When DreamWorks story artist Dave Derrick was a student at CalArts in the early-2000s, one of the shorts that influenced him was Tim Watts and David Stoten’s BAFTA-winning, Oscar-nominated The Big Story. Derrick recently met Watts and took the opportunity to interview him about the film, his work on the Spitting Image TV show, and find out why Watts and Stoten animated the film twice—once hand-drawn and again in stop motion. Read the Tim Watts interview on Derrick’s website.

Animation veteran Gabe Swarr has been pumping out webcomics and short animated webisodes of his nostaglia-hued Life in the Analog Age for the past couple years alongside his studio day job. Earlier this week, he relaunched the property as a weekly animated series online, with the goal of new episodes every week. I chatted with Gabe via email about his decision to shift his online focus from comics to animated shorts, teaming up with Frederator’s new Allied Media label, the pros and cons of pitching, and the best advice for others who want to do their own online series.

Cartoon Brew: You have a full-time job as the supervising producer and director of Nickelodeon’s Kung Fu Panda: Legends of Awesomeness. Where do you find the time to also write, animate and do the sound for a weekly series all by yourself?

Gabe Swarr: Everyone asks me that! I wake up very early, every morning at 6AM. I exercise, get my morning chores done, and get to my desk for at least two hours of work before going into Nickelodeon. This is the best way I’ve found to make sure I have a sizable block of focussed uninterrupted time to get stuff done. Also working in the morning insures that I’m not exhausted from my day job.

Cartoon Brew: That still doesn’t explain where you get all your energy from. What does a typical Gabe Swarr ‘power breakfast’ consist of?

Gabe Swarr: Ha! Just some cereal and a banana, nothing exciting I’m afraid. I think it’s more the exercise than the breakfast! I actually starting running in the morning over a year ago. It has made a huge difference, and hopefully I’ll be alive a little longer to make even more stuff!

Cartoon Brew: What do you hope to accomplish by turning Life in the Analog Age from a comic and occasional animated webisodes into a regular animated webseries?

Gabe Swarr: I really want to get more people to see the series. I love sharing these stories and memories. There’s always such an amazing response from the comics, and I want to really focus on translating that to the shorts. I also think that the fact that it’s animated is a more unique way to experience the series. There are a lot of “slice of life” and autobiographical comics, but very few animated series like this one.

Cartoon Brew: In Analog Age, you try to express your honest emotions as they were at the time, whereas so much of today’s entertainment culture looks back at the past with snark and irony. How did you decide on your more affable approach to storytelling?

Gabe Swarr: Analog Age started as a complete departure from the things I do in my day job. I wanted to slow down the pace and express moments or feelings that you just don’t see in too many other places. The more I did it, the more I found the real tone of the series and learned more about the way I think our brains work.

I’m pretty sure our memories aren’t just a series of remembered facts of events. When you think back and remember how things were, yes you do recall what happened, but it’s not always accurate. That’s because, yeah, it was a long time ago, but it’s mainly because you’re using how you felt at the time as a frame of reference. Our memories are wrapped up in them. That’s nostalgia to me, true nostalgia, and that’s a lot harder to capture than just making fun of pop culture, fashion, or how poofy hair styles were.

That being said, when I do go back and look and unlock those emotions and feelings, I have to find a narrative or story in them. I have to remove myself and look at that moment from my current state of mind, and sometimes some of the best humor or scenes come from making fun of myself or the poor choices I made then, like this:

Cartoon Brew: Assuming that most of the stories are rooted in truth, have your siblings or parents had any reactions to the stories you’re telling, or expressed surprise at any events you’ve depicted?

Gabe Swarr: Yes, it’s all true. There are some stories that my Mom isn’t too fond of. She is the only family member who has spoken up about how they are being portrayed. When I’m making them, I’m never thinking about that. Some of the stories that didn’t put me in a good light were the ones that got the biggest reaction or started the most online conversations like “Hero”.

Cartoon Brew: Life in the Analog Age is becoming part of something called Frederator Allied Media which is a division of Fred Seibert’s company. How does that work?

Gabe Swarr: Well, I keep everything on my YouTube channel. I have complete creative control over schedule and content, but now I’m part of their ‘network.’ My cartoons can be seen by their 75,000+ subscribers as opposed to my 1000+ subscribers. We do an ad revenue split which motivates them to find sponsored ads.

Cartoon Brew: I think pitching ideas to networks and doing pilots is stupid in this day and age of the Internet. Am I wrong?

Gabe Swarr: I can’t say that you’re wrong or right, it depends really on what you want. If you want your show to be seen on worldwide TV, collaborate with working professionals, and not pay for the actual production, then yes, that’s a great way, and it’s been done for decades.  There are some drawbacks though, first be prepared to sell full ownership of your idea, and the process is a very collaborative one. Your ideas might change a lot by the time it reaches the audience.

If you want full ownership, full creative control, and having a direct line to your audience, then online is the way to go. Be ready to pay and do the entire production yourself (or with generous friends), and work very hard to build your own audience basically from scratch.

So there are pluses and minuses to both approaches. Personally, I’m doing both traditional TV development, and indie online right now.

Cartoon Brew: The way I see it is this: a creator has the same shot of getting a pilot picked up for a network series as they do having a breakout web series. Except that the web creator ends up with much greater leverage,and therefore it’s more profitable for them. The “Annoying Orange” guy, who started out on the Web, is one of the few show creators who managed to launch a show on Cartoon Network without losing his ownership rights. Or take “Simon’s Cat”—360 million views on YouTube, 8 bestselling books, and now he’s beginning to license to other media platforms while still retaining ownership of his creation.

Gabe Swarr: Yeah, I think it’s great for those people, but like I said, they had to build that audience from the ground up themselves. That’s a job in itself and not an easy one. I spend a lot of my time responding to comments, posting, reposting, revising based on feedback on top of just making everything. Some people can’t or don’t want to deal with all of that. That might be one reason they go through a TV network, but the profitability is the trade off.

Cartoon Brew: Pretend I’m an animation executive. Gimme your elevator-pitch for Analog Age.

Gabe Swarr: Life in the Analog Age is an all-ages animated webseries all about growing up in a time before the digital age. It is a collection of vignettes that follow a “Little Bear Kid” in a time of his life where he is discovering himself and the world around him. All based on true events. 

Cartoon Brew: Sold! Now give one piece of advice to someone who wants to start their own online animated webseries.

Gabe Swarr: The big overall thing is when creating anything, make sure it means something to you and that it says something. There are so many things out there that are just meaningless. It’s all like candy, fun to eat, but no nutritional value. You can’t live off of it. You want your creations to have some kind of purpose in the world, something that speaks to the people, and if it doesn’t, why make it in the first place?

Cartoon Brew: If you had to give up all your digital equipment (Cintiq, iPhone, new video game systems, etc.) tomorrow, do you think you could comfortably live again in the Analog Age?  

Gabe Swarr: I totally would, but as long as I magically had no foresight into how things work now. I would go crazy missing the way we can use the Internet to learn, communicate, and distribute. I would also miss how much paper I’m saving by working digitally, but I would not miss the new video game systems at all! I still fire up my old N.E.S. to beat my favorite games.

For regular weekly episodes, visit LifeInTheAnalogAge.com.

Kathleen Krull is here!

We’re jumping feet first into the summer with a visit from one of the best story-tellers on our planet!

It’s fun to be nosy about Kathy Krull’s latest activities…especially when she responds to Blog Hop questions. Read on. Add a comment. You just might receive a surprise . And do check out the splendid creators Kathy has blog-tagged at the end. —J.C.]

Photo courtesy of Lili Gonzalez /Yellow Book Road

1.  What is the title of your work-in-progress?

KK:  It’s not in-progress, but piping hot off the press: What Was the Boston Tea Party

2.  Where did the idea come from?
KK:  Without being an expert on the Boston Tea Party, I still had a sense that the current Tea Party movement, which began in 2009, a month after President Barack Obama took office, was not always accurate in its depiction of American history.  So I wanted to know the real story of the event and present it to young readers.

3.  What genre does your book come under?
KK:  Nonfiction chapter book, illustrated with line drawings and 16 pages of photos.

4. Which actors would you choose to play your characters in a movie?
KK:  150 of Hollywood’s buffest and cutest and youngest–more than a third of the participants that night were under 21.

5. One sentence synopsis for your book?
KK:  What happened on the night of December 16, 1773, placed within a context of what led up to it and what resulted–how it led to the birth of a whole new country.

6. Is your book self-published, published by an independent publisher, or represented by an agency?
KK:  Published by Grosset & Dunlap, a division of Penguin.

7. How long did it take you to write the first draft of your manuscript?
KK:  At the same time I was thinking Tea Party thoughts, my editor at Penguin, Jane O’Connor, was starting up this new series — WHAT WAS, a spin-off of WHO WAS.  The deadline was tight, a matter of months, during which I was drinking tea from morning till night.

8. What other books would you compare this story to within your genre?
KK:  Is it conceited to say I hope I’m trying in my way to follow in the footsteps of Jean Fritz?

9. Who or what inspired you to write this book? 
KK:  American history is endlessly fascinating, and I love getting the chance to portray it as accurately and meaningfully as possible, fighting the good fight against cluelessness.

10.What else about your book might pique the reader’s interest?
KK:  It’s controversial!  Anyone who enters the fray will get sent a free copy of the book.

And now, I am tagging two upstanding children’s book folks: Helen Foster James , co-author of Paper Son: Lee’s Journey to America and several other popular books, and Carlyn Beccia, illustrator for one of my newest, Louisa May’s Battle and other beautiful books.

borrowed from PW on-line…. this an announcement of our artist Priscilla Burris and her work on THE RULES BOOK~ for Little Simon,  fast and furious and oh so adorable.  Great story all around…and the PERFECT illustrator!

Just about done so watch for it in late FALL????  kudos Little Simon and Priscilla!

Home > Children’s > Book News

Lost and Bound: A Misplaced Notebook Finds a Publisher

By Sue Corbett |

May 23, 2013

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Cousins Isabella Thorsden (l.), and Isabelle Busath.

 

Earlier this year, Lisa Rao, an editor at Simon & Schuster, saw a segment on Good Morning America moments before she walked into an editorial meeting.

 

“I had my iPad and pulled up the clip and told them, ‘You have to watch this,’ ” Rao recalled about a story that involved a Walmart employee in suburban Sacramento, Calif., who found a spiral-bound notebook that contained 157 rules handwritten in a childlike scrawl. The book had nothing in it to identify the owner; Raymond Flores, a Walmart associate charged with corralling shopping carts, had found it in the parking lot. But he flipped through it and decided it could not have been discarded intentionally after reading rule no. 154: “Protect this rule book.”

So Flores, 20, posted a photo of the book on his Facebook page, hoping to reunite book and author. No luck. Then he contacted the local Fox TV affiliate. That story got picked up nationally.

Article continues below.

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By the time Rao and the rest of the S&S editorial team watched the GMA report, one thing was abundantly clear. “Our publisher, Valerie [Garfield], said immediately: ‘We must find the owner!’ ” And when Rao did, she offered the – co-authors, it turns out – a contract. And this October Simon & Schuster will publish Isabelle and Isabella’s Book of Rules, a jacketed hardcover in a “gifty” trim size, written by Isabelle Busath, age 10, and Isabella Thordsen, age 8, with illustrations by Priscilla Burris.

 

“The minute I saw the handwriting and heard all the hysterical and the sweet rules these two had written, I knew I wanted to publish it,” Rao said. “ ‘Don’t bite the dentist?’ How could you not want to publish that?”

Isabelle and Isabella created the rule book last Christmas break as an attempt to teach their younger siblings the ropes. “They had been coloring with crayons and one of the younger kids wrote on Isabelle, so one of the rules became ‘Don’t color on PEOPLE,’ ” Rao noted. “They had the sweetest of intentions.”

 

The text will be recreated pages from the girls’ journal in their own handwriting and original spelling. “We felt like it made it even more sincere if we kept their misspellings,” Rao said. “One of the rules is something like, ‘If you want something, don’t wine.’ Who would want to take that out?” Rao did edit out a few duplicates. The girls had taken turns making entries and both thought “Don’t waste paper” was a good rule to live by.

 

Once reunited with their book, the cousins immediately added rules they had thought of since they’d lost it. Rao says the published book will contain about 200 rules. Will one of the new ones be, “Let your mom check Facebook whenever she wants?” (Stories about Flores’s quest to find the book’s owner eventually appeared in Isabelle’s mother’s Facebook feed, which is how the book finally found its way back to its authors.) Or “Don’t trust the rule book with just anybody?” (After her pen exploded, Isabelle gave the book to a friend to hold while she went to wash her hands. The friend accidentally dropped it getting into the car in the Walmart parking lot.)

Maybe it will even include the one rule the girls let somebody else write in their book – their new hero, Raymond Flores. His rule was simple: “Stay in school.”

Today I have a special treat for you. Author Meradeth Houston is here interviewing Tom from The Chemistry of Fate. Take it away guys!

A wonderful truck book for boys and girls is being released this week…DO take a look and enjoy.  I’ve ‘borrowed’ the blurb from Melissa Iwai’s blog here…about the book and author and, for some, a surprising fact about the collaboration process.  Congratulations Melissa and Anne ….it’s a most fun result of a growing friendship!

I’m thrilled to announce the release of TRUCK STOP, written by Anne Rockwell and illustrated by moi!!  The official Viking pub date is this Thursday, but we are kicking off our blog tour today.  TRUCK STOP is a fun picture book for young kids that celebrates all the different trucks and their drivers who gather for breakfast every day at the young narrator’s family’s truck stop diner.

When I first was offered the manuscript in 2011, I was so excited to see it was written by Anne.  I’ve been a big fan for a long time.  She`s written over 100 children’s books for all ages, on topics ranging from boats, history, mythology, to the first day of school, bugs, to the seasons.  Go check out her collection of books here!  Needless to say, I didn’t need much time to think it over and said “yes” to my editor immediately.

Most people don’t realize it, but usually the author and illustrator don’t meet or collaborate at all on the book.  Exceptions are made, of course, if they are married, related, or perhaps have worked together in the past.  So it was such a pleasure last week when I finally had the opportunity to meet Anne in person.  We had been corresponding via Facebook  for the past year after I turned the artwork in (yes, it takes a year for a book to be printed!)

It's a busy month for Tanita and I, this merry month of May, so we've decided to feature a couple of guest posts and interviews over the next few days--on the 8th, we're part of Shana Mlawski's blog tour, and today, we're proud to be part of the... Read the rest of this post

I am very excited about my interview with paper engineer extraordinaire, Bruce Foster. Read the interview here. If you love pop-up books like I do, you will be in awe of the painstaking process it takes to make a book like America’s National Parks: A Pop-Up Book.

© Bruce Fosster

Bruce Foster with a pop-up of Grand Canyon National Park

Shayne Leighton writes novels, screenplays, and songs. "I just LOVE storytelling because it is the easiest way to experience magic and escape reality," she explains. "I think we all need that escape now and again." She's currently preparing for the release of her next novel and the recording of her debut album. Now it's time to learn more about this young writer:

How old were you when you wrote your first story?

I was in the second grade when I wrote the first short story that I actually liked. It was a story about what it would be like to live inside of a bubble and was originally prompted to the class by our teacher. She told me, after reading it, to never stop writing, and so I think the rest is history!

I began writing seriously when I was about sixteen, tinkering around with different story ideas, until I eventually landed on Of Light and Darkness, an I idea that I loved.

What about your first song?

I wrote my first song when I was fourteen, but it was absolutely terrible, and I wouldn't actually call it a SONG. Ha ha.

You shot your first feature-length film, The Incubus, right after high school. How long did it take to write, and how long to shoot?

When I wrote the screenplay for The Incubus, I didn't have much of a plan about where it was all going to go. I started writing the story early on in my senior year of high school. In the winter, I met Marcie Gorman, the woman who would become the film's executive producer and director. From that point on, I didn't realize how absolutely LUCKY I was going to become. Marcie worked tirelessly alongside myself and the rest of the team for about two and a half years. Production spanned a long time, because we were trying to get the film to be as close to amazing as possible. For a lot of us, it was our first time out on a project that was so huge and such a massive undertaking. But after that nearly three-year time span from production to finish, I'd say we accomplished what we set out to do. We created a good story. We created a family. We brought in thousands of fans online who learned to love it as much as we did, and we had a damn good time doing it. I wouldn't exchange that experience for anything in the world.

Did you write it with the intention to also direct and act in it, or did that occur to you during the casting and pre-production process?

To clarify, when I initially wrote the screenplay, I hadn't the slightest inclination that it was even going to be produced. I stumbled upon Marcie Gorman purely by kismet. When I was sixteen, I wrote, directed, and starred in another independent feature that never saw the light of day. Because of that, something I considered a failure, I always dreamed of the chance to try my hand at directing again. I have been acting since I was very small, so if my screenplay was going to be produced, I sort of figured that was a give-in. Especially at an independent level when we small people can still have our opinions be heard! So, when I found out The Incubus was going to be produced, it was established early on that Marcie and I would helm the project together and that I would act as "Marnie" in the film. As the project evolved, however, I soon came to find that directing was really not my forte, especially while trying to act at the same time) and Marcie took over directing from there. I love to write and act, but directing I think I'll leave for the big guys from now on.

Like Incubus, your YA book series Of Light and Darkness has a paranormal flavor. Have you always liked the fantasy genre?

[I've] always loved fantasy. Ever since I can remember, my mother was reading me fairy tales. When I was fifteen, I fell in love with Anne Rice's Interview with the Vampire specifically. I think I will almost always write and create within the fantasy genre. Because reality leaves a lot to the imagination!

What are some of your favorite fantasy books or movies?

My all-time favorite is Interview with a Vampire by Anne Rice. I am also a HUGE Potterhead. I think the Harry Potter series is superior and I bow down to Ms. Rowling because I think she was able to speak to so many of us through her books. Readers of all ages. She not only told a good story, but she told a cathartic story that we could all relate to, something we all want to experience: magic in our lives. I only hope to do the same thing she did someday with my stories - have them speak to people just as effectively.

Whose storytelling has influenced your own? Authors, screenwriters, directors, actors...

I think there are three people on the list who have effectively changed the way I write and make films. Those are Anne Rice, J.K. Rowling, and Guillermo del Toro for his film Pan's Labyrinth. They each have a way of creating a story that is both utterly imaginary and impossible; at the same time, the story is poetic and it actually has substance and means something. I can't stand novels and movies that are just a good story but do not contain the sort of poetry and substance that we see in day to day life. Without it, the story falls flat and your magic is suddenly something that nobody can relate to, nor can they believe.

What has been the biggest challenge you've faced when adapting Of Light and Darkness from the original novel form to a screenplay?

For this project, I have opted not to transpose the story myself. It is far too difficult for an author to try and squeeze her 90k word novel into a 90 page screenplay. I think I would find myself crying miserably as I hacked away chunks of my story as I tried to push all of the remaining detail into a script. So we found somebody else to transpose it, and as it is, I think the screenplay came out really great. It is exciting and well-paced at the same time it holds true to the story. The current status is that the film is in development, which means it hasn't been given the "green light" yet. But our plans are to make a series of feature films.

How many books are planned in the series?

Right now, there are seven books planned for the series. However, as I continue to write, my cogs continue turning with ideas of spin-off novels and additions and things - so we'll see what happens!

Congratulations on your record deal with Spectra Records!

Thank you! I am really, really excited about the deal. I think Spectra (already a fabulous label) is really going to be on its way up this year. They have just signed a deal with the UK's talent show Live & Unsigned, and they are working on a few other top-secret but exciting things. I'm keeping my fingers crossed. They've got some great talent on their roster, so I am just honored to be a part of the whole thing. We are beginning writing and production now.

Do you approach songwriting and novel writing in a similar fashion, coming from the story and the words first, or does the melody line come to you before the lyrics?

Songwriting and novel writing are two totally different approaches for me. I don't relate the two much at all. With writing songs, it's almost always different. Sometimes it's the lyrics first and sometimes it's the melody. When I write novels, I hardly ever plot beforehand. I just kind of let the characters take me where they want to take me.

Share a random fact about yourself.

I have a strange obsession for stationery of all kind. Notebooks, pens, paper, journals. It's the best gift anyone could get me. My favorite foods are mushrooms and olives (but not together), and I can speak some conversational Czech: Dejuki a naschledanou! (Thank you and goodbye!)

Visit Shayne's website.

It all started two years ago, when the Cybils opened the SFF category to self-published books. Many of them arrived in eboook form. As a first-round judge, I spent a lot of time whining about them, which showed a distinct lack of professionalism,... Read the rest of this post

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Later this year IDW will be publishing Half Past Danger, a new series written, drawn, and created by Stephen Mooney. After working as artist on several IDW titles including Star Trek and Angel for the last few years, Mooney decided it was time to set up a creator-owned project, which he’d have full control over. In order to do so, he had to set aside a year in which he scripted, designed, pencilled, inked, coloured and lettered the project – six months in which he wasn’t earning money from any other gigs. It was quite the risk, taking himself out of the comics scene for a year in order to focus on a comic he had no idea would ever see the light of day.

However! The good news is that IDW decided to pick up the book, starting with issue #1 this May – preorderable now! I spoke to Stephen about making the leap into creator-owned work, the inspiration for Half Past Danger, and how the experience has been.

Steve: Half Past Danger is dedicated to your father, “who took me to the movies”. What kind of films would you go see? Were there any in particular which served as inspiration for Half Past Danger?

Stephen: Oh wow, yeah. Loads! The first film I can remember my dad taking my brothers and I to see was E.T. in the Savoy cinema in Dublin in 1982, when I was five years old. Still my favourite cinema to this day. I can remember it like it was yesterday; its one of my first real memories. The whole experience made such a huge indelible dent on my psyche, in so many ways. The bustling anticipatory atmosphere of the jam-packed theatre, the crowd reactions as the movie ebbed and lowed. I was absolutely hooked. It also started my love affair with Spielberg’s eighties ouevre. Films that followed included The Return of The Jedi, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, The Goonies, Back To The Future, Big Trouble In Little China, Indiana Jones and The Last Crusade, and many, many more.

The most obvious influences on Half Past Danger filmically-speaking are undoubtedly the first three Indiana Jones movies. They really colour and inform my entire storytelling style. That bang-zip-wallop rapid-fire action beats-ridden kind of a narrative, with a few gags interspersed. Half Past Danger aspires to be that style of tale. Strong influences also would be the very early Connery Bond films, and pulpy matinee-style fare like The Treasure of the Sierra Madre. Then of course you have the classic Harryhausen dino movies. Great stuff, all.

Steve: How did the story of Half Past Danger start to come together? When did you first have the idea for it?

Stephen: The idea has been in my mind in some shape or form for years now, in that I’ve always known that if and when I ever attempted a story of my own that it would be 100% mired in that kind of pulpy action-adventure style, simply because that’s the genre I feel most comfortable in, and know so well. I always knew also that I’d want the main character to be an Irishman, since that’s the one thing I’ve been all my life, and nobody could tell the story of that particular character better than me, to my mind. I guess somewhat inevitably I injected much of my own personality and traits into a somewhat idealised version of myself, and placed him squarely into this scenario I’d begun to dream up. Hell, the guy even looks like me. If that’s not vanity wit large, I dunno what is.

The story came together over the last couple of years, I knew the high concept from the start, Nazis versus dinosaurs, but I wanted to really take my time and write something that hadn’t specifically been seen before, since as everybody knows, a lot of these themes have been done before on many occasions. The real trick is to give readers something they haven’t experienced as of yet, and I didn’t want to press too far ahead until I was sure I’d come up with a new spin on what in some ways could be seen as an old tale.

Once I figured out the main wheres, whys and whats, the rest came fairly rapidly.

Steve: This is your first creator-owned work – how did you decide that Half Past Danger was the right project to get off the ground?

Stephen: Well, it’s the only project that I’ve ever completely fleshed out, to be honest. I had this one idea that I thought was really strong, and it was bang in the middle of my wheelhouse, or more specifically what I wanted my wheelhouse to be, so I ran with it. To be honest I didn’t question it too much. Do I have other ideas? Yeah, but they all revolve around this universe! I guess I just had a single, enormous itch I needed to scratch for the time being, and I’ll see where I go from there.

Steve: You’ve said that you took six months off to focus on this project, writing, drawing, inking, colouring, lettering…. Where did you start with the project?

Stephen: With the writing. I didn’t put pencil to paper drawing-wise until the full series was totally written and put to bed. Then pencilling, inking, coloring, lettering, in that order. Then back to the start again for issue 2 and go again; rinse and repeat.

Steve: Did you work issue-by issue on the story, or plot out an entirety and then start filling it in? How did you approach the story once you had the concept locked down, in essence.

Stephen: I worked out the entire plot first. I’d be terrified to embark on a story without knowing how it was going to end. To be honest, I’d probably never GET to the end in that scenario, I’d just circle the drain narratively until I eventually flushed the project. In order to commit myself to this massive body of work, I had to make sure everything was utterly and clearly signposted. Otherwise I wouldn’t be able to visualize my goal, and I’d be second-guessing myself all the while. Because the writing was the only element that I’d never approached before, I wanted to give it all of the respect it deserved, and to take the time to get it done right. Or, at least as right as I could get it!

Steve: How long has each issue taken you to complete? Did you find yourself surprised by how difficult certain aspects of the process were?

Stephen: Man, too long! The writing took about 2 months all-in, including research. That was fine. It was when I got stuck into the art side of things that I began to get bogged down a little. One of my dreams for the book was to do absolutely everything myself; complete creator control. That proved to be somewhat of a pipe dream in a way, though. The first issue of the book took me four months to pencil, ink, colour and letter. That was just unsustainable, the book would take another two years at that rate, and I was already six months in. Hence the addition of Jordie Bellaire as series colorist from issue 2 onward.

Something had to give, and of all of the aspects visually, I was spending the most time on the colours, which was crazy. Jordie is a very close friend, and when she saw me floundering she offered to dive in and help me out. She’s an amazing colorist, and a big fan of a lot of the same source material as I am, so it was a pretty seamless transition really. It also doesn’t hurt that Jordie’s a phenomenally talented colorist, in constant demand at all the biggest companies. I’m certainly beyond delighted that she chose to climb aboard.

With Jordie alongside, I’ve been spending two months a piece on the subsequent issues, almost all of that time spent drawing and inking the 26-odd pages per issue, then a couple of days of lettering at the end.

Steve: I was really struck with a blog post you wrote about the role of writing and art in comics - http://www.halfpastdanger.com/2011/10/writing-vs-art-this-time-its-personal.html . Now you’re further into the story, how have you found the balance between writing an issue and drawing it?

Stephen: It’s very hard for me to separate the two, if I’m being honest. In this instance, it’s all just the story. When I was writing it, I knew exactly how every beat and scene would look on the page (or at least how I’d like it to look), and now that I’m drawing it, I almost know off by heart the entire story and script, so it all just flows onto the page. Again, it’s all just utmost inseparable elements of the story, for me. The script is more a broad outline with fairly tight dialogue than anything. Stage directions.

Steve: I’ve read the first issue of the series, and really enjoyed the central character, Tommy Flynn. Did you find the design process easier for a character you created, and would be writing yourself? Has it been easy translating your ideas to the page, rather than interpreting an established work, as you’ve done before for IDW?

Stephen: Yeah, I think it has. I wouldn’t say easy, but I certainly haven’t had to wrestle it into submission or anything like that. Probably because the main character is a bit of a cypher, in that he acts and reacts pretty much the way I would assuming I were a lot braver and a tad more selfless. Working with the established characters, like say Angel or Spike wasn’t that difficult either though, in terms of working what was written on the page, because I had such bloody good writers whom I trusted implicitly. I’ve been very lucky that way. I’ve never had trouble portraying any given character on the page, the acting and character beats are one of the very few aspects of the drawing that come totally naturally to me.

Steve: With more control over the final product, have you noticed yourself experimenting more with pacing and panel layout?

Stephen: Oh god, yeah. WAY more. I’m very respectful of a given writer’s script when I get it on a work-for-hire job, I’m loathe to mess with what they’ve asked for in their direction. They spent time working that stuff out, so I stick pretty religiously to it when at all possible, even when I might disagree on the shots called for. Or maybe there might be a crazy talking order or something going on that just isn’t feasible without the addition of an extra panel or the use of a slightly different angle. Perhaps I should go more with my own gut, I don’t know. Usually I just want to make the writer happy. If there’s leeway there, I’ll certainly take it. This kind of touches on that article on the Half Past Danger process blog that you mentioned in one of the earlier questions.

On my own book, I’m much freer to go with my initial instincts, storytelling-wise. It’s one of the most satisfying elements of the whole venture, and one of the reasons I actually wanted to attempt it. I think one of the reasons that people seem to be responding to how ‘cinematic’ the storytelling is, is because that’s my natural modus operandi, and my default setting.

Steve: How has the experience of working on a creator-owned project been for you?

Stephen: Absolutely wonderful, so far. Dizzying highs, terrifying lows, creamy centres. It’s as hard as I’ve ever worked, and in even more of a vacuum than before. It’s incredibly scary and daunting, because at the end of the day, for better or for worse, it’s all me on the page; nobody to hide behind. But at the same time, that’s pretty much the most incredible aspect. Where else can a sole creator be responsible for almost every aspect of production? Film? Animation? It just doesn’t happen, and that’s one of the reasons I love comic books so much.

Steve: Do you see yourself doing more creator-owned work in future, or are you looking to alternate with some more work-for-hire projects?

Stephen: In a perfect world, I’d love to do further HPD series every year or two in the Hellboy model, with the odd work-for-hire gig interspersed between. But obviously, that all depends on how the first series is received. I’ll certainly stick around for as long as Chris Ryall and the amazing guys at IDW will have me, I genuinely don’t think that there’s a better home for Half Past Danger.

Steve: Jordie Bellaire will be coming on as colourist as of issue 2, as you’ve mentioned, whilst I believe Declan Shalvey will be drawing a backup strip for each issue. There seems to be quite a growing community of comics creators in Ireland recently. How important is it to have that sense of a creative community? Is it helpful to have people to bounce these ideas off?

Stephen: Oh, it’s invaluable. it really is. Having guys (and gals!) like Dec, Jordie and also Nick Roche, Will Sliney, Stephen Thompson and all the other Irish pros to bounce stuff off and get opinions from is simple indispensable. We’re a very close network. Almost collaborators in a way. I couldn’t do this without their help, I mean that. Otherwise I’d just be floating along in a nebulous void of gibberish. And I wouldn’t even know if it was good gibberish. So yeah, absolutely essential.

Steve: What advice would you give to anybody looking to create their own comics?

Stephen: Get off the pot and do it. Let go of the doubts and the maybes, and just make it happen. Everybody is afraid; everybody wonders if they’re actually good enough. I know I do. The only way to find out is to light that touch-paper, and have at it.

At the end of the day, even if Half Past Danger doesn’t hit that sweet spot critically or commercially, I’ll still have the satisfaction of knowing I tried.

I did my best. Otherwise, as dramatic as it sounds, I’d go all the way to the grave wondering what might have been.

Many thanks to Stephen for his time! If you’d like to find out more, you can read all about the process on his blog, which has been constantly updating with information and thoughts on the creation process for the last few months. You can find his pencilling, inking, colouring, bits of script, all sorts of things on there – I really recommend you have a look. You can also find him on the twitters! Half Past Danger #1 is out in May.

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On March 30^th, WonderCon attendees got treated to a bonus feature in a Spotlight panel with Ann Nocenti, Jim Lee acting as her interviewer. The two had so much shared history that they reminisced about the “good old days” at Marvel as well as plunging into the current artwork that most impresses them on their work for DC. The panel opened with a tone-setting description from Nocenti of her time as a Marvel writer and editor, “back in the day when Marvel Comics was so much fun”, when you could “smoke and drink and have guns in the office”. Lee confirmed that the gun in the office was an observable phenomenon, and Nocenti added by way of explanation that guns were needed for “reference”.

Lee started off by introducing Nocenti as the “self proclaimed female token writer at DC” and asked her how her current state came to be, considering that in her Marvel days there were several women on staff. Nocenti commented that though there were women at Marvel, she recalled that there were never any women at comic cons back then, unlike the demographic at WonderCon. “It must have been rough on you guys”, she teased Lee. Some of her workmates at Marvel, she explained, were Mark Gruenwald, “the soul of Marvel Comics”, Larry Hama, who was known for “pounding, crazy music” in his office, and Peter Sanderson, a “living archive” of all things Marvel.

Nocenti obviously had fond memories of the bullpen days at Marvel, stating, “The physical bullpen made the place creative”. She had a steep learning curve upon arriving at Marvel with a fine arts background, and had a lot to learn under her first editor Jim Shooter, someone who she described as “having a beautiful sense of story” and who ingrained in her the need for a “can’t/must” moment of conflict for a hero. The maxim still holds true for Nocenti, she confirmed. “He’s right”, Lee said, “Conflict is one of the key things in drama”. “Louise Simonson also had a huge influence on me”, Nocenti added, a woman who had the “power to cloud men’s minds” according to legend, by infusing even her most severe criticisms with a “cheerful attitude”.

Nocenti shared some of the lessons she learned from editing at Marvel with the audience, including the need for the editor present a fan’s perspective to the writer or artist: “A good editor has to understand that a writer is working so hard, and is so over worked, that they need ideas thrown at them from a fan’s perspective”. But from the editor’s perspective, she observed, it often leads to bizarre conversations and often caused her to ask herself “Did I just say that?” when generating “wacky” ideas with writers. Nocenti particularly enjoyed crossover development in the bullpen, and feels that she wasn’t alone in that enthusiasm, sharing “really exciting creative meetings” where “everyone would want to play at the same party”. Her advice to editors is to “learn everything”, like a “captain knows how to run a ship”, and she feels that this approach was encouraged at Marvel, but is less common today. This enables an editor to “know what everyone’s going through”.

Lee presented Nocenti with a copy of a comic they had once collaborated on together, though she confessed she didn’t recall the book, X-Men #39. After flipping through it and chatting together, Nocenti declared, “This looks like a great story. I want to buy this and read this!”, to the audience’s amusement. Lee’s questions, however, led Nocenti into darker recollections, about the “mini implosion” period at Marvel that led to her departure. Ron Perlman, she narrated, came into her office one day, wanting to meet her, and was fairly charming, but the “next thing we knew, he had gutted Marvel” financially. It was a “very traumatic” experience for “old timers”, she commented, and brought to her attention a famous quote from Dorothy Parker: “Don’t put all your eggs in one bastard”. After leaving Marvel, Nocenti worked in journalism, teaching, and filmmaking, gaining a wealth of experience that she now finds useful for life back in comics.

Writing a story about Catwoman in Arkham Asylum, for instance, she said, is drawn from a combination of her experiences working “at a place like Arkam” in her youth, and also from later editing Prison Life Magazine, which contained the work of prisoners. She observed a psychological feature that she’s incorporated into comics, the fact that it’s often “one small thing” that drives people crazy, not necessarily the bigger issues in life. Her experiences as a journalist and activist also led Nocenti to visit China, and some of her observations there led directly to her recent writing on GREEN ARROW, particularly noticing the pervasive “firewalls” on internet access in China and the sense of surveillance. Though she enjoyed working on GREEN ARROW, Nocenti explained that she “just couldn’t find her connection” to the character and was happy to move on to writing CATWOMAN, a character who she felt immediately in sync with. Her work on KATANA, too, keeps her imagination on its toes, drawing on the “idea of ancient clans, where the rich hire Samurais and ninjas are like spies”.

Lee and Nocenti spent the remainder of the panel showing and discussing process artwork and completed panels from upcoming CATWOMAN and KATANA stories, and enthusing over their finer features. The images included the set up for what Nocenti described as a “big gang war” for Catwoman and scenes in Arkham with “old torture devices”. Nocenti’s work on KATANA is based on her own obsession with martial arts and Kurasawa and martial arts films. “All comic book writers are doing really is unloading their personal obsessions on the page”, she confessed. This leads the writer to worry that readers might not find it interesting, she said, but in the case of Katana, Nocenti’s obsessions have translated to plenty of interest from fans. Nocenti regularly practises karate and judo around the house to see how Katana would move and act, and makes things even more “realistic” through watching martial arts films. It’s clear that her adaptable nature, shown throughout her varied career paths, is still going strong, and that her personal enthusiasm for her projects is still one of Nocenti’s most defining features.

Photo Credits: All photos in this article were taken by semi-professional photographer and pop culture scholar Michele Brittany. She’s an avid photographer of pop culture events. You can learn more about her photography and pop culture scholarship here.

Hannah Means-Shannon writes and blogs about comics for TRIP CITY and Sequart.org and is currently working on books about Neil Gaiman and Alan Moore for Sequart. She is @hannahmenzies on Twitter and hannahmenziesblog on WordPress.

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You’d be forgiven if you think of Matt Kindt as a breakaway success, since the “slow and steady” approach that’s defined his career so far looks like a sprint to the finish line with the explosive success of MIND MGMT from Dark Horse. Educator and author Travis Langley (Batman and Psychology) sat down with Kindt in a marathon 90 minute interview panel with the enigmatic creator on March 30^th as part of the Comic Arts Conference at WonderCon. This “Focus” series event revealed just how long a road it has been for Kindt to reach his current level of exposure and fandom with MIND MGMT, a comic series about the dark legacy of a government spy agency staffed by agents with psychic abilities.

Kindt, who says he’s probably been best know for his graphic novel SUPERSPY prior to MIND MGMT, had an unusual experience with comics at the age of 7 or 8 years old that left a big impression on him and still continues to influence his work. Reading Frank Miller’s DAREDEVIL, he ploughed through an entire issue where Daredevil visits Bullseye in the hospital, now paralyzed (following his murder of Elektra) and repeatedly pulls the trigger on his gun at the murderer. The issue itself consists of Daredevil speaking to the comatose Bullseye with almost no action at all, and as a kid Kindt thought “What kind of crazy superhero stuff is this?”. The heavy, odd dialogue and the “threat” of the unloaded gun, Kindt said, “made me love comics”. After a period in the 90’s when superhero books weren’t “capturing” Kindt’s attention anymore, he had another epiphany after discovering Daniel Clowes’ series EIGHTBALL at a con. He immediately felt, upon reading the issues, “This is the kind of comics I want to do” and an indie sensibility was born. Enter the years of hard work and learning just how to produce comics with his own particular voice.

Kindt’s education in fine art and painting, still evident in his comics work, influenced him tremendously in making comics, he told Langley. To “know production” and “have control of every part of the process” of making comics now serves him well, but as an art student at Webster University, he “kept comic books a secret”, since they were not considered an “art form” by his instructors. The most rewarding skill he acquired, Kindt explained, turned out to be print-making. Even though it’s not a “discipline directly related”, its application to comics proved invaluable. “It helped me think about color and composition”, he said, and through print making he acquired one of his key concepts when it comes to making comics, “movement in production”, a phrase his print making instructor used that “still haunts” him. For Kindt, “movement in production” means not being “precious” about a particular stage of production and reminds him not to “hold onto things” but keep his comics output moving. It results in the fairly profound productivity readers see today from Kindt.

Another benefit of studying fine arts, Kindt said, was to “learn about everything” and learn to make art before learning to make comics. Learning to make comics from observing comics is fine, he assured the audience, but it is “limiting the scope of how you think about comics”. Kindt, who’s known for his use of watercolor and tirelessly inventive design of marginalia in his work, is a pretty good living example of his point. By bringing in tools and tricks learned in other art forms, he expands awareness for readers and creators about what the comics format can do.

Kindt told Langley that he started off self-producing mini comics after attending ‘zine shows and first learned there about the common saying that a comics artist has to produce a thousand pages before they really produce one good one. The idea stayed with him as he watched his page count climb over the years. Inspired by autobio comics, he started producing them, meanwhile working his “boring day job”. “Every job was boring to me if I was not doing comics”, he confessed, and added that for him, “Everything has to have a dual purpose”. He worked in cinemas and bookstores to get discounts and continue to explore new artistic influences as part of his “dual purpose” of producing comics.

After graduating from college, Kindt worked at a “small design firm” and “hated it” despite the fact that it was art related. The “cubicle” environment depressed him and so he would speed through his required work and then “blatantly write comics after the work was done”. He rather ingeniously drafted and planned the comics while at work, so once home, “pages were ready to draw”. Kindt’s answers during this part of the interview were particularly funny as he broke into detailed narratives, but the most memorable vignette concerned using company color photocopiers to produce his comic covers after hours. “I don’t recommend this”, he warned regarding this strategy. Using special, thick paper for the covers, Kindt patiently kept copying despite the fact that the printer would jam every few copies. Finally, one cover “melted to the copier”, imprinting the drum of the copier with the cover image, including his name in clear script. After panicking, then realize there was simply nothing he could do about it, he knew he was “screwed” and left it. He returned to work without saying anything about it, watched the copier being repaired, and waited for the shoe to drop. It never did. His employers, for whatever reason, decided to turn a blind eye.

The job provided “motivation” for Kindt due to his profound desire to get away from an office job. He knew at the time, he said, “I’ll never be happy”. He was aware that he needed to “either fail or succeed at the thing I wanted to do most”. “Mocking” copies up at Kinkos at twenty dollars a piece, he printed 20 books and physically took the books to Dark Horse, Top Shelf, and Fantagraphics booths at a show in Chicago. By this time, Kindt had moved beyond autobio comics because he was getting a sense of “horrible feedback” from spending all day at a job he hated and then writing about it again in his comics. From making a list of things he wanted to draw, he concocted stories to allow him to do it. The list, he said (to laughter from the audience) included pirates, elements of old radio shows, and circus freaks. After handing over the hard-won comics to publishers, Kindt was more than amazed to receive a phone call at home. For Kindt, he still remembers the call as his “greatest moment”. Top Shelf wanted the book, “just as it is”. Ironically, the only change they wanted to make was to the melted cover.

Kindt went on to learn a host of lessons in an uphill struggle to make a living in comics, from realizing that collaboration was just not his thing, to challenging himself (never again, he said) to create an entire graphic novel without a single narrative box, resulting in a 300 page tome, to the realization that with his book SUPERSPY, he had finally reached his 1000^th page. Just on time, SUPERSPY took off in ways his previous critically acclaimed works had never managed to achieve.

Langley then led Kindt into the spy-obsessing portion of the interview, one which provoked a great deal of enthusiasm from the audience. Kindt, surprisingly, said that his espionage-based current work MIND MGMT, is not “really about spies”. He confessed that spy literature and film formed an early influence on his life from a family-bonding trip to a drive-in theatre to see MOONRAKER onward. The travel-writing aspect of spy novels were what Kindt found particularly appealing, churning through all the works of Ian Fleming as a teen. When he reads spy books or watches films now, however, he has a particular strategy in mind. He’s deciding what he’s “not going to put in books” since they’ve already been done by a process of “elimination”.

Kindt’s books now, and increasingly, show his obsession with “gadgetry” to the point that even close personal friends in comics (he mentioned Cullen Bunn and Jeff Lemire as examples) tease him about it, but it’s all part of the “physicality” and “interactive” aspects of printed comic books that appeals to Kindt. MIND MGMT is Kindt’s first fully serialized work where he is functioning as both writer and artist, and he’s taken advantage of that fact to emphasize the capabilities unique to print books, loading the inner covers of the comic, for instance, with extras for fans of spy lore. MIND MGMT contains features like a “field guide” format to its borders, Kindt explained, as if the comic is being presented within a field guide for secret government agents. Kindt also revealed that he’s particularly passionate about the role of covers in printed comics as the “very first page of the story” that has to function and work as simply a cover but also “work in a narrative way”.

Though the question and answer period was generous and wide-ranging, covering his artistic processes, research for his books, and upcoming plans for MIND MGMT, Kindt’s passion for printed comics became a particularly hot topic.  Working on a monthly book that is available in digital formats but contains incentives for print collection helps “get people back into shops every week”, Kindt explained, and may lead to readers discovering new books they like along the way rather than simply waiting for trades. He’s not averse to digital formats, he assured the audience, and reads many comics in digital format, but as a designer he’s concerned that “digital should be designed to be digital” and is not a fan of simple relocation of formats without attention to detail.

I asked Kindt, as the final question of the panel, what psychic powers he would like to have if he could somehow acquire them. His list was as down-to-earth as the hour and a half chat he shared with WonderCon goers: remember peoples’ names and be less oblivious. “I’d make the worst spy”, he confessed, “I can’t remember anything”. All a ploy to throw fans off the scent? Hearing a portion of the full story behind Kindt’s seemingly meteoric rise makes something clear once again about working in comics: it entails work, work, work, and more work, but it also demands commitment and passion. It’s not an easy combination to emulate, but for Kindt it’s been the only way to be truly happy.

Photo Credits: All photos in this article were taken by semi-professional photographer and pop culture scholar Michele Brittany. She’s an avid photographer of pop culture events. You can learn more about her photography and pop culture scholarship here.

Hannah Means-Shannon writes and blogs about comics for TRIP CITY and Sequart.org and is currently working on books about Neil Gaiman and Alan Moore for Sequart. She is @hannahmenzies on Twitter and hannahmenziesblog on WordPress.

You know that scene in Disney's Snow White when all of the forest creatures gather around Snow, and she sings A Smile and a Song? I feel as though Hilary McKay's newest protagonist, Lulu, would appreciate that scene. I know I do. Pretty much every time an animal crosses my path, I say hello. Whether that animal has two legs, four legs, or a tail matters not; I greet most passersby and wish them well.

Sadly, I am not hugging a deer as I type this post. Happily, I did have the chance to speak author Hilary McKay about her animal-friendly characters and her past and future stories.

The protagonist of your latest series, Lulu, has a wonderful way with animals of all kinds. What inspired this series? Have any of your own pets, past or present, wiggled their way into the books?

Yes, I grew up with pets as a child: dogs and rabbits, birds and guinea pigs, and a pet hedgehog rescued from a bonfire (named Bonny!) Everything except cats, because my father could not bear cats. It has been just the same with my own children (only we have a cat as well). Naturally, they found their way into my stories - in fact, my daughter's hamster and its epic journey across rooftops and inside wallspaces gave me the entire plot for the sixth of the Lulu series, LULU AND THE HAMSTER ON THE ROOF.

How many books are currently planned for the series?

There are six books here in the UK, and I have two more to write.

(Note for American readers: Book #3, Lulu and the Cat in the Bag will be available fall 2013.)

You are known for your books about the Casson family - Rose, Saffy, Caddy, Indigo. Do you have siblings who resemble any of the Cassons?

No, I don't have siblings who resemble the Cassons. Nor do my own children resemble them, or their friends. Deliberately. They would not appreciate being used as book-stuffing! But on the other hand, we do have guitar players, and drawing-on-the-wall artists, and animal lovers, so how can I truly say? I suppose I borrow little bits from time to time.

Which character is the most like you?

Which is the most like me? None of them. They are all much nicer than me.

Your novel Wishing For Tomorrow is a Sequel to A Little Princess. What moved you to write this story?

I always loved this story, and when my daughter was very little I read it to her and she loved it too. One of her many questions was, 'What happened next?" And so I did wrote the book for her, but also for me, because I also wanted to know what happened next.

Did you have to get the rights/clearance to write the sequel?

I did not.

Which of your novels has taken the longest to write?

I have written so many books that I really cannot remember which has taken the longest. Even after I finish them there is still so much work to be done with cover art and illustrations and things like that. They generally take a couple of years, start to finish.

What do you do when you have writer's block - or when it's tough to sell a story?

Writer's block is hard. I go for walks. I make the characters speak in a different way -- write a diary or a letter, have a conversation etc. I doodle!

It's never been tough to sell a story. I sold my first and went on from there. I've always had somebody wanting to publish my work. I have been lucky, lucky, lucky, and met the right people at the right time. I am very aware of that.

Are you working on anything presently?

Yes, I am working on two more Lulu stories and a sequel to my latest longer novel, Binny For Short, which is already out here in the UK and will be published in the US this summer.

Ask (and answer) a question you always wish someone would ask you, but no one ever does.

Would you like wings to fly? Yes, please.

Name ten of your all-time favorite books.

Well, I will name five, just in case by the end of this tour I am listing dozens!
The Once and Future King (T H White)
The Worst Journey in the World (Apsley Cherry Garrard)
The Little Prince (Antoine de Saint Exupéry)
David Copperfield (Charles Dickens)
Code Name Verity (Elizabeth Wein)


Tomorrow's tour stop is Biblio File.

Follow Hilary McKay's blog tour.

Visit Hilary's website.

I am very excited today to be part of the Hilary McKay Blog Tour! Today she is stopping by for an interview focused mainly on her books Lulu and the Duck in the Park and Lulu and the Dog by the Sea. These two endearing early chapter books are a delight to read. I will be giving away copies to two lucky commentors on today's post, so make sure you stick around and put in your two cents at the

One of my favorite things is Terry Gross’s show, Fresh Air, on NPR. I especially love the interviews with actors and writers. Lately I’ve been listening to the podcasts while I’m doing something boring, like folding laundry.

Sometimes there just aren’t enough of Fresh Air interviews, though, so I’ve been looking for more conversations with authors and artists. Here are a few good ones I’ve found:

This Creative Life, created by YA author Sara Zarr (who btw also blogs here). There are interviews with a lot of writers and other creatives about how they work and live. I especially enjoyed the one with author Andrew Auseon (who is also a video game designer).

Mini studio-tours with artists at Little Scraps of Paper make me smile so much. The one above is of three collaborators who make these wacky wonderful costumey-snuggie-kind-of-things. Trust me, you just have to watch it. The videos are so beautifully filmed and just the right size for a quick pick-me-up. Thank you to Blair Stocker of Wisecraft for this hot tip.

Here’s a video of young fashion blogger/ Rookie magazine editor Tavi speaking at TEDxTeen about the strong female characters she’s looking for, and not always finding. YA writers, if you don’t know Tavi, you SHOULD!

What about you? Do you have any favorite creativity-related podcasts?

And by the way, are you on Twitter? I’ve been on it for years but am really just now learning the language and getting into it. I’m discovering all kinds of things there, including some of the above links. Meet me on Twitter @emilysmithpearc

A few other random things:

-Speaking of talks about art and writing, if you’re in the Charlotte area, check out the April meeting for the Women’s National Book Association (yes, men, you can join us, too): Monday, April 22, 6:30 – 8:30 PM at Consolidated Planning. The talk is titled “Latin American and Latino Women Writers and Literature in Translation.” More details here.

-Did you hear about the break in the Isabella Stewart Gardner art heist case? Soooo exciting. I used to work down the street from this lovely, one-of-a-kind museum.

-Saw Natalie Merchant the other night with the Charlotte Symphony Orchestra. Great show. Her new material is as complex and thought-provoking as ever, though I have to admit my favorite part was the 90′s set she did for an encore. The nostalgia factor is hard to beat. Seriously, what pipes she’s got—and what a talented songwriter.

-Lastly, I love this DIY magic potion kit over at Elsie Marley.

What’s got you inspired these days?

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After 18 months on JOURNEY INTO MYSTERY, Kieron Gillen has given an extensive interview with Q Magazine’s Colin Smith on his UK based blog TOO BUSY THINKING ABOUT MY COMICS and tweeted:

The first part of my enormous interview with @Colin_TBTAMC is up. Probably my most candid interview ever.

He also added:

(This part includes my plans for the last 2 years and where they went wrong, literary patricide, and my burning hate of Elves)

Gillen specifically focuses on the writer’s experience working on comics in these ongoing interviews, and particularly on trying to establish strong storytelling on a title that proved, as time went on, that it was far from any “minor league” expectations from readers. He’s hard-hitting about his own mistakes, for instance, and as hypothetical advice to his former self, says:

When the more self-aware strand of wannabe writers are looking at the industry they pick apart people’s careers and decide which bits worked and which bits are mistakes. You try your best to use the former and avoid the latter. The problem with the “mistakes” is that i) you realise what caused a chunk of those mis-steps, and they were in fact the only sane response to an insane world and ii) you end up making a shitload of new mistakes all of your own, which the next generation will try to learn from. I’m aware that I’m well on the way to being a cautionary tale now. C’est La Vie.

He answers big questions, like “why Loki” and considers whether his master-plans really panned out:

I sort of had a master-plan for my last two years of work, which like all plans didn’t survive first contact with the enemy (i.e. Reality).

In terms of my career, I was aware that I hadn’t had to do even a medium-length run on a book that showed what I was capable of. Finding a place slightly out of the way in the modern mainstream, and cultivating it in my own image. Basically, I wanted to do something that fit into my creative history the way that Animal Man or Secret Warriors fitted into Morrison’s and Hickman’s.  Knowing the marketplace, I was thinking conservatively in terms of length. If it took off, 20-30 issues would be feasible. Having the experience of dancing around the current Marvel comics universe, I was always thinking about making it being able to robustly survive and even subvert whatever crossover it found itself in contact with. Which, when 75% of the story ended up being crossovers, was thinking time well spent.

Probably the most entertaining aspect of the first part of the interview is Gillen geeking-out on whether he sees himself as a “fantasy writer” and how fantasy literature has played a role in his personal history:

(Don’t start me on Elves. My perennial bugbear. Elves are basically “What If Aryans were right about there being a master race”. Fucking Elves.)

In short: I resisted defining myself as a fantasy writer because fantasy tends to be iffy. I became fine with it when I realised how core it was to how I processed and commented upon the world. And, of course, the tradition of anti-trad-Fantasy Fantasy writers is always looking for recruits. Hell, the problematic nature of the genre makes it almost too easy. In any other genre would I got away with THE MANCHESTER GODS ARE ACTUALLY THE GOOD GUYS as a reveal? But in a genre that demonises technological progress and hails the status quo of inherited power, you just put someone in a black hat and a bit of soot and everyone presumes they’re another working-class/foreigner-surrogate to be stomped on by the pretty blonde people.

I find myself laughing at how much bile I end up spewing when you get me on this topic. Magic Swords +3 Against Scarabs Are Serious Business.

This is heady stuff, and only a first installment of this rambling deconstruction of comics taking readers on a Gillen-guided tour. Coming up soon is Gillen’s discussion of the Kid Loki character on JOURNEY INTO MYSTERY. The fact that Gillen has taken the time to really reveal his mindset and the issues he’s recently grappled with in such a conversational way is a gold-mine for fans, with more to come.

Hannah Means-Shannon writes and blogs about comics for TRIP CITY and Sequart.org and is currently working on books about Neil Gaiman and Alan Moore for Sequart. She is @hannahmenzies on Twitter and hannahmenziesblog on WordPress.

Please welcome Tessa Bailey to the virtual offices today.  She is celebrating the release of Protecting What’s His, the first in her Line of Duty series.  After we chat with Tessa, you can enter for your chance to win a copy of Protecting What’s His!

[Manga Maniac Cafe] Describe yourself in 140 characters or less.

[Tessa Bailey] Hot-and-bothered stay-at-home-mom turned writer, Brooklynite, foodie and hopeless romantic.

[Manga Maniac Cafe] Can you tell us a little about Protecting What’s His?

[Tessa Bailey] “To steal or not to steal?” is the opening line of the book. Ginger, our mostly fearless heroine is deciding whether or not to steal fifty-thousand dollars from her passed-out stripper mother. Ultimately, she decides to take the cash (and her little sister, Willa) on the run to Chicago. She thinks she’s gotten away with it until she meets homicide cop and sexy new neighbor, Lieutenant Derek Tyler.

[Manga Maniac Cafe] How did you come up with the concept and the characters for the story?

[Tessa Bailey] I like a heroine who is a little bad. And a lot impulsive. I came up with Ginger, a fast-talking country girl, as a character first. Then I gave her an important and difficult choice to make at the beginning of the book. I built the story based on that decision. Of course, I needed someone to counteract Ginger’s personality, so I came up with Derek, the sharp, young lieutenant with a need to control. Watching him as he tries to control wild child Ginger makes for a very entertaining story!

[Manga Maniac Cafe] What three words best describe Ginger?

[Tessa Bailey] Provocative, Willful, Vulnerable

[Manga Maniac Cafe] If Derek had a theme song, what would it be?

[Tessa Bailey] “Play with Fire” by the Rolling Stones

[Manga Maniac Cafe] Name one thing Ginger is never without.

[Tessa Bailey ] Cowboy boots and Dolly Parton witticisms

[Manga Maniac Cafe]  What three things will you never find in Derek’s bathroom?

[Tessa Bailey] A loofah, volumizing hair gel, decorative soaps.

[Manga Maniac Cafe] What is Derek’s greatest regret?

[Tessa Bailey] He’s not the regretful type – although that might change throughout the book 

[Manga Maniac Cafe ] What are your greatest creative influences?

[Tessa Bailey] I have a group of friends who inspire a lot of the female relationships in my book. They are opinionated and swear like sailors. A lot of the time, I’ll ask myself, what would so-and-so say here? I was encouraged to write female characters who speak with more honesty after reading Tara Sivec’s Seduction in Snacks. I adore that book. The characters remind me of my friends.

[Manga Maniac Cafe] What three things do you need in order to write?

[Tessa Bailey] Silence, gummy bears and warm socks.

[Manga Maniac Cafe] What is the last book that you read that knocked your socks off?

[Tessa Bailey] On Dublin Street by Samantha Young.

[Manga Maniac Cafe] If you had to pick one book that turned you on to reading, which would it be?

[Tessa Bailey] When I was fourteen, I was at a boring family reunion in Maine. I found an old, beat-up copy of “Hidden Fires” by Sandra Brown in my grandmother’s suitcase. It was my first romance novel and I never looked back.

[Manga Maniac Cafe] What do you like to do when you aren’t writing?

[Tessa Bailey] Play with my 19-month old, read, go to concerts, think up my next story.

[Manga Maniac Cafe] How can readers connect with you?

[Tessa Bailey] My website is www.tessabailey.com

On Facebook http://www.facebook.com/pages/Tessa-Bailey/107783312730783

Follow me on Twitter @mstessabailey

[Manga Maniac Cafe] Thank you!

GIVEAWAY TIME!!!

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About the book:

When Susan Campbell Bartoletti embarks on a full-length nonfiction project, she knows it will take years and that she’ll have to summon all her strength. “I know it's going to be frustrating and physically and emotionally exhausting,” says the Newbery Award winning author of more than a dozen books of nonfiction and fiction for young readers, as well as picture books, “but I also know there is

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Mike Molcher is the PR Co-ordinator for Rebellion, meaning he is the man directly responsible for promoting their comics, 2000AD and Judge Dredd Megazine. If you’ve noticed over the last few months that more people are talking about 2000AD, be it the recent ‘Trifecta’ storyline, or the ‘gay Judge Dredd’ teaser which got picked up everywhere – that’s Mike Molcher’s work. He’s also an interviewer and writer himself, who has interviewed many of the key figures who have worked at 2000AD over the years, including Alan Moore, Warren Ellis, Dave Gibbons and Carlos Ezquerra. 

But how do you go about promoting a company like 2000AD, which releases a new anthology EVERY WEEK? I spoke to Mike about his work with the company, to see how exactly he goes about promoting the series. And what is comic book marketing, anyway? How does it work? Is this interview secretly all part of his marketing plan?

By reading this, have we become trapped in Mike Molcher’s sinister plans for 2000AD to take over the world? Oh dear…

Steve: I’ll start with a self-sabotaging question: since 2005 you’ve been involved with interviewing some of the most influential 2000 AD creators – from Alan Moore to Carlos Ezquerra. What makes for a good interview?

Mike: Oof, tough start! I can’t say mine are particular exemplars of good practice so I can only speak about the interviews I enjoy reading – they tend to be the ones that actually stray away from what’s on the comic book page to what’s going on in the mind of the creator, what motivates them, what inspires them, what grinds their gears. By uncovering these things the interviewer can begin to form a picture of the roots of that person’s creativity. Talent and ability never exist in isolation, they have always come from somewhere (usually thanks to a lot of hard work) and it’s the people of comics that I find most fascinating. I like to think my interviews try and achieve that (he said, nervously).

Steve: Before you took on your current role, you worked as a features writer for 2000 AD. How did you first come to get involved with the company in this respect?

Mike: I think it was Matt Badham who first mentioned to me that 2000 AD was looking for creator interviews and features. At the time I was a local newspaper reporter in the north of England but had started up my own self-published magazine, The End is Nigh, which took a Fortean Times-style look at end-of-the-world theories. I’d interviewed Alan Moore about the apocalyptic aspects of his work and his ideas on the approaching human singularity, so I did a retrospective on him for the Judge Dredd Megazine. That opened the door to interviews and I’ve been doing them ever since. Fortunately it meant that when I applied for the job they already knew me and knew that I was a big 2000 AD fan.

Steve: Obviously, your goal as a features writer is to promote and flesh out the company you’re writing for at the time. Do you think there’s a natural step between journalism and PR? How do you alternate between the two?

Mike: I don’t know what it’s like in the States, but you’ll find many of the big names in PR in Britain started out as journalists in some respect. Personally, I’d say that firsthand experience of what goes on inside the head of a journalist and what makes a good story is invaluable when you’re trying to reach out to reporters and reviewers. I continue to write creator interviews in my spare time for the Judge Dredd Megazine and Comic Heroes, so personally I think one compliments the other, because it keeps me abreast of what’s going on in the industry and how we can use that to our advantage at work.

Steve: Only a short while ago you moved to become Rebellion’s PR Co-ordinator. What sort of work does this involve on a day-to-day basis?

Mike: Answering a LOT of emails, mostly. 2000 AD represents just part of my work so I spend a lot of time writing press releases for new titles and announcements, keeping the social media side of things flowing, running blog tours for our three novel imprints, keeping track of the development of the various games Rebellion are working on, plus trying to work out new opportunities to promote our products. Fortunately we’ve recently taken on a marketing coordinator, Robbie Cooke, whose focus is more on the games side of things so he’s been a massive help with that.

Steve: Rebellion don’t just publish 2000 AD/Judge Dredd, but also handle novels and computer games. How do you structure your time between the three?

Mike: With a rather heavily annotated diary, a lot of scheduling, and an increasingly wrinkled brow. Working across three different industries can be pretty mad at times and making sure I give equal time to every new title and product can be damn hard work. Ultimately I have to judge whether something needs a slight PR nudge to sell or a heavy marketing shove out the door…

Steve: The Dredd movie came out last year, giving you a unique opportunity for promotion on a wider field. How did the movie affect the way you promoted the comics?

Mike: I very quickly learned that ANY mention of movies gets people really excited – our most shared image on Facebook was one I did publicizing the fact that DREDD was number one in the DVD and Blu-Ray charts over here and even the slightest mention of the movie would get a huge response. We’re constantly asked whether there are movies coming for our other characters, so it seems the magic of film hasn’t exactly diminished in the digital age!

We obviously went heavy on the promotion of Judge Dredd to tie in to the movie and that’s really paid off – the collected ‘Case Files’ have been flying off the shelves on both sides of the Atlantic – but I have tried to make sure that when someone discovers 2000 AD for the first time they quickly see that it’s not all about Dredd, as loveable as he is. We have a huge and constantly growing back catalogue of some of the greatest characters in comics, from Halo Jones to Nemesis the Warlock and more recent things like Shakara, Low Life and Brass Sun.

Steve: Were there any promotional campaigns you were surprised to see get less attention than others? Do you find, when promoting a comic to a film audience, there was a difference in reaction than when you promote more directly to comic fans?

Mike: Nikolai Dante ended last year after 14 years. And when I say ended, writer Robbie Morrison and artist Simon Fraser brought the Russian rogue’s story to a close. In effect, we killed off one of our most popular characters. And he ain’t coming back. For a comic book to do something as bold as that, I thought, deserved more attention – alas, no-one really picked up on the announcement. It may be that he never had the right profile outside of 2000 AD, but by the time I came on board it was a bit late to change the situation.

I don’t think there’s a big difference in the way you talk to the two audiences other than reminding yourself that the film audience won’t be as conversant in the language and culture of comics as someone who’s been reading them for years. The biggest question we got was “I loved the movie, where do I start reading?”. We were very fortunate that someone can see DREDD then walk into their local comic book and walk out with a comic featuring the same character they saw on screen; Karl Urban and Alex Garland nailed the character of Judge Dredd so perfectly that it was like he’d leapt off the page. So marketing to fans of the film was a case of giving them a good starting point (The Complete Case Files #4, if you’re interested, then #5 and then pick up a copy of ‘Origins’ and ‘America’) and then letting them discover it for themselves.

Steve: You’ve spearheaded several successful campaigns for 2000 AD over the last year – the ‘gay Judge Dredd’ promo picked up a lot of attention, in particular. How do you decide which comics might be suitable for a push, and which stories are going to pick up the most attention?

Mike: I talk to 2000 AD’s editor Matt Smith about what we have coming up and he’s very good at highlighting things that are noteworthy. For example, we recently had BPRD’s James Harren do his first Judge Dredd story and we’ve got a couple of big artist announcements coming in the next few months which are quite exciting. I always do a baseline social media push for each edition of 2000 AD – teasing new stories or returning series, promoting striking covers – but quite often there’s something specific to push like new or returning talent.

The ‘gay Dredd’ campaign was a particular highlight. Not every fan was pleased with my tactics there, but the wall by my desk covered in national and international media clippings and the 30% hike in sales for that particular issue (with high retention and new subscriber rates) makes me feel somewhat justified. It was the same for the return of the Dark Judges as part of the Judge Dredd: Day of Chaos storyline – we ran a great teaser campaign with CBR and the sales graphs all blipped upwards and stayed there.

Alongside the digital explosion our print edition is benefiting from the higher profile – over the past six months, the 2000 AD iPad app has not only grown our number of subscribers overall but has also bolstered the number of print subscribers. We’ve got clear data showing that promotion has played a major part in that, so I’ve been very pleased with our work over the past year.

Steve: Similarly, the Trifecta story from Al Ewing, Si Spurrier and Rob Williams got a lot of critical acclaim. Can you plan for that sort of buzz ahead of a story being released? Ahead of the issue being released, do you try to arrange for more people to get hold of review copies? How do you manage a story which you think is going to be critically acclaimed, by fans and by reviewers?

Mike: We decided very early on with Trifecta that we wouldn’t spoil the surprise, but that once it was out in the open it was all hands to the pumps – Al, Si, and Rob played along brilliantly and once it was out there we really pushed hard on the reaction from readers and from those reviewers who picked up on what was happening. The issues of Trifecta have been some of our biggest digital sellers as people hear the hype then go back and pick up the relevant issues.

Building word of mouth isn’t much use when it’s for a single weekly issue because by the time people have heard about it it’s already time for the next issue, but when you have an exciting ongoing storyline then you can really help spread the word. We do weekly press previews to bloggers and journalists; getting those all-important reviews means getting copies in the right people’s hands, something that I think we’re much better at doing now than we ever have been.

Steve: Are there any techniques which always help drive attention to a comic? Valiant’s successful relaunch, for example, seemed to have a lot to do with the way they publicised themselves ahead of the first comic release.

Mike: On a very basic level you can’t go wrong with new artwork, the return of popular characters, and intriguing teasers. Nothing’s better for getting social media buzz going than a juicy piece of art or a surprise announcement that your favourite character is coming back. The biggest attention-grabbers are when you change the game a little bit or find a niche no-one knew was there.

Steve: What do you think about the current state of American comics, in terms of marketing? Marvel and DC seem to have become a lot more ‘stunt’ orientated over the last few months. Every other day sees about fifty teaser images get released.

Mike: In an insanely competitive marketplace, it’s small wonder that the big two have to shout louder and louder about their books. I like what DC is doing with its ‘DC family’ blog and the campaigns on titles such as Journey into Mystery, Young Avengers and Spider-Man that Marvel has been running have been spot on (and I was blown away by the skill of their digital announcements at SXSW recently), while Image has completely reinvented itself over the last two years into something a lot closer to the feel and ethos of 2000 AD than I think any of us realise!

I often get asked why we promote 2000 AD the way that we do and why we don’t just let “word of mouth” do our work for us. 2000 AD has been on a hell of a run for the past decade and the word of mouth was very positive, yet we weren’t significantly building our readership. Two years of strong marketing and new distribution and we’re adding readers. It’s not rocket science.

Steve: 2000AD must be an interesting magazine to work on, because it’s a weekly anthology series. How do you focus your PR for each issue? Do you focus on creators, or characters – or the magazine as a whole, single product?

Mike: All of the above! And yes, it’s a constantly fascinating, evolving comic to work on. We have a brilliant stable of artists and writers who’ve really knocked it out of the park over the last 18 months, plus a tiny editorial team who are just as enthusiastic and passionate about 2000 AD as any reader. It can be challenging at times because many non-readers have an idea of it that’s 20 years out of date; all those great strips and creators are fantastic and amazing, but the past ten years of 2000 AD have been universally praised amongst fans as a second golden age and that’s pretty bloody exciting.

Steve: We’ve seen 2000AD building up a reputation overseas (which in this case means America) over the last year or so. How do you approach publicising the magazine abroad? Again, do you find you have to tailor the material you offer overseas readers?

Mike: It’s been a particular aim of mine to make us as much of a part of the comics mainstream in America as any other publisher and I believe we’re starting to get some traction there. I’d like to offer more previews of material to news sites, though it can be a struggle to make people understand that carrying 2000 AD news can bring in readers. We have a great relationship with sites like CBR and Comics Alliance, and some real advocates of our comics in people like Doug Wolk, Karl Keily, and Tucker Stone. We bring out one or two collections specifically for North America every month so it’s a case of publicising them as normal while bearing in mind that American and Canadian audiences may not be as au fait with the language and culture of British comics.

Steve: Do you think digital has evened the playing field a little, now everybody has access to comics from home?

Mike: Completely. For reasons unfortunately beyond our control many comic book readers in North America can’t get hold of 2000 AD as easily as we would like, so being able to beam each ‘Prog’ directly into their hands is a massive bonus. We have a reputation as a British comics powerhouse, so we just have to make sure people are intrigued enough to give 2000 AD a go.

Steve: What would you say is the key to working PR in the comics industry, in the current climate?

Mike: Good material to work with, constant attention to social media and a thick skin (I admit mine could be somewhat thicker).

Steve: What would you like to see more of from comic companies in 2013, in terms of PR, co-ordination, and marketing?

Mike: A bit more innovation, but then that’s easy for me to say and very hard to suggest ways in which you could do it. While marketing is important, it should never drive creative choices but I would like to see marketing that pointedly pushes out into other demographics and stresses aspects of comics beyond the obvious – the industry has a lot of work to do to convince people it’s not all spandex and T&A for teenage and not-so-teenage boys. But it must always be about working with the creative teams, who are the ones delivering the material in the first place.

Many thanks to Mike for his time. Big interview! Repay him by following him on Twitter. If you’d rather see a Tharg-approved twitter feed, however, then you can follow 2000AD too. And if that still isn’t enough Tharg endorsement, head over to 2000AD online.

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[Just out this week, Bob Fingerman's Maximum Minimum Wage is a grungy, uncomfrotably honest look at life in the playground known as New York City. It follows a young couple, Rob and Sylvia, as they try to survive crazy friends, cheapskate bosses and apartment hell—long before Friends and Girls, this is how it went down. Loosely based on elements of Fingerman's own life, the story has a long, somewhat complicated publishing history—it previously published by Fantagraphics in several formats—but all you need to know is that this is THE final version of the story thus far, as Fingerman originally intended it. The new book from Image includes a pin-up gallery—by artists from Mike Mignola to Gilbert Hernandez—and many extras and oversized pages for a handsome edition.

Fingerman has forged a busy, eclectic career, working on everything from an early stint on the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles to Star Wars to Archie to the more recent post-apocalyptic saga From the Ashes. He's also branched out with two novels, Bottomfeeder and Pariah. I was eager to quiz Fingerman on some aspects of career building, as he's managed to survive in the business on a mix of creator owned and WFH work long before it become fashionable.

Disclaimer: as you may guess from the somewhat loose structure of the following interview, Fingerman and I have been friends for a long time. In fact if you squint real hard in Maximum Minimum Wage you might see an earlier version of me appearing in a few panels. It was great catching up with him and talking about the history of the book.]

The Beat: I was hoping to reread the whole book before this interview, but it is amazingly dense, Bob. This is a book you read night after night with a bookmark and set on your nightstand.

Fingerman: I’ve been accused of being dense many times.

The Beat: There have been a lot of different versions of Minimum Wage and you’ve tinkered with it quite a bit. You actually redrew the whole first chapter at one point, right?

Fingerman: Yes, for the previous incarnation of this thing, Beg the Question but it wasn’t so much redrawing the first chapter. I didn’t include it at all in Beg the Question—because the art style was just too different, so I kind of condensed it. So I took some stuff from Minimum Wage Book One” reworked it and redrew it and rewrote it and so forth and so on. But yes. I was actually toying with calling this the OCD edition because I can’t help myself. Michele [Fingerman’s wife] actually forbade me from going in and retouching it. And I said, “Oh, don’t worry, I’ll just do 10 panels.” And then I ended up probably reworking about 50 pages, redrawing some completely. I rewrote a bunch of the dialogue, too.

The Beat: So those who really want to get OCD about it themselves can sit down with the original issues and the previous collection, and see what tinkers you made.

Fingerman: Yes, if somebody besides me really wanted to make him or herself nuts, they would get out the original issues, they’d get out every edition of this and find all the changes.

The Beat: Well this is the internet, so someone will do it. I will say, it looks great. It’s a beautiful, beautiful volume.

Fingerman: When I look at Beg the Question now I get eye strain reading it because the type is like 2-point type. It’s nice to be able to actually read this thing and look at the art. I put all that work into the detail and then it was so plugged up. Now I think it looks the way it always should have looked.

Rob and Sylvia deal with a friend’s unusual snack.

The Beat: It looks fantastic.  With all the tinkering that you have done over the years, let me ask you: do you think that’s primarily artistic in nature or is it maybe a psychological need to get the past correct? I mean, it is based on your life—not autobiographical, but it takes elements of your life, correct?

Fingerman: Yes. For some reason everyone has adopted the prefixed semi for autobiographical. I always prefer quasi-autobiographical as a word. I think quasi is more fun to say and I also think in some ways it seems more accurate. But in terms of tinkering, I don’t think it had anything to do with getting the past right. It’s more a matter of making it look the way I want to look. I hate to pull quotes from my own introduction but one point which I think I did need to make is when you’re a perfectionist there’s a difference between knowing you’ll never achieve perfection and not trying. I know I’ll never achieve perfection in anything I do but it’s not going to stop me from trying. So, I was dubbing what I have been doing with this Lucas-ing, only I hope my results are better.

The Beat: [Laughter] Lucas-ing. Yes.

Fingerman: Because I totally understand that compulsion.

The Beat: I guess it was probably nearly 15 years ago that you and I first talked about this book, and I think you told me that the theme was that love doesn’t last. Is that accurate?

Fingerman: It could be. I don’t know what I said 15 years ago. But to me, what always made this story interesting—because I don’t think of it as a romance comic by any means but maybe it’s an anti-romance comic—to me the theme is is that sometimes people are together that shouldn’t be together. And it doesn’t make either person a bad person. This is not a hero and villain situation. It’s just sometimes couples just shouldn’t be couples, and I think that’s what this is about. It’s about two people who actually do love each other but they’re not really their best mate.

An early, intense moment for young couple Rob and Sylvia.

The Beat: Do you think that Rob and Sylvia’s relationship is a failure?

Fingerman: You know, they give it a go. I don’t know if giving it a go is a failure.

The Beat: Looking at the book now I am totally struck by how it has life in the 90s captured in a perfect lens. But it just seems so distant. Life before the internet was like life before the car or the light bulb. I guess it’s like the light bulb because people would sit around with candles, then they just sat around watching TV or talking to each other instead of farting around on the internet. It’s crazy.

Fingerman: Ludicrous.

The Beat: I know! Do you have any thoughts on that? [Laughing]

Fingerman: Well, for years, but particularly lately, I’ve been thinking that I really do want to pitch this thing as a TV series, and part of that thought process is do you update it or do you make it a period piece? And to me, making it a period piece is quite stupid. That adds a lot of expense for no particularly good reason. But there are definitely things that would need updating in a very major way, and they’re all tech things because tech has changed our lives so radically. I don’t mean to sound like an old fuddy-duddy, although I just used the phrase fuddy-duddy, [Laughter] which I think accomplishes that. Anyway, oh you kids. But when you see young people now interacting they are generally not making eye contact. They’re looking at their devices.  In the book, you’ve got people using things like pay phones, and nobody really has a computer. It’s addressed at the very beginning because it’s just starting to encroach just ever so slightly into their world that Rob doesn’t turn in like his column in an electronic format. He’s still actually writing these things, which you know maybe is even wrong for the time period it’s set in. Because it’s really set in the mid-nineties.

The Beat: Well, we had AOL then.

Fingerman: Yes, Rob’s just a bit of a Luddite, the character. But that would definitely change. But I mean there are certain things in there that I don’t even know how they’re done anymore. There’s a chapter of him running around trying to find work and the fact that he’s going from magazine to magazine is already dated because nobody uses illustration anymore. And he’s also running around with a portfolio and I don’t think anyone does that anymore.

The Beat: No, I don’t think they do. They all have Tumblr and Pinterest.

Fingerman: I don’t know how they get in touch with art directors.

The Beat: Well, I don’t think there are any art directors any more.You mentioned that you would love to do this as a TV series. You have done multimedia stuff, because it seems that’s what everybody in comics is doing these days. But you wrote two novels. Is it fair to call them horror novels?

Fingerman: It’s fair. I don’t know if it’s accurate, but it’s fair. That’s not on you, that’s on the nature of how I do things. They’re both definitely genre books. When I started writing I started hearing terms I never heard before, like “dark fantasy” was a term I had never heard before. And I think that’s what some editor actually called Bottomfeeder. [Fingerman’s first novel, published by Dark Horse’s M Press imprint.]

The Beat: Bottomfeeder is about vampires, right? So now it might be “paranormal romance.” It might have actually shifted genres.

Fingerman: [Laughing] Except, there’s no romance in it. Both novels were me doing what I like to do, which is play with genre toys, but in my own way. I don’t think they were spine chillers. They’re certainly not that kind of thing. But I think they’re character based novels with horror trappings.

The Beat: Did you enjoy it? Was it a rewarding experience writing them?

Fingerman: Oh, I loved writing them and I’d love to write more. And I’ve got sequels for both of them. Actually, whenever I write anything I don’t think sequel. I’m just writing a self-contained thing. But like a lot of people, you get embroiled in your own thing and by the time you’re done and some months go by—or in the case of my things, a year—you think hey, wait a minute. That would be a good sequel. So I have things I would love to do.  I actually did want Pariah to be a trilogy, but Tor had other plans.

The Beat: Well, you know, everybody’s doing it different ways now. You’re putting out Maximum Minimum Wage via Image, which is sort of self-publishing on many levels. What made you think that this was the route that you wanted to go? The Image route where you are controlling everything but you’re probably taking a little bit more of the risk. It’s not a money guarantee by any stretch of the imagination, especially with a beautiful but spendy book like Maximum Minimum Wage.

Fingerman: That’s true, yes. I have no idea how this will pan out in terms of seeing any money. I hope I will. But yes, it’s definitely not a guarantee. I just wanted it out. Doing this book became an idea that took hold. And Robert Kirkman, being in a position to make something like this happen with ease, it just kind of worked out that way. I sent Robert an email saying here’s what I want to do and within a few hours he wrote back and he said, “as a fan I want this, too. I will make it happen.” And it was just like that. But I think one of the main attractive points about doing it with Image, because I know Fantagraphics – well I don’t know, but I assume – if I had pitched the same thing to them, Fantagraphics would have said yes. But the wheels move a lot slower. And I really wanted to get something out. The last book of mine that came out was the mass market paperback of Pariah, my second novel. And that was in 2011. So 2012 was the first year of my career where nothing came out. And I thought that’s no good. It’s never for lack of trying. I’m always working on stuff. But again, the market’s different, and Minimum Wage, my tinkering aside, was ready to go, and Image moves at a much faster rate. I think it was like seven months from pitch to it being out.

The Beat: Yes. That’s kind of unheard of in the publishing world.

Fingerman: Exactly, exactly. And that’s one of the things I detest about mainstream publishing in particular, the glacial pace at which it moves, because it seems so pointless. For me, part of what I always would rationalize before, when I was more naïve, was, “Oh well, if they’re buying a book now and it’s coming out 18 months later, surely in that 18 months part of it’s going to be strategizing a marketing plan and promotions.” And then you see they do fuck all. [MacDonald laughs] So it’s like, why did you need 18 months to do nothing?

The Beat: Yes, I’ve learned that same thing in my own time in the book business actually.

Fingerman: Yes. So it’s ludicrous. They should just pound these things out unless they are really going to do a marketing blitz. I think that’s one of the reasons why publishing is the dinosaur it is, is because it moves like a fucking dinosaur.

The Beat: Interesting. Well, comic sales are up despite everything.

Fingerman: I’m not talking about comics. I’m talking about mainstream book publishing.

The Beat: But I think in comics, they’re just a lot more responsive to the marketplace for exactly the reason you just said.

Fingerman: Oh yes, exactly.

The Beat: I never actually heard anyone put it in those terms but I think that has something to do with it. I was looking forward to talking to you, because oflate there has been a lot of talking about DC artist Jerry Ordway and career options. You are probably from the first generation that came up in a world where you didn’t have to work for the Big Two. There were a lot of other options and you obviously took advantage of those, although you have worked for I know DC on occasion.

Fingerman: I’ve worked for all of them. I’ve worked for Marvel, DC, Archie you name it.

The Beat: Right. So you forged a fairly broad-based career. How do you see career planning now? There’s a lot of angst going around about “where will my retirement come from,” and “how do you forge a career after a certain point?” It seems right now there’s this vast influx of incredibly talented younger cartoonists who really aren’t even worrying about getting paid. They’re just getting their stuff out there. And then there’s kind of the Indy comics world where maybe they get to buy a sandwich once in a while off of their comics. And then there are people like you—I think you’ve gotten into comics with more of an expectation, even though you are in a dual-income household, that this was something you were doing for a living, this was something you were going to make money at.

Fingerman: Yes, boy, what a nice dream that was. Well, it’s interesting. I listen to that Marc Maron podcast, WTF. And I’m trying to think if it was his show. But some other comedian was quoting Chris Rock, and Chris Rock was talking about how if you can just build an audience of about 5,000 people, you’ll do all right. Maybe it was Louis C.K. And it had to do with that kind of niche thing. If you can just get 5,000 dedicated fans who will buy what you do, you can survive. I think that’s different than it was, and there’s also all these things like crowd sourcing.  I’ve been thinking about Kickstarter for something. My first reaction to Kickstarter was kind of a knee-jerk negative one because I just thought oh, it’s public begging. But you see how legit it’s become, and you see how not just the project, but the people who are using Kickstarter—David Fincher is doing a Kickstarter. There are a lot of pretty big name people doing Kickstarters because I think everyone at this point in every creative field, publishing, moviemaking, music, whatever, is entirely sick of the status quo. In a way, it’s a very nerve-wracking time. But it’s also kind of an exciting time because there are opportunities now to pursue your folly outside the system, and basically inside a new system.

The Beat: We had a pre-interview lunch, and I said why don’t you put your comics on the web, and I think you said, “I hate web comics.”

Fingerman: I never read them.

The Beat: But with that in mind, even you can’t deny that the web is the main mechanism of promotion now for anything.

Fingerman: That’s true.

The Beat: So how do you see yourself moving forward in that way?

Fingerman: In little baby steps. Just the last couple of weeks, like actually today, my tech woes have to do with trying to update my website and update content and stuff like that. So I’m more than cognizant of the web and how it needs to be completely integrated into everything you do if you want to stay relevant. I think one of the problems for some of the other more dinosaur age people I know is they put up a website as a kind of capitulation to modern times, and then they never update it. You look at their website, I’m exaggerating here, but they might have animated GIFs of kittens hugging a heart and you think “What did you do? Get that in 1991?” And they’re like, “Oh yes, it’s great isn’t it?” If there’s an artist with an online portfolio and they haven’t updated in years, they might as well not have a website. I definitely am trying to direct traffic to my website. It’s more and more a priority. And there is content.  I’ve been doing this sort of mutant-of-the-day thing since January, basically as an art exercise. But even there, in my head, because I always think to that next stage it’s like, well yes, I’ll do enough of these and then I can put out a book of them.

The Beat: While I was cleaning up recently, I actually found a little book of sketches that you had done back in the day. And then I sent it to the Library of Congress!  You’ve talked about continuing Minimum Wage because the story is not finished. 

Fingerman: Yes. I had my reasons for stopping doing it, but working on preparing this project put me back in that universe. It made me realize I want to start it up again.

The Beat: You would not at this point consider serializing it on the web?

Fingerman: I’d prefer not to.

The Beat: What is your reticence over it? Not that it’s the wrong decision, I’m just fascinated.

Fingerman: Nor is it a decision carved in stone. The idea of just spending—because you know my work, it’s labor intensive work—and the idea of just saying well, okay, I just spent six weeks or whatever drawing this chapter. Here, it’s free. As a person who lives in a world and has expenses, that bugs me. I’m fine with giving away samples for free. But the idea of giving the whole thing away for free rubs me the wrong way. It’s likely that if I started doing this as a regular serial book again, I figure 24-page chapters, if I gave away six or eight pages of each one online I’d think well that should be enough to whet someone’s appetite. But if they want the whole thing, why buy the cow when they’re giving away the milk for free? That’s kind of how I feel about the whole web comics and the web content thing. Why would I ever pay for it if I got it for free?

The Beat: You’ve talked about how Minimum Wage is set in a painfully real world and a lot of your other work is kind of, I guess people might paint you a little bit as a horror cartoonist, although I don’t think that’s entirely accurate. But you have done a lot of material in the zombie, apocalypse, vampire genres. Do you see yourself doing more of that in the future?

Fingerman: I hope so. I love genre stuff. For me, the most fun thing—and again that’s the way I like to play with that stuff—the most fun thing is to take these extraordinary creatures, genre creatures, or extraordinary settings, and then ground them. That’s how I like to play with it. I don’t think I could ever write big sweeping space operas or anything like that. I would have no interest in that. The one Star Wars comic I ever did was not only about the Jawas, but it was kind of a little satirical thing about a consumer advocate Jawa.  But yes, basically any of the book pitches that I have in mind or out there now, they’re all genre stuff. You know me well enough to know that the post-apocalyptic setting is one I never seem to lose my taste for and I very much would like to do a big sprawling post-apocalyptic thing.

The Beat: Why do you think that is? Why do you love the post-apocalyptic world so much?

Fingerman: Well, for one thing chaotic stuff is fun to look at and fun to draw, and entropy to me is a particularly enjoyable thing. You show me a building that’s in disrepair covered in ivy and I’ll show you something that I think is beautiful. For me that’s the apocalypse, at least the apocalypse aesthetic. But also to me, it’s that lack of societal restraints. It’s this kind of forced freedom and forced reinvention. So that’s always going to be fun to think about.

The Beat: You did a book which I really loved which was From the Ashes in which you and your wife Michele were surviving in that post-apocalyptic world.

Fingerman: Yes, that was a book that has its highs and its lows. Obviously you have to have conflict. I didn’t make it a particularly happy realm, but there are definitely happy moments. Actually, thinking of everything I’ve ever done, that’s probably the most optimistic book I’ve ever done although it’s apocalyptic. That book has a truly happy ending, probably the happiest, sweetest ending of anything I’ve ever done.

The Beat: I just wrote something on The Beat the other day about The Walking Dead. Obviously you’re not alone in your love of post-apocalyptic fiction. But I am constantly amazed by how popular that show is. It’s the highest rated cable show of all times. Why do you think that is? I mean for the reason you just mentioned, but anything else about it?

Fingerman: That’s hard to say because the answer is obviously not a simple one because you can’t say it’s the best drama ever done for cable. I think Walking Dead is a great show. I love it. But I mean, why is it more popular than Justified? I don’t know.  It clearly caught people’s fancy in a big way. Is it just because zombies are hot? That can’t be it. It’s a good soap opera, but that can’t be it because there are other good soap operas. I think people do love the grungy moments and there are plenty of those. Certainly there is a lot more evisceration and decapitation than probably any other show including Game of Thrones. So yes, it’s one of those lightning in a bottle things.

The Beat: One of the things I noted about it is that there’s no happy ending in sight. It isn’t even like Zombieland or 28 Days Later or From the Ashes where you turn the last page and you’re like okay, that ended. Walking Dead goes on and on and on. I think it’s that utter hopelessness of the situation, that there is no happy ending that you’re waiting for.

Fingerman: That is a very interesting thing. The zombie book that I wrote, Pariah, as I said I wanted it to be the first of a trilogy. So obviously I had in mind that it was going to continue and so forth. But to me it’s fascinating, because whenever you’ve written a zombie thing—and I have written several at this point—whenever you write those, inevitably somebody asks what would you do in the zombie apocalypse? And I always say, “I’d blow my fucking brains out.” Because what kind of life is that? That is the absolute least fun apocalypse you could imagine. I’m going to be a filthy, dirty person, hiding from people that want to eat me, oh, and that’s my life. That’s it. That’s all there is. Maybe I catch up on my reading. You’re Burgess Meredith in Time Enough At Last mixed with somebody who’s going to be eaten.

I don’t know. My father always said to me – and my dad’s seen a lot of rough times, he’s been around the world, World War II vet, blah, blah, blah – and he said the number one thing that we’re hard-wired for is survival. That survival instinct­ is even deeper than the one to procreate. And I guess all of these post-apocalyptic stories really are sort of putting money where their mouth is to that notion. That no matter how dire the situation, people are going to want to survive and some people maybe who are wired a little different than me would say oh, they are the ultimate evidence of how optimistic humans are. But I don’t know how much optimism there is on Walking Dead. It’s more just like let’s just stay alive to stay alive. Like the having the baby on that—you know me when it comes to babies, I think they’re a terrible idea under any circumstances. But in the apocalypse, it just seems ludicrous. It’s like, why the hell would you have a baby? What are you doing?

The Beat: Yes, in every episode of The Walking Dead, you’re not sure that a human race is going to continue. And I think that’s a pretty powerful theme. Well anyway, enough about wonderful Robert Kirkman’s work is. What’s he really like?  [Laughing]

Fingerman: A wonderful smell of cinnamon about him.

The Beat:  Maximum Minimum Wage is out now—any final thoughts on what you hope people get out of this tome?

Fingerman: I just hope they get a lot of entertainment out of it. I hope the people who already had it will enjoy this volume for its tweaks. It just looks so much nicer big. It makes a difference.

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Writer/publisher Vera Greentea is shooting for her fifth successful Kickstarter comic book campaign. Since 2010 she has raised $22,601 and this time she’s trying to hit her $10,000 goal to fund her latest anthology, PAPA.
The expected release for this book is (American) Fathers Day. The money raised will go to the printing. PAPA is expected to be full color, 50 pages in standard comic book format. Vera’s previous projects have been accessible to all ages but PAPA is intended for a mature audience.  I suspect this might affect her and dissuade previous supporters, and grow a whole new audience.

Greentea has recruited some stellar talent this time around. I have participated in a successful Kickstarter anthologies where it’s very apparent that it’s the artist’s first printed work but we all have to start somewhere. The only artist I’m familiar with in this book is Lizzy John—I really enjoyed her run on Fraggle Rock, and it’s good to see her still behind the drawing board. It’s nice to see Vera taking a chance on working with other artist that could use the spotlight.

The stories will be illustrated by three insanely gifted artists that I discovered in some prodigy-ridden pocket universe. They are Ben Jelter (Sidius Nova, The Tumor); Lizzy John (Fraggle Rock) and Joseph Lacroix (Diablo).

Vera was kind enough to give me time from her busy publishing schedule to give us some insight on the success of her previous projects and what goes in to creating a successful Kickstarter project. Don’t forget to visit the project page and kick-in a few shekels and help this book see the light of day.

Henry Barajas: You and the artist, Laura Müller, really worked well together on NENETL— how did you two find each other and make this book come alive?

Vera Greentea: For every book I do, I look for a particular “feel” that might give the story a certain kind of atmosphere or flow. For Nenetl, I was looking for an artist that could draw movement. It took some time, but I was excited to find Laura’s art blog, her work is so incredibly dynamic and has a fantastic organic appeal to it. I contacted her and she replied almost immediately. It was clear we were enthusiastic about each other’s work, and I think that shows in the book and gives it so much life. She’s my Nenetl soulmate.

Dia De Los Muertos parade image from NENETL

Barajas:  NENETL revolved around Hispanic culture. What got you interested and what kind of research did you do?

Greentea: I feel like I’m surrounded by a lot of Hispanic aspects of culture, especially food – there’s a grocery store by me full of interesting ingredients targeted at the local Latino population, I guess, but I love exploring when it comes to cooking. I constantly look up the provenance of traditional recipes. So I was looking up a recipe, when I came upon information about the Mexican celebration Day of the Dead. I’ve heard of the festival before, but the article just took hold of me. Suddenly it was many hours later and I found myself deep into researching this particular tradition and many peripheral aspects of the culture as well. Something about a culture that isn’t mournful about death, but treasures and invites their passed ones really touched me on a personal level – that is what made me want to delve into its world. I didn’t mean to write a story about it, that just happened I think because part of me wanted to share the gorgeously unique and non-melancholy idea behind the Day of the Dead festival. Even though I finished writing NENTEL l, I still continuously research this tradition, online and off.

Barajas :What helped you the most in achieving the last goal?

Greentea:  Laura’s gorgeous art really made a difference from the beginning – it’s just so striking. I tend to be very vocal on the Kickstarter blog for my projects, and this time I had so much art to show in the process updates. With every art-brimming update, people fell in love with Nenetl more and more.

Barajas: You have came up with some interesting pledge rewards and set yourself apart from the rest of the project out there. How do you come up with new rewards for your projects?

Greentea:  To tell you a secret, I actually find coming up with incentives really really hard. I have no idea how to create a gorgeous hoodie with Recipes art, or how to find someone to make a life-size plushie of a Nightbird! How do people do that? So I try to come up with bizarre things that no one else will think to have, and things that I feel they can have with them – like a guitar pick on a keychain. Plus, I discovered a lot of fathers these days play guitar. Maybe it’s a rebel baby boomer thing?

Barajas: What can you tell us about PAPA that isn’t already on the page?

Greentea:  PAPA is a collection of dark creepy stories about men put in difficult situations, men who also happen to be fathers. Children can be tragically influenced by their parents, and when their fathers are forced to react to their bizarre situations… well, none of the kids can take it lightly. What you can expect are twists and twisted endings, characters with emotional agendas, some humor, but most basically of all, stories about pride and fear and love.

Barajas: Was the making of this book a way to work out some underlining “daddy issues?”

Greentea:  Ha! Well, I wouldn’t say I have daddy issues per se, not more than anyone else at least – I do have an interesting father who I love. I find myself interested in relationships, especially the ones between parents and their children. Fathers and mothers are everything to a child, they’re practically their gods. But they’re also just people with human agendas, and silly goals, and just a bundle of ideas that can be absolutely wrong. All the fathers in PAPA are fallible and imperfect.

In the story of NENETL, the main theme is also about a child looking for her family, so I guess I don’t really veer that far from the particular concept of what is the importance of family.

Barajas: It feels like you have a lot of stories that you’re dying to share, why is this story important to tell?

Greentea: I actually wrote the stories of PAPA before I wrote Nenetl of the Forgotten Spirits. To Stop Dreaming of Goddesses, the first comic I wrote, is also rather dark – it’s about fighting your personal demons, even if you think they make you a better person. I think I became a little lighter lately, even as I write stories about long dead kids searching for someone to love them.

Henry Barajas is the co-creator, writer and letterer for El Loco and Captain Unikorn. He has also written and lettered short stories for two successful Kickstarter SpazDog Press projects: Unite and Take Over: Stories inspired by The Smiths and Break The Walls: Comic Stories inspired by The Pixies.  He is the Newsroom Research Assistant for The Arizona Daily Star and was nominated for the Shel Dorf Blogger of the Year award for his work at The Beat.  You can follow him on Twitter @HenryBarajas.

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If you’ve been following the history of the Asbury Park Comicon, which opened only a year ago in March of 2012, you know it’s been a strange, yet rather astonishing ride, but imagine how much stranger it must be for founder and indie comics creator Cliff Galbraith. What started in a bowling alley turned music venue and local hangout, Asbury Lanes, has become a major testament to demand for Comic Cons in New Jersey, and also a statement about the desires and tastes of con-goers who have relished the indie vibe of Galbraith’s brainchild. After a highly successful second Con in September of 2012, Galbraith announced that the Con would move to the much larger and even more historic venue of Asbury Park Convention Hall for its third event on March 30^th 2013.

Then Superstorm Sandy struck, devastating the seaside town of Asbury Park, leaving the future of the Con in question. Against some difficult odds, the Con forged ahead, and Galbraith faced another kind of storm- media frenzy- over the upcoming Con. It’s fair to say that his phone has been ringing off the hook as local press as well as The New York Times have been trying to get the scoop on what looks to be a growing New Jersey institution as Asbury Park Comicon nears its biggest event yet. Dozens of prominent guests will be flanking this full-blown gala of a Con, and the Con will also be featuring panels and contests. Galbraith hasn’t had a moment’s rest since all this started more than a year ago, and he finished up several other interviews just in time to answer some questions about all this Con madness, and how it fits into his own life, for The Beat.

Hannah Means-Shannon: Can you remember the moment when the idea for starting a Comic Con in New Jersey first occurred to you? How wild did the idea seem at the time?

Cliff Galbraith: Maybe I’ve always wanted to run my own con. I’ve been to enough of them over the last few decades. A lot of them were pretty shabby. Customer service was pretty awful. I’ve been to cons where the promoter never came around and so much as said hello or how’s it going. Some were downright rude or deceitful.

On a Sunday in the summer of 2011, I stopped into the bowling alley/rock club Asbury Lanes — they were having a little record fair in there. I knew a few of my friends would be there selling and buying records or drinking beers so I figured I’d get away from my drawing table for the afternoon and see what was happening. My friend and neighbor Robert Bruce was selling an assortment of rare rock and jazz records and some underground comix. I remember looking at someone rooting through a white box of records, and I turned to Rob and I said “Where else have I seen somebody doing that? Reminds me of people at a comic convention digging through long boxes.” We laughed, but I walked around a bit and I kept thinking about it. If they could sell records in this place, why not comics? My friend Jenn Hampton was the manager, so I asked her if we could have a comic con at the Lanes. Nine months later we had the first Asbury Park Comicon.

HM-S: What’s the strangest task you’ve ever had to do in order to get a Con running or keeping it on track?

CG: Partner with Rob Bruce! We’re friends, but business-wise we’re been very independent, lone wolves. But it’s been a great experience and there’s absolutely no way I could’ve done all of this or come up with all the solutions on my own. It’s been Cliff and Rob’s Excellent Adventure.

[Rob Bruce and Cliff Galbraith]

HM-S: Why Asbury as a location for the Con? 

CG: People launch cons in New Jersey all the time. Some have been going on for years, but they don’t grow. I think the secret ingredient in throwing a Con is location — pick a fun destination. That’s really what set San Diego up for success early on. Who didn’t want to go somewhere with beautiful weather with plenty of bars, restaurants, hotels, a beach? That’s enticing.

So there needs to be something other than the Con once you walk outside. That’s my standard. I don’t want to go to some Con near an airport or far away from everything. I don’t want to go to some little hotel hermetically sealed in away from the world. Lots of Cons are downright depressing. They have no personality. Just putting a bunch of artists and dealers in a room and charging admission doesn’t make it fun.

[The Asbury Park Boardwalk at dusk]

HM-S: What were reactions like to the first Con at Asbury Lanes?
CG: Everyone had a great time. Most people sold lots of books. I was stunned. I just wanted to put on a little event and not screw up, just have a fun day. But the venue was a real hit. The exhibitors who’d never been to Asbury Park, who’d never been to Asbury Lanes fell in love with it. I’m spoiled, the Lanes are part of my world, but it’s really a cool old place. And there’s a bar. We played old punk tunes and Serge Gainsbourg, Nelson Riddle, soul, and stoner rock. It was more like a party — with comics.

HM-S: What obstacles did you face launching that first Con at the Lanes?
CG: It’s always tough at first to get someone with a name to attract fans. I think the first guy I called was Evan Dorkin. I always dug his work, and I’d known him for years — but more importantly he was someone who would get what I was trying to do. Evan and Sarah Dyer jumped right in. Then they told Steph Buscema. Jamal Igle was another old friend, so I contacted him early on. Those guys trusted me — that was important. But getting talent can be tough early on. Then there’s talent that doesn’t show up, there are flakes in this business and it just goes with the territory.

The biggest shock was that two months before our first Con, Asbury Lanes was sold. I know it sounds crazy, but I never got a written contract. I made a deal with my friend who was the manager. At one point, she didn’t know if she was going to still have a job or whether the new owners would honor our deal or want more money. It was scary, because this was our first time and if we screwed this up nobody would ever trust us again. It all worked out and it was a great day.

[APCC at the Asbury Lanes]

HM-S: What’s your personal philosophy behind Comic Cons?
CG: Don’t be boring. Don’t be predictable. Don’t call yourself a Comic Con and fill the bill with wrestlers, actors, and other people who have nothing to do with comics. Respect and honors those who make comics, especially those who came before us. I see a lot of bullshit at cons and I just don’t get it. If somebody wants an autograph of somebody from Twilight or some guy who played a storm trooper 30 years ago — that’s their business, but it really has nothing to do with comics. It detracts and devalues comics as something that is supposed to be celebrated. My feeling is if you’re not here for the comics then shove off. Go to a horror con, go to a sci-fi con.

 HM-S: Why do you think we need Comic Cons, as a society?

CG: When my parents were kids the big thing was the circus coming to town. That’s disappeared, and now we have the Comic Con coming to town. Look at every city — there’s a con everywhere. People love it — its like Woodstock, Lollapalooza, county fair, chili cook-offs, boat shows, car shows, record fairs, film festivals, people want to get together with those who share their passion. They want to spend a day with their kids, meet new friends, make a discovery. It’s an amazing social phenomenon, and it’s in its infancy.

HM-S: What did you grow up reading? Any favorite comics or characters?
CG: My mom grew up in a candy store in Newark, N.J., and she spent her time drawing pictures of movie stars from magazines that were on the newsstand. She also loved comics. She introduced me to Superman when I was about four years old. She also taught me to draw. She got me a subscription to SUPERBOY and I looked forward to those comics every month. Then one day when I was getting a haircut, I picked up a copy of FANTASTIC FOUR that was in the barber shop — this was around 1965. The Kirby art kind of creeped me out at first, but I was fascinated. Joe Kubert’s HAWKMAN was a favorite. Of course BATMAN. CREEPY, EERIE, FAMOUS MONSTERS and hot rod magazines with stuff by Ed Roth and George Barris. I also read a lot of science fiction — it was a pretty classic age with Asimov, Arthur C. Clarke, and I read Pierre Boulle’s Planet of the Apes after seeing the movie. I graduated from super heroes to MAD. Then National Lampoon. At some point I found some underground comix in a head shop in Menlo Park, N.J. — they blew my teenage mind. Then Heavy Metal Magazine and Punk Magazine completed the process of completely warping my mind.

HM-S: What are your biggest influences as a comics creator?
CG: More of MAD than I used to acknowledge. I think it was an early influence in the way I saw a lot of stupid things in society. It was much tougher on politicians and corporations back in the 60′s and 70′s. I would try to draw like Mort Drucker when I was a kid. Kirby is an influence when I’m feeling lazy, when I think I’ve done enough — I think about the amount of work he put out in a day and I’m embarrassed. He keeps me going back to do a bit more before turning out the lights. I love Moebius. Bernie Wrightson, Richard Corben, Crumb, Rick Griffin, Jack Davis. I go back to Will Eisner when I get stuck on a drawing that’s not working — I’m still learning from looking at his drawings, I get answers from his panels. But when I created Partyasaurus, Beachasaurus, and all the Saurus characters back in the 80′s, I did some sort of R.O. Bleckman thing with the wiggly, broken lines. It was very successful, but I never revisited that style again.

HM-S:  It’s been a winding road for you career-wise. How does Con creating fit into your life, looking back?

CG:  I came back to comics after ten years — at one point I was in really bad shape with Lyme disease, but that’s a whole other story. I started making RAT BASTARD comics again, just selling them at cons. I didn’t even go through Diamond — I just wanted to put something out and do some cons. Then I started working with my wife on UNBEARABLE, a totally different style but a lot of fun to draw. I was finally getting back into it, making comics. I had a few issues written I was drawing consistently and then this damn Asbury Park Comicon came along. The first one wasn’t too bad, but now with a much bigger venue, more guests, more exhibitors, ads, making a TV commercial, doing interviews with newspapers, and building a website, designing posters, it became a full time job. I didn’t realize it at first, but I sacrificed my art to build the Con. Which is okay, since April 1st I’m back at the drawing board and making comics again.

HM-S: Asbury Park was pretty hard hit by Superstorm Sandy. What was your own experience of the storm like?

CG: The other day I found pictures of my wife Judie and I at Convention Hall on the balcony making silly faces trying to stand up against the wind the day before the storm. I felt embarrassed that we were joking about it and twenty-four hours later there would be so much devastation. We could’ve have known, but I couldn’t look at those pictures. The fact that Convention Hall is still standing is amazing, but it did sustain a lot of damage.

My own experience with the storm was terror. There’s three giant pine trees in my yard that I was certain would crush us in the night. I felt like the roof on our house would be torn off any minute the whole time. We had no power for two weeks. We tried to stay in our home and tough it out with no power. I could draw during daylight. We had little parties with the neighbors and pooled our resources.  After 7 or 8 days, it got too tough. It was cold. There wasn’t much to do once the sun went down.  We had to go stay with my parents. But after a few days, I felt like I should be putting Led Zeppelin posters up in the basement — in other words, I felt like I was a teenager again. My parents were great about it, but you really can’t go back and live with your parents.

We were fortunate — we got to go back to our house and it was like nothing had happened other than we had to restock our refrigerator. But only two miles east of us looked like an A-bomb had been dropped. A lot of our friends suffered from that storm. We’ll be doing several things at Asbury Park Comicon to raise money for some of the nonprofits in our area and keep the focus on Sandy victims.

[The Asbury Convention Hall, site of APCC 2013]

HM-S: Were you afraid that damage from Superstorm Sandy might put the kaibosh on Asbury Park Comicon this year?

CG: It actually did. The building was going to be closed down by the city or something. We were told we needed to start thinking about an alternate site. It got pretty bleak. We looked into moving the con to Monmouth Racetrack, or one of the schools in Red Bank. We were desperate.  And then I got a call late one night and they told me we were back in Convention Hall.

HM-S: What’s going on with Asbury Convention Hall? I hear it may not host events in the future after May.

CG: It’s an old building. It’s taken a beating. It had issues before the storm. So now it’s just better to shut down completely and get everything done once and for all. May 1^st, it will be shuttered. We may be one of the last events there. This is a big thing for us to throw a con there — we grew up walking through the Grand Arcade from the boardwalk. I saw The Clash there, boxing, roller derby. To see our event on that marquee is like a dream come true — and it almost didn’t happen.

[Asbury Park Press covers COMIC BOOK MEN and Galbraith's upcoming Con]

HM-S: What’s up for Asbury Con in the future? Is it going to become an even bigger Jersey Con?

CG: We’ll know in a few weeks what the renovation schedule is for Convention Hall. We’d like to announce the dates for 2014 at this the con next week, but I don’t know if that’s quite possible by March 30th. But we’d like to move to late April and do a two day Con. The Berkley Hotel has a series of ballrooms — it’s like The Shining in there. I spoke to them last week. I’d like to keep this show in Asbury Park. Again, it’s the location that really makes a Con special. We’re planning on including more venues, galleries, etc. in the Con. Maybe a cosplay parade on the boardwalk. Put some of the bigger panels in the Paramount Theater.

We also have another big Con in the works for June 2014, but we haven’t finalized the date or exact venue. We’ve floated the ideas with a few comic industry people and we’ve gotten good feedback. The location will surprise a lot of people at first, but it makes sense geographically.

[Poster art for APCC#2 in 2012]

HM-S:  What changes had to be made in the planning process of the con to move it from Asbury Lanes to the Convention Hall this time?
CG: Besides the amount of time Rob and I had to put into it, I’d say the next thing would be the amount of money it takes to launch an event this size. People have no idea what goes into a show like this. Now we’re into things like insurance, security, lighting, sound systems, putting guests in hotels, meals, travel, advertising — the expenses pile up quickly. This is no longer a fun little get-together at the Asbury Lanes with some comics and a few beers, this is a serious business venture.

[Memorable image from APCC #2 in 2012 with Evan Dorkin, Cliff Galbraith, Dean Haspiel, and Larry Hama]

The most important thing I’ve learned about running a show this size is we can’t do it on our own. We had a lot of help. Guys like Danny Fingeroth, Dean Haspiel, Seth Kushner, Chris Irving, Mark Mazz, Dave Ryan, all got us guests that we never would’ve gotten on our own. Eric Grissom built us a great website. Stu Wexler made a TV commercial — and nobody asked for anything in return. Mike [Zapcic] and Ming [Chen] from Comic Book Men have been promoting us for months on their podcast. The people who run Convention Hall have been amazing. They all just want us to succeed — we’ve got some great friends in our corner. We’ve also got some great guests: Al Jaffee, Herb Trimpe, John Holmstrom, Bob Camp, Don McGregor, Jamal Igle, Jay Lynch, Evan Dorkin, Sarah Dyer, Mark Morales, Stephanie Buscema, and Batman producer Michael Uslan. Then there’s a whole indie crew like Box Brown, Josh Bayer, Mike Dawson, Steve Mannion, and lots of others.

I’m really fortunate to be able to do this. To have gotten my health back, to be making comics again and to put on events with so many remarkable people. Sure it’s a lot of work, but I’m having the time of my life!

HM-S: Cliff, I don’t know how you found the time to give us such a detailed insight into your own personal journey envisoning the Asbury Park Comicon with only a few days to go until the biggest APCC yet. But we appreciate your willingness to talk about it so openly and thanks for bringing a Con of this caliber to New Jersey. 

Hannah Means-Shannon writes and blogs about comics for TRIP CITY and Sequart.org and is currently working on books about Neil Gaiman and Alan Moore for Sequart. She is @hannahmenzies on Twitter and hannahmenziesblog on WordPress.