found that a local distributer,
Pacific Comics, would sell to us wholesale and once that happened, a local retailer offered access to
back issue overstock that he had stored in garages all over San Diego. It was on consignment, meaning
we didn't pay unless/until it sold, so we started hitting a local swap meet with our first retail venture.
Over the next few months, as we built a following for the back issues we would get requests for new
comics too, and having the wholesale account, we decided to give it a go. When it worked, it worked
well; but weather conditions weren't always conducive for outdoor sales of comics and we decided to
open a shop, The Comic Alternative, with too little money and a few thousand back issues --not a
terribly original origin.

Unfortunately, neither of us had any actual business training and we were both going to college, I was
actually also working two part time jobs too, which was really making it difficult to meet our business
responsibilities and after a couple of years, we packed it in and I pretty much left comics behind. It is
not a method I would endorse for anyone else.

Please tell me about Comickaze and what the store is like.

Comickaze has evolved quite a bit as I have come to understand the intricacies of the industry better.
What started as a 900 square foot Comic and Card store in the early ‗90s with a focus on mainstream
comics and back issues and single sports and Pokemon cards and pogs, has grown into a 2400 square
foot comics superstore where speculating on future value has given way to the promotion of the comic
medium in all of its many genres and formats, as an incredible form of entertainment.

We have a 100 square foot kids‘ corner in the front window that gives families access to hundreds of
kids‘ and all ages comics and graphic novels and giving parents a buffer from themes they might not
want their children dealing with yet. We also stock toys, urban vinyl statues and related, items that
give "civilians" an excuse to enter a comic shop they might feel they'd outgrown many years ago. Once
inside, they also find a selection of Manga so large that during Comic Con, the Borders nearest the
convention sent a delegation of folks from Viz Japan to visit us after they were disappointed by the
Borders manga selection.

We have also replaced a majority of our back issue bins and displays with bookshelves to house the
largest selection of mainstream and indie graphic novels and related prose work in San Diego County.
We have been honored as the Best of San Diego by multiple publications over the last three years and
I was the first, and only, San Diego retailer to be an Eisner judge.

Do you have a philosophy that guides you in your decisions about the store?

Somewhat. I want everyone who visits Comickaze to be able to find a book or item they will enjoy,
even -- especially -- if they are not already comic readers. We're constantly asked what are the hot
books, which ones will be worth more in the future and our response is that the value of a comic is in
reading and enjoying them, just like prose books, movies and music.

I also have a philosophy in my role as a retailer and while that role does involve the promotion of the
comic medium, publishers need to remember that retailers are not the ones responsible for promoting
titles. That is the publisher‘s role, just as it is for music labels, movies and video games. My role as a
retailer is to use my resources to sell my store as the logical venue for purchasing comics, in the same
way that retailers that sell Coca Cola. Levis and Chevys try to establish themselves as the go-to stores
for those items. And just like Coca Cola, Levi and Chevy, publishers need to step up to their
responsibility to provide co-op and other support to retailers if they want retailers to include their
product in their promotional efforts.

It confounds me that so many people applaud small press publishers who create work without being
able to adequately support it and yet rail against (all) retailers for being unprofessional. I wonder how
well most folks could do their job well if most of it was reliant on product provided by folks who were
producing that product as a side job. I don't care how bad a job anyone thinks a retailer is doing, the
fact that they have committed to a lease and inventory puts them head and shoulders above many
creators in terms of commitment and responsibility. To somewhat paraphrase you, Professional comic
publishers are well-organized. Professional comic publishers provide accurate solicitation info.
Professional comic publishers do not release product without also creating demand for it. Professional
comic publishers ship on time, all the time.

Professional comic publishers have prices clearly marked and up to date barcodes on all merchandise.
Professional comic publishers operate their business in accordance with local, state and federal laws,
including labor and employment laws. Professional comic publishers do not favor one genre or sub-
genre over another.

How many other stores/outlets for comics are there in your immediate area?

We have five stores five to ten minutes away and another dozen or so within 20-30 minutes. About
half have been around as long or longer than our 15 years.

Do you visit other comic book stores to find out what your competitors are doing? How
do you keep up with the competition?

Nah, I don't visit other shops as often as I used to do. It always seemed to make them unnecessarily
nervous. Now I actually look to other retail for ideas. I don't just want to be recognized as the best
Comic Shop in San Diego, as we have been for the last three years, I want to be recognized as one of
the best retail experiences. So I take notes everywhere I shop and/or see interesting ways to excite
customers. I also have a large number of customers who use us as a second or third shop because our
location isn't convenient but they know we'll have things available that they aren't finding anywhere
else. I love to talk to these people about what they do and don't like about their regular shops. I attend
San Diego Comic Con, where I'm also an Eisner sponsor, and Book Expo America, a book industry
trade show; and this year maybe SPX in Baltimore too, to find product that I know other shops won't
be carrying. I also work with many incredible retailers every day in the Comic Book Industry Alliance,
including just about every winner of the Eisner Spirit of Retailing Award.

In other words, I try to maintain such a fantastic selection of exciting product that every person in San
Diego will want to visit us if we can make them aware that we exist.

Convention sales have recently been an issue in the ongoing online discussion about
comics retailing. You‟re located near the biggest North American convention, held
every summer in San Diego. Have you had customers buy something at a comic book
convention that they had previously pre-ordered through your comic book store? How
did you handle the situation?

Yes, we run into this problem every year.

You ask about losing pre-orders, something that often comes up in these discussions. Personally, I
don't believe customers should have to pre-order their comics sight unseen months in advance nor do
I want to see comic shops forced to hoard customers in that manner. Please also understand that
while I don't feel an ownership of my customers, I do believe that publishers owe it to me, and other
retailers who support them, not to usurp our efforts, especially by taking unfair advantage of their
ability to sell direct, uncontested and without notice, to the consumer. I feel publishers have even
more of a duty not to compete with retailers when they are not offering things that are standard in the
book industry in support of their work, things like galleys, creator signings and co-op just to name a
few.
Ironically if you asked most retailers in the area if it affects them, they'd likely say no but that is
misleading because it's mainly small press publishers who are engaged in the pre-selling and we are
the only store in the area to embrace those publishers‘ works.

How do we deal with it? Not well so far as I've failed to impress on the publishers that pre-selling their
product doesn't affect the 90 percent of my competitors who don't stock it, but it seriously hurts my
chances to sell this product to customers that we've cultivated over the years, especially when they
have the added opportunity to get them signed at the show. I've also failed to help them understand
that there is no evidence that their claim of "pre-sales as outreach" doesn't stand up in light of their
claims that pre-sales are needed because sales onto the DM aren't growing for them.

It really shouldn't be that hard to understand that if they are already struggling so much selling this
work in the DM, that pre-selling into that market is going to capture sales that would've been made in
DM shops but unfortunately most publishers seem to feel that their need trumps everything and
everyone else. I believe this is shortsighted and destructive both to the publisher and retailers,
regardless of how much money it brings in the short term because it closes off avenues for growth.

When I have five or more copies of a new release I can make a display on our suggested reading table
or endcaps, or at the very least I can give it a face-out display on the wall, giving it a stronger
opportunity to be seen by our customers. Reduce my immediate need to 2 copies or less and after the
first week it moves to its spine out home on the wall until it can justify something better. That's a fact
of life when stocking thousands of titles with a finite budget and display space.

That said, I also believe any problems between publishers and retailers should be transparent to the
consumer, so to keep them from having to choose sides and feeling uncomfortable about something
they should be enjoying, I try to find non-confrontational ways to "influence" my customers. One is by
making Comickaze feel like a comic convention everyday without the $30.00 per day entry fee. We
help our customers find the books most likely to excite and engage them. even when they don't know
what that book is themselves. We offer such a wide range of product, it's rare that an entire family
cannot find something they want. We've also taken to asking customers about their convention plans
and when it happens that they mention looking forward to getting a new release from a favorite
creator, we usually ask them to mention that they usually get that creator's work at Comickaze, so that
the creator knows we support them.

How much of a problem are convention sales for retailers?

This isn't a black and white question.

First let me make it clear that my concern is not convention sales, it is convention pre-sales or the
direct sale of any product that has not already been distributed into the book or direct market. If I
haven't motivated customers who shop with me to buy a title from Comickaze, there's no way I can be
upset if they buy anywhere else. In fact that is the one action that I can justify as outreach, even
though the numbers don't bear out the outreach claim too well. If a customer has never been exposed
to a creator or a series before, and they discover it at a convention, that can be a huge thing for
consumer, publisher, creator and even retailers. But only if the experience is leveraged to its full
ability, which it just isn't. First of all if a customer is seeing a work or creator for the first time, there is
no reason for them to need the newest work because every work is new to them. If a customer is
already familiar with the work or creator, chances are it is because of the efforts of a retailer and most
likely a comic retailer. What kind of reward is it to make it harder for that retailer to make that sale in
the future especially, if publishers are to be taken at their word, when even with pre-sales they are
doing no better than breaking even? That is the opposite of outreach, bringing to mind the image of a
snake eating its tail.

And if it is such a strong business move, why do so many major vendors of all kinds, eschew direct
sales in favor of sending the consumer into a retail venue? A venue that is available to support the
product and the consumer 365 days a year?

Seriously, if the outreach was working, we'd be seeing an increase of the number of DM stores
carrying small press titles and an increase in the number of copies initially ordered.

Finally, the biggest problem for me is that there just aren't a lot of small press blockbusters, so that
losing even three to five sales on a $15-plus, or two to three times that on a Bone or Blankets graphic
novel, is not only a big loss immediately, but since I'm already committed to buying those books, that
money is tied up in those now unnecessary copies. It can't be used to re-stock copies of other titles I
carry, some of which may be from that same publisher, or for store maintenance, promotion or
myriad other things that we need to do daily. I am now forced to carry product whose demand has
been diminished rather than re-ordering it as needed and if you multiply that by the half dozen or
more projects and publishers it happens with each convention season, it is a much tougher hit than
most seem to understand.

What actions do you think publishers should take to mitigate the problem? Is there any
incentive retailers can offer in order to mediate a compromise?

Honestly I believe that they should eliminate pre-sales. One publisher has already said that they see
more buzz on books released the week before a convention than the ones that are pre-sold cold. It
makes sense to me too. When a book is available through hundreds (or thousands) of venues as well
as media prior to a convention, it allows the buzz to begin as well, surging forward and driving folks to
the publisher/creator at the show. It makes them a higher priority because folks have had time to
check them out, publishers don't need to rely on chance to get notice. It is an active behavior, not a
passive one.

But here are a few things that might assuage some of the enmity. Every publisher knows well ahead of
time which shows they are attending. They should also know which shops in the area are supporting
them and readily provide a list of these stores to everyone coming to their booth letting the customer
know where they can get other books in their catalogue the rest of the year. They should also let all
retailers know ahead of time what creators will be attending the show, allowing retailers to make
displays of work by those creators promoting the opportunity to meet the creator. They should
provide an opportunity for retailers to obtain signed book plates or something similar to be placed in
store stock as a bonus with purchase. These are things that require publishers and retailers to work
together for mutual benefit.

What kinds of comics would you say your customers are looking for most often? How
wide a variety are they looking for?

I think everyone is looking for entertaining work which makes for a very wide variety. They just don‘t
necessarily know it when they come in. See, we're set up in a center that gives us access to folks
walking off a meal, waiting for an appointment or class to start or running errands. Because of our
merchandising we get a lot of folks coming in who don't even know comics are still being created, let
alone that Spidey, Supes, and Bugs are no longer the extent of what the medium offers. Because of
that, and our efforts to push the envelope in the products we offer, we can be pretty confident that we
can find something of interest for anyone motivated enough to enter our shop.

What do you do to stay knowledgeable about the comics your customers are interested
in? What publications do you read? Websites?

This one is tougher as we do carry so many titles. Basically as I mentioned, there are certain shows I
make great effort to attend, I talk to and listen to my customers, asking them questions about books
they've heard of but are below my radar. I look at creator web sites and of course invite creators to
share info in the CBIA. Other retailers in the CBIA are also very helpful in recommending new work. I
am also working on a new site for creators and retailers to work together in a different method then
the CBIA.

How many employees do you have?

Ideally three, but at the moment just one and a half, but I hope to rectify that shortly.

Do you require your staff to stay knowledgeable about upcoming product? What tools
are available to help them to answer customer questions?

No requirements yet. Generally they are hired based on product knowledge, usually different
strengths than already exist. We engage each other sharing books that we appreciate and pass
customers to the most appropriate person to answer a question or let them know we don't know but
will get them the answer. Between our own reading, distributor, Google, Wikipedia and publisher
websites we have a very good knowledge base to pull from.

What would you estimate is the ratio of male to female customers in your store?

Probably about 60-40. With all of the anecdotal evidence I see online, it always cracks me up when I
notice that I'm the only male in the shop.

What is the ratio of male to female on your staff?

Haven't had a female employee yet.

Do you use distributors other than Diamond? What strengths and weaknesses do you
see in purchasing stock through other sources?

Yes, we have a handful of distributors. Strengths are being able to obtain inventory that is not carried
by or is out of stock at another source, different terms like discount, pay terms or returnability, and
speed of procurement. Weaknesses are the possibility of reduction of discount when splitting orders,
creating more work by having to track multiple distributors. There's probably more examples on each
side but these spring immediately to mind.

How many of your customers are kids or parents buying for kids? What are the best-
selling kids‟ titles at Comickaze?

We have a large number of kid-oriented purchases and they are spread over many publishers.
Naruto, Bleach, Runaways, Franklin Richards, Marvel Adventures, Teen Titans Go,
Legion of Super Heroes in the 31st Century, Owly, Abadazad, Sonic, Star Wars Clone
Wars Adventures, Archie and Gemstone's Disney books are all titles that are on heavy order here.

Do you offer subscriptions or a pull list to customers who pre-order through the
Diamond Previews catalog? Do you offer them any sort of discount, or benefits for pre-
ordering? Some shops give Previews away free to subscribers, for example, or hold
"secret sales" announced in newsletters and such.

Yes, we offer a pull service for those who meet a minimum order but we don't rely on it over much and
do not offer a discount in conjunction with it. The service itself is the benefit but as I mentioned
earlier, I don't want my customers to feel that they need to preorder to get the books they want and
ultimately that is why subscriptions and pulls exist. We generally maintain at least three months
worth of ongoing titles and reorder at least once a week for items we've sold through on, this allows
our customers to actually see and make an informed buying decision that allows them to be excited
about the books they take home, instead of forcing them to take books that looked good in solicitation
but not so good on arrival.

What is the best experience you've ever had with a customer?

Hard to pick one but the ones where a tag-along non-comic reader comes back to tell us that they
really enjoyed a book we suggested and are back for the next are awesome. There's also the parents
who are happy that their child is now reading without being told to or the people who started
shopping with us when they were children and are now shopping with their own children. I don't
really focus too much on things like this because its all a byproduct of doing our job well.

What is the worst?

Having to explain why the books they invested so heavily in years ago have no real resale value today.
Journalist Tom Spurgeon recent commented that retailers “should be selling the most
comics in any format,” and yet when it comes to manga, for example, they are not. Have
the majority of comic book stores, in your opinion, adjusted well to the development of
the graphic novel market?

I'd have to disagree with the absolute of Tom's statement if not the intent. It would be both fantastic
and just, if DM retailers sold the most comics in any format, unfortunately over the last 20 years, the
DM retailer has been treated less as an opportunity and more as a necessary evil, which puts a huge
obstacle in the way. It also doesn't help that the entire market from distributor to publisher/creator to
retailer exist in a protracted infancy, seemingly reinventing itself every 5-10 years since its inception
but mostly reactively rather than proactively. Also remember that there are only around 2,000 DM
shops and the list of book stores reporting to Bookscan alone is over 7,400. That market is easily five
times the size of the DM, it should outsell the DM but according to the recent Bookscan report on
graphic novel sales in the book market, it appears that despite tremendous sales of a few Manga
series, the 2007 book market had less than a 2 percent growth over 2006, whereas the DM grew over
18 percent! If anecdotal evidence is to be believed, the DM actually outsold the book market in dollars
by about 1.7 times, $370 million to $220 million. Possibly close to double, when you consider that the
DM sales number is what sold through Diamond and doesn't count books the DM buys through book
distributors.

For the purpose of your question though, neither publishers nor the last remaining full service retailer
have instituted any of the policies that help the book market to finally and profitably offer comics.
This is probably the biggest reason for the obvious disparity between the sales of periodical comics
and graphic novels in book stores.

Book stores have many different types of books and the ability to use them in different ways. Some
can be used as loss leaders, others can be ridden while hot, discontinued when not. DM shops are
specialists; we don't often have the luxury of discontinuing lines or using them as loss leaders, we're
just "supposed to" carry it all and then find buyers. We also lack the ability to return stale
merchandise.

You'd think that publishers would want to support the market providing guaranteed sales but we're
not sexy enough, so instead Point of Purchase displays, Co-Op advertising and product placement
dollars are lavished on the book market who despite receiving all of this extra support also maintain
the ability to return any unsold product. These inequities will continue to inhibit the DM efforts thus
increasing the likelihood that most new DM shops will continue to be opened by fans first and
business people second, as well as ensuring that most of those shops will make the decision to support
the big four publishers who provide the most recognizable work., because only a fan(atic) would work
so hard and invest so much for so little return. This is why there is still no national comic chain.

The graphic novel market by virtue of its price point and its lack of "collectability" is currently a better
match for the book market but that does seem to be changing, if slowly. In the future, DM retailers
will need to embrace graphic novels in whatever genre appeal to their customer base because it will be
increasingly more difficult to cover their overhead $2.99 at a time and TPBs allow for more casual
buyers. It would also be nice to see more DM shops offer special orders to provide customers with
book they have access to but have decided not to stock. We do this with videos and gaming
handbooks.

How can direct market shops better attract readers of non-superhero comics? Do they
have a responsibility to?

As I said above, I don't think it is the DM retailers' job to attract readers of any specific genre, any
more so than it is the responsibility for a movie theater to attract viewers for any genre of movie. If
anything they should probably be considered more akin to a radio station where the program director
or owner has decided to emphasize a specific genre. A top 40 station doesn't necessarily signal the
death of the music industry nor does the dearth of classical stations. In that vein, a comic shop‘s
acceptance of or aversion to spandex, really shouldn't be used as a statement on the DM retailer.
Retailers will always order what they believe they can sell and probably what they can sell easily, in
quantity and profitably.

The responsibility for promoting the work to a level that it attracts enough consumer support that
retailers believe they can sell it easily, in quantity and profitably must fall on the publisher. In the
meantime, while publishers are using their resources to promote their work, retailers do have the
responsibility of utilizing their resources to attract consumers to their shop(s). I believe that a
superhero-only shop has more of a responsibility to attract Golden, Silver, Bronze and Modern Age
hero readers than it does non-superhero readers. Does McDonald‘s have a responsibility to offer and
attract fans of hot dogs or PB&J? No, and I really don't think it casts a bad light on them that they
choose not to.

Ultimately if both groups do their job well you will see that the efforts of publishers and the efforts of
the DM Retailer will have an intersection and the common efforts in that intersection are where we
will ultimately see the success or failure of the market and perhaps the industry. This is precisely
where things like pre-selling fall.

Does it make sense to you that some comics retailers would decide to eschew an entire
portion of the market for comics?

Yes, it makes sense to me that someone would open a shop that was JUST SPANDEX or JUST
MANGA or maybe even JUST ALAN, NEIL, WILL & FRANK, if that is what excites them enough to
make that commitment to open a business. Certainly you‘re not going to fault a publisher for only
publishing what they are passionate about or say that they can't call themselves a comic publisher
unless they publish every genre. As much as comics are about art, if you put a price on them, they are
also commerce. As such, vendors and their customers owe it to each other not to harm each other and
to listen when the other believes harm is being done.

Some shops near where I live have made major changes in terms of how they display
graphic novels and the amount of space they devote to GNs vs. floppy monthly comics
and other items. Have you made any changes to adjust to the increasing market for
graphic novels over the past decade?

Yeah, as I mentioned earlier, we have been transitioning out of back issues and using the space for
comics with spines, trade paperbacks and graphic novels. As recently as 10 years ago 25 percent or
more of our floor space was dedicated to back issues; today it's less than 5 percent. We have around
20 book shelves full of trade paperback and graphic novels, three four-foot racks, two spinners and a
counter of Manga, and our sales run almost 50/50 between comics and trade paperbacks and graphic
novels.

Is the direct market for comic books functioning well? Is it positioned to thrive in the
long term?

No, I don't think the DM is functioning well. Too much of it is being run as a hobby rather than as a
business. Even Diamond, the one entity that seems guaranteed to turn a profit, seems to approach
everything as, "how can we minimize cost?" If the DM somehow managed to gain serious traction, I'm
not sure Diamond would survive it. There is very little of the DM that I see positioned to thrive at this
point but I do see glimmers here and there.

What is the direct market doing right?

I'm not sure if you're referring just to retailers and Diamond or if you mean everyone involved in
some aspect. For the most part I will say that the retail side is working very hard to up their game. In
the last decade the CBIA and its over 800 members have effected great change in the way business is
done and information is shared through hundreds of sole proprietor shops and small press creators
and publishers. During that time we've seen other retailers step up to form Free Comic Book Day and
the new trade group ComicsPro, where members recently leveraged a single store signing in L.A. by
Kevin O'Neill into an eight store national tour, giving fans an opportunity to meet a fantastic artist
who is normally not so accessible to fans and are offering mentor opportunities to folks considering
comic retail.

In what ways could it be improved?

There needs to be a lot more education. The barrier to entry needs to be raised for publishers and
retailers helping to ensure that they understand their responsibilities before they pull the trigger and
allowing them to hit the ground running when they do.

Do you believe the majority of comic book stores demonstrate professional business
standards?

I can't say because I haven't seen the majority of comic book stores. The majority of the hundred or so
that I've seen do, but like every type of business I've seen there are some clunkers for sure. It's always
been my opinion that there is no benefit in talking to or about most of them because some folks have
different goals and will never accept yours. I created the CBIA for those who, like me, felt that they
wanted to change things up but had not figured out exactly how to do it. If the folks who spend so
much time chastising retailers spent that time talking up their favorite shops and encouraging folks to
support them, they'd actually accomplish something.

Can they be competitive with mainstream bookstores such as Borders and Barnes and
Noble?

Sure, if that's their goal. I don't see why not.

B&N and Borders cannot devote the space to compete with even the smallest DM Shop in terms of
product nor provide the customer support that we can. Big Boxes also can't move as quickly as we can
nor can they suffer the smaller sales, insane product sizes, lack of bar codes and all of the other
"artistic" measures that make up small press comics. The DM can. What will ultimately determine if
we can compete is whether or not publishers are willing to work with the DM rather than dictate to
them and then we also have to hope that the product remains viable and profitable in the face of the
digital age and the horrible mismanagement of content that's been shown so far.

Do you feel a majority of direct market shops actively seek out customers of all ages,
genders and interests? If so, how? If not, should they?

No, I think the majority of the ones I know of actively seek out the demographic that works for them. I
don't know that shops near college campuses will see a lot of benefit in maintaining a large selection
of all-ages and kids‘ books, nor would I expect a neighborhood shop to devote a large space to Avatar
or window display Lost Girls. One of the greatest things about the medium is its ability to deliver an
incredibly diverse range of entertainment and multiple great shops can and support each other on the
same street by choosing different specialties. Trying to make every shop a cookie cutter of every other
shop is a disservice to the medium. As a consumer, sometimes I need a generalist and sometimes I
need a specialist. I think that is how the comic market works best.

You and I have had sometimes heated discussions online about comics retailing, so I
really appreciate you taking the time today to share your thoughts with me. One thing
you have repeatedly said, though, is that I have no worthwhile opinions when it comes
to comics retailing.

I don't remember that phraseology. I think the closest I came was telling you "As for your opinion on
the future of comics? Not interested, I‘ve been helping to direct the future for the last decade from
inside the industry, not waiting for somebody with no industry experience to tell me how it should
be." "Not interested" is quite a bit different than "no worthwhile opinions" and to be fair, this was
after multiple instances of you referring to me as posting drunkenly, calling me a nimrod and other
things that were making it appear to me that you were not interested in discussing fact, only
advancing an agenda which I indeed found uninteresting. In fact this exercise came not as a result of
you contacting me to set things straight but me contacting you.

Fair enough, although in that initial contact to me you did mention that you “wonder if
[I‟ll] ever write about something [I] know about,” which is funny to me, since that‟s all I
ever write about. I guess we‟ll have to agree to disagree on whether I know anything
about the topics I choose to cover in my writing. That said, should the voice of the long-
time customer be included in discussions about the direction of comics retailing? Is
that experience useful to retailers seeking information on why and where comics are
bought?

Probably not as much as you think. At least not any more than my grocer, pharmacy, mechanic or
comic publisher includes me in discussions of how they do business. DC is the only one who really
does this, but it's once every 18-24 months. I think good retailers do what we do, which is constantly
talk to their customers and as we just did, occasionally poll them on their general feelings about
selection, service, location, hours and giving them an opportunity to offer as much feedback as
possible. Ultimately though, even a 30-year consumer doesn't really have any special knowledge just
by virtue of being a 30-year consumer. Heck there are a lot of retailers that don't understand that if
they stopped their 20 percent discounts, they could lose half of their customers and still earn the same
dollar profit, yet the first thing every customer will say if you ask them what their shop could do to
improve is, "give me a (bigger) discount." That and, "Store X sucks because they don't carry book Y."
This does not mean that you shouldn't talk to your LCS if they aren't meeting your needs but it does
mean that a diatribe that all shops should open on time, be well lit and vacuumed more than once a
season is probably not going to reach the necessary ears, effecting the changes you‘re looking for.
What it does do though is to encourage more of the same type of talk to proliferate and it is grating,
annoying and probably not the best use of your time.

If you believe this is a valid course of action, because you are really trying to improve things, why not
try this. You, and your readers, pick stores that have these glaring flaws and talk to them, like we're
talking here. Let 'em know that they've fallen short on some customer services issues and you wanted
them to know about it. If they fix the problems, great, you have a better store to shop at. And if not,
actively promote Store Z to all of your friends instead. If enough people stop shopping there the shop
will either get better or close. If there are no local alternatives then you are probably starting to see
why this shop can survive as is.

Who besides retailers and publishers do you believe should have a voice in the
discussion?

Maybe distributors, since it often takes them to complete a business transaction. Really this particular
discourse was a result of retailers asking publishers to stop harming them by pre-selling. If you
believe publishers don't have to answer to retailers, the people who are often their top customers,
what makes you believe that retailers owe that duty to the consumer?

These are the kinds of things that along with my own 30-plus years buying and selling comics, 10
years of publishing or helping to publish my own and others‘ work, cause me to discredit much of
what I see in blogs. It's easy to see when someone is missing key component(s) of an argument as it is
for a major league hitter to see a AAA fastball. It's my hope that in the future when you and others are
reporting on matters such as this and find yourselves reacting to someone with such incredulity, that
the first thought is to belittle them, that instead you will stop and do what you've done here. Present
some well thought-out questions and opinions and ask for the same back. Education and respect is
how the comic industry will move forward, lack of it is how it will die.
Seth, 04 June 2004

Seth is one of the best cartoonists working today, a unique stylist whose work reveals a fascination
with the look and feel of a time long past. This is readily apparent in his ongoing series Palooka-
Ville, and his graphic novels It's a Good Life if You Don't Weaken and George Sprott, as well
as his astonishingly beautiful art book Vernacular Drawings. At the time of this interview, Seth
had two new books in stores, Clyde Fans Book One and Bannock, Beans and Black Tea
(written by Seth's father John Gallant and illustrated and designed by Seth). All Seth’s books are
highly recommended as entertaining, enlightening and elegant works that expand the possibilities
of the artform.

Alan David Doane: Bannock, Beans and Black Tea is a collaboration with your father,
John Gallant. Tell me how it came about?

Seth: Well, I think that with any of these

family projects where your trying to get down
the stories of a family member, it came about
without any real concrete plans of where it
was going. I just wanted to get the material
originally because these were stories he had
told me all my life and, at a certain age, I
thought that I should try and get this material
down; I actually did a little tape recording of
him at one point. But he lived on the other
side of the country and I realized this was not
going to be the method I was going to be
doing it since I wasn‘t getting to see him
often enough.

So I basically just asked him to write the stuff

down and as he started to write it down for
me, I guess over a process of certainly a
couple of years, the material started to build
up, I started to find that probably was going
to do something with it and I wasn‘t really
sure what. I went through the idea of
illustrating it in a comic style, as much as it
would be my normal work to make it into
some sort of a comic book… But, generally, as
I looked over the material, I really started to feel that a comic book wasn‘t really the right method for
it, that was going to take the material and really transform it into my own stuff…just the way that, the
way that when I work in a comic format, it‘s all about pacing and how you tell a story and the minute
it becomes all about how the story is told, I felt that it was really more about my decision than his, so
then I just decided to go straightforward and make it into a book. Just collect the material together
and shape it somewhat, but let his own words speak for himself.

As many Depression Era stories are, it was particularly grim. I think, as a child, I didn‘t recognize how
grim these stories were because he told them to me as anecdotes and he told them to me with a great
deal of humor, but, really, they‘re definitely stories of terrible privation, and, really, they shaped his
whole life and there was a great deal of bitterness, I think, underneath what he‘s writing about, even
though he writes in a matter of fact kind of way, I don‘t think you can escape that there‘s a real feeling
that these were events that shaped his life that he can‘t get away from.

Can you tell me a little bit about how you reconcile your vision of the past with that of
your father‟s experience?

Well, I‘ve never really had any belief that…and, obviously, I mean, I grew up with parents from this
era, I had a mother from World War II also who lived through the bombings of Britain, so I‘ve never
really had any illusions that the past was a superior place to the present when it comes to actual
human behavior and the conditions people lived under. I‘ve always been fixated by the past, I think,
because of the…I think it‘s mostly based on a surface kind of appreciation of the quality of design and
the aesthetics of the past. I think that there were…and I do think that there were interesting things in
the past that sort of disappeared from our time, but I guess I could focus it most clearly down onto the
aesthetics; I just think things were much more beautifully designed and a great deal of care and effort
went into things in the past, and as an artist, I‘m very attracted to, and certainly as a commercial
artist, too, the quality and the effort that went into things, it was just a great deal more effort that
went into the everyday objects of life than you see in our modern world.

We‘ve become very used to a certain kind of cheap aesthetic that big business, of course, finds very
profitable to produce and, as each decade goes by, we become more and more used to it and we don‘t
expect things to be any better. So when you look back on the quality on everything from an aspirin
bottle to an automobile, it‘s just really a higher degree of aesthetic awareness, but, obviously, I don‘t
believe that living in 1930 in a shack in the Depression is a superior condition to living where we are
right now, mostly it‘s based on certain theories of ideas and aesthetic choices that attract me.

Now, my 10 year old daughter was very attracted to the aesthetic look of Bannock,
Beans, and Black Tea; she saw the book lying on my nightstand and wanted to read it
and she loved it, which leads me to wonder who you‟re hoping to reach with the book
and what would you like them to gain from reading it?

That‘s a good question. I don‘t really know who the audience is for the book. I‘m aware that the book
could easily be read by children, except for a couple of spots, I suppose… a couple of points seem more
directly aimed at an adult reader, I think it could easily work as a children‘s book. I think I was
just…basically, I never think too much about who the audience is when I‘m working on something and
I was aware that in the final product my own drawing style, which is based so much on gag cartooning
and on children‘s books illustration to begin with, easily has the look of a children‘s book about it and
that might be, in some ways, at odds with the actual material in it, but it‘s hard to say, I guess I have to
leave it up to the reader to decide.

Your other new book that‟s out is Clyde Fans: Book One, the first two installments of
the story that you‟re continuing to work on and it‟s sort of a leisurely look at two
brothers who are present at the end of an era. The first part, about Abraham, seems to
be about his sort of watching over the end of the era of the electric fan and talking about
his lack of vision and sort of letting progress roll over him. The second part seems to be,
I mean, it really switches gears when it goes on to Simon‟s story, as he goes and tries to
sell his electric fans for the first time…the second part seems to focus on his lack of
confidence and a sort of fear that he has, all the time a wonderful exploration of the
architecture and buildings and design of the time. Can you tell me a little bit about what
inspires Clyde Fans, and how you came to focus on these themes?

Clyde Fans is basically a project that has allowed me to…much like my first book, It's a Good Life
if You Don't Weaken, it sort of is, it‘s more of a vehicle that allows me to put my ideas out about
life and time and human existence, I guess, in a manner that sort of allows, and it‘s hard to explain
these sort of things…I guess basically what I‘m trying to do is create a meandering kind of narrative
that‘s open to a discussion of just about anything, but the characters are always kind of thinly veiled
versions of myself. Clyde Fans has a bit more of like a fictional surface to it than Good Life, which
supposedly starred me as the main character, but I guess they‘re just excuses to allow me to like
ramble on for long periods of time.

The Clyde Fans book is based, somewhat, on a real business that I used to go by everyday when I
was younger, actually called Clyde Fans, and as I went by, I started to envision sort of an imaginary
history of the place and when I used to look into the windows, I could look into the office, which was, I
believe, still in business at the time, and I could look back through the dim light and there were two
photographs on the back wall which I, of course, assumed, were the owners and eventually decided
they were the brothers, they were bothers who owned it, and I just started to build up a fictional
history of the place and the two brothers in some manner or other I just sort of infused with different
aspects of my own personality, that allow me a lot to talk about disappointment and, I guess, again,
about the differences in how the time has changed the 20th century and just about anything that is of
interest to me. And, by nature, they sort of end up being melancholy.

If you were to take the first part of Clyde Fans and change the electric fan, like all references to
electric fans, to comic books, it would kind of explain who the character of Abraham is, because being
a cartoonist in the 20th century has that same kind of feeling of, say, being an electric fan salesman,
it‘s a kind of an antiquated occupation that‘s sort of fallen by the wayside as technological progress
has moved us into such totally different media. In many ways, like working as a cartoonist, just
drawing little things on pieces of paper seems like such an old fashioned method compared to all of
the technological computer science that has come along. But of course, it‘s just natural that…well, I
really think of the two brothers as kind of representing kind of two sides of me and, so, the first part
dealing with Abraham is very clearly that sort of outgoing side of myself that‘s dealing with a lot of
personal recriminations for having to live in the world, basically. Abraham talks a lot about his
feelings of compromise, of being a salesman, and this is kind of how I feel, like I have one side of me
that deals with the world and the other side that‘s much more a typical cartoonist‘s response, which is
to retreat from the world, to spend all of your time in your studio and that other side is Simon, so
these two brothers give me a perfect opportunity to split these two parts in half and basically explore
them separately until the point in the story where I can bring them together, if that makes any sense…

One of the other things

that you‟ve got on your
drawing board right now
is you‟re designing the
new Peanuts collections
for Fantagraphics Books
and this is a massive
undertaking in the sense
that the comic strip was
around for fifty years.
The first volume has just
been released and this
will be going for over the
next decade. How did
Fantagraphics come to
you to get involved with
the project?

Well, it was pretty simple. A

few years ago, Fantagraphics, which also publishes a magazine called The Comics Journal, did a large
interview with Charles Schulz, this was a couple of years before he died, and Gary Groth, who is the
publisher of the company, knew that I was a big Schulz fan and he asked me to design the cover for it.
So, after that, I guess he was happy with it or just liked my work in general and he said, ―You know,
I‘ve been wanting to get this project together to republish all of Schulz‘s material,‖ which is something
I was happy to hear when he said it because this is a project I had always hoped would happen so that
I could get the material myself and then he said, ―If we ever actually get it happening, we were
wondering if you‘d like to design it,‖ and of course, I jumped at the chance because Schulz has always
been my premiere interest, like the first cartoonist I was interested in and have always retained a deep
love of his work and then, eventually, the project came about and he came back to, it was a couple of
years later, and he said, ―Looks like it‘s going to happen,‖ and asked me if I would get on board, which
I gladly did and here we are, finally getting it done. It‘s going to be a lot of work, but it‘s only a couple
of times a year now that the actual design system has been set up and what the books will look like.
It‘s just a matter of changing details, book to book, new covers, but they follow a cover design system
and each cover has one of the characters focused on it. There are things, like there are different
elements of the book that will have to be plugged in each time and there certainly are new double page
spreads that have to be created every issue, but it‘s not an incredibly daunting task. I think it would be
a more daunting task, actually, if Charles Schulz was still alive and I felt the sense that he was
watching what I was doing and that I had to please him in a more direct manner. That would probably
make me a little more nervous.
I‘m not doing any of the drawing, so that‘s easy enough, I‘m just taking his work and altering it,
basically. For example, you might say I am making new drawing out of his drawing by taking certain
images from some drawings and recombining them with other ones into larger scenes, etc., and, in
those instances, I kind of feel like I‘m drawing, it has a feeling like I‘m drawing with someone else‘s
hands. I‘m using my mind and my compositional skills but the drawings are already his and I don‘t
feel any great sense of betrayal of Schulz or anything by fooling around with his drawings because,
certainly during his own life, he seems to allow an incredible latitude amongst the marketers and
merchandising people to fiddle around with his work, so I feel I can‘t do anything worse than much of
the stuff that I‘ve seen out there. And I‘m trying really hard to show Sparky‘s work in the best light I
possibly can, but, admittedly, I wouldn‘t even ever attempt to draw anything in the Schulz style, it is
like they say, like his handwriting and you couldn‘t improve upon anything he‘s done, that‘s for sure.
Dave Sim, 01 March 2004

I first started reading Cerebus in its first two or three years, when Sim was casting off his
Conan/BWS influence and beginning to explore a deeper sociopolitical sphere, reaching creatively
but always staying funny no matter how complex the series became. Over time I lost touch with
comics -- pretty much all of them -- including Cerebus. As this interview was conducted, Sim was
just days away from fulfilling his promised 300 issue goal, and had become a polarizing force
among comics readers, some of whom continue to love Sim's work, others who are disturbed or
angered by his outspoken, iconoclastic views on
sex, politics and religion.

Alan David Doane: In just a few weeks the

goal you've worked toward for decades --
300 issues of Cerebus -- will be realized. As
you look back over your time spent
creating this landmark series, what do you
think were your biggest creative successes
in the series, and was there anything you
wish you had conveyed better or
differently to the reader?

Dave Sim: I'm not sure that I had any creative

success in the series. The biggest potential
creative success, I think, will be the integration of
large blocks of text into a comic book story.
Certainly Steve Gerber pioneered the use of text
with his "Dreaded Deadline Doom" issue of
Howard the Duck, but that was really a
replacement for formal comic book pages, not an
integration with them. Personally, I'm not sure if
it's a success or a failure. A lot would depend on
how much you think a creative work has to have a pleasing effect the first time through. I think it
takes a number of readings of Jaka's Story to come to the conclusion that it functions as a coherent
unit. The first time through the text is just off-putting, an impediment when what you want to do is
read the actual comics.

The biggest success I could hope for is to have made a place for large, self-contained graphic novels in
the comic book medium, as opposed to open-ended, iconic, trademark-based creativity. No sequels,
no prequels. Beginning, middle and end.

What was the biggest challenge you faced over the course of the 300 issues, and what
would you say was the prime creative engine that kept you moving forward?

The biggest challenge was resisting the lure of conventional life -- marriage, children, family, friends
and other frivolous diversions -- and to basically live my life on paper for the better part of twenty-six
years. Fornication was the most problematic. I traded a lot for the fornications I participated in. The
prime creative engine -- at least until I discovered God -- was the awareness that anything less than
actually finishing the 300 issues would make the book a failure. Literally, "300 or Bust."

Two of the best interviews I've ever read were the ones you did with Chester Brown
recently, and the one you did with Alan Moore a few years ago in regard to From Hell.
What did you take away from those and similar experiences, and how important do you
think it is for cartoonists to discuss creative and other issues with each other?

Thanks. I'm glad you enjoyed the dialogues with Alan and Chester that much. I found that extended,
exhaustive, on-paper communication helps reinforce what a marvelous tapestry human experience is.
When someone else shapes as exact a description of their own beliefs and ideas as Alan and Chester
are -- it helps you define your own beliefs more clearly and to avoid the generalized "I don't know
where you're wrong, but I disagree with you" which seems the universal lowest common denominator
in a world gone mad with political correctness. I think it's important for the sorts of cartoonists for
whom thinking is an important part of life. Thinking is very much out of favour in our society, so it
isn't just a matter of cartoonists, I don't think. I think the vast majority of cartoonists and people in
general would "strongly agree or somewhat strongly agree" (as the pollsters put it) with the view, "It is
a bad thing to think too much." Needless to say, I strongly disagree. I hope I've given aid, comfort and
reinforcement to the minority viewpoint which, I think, is going to be under seige for some time to
come. We don't want to pass a law forcing people to think, but we do hold rigorously to our opinion
that thinking is a good thing and that you can never have too much of it.

Your views on the differences between males and females has certainly had an impact
on the way people perceive both you and your work. How would you say the rather
public development of your philosophies impacted Cerebus, and yourself?

How my views on gender relationships impacted Cerebus and myself is impossible to say, because I
don't have a "control group" Cerebus and Dave Sim who went through the entire 300 issues without
once raising gender issues. That hypothetical Cerebus and Dave Sim might have been wildly
successful or they might have long ago vanished into obscurity. In the former case, I have made a
terrible, life-diminishing error in judgment in addressing gender issues in my work. In the latter case,
I have saved myself from the yawning face of the abyss in addressing gender issues in my work. I'll
just have to see how it all hatches out and try to preserve Cerebus as best I can.

What would you say the most important thing individuals should
realize/study/discover in order to make peace with and live more ideally with
themselves, humanity, and God?

The five pillars of Islam: Acknowledgment of God's sovereignty everywhere and over everyone and
over all things, giving alms to the poor until it hurts and then giving some more, praying five times a
day, fasting on a regular basis and in the sacred month of Ramadan, and (if the United States and
other freedom-loving people are able to overturn the corrupt regime in Saudi Arabia in our lifetimes)
making the pilgrimage to Mecca at least once if you can afford it.

I can vouch for the efficacy of the first four of those five.
Walter Simonson, 2004

I kid you not when I tell you that Walter Simonson is one of my all-time favourite comic book
artists; from my first exposure to his work in the Alien graphic novel decades ago, through
Manhunter, Thor, X-Men/New Teen Titans, and probably a dozen other projects, I've always
been enchanted by his unique, design-oriented style. As the years have gone by, he's refined his line
to the point where there is literally nothing wasted in his work. It's a rare ability, one seen in just a
few other talents I can think of, such as Alex Toth and Gil Kane. At the time we conducted this
interview, Simonson had been creating Orion for about a year for DC Comics, a title that eventually
lasted about two-dozen issues and featured spectacular story and art that lived up to the work of the
legendary creator of the character, Jack Kirby. The joy that Walter takes in just telling a story well
comes across in every panel, in every line; again, nothing is wasted.

Alan David Doane: The thing that comes through to me in virtually all of your work is
the sheer joy you take in telling stories. Where does that come from?

Walter Simonson: That's hard to say. I've always

like reading stories. And I just enjoy telling stories
(Ask any of my friends to whom I've described
movie I've seen). And I love drawing. Which means
that comics is a very fulfilling place for me to work.

How did you first become exposed to

comics?

I read comics as a child. Don't remember the earliest

ones I read but I know I was reading them steadily
by the time I was ten. I particularly remember an
adaptation of John Carter of Mars by Jesse Marsh
that I read back then. I didn't have any clues as to
who Edgar Rice Burroughs was at the time but I
devoured the comic book. And I loved the Alex Toth
adaptation of the movie, The Land Unknown.
Helicopters, the Antarctic, and dinosaurs. A perfect
combination.

What were your favourite comics as a child?

I read almost everything that passed through my

hands -- superheroes, westerns, humor comics, funny animal strips. But we had a subscription to
Walt Disney Comics and Stories, largely for the Barks lead story (didn't know who Barks was
either back then of course) and the Mickey Mouse continued stories in the back.

What comics (if any) are you reading today? Is there anything coming out these days
that you think represents the artform at its best?

I read Stan Sakai's Usagi Yojimbo for the same reason I read comics 40 years ago. It's well done and
it engages my interest with both its stories and its characters. I just read it for pleasure without
analyzing how Stan does it. Which I believe is a measure of its success. I am also delighted that Dark
Horse is reprinting the Lone Wolf and Cub series. Absolutely top drawer stuff, very powerful, very
moving, beautifully constructed.

You've carved out quite a niche for yourself with Orion, and for my money are doing
some of the best work of your career. Are you having as much fun as it looks like?

The short answer is yes. That's probably the long answer as well. Jack's Fourth World work is some of
my favorite Jack Kirby work and it's a real treat to be allowed to tell stories about some of the
characters from that world.

Does DC have a lot of input into the stories, or are you pretty much operating solely on
your own creative instincts?

DC has given me an immense amount of room in which to operate. Essentially, I've been allowed to
take the character, Orion, and run with him in the direction I wanted to go. I haven't asked to turn
him into a frog yet but you never know! Essentially, the stories I'm telling are stories that are
developing out of my own sense of who Orion is based on my reading of Jack's work. He's a great
warrior; he's deeply flawed. He's no dummy and he has a deeper understanding of the cost of freedom
than most characters do. Which means that given the current direction of the stories in ORION, he's
going to be paying a very high price for what's been going on.

Previous titles dealing with the Fourth World mythos seemed, for the most part, to
tread water rather than try to build on what Jack Kirby created. How conscious of that
were you in plotting out Orion, and did DC resist at all the way in which you've finally
moved the saga forward?

DC has been completely supportive of what I'm doing. They ask for overviews of the future directions
their books are going to be headed in, so they've known where I'm heading with ORION from the
beginning. My own aim has been fairly simple. It's the same aim I had when I was doing THOR. I
want the ORION comic to offer stories that haven't really been told before. In the case of THOR, I
started by taking Thor's hammer, Mjolnir, and having somebody else pick it up, something that
nobody had done up to that time. In the case of ORION, I've taken one of Jack's key concepts from
the NEW GODS -- the Anti-Life Equation: the outside control of all living thought--and manifested
it, that is to say, made it real in a way that as far as I know hasn't been done before. Essentially, I look
for a jumping off point nobody's used, and I jump. After that, stories flowing from that initial leap just
seem to move in new directions. Essentially, I want to write comics that I would like to have read; not
variations on comics that I did read.

You've brought some of the best creators in comics into Orion's back pages to illustrate
tales of the New Gods. Why do you think the best and the brightest are still so anxious
to play in Kirby's sandbox?

I think a lot of professionals like the New Gods as much as I do and doing a little piece for ORION
gives them a chance to draw characters that in most cases, they've never drawn before. Some are folks
I've wanted to work with for a long time and we've never had the chance to work together until now.
Some are folks I have worked with before and enjoyed it so much, I wanted to work with them again.
And since these are mostly fairly short little pieces, folks find they can squeeze the stories into their
schedules. What I'm mainly trying to do is extend the sense of fun I'm having doing this book to
others and that seems to be working out.

What about the Fourth World still appeals to

you? It's obvious you're jazzed to be working on
this series.

I'm just a huge admirer of the original work Jack did on

all four titles back in the early 70s. I thought it was a
beautifully structured, multi-layered work filled with
wonderful characters, a wealth of incredible concepts,
and a Wagnerian sense of drama. And the stories were
ABOUT something. Dysfunctional families for one. But
there was thematic material all through the original
Fourth World work; free will vs. slavery, nature vs.
nurture, fathers vs. sons, love vs. hate...the original
books were a real exploration of thought. I believe that's
one of the reasons people keep coming back to them.

In addition, some of the ideas, like the use of cloning to

create the D.N.Aliens and the new Guardian, are the
common currency of much of the field now, but they
were brand new in comics then. Jack was a little ahead of
the curve and the Fourth World work really
demonstrated that. I think it's also true that nobody
really reads that material now as it was originally
published. The books were bi-monthly, a different pair alternating each month. Which meant that
unlike the way a reader would read them now--in collections straight though as stand-alone single
titles -- they were originally read as a mosaic, in which the overall storyline about the great cosmic
struggle between New Genesis and Apokolips was gradually built up in small pieces, becoming clearer
and clearer as the months went by. And I think because of that structure, deeper and deeper as the
reader discovered how everything fit together.

How far ahead have you plotted out Orion? And how's the book doing overall? Are you
confident it's going to be around for a while?
I'm plotted out seriously about five to six issues ahead. I'm plotted out in a more general way -- that is
to say that I know where my stories are going -- at least a year ahead. And I've got ideas that will likely
take two or three years to develop. In some cases, I have bits of dialogue written for scenes that won't
be in print for another year or so. Given the current state of the market in American comics right now,
I'm not confident anything's going to be around for awhile. But I'm game to do ORION for as long as
I'm able. I've got a lot of stories that I hope I have the opportunity to get out there.

Tell us a little bit about the difference between the way you're working today and the
years you spent working with other collaborators. Which mode do you prefer to work
in?

I think the difference is that now, I get to wear two hats -- writer and artist -- and I can curse myself as
writer OR artist depending on which hat I'm wearing when things aren't going well instead of being
crabby about somebody else. The truth is that I enjoy doing the writing AND the art in comics and
since I see them both as essential to the creation of the story I'm making, I don't find I have a
preference for one or the other. Except that whenever I'm writing, I feel like I should be drawing and
whenever I'm drawing, I feel like I should be writing!

I still enjoy working with other creators a lot and still do work from time to time where I only carry a
part of the burden. I like drawing for other writers; I like writing for other artists. For two reasons.
First, I enjoy working with my friends and that's what I've been fortunate enough to do most of the
time. And second, other creators, whether artists or writers, give me feedback that helps to crystallize
ideas in forms I would never have thought of myself, which means that the final story is the result of a
fusion of ideas that have often gone in unexpected directions. When it works out like that, it's great!
And it keeps me refreshed at my job.

You seem to have developed a good online rapport with your readers. How has the
Internet changed the way you approach your job?

I enjoy going online generally. I like the directness of online contact with my readers. Naturally, you
want everybody to like what you're doing; naturally, they all don't. And the web seems to bring out the
crabbiest in people sometimes. But I get a lot of interesting and immediate feedback thanks to the
web that I don't think I'd be hearing otherwise.

It hasn't really affected the actual stories I tell. In that regard, you really have to trust your own
judgment. And there are some things I'm very careful of. Thanks to the relatively easy access readers
have to professionals, for example, I often get requests to review submissions, both writing and art. I
can't do it. I just don't have the time to get out a monthly book and look at all the stuff I'm sent. So I
decline that part of the web, as politely as I can.

There are a couple of very practical benefits I've found with the web. It's a great resource for providing
additional research on stuff I'm doing. For example, I recently needed to compile a list of indictments,
if you will, against Darkseid. I know a lot about him; however, I don't know much in terms of all the
times he's been used in the DC Universe since his creation by Jack about 1970 or so. So I left a note on
the two ORION websites I keep track of, asking for help in compiling such a list. In addition to a
variety of suggestions that were all over the map, many of which I really hadn't known about, I was
sent a complete list of all of Darkseid's appearances in the DCU since he was created! I didn't have a
chance to go back and track all of them down, of course, but the fans gave me some leads I found
useful for specific stories.

The other benefit is that I get letters from fans through e-mail and the websites I mentioned above.
This is great for writing Letter Columns as not that much snail mail comes in. And it means I can
write columns that are as close to the publication of an issue of ORION as possible. Generally, I'm
writing a Lettercol on an issue within a week of the issue's publication.

You've been doing comics for a good portion of your life so far...is it still as much fun as
it was when you started out?

Absolutely.

With the diminishing market over the past few years, what do you think the future of
comics is?

Beats the heck out of me. I think the future of comics had better include plans to get them back out
into the real world with some sort of wider form of distribution or there won't be much of a future. If
you can't find 'em, you can't buy 'em.

What do you think are the biggest problems the industry needs to overcome right now?

See above. Once comics abandoned the newsstand market and went with the direct market, I think
they began cutting themselves off from their wider audience. They began working seriously for a
narrower audience for the first time. And the companies began producing a lot of material designed to
appeal specifically to that narrower audience, a specialty audience, something that comics hadn't done
before. A lot of wonderful work had been produced, including a lot of work that is no longer for kids--
which I think is pretty nifty. But by essentially giving up the "kid" market, I think comics gave up
much of their future audience. And maybe their future. If some way isn't found to reestablish a
connection with that young audience, I would think that comics will keep heading in the direction it's
going now, a field of specialty items for what is essentially a smaller and smaller coterie of readers.

I think that comics aren't out where they can be found casually any longer. If you want to find them,
you have to seek them out. That's no way to develop an expanding audience. I think if the problems of
distribution aren't overcome, none of us are going anywhere!

What are its greatest strengths?

What they've always been. Good stories, well told. There's always room for stories, especially good
ones. And comics, because of their relatively fast turnaround time, can take advantage of pop culture
developments at a speed unmatched by almost any other fictional medium.
You've said the New Gods were the only mainstream characters you hadn't done that
you wanted to take a crack at. Now that you're doing just that, any other aspirations in
the field? Anything at all you haven't yet taken a stab at?

Only in the sense that I'd like to be a better storyteller in 10 years than I am now. I'd like to draw
better, I'd like to write better, and I'd like to put pictures and words together better than I do now. In
short, I'd like to be better at my job!
James Sturm, 08 October 2004

I've never read a bad James Sturm comic. How many creators can you say that about? My first
exposure to his work was The Golem's Mighty Swing, which impressed me so much with its love
of pure storytelling that I sought out all his other work, and was equally impressed. So elegant and
sublime are his skills that he can take topics that I care nothing about (like baseball) and meld them
with topics I know nothing about (like Jewish history) and turn the mix into a mesmerizing graphic
novel that is one of the most cherished in my graphic novel library. Sturm’s Unstable Molecules for
Marvel Comics was a mind-bendingly good story (drawn by Guy Davis) that used Marvel's
Fantastic Four to tell one of the most powerful and subversive stories that particular publisher has
yet published. As we conducted this interview, Sturm was ramping up for the opening of The Center
for Cartoon Studies in White River Junction, Vermont. The school has since gone on to become a
well-regarded educational haven for those seeking to learn the art of cartooning.

Alan David Doane: The first work of yours that I read was The Golem's Mighty Swing,
and the thing that most impressed
me about it was your obvious love
of telling a story with depth and
meaning. What in your life
contributed to your development
as a storyteller?

James Sturm: This is an impossible

question for me to answer with any
certainty. I am more comfortable telling
longer stories and I work slowly so a
book takes years to produce. To spend
so long on a single project I need to be
engaged by a story on many different
levels to maintain my intensity over the
long haul.

In November, Drawn and

Quarterly is releasing Above and
Below, a compilation of two of
your earlier comics, The Revival and Hundreds of Feet Below Daylight. How do you
think these stories complement each other, and what is their place in your body of
work?

The Revival (1996) was drawn in Seattle, Washington amidst the fervor that was the internet boom.
The town was a technological frontier. There was this incredible sense of optimism in regards to
technology that were expressed in an almost religious manner. The internet was going to connect the
world and all things were possible. Peace on earth, a new paradigm, et cetera. In The Revival, there
is that belief in redemption, folks looking towards heaven for salvation.

Hundreds of Feet Below Daylight (1998) was begun in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and
completed in Savannah, Georgia. Instead of looking towards God for salvation they were heading in
the other direction: straight down into the dark earth. My disgust with our culture‘s toxic
preoccupation with material wealth inspired this story.

These stories, together with The Golem‟s Mighty Swing, a graphic novel about a 1920s
barnstorming Jewish baseball team, completes my "American Trilogy." In these three stories
collectively I try to articulate (or at least explore) some sort of thematic foundation that reflects the
character of this country.

I thought Unstable Molecules, the Fantastic Four story you wrote for Marvel Comics,
was one of the most subversive and powerful works that publisher has ever released. It
seems in retrospect like the industry didn't quite know what to make of it, and its
impact has not been as widespread as I personally would have liked. How do you reflect
on the creation of that work, and are you satisfied ultimately with the experience?

This was a project I had wanted to do for over a decade and I was glad for the opportunity to do it.
Marvel supported the effort as best they could. My editor Tom Brevoort was easy to work with and Joe
Quesada made every effort to make my time at Marvel as smooth as possible. That said, it was bit of a
frustrating experience. Marvel produces an incredible amount of material with a surprisingly small
staff. I'm sure when a creator with a more auteur approach like myself steps into the mix it is a real
pain in the ass for everyone there. I proofed lettering, coloring, pencils, and did my own design to try
to make the cook come together coherently.

Perhaps if Marvel and I ever did another project together there would be more familiarity with one
another and things would run smoother. I enjoyed working closely with Guy Davis, R. Sikoryak, Craig
Thompson, and Michel Vrana. These are extremely talented folks and I enjoyed collaborating with
them. I am not satisfied with the book itself for various reasons which, for the most part, has nothing
to do with Marvel. It is ironic that it won an Eisner award. I do wish the book had a longer life out in
the world. The small print run sold out quickly. I wanted to get some extra copies for myself and
couldn't find one for less than $75.00! Hopefully Marvel will decide to put UM back in print.

One more thing: When I accepted the Eisner award I should have thanked my editor Tom Brevoort.
Due to my frustration with some aspects of working with Marvel (with had nothing to do with Tom) I
neglected to say thanks. I retrospect it was a bit immature of me. Tom recognized early on what this
book could be and supported it from the get go. So a sincere and belated thanks to Tom.

Next year, The Center for Cartoon Studies opens in Vermont. You're a prime mover in
the school's development, so please tell me how it came about, and who else is
involved?

When the Golem book was released I was ready to move on from my job at the Savannah College of
Art and Design where I had taught for four years. After spending some time promoting the Golem
book I moved to Vermont with my family. My in-laws own a small house near White River Junction
and had been renting it out over the years. It just so happened that the tenant was leaving as I was
leaving SCAD. I wanted to teach again and figured on staying in Vermont until I found another
teaching position. The jobs that I was offered were nothing to get too excited about. One of the schools
where I was given an offer had a comic art program but the salary was so lame it was offensive. It was
also clear from my visit/job interview that the school's administration was going through a transition
and may not be able to offer the type of support I felt I needed to create the program I hoped to build.
Teaching in and of itself is challenging enough. Having to constantly wrangle with an unsupportive,
indifferent, or ineffective school bureaucracy for resources is not my idea of a good time.

The majority of colleges still possess a very antiquated idea of what comics are about. Only a few
schools offer a comprehensive curriculum in comics and I could not picture myself as a faculty
member at any of them. The type of comic art school that I wanted to teach at did not exist. As stupid
as it may sound I felt my only option was to start a school.

To make a long story short, my friend and neighbor Matt Dunne, a Vermont State Senator, walked me
through the old Colodny Surprise Department Store (circa 1929) in White River Junction, Vermont.
An amazing building. The ground floor and lower level had for over a decade been more or less sitting
empty. With Matt's help I contacted the government agency that owns the property and worked out a
very generous long-term lease. With additional support from local government representatives CCS
successfully lobbied the state to include $30,000 in this year's capital bill to fund renovation. It's
enough to restore your faith in government! There is a lot of interest in the "creative economy" here in
Vermont, a growing recognition as to how the arts and creative businesses can economically and
culturally revitalize a community and as result CCS was able to form a broad base of community
support that includes a marvelous board of directors comprised mostly of local folks. They are
community developers. lawyers, CPAs, and even a retired college president, so they know how to
make things happen. CCS's advisory board includes nationally prominent cartoonists and publishers.
Besides their names looking good on the CCS letterhead they are all actively involved in helping
promote the school, raising money, creating artwork, etc.

This summer Michelle Ollie moved to Vermont from Minneapolis to become the school's chief
operating officer. Michelle worked at the Minneapolis College of Art and Design for six years teaching
and as director of marketing. Michelle's got great instincts and is basically a partner in this insane
enterprise. An outpouring of assistance from so many cartoonists whose work I admire has been
incredibly humbling and touching. Art Spiegelman is coming to Vermont for a fund raiser in
November. Seth took time out from his busy schedule to produce the school's inaugural brochure.
Scott McCloud, Chris Ware, Craig Thompson, and other first-rate cartoonists will all be visiting CCS
as visiting artist. Jason Little is creating a poster for the school. Publishers like Adhouse Books, Dave
Sim, Top Shelf, Drawn and Quarterly, Tokyopop, and Fantagraphics are donating books to the school
library. D&Q publicist Peggy Burns has been instrumental in helping get the word out. Gary Groth,
has been a saint in assisting with fundraising. And this listing is just the tip of the iceberg. Quite
frankly, without this type of support the school does not happen.

What you hope to accomplish with the school?

To create the best cartooning school that I can. Comics have been a vehicle for my ideas and stories
and have taught me many skills that have supported me financially through the years. Perhaps CCS is
a way to repay the debt I feel I have incurred. I'd also be lying if I didn't mention that I am doing this
because it‘s a lot of fun. Starting a school is a lot or work (raising money, recruiting, accreditation,
etc.) but at the same time it's exhilarating watching it take shape. We are only excepting 20 students
our first year and applications are just starting to come in. It's inspiring reading the application
essays. We open our doors in the fall of 2005.

I'd imagine the CCS will require a great deal of your time for the foreseeable future, but
given the general excellence of your comics work, I'm hoping you have some projects in
mind for the near future. What can James Sturm readers look for in the future?

Of course, this fall Above and Below is being published and many readers may not have seen this out-
of-print material. The book has been redesigned with new covers and illustrations within. Getting the
school up and running is my priority right now so my cartooning efforts have been considerably
slowed. I have two drafts of a 300 page book that I will continue to work on slowly and steadily. In the
near future it looks like CCS is close to signing a deal with a major publisher to produce several
graphic novels (stories based on the lives of famous Americans). I'll be collaborating with some great
cartoonists. Will be able to announce these plans within the next month.
Ty Templeton, 2000

When I did this interview, Ty Templeton had just

completed an aborted run as writer on the comics
adaptation of the short-lived Avengers animated
series (which my kids and I loved, and which explains
why I spend so much time asking about the subject in
the interview). Templeton, of course, has worked on
everything from Stig’s Inferno and Batman to The
Simpsons and even a graphic novel for Vertigo,
Bigg Time, but we talk mostly here about
Avengers: United We Stand, and I think the
interview is still enlightening in its look at the
animation and comics industries, and especially the
act of adapting a comic from an animated series.

Alan David Doane: Your most recent writing

project, Avengers: United They Stand, has been
cancelled -- can you talk about the project, how
you got involved and what went wrong?

Ty Templeton: Well, how I got involved with the

project's a fairly dull story. The editor of Avengers
comics, a guy named Tom Brevoort, just phoned me
up; he said "would you like to come work for me?" I was free at the time, I'd been working on
(Batman: Gotham Adventures), so he knew I was interested in that kind of project, sort of quote-
unquote "comics for younger readers." And that was it, he called me and I was excited because I like
the Avengers. And the second part of the question is sort of, "What happened when it got canceled?"
Well, it was sort of canceled from the get-go. In this market that we have in the comics industry
nowadays, the retailers, the folks that own all the different stores that sell it, just didn't order enough
copies of even the first issue, really, to justify it staying around. It was a kind of lost cause, in a way.

Do you think that that was based in large part upon the track record Marvel had with its
previous animated-style titles?

Yeah, probably, because the way the industry works (retailers) order the comic books months before
they come out, so obviously whatever we did had little to do with the orders we had for the first issue.
It's kind of like, you rely on whoever was before you at the gate to give you a leg up, I guess, and the
last couple of animated titles from Marvel haven't done very well.

They also haven't been very good, technically speaking. With your track record, you did
some amazing work on the Batman Adventures titles --
Thanks.

Don't you think they should have -- are you bitter at all about it, that they didn't
promote it better?

Oh, heck no. No, I'm not bitter about it. I got to spend six months of my life writing the Avengers
and drawing the covers, and I had a great time. I think if you start getting bitter about what's
happening in the comic book market right now you'll just be a bitter person. There's an awful lot of
stuff like this happening where comics are getting launched and canceled fairly quickly and things
that should get a wider audience aren't, so, no, you can't be bitter about that stuff or you'll be a wreck.

I know the project is over, but I'd like to talk a little bit about Avengers: United --

It's actually not over, I'm still finishing the last issue. I'm dialoguing the last issue as it's being drawn.

Are you being given the opportunity to wrap up the storyline?

No, unfortunately the last issue (# 7) was plotted before we found out we were being canceled, and it
kind of ends on a bit of a -- not a cliffhanger, but a very open-ended ending. It wraps up in the sense
that all the Avengers are safe and they all are heading home, but with this nagging question that
unfortunately may not ever be answered.

When they first announced there was going to be an Avengers cartoon, from the
perspective of a fan of the main Avengers title, which I think is probably one of the best
books that Marvel has out right now, I was very excited. Then when I saw some of the
preview art, I was like, "Oh, man what is this going to be?" With the sort of Power
Rangers costumes that they used.

Well, in fact it was produced by (Power Rangers producer) Saban Entertainment --

Yeah, so it's not a coincidence in any way.

Not at all.

The show, of course, I don't think it's any surprise to anybody to say was a bit of a
disappointment --

In fact, it's not a bit of a disappointment to Fox, it's doing fairly well for them.

But creatively, in terms of staying true to the comics.

Well yes, but staying true to the comics isn't necessarily the best way to have a hit, successful
television show, is it?
No, you got a point there, too. What I was trying to get back around to here, was to me,
one of the best tools they would have in terms of generating interest in the comics
would be to package those seven issues that you did as an inexpensive book to give to
kids. Because those stories, they're magical. It's a wonderful, wonderful series.

Well, thank you very much. They are actually considering that very thing.

That's great.

My editor, Mr. Brevoort told me that they were considering doing it as a package primarily because
the cartoon series reaches a few million people --

And is apparently doing fairly well...

Yes, it's winning its time slot on Fox, but the way comic books are distributed nowadays they go
primarily to comics stores, which are not especially conducive to making smaller kids happy.

No, it's a thing where they would have to find a way to get it into -- I would even suggest
putting it into a digest format and sticking it in the supermarkets.

I agree with you completely. Unfortunately, a little piece of information about the business -- the
digest racks in supermarkets are paid for by the distributors. You don't get to put your magazines on
there for free. You have to actually rent them.

So I guess -- that must be incredibly frustrating, to not only have created something that
you know is going to appeal to kids, and something that would even assist them in
marketing the TV show, and then to be stymied in finding any sort of way to get it out to
the right people.

…by a distribution system. Yeah, it is kind of frustrating, but -- I'm not really someone who gets
frustrated about something over which I have absolutely no control. I mean, my job was to write the
best comics I could, and I did that. And, there are folks who do the marketing, and I could call them
up and make suggestions, but that's not really a writer's job, you know?

How much input was there from the TV show that went into the comic? The comic book
obviously does not have the same atmosphere as the TV show, even though you're using
the same sort of costume designs; how much leeway did you have in sort of creating
your own universe?

I was actually going off the scripts I was sent. Saban and Fox would send me scripts from the TV
series before they were aired, because we had to create the comics months in advance of the
publication date, and we were writing and drawing before the show was on the air. So I got the scripts,
but I never actually saw the television series until we were well underway into the comic book.
Did you get a sense from those scripts that things weren't gonna be, creatively speaking,
what maybe everybody would've hoped for?

You're putting words in my mouth there, because when you say, "What everybody would have hoped
for," I'll agree with you right now that hardcore Avengers fans who've been reading the Avengers
comic from Marvel for a long time were probably disappointed in the show because the show took a
lot of liberties with the Avengers stories from the comic books. But at the same time I don't think it's a
disappointing show in the sense that -- a kid watching television in the year 2000, or 1999, has been
very attracted to in the last couple of years shows like Pokemon and Mighty Morphin' Power
Rangers. And this show bears a closer resemblance to that, in a way, than it does to Avengers from
Marvel. So it's not an unsuccessful or disappointing show in the sense of a television audience, who
doesn't necessarily know comics. I mean, the entire readership of Marvel's Avengers comic right
now is about 85-thousand people. But the viewership of the Avengers television show is probably
closer to two or three million. So if, of that two or three million you've got 85-thousand slightly
disappointed viewers...

You make a point. And my kids, who are 4 and 6, are nuts over the TV show.

So are mine. I have a 12-year old, a 4-year old, and a 4-month old. And the 4-year old and the 12-year
old both love it equally. They really are very fond of the show. My 4-year old adores it.

I don't know what the case is with your kids, but it seems like Tigra is the one that is
really sort of lighting my daughter's fire. She loves the idea of this cat-woman running
around.

Okay, my kids are all boys, they're very fond of Hawkeye and the Vision.

Let me ask you something about the Vision. Who did the costume design there, do you
know?

I don't know.

It seems like it almost stands out above and beyond the redesigns they did for Hawkeye and the
Scarlet Witch. It's a great costume for that sort of thing.

Oh, it's a good one -- you liked it?

I think it looks terrific.

As I'm one of these old Avengers fans I have to confess when I first saw the costume of the Vision, I
didn't much like it, because in my opinion, the Vision as a character has always been interesting
because he is someone who looks like he's alive, but he's actually a synthetic creature. Not a robot, but
an android. And the redesign made him look very robotic. But, the way they scripted the series he was
now, instead of being something that looked organic that wasn't, he's now something that looks like a
robot but is in fact alive. And that's almost a 180-degree spin on the original idea.

There've been quite a few of those -- my favourite issue, really the issue that won me
over to the comics series you're doing, or did, is the issue with the Origin of the Vision.
Probably one of the best comics Marvel put out last year, period.

Thank you very much. That was, by the way, our original first issue.

Ah. That doesn't surprise me at all. When I read it, I said, "I've got to get extra copies
for my kids," because when they're a little older, and they can appreciate the words,
instead of just the images and seeing it on TV, I really think this is gonna make an
impact. And it's funny, because I've been a hardcore Avengers fan since the '70s, and
you did do the 180 degree turn in terms of changing Wonder Man's origin, and his
status with the Avengers over time, but the whole thing just worked wonderfully.

Well, thank you. As I said, it was our original first issue, but it came out as issue 3 in the series
because the cartoon show was a little late getting to the air. And we didn't want to give away anything,
like what happens in issue 3. We didn't want to give away, for instance, that Wonder Man has died on
the series before it aired. So we had to quickly cobble together issue 1 and issue 2 very fast, which is
why -- I sort of think of issue 3 as issue 1 and 2 as -- minus 1 and minus 2.

Let's talk a little bit about your career in general; what first drew you to comics?

I don't any clear memory of being first drawn to comics, they've always been something that was as
much a part of my life as any other form of media.

Were they always around, when you were a little kid even?

Yeah. My grandmother had a real fondness for keeping comic books in good shape, because when we
went to visit her, we could all read from this communal box of comics and we could always take her to
a store and have her buy us one, and then they would get put in this box in her house, and never
brought home with us. And after a period of a few years my grandmother had like a hundred comic
books from the '60s and late '50s, because I had an older brother, that were in beautiful shape. And
when she died, I got them. And so that's where my comics collection starts. But my father was a
professional cartoonist in the '30s, I guess is probably a part of it too. They've just always been part of
my life like movies or television or radio.

That's extraordinary. I mean, most people have the story of having their parents throw
the comics out when they're away at camp or something...

Well, my mom threw comics out all the time, but my grandmother didn't. My grandmother, by the
way, was one of the people Dr. Frederick Wertham talked to.
Oh, really? No kidding! Was she quoted in the book (Seduction of the Innocent)?

No, she's not quoted in the book. But she met him and talked to him. She thought he was full of crap.

Whatever she said must not have had much of an impact.

I can't remember the circumstances under which she met him at this point, but I remember as she got
older, she died when I was about 19 or 20. When I was a teenager, and we talked about comics at one
point, and she talked to Wertham and told him he was full of -- "crazy beans," I don't know what.

What were the comics that she felt were appropriate for you as a young boy?

Mostly Marvel and DC stuff, specifically Superboy and Iron Man. I don't know why, but those are
ones she liked to pick out for us. So some of my earliest comics are Superboys and Iron Mans and
Avengers. My Superboys go back to the '50s, my Iron Mans and Avengers obviously don't start
'til the '60s.

So it must have been really kind of a dream come true to be able to recreate the
Avengers for a new generation?

Yeah, it was, actually. The issue that we spoke of, number three, ends with the (Vision) crying.

Yeah, I gotta tell you, you won me for life -- if this book had gone on forever…

Have you ever read Avengers #57?

Yes, and I knew -- from the story, as I'm reading, I got about halfway through it, and I
said to myself "this has to end with that scene (of the Vision crying)." And then when it
actually did, you just blew my mind.

Except the difference was, in the original version, he's crying with happiness because he's found
friends. And in my version he's crying because he can't reveal to them that he has emotions. It's that
180-degree spin again. But what I was doing with that one is I was recreating a comic book from my
very early childhood. I think Avengers # 57 I think, was the first Avengers comic book my
grandmother ever bought. and I still have the very copy she purchased. For 12 cents, or 10 cents, or
whatever.

They just recently reprinted that, too.

Did they?

Yeah, when they were doing the Ultron storyline (in the main title), they did a reprint
that had, one of those rather inexpensive, I think it was $3.95...and that was one of the
issues that was reprinted in it.
Oh, cool. Well, Roy Thomas and John Buscema were towering monoliths of talent.

And that issue, from cover to the last scene, was an absolute masterwork.

It's also not a bad issue to sort of "find" the Avengers with. I was won over as a life-long fan when I
read that issue. Somebody just today was asking me what my first Batman comic book was, and it
was "Robin Dies at Dawn," are you familiar with that one?

Neal Adams?

Much earlier than that, it was 1959 or 1960 or something like that. It's a classic of the last of the Bob
Kane era. And it's sort of like -- I was very lucky that a lot of my first experience of comic books were
literally classic issues. If the first time I had picked up an Avengers comic had been an especially dull
fill-in, I may never have been fond of them at all, but I happened to get there for one of the greatest
comics of the last 20 years, so I was kind of hooked from the beginning.

You bring up Batman, is there any sort of possibility of you returning to that fold?

Oh, sure. Sure.

Has there been any discussion with DC?

Not specifically. I still work for DC and Marvel, and whoever calls me to do a job. I'm currently
drawing an issue of the Flash for DC, and the cover of a Justice League that happens to have
Batman on it, so I'm never too far away from him.

It's interesting to me, you are one of the few comics creators that are fairly vocal in
taking part in this sort of burgeoning Internet back-and-forth between comics creators
and fans --

I'm a mouth (chuckles).

I first started getting into Usenet, the newsgroups, a couple of years ago, and it really
started to come as a shock when you started to see somebody would mouth off about a
writer or artist and that writer or artist would reply.

Yes. I tend to be as polite as possible unless someone's coming at me with just sheer rudeness. Which
does happen.

It does happen, and I think it's that anonymity of sitting behind the keyboard, people
forget that they're having a conversation with someone that ostensibly, they probably
had some respect for, until they end up in these sort flame wars --
Yes.

Do you ever find yourself regretting getting into these discussions?

I think the very first one I got into that was a big mess I regretted. By bringing it up I'm gonna bring it
up again. I worked on a project -- I'd been saddled with an artist I really did not like, a few years ago.
He'd left the industry, he wasn't working in the comics industry anymore. And someone just sort of
brought his name up in a newsgroup and asked my opinion of it, and I unfortunately gave the actual
opinion of this artist, which was not flattering at all. I believe I said he was the worst artist ever
employed in the industry. And at the time I wasn't really aware of how many people read that, I
thought I was just having a conversation with the person who asked me the question. And I found out
very quickly that that was read by 500, 600, 1000 people. And now, here I am insulting someone who
didn't really deserve it, because he wasn't a bad person, he was just a frustrating person to work with.
And I regret very much having done that because I didn't want to insult that person as a human being,
you know what I mean? You have to say (online) that you're (on a microphone) and it's going out all
over the world. Because, I became so suddenly aware of the fact that--the editor who put us together
on this project, he called me up within a few days and said "I think you should really call and
apologize for what you said." And I said "Good Lord, where did you read that?" It never occurred to
me that that many people were reading it. I've since censored myself about that sort of thing. I'm very
vocal about my opinions, but I try not to get personal about people I've worked with because that's not
really appropriate.

Do you think it's healthy overall for the artform, for the writers and artists to be getting
this sort of immediate feedback?

Sure. Absolutely. I think it's a terrific way of gauging what I'm doing. My editor, Tom, is not very vocal
about what I do. He'll a script or a cover or something and he'll say "thanks." (Laughs). That's all I get
out of him. Ever! I'll say, "Did you like it? Did you hate it? Am I going in the right direction? Did you
hate the ending, did you like the ending?" He'll go "If I didn't think you could do the job I wouldn't
have hired you. That's all I ever get out of him."

Well, yeah, as a creative person, I've had this in radio, too. You're hired because they
like whatever it is you did, and they assume that you're competent, but we're creative
people, we want to be patted on the back once in a while.

It's not even being patted on the back, it's being steered. A Marvel reader is a different person than a
DC reader, and I've written comedy for television, and that's a different audience, and I've written
pieces for magazines, and that's a different audience. And my sensibilities should obviously be a part
of what I'm writing, but I don't want it to be the only thing that's part of my writing, because I want to
entertain my reader, not preach to him or grab him by the throat and show him my point of view. I'm
not an artist so much as an entertainer. And I want my editor to say "Well, you know for the most part
I think our readers like it if you put more robots in it," or whatever.

How was the feedback in terms of when you were working on the Batman title?
I had more than one editor on Batman. My first editor was a guy named Scott Peterson, and he was
an absolute saint, he was terrific, he was --

He's writing the title now, isn't he?

Yes he is, he's doing a pretty good job. He was a saint; he was a real guiding editor. He would call me
up after a script came in and talk them through with me and say, y'know, "I didn't like page 7, page 9
really rocked --" whatever. The editor who followed him I did not get along with at all. That's why I
stopped working on Batman Adventures. He was the sort of editor that, when he would get a
script, if he found something he didn't like, he would simply rewrite it. And I would find out when it
got published.

That must have been frustrating.

Extremely. That's why I stopped working there.

There have been a lot of animated comics that have been really terrible, and it seems
like each issue is a sort of standalone disaster, but it seemed like you were really trying
to build, not necessarily a continuing soap opera, but there was certainly a greater
feeling that this was a continuing story.

Well, an unfolding story. It wasn't continuing, you could buy issue 5, and not have to buy issue 4 or
issue 6 to appreciate it. But I would make a reference to something that happened in an issue
previous, or there would be little seeds planted...

And to have somebody do rewrites on that, it's a little difficult probably to keep that
story straight.

Yes. Yes. (Laughs) you've got my frustration in a bullseye right there.

See, you do get frustrated, I knew it.

Because, I quit. I mean, I walked away from that job after three years, so obviously there had to be
some level of frustration. At the time I walked away actually, we had just, myself and the artist that
was doing it, a guy named Rick Burchett, we left on the same issue. We both walked away at the same
time. And we'd both just won an award for our work about two or three months previously. Our
frustration was quite high.

It's good to go out on top, though.

(Laughs) Okay -- "Leave 'em wantin' more."

And we do, too. It'd be great to see you back on there --

I've got more Batman stories in me, and unless the sun blows up I'll do more Batman.

Have you got any plans for continuing series in the near future?

Not a continuing series, I'm doing a 6-issue miniseries for Vertigo Comics, that I've written already,
and will begin drawing as soon as I clear my schedule.

Now, what is that going to be?

It's a very strange series about a homeless man and his guardian angel, and his guardian angel hates
him and has ruined his life.

Certainly sounds like Vertigo material.

Yeah, but it's a comedy. It's played for laughs. And when he discovers the guardian angel has ruined
his life he more or less blackmails the guardian angel into playing genie for him to fix his life. It's a 6-
issue miniseries about a man and his magical creature that still hates him trying to put his life back
together.

And when can we expect to see that?

As I said, when I clear my schedule I start drawing it. So it'll come out this year, obviously, but I
couldn't say whether it's gonna start in the spring or in the summer.
Rob Vollmar, 2004

In the interests of full disclosure, I must note that I've known Rob for years and have worked with
him at a couple of different comics websites, most notable, of course, Comic Book Galaxy. Over the
years, I've come to respect Rob's taste in comics more than anyone else I've ever known. He can spot
talent years ahead of its time, and I don't think he's ever steered me wrong, introducing me to the
works of, among others, Renée French, Paul Hornschemeier and Phoebe Gloeckner. More
importantly, though, I've had the unique pleasure of watching Rob himself grow as a comics
creator, first as the writer of the Eisner-nominated graphic novel The Castaways with artist
Pablo Callejo, and again with Pablo on Bluesman, the creative duo’s finest work to date. Both were
published by NBM Publishing, and I can’t recommend them enough.

Alan David Doane: You seem to be a comics Renaissance Man. You write them, you
write eloquently about them, for Ninth Art and Comic Book Galaxy among other places,
and you even sell them in your day-job at Atomik Pop in Norman, Oklahoma. What
would you say contributed to your great interest in the artform, and what sustains it?

Rob Vollmar: I am a person very much driven by my interests. Today, at 32, I am essentially doing
the same things I was at 13, namely
playing and listening to music and
reading comics, just now it's for money
on occasion. It may not get me that
coveted Vice President's slot on the
Kerry ticket this fall but I work very
hard to preserve this autonomy over my
creativity energy and try to not to let
myself slack in terms of setting and
achieving personal goals.

Comics have been with me since I was a

small kid of three or four. I had a
tendency to be sickly and somewhere in
there, it became standard that when
Mom made a trip to the pharmacy to get
whatever it was that would make me feel
better, she'd always stop and pick up a
two-liter of 7-Up (which no one ever
drank in my house unless they were
sick) and some comic books. My sister
and I both were big Archie and Harvey
Comics fans so we had a shared
collection of those that I eventually
inherited when she lost interest in them.
Though my interest in them may have waxed, waned, and appeared to dry up altogether in a variety of
orders since, I'm glad that I've had the last six years to get re-immersed in them. It's been a really
exciting time from every end of the spectrum (reader, creator, retailer) to be interested in comics as
the diversity of the market as a whole has blossomed for both contemporary and archived works.

Having also worked as a professional musician for a number of years, I find the comics industry to be
refreshingly open. If you admire someone's work, it generally only takes a little finger grease and
some non-threatening communication skills to talk to them about their work. It was that sort of thing
that really inspired me to start writing about comics and eventually, writing the comics themselves
with remarkably talented collaborators like Pablo Callejo.

Your forthcoming graphic novel BLUESMAN seems to me to be a breakthrough work

with huge appeal to the non-comics reading audience. Tell me what inspired you and
how the project came together.

The primary inspiration for BLUESMAN is, of course, the style of music from which the title is
derived, the blues, as well as the people who played it. I am passionate about many kinds of music,
blues included and felt like writing about it would be playing to my strengths in terms of having the
insights to provide the kind of narrative intimacy that makes characters come alive.

When I started talking to Pablo about our follow-up to CASTAWAYS, it became clear that we
wanted to do something exciting but grounded in realism. To me, the lives of these pioneers of one of
America's most valued cultural exports, contrasted as they were by the harsh societal realities faced in
the living of it, offered some really epic material from which to draw. It is also a very well documented
subject of late and I felt like that comics ought to have something vital to offer beyond ROBERT
CRUMB DRAWS THE BLUES and assorted Harvey Pekar shorts, masterful as they may be.

To prepare for writing the story, I did a fair measure of research beyond the Depression related books
I had already scoured before writing CASTAWAYS. Among the more valuable were Robert Palmer's
(the critic not the singer) DEEP BLUES (who is the model for the book's imaginary blues critic,
Sheldon Deldoff, that makes occasional narrative intrusions into Book One), THE LEGACY OF THE
BLUES by Samuel Charters, Francis Davis's THE HISTORY OF THE BLUES and, more recently,
TROUBLE IN MIND by Leon Litwack.

This research seemed to really pay off the most when making internal decision about the lives of the
characters up to the moment that the panel first captures them. Our two bluesmen are very different
people that have ended up in the same place for different reasons. It was very important to me from
the outset that BLUESMAN be something that felt very real to the reader and yet, delivered
something that challenged expectations. The romantic image of the blues musician as a womanizing,
unintelligible scoundrel sanctioned by Ol‘ Scratch himself persists today because it was a carefully
constructed marketing campaign designed to sell lots of records without upsetting notions of white
superiority.

In contrast, Lem Taylor, the story‘s protagonist, is a morally conflicted individual who is torn between
the faith of his upbringing and the relative freedoms of the secular world. Couched in more narrow
terms, he is only equipped to do two things, preach
and play music. He has lost his faith in God, so he
turns to the other to provide him not only with the
means of subsistence but also a sense of actuation.
What makes the story compelling, I hope, is taking
Lem, a very gentle sort of person, and throwing
him into the literary lion‘s den to get at that total
sense of lack of personal security that threatened
every black person in America during the Jim Crow
period.

The form of the series is also derived from the form

of the blues itself in a number of meaningful ways.
It is twelve chapters long mirroring the now-
omnipresent 12 bar (or measure) form. Blues
purists out there will take some solace in knowing
that I originally plotted it as an 8-bar just to be
archaically obtuse but the pacing started making
other demands and so I caved.

Each of the three volumes is four chapters long,

like the four measures that make up one line of a
blues song so upon completion we'll essentially
have finished one verse, one trip from the head to
the turnaround. Finally, the scenes are constructed
around page multiples of threes to impose a triplet
rhythm over the duple meter of the page count. While that all may seem boring and/or ridiculous to
some (including myself from time to time), the blues is all about form and it seemed justifiable in
terms of the time spent constructing and satisfying these little rules as I was writing.

You have the singular honour of being one of the human beings I envy most on the
planet. Tell me about your experience playing rock 'n roll onstage with James Kochalka
Superstar.

As a musician, there have been few experiences more satisfying than my one night on stage with
James. There was a group of us at Atomik Pop where I work in Norman, Oklahoma, who are all
enamored with his work in both music and comics. So, we concocted a Kochalka-palooza for the first
Free Comic Book Day that consisted of a concert at the local Legion Hall on Friday, followed by a
signing the following day at the store.

I spent about three weeks teaching thirty or so songs to a band of great musicians that I knew would
do a good job of interpreting his songs. The day before the show, James flew in with Jason Cooley
(aka Jason X-12) and we got in one rehearsal at the practice studio in Chickasha before dashing back
to Norman for a preview of the first Spider-Man film.

It was pretty surreal both in rehearsal and at the show, to play all these songs with James that I had
been listening to for so long. He was very gracious to perform with and encouraged everyone to be as
spontaneous and ridiculous as suited them. I‘ve seen a lot of rock-n-roll shows in my time but I have
seen few musicians as genuinely charismatic and generous to the audience as James. Not one person
that saw that show (except for Jason) had ever seen him perform before and he had everyone just
eating out of his hand.

On a personal level, it was great just hanging out with James and Jason and for a short period,
entering their world that I had been a part of vicariously through reading James‘ work. While James‘
life is more than just his work, he is a very honest and capable autobiographer and brought a sense of
whimsy with him like good weather when he came.

Sing to me praises of the art of Pablo Callejo.

Due to my intense personal gratitude to Pablo for being a wonderful and capable collaborative
partner, I feel compelled to say that I have about as much critical objectivity about his art as a man
does for his wife on their wedding day. I remember when Ed Irvin from AoI first sent me Pablo‘s
"audition" pages for CASTAWAYS, I was just floored by the level of detail that he managed to bring
out with being fussy or photorealistic in any way.

With BLUESMAN, I feel like Pablo has really topped himself in a number of significant ways. His
drafting skills, which were considerable to begin with, have only continued to improve and refine. He
makes use of considerable technology in the production of his artwork and is doing things with digital
tone shading that are just stunning to my eye.

But, if I had to pick a greatest strength, I would have to go with his facility and range of expression.
There is something unique about the way Pablo captures human emotion in the faces and body
language of the characters that transmits so much more than just what they are saying in the little
balloon. He has a very nuanced understanding of how real people look and how they look differently
from one another and that verity translates, I think, into a dramatic emotional impact on the receptive
reader that lingers well-beyond the closing of the back cover.

Tell me what you want to do in comics after BLUESMAN makes you an international
superstar.

My realpolitik goal for BLUESMAN is that Pablo and I be able to expand the audience interested in
our work beyond the roughly 4000 people worldwide it encompasses right now. I have a great deal of
pride in the work that we have accomplished and am hopeful that if we work hard enough to get the
word out about the book both among comics fans and the public at large that we have a good chance
of doing that.

I‘d love to continue working with Pablo as long as he can stand translating my colloquial English into
something he can use as a script. I never tire of seeing his work and still have a genuine sense of
discovery with each new page that he turns out. It really fills me with pride that our work has been
widely read and praised in Spain, where he lives, so that he, too, can feel a measure of the impact our
work is having. Breaking into the European market has always been a romantic dream of mine and
with our work now being published in France as well as Spain, I am excited about the possibilities that
lie before us.

If I had to choose between only working with Pablo or never working with Pablo, I would opt for the
former but there are many comics artists that I would love the opportunity to work with. I have a
particular fixation with many of the artists that came out the East European/STRIPBUREK scene
like Igor Baranko, Danijel Zezelj, or Igor Kordey. I think those guys have tons of depth that mostly
goes untapped by the narrative demands of the books they are given to draw, especially Zezelj and
Kordey. If I could get someone to pay anyone of those gentleman a livable wage to draw one of my
stories, I‘d gladly work for free.

As a writer of comics, I would be idiotic not to recognize that it could be a tremendous financial asset
to my household if I were able to generate enough awareness about my work that freelancing
opportunities became a possibility. Those jobs, I‘ve gleaned, go to the well-deserved folks who
diligently seek them out and, as of today, that‘s just not me. I don‘t have any ethical problems with
doing work-for-hire but I‘m not looking to it as the end from my means or even a validation of my
skill as a writer. I‘ve seen some otherwise very talented comics writers turn out some less than stellar
serials under these arrangements and have no delusions that my natural aptitudes, whatever they may
be, exempt me from those same pitfalls. If I am able to make that kind of work a vital part of my larger
career, it will be only because I was presented with same learning curve as everyone else and was
given time and opportunity to overcome it.

Otherwise, my aspirations are pretty much restrained to doing the best work I can telling stories that
are important to me for whatever reason. CASTAWAYS was important to me because it was about
the place that I grew up. BLUESMAN celebrates one of my favorite periods in music while exploring
the culture that made its existence so unlikely and thus valuable. I am interested in writing about the
places that I have lived and the people who populate them. I'm still in the process of developing a
story about the Tulsa Massacre of 1921 that will probably hit high gear when I finish up the work on
BLUESMAN at the end of this year. If a measure of success for BLUESMAN can facilitate the
publication of that story, I would be as pleased as punch.
Mark Waid, 2000

My favourite Mark Waid comic books of all time are the issues of Captain America that he wrote
for artist Ron Garney during the first volume of that title. Marvel screwed the pooch not once but
twice, when they cut short the first run for the artistically disastrous Heroes Reborn event (Cap
suffered particular creative indignity at the hands of Rob Liefeld), and then after Heroes Reborn
ended, they brought back the Waid/Garney team and screwed with their efforts to the point that
things fell apart within a handful of issues on that second go-round. At his best, though – Kingdom
Come, Empire, Cap – Waid is one hell of a storyteller. Like the Kurt Busiek interview earlier in
this eBook, this interview was conducted on the cusp of the pair’s Gorilla Comics imprint being
launched.

Alan David Doane: Tell us how you got started writing comics?

Mark Waid: Well, started reading them in 1966 when Adam West came
on my TV, and never stopped reading comics, even after I discovered girls.
I've been reading them all my life, and collecting them all my life, and then
in the mid-‗80s, went to work on staff at DC Comics. Worked on staff as an
editor for a couple of years and that led to a freelance career that's been
just the greatest job that you can imagine.

It has had its ups and downs in a couple of areas, and I'd like to
discuss that, because I think it kind of keys into the creation of
Gorilla Comics.

Sure.

I did an interview a couple of weeks ago with Kurt Busiek, where we talked a little bit
about your experiences with Captain America, which he seemed to feel was a large part
of why Gorilla Comics came about. Would you like to talk a little bit about that?

(Laughs) I would say that's an enormous part of what happened.

You had written Captain America a few years ago, with an artist named Ron Garney. In
fact, that probably was the first work of yours that I was aware of, I thought that was
just really, really terrific work being done there...

Thank you.

And then, why don't you tell us, you're there, you're writing that first run of Captain
America, and tell us what happened from there.

Well, after we had -- and I hesitate to say this, because I don't want to sound like I'm patting myself
on the back, but -- after we had tripled sales...and I give most of the credit to Ron Garney, he's a
terrific artist--at that time, Marvel decided to farm out a lot of its work to another in-house studio to
produce, sort of like Disney going to Miramax and using them as a development studio or what have
you. And so the books were taken away from us. They did really well under that new arrangement, but
that new arrangement only lasted a year. And then when they came back to us...the advantage we had
the first time around was that we were a dark horse. That Captain America had not been doing well in
sales for a while.

And I had sort of acquired the reputation as a series doctor, if you will. A character doctor to come in
on some of the characters that aren't doing as well and get them back to the basics and get them back
in shape. So the first time out, we were...under the radar, if you will. But the second time out, we were
very high profile going back into it. And unfortunately, high profile means high attention and it also
means a lot of noodling from the powers that be.

These characters, don't get me wrong, they're company-owned characters, they're corporate-owned
characters, this is like the Pillsbury Dough Boy and the Michelin Man are really, and...it's their
sandbox to play in. I understand that I'm playing with their toys when I'm playing, and ultimately I
don't own the characters, so...I grant them that. However, there was just a great deal of editorial
interference, there was a lot of second-guessing and triple-guessing of everything that Ron and I
wanted to do and it just eventually drove us into the brinks of insanity. And it just eventually left me
not wanting to stay with the book, because I wasn't being allowed to write stories at all, I was having
stories dictated to me.

It's, I think, illustrative of the power of the editors at the comics companies that
somebody like Kurt Busiek, I think, has had what appears to be a very good relationship
with his editor on Avengers, and I don't think there's been any indication of the kind of
things you went through...is it really that much power in the hands of the individual
editors, or do you think it comes from higher up?

Completely, in the individual editors and from the higher-ups. Absolutely. Again, they own the
characters, they're very protective of the characters, and I salute that, and I understand that. You
don't want somebody coming around doing a Superman story that is gonna get a bunch of negative
press and negative attention because it's about subject matter that's not suitable for the target
audience or what have you. But, that was never the case here. Kurt's had a better relationship than I
have only because he's worked with fewer editors, I think, so statistically (laughs) he wins.

And there are some good editors out there, Kurt's got one of the very best ones when he's working
with Avengers, a fellow named Tom Brevoort over at Marvel, who is one of the very best. But for every
Tom Brevoort, there's a bunch of guys who said, and this is an exact quote from a Marvel editor, and
this is the thing that drove me off the brink: "We see writer-driven comics as an experiment that's
failed." Well, first off, I'm not sure that it was ever an experiment. I don't know that Stan Lee when he
was creating Spider-Man and the Hulk was thinking about writer-driven comics as an experiment,
and secondly, you know, they were never writer-driven. How did they fail? You kept telling me what
you wanted me to do and you never let me drive the car, so don't blame me when we got in a wreck.
It's an interesting thought, too, you know -- I think that experiment has been going on
since the first comic book was ever written.

Yeah, exactly, Superman was a writer-driven comic, so apparently that's an experiment that's failed
too. I don't know, it was an extremely ill-chosen quote by an extremely young, wet-behind-the-ears
editor and like I said, there's a lot of good ones out there, I don't want to sound like Mr. Negativity. It
was just, it was about time for me anyway to move on and start doing things that were more under my
control and things that were creator-owned properties, as opposed to corporate-owned properties.
Things that I could manipulate without having to worry about the licensing of a beach towel or
whether some upcoming TV show spin-off is gonna impact what I want to do and so forth.

So how much time was there between your leaving Captain America the second time,
and you and Kurt and whoever else getting together and saying "Hey, you know what,
let's do it ourselves?"

About an hour and a half (laughs). Really, just no time at all. Frankly, I can't even swear that there
wasn't some overlap there, but we'd been talking for a while. Kurt and I've been talking for years
about putting together an anthology book or line or something that plays to both our strengths and
gives us a chance to kind of run free, and the conversation just turned back to that after the latest
round of banging my head against the wall with Marvel. So, that's how long that lasted. And I tell ya,
it's been the most creatively liberating experience of my life.

Let's talk a little bit about Empire, your new book with artist Barry Kitson -- maybe you
want to describe what it is about Empire that makes it different from the run of the mill
superhero comic book.

Well, in broad strokes, it's essentially "What if the bad guys won?" It is the Sopranos with capes if you
will. It is a world in which one of these gargantuan world-beaters that has always fought Superman or
Batman, those type of guys, has finally won. Has finally conquered the world. But now he realizes he
doesn't want the job anymore. And that's his terrible secret. It sounds funny, but it's a horrible,
Shakespearean tragedy. Here's a guy, named Golgoth, a character of my own creation with Barry, who
has managed in a despotic fashion, Hitler cubed if you will, to have conquered the world. The problem
is, he had a ten-year plan, and he knew what his ten-year plan was, and about eight years into his plan
he knew two things. He knew first off that there was no way he wasn't gonna win.

And the other thing he knew was that he didn't want the job anymore. Because he realizes that, once
you're king, you've still gotta keep the trains running on time. You still have to watch your back, you
have to watch your back more than ever. Everybody's out after you. There's your advisers, who are
sharpening their knives to stick in your back, there's freedom fighters out there -- there's...it's just a
continual, it's no longer acquiring, it's a matter of now you've got it, what do you do with it?

I have a friend who read the book that feels one of your biggest influences was The
Prince, Machiavelli's --
Oh, by far, yes.

Tell us what you got out of that to put into Empire.

Machiavelli was a successful, and then

later failed and exiled European strategist,
in general. He literally wrote the book. He
outlined in no uncertain terms, "Here's a
gameplan for taking over the world. Here's
a gameplan for beating your enemies and
when you win, here's what you do, and
here's how you maintain your rule," and so
forth and so on. Now, the advantage that
Machiavelli had that Golgoth didn't is that
Machiavelli never won (laughs). He never
swept the gameboard and then realized
"Oh, man, what do I do now?"

So how different is it, trying to write

a book that's filled with nothing but
bad guys, from handling somebody
like Captain America or the Flash?

On the one hand, it is drastically different,

because I do tend to lean toward
characters that are brighter and shinier
and happier. That's a reflection of my own
life, frankly. I grew up reading comics all
my life, this is all I ever wanted to do was
be involved in comics, and my job is like
the best day of summer vacation. I just get
up in the morning, I think about comics all
day, and I go to bed.

And I tend to be attracted to superheroes who do the same thing. They get up in the morning, and
they don't have mundane jobs to worry about, they're just out there, righting wrongs and fighting the
good fight. And then they go to bed and get up the next morning. I'm attracted to guys like that, and
have been writing characters like that all my life. This was just a chance for me to exercise some new
muscles. I knew I needed to -- there's a writer named Denny O'Neil, who's been writing Batman
comics for 30 years, been editing Batman comics for quite a while. He is as much responsible for the
look of Batman, and what people know of Batman in the last 30 years as anybody. And Denny's advice
to me long ago was, "Every four or five years, as a writer, you've gotta reach into your bag of tricks,
and throw out 70 percent of it." Even if it still works, you've just got to go in there and just gut your
bags, and force yourself to learn new tools, otherwise you'll never grow as a writer, you'll never
change.

And this was about the time that I realized I needed to start stretching some new muscles. This gives
me a chance, with Empire, to write a little more soap opera. It gives me a chance to write slightly
deeper, more troubled characters. And to really get deeper into what makes people tick.

The standout strength of the first issue, which just knocked my socks off, was not the
physical power of the villain, Golgoth, but rather the interpersonal relationships
between he and his adviser, and his daughter -- it's really compelling stuff.

Well, thank you. The trick is, before people read the first issue, everybody was all over me saying, "If
they're all about villains, how come I'm gonna come back month after month because I don't like any
of these people?" Well, you know, I like Tony Soprano (laughs), you know. He's a mobster. It's not
what they do, it's how they perceive themselves. No one wakes up in the morning and thinks, "I'm a
villain, I'm a bad guy." Everybody from the heinous creep in the world to Mother Teresa, all of them
wake up in the morning and think, "You know, basically I'm a pretty good guy. Just doin' what I gotta
do to survive."

The old "Brotherhood of Evil Mutants" thing.

(Laughs) Yeah, yeah. You know, who calls themselves "The Brotherhood of Evil Mutants." "I'm an evil
mutant, are you an evil mutant?" "I'm a member of the Secret Society of Super-Villains." I don't get up
in the morning and think "I'm a super-villain." Just a guy, doin' my stuff, doin' what I gotta do to get
by in the world. And Golgoth and his people are very much like that. They certainly don't perceive
themselves as super-villains. I mean, frankly, they brought a certain measure of order to the world.
It's under an iron fist, but you take the good with the bad (chuckles).

This series isn't the first one you've done with artist Barry Kitson...

Barry's terrific. Barry is, I can't -- there's not enough good words to say about Barry's work. The
storytelling is clean, it's linear, it's not these funky panel layouts where you look at a comic book page
and you have no idea what it is you're supposed to read first, or who's speaking next, or -- any of that
nonsense. It doesn't look like a comic book from your childhood, but it is not any harder to read than
the stuff you grew up reading as a kid or the stuff that you grew up reading in the Sunday comics in
the newspapers.

Which is one of my big complaints about comics today, it's like you need a Rosetta Stone. If you
haven't been reading comics forever, I challenge anybody to pick up an issue of X-Men out of the
blue who hasn't read comics in 20 years and try to even figure out in what order you're supposed to
look at the pictures!

I've been reading 'em for almost 30 years, Mark, and I still can't figure that one out.
Exactly. So, Barry's terrific. He's moody, he's expressive, and in his artwork he is too. Just kidding.

How does the collaboration between the two of you work, are you handing him a full
script that he's working from, or do you work out the stories together?

We work out the stories together pretty much. I come up with the basic goals and ideas and drives of
the characters and then we just call each other and knock ideas back and forth, so in that sense it's a
very collaborative process. At which point then I write up a plot, essentially a full script without
finished dialogue. Rough dialogue in it, but not finished dialogue. And at that point, Barry will draw
up the pages and I will go back and lay in finished dialogue, and make adjustments based on any
changes he may have wanted to make, and looking at characters' expressions and seeing if I can get
better words out of them, now that I can see exactly what it is they look like they're saying, that sort of
thing.

One of the surprise things that happened with Gorilla was, initially you and the other
Gorilla founders had worked out a financing deal with an Internet web site, and that
deal fell through. How much have you had to scramble to adjust for that loss in forming
Gorilla?

I won't lie and say we didn't have to scramble, but we were a little prepared. First off, we walked away
from them instead of vice-versa. They were having a hard time securing the financing that they were
talking about as fast as they had hoped. And a lot of our solicitations and projections and budgets
were based on numbers that just didn't come about in terms of what they were able to provide fast
enough. So for about a three-day weekend, we had a chance to get out of jail free. We turned to each
other, all of us, and said, we could just pull the plug at this point, and I think most people would
forgive us, that stuff just didn't work out.

But, we had already promised some books to fans, we already promised that they'd be getting books,
and it didn't seem right to let them down, it didn't seem right to go out there and do all this ballyhoo,
all this publicity, and then let it fall through. So, we marshaled our forces, we dug into our own
pockets, we took out loans against our houses, or whatever, and we literally put our money where our
mouths are.

One of the models of going and striking out on your own, would be looking at what
happened with Image Comics when those guys broke away from Marvel and started
their own company. That had to be something you were thinking about somewhere
along the line, especially considering you're working with Image to a certain extent.
What do you hope to do differently from what the original Image partners did?

You're right, it's a very fair comparison, the only real difference is that those guys were millionaires
when they did it!

Oh, come on Mark, don't hold out on us.

We're living check to check. But still. The only thing we plan to do differently is -- well, actually, we
don't plan to do anything differently in the great scheme of things. We're all interested in doing the
same thing, which is getting good comic books out there to people who want to read 'em.

How soon do you think it's gonna be before we see sort of Gorilla expansion, are you
guys going to be very conservative in terms of your next moves? What's the plan?

We have to be relatively conservative. There are a couple of factors. One is, as I say, we're digging into
our own pockets to publish, and they're not deep pockets, believe me. And also we're up against The
Summer of X-Men [the movie]. Retailers only have a certain number of dollars they can spend every
month on product, and in July and August, clearly they're gonna be ordering a lot more X-Men books
than anything else they order and that's gonna affect the orders on all the other books in the industry.
So it's not like we're launching at the optimum time to expand. I think it's best to play it cool for a
little while, get out there, make sure we're on pretty steady ground and then you'll see wave two.

A lot of people seem to think the X-Men movie, if it's a big success, at the very least will
be the salvation of Marvel and possibly, at best the salvation of the industry of comics in
general. How big an impact do you think it can have, if this movie really knocks one out
of the park?

Well, you know, again, Mr. Negativity, that's me. Let's go back eleven years to Batman, 1989. That
was one of the biggest movies of all time. And...

And here we are a decade later.

Here we are a decade later. And I don't see comics on every corner newsstand anymore. The
industry's hurting, and I think that any exposure helps. I think Marvel has a program where they're
actually giving free comic books to people who actually see the movie, which is terrific, a great idea.
Will that draw them into comic book stores? Will that make a new generation of readers out of them?
We can hope so, but...

Let's hope they pick some X-Men comics that you can read.

(Laughs) exactly. Let's hope that happens. Nothing would be better for the industry than that. But, I
just--I worry it's gonna be a short term bump and then we're gonna be back where we are. Like, again,
the Batman movie was one of the biggest movies of all time, and as I say, it didn't exactly change the
face of the industry.

One of the other things you're doing is JLA for DC. What made you want to take on the
challenge of writing arguably DC's biggest book?

First off, the appeal of the characters. I get to play with all the toys here. I get to play with Superman
and Batman and Wonder Woman and Flash, and Green Lantern and Aquaman and whoever else I
want to into the team. That was the appeal. The pressure was enormous. Grant Morrison's not only a
good friend of mine, but one of the best writers in the industry, certainly a better writer than I am.
And the stuff was just mind-blowing. He catapulted that book to the top of the sales chart. Not only is
it DC's best-selling book, it's DC's best-selling book by a factor of about three. To follow that act, that's
tough. But -- DC twisted my arm, which was flattering and pleasant, and I decided to take the plunge.
And the good news is that, we didn't hit the iceberg the moment I took on the book. We managed to
keep sales steady for whatever reason, and I'm just grateful for that.

It can't hurt, too, that you've got one of the best art teams in comics about to come onto
the title.

Oh, my God, I mean, we've had a fella named Howard Porter been drawing the book for years and
years, and he's terrific. I love Howard's work and he's doing the work of his career on -- (laughs) -- but
it's also the work of the end of his career because he's actually decided to leave comics for a little
while, which is unfortunate. But, waiting in the wings are Bryan Hitch and Paul Neary, and Laura
DePuy, who is a colorist. And they are the team that transformed a comic book called The Authority,
another, one of the Wildstorm books that DC's publishing, into a huge success. I'm here to tell ya,
their notion of the Justice League is just gonna make you weep -- (chuckles) -- it's just beautiful.

You recently attended a meeting of professionals who, I guess, for lack of a better term,
hope to "save comics." What do you hope comes out of that?

That I can go down to the corner and buy a comic book from my local Quik-E-Mart.

I remember doing that as a kid, and it didn't seem to be any big deal.

But we're old men, Alan. Sadly, it's not going to happen overnight. Ultimately, that's what we all hope
to get out of this--whatever organization grows out of our talks. Something to help promote the
medium and the industry to those who either remember when comics were a dime or don't even know
they're published anymore.

If you could play Golgoth for a day and rule the world, what steps would you take to
improve the health of the comics industry?

(Laughs) First off, I'd kill all the editors! No, I wouldn't, no, I wouldn't, they're fine people.

So you see editor-driven comics as an experiment that's failed.

Very well put.

Unfortunately, there's no easy fix. We should advertise the living heck out of these comic books to
people who don't read comics, but, where are you going to find that money, and where are you gonna
send 'em, because there's only 3000 comic book stores in the United States, and they gotta know
where they are, and they gotta find them, and they gotta be easily accessible.
What about (comics) made them so accessible in the 40s, when they were selling
million and millions every month, what is different now, besides the obvious answers,
the Internet, TV. Is that really all it is, or is there more to it?

Unfortunately, there's a lot more to it. In 1938 when comics came out, comics cost a dime. Well, so did
Time magazine, so did Life magazine, so did most magazines. So, for retailers back then, you could
make the same amount of money off an issue of Action Comics as you could off of Time magazine,
so they were equally as important to him. Over the years, magazine prices went up and up in the 40s
and 50s, 25 cents, 50 cents, whatever. Comics decided as an industry that we were just for kids and
therefore we would try to keep our prices low. And so comics were a dime until 1962. Now, the good
news is, it made it easier for kids to buy them.

But the bad news is, it marginalized them for mom and pop stores all over the nation, because, "If I
can sell Time magazine for a buck, why am I spending any time messing around with Batman comics
that I'm selling for a dime, I'm making 1/10th the money." That was certainly the thinking. And so,
over the years, we just started to fade from existence as far as the general public came to know. We've
built up a distribution system within the industry that caters specifically to comic book stores, which
you can find in any yellow pages across the nation. But even still, in the biggest cities in the world,
you're lucky to find four or five. You've got to know where they are. We've gone from being milk,
something you can find anywhere, to being model trains, where you've got to go to the model train
store if you want to get one.

It's almost to the point of being Cuban cigars, just to extend the metaphor.

Yeah. Unfortunately, we're really hard to find, and there's no easy fix to that.

Do you think the steps that, especially Marvel is initiating in the next few months such
as the Backpack Marvels, do you think that's going to have an impact?

I think so, I would hope so. One of our problems is format. Comic books are flimsy little pamphlets,
they take three minutes to read, and they cost, like, three bucks. Well, for that same three bucks I can
go to Blockbuster and rent a videogame for two nights. Marvel's Essential collections are doing really
well in the bookstores. DC has a lot of trade paperbacks, those do really well. Frankly, that's the wave
of the future, my friend. If people are gonna spend 8, 9, 10 dollars for a comic book -- if they're gonna
spend three dollars and get three minutes of entertainment, they're not gonna come back.

But if they spend ten bucks for one, and it's an all day sucker, something they can sit there for a couple
hours and read, like a novel, give them the same amount of perceived value for it, I think they'll come
back. So it's a matter of changing the formats, it's a matter of giving people more value for the dollar.

Do you see Gorilla addressing this as time goes on?

As time goes on, we absolutely would love to. Everything I've said to you in the last five minutes, Kurt
and I have been screaming for years. If we get in a position to be able to shake the tree a little bit, oh,
by all means. Unfortunately, right off the bat we are not in that position to really challenge the status
quo. But we're small and scrappy and hopefully if we eat our Wheaties and muscle train and we do
everything right and think good thoughts maybe we'll be in a position to do something.
Mike Wieringo, 2004

There’s no question that this is the most bittersweet moment of this project for me; I’m thrilled that I
got to interview Mike and know him a little in the short time he was on this earth (he died in 2007),
but I still cannot believe that he is gone. He was one of the very best superhero comics artists of the
last few decades, with a unique, energetic and engaging style that I followed from book to book like
an eager puppy looking for a treat. When Ringo was drawing the book, it was always a treat, and
I am sure I am not alone when I say I miss the hell out of him.

Alan David Doane: Your style seems so natural, and it looks like you have a genuine
love of drawing; there's a joy that comes through that
I see in few other superhero artists. Tell me how you
became a comics artist.

Mike Wieringo: I've been drawing for as long as I can

remember. I was the proverbial kid who was always drawing
in the margins of his notebook at every opportunity. Often at
IN-opportune times, as I was always being caught drawing
when I should have been taking notes or practicing my
handwriting or whatever it is that grade school kids are
SUPPOSED to do in class. So when I was exposed to comics
for the first time, it opened a whole new world for me and I
immediately wanted to draw my own comics. Like most young
kids I made up my own adventures about my favorite
characters and also made up my own "knock off versions" of
those characters. That grew into a serious desire to make a try
at becoming a comic book artist.

I got a degree in illustration and started working on samples to take to shows after I graduated from
college. I spent the summer of '91 working on those samples and went to the SAN DIEGO COMICON
in 1991 and 1992. Fortunately after getting in various editors faces at that show and following up with
more samples in the mail after I had established a connection with those editors, I got a call from
Ruben Diaz, who was at the time Brian Augustyn's assistant editor at DC. They offered me some
JUSTICE LEAGUE short stories that led into me being offered THE FLASH as an ongoing
assignment. I did a DOC SAVAGE miniseries for a small company before all that, but I don't want to
bore people with a dry, detailed account of my various dips into comics art before getting regular
work.

How did you get the initial Flash gig and what did you learn in your time on that book.

As I said, I took my portfolio full of samples out to the COMICON in San Diego in '91 and '92 and
stood in long (looooonnnnng) lines to show my wares to as many editorial folks as I could. It was
pretty arduous, because it was -- I think -- at the height of the "boom" in comics sales, and I'd be
willing to bet that for every 10 people there, 8 of them were there to show portfolios and try to get
work in comics. One of the editors I met at San Diego was Neal Pozner, who was in charge of looking
for new talent for DC at the time. He was a really stern and honest person -- but also very nurturing
and encouraging (which, I suppose, were the qualities that made him right for his job). He was honest
about what I needed to improve on, but over the course of a couple of years, he kept urging me to
work up new samples and send them in. He would always respond quickly with handwritten notes —
and even got to the point of calling me occasionally to tell me that he was trying to get my work under
the noses of the folks who could hand out the jobs.
Ironically, just as I had gotten to the point where I was
so discouraged because nothing substantial had come
my way in a couple of years that I was about ready to
give up my "quest", is when Ruben Diaz called after Neal
had shoved my samples in his face.

My gig on THE FLASH was a crash course on what it's

really like to work in the comics biz. The couple of
JUSTICE LEAGUE QUARTERLY short stories I'd
done before FLASH had a rather open deadline-- but
when I was thrown into the deep end of the pool with a
monthly assignment, it was sink or swim. And there
were many times when I thought I would end up sinking.
It taught me that to work on a monthly assignment, I
would have to virtually dedicate my life to sitting at the
drawing table. The days of 40-hours-per-week at a "day
job" were over-- it was 12-16 hour days 7 days per week
to get the job done. It certainly was an eye opener. It
ALSO taught me that no matter how many different
types of things that my imagination could think of to
draw for MYSELF or for samples, that a writer could
always throw something in that was completely
unexpected -- something I'd never had to draw or even
THOUGHT about drawing. And I can still count on Mark Waid for that even to this day -- some 12
years later...!

You've drawn the straight-up superheroics of The Flash, the science-fiction-based

Fantastic Four, and the fantasy of Tellos, among others. What do you think are your
greatest strengths as an artist?

I think that the greatest strength that I bring to the table is that I feel my work is open and accessible
to people. I have, I suppose, a "friendly" style of drawing that people can connect with -- and could
be described as an "all ages" kind of look. I've always wanted to be an actor, but I don't have the looks
for it-- so I try to infuse my work with as much of the appropriate drama or comedy or tragedy that's
called for without going over the top. And I concentrate on trying to depict natural body language
with whatever's happening in the scene I'm drawing. I guess what it comes down to is that I'm very
interested in characters over drawing action, locations or props. I think when it comes to science
fiction, the techno-props are my weak point (which is ironic for someone who's working on a science
based comic book)-- so I try to concentrate on the characters themselves to make up for my
weaknesses.

When Mark Waid and yourself left Fantastic Four during the Jemas era, it seemed like
yet another case of a corporate comics company screwing its creators; but Marvel
reversed its decision and the pair of you somehow remained on the book. In my
opinion it got even better after that incident. How do you look back on that time, and
what lessons do you think the industry and your fellow creators should take from it?

I got pretty angry over the whole situation at first when Bill Jemas decided to go in a completely
different direction with FANTASTIC FOUR last year. But after thinking about it for a while, I
realized that the characters belong to the Marvel-- and at the time, Bill Jemas WAS Marvel –
essentially -- and so whatever he wanted was what was going to happen. And I don't think that the
internet furor that happened in the wake of Mark's removal had much effect on our return. I think it
was more that with the success that Marvel has been having in Hollywood and all the money and
added attention/scrutiny that it's bringing to the company, Bill Jemas's "risk taking" style of helming
the company made the higher ups uncomfortable and they removed Jemas from his position of power
and started guiding the company back in a more conservative direction. The kinds of stories that
Mark and I were doing fall into the "mainstream superhero" mode, and so I think it made sense to
continue in that vein -- so they brought us back.

I look back at that time as simply an odd one for me. It was kind of fun having a four-month
"vacation" from the grind of drawing comics ever day all day long-- but on the other hand, it was an
UNPAID "vacation." I don't think that there's much the INDUSTRY can learn from the situation --
but I think that CREATORS should learn and plan their careers keeping in mind that the neither
Marvel nor DC have our best interests in mind. They're in the business of making money, and they
will do whatever they feel is necessary to do that without regard to any individual creator. So it
behooves everyone in the creative community to make themselves as independent from the whims of
the majors as they can. It's not something that I can say that I've done myself, unfortunately. But
after working full time as a comic book artist for around 12 years, I've seen too many creators getting
tossed to the side at the drop of a hat. It could be anything -- an editor's whim; a CHANGE in
editorial teams (who usually bring in their own favorites to a book they're taking over); an artist‘s
style simply falling out of favor -- no longer "hot"; a creator having fewer and fewer editorial
connections to the point that they're "frozen out" of the business.... it's any number of reasons. So
ALL creators should do what they can to build their own financial legacy to carry them into the future.
It's the only way to feel safe in such a volatile situation as we find ourselves in (especially in the
present market).

Now if I'll just take my own advice....!

Your work at Marvel and DC has been for the most part strongly grounded in the
traditions of those two comics companies. Are you content working in that mode? If
you were to branch off into other areas, say more creator-owned stuff, what would you
see yourself attempting in the future?

I would love to explore as many avenues and types of stories that my creative energies and abilities
would allow me to. I'd love to work in any number of genres and story concepts. I'm very interested
in doing western, romance, comedy, historical fiction and many others. Comic books are in incredible
medium that are open to so much-- there's just so many possibilities in comics. I think that the
creative burst of projects that happened in the 1980s with the emergence of publishers like ECLIPSE,
FIRST, COMICO and many others that fell by the wayside is a glimpse of the kind of things that were
possible in comics-- a hint of the possibilities that for the most part have gone sadly unfulfilled. There
are some exciting small publishers that are carrying on the torch, like FANTAGRAPHICS, DRAWN
AND QUARTERLY, ONI, TOP SHELF and others -- but unfortunately the present market isn't all
that friendly to the material they offer. It's virtually a superhero monopoly in what sells these days. It
would be wonderful if a wider variety of material excited the remaining comics fans these days like the
X-MEN, SPIDER-MAN and the ULTIMATE titles do.
Brett Warnock, September 2005

Along with Chris Staros, Brett Warnock is

the publisher of Top Shelf Productions, one
of the most prominent and frequent
publishers of cartoonist James Kochalka's
work. This interview originally appeared
on my Kochalkaholic blog, so if you’re
wondering why we spend so much time
talking about James, well, now you know.

Alan David Doane: How did you first

get interested in comics?

Brett Warnock: Well, besides the

requisite Richie Rich, Casper, and
Archie comics I read as a wee little lad, the
comic that rocked my world, and which my
dad bought for me rather randomly
(kismet?), was X-Men #112, part of the
epic Claremont/Byrne run. Flash forward a
few years during which i still hadn't
developed a big interest, and one day while
dropping quarters into an Asteroids
machine at Plaid Pantry, I spied the cover
of X-Men #135. It was like stumbling
across the holy grail, and I've never looked
back. My Holy Trinity then were the aforementioned Claremont/Byrne X-Men, the Wolfman/Pérez
New Teen Titans and Miller's Daredevil. At that time, vets like Kirby and Ditko scared the shit out
of me. They certainly weren't as pretty as Byrne. Ha! What a dumb-ass.

What led you into publishing comics?

Well, my teenage comics hero was Terry Austin, who was without a doubt Byrne's best inker ever. And
so my dream was, of course, to ink the X-Men. But during high school I did nothing to further that
dream. I was pretty lazy. Around the time that I graduated from University of Oregon with a B.A. in
design, I met a guy named Steve Ryan, a Klingon-on-Earth type of intense guy, who happened to be
one incredible artist. And still is. He took me under his wing, and taught me a great deal about not
just art, but also much, much more about following one's bliss and realizing one's potential. We
dabbled together in more mainstream, heroic comics, and submitted some stuff to places like Dark
Horse and Eclipse, to no avail.

Concurrent with this, I started to get quite bored with "mainstream" comics -- this was after all the
late '80s/early '90s, arguably the absolute aesthetic nadir of American superhero comics. My local
comics shop, in spite of existing two blocks from campus in an extremely progressive college town,
treated indy/alternative comics like the fucking plague. Still, they did have, buried behind some D&D
manuals in the back, three or four books that opened my eyes to a whole new world of comics. I guess
you could say these were the comics that made me born again, and directly inspired me to publish.
Pete Bagge's Hate, the issue with Stinky and the guys in the band on the cover, Clowes's Eightball,
of course; an issue of the first-volume Drawn & Quarterly anthology, and David Mazzucchelli's
sublime, and much-missed Rubber Blanket.

So inspired, I drew my own comics. I even submitted to D&Q. They pretty much sucked, and to be
honest, writing and drawing comics didn't flow too easily for me. Luckily, I had it in me to self-publish
a mini-comic. And while drawing comics may've been no fun, I had a blast producing the mini. I
quickly realized that I was much more qualified to edit and publish than to write and draw. After very
little thought, it dawned on me that my potential for making comics a career was zero as a cartoonist,
and "hopeful" as a publisher. The rest is history.

How did you first discover James Kochalka's work?

Well, the next discovery for me beyond Fantagraphics and D&Q was the mini-comics phenomenon,
thanks to a stellar anarchist bookstore in Eugene called Hungry Head, where I first saw Joe Sacco
read. And then, through John Porcellino's seminal Spit and a Half catalog, I made all those mini-
comics discoveries. Tom Hart, Sam Henderson, Jason Lutes, The Brube, Megan Kelso, David Lasky,
Jennifer Daydreamer, Jon Lewis, Josue Menjivar, James Kochalka, et al. This was the period when
the Seattle contingent was ON FIRE, and the mail order scene was still strong. It was also,
coincidentally, right before e-mail had really caught on yet, and everyone was sending -- gasp! --
letters in the mail!

Kochalka was a frequent contributor to the Top Shelf anthology title, and obviously has
appeared in many other anthologies as well. What do you think a Kochalka story brings
to an anthology?

Well, when I got started, his willingness to do it! But no, there's a certain quality to James's comics
that really touch me. A humanity that was conspicuously missing from the big deal alt-cartoonists of
the day, except for Los Bros., that I still think is missing in some of our unqualified "greats." Make no
mistake, I'm a HUGE fan of folks like Clowes, Ware, Panter, Burns, and the like, but one thing I don't
feel when I read their comics is compassion. In fact, I finish one of their books, and I'm down for days.

James brings that intangible, lively, well, elfish quality to an book. A certain mischief.

At the time, it seemed like Top Shelf was taking a chance on publishing James's
Sketchbook Diaries. While I regard the work as his best and most visionary comics, I
know that it's not always his best-selling work. Can you tell me what the thought
process is behind continuing to get this work out there, and what the challenges and
rewards have been?
I think you answered the question yourself, Alan. Not best-selling comics are a struggle, a challenge,
and best-selling comics, the reward, can come in many shapes and sizes. Sadly, it's not always so easy
to tell what will catch on.

The Diaries I think are some of the best comics in the history of the medium. That's the thought
process as to why we decided to publish them. They are comics in the purist sense. You could not, in
any other medium do what James does to convey his range of emotion, passion, joie de vivre. His
attention to detail, and the ability to make deeply humane the simplest minutiae of day-to-day life.
I'm honored to be publishing this.

What's your favourite

Kochalka work that Top Shelf
has published, and why?

The Diaries. Which is not to say

that I don't dig everything we've
published by James.

How do you see the dynamic

between Top Shelf and
Alternative, Kochalka's two
most prominent publishers?

Well, James is quite possibly the

most prolific cartoonist of his era.
Besides that, it makes good business
sense for James to work with
multiple publishers, no single
publisher could possibly print
everything that flows from his
feverish imagination.

The comics artform seems to be undergoing a huge expansion right now, with more
good work just this past summer than I can remember in some recent years. What do
you see as Top Shelf's role in the industry?

Without trying to sound like a publicist, I just hope that we continue to publish vital comics, by
established AND new cartoonists, that contribute to the well-being of the industry, both commercially
and aesthetically.

You might know that I tended bar for over a decade, and did so during the formative years of my
comics career, up until three years ago. It allowed me to follow my dream, and while I made MUCH
more money tending bar, I'm fortunate enough to be living that dream right now. If a genie popped
out of my beer bottle right now, and said "I'll grant you the job you most desire," I'd tell him to bugger
off. Done.

If, in ten or twenty years, the people in comics look back on our company and what we've published as
a valuable addition to the history of the medium, like I do at my friend Denis Kitchen, and Kitchen
Sink, for example, then I'll die a happy man.

Any thoughts on James Kochalka's role or influence in the artform of comics?

James's influence would be impossible for me to measure, unless I could be a fly on the wall of
aspiring cartoonists everywhere. But his role is as one this generation's shining lights. With comics as
diverse as Monkey vs. Robot, The Sketchbook Diaries, The Cute Manifesto and Super-
F*ckers, how can he NOT be looked back on as such?

Next month will mark the seventh anniversary of James's daily diary comics -- what are
your thoughts on that accomplishment?

You know how I feel about his diary comics in general. The fact of its seven year anniversary is
astounding. NO ONE else can make a similar claim, even though James has spawned a plethora of
imitators. If he keeps it up, he'll always be the king. He started first!
Josie Whitmore, 24 October 2005

Josie Whitmore was a student at The Center for Cartoon Studies at the time of this interview, a
student of, among other instructors, cartoonist James Kochalka. I thought there'd be no better
insight into the school -- and specifically James Kochalka's class there -- than to talk to her about
her experiences at the school, in White
River Junction, Vermont.

Alan David Doane: Where are you

originally from?

Josie Whitmore: Freeland, Maryland.

It‘s a bit of farmland about an hour away
from Baltimore. My parents have a llama
farm there now.

Did you have to travel to attend CCS?

Yeah, I was living in Baltimore and

working as a barista when I left. I had a
zine going called "Baristador!" Even
though it has an exclamation mark nothing very exciting ever happened to me as a barista. Except for
this one time when that guy from Madonna‘s "like a dream" video came in and ordered a Chai. I didn‘t
think he was too special except he did have very Jesus-like eyes.

How long have you been interested in cartooning?

I drew some growing up but my brother was better -- he‘s a painter now -- so I was intimidated. When
I did draw, it was rarely just that. I‘ve always enjoyed telling stories with pictures and captions. I think
my first comic with real panels was "Cap‘n Carrot and his Crunch-A-Carrot Crew." It was a fuzzy super
hero thing. Up until college a lot of my school projects had a comics component to them. I used to do
one called "Spanish Stickman" for extra credit. Reading and writing comics in another language is a
great way to learn.

Did you read comics as a child?

Yeah. The Cockysville public library had a big anthology of Krazy Kat and it blew my mind. I also got
a bunch of Peanuts there ( I liked the earlier "Li'l Folks" best). As a teenager I got really into Tin
Tin. My brother was very tolerant of me playing video games in his room so sometimes I would get
into his collection of New Yorker gags and Life is Hell, Doonesbury, and Bloom County.

Tell us about your background, what your life was like growing up?
I lived on a little hobby farm growing up. There were always lots of lively animals eating and fighting
and living and dying around us. I think you can see that influence in my brother's work too. For high
school I commuted to a magnet school where I studied writing. It was closer to the city so I got to go
through my Holden Caulfield stage in a much more appropriate setting. In college -- Bryn Mawr -- I
majored in East Asian studies with a concentration in Chinese and lived in an eco-feminist vegan co-
op. I did a lot of child rights advocacy work. The summer of my sophomore year I went to
Middlebury‘s Chinese Language school and fell in love with Vermont. Then I spent my Junior year at
Donghai University in Taiwan. Comics are everywhere in Taiwan. I spent a lot of rainy days reading
children‘s stuff from Hong Kong and Chinese translations of Japanese, Korean, European, and
American comics. After college I started the career I had planned to devote my life to but I had a big
existential crisis. Thanks to my boyfriend at the time I decided to kind of start over again. I started
working at Borders, reading comics, and living life. It is important to have balance in your life. You
have to go to pumpkin festivals with friends occasionally. You have to stop everything and play with
your cat sometimes. If you want to make careless, happy music with your friends get a five-dollar
microphone and do it. Your career or climbing some nebulous latter towards it should never consume
who you are. It is my Josie-Appleseed goal to remind everyone of this so why not do it here too.

How did you find out about CCS?

I read about CCS on Scott McCloud's blog. Actually, I felt a tremendous sense of loss when I first saw
the CCS website. It was like someone had designed a school specifically for me at a time I needed it
most but I didn‘t feel like I had what it took drawing-wise At the time I had been doing a pretty
regular online comic...journal and had sunken into the process of creating comics. I was also writing a
ton of mundane haiku. I‘ve never been afraid to give it a go so I made a website with the comics and
the poems and applied. In my heart of hearts I felt that I was one of the "types" the school was looking
for -- someone with a lot of spirit and an expressive storyteller despite my lacking an art background.
James Sturm called me a few weeks after I sent in my application. Initially I was kind of star-struck
but James is really laid-back and talkative so the interview was actually a lot of fun. It was great to be
able to talk to someone about comics like that and now I get to do it ad nauseam!

Is there a set course program for everyone, or can you pick your classes?

There is a set course program. On Monday we have "Drawing Workshop" -- this is what James
Kochalka taught -- followed by an open life drawing session. "Super" Tuesday is "Reading and Writing
Workshop" with poet Peter Money, "Introduction to Graphic Narratives" with James Sturm, and
"Survey of the Drawn Story" with Steve Bissette. Wednesday is "Publication Workshop" with Tom
Devlin. Thursday is the continuation of Peter and James Sturm's classes. There are also lab and
library hours.

What's the talent like among your fellow classmates?

We are a very talented group. Good writers, good thinkers, good drawers. All in various ways. It‘s
exciting.
Is there more rivalry or camaraderie between the students?

I think James was right when he sang in the CCS fight song that we "study with our buddies." We all
have such different interests, values, and objectives concerning our own comics that I don‘t think
there can be honest rivalries. Given the course load, there‘s not much room for anything other then
mutual support. There are some personality clashes here and there but we genuinely enjoy each other
and have occasional parties, play basketball between classes, and get together on Friday nights for
beer and Karaoke. Classy!

How have CCS and its students and faculty been welcomed in White River Junction?

A lot of community members came to the grand opening and seemed pretty pleased with at least the
novelty of the school. Peter Money asked us the other day if we ever walk around WRJ and feel giddy.
I do! It‘s a really funny, quirky place. It‘s got this weird arty undercurrent bubbling up like lava from
out of these old railroad buildings. A lot of our folks live and work at the old hotel across the street. Its
still run via a series of cards and skeleton keys. Elizabeth Chasalow was working there the other day
and a horse and buggy went by. She didn‘t bat an eye. Living in an old town is splendid that way. You
become aware that you‘re just one part so many layers of time.

Kochalkaholic readers would love to know what it's like to be in a class taught by James
Kochalka, tell us about that experience. What would you say is the most important
lesson you learned in James's class?

James‘s class was a really good way to start out the week. He spent a lot of time with us one on one as
we drew and pointed out problems we were making both conceptually and technically. I think one of
his main objectives was to get us out of our drawing ruts by experimenting with different ways to draw
a single object or character. James is also an excellent portrait artist so learning his thought process
regarding rendering -- say -- the Governor was also valuable to me.

Has anything surprised you about your CCS experience?

CCS is an all-day and often all night occupation. You make progress fast this way. Don‘t catch a cold
though.

What would you like to do with your CSS education once you graduate?

I will make good comics.

Barry Windsor-Smith, 30 December 1999

Barry Windsor-Smith is probably my favourite living comics artist, praise he would probably find
faint, but the shadow his work casts over how I perceive the artform is long and rich. At the time of
this interview, BWS had released Opus Vol. 1, the first of a projected series of five hardcover
volumes (only the first two have been released to date) showcasing his over 30 years as an artist
while revealing the extraordinary events and phenomena that have informed and inspired his art
from nearly the very beginning. At the time, Opus Vol. 1 was the fastest-selling book in the history
of publisher Fantagraphics Books.

It should be noted that very little of this interview was actually

about comic books. Barry was far more interested in discussing
Opus and his text that anchors the book, “Time Rise,” which is in
large part about the strange and extraordinary events that Barry
has experienced throughout his life. I found that we had some
strange things somewhat in common, so although the comics
content is light, I can tell you that this conversation was one of the
most electrifying and exciting of my life.

One comics nugget, because I know you’ll enjoy it: This interview
was set up for, and aired on, an Albany, New York radio station. As
Barry showed me through his studio building, rich with his comic
artwork hanging on every wall, I happened to note something only
someone familiar with comics would notice – some tidbit about who had inked him on a particular
page he had hanging, something like that. He stopped and stared at me as he realized I was not
“just” a radio news reporter, and said, with amazement, in his authoritative British accent, “Oh,
my God, you’re a fucking fanboy.” I’d never before, and never since, been so honoured to be so
insulted.

Joining BWS and myself in the interview were Alex Bialy, studio manager for BWS, and my friend
and early Comic Book Galaxy partner Marshall O'Keeffe.

Alan David Doane: Opus sort of comes as a surprise, after the last decade or so that you have done
a lot of sort of standard comics, Weapon X, Rune, Archer and Armstrong. What was involved in the
decision to do Opus?

Barry Windsor-Smith: You mean the content of Opus, "Time Rise?"

ADD: Yeah, I mean, it's a quantum leap from your last comics project.

BWS: It's a quantum leap only to the comics fans really. I say something about this in the book, in the
introduction. If I'm gonna produce a book like this, a big, lush book is gonna cost money to produce
and money to buy and what the heck kind of verbal content am I going to put in it, you know? I didn't
want to do what everybody else does. Sure, I could write about my childhood and the first comic I ever
read. I could natter on about the sort of materials I use, but, frankly, I'd rather die first than do that. If
the text of OPUS was anything other than what it is, I probably wouldn't have produced the books at
all. I don't think this book and the ones coming after it could exist if it were not for me saying "hell
with this, I've just got to tell the truth about some stuff here. I've got to say something about me."
There have always been some things about me that nobody in the whole wide world knows about.
Would you rather know about that, or would you prefer some bland recitation about what pens I use
and how I always wanted to be a baseball player but ended up in the pissy old comics field anyway.
I'm 50 years old, I would hate to die and leave everything unsaid. Bad Karma. I'm not planning on
croaking anytime soon, but there comes a time, you know?

ADD: Sure.

BWS: Or something happens, like you just miss a bleedin' motorbike going around the corner, it's
like, "Whoa! I haven't even made up a will."

Marshall O'Keeffe: Brings it home.

BWS: Brings it home. What if I was dying, or knew I was going to die, and I had this terrific regret of
never telling anybody? About all the stuff that I know about? Whether it's true or not, whether it can
be proved or not. What if I just never told anybody? And what if at the moment of dying-crossing into
some great beyond or whatever, I found it was all true?

MO'K: Ah.

BWS: My God, I'll end up as one of those ghosts going around raking chains and just being really
pissed off all the time, giving people a hard time (general laughter). It's kind of a jokey way of saying
it, but the fact is I knew that it was imperative that I say out loud all the experiences I've had, and I
also knew that I was walking into danger. I knew it. God, everybody -- "everybody" as if there's like
millions of them -- each and every single individual who has attempted to -- I put this in quotes --
"enlighten" other people about human potentialities, afforded by their own experiences, has gone
through proverbial hell. You're either a heretic or a total nutcase. Thank God this isn't 400 years ago,
you wouldn't be talking to me, you'd be looking at a pile of ashes.

ADD: You'd be dead already.

BWS: Burned at the stake. I'd still be smoldering. This is America, anything can happen here. It'll go
down in history as the Woodstock Witch Trials. My answer, then, is that I had to say what I've said.
I'm personally compelled to tell the truth as I know it. Since beginning to unload my history into the
pages of OPUS I am feeling so much better about myself. A terrible weight is being lifted paragraph
by paragraph. I'm getting shat upon by some people who need to believe that their reality is the only
reality, but then again, I meet interesting people like you.

ADD: So "Time Rise" really is, for you, the reason that this book series exists.
BWS: It's the very reason itself. I am decorating my story with all the cute pictures I've done. I spent
about 500, 600 words talking around the fact that I'm a Gemini and all the split-personality pop
culture that goes with that.

MO'K: I noticed that, yeah, that was interesting.

BWS: I thought I'd get it in before somebody else said "Well, the guy's got a damn split personality, I
bet he was born in May or June. He's just a cuckoo." Yeah, okay, I'm a Gemini. I don't believe in
astrology, I just thought I'd throw it in so I don't get a lot of letters. But for those who believe in star
signs and all that, my life is a terrific example of human dualities. From a distance, OPUS is a coffee-
table art book. You start to read it, and it's about the paranormal and metaphysics.

ADD: You're multi-tasking.

BWS: "Multi-tasking." What a modern term.

ADD: That was the thing that struck me when I first read the book. That there are so many different
audiences for this book. Conan fans, comics and art fans, and people who really want to learn about
what it is possible for us to become. And I think that all of them can be equally pleased with the book.

BWS: Oh, I think so too, man. But I should have called the book "Lots of Stuff," or--something more
indicative, you know. "Opus" is a charming term, and it has its significance...

Alex Bialy: "Eclectica."

BWS: Eclectica.

ADD: Horn O' Plenty.

BWS: I mean, if I'd really wanted to sell it, I

could have called it "Tits Galore" or
something like that.

ADD: "Volume Four, Tits Galore."

BWS: There you are. Provocative. Inviting.

MO'K: When I heard the title "Opus," I kept thinking of that penguin, the character from...[Bloom
County].

BWS: Oh my God, I never thought of that!

ADD: You've got to think at least one person will have bought it thinking it's a Bloom County
retrospective.

BWS: That's grand. I'm not proud, a dollar's a dollar, don't forget.

MO'K: Alan told me you've got to read this book Opus, it's like "Oh, it's about Bloom County?"

BWS: Wow, that is fabulous, my God just -- every word has been corrupted, hasn't it? Even a
beautiful word like Opus.

ADD: It appeared to me that a lot of thought went into what pictures were included...

BWS: Yeah, that's why I had to design the book myself.

ADD: What was the process in saying "this will be in, and this won't."

BWS: That is multi-tasking. That is literally multi-tasking. I was wearing, you know, the old cliché, I
was wearing all these different hats. I was both the writer of the book and the painter of the pictures. I
was the editor of the material, and the book designer. I mean everything, I was doing everything.
That's multi-tasking. For the most part I didn't want my pictures to clash with what I was saying,
that's an easy enough level to want to achieve. But that itself wasn't so easy. When you consider the
disparity between the text and the pictures I've made over these years, there's a lot juggling to do so
that innocent bystanders don't get totally confused. There were a couple of scenes, areas where it just
flowed quite nicely, where I was talking about the confusion of people and the duality of mind. I
included a picture of a doppelganger, called The Book of Samothrace, the woman seeing herself at the
moment of profound realization. But that runs the risk of a piece of art becoming an illustration. I've
never done illustration in my life--well, I have, I have, but don't tell anyone. So, anyway, sometimes
I'd forget to remove one hat before putting on another.

MO'K: You talk about one of your goals, which might perhaps be to help people make a paradigm
shift.

BWS: Yes, that is a goal, certainly.

MO'K: When you say that, I'm curious -- do you feel a whole world paradigm shift, or perhaps just a
few people? Do you think that mass illumination is possible or even desirable?

BWS: Only in my dreams, only in my dreams. No, that's an idealism. If I can help change only 20
people's minds about wanting to look for a truth, then that is a worthy goal. But I can only help to
influence, if at all. Individual minds can only do it themselves. No matter how much you want to
change people's minds you cannot. But influencing an individual into knowing they have choices.
That's a soft and organic approach. The very best thing that's happened since the publication of
OPUS 1 is the private letters I've received. Not many, yet. Less than a dozen so far. A few e-mails
here, some snail-mails there, some people knew of my comics work or my paintings beforehand, but
not everybody.
Basically, OPUS is helping to make it okay to talk about things that people are often afraid to discuss
publicly. Extraordinary experience, a term put together by John Mack, or "Non-ordinary experience,"
if you'd prefer. So I've been receiving letters where people would say something like, "I've never told
anybody this. I haven't even told my wife this. You know, I wouldn't even tell my best friends this, but
after reading Time Rise, let me tell you what happened to me a few years ago," or "when I was a kid..."
And they go into detail. They trust me. Damn, that makes me feel so good. I feel -- vindicated. When I
was writing OPUS 1, and as I'm now completing the second volume, I worried myself sick about what
people were gonna think of me. All of the worries I've had for 30, 40-odd years -- concentrated. I
edited that book so bleedin' tough, so rigidly. I took out things that I knew people just wouldn't
believe. And it's not because I'm afraid of the possible vilification. I want the reader to go from the
first page to the final page and hear me out without tripping up over the language, the terminology,
the strange contexts of ordinary events, and the extraordinary events in utterly normal contexts.

I wanted people to make it to the last page, so I had to edit myself very severely. I had to judge what I
imagined the reader would be willing to accept, and what would seem just so far out that I lose their
willingness to give me a reasonable hearing. I need -- I need two things: One, I need to get all this off
of my chest, to use a common phrase, two, I want other people to get it off their chests if they have
their own stories but have been hitherto afraid to share them with anyone.. I'm not looking for glory
here, I want to believe that I'm doing something valuable, sure, but it's really just a small step. "Small
steps, Ellie, small steps." That's a quote from Carl Sagan's novel CONTACT. In the story's context
those words have a lot of meaning.
Larry Young, 2004

As the writer of ASTRONAUTS IN TROUBLE and the publisher of AiT/Planetlar, Larry Young
has blazed his own trail in the comics industry., demonstrating a fierce desire to engage the
industry in new and different ways.

Alan David Doane: What do you see as AiT/Planetlar's unique place in the comics
industry?

I'm not sure we're as unique as all that. We're publishers, just like Marvel and DC and whoever. The
$12.95 it takes to buy THE INVISIBLES: BLOODY HELL IN AMERICA from your local comics
retailer is the same $12.95 it'll cost to buy yourself a
copy of LAST OF THE INDEPENDENTS.

What's the most surprising thing you've

learned from becoming a comics publisher?

Nothing's really "surprised" me. I had worked in

advertising and marketing and promotions and print
publishing for sixteen or seventeen years or so before
we leapt in, and Mimi had ten years in print and
digital and her MBA, so "surprise" didn't, and hasn't,
really entered into it at all for us. There are always
bumps in the road and little victories in ushering any
creative endeavor into a form that others can enjoy,
but there hasn't been anything the two of us haven't
anticipated on one level or another, yet. Knock on
wood.

What's your greatest frustration as an

independent comics publisher, and how do
you overcome the challenges of same?

I don't have any frustrations at all; being a comics

publisher is the greatest gig in the world! I mean, my
talented pals and I can craft little stories to instruct and entertain and engage a reader with our
poignancy and our humor and our elegance and our joy and our enthusiasm, and people pay us for
the privilege. And just when we get a little low and think our efforts have been forgotten, someone
buys another copy of a book we did years ago, and lets us know that it's a vital and entertaining work,
still. I mean, c'mon, it's like raising a productive, tax-paying member of society once a month. What's
to get frustrated with? Publishing our great comics is awesome.

From the level of detail and passion for the subject you bring to all your Astronauts in
Trouble projects, you clearly have an affinity for the subject for space exploration.
What's your take on the White House space initiative recently announced?

Hey, I'm just a guy who reads the papers. But it's no secret that I wrote AiT: LIVE FROM THE
MOON because in 1969, when I was six, I thought I'd be living on the moon in 30 years, and when I
looked around in 1999, I couldn't help but notice I was still on terra firma. There's a line in my
original proposal for it that the mozillionaire industrialist Ishmael Hayes funded the whole thing
because "he had a bug up his ass to see the surface of the moon not through a telescope's eyepiece but
from the inside of a spacesuit." And that's me talking, right there, not the bad guy of a story. My
perspective? I suppose I'm pissed I got cheated out of my Pan Am flight to the L-5 Hilton because in
1970 Nixon didn't have a vision for space that extended beyond 350 miles up.

What's the best thing the comics industry could do to capitalize on the increased
awareness of comics and manga over the past year or two?

Well, manga are comics, right? And I'm not sure that you can count the book trade's recent discovery
of comics as a viable entertainment artform as some sort of wholesale "increased awareness,"
although I'm sure many people have a differing perspective on that. I *am* sure I'm not qualified to
answer what "the comics industry" could do to ride the gravy train longer, because I don't think in
those terms. Mimi and I are on course with our company plan, and it really doesn't have anything to
do with what else is happening in "the comics industry." I had occasion to write recently on a message
board, "the day I realized that I view comics differently than most was the happiest day of my life,"
and that's true. We publish books that reinforce our vision for comics, and we've been fortunate
enough that lots of readers in the audience seem to dig what we do. Slow and steady wins the race.
Appendix One: Four Old Questions (and One New One) for
Christopher Allen

If there's one thing I've done right in the time I've been involved with the weirdness that is this, The
Comics Internet, it's taking an unknown young writer named Christopher Allen on board as a
reviewer for Comic Book Galaxy back in the year 2000. Chris's engaging style and blunt
assessments make him one of my very
favourite critics ever; like Tom Spurgeon,
Roger Ebert or Pauline Kael, Chris's writing
entertains and enlightens me so much that I
don't even care what it is that he's critiquing,
I just want to hear what he thinks -- and
often, what he thinks leads me to buy books
that otherwise might have gotten past me
without notice. Working with him on Comic
Book Galaxy made me a better editor and a
better writer, and I'm grateful to him for all
the great work he did for the site over the
years. These days you can catch his thoughts
on comics, life and small-batch beer brewing
at chrisallenonline.com, and it should be
noted that his assistance in putting this entire eBook together was absolutely invaluable. In the Five
Questions below, he makes some pointed observations about the industry that readers, retailers,
creators, publishers and others would do well to listen to. Chris is a guy who knows quality when he
sees it, but he knows bullshit, too, and he isn't afraid to point out either, often at just the right
moment.

You've written comics criticism for The Comics Journal, Comic Book Galaxy, Movie
Poop Shoot and other places -- tell me how you found yourself "a semi-respected critic
with quotes on the back of trade paperbacks one may find in bookstores," as you've
referred to yourself.

If you're asking how I got into reviewing comics, the answer is you and your first open call for
reviewers for the start of Comic Book Galaxy. Prior to that, I had worked a little under a pseudonym at
a Geocities site dedicated to reviewing everything John Byrne ever wrote or drew. Unfortunately, we
didn't really start with his career highlights, so after reviewing all of Marvel: The Lost Generation
and Spider-Woman, I became more involved in Galaxy reviews, exhausted by the daunting Byrne
project, and it was aborted.

If you're asking how one gets quoted on the back of graphic novels and such, it's usually as simple as
writing a positive review of an ongoing comic or miniseries that gets collected, and letting the
publisher, editor or creator know where to find your review. After it happens once or twice and you
can show the book to your mom, it's not really a big deal, and in fact I would suggest to reviewers that
they strenuously avoid overly enthusiastic sentences in their reviews. Do you really want to read "He
knocks this one out of the park!" next to your name? Now, I should also stress that in those cases,
these were books I really liked and believed in -- if you're not being honest about a book or giving it
too much slack because the creator or editor is so nice to you, then you really need to reassess what
got you started in the first place. It's not to make friends, and it's not to make enemies, though either
of those things can happen, you have to be careful that these people know that you have a job to do
and you're doing it the best you can, and the job is not about hurting them or making them feel good.

Being a critic has helped me make a lot of friends and colleagues, helped me be a better writer not just
of criticism. Also, the free books are nice, and have broadened my comics knowledge, because I do
think there are more good, interesting comics and graphic novels produced every year than most
people can afford, or even have time to read.

What do you expect out of a comic or graphic novel when you crack it open?

I expect lots of subscription cards to fall out, and lots of cologne samples, but that only seems to
happen when I crack open GQ. No, it depends on the comic or graphic novel, what I know of it and the
creator, what the cover suggests to me. If the creators are a known commodity to me, I'll expect
something along the lines of their previous works, in terms of quality. But I really don't have a lot of
expectations, just hopes to first be entertained. I read a column the other day where the writer clearly
had some problems with the book being reviewed, but closed with something along the lines of, "It
was entertaining, and that's really all I can ask for." Well, no, you can ask for more, and much of the
time, you should, but what you're willing to accept is another matter. I guess I expect to be
entertained and that everyone involved has done their best work possible.

What role do you think comics criticism plays in the industry?

I really don't have a set opinion on this. I think it's vital to the evolution of comics as an artform that
there is smart criticism of it, and finally with the explosion of blogs to go with a handful of good
websites, there are more strong voices joining The Comics Journal, for too long about the only
place to find good criticism and accurate, not whitewashed, comics history. As far as the impact you or
I or any other online or print critic has on the industry, as far as how well a book sells with good or
bad or no reviews, I don't think we have a huge impact. Some impact, especially on smaller,
independent books that need all the attention they can get, sure. But if someone wants to buy X-Men,
it doesn't matter if it's Grant Morrison writing it or Chuck Austen or anyone else. And we can't really
be concerned with either our impact on sales or whether we're helping validate an artform or helping
a young, flawed creator improve with our helpful, brutal advice, or any of that. You really just have to
accept that you have a compulsion to get your voice heard by a lot of strangers whether it has any
impact or not. Love me!

What are the most common mistakes you see being made by creators, editors and/or
publishers that result in their work not being as successful as it could be?

Making crappy comics seems to be a common one. Seriously, I think a lot of people just want to have
comics out there with their name on there, as publisher, writer, artist, etc., and they're not too
concerned with the fact that their product may be completely unoriginal, lacking anything special
about it, or even being almost incomprehensible for any reader who wasn't privy to the many phone
conversations and emails exchanged about the book between the people making it. I think publishers
like Marvel, DC, Image and to some extent Dark Horse don't look far enough to find talent to do their
books, relying on the same names over and over, even if those same, established pros haven't had hits
in years and are clearly just taking a gig to pay the bills. I think Brian Michael Bendis is very good, but
he's so prolific it's hard to get excited about his books. You don't get a chance to miss him, and as good
as he is, Marvel Comics becomes a bit less interesting by throwing Bendis, Millar and now Ellis and
Kirkman onto so many of the available books. I can't blame any of these guys for making as much hay
as they can, but I do think the major publishers can do a better job of not letting these guys water
down the quality of their work with too much on their plates. Publishers also make a common mistake
of, well, throwing a lot of crap at the wall and seeing what sticks. Was there a compelling reason to
bring Doom Patrol back so soon? Are there enough Firestorm readers to justify that book? No. Dark
Horse tried this Rocket Comics imprint a year or so ago with weak premises, established but not big-
selling talent, new and not that distinctive artists, and then dumped the books on the marketplace all
at the same time, and so what's a consumer to do? You ignore the lot -- who wants to figure out which
of these so-so looking books has legs. That Lone book by Stuart Moore looked and felt just like a
2000 A.D. serial, and 2000 A.D. has never sold well here, nor did Garth Ennis's similar Just A
Pilgrim do well, so who approved this? Who said, "THIS post-apocalyptic wanderer story is the one
that will click with readers"? Nothing against the book itself, but I think as an editor and publisher,
one has to be able to turn down fine but unremarkable books that have little chance of gaining a
toehold in the marketplace, rather than just slotting something in because it was decided somewhere
that Rocket had to launch six books or something.

Image did the same, with I think only Robert Kirkman's Invincible staying alive. There seems to be
little real hands-on, tough-but-necessary editing going on, at most of the publishers. I don't mean just
something like the interminable (or what's the word for never-going-to-START?) X-Men: The End,
but as you pointed out last week, what's the deal with Drawn and Quarterly taking a David Collier
story and a huge sketchbook section, which interrupts said story, and then packaging it and offering it
as if it's a graphic novel? How does something like Top Shelf's The Conversation, a collaboration
between major talents like James Kochalka and Craig Thompson which presents a dialogue about as
witty as the congratulatory comments on a wedding reception home video, get published as a five
dollar book? Maybe in this DVD bonus feature age, people feel like every damn thing someone does
must be up for public consumption, but sometimes it only diminishes their reputation.

Finally (sorry!), many publishers and creators are pretty bad about promoting their books. It's
amazing that struggling cartoonists can work so hard to create something and then just sort of quietly
place it on the market like they're placing a note on someone's desk in class. I know the feeling -- lots
of us are shy and insecure -- but you've got to suck it up and sell yourself. And don't trust your
publisher to do it all for you. The major publishers have dozens of books to worry about, and some of
the smaller ones are incompetent at it. I know a writer whose book was nominated for an Eisner a
couple years ago, and did his publisher send any kind of congratulatory press release with a link on
where to buy it or get a review copy? No. Did he help set up any web interviews about the book? Not
that I saw anywhere. And now the same writer has an even more ambitious, music-related graphic
novel, and is this publisher getting in touch with Rolling Stone and Spin and music store chains that
carry graphic novels? Nope. It's only by sheer force of talent (his and his artist's) that this guy's book
was noticed and honored, but even that's not enough a lot of the time.

I've gotten complaints at times for not reviewing many webcomics, but only a couple of their creators
or publishers have ever approached me. Oh, and I'd also advise self-publishers and creators working
with small publishers -- try to make your first effort self-contained. If it's an ongoing series, at least
make the first issue have a complete story. Unless you can guarantee that the money will be there to
pay everything/everyone and the artist has plenty of issues in the can already, you're risking killing
whatever momentum you have with months of delays between issues.

Note: There’s the four old questions; the original fifth question concerned Chris’s planned writing
for Speakeasy Comics, a company that came and went before any of Chris’s first issues could come
out. In this new segment, Chris catches us up to date with what happened.

At the time we originally did this interview, you were about to embark on a career
writing comics. What happened, and where does your comics-writing stand at the
moment?

Well, what happened was the same thing that happens to most fledgling publishers — we went out of
business. I was involved with a publisher called Speakeasy Comics; you and others have written of the
reasons for their failure, but essentially it was that the books weren‘t that great and there were too
many of them. Common mistakes. Along with several others, I was invited to read a sort of shared
universe bible, devised by publisher Adam Fortier and writer Brian Augustyn. There were some ideas
in there that were vague enough you could do almost anything with. They bit on my superhero team
book, which was exciting, and I subsequently wrote the first issue script and outline for the rest of the
arc. Didn‘t get a lot of feedback on it, as they seemed preoccupied with how the first few series
released were going to do. When those didn‘t sell what they had hoped, and dropped further on
subsequent issues, the writing was kind of on the wall, though I think I wrote at least part of the
second issue in the meantime. I wasn‘t one of the creators who got a formal notification that they were
suspending publication, but it was obvious enough. It‘s too bad I didn‘t at least get an issue out of the
gate, but hey, those are the perils of a start-up, I guess. My one, extremely minor published
contribution to the Speakeasy universe was an African-American character freed from some sort of
prison in Brian Augustyn‘s BEOWULF #2. Beowulf was actually the leader of my super team (kind of
like Professor X, not really in the action or around that often), and this little bit in Brian‘s issue was to
help introduce my character, who would later come to be part of the team as well. It was nice of him to
do that. In fact, while I know there was some bad blood for Fortier from unpaid talent and don‘t want
to diminish that, I personally don‘t feel I have a lot to complain about. I wasn‘t paid, but I think my
contract stated that I was to be paid on publication, so since I was never published, them‘s the breaks.
It is a weird feeling, creating characters that don‘t get a chance to grow. You feel like a failed parent or
something. But hey, it‘s not like what I came up with couldn‘t be retooled without the ―Fortierverse‖
ideas.
As far as other comics writing, I have no deals in place, but I wrote one miniseries/graphic novel and
am slowly finishing another. I both like what I‘ve done and know I‘ve got a ways to go, but I‘m okay
with the current plan of just writing until it‘s done and I think it‘s good, and then maybe we‘ll see
about trying to find an artist and a home for it. I‘m not a young man anymore, but comics isn‘t really
that much of a young man‘s game, at least for writers, and it‘s not like I have any dreams of writing
the latest big Marvel or DC event. I love Spider-Man but my life won‘t be incomplete if I never write
him, you know? I‘d just like to publish a book or two that resonates with people, that‘s something a
little different and special. But hey, it‘s not like what I came up with couldn‘t be retooled without the
―Fortierverse‖ ideas. I still like the name, SUPERUNKNOWN—too bad it‘s so fitting!
Appendix Two: UTTER, BRASS, CLANGING BALLS! Or, perhaps
just for the sake of completeness; interview with ADD from
twoheadedcat.com, conducted 26 November 2001.

Original Introduction: Alan David Doane is many things to many people. Since that is a large
gaping vague introduction and really sucks in the scheme of things let's limit it for now to the fact
that he is the Founder and creative consultant of Comic Book Galaxy, one of the more popular comic
book websites on the internet. The site, like Mr. Doane himself, distinguishes itself through its
insistence on being who it is, regardless what the mainstream might want. Join us for an interesting
look at both CBG and Mr. Doane as he gets put through the insanity that is a Two-Headed Cat
Interview.

2HC: Name Rank and Serial Number please.

ADD: Alan David Doane, Founder and creative consultant, Comic Book Galaxy. Former editor, Silver
Bullet Comic Books, radio news anchor, and husband and father of two.

You obviously have a great love for comics, you have a radio show that focuses on them
often and you run Comic Book Galaxy (CBG), what about the medium inspires you so?

I just recently read James Kochalka's

Horrible Truth About Comics,
and he gets to the heart of the matter
right there: Comics is the art form
that speaks to the audience's brain in
the most visceral, direct way. The
best comics, in whatever genre, focus
in and drill into your brain, with
whatever their message is. For me
personally, the comics that jazz me
the most are those that best take
advantage of the direct line to the
psyche that comics have. In the last
couple of years, that's been
autobiographical stuff, like Bendis's
Fortune And Glory, or Kochalka's
Sketchbook Diaries, which was
one of the most brilliant books to come out this year.

Your radio show... where can we hear it, what's it about and in what ways to you focus
on comics? As an extension of that have you encountered any problems introducing
comic-related features from the station?
I've just started a new radio job, anchoring the morning and midday news programs on an NPR
station; I'm working on getting some comics-related interviews on the air, and have already
conducted one, but I'm still working on getting some regular comics content on the air there. The
good news is, there is no format more welcoming of comics content than public radio.

Really? What makes you say that, personally (in my apparently sheltered life) I had
thought that all forms of "mainstream media" equally unloving of comics.

Not at all. NPR frequently does features on cartoonists, with recent items on Ben Katchor and art
spiegelman; also, the comic Radio: An Illustrated Guide was co-created by cartoonist Jessica Abel
and NPR's Ira Glass. So there's definitely a synergy between comics and public radio.

Now you used to write about comics online for Silver Bullet Comics before moving on
and forming CBG, what happened there?

I signed aboard SBC in January of 2000, and for eight months worked with Jason Brice (the site's
owner) to develop a quality team of reviewers. Unfortunately, the Dot Com Bust was a factor in my
leaving; things just didn't materialize in the way that they were contractually obligated to. So I made
the decision that I would start over and do it my way. As it turned out, Comic Book Galaxy has been
much more like the collective work-sharing environment that I was told SBC would be than SBC ever
was. The Galaxy is very much a team effort, with everyone contributing what they can when they can.
While this has its downsides, it also has been an enormous benefit in terms of the quality of work
being done. Everyone cares, and works to their strengths. No one is doing this at Comic Book Galaxy
because they expect to get rich. Or even get paid.

CBG has been running a bit over a year now, how do you have it structured and what
has that done for/to its growth? Do you feel that a different setup how the site is
presented as well as run behind the scenes could've helped or hurt it? What would you
have done differently?

I don't think there's anything we could do differently, short of finding a way to generate regular
income sufficient to compensate a full-time dedicated webmaster. As it stands now, stuff is uploaded
by a small group of editors and web-monkeys, at varying skill levels. I guess if I had my way with it, in
the best of all possible worlds, we'd have one person overseeing everything who stays on top of
developments in web technology, but again, what you have here is a collective effort of a dedicated
group of volunteers working at varying skill levels. In other words, it's a wonder that it works at all.

How exactly is CBG run then, at the writing level, and how well is it working for you?
Any changes you would put in place there?

I'm not entirely certain I understand the question...but I'll give it a shot. The regular columnists more
or less are free to explore whatever they like in their columns, while the reviewers have a slightly more
heavy editorial hand guiding them. Again, as I've noted, when you're paying these wages, you can only
ask so much. This is partly why we have seen some writers last since the site began and others have
come and gone. Some can take the collective nature of what we're doing and still turn out quality.
Those who can't usually aren't around very long.

From the start of CBG you guys have been known in some circles as "trouble makers."
There are times when you may have pushed the line (an early review of Warren Ellis's
Transmetropolitan came as close as can be to saying he outright plagiarized Hunter S.
Thomson) and times you have made some non-mainstream choices (a column by a self-
proclaimed Cerebus fan-girl when Dave Sim, Cerebus creator and writer/artist, is
widely viewed to be sexist from his text pieces in the back of some issues). What is the
reasoning behind it all? While I wouldn't say it's a bad thing in any way, why let your
collective necks stick out?

The reasoning behind Comic Book Galaxy is to get the word out about comics with passion, truth and
diversity. I require all three from all the writers, and often throw it up in their faces if they stray off
the path. It's really a mantra, one I often have to reinforce for myself, as well. But if you're not
passionate about it, if you don't have a truth to speak on the subject, and if it's not encouraging the
growth of the art form by addressing its great diversity: Why fucking bother? What's the point? And of
course, anyone willing to go out on a limb and express an opinion with passion is going to get people
who disagree. It happens all the time with Comic Book Galaxy. But the number of readers who agree
with any given piece is usually more than enough to justify battling the worst instincts of the most
undeveloped, limited readers...i.e., superhero fans.

A mantra more people would probably do well by following, but if you didn't have
enough readers to justify a battle, would it all still shake down this way or would you
have held back a bit more and tested the waters a bit slower?

I'm not entirely certain we DO have enough readers to justify some of the battles we've had, but that's
fine, because we are not doing it for the readers. I can only speak for myself on this issue, but when I
write a review or a column, my primary audience is me. Does the piece please me? Does it accurately
and with passion express whatever it is I have to say? Any considerations about pleasing or attracting
an audience are marginal at best. The primary goals, the only ones, are those niggling matters of
passion, truth and diversity. If those are important to a reader, he'll come back. If they're not, I'm glad
to see him go somewhere else.

Speaking of Warren Ellis he has taken a dim view of sites such as CBG. Seeing as how he
is one of the more vocal and wide read comic writers online, did his statements have
any affect on you personally or CBG in general?

Not really. He has yet to say anything of substance about Comic Book Galaxy that I am aware of. He
protested the criticism of Transmet as aping Thompson by saying that the first issue had a text piece
that mentioned him as an inspiration, but considering that the vast majority of people who have read
Transmetropolitan #1 have read it in trade paperback form (Ellis's favorite, remember), and have
never seen that text piece...well, it all comes off a bit weak. I didn't write the piece in question, but
anyone who's read any Hunter S. Thompson knows that Spider Jerusalem was directly (let me say
that again: Directly) inspired by his work, and yes, I agree that his name should be mentioned in the
credits of every single Transmetropolitan publication. And right now, it's mentioned in one high-
priced back issue that most people have never seen, and never will. So, yeah, reparations are needed.
And Comic Book Galaxy doesn't back down from making such an obvious point. Wolverine getting his
nipple bitten off in a comic book created for and marketed to children: I made a stink. Marvel might
not have liked it, but Frank Tieri needed to be called on his psycho-sexual reimagining of Marvel
characters. I see from a recent feature in Wizard that Joe Quesada finally came around to my way of
thinking. You're welcome, Joe.

Do you feel any ill will towards you and/or CBG from the rest of the online comic
websites? Is there a sense of togetherness there or not?

I don't really see any togetherness per se. Doran and Lander/MacPherson split up when Fandom went
under, I left SBC and a few of the writers chose to join me at the Galaxy...so in that sense, online
comics sites have probably fractured more than they've hewn together in the past couple of years. I
don't think there's any real sense of togetherness between the different sites, but that probably has
more to do with all our ultimate goals more than it does personality differences, although certainly
those exist. I got an e-mail from a reader who told me he was shopping at the comics shop Randy
Lander works at, that he mentioned one of my reviews, and Randy told him that "Alan Doane is an
asshole," so, there you have it. Apparently Randy Lander doesn't like me. As you might imagine, this
has been devastating to me personally.

I do hope you aren't still crying yourself to sleep. Do you feel that the lack of unity you
see hurts the field of Online Comic Writing (reviews and journalism both) or not?

I think it's a bit of a stretch to even posit an actual "field" of online comics journalism. There are
plenty of comics sites, but most that focus on news are beholden in some way to the mainstream
companies, which they give entirely too much press to. I think not getting paid gives CBG an
advantage in not worrying about pissing anyone off, but the downside there is, well, we don't get paid.
But it's vastly, vastly preferable to having to do fluff stories on, say, who the new inker might be on
Cable because we want to give positive press to the alleged "big publishers" and have nothing else
interesting to use to fill up the necessary space on any given day. While it's easy to find out what's new
in the mainstream comics industry online, the best actual journalism is still found in print
publications such as The Comics Journal and Comicology. Which, unfortunately, seem
marginalized in the glow of such vapid, criminally stupid filth as Wizard.

In the pattern choosing of life, plaid or paisley?

I have observed that everyone's life unfolds in patterns, patterns that most people ignore or try to dull
with drugs and alcohol. I embrace the patterns and try to discern their meaning. Whether that
translates into plaid or paisley is up to you to decide.

Where do you want this all to go? Are you content with CBG and life in general or is
there more you see for the site and for you on the horizon?
I'm not content, but I never am. There's work to be done, but there's always work to be done. "Art is
never finished, only abandoned," as someone really smart once said. The people who create Comic
Book Galaxy are working on re-creating it even as we speak, to give an even greater weight to that
mantra of passion, truth and diversity. I expect we'll see some of these changes begin to assert
themselves in the next few weeks.

From your own view, how do you see comics moving forward? As a medium, a pop
culture, as a form of art. Where do you think it can and should go from here and more
importantly how?

The more creators choose to express a personal vision in their work, the more they pursue their
passion, the better comics will get. Look at Greg Rucka and Brian Bendis, to name two obvious
examples. When they really follow their interests, in, say, Whiteout or Fortune And Glory, magic
happens. When you get guys like Crumb or Kochalka taking the next step and making it personal, you
get visionary work that truly deserves to be called art of the highest order.

All right, you've mentioned Whiteout and Fortune And Glory by name. What are the top
ten comic works you would you seriously recommend to people, both familiar with
comics and unfamiliar with them?

Well, you're really asking for two lists there, aren't you? For the uninitiated, I'd recommend you give
them From Hell, Mail Order Bride, James Kochalka's Sketchbook Diaries, Hey Wait,
Torso, Fortune And Glory, True Story Swear To God: Magic, Barry Windsor Smith's
Opus 1 and 2, The Authority #1-12, and Top 10. And since most comics fans have marginalized
the best comics, to the average fanboy I would recommend From Hell, Mail Order Bride, James
Kochalka's Sketchbook Diaries, Hey Wait, Torso, Fortune And Glory, True Story Swear
To God: Magic, Barry Windsor Smith's Opus 1 and 2, The Authority #1-12, and Top 10.
Each one of these books is told with passion and vision, and has a truth to tell about some aspect of
life. In addition, while we're on the subject, I just want to say that From Hell is the single best use of
the comics art form ever.

Outside of comics and work, what do you enjoy doing?

I like spending time with my wife and our two kids, Kira and Aaron, and getting to see life all over
again through their eyes. Other than that, radio and comics occupies the entire rest of the pie-chart of
my life, and I love them both, and it's a damned good thing, too.

If I told you we actually had to sit around and think these questions up, would you
really believe me or would you just wonder why you had agreed to this?

The only thing I'm wondering is why you picked me to interview, but I'm flattered, and I thank you. I
hope these answers are worth people taking the time to read.
Given that you run one of the more diverse and interesting comic-related web sites and
our readers seem to like to be exposed to new and (to them) different people and things
(you are a person, just in case there was confusion.), you seem awfully surprised. Why?

I didn't know anyone was interested in the behind the scenes machinations of Comic Book Galaxy. I
don't really believe anyone is, but I'm happy to answer your questions. And thanks for the kind words
about the site.

Do you have any cats? Names and occupations please.

I had a cat named Spot, quite a few years ago, who I have written about extensively. He's currently an
ex-cat, singing with the Choir Invisible.

Sorry to hear that, truly.

Rant. Anything you want, no space limit, vent, get it off your chest. This will not be
graded.

Comics should speak to the heart and engage the mind. Comics should fire your passions and tickle
your funnybone and make you glad you're alive. Comics should make you feel like you ripped off the
publisher because the book is worth 20 times what you paid for it, however much that is. Comics
should make you stay up too late and inspire you to work to your passion, whatever that is. Comics
should be a personal, visionary statement of the creator's unique life experience, unable to be
duplicated or copied or even easily paid homage to. Comics should rock your fucking world and leave
you breathless with their astonishing insight into what it is to be human, alive, and aware. If the
comics you're reading aren't all those things, find something better to do with your money. Support
comics that give back to you as a human being, and forget everything else. Life is too goddamned
short to waste on shit. If you're paying someone to shit on you, at the end of the day, who's to blame
for the fact that you have shit on your shoes?
Afterword by Jason Marcy

It felt a bit weird for me when Alan asked

me to write the afterword for this book,
kind of an, "I'm not worthy!" sort of thing.
Then it hit me though.

Alan has always been a supporter of the

"little guy," the comic book folks plugging
away with perhaps no chance of profit or
fame yet still throwing themselves and their
talents at the proverbial windmills like
comic book Don Quixotes. You've read
interviews with some of those so called
"lesser names" in this book, yours truly
included. You may have, if you read those
interviews "back in the day," been even
moved enough to hunt down the artists'
work. Such is the power of the one and only
Alan David Doane.

Alan was the first person to review my

work, and the first person to interview me
in the comics field. I was a bit younger
then, about twenty-nine or thirty, and had
thrown my hat into the ring with a book
called "Jay's Days: My Life as a Cartoon," then published by Landwaster Books. I can't remember
what made me seek out ADD as my first person to send a review copy to, one of those things my vast
memory has conveniently tossed aside, but it changed my life.

I can remember being the subject first of a "Five Questions..." piece which I thought was marvelous
enough. When Alan let me know he wanted to interview me in full, I was on the moon, baby! I can
remember nervously awaiting the day. The whole thing was conducted via instant messaging, and I
can also remember how I tried to carefully put my answers together, because I didn't want to look the
fool. One thing led to another and soon enough I was writing columns and reviewing books for the
Galaxy. The best was yet to come though.

About three years back or so my wife Kris and I hosted the Doane family for a weekend. I was a little
apprehensive because after all, this was no person I had met in the flesh or even spoke with on the
phone, he was one of the many comic folks I had met on the internet and who had become a friend. I
was happy to say that there was very little to worry about. Alan and I got along famously. We talked a
lot about comics that weekend and bought a lot of comics that weekend. When it was time to call it a
day I wasn't ready to let them go, that's how well it went. This man was truly a friend of mine now,
and not just an internet one.

Maybe I've lost track of the point of this afterword. How being interviewed by Alan David Doane
pushed me to keep working on my comics. How it made me a number of new readers and friends
when I was searching for both. How it made me feel a part of the comics community to see my name
with the James Kochalkas and Mark Millars of the industry. The Galaxy is gone now, at least as I
remember it, but these amazing interviews live on and can be enjoyed over and over in this book. It
was a joy to read some of my favorites again, and hey, it was a thrill to see my name in the lights
again, too.

Thanks again Alan, for playing a focal part in my comics career, and most of all, for being a good
friend.

-- Jason Marcy, August 2009

Jason Marcy is the author of numerous comics and graphic novels, most notably the Jay’s Days
series, of which there are three volumes to date. You can follow his daily diary comic strip at
www.webcomicsnation.com/jaymarcy and find out more about him and his excellent comics at
www.jasonmarcy.com.
Suggested Further Reading

Peter Bagge - http://www.peterbagge.com/

Tom Beland - http://www.tombeland.com/
Brian Michael Bendis - http://www.jinxworld.com/
Charles Burns - http://www.fantagraphics.com/
Chester Brown - http://www.drawnandquarterly.com/
Ed Brubaker - http://www.edbrubaker.com/
Kurt Busiek - http://busiek.com/
Howard Chaykin - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Howard_Chaykin
Colleen Coover - http://www.colleencoover.net/
Jim Crocker - http://www.modern-myths.com/
Dirk Deppey - http://www.tcj.com/journalista/
Renee French - http://reneefrench.blogspot.com/
JC Glindmyer - http://www.earthworldcomics.com/
Steven Grant - http://www.papermovies.com/
Roger Green - http://www.rogerowengreen.blogspot.com/
Roberta Gregory - http://www.robertagregory.com/
Paul Hornschemeier - http://www.newsandheadlice.blogspot.com/
Tony Isabella - http://www.worldfamouscomics.com/tony/
Barbara Kesel - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barbara_Kesel/
Ron Marz - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ron_Marz
James Kochalka – http://www.americanelf.com/
Erik Larsen - http://www.savagedragon.com/
Jason Marcy – http://www.jasonmarcy.com
Mark Millar - http://www.millarworld.tv/index.html
L. Nichols - http://www.dirtbetweenmytoes.com/
Denny O‘Neil - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dennis_O'Neil
Harvey Pekar - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harvey_Pekar
Sean Phillips - http://www.seanphillips.co.uk/
Joe Quesada - http://marvel.com/
Jimmy Palmiotti - http://www.myspace.com/jimmypalmiotti
Ted Rall - http://www.rall.com/
Greg Rucka - http://www.gregrucka.com/wp/
Johnny Ryan - http://www.johnnyr.com/
Robert Scott - http://www.comickaze.com/
Seth - http://www.drawnandquarterly.com/
Dave Sim - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dave_Sim
Walter Simonson - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walt_Simonson
James Sturm - http://www.cartoonstudies.org/jamessturm.html
Ty Templeton - http://www.templetons.com/ty/
Rob Vollmar - http://robvollmar.blogspot.com/
Mark Waid - http://markwaid.boom-studios.net/
Mike Wieringo - http://www.mikewieringo.com/
Brett Warnock - http://www.topshelfcomix.com/blog/
Josie Whitmore - http://piebirdjosie.squarespace.com/
Barry Windsor-Smith - http://www.barrywindsor-smith.com/
Larry Young - http://ait-planetlar.com/
Christopher Allen - http://www.chrisallenonline.com/

[CBG Bullet created by Anthony Schiavino]