Special thanks to John Voulieris and Silver Bullet Comics.com for continued support and exposure.

Tomorrow…Tom and I take the week off, but be here for the Chapter One recap, Five X Five!

Todt Hill, an adventure strip by Kleid and Colden, updates here every
Friday. Welcome to the island. Please watch your step. Need a cab?

View the Hunt Thus Far

Join the Crew at

From The Library is a series of 5-question interviews with some of my favorite storytellers. For last week’s SCHEHERAZADE update, click here.

When I’m too tangled to write coherently, I usually just make a list. So it is, trying to write an intro about Ed Brubaker.

1. He has written scads of comics. Really good comics. But you already knew that.
2. He and Sean Phillips have a new creator-owned series, CRIMINAL, and it starts next month. You probably already knew that too.
3. You may not know that he just won a Harvey Award.
4. His favorite comic book character is Jughead
5. He has the distinction of writing the only fictional character that I’ve ever had a crush on.

The personal investment and emotional content present in Ed’s writing is second to none, which is why it grips me so. And his writing really pushes me to make mine the best that it can be. It ain’t easy.

1. What’s your poison?

I don’t drink much anymore. When I did, I liked Manhattans and White Russians, though not on the same night, obviously.

2. I was reading your recent interview with Tom Spurgeon and it sounds like CRIMINAL is one of those projects that has been bouncing around for a while. When did you first start jotting down the ideas that would become CRIMINAL? Why did you sit on it for so long?

Four years? Maybe five. It sat, at first, because I just couldn’t do it. I was under contract at DC, and I also was having some back and forth with the foreign publisher I was talking to, and it was looking less like we were on the same page about it, so I just put it aside. And then other stuff happened and it moved further back on the burner, basically, until it came time to do something new that I would own.

3. Tell me a little bit about your notebook-keeping habits. (My own notebook love is really strong and I’ve read mentions of notebooks in your interviews for years, so I can’t resist.)

I have about a dozen notebooks going at any one time. Mostly they’re one book for each project I’m working on, and I just jot down any ideas I have for future storylines, or character notes. And I do all my plotting and outlines and thinking in those notebooks. There are scenes in some of my notebooks, of course, that never make it to the page. I’m not as good at keeping up with them as I used to be, but I think it’s important to have this time to sit with paper and pen, and actually think and write by hand. It makes me look at it differently, and it makes me move slower in the thinking stages of the writing, which is often the most difficult part, really. I will sometimes spend days just stumbling around the house depressed because I haven’t figured out the outline for the next issue of something yet, so I can’t type.

The greatest thing about notebooks, though, is that you go back through one and find some piece of a story you never used, and suddenly you have a new story to tell in some other book. You recycle what you don’t use elsewhere.

4. You’ve given me some great music recommendations in the past. How important is music as an influence? Do your books ever have soundtracks?

Criminal does, in my head. I’m hearing some weird combo of Louie Armstrong, Frank Sinatra, Johnny Cash, Marvin Gaye, Stevie Wonder (the Innervisions era), Leonard Cohen, and even some Simon and Garfunkle, as I write it, along with just a general early 70s Blaxploitation soundtrack, like Across 110th Street.

This is the first time in a long time I’ve thought about music while writing, though. But it’s because I’m trying to create a whole world, and a whole mood to go along with it, and music really helps create mood.

5. How old were you when you started writing? Do you remember the first story you ever wrote?

I was in 2nd or third grade, and I wrote and drew a comic book called The Werewolf, about a guy who’s out hunting, and shoots a werewolf but the bullet goes through the wolf, bounces off a rock, and lodges in the man’s forehead, and after that he can become a werewolf anytime he wants and he fights crime.

Okay. This is approximately the most outstanding thing I’ve heard all week. Jussayin’.

It was pretty much a Werewolf by Night rip-off, which, considering I was 7 or 8 years old, shows you the audience for that book really did exist.

Bonus round: You’re everywhere these days, doing heavy promotion for CRIMINAL. How’s MySpace treating you? :)

It’s hard to say. I’m still waiting for Pam from the Office to accept my friendship, but other than that one problem, it seems to be going well. I’ve only had the page a few weeks, and I’ve got a decent size list of “friends” a lot of them retailers and comics fans, which is what I was hoping for. Though whether people really look at all the bulletins and blog posts you do seems hard to gauge so far. I check out my bulletins and see I get one about every hour or so, sometimes a lot more, so I fear my messages to the people might be getting lost in the shuffle.

But at least it gave me a place to put up the Criminal parody ad my wife and friend made, which has now gotten more unique views than the thing its parodying. So, that’s nice.

New to 1 Way Ticket? Start from the beginning with Page 1

END CHAPTER 1: Continue to Chapter 2 (Page 8)
This ends chapter 1 of Dan and I’s guitar epic. The characters have taken their places, and the stage is being set-up. The band and the extended family known as the Special Effects will be put through the paces in the coming weeks and months, and we hope you’ll stay with us for the adventures.

Next week we’ll be taking a break from the comics to talk about the comics via an interview as conversation between Dan and I. We’ll also show off some production sketches for the series. Chapter 2 begins in 2 weeks. But next week is one not to be missed!

Catch up with
Pages 1 + 2, Page 3, Page 4, Page 5, Page 6, Page 7, and now, Page 8:

So, as some of you reading this may know, I’ve been making zines of one form or another for a while now; in fact, some of you may even remember this thing called PLATFORM that I used to write, about fiddling Irish tunes in the NYC subways (yes, for real). I’ve made quite a few zines, handmade comics and chapbooks in the past year or so (all of which you can read about on another one of my sites, Streetfables).

Yeah, I love zines. I’ll surely make zines in some form or another for the duration of my creative life, no matter where that road may ultimately lead. But making zines the way I like to make ‘em takes time. And that’s something that I don’t have much of these days. Yet, I love zines. What to do?

The answer, my dears, is the one shot: a zine made from just one sheet of paper.

What does this have to do with SCHEHERAZADE? Well, I made a SCHEHERAZADE one shot, which you can find here. I also put together a short tutorial on how you can make one shots of your own. Because spreading the zinelove is one thing that I do.

Feel free to take that SCHEHERAZADE zine and make copies and pass it around or link to it or whatever. If you dig on the Chemistry Set, it really helps to spread the word somehow. We do thank you.

And definitely make some one shots of your own, then drop me a note with the results. Because I love zines, and I love to see what you all get up to.