No, it’s not a given. Over at Newsarama, I talk to four retailers about how to improve your chances. Rory Root of Comic Relief (Berkeley, CA), Alex Cox of Rocketship, Andrew Neal of Chapel Hill Comics (Chapel Hill, NC), and Ben Trujillo of Star Clipper (St. Louis, MO) gave some great pointers.

Remember, the customer is always right! (Note: That would be retailers. :) )

Anyhoo, there’s some great advice there if you’re a creator or self-publisher. Check it out.

Artist, writer, matchmaker, instigator, bruiser, hopeless romantic, and cover boy (yeah, that’s what I’m talkin’ about), Dean Haspiel has his stars firmly placed in just about every corner of the comics firmament. Tender years spent learning at the knees of industry giants (Bill Sienkiewicz, Howard Chaykin, Walt Simonson — sheesh) paved the way for an impressive bibliography, including BILLY DOGMA, AMERICAN SPLENDOR, X-MEN UNLIMITED, stints in the Alternative Comics anthologies, THE AMAZING ADVENTURES OF THE ESCAPIST, THE QUITTER, and, of course, the co-conspiratin’ (with Dan Goldman) of that little comics collective we all take our shirts off for, ACT-I-VATE.

But Dean’s reach stretches far beyond his own work — from what I hear, to say that he’s responsible for more successful creative hookups than the best literary agents is only a slight exaggeration. And it all happens under your nose. Dean’s behind the scenes machinations are responsible for at least some of your favorite comics hoo-has — I’d lay many a milkshake on the line. (Along those lines: three guesses, and the first two don’t count, as to who brought Zornow and I together.)

Dean’s passion and commitment to comics, storytelling, and us indy underdogs is like the Bat signal — visible from a distance. Put simply, he walks the talk. And he probably doesn’t know this, but his “put up or shut up” attitude has wrested me from the clutches of the virtual couch (read: that’s what we call a pity party in our house, folks) more than once.

If my Wikipedia serves me right, 2007 marks the 20th anniversary of Dean’s first published work (Verdict, a 4-ish miniseries for Eternity Comics). But he’s far from done. In fact, he’s just getting started. Check it.

By the by, it’s Dean’s 40th birthday today. May we get 40 more years of his comics.

Talk to me about stories. Clearly they’re at the heart of everything you do. What makes a good story for you?

The thing I look for the most in any character driven story is that I get engaged and attracted to the protagonist/s early on. Otherwise, I won’t care what happens next and every subsequent scene will fail to resonate and the story becomes futile. Whether it’s memoir, action-adventure, or a spaghetti western, the reader must bond with the journeyman early on if the story thesis is going to make any kind of emotional impact. Every story between author and reader is a relationship. If you can’t get past the first meeting the readers attention wanders and, unless you can make a human connection, your protagonist is left standing on a street corner holding a bag of broken promises.

Is the connection stuff part of the reason why you’re so fascinated with romance?

Romance is the stuff of life. Otherwise, go write a behavior manual for cybernetic dolphins in the year 3012. You know what I mean? It took me a long time to figure out that the glue between all good stories has something to do with love and its many interpretations. This is how we connect and why we become loyal to certain people and certain storytellers. Heart and soul manifests in many abstract ways and none of it means a damn without the passion to get what you want. When a character meets his or her desire the story is over…until there’s that mysterious tap on the shoulder. To be continued…

Have you ever given any thought being an editor? Leland and I are both convinced you’d be great at it.

Big hugs to you and Leland for the vote of confidence. I have given some thought to being an editor and I think I would be good at it. I’m no grammar Nazi [that why I would need an assistant] and, according to my girlfriend, my table manners are a sight for sore eyes [ergo, power lunch meetings in the bowels of Wo Hops in Chinatown], but I think I have an eye for great stories and great storytellers and I’ve been highly instrumental in putting successful projects together. Not only for most of the projects I’ve been involved in but I’ve also lent my keen senses to projects for other talented folks to realize. I firmly believe in the old adage that “90% of great directing is great casting.” And, I would never dare focus group concepts. I go with my gut feelings which has served me well. If I were to convince a publisher to give me a workable budget, exploit their marketing resources, and let me hire a couple of expert comix cronies and take over the editorial reigns of a graphic novel imprint, I would surely bring the awesome. No ifs, and, or buts.

If you could have a drink with any one person, living or dead, who would it be? Why?

Jack Kirby. I never met my hero. ‘Nuff said.

What would you talk about?

Gosh. A dream meeting with Jack Kirby would’ve most likely yielded something impossible for me to express. I imagine we’d talk some comix shoppe and I’d ask to watch him compose a page and witness Jack think on paper. In my life, that’s worth more than all the diamonds and gold in the world.

You’ve had a ton of projects under your belt. Which mean the most to you?

This may seem coy but the most important projects are the ones that are ahead of me. I’m currently in the middle of writing and drawing my favorite project to date: THE BILLY DOGMA TRILOGY, which unfurls weekly at www.ACT-I-VATE.com. Billy Dogma is my comic book avatar where I get to express emotional truths while trading narrative fisticuffs with my favorite genres. I tackled a war of woo in IMMORTAL [ http://www.deanhaspiel.com/immortal.html] and now I’m tackling the notion of an eighth deadly sin in FEAR, MY DEAR [ http://deanhaspiel.com/fearmydear.html]. The trilogy wraps up in a story called AS BIG AS EARTH. I’d be remiss to not mention projects like THE QUITTER and my AMERICAN SPLENDOR collaborations with Harvey Pekar, plus, my current graphic novel collaboration, THE ALCOHOLIC, with writer/pal, Jonathan Ames. Also, I’m quite fond of my punk rock days with Josh Neufeld on our two-man anthology, KEYHOLE, my semi-autobio collection, OPPOSABLE THUMBS, and my early BILLY DOGMA efforts.

Where would you like to be in five years?

If Marvel ever lets me tackle THE THING again, I’d love to do my definitive monster romance story. Otherwise, DC should let Nick Bertozzi and I revamp OMAC. Also, I’d like to finally get a Mark Waid collaboration under my belt [”Thor Smash,” or “Metamorpho,” or some other lucrative franchise that could use a kick in the underoos], and I’d like to persuade Warren Ellis to write something honest for me to draw. I’d like to write a screenplay or two, have written a novel, and continue producing comix that I write and draw and makes me money while I sleep. And, last but not least, I’d like to actually/finally/truly take weekends off from work.

Name five stories within easy reach.

1] Once Upon A Time In The West by Sergio Leone.
2] Bottomfeeder by B.H. Fingerman.
3] The Eternals by Jack Kirby.
4] Triumph Of The Won’t by Tim Hall.
5] Bone Machine by Tom Waits.

It’s a very special episode, coming up this Thursday….

Jeff Zornow is a man on a mission. I’ll let him tell you about that mission himself, but I’ll start by saying that he’s doing a bangup job so far, as evidenced by his current workload. DAY OF THE DEAD, a steady gig with CRYPTIC magazine (our story, “The Dog Lady,” should be in the next ish, if I’m not mistaken, with lettering by my husband), an adaptation of THE LEGEND OF SLEEPY HOLLOW, art chores on the lead tale in Gene Simmons’ brand new horror anthology (penned by Leah Moore and John Reppion)…

Jeff has the distinction of being one of two artists I’ve worked with whose art made my stomach drop and a chorus of “THAT GUY! That is THE GUY!!!” break out in my head the first time I saw it. (The other? Boorman.)

I tried to be all suave (that is, if girls can be suave) when I asked him to work on WEIRD SISTER. I think he saw right through it, but humored me anyway, bless his monster-lovin’ heart. And I’m so glad, because he is one of my all-time favorite people to work with. He has also been known to get me to laughing my head off.

By the by, I barely recognize Jeff in that picture over there, as I think it may truly be the first time I’ve seen him dressed in anything other than, well, a lot of black.

You know, like my soul.

Okay! Back to the music!

Remind me again of how you got on this crazy bus called comics in the first place…

By killing people….

I started out trying to be I guess what could only be described as a “normal” comic book artist, trying to draw superheroes fighting bad guys…but no one cared about that, especially since nowadays superheroes don’t fight bad guys anymore, they just sit around and cry over thier personal drama, like little girls in a soap opera.

Unfortunately for comics I am a ridiculously stubborn person, so I decided to draw the things I loved more than anything else: monsters, horror and people getting eaten, mutilated, slaughtered, and killed in horrible ways. Then I suddenly started to build a bit of a tiny following.

Was drawing something you pursued for its own sake, or was it really more about setting the monsters loose upon the world?

Well, I started to take drawing very seriously in first grade. Drawing started as something to relieve boredom from school, and since I couldn’t watch TV in school, I could escape my teachers’ blathering by trying to re-create images of the characters and things that entertained me. My teacher caught me drawing in class one day and said, “Oh, thats very good Jeff, do you want to be an artist when you grow up?” Then it dawned on me that that was something that adults actually did for a living so I replied with an enthusiastic “YES!” And then my teacher scolded me for not paying attention in class.

I suppose that it would sound much more romantic to claim that I then worked all my life towards this life long goal of mine. But unfortunately that wouldn’t be truthful. I have come to learn that actually my abilities and talents (such as they are) are really just here to “set the monsters loose upon the world.” Really, I am just a tool, controlled by creatures from beyond. They took ahold of me that same year I was in first grade, on Halloween night. I was visited by two demon-things from… somewhere. Not here.

And since then…well… I do their bidding, spreading their evil messages.

Such as?

We are DOOMED!

Do you ever get bored, or tired of drawing? Or are you having a blast, being so busy and working so hard?

I am having a blast so far, but I tend to need downtime in between projects to re-charge the batteries. If I didn’t do that I suppose I do get tired (not bored). But it’s good to be busy, and work hard. Work hard, and play hard, it’s a very good balance. As long as it’s all done with gusto!

What does your workspace look like?

My workspace never stays clean or organized for very long. I admit, I am one of those who works among a pile of clutter. I have the same drafting table I’ve had since I was 13, and one side has all of my drawing/inking tools (on the left because I am left-handed). The right side is usually covered in scrap paper and expendable reference material. Other long-term reference images are taped up on the wall in front of me. As of this writing, my space is in desperate need of cleaning!

We were talking on the phone, oh, whenever it was, not so long ago, and you were talking about being “the monster comics guy.” And whenever we work together, I always find myself thinking about how I can keep that guy happy while at the same time, bringing a little depth to our stories, while at the same time, staying away from the high falutin’ because, well, you know how much I hate that crap. And anyway, I…

Monsters: what’s the appeal?

God, do I really need to explain this? Haha!

Yeah, okay! Humor me, babe.

What isn’t appealing about monsters??

Ok, the monster thing started with me before I can even remember. I can still remember the first time I saw the original KING KONG on TV when I was 2, but at that time I already loved Godzilla (king of the monsters, by the by). I can’t even remember how I got into Godzilla, for simply as long as I have a memory Godzilla was there with me, and for me.

Essentially, most of my life lessons were learned from Godzilla movies (mankind is stupid and deserves to be punished for fooling with things they shouldn’t fool with). Monsters provide the best vehicle for replaying this important message over and over: human beings ARE LAME! No matter how much we think we improve ourselves we are all still just monkeys banging each other with sticks. It’s fun to then have some slimy creature come and ruin the party for the humans.

I absolutely delight in many of the concepts introduced by H.P. Lovecraft, like “creatures from beyond”-type stories where the mere proof of such a horrible monster is enough to make the main protagonist go insane, or commit suicide! As a race I believe we need this lesson explained over and over, because it never really sinks in. There is something out there that is much more powerful than we could ever be, and IT ISN’T GOD, (or wichever version of the invisible man in the sky you subscribe to). It is something inhumanly HORRIBLE and it can lay waste to all of us without so much of a second thought. These basic concepts tend to apply to almost all monster stories, whatever the scale. Whether its a zombie plague, a werewolf massacre, or a giant creature/aliens laying massive destruction upon us.

Plus there is the other aspect to monster appeal: monsters are wayyyy cool. Why? Because as characters they are completely un-pretentious, and easy to understand . They tend to look wicked cool, they always get to do really fun things like break stuff, and destroy things, and its really hard (for me anyway) not to root for the monster as they eat or kill the stupid people. This applies to “human” monsters as well, such as the classic American slasher, always great to see them hack up foolish teens to bits.

Plus when it comes to drawing, well, drawing monsters is way more interesting than drawing people (or superheroes crying), and drawing monsters eating people is SWEET! That pretty much never gets boring.

I personally feel that comics are now a great vehicle for monster stories. Not a lot of creature features get made in movies anymore, and with comics, you dont have to worry about crappy effects and a budget. If you can draw it, it can happen on the page.

So I’ll keep making monster comics to satiate my need for monster action. Just like when I was a little kid I drew the things I wanted to see, to be entertained. And the only thing better than watching a monster mess up human beings is watching a monster battle another monster! Or a GROUP of Monsters in an all-out rampaging rumble! There is pretty much no level of overkill with monsters…MORE is always MORE and therefore BETTER with Monsters!

Monsters are awesome because they point out our faults, just before they kill us.
Monsters are awesome because they appeal to the misfit in all of us.
And monsters are awesome because people tend to look down upon them, but they are better than us.

Monsters aren’t here for soap opera antics. Monsters aren’t here to make us feel good about ourselves, or give us hope. Monsters are here to put us in our place! And I will do what I can to make sure they retain their rightful spot at the top of the food chain!

I don’t have much choice in the matter (controlled by creatures from the black void since I was 6, doing their secret bidding, all that).

Do you have a lot of nightmares?

Yes…..since I was very very little.

Are you a nightmare?

Depends which side of the fence you’re on.

Truly, Cecil Castellicci is a creative whirlwind. Music, poetry, blogs galore, three YA books in her pockets (the latest, BEIGE, hits shelves in early May)… all will set your head a-spinning, but try to keep it together because next up, she’s coming for comics with THE P.L.A.I.N. JANES, the season 1 opener for Vertigo’s Minx line. I’d say that I need a nap, but Cecil’s sincerity and deep passion for art are more like a socket — plug in, recharge batteries, get moving.

Yes, “miss cecil” does it all — and does it all well. And darn it, she’s just so damn charming. Try reading her Livejournal with a frown on your face. Go on, I dare you. Right after you read this interview…

You grew up in New York City but now live in Los Angeles. Which do you like better?

This is a very tough question. I love Los Angeles in a rare and hidden way that most people don’t see. Like the Jacarandas in bloom in spring. And the smell of night blooming jasmine and lemon trees. And the light. Oh, the light. But I do not like the isolation, the no-seasons, and all the driving. And East! Oh I love New York for it’s brassy gray, and bustle. For it’s culture and it’s walking. For my friends who don’t come out West to see me and whom I miss so much.

I love your poems. Who are some of your favorite poets?

Oh, I am a shy poet! And a came-to-it-late poet. I didn’t even know they were poems until someone called me on it. So I do not know much. But I have enjoyed ee cummings. Jack Kerouac. Phillip Larkin. TS Eliot.

In your FAQ, you say that it took you about ten years to get published from when you started writing “seriously.” What was “seriously,” for you? How long did it take you to write your first novel? From the looks of it (your bio page), you’ve been creative from the word go…

I have always been creative, but when I say ten years, I mean when I first took myself seriously as wanting to write YA. I think often we dabble in stuff, “oh, I’d like to do this or that.” But it’s when we really get in line that we take ourselves “seriously.” It took me one year to write the novel boy proof to get it up to snuff so I could ask my agent to send it out. It was the third novel I’d written; the others, sadly rejected. I say from the moment that you really decide that you are IN LINE to be an artist, it takes about ten years. That means saying you are one and meaning it, even if it’s “not true” yet. All told, it took me about 9 years from the time I got serious about being a writer to my first book coming out.

Ok, I have a personal investment in this one and really want to know the answer! Recently-ish on your livejournal you mentioned that you were at “the I HATE MY NEW WIP part of the process.” How do you deal?

Ugh! UGH! Writing is so Ass Hard! I don’t know why it has to be a part of writing but it is. The self-hating, the little voice telling you that you suck, the dim faux knowledge that everyone else on the planet is a better writer than you are so why are you bothering. The self-deprecating, insecurity, conviction of no- talentness. UGH! And every writer I know gets it! It’s our very own Process Plague!

How do I deal? Chocolate! Crying! Long Hot Baths!

Basically I give my self a lot of self love and I try not to listen to that inner critic. And at this point, I just work through it because I understand that it is part of the process. Stupid process.

Also recently-ish, you had a contest in honor of your new novel BEIGE in which you invited readers to write about a piece of music that changed their life. Of course, that made me wonder how you would answer.

You know, I’ve got to say that I think that the first piece of music that changed my life was probably either La Traviata by Verdi or The Magic Flute by Mozart. Those operas snuck into my little tiny toddler heart and filled it with drama and story. My junior high self would say the Blondie made my heart fill with a smooth kind of cool. In High School it was a fine blend between The Clash and Yazoo that filled my heart with sweet angst. Then later on, I would say Sinead O’Conner’s album The Lion and The Cobra made my heart fill with raw feelings. And in recent years I would say that God Speed You Black Emperor made my heart fill with wonder. As for today. Today. This minute. This second. I am listening to Co Co Rosie right now as I write this. I don’t know if it’s changing my life, but it sure is great.

What were you like as a teenager?

Oh, such a big dramatic personality and oh, so tiny a girl. I didn’t know how to manage my quirkiness. You know? I didn’t know how to embrace it and make it a part of me. So, I felt misunderstood by my friends and by adults and I was Oh. So. Sensitive. Never the less, when I wasn’t being an angst filled boob, I was popular enough, but not the most popular. I never find just one group of people interesting. Oh, sure, I had my core group of gal pals, but I often floated around in other cliques, too, for variation. I always wore vintage clothes, my fave accessory was a snood (a 40’s hairnet) I spent a lot of time watching old black and white movies and going to see plays. I never had a boyfriend. I had a lot of crushes. I wanted to grow up and tell stories.

Chances are good that if you know from comics at all, you know who Mark Waid is… and you don’t need no stinkin’ three-sentence introduction. If you don’t know who Mark is, here are the most salient points for the purpose of this interview:

• He has written every current major superhero, at one point or another
• He has written well over 500 comics
• He is a mad-crazy-good writer
• He is incredibly generous with his expertise

I first met Mark at a time when I didn’t know what the fudge I was doing, storytelling-wise. I mean, not at all. And then he got all up in my head and taught me a bunch of stuff. And then I pondered, and then I wrote, and now things are a little easier. And when I get stuck, I reach for the Waid comics.

The points on writing that Mark mentions below are exactly what I harp on, when I’m in a harpin’ kind of mood, and that’s no accident. But! I know that folks are (rightly!) more inclined to take this stuff from a guy who has written over 500 comics than little ‘ol me. So here we go.

Help me out, here, dude… once again, I’m losing track of all your projects. What’s currently on the plate? There’s 52, which is almost done, THE BRAVE AND THE BOLD, which I am incredibly psyched for (must get to Midtown), and then there’s the JOHN DOE thing for BOOM!, an idea you told me about ages ago and I’ve always loved… what am I missing?

52 is done, thank God, at least on the scripting end. Not that Grant, Geoff, Greg and I don’t have a collective sense of pride in having produced a 1000+ page graphic novel, but as I’ve said before, collaborating with another writer doesn’t halve your share of the work (nor quarter it, in this case). I’m exhausted. But there are things about 52 I really like a lot. I do regret that it’s largely inaccessible to new readers…a fight I lost with the company way early on, before the first issue was complete, so it’s not like I can hand the trades to, say, my uncle and expect him to get it…but I try to look at it philosophically: the money we made doing it (and we were reasonably well-paid) gives me a chance to do less work in ’07 and, hopefully, do it better and re-learn my craft.

THE BRAVE AND THE BOLD is also out there, and that’s fun, but on a plotting and structural level, it’s more ambitious than anything else I’ve ever tried, and as we get into the back half of the first arc, it’s creating a lot of sleepless nights.

Wow. You’re far and away one of the best plotters out there, so that’s really saying something.

That’s very kind. Thank you. Fortunately, there’s always Peyer to kibbitz with. Part of my ongoing problem, too, is that I get bored easily. The greater the gap between my coming up with a plot point and the time it’s actually written, the more likely I am to dismiss it just because it seems old to me.

One of the unique challenges of writing super-hero stories and adding heroes to the tale as you go is that once you write them into the plot, it’s virtually impossible to write them out again. In a fictional world of your own creation, you can create characters for specific tasks and move them a bit more like chess pieces if they’re so designed, or kill ‘em off, or put ‘em in the hospital, but super-heroes, by definition (unless they’re Captain America), don’t run away from a fight. All that’s to say that the nightmare of Brave and Bold is that once I’ve decided to throw in, say, Hawkman into the plot for an issue, I can’t kill him off or cripple him (not in a shared universe) and I can’t just sent him off on “another, more important case” (because that undercuts the importance of the story I’M writing)…so as I trundle towards the climax in issue six (originally issue five, but it just grew and grew), I’m having to juggle a billion characters, a half-billion villains, not one but two Maguffins… and I have no idea what my ending is. I did know starting out, but (a) things change, and (b) I originally plotted this thing eighteen months ago, and now I’m either eighteen months smarter or eighteen months more burnt out or both. Let’s hope for the former. I will say this, though; more than anything else I’ve done in comics in years, writing this series gives me the chance that I’ve wanted, since I was six, to simply play with my favorite toys and show you repeatedly why I think they’re cool.

JOHN DOE, the mini about the private investigator who is compelled to ascribe names to each and every one of the anonymous graves in Potter’s Field on Hart Island, will eventually end up with a slight title change to distance it from a foreign property of which I’ve since become aware, but it’s done and is, hopefully, this year’s EMPIRE for me — a dark, creepy noir thing far afield from traditional super-hero material. Its three issues were also an experiment in structure for me, and I’m really pleased with the way it worked out. I can’t say more about that without blowing the plot, but I’m happy that what seems to be two separate stories (issue one and issues two-three) are, in fact, not at all.

Outside of that, there’s some animation work and some screenplay stuff, but, really, I’m just ready for a long winter’s nap.

What’s on your pull list these days?

I’ve never understood how it is that a guy who drops, easily, a hundred bucks a week at his local shop never has an answer for this question. I’ll try. I finally read PERSEOPOLIS and was brutally affected by its emotion. I seize on anything by Chris Ware, Dan Clowes or Grant Morrison because they’re all actively expanding the vocabulary of the medium with storytelling flourishes that they’re inventing on the spot.

I kept meaning to tell you, and I kept forgetting, how much I freekin’ loved SUPERMAN RETURNS. What’d you think?

I loved it beyond all reason. Yes, it’s a flawed film, and yes, it was a little too reverential to the past for today’s audience, but I DON’T CARE. I was invited to the premiere here in Hollywood, and I gotta say, for a guy whose career for all intents and purposes began the day he saw SUPERMAN: THE MOVIE, being a guest to RETURNS brought with it a huge, HUGE sense of personal and professional validation that I can never properly describe.

I could nitpick the film as thoroughly as anyone else, but why bother? If the internet has taught us anything, it’s that there’s always plenty enough hate to go around even without us joining in. No, I loved it. Routh was perfect, the stunts were astounding, I loved the stuff with the kid (wearing Aquaman pajamas…heh). I could watch him save that plane every single day for the rest of my life. In fact, I had a giant fistful of free passes to the movie from various DVD purchases and Warner pals, so at least a dozen times over the summer, whenever I’d find myself walking past a theater on some other errand, I’d pop in just to see him save the plane, then leave and go about my business. It took me a while to put my finger on exactly why that specific scene moved me so greatly, moreso than anything I’ve seen on screen in 25 years, and in retrospect it’s obvious. I explode with emotion not when Superman shows up, not when he catches the plane, not when he sees Lois again…but when he steps back out onto the ballfield and the ENTIRE WORLD ERUPTS IN JOY. THAT’s the part that brings me to tears. THAT’S the moment when the child in me finally, finally feels heard when he tells people, “I want you to love Superman as much as I do.”

I’m cheating a little because I put this one to Gail [Simone] already. What’s the one thing you would change about the comics industry if you could?

Really? Six chambers and you’re giving me only one bullet? Where’s the sport in that?

God, where to start? I’d improve the level of craft. I’d take every writer and artist who thinks he or she can communicate with the audience BUT IS DELUDED and I’d lock them in a library full of TERRY AND THE PIRATES and PEANUTS and Lee/Kirby FANTASTIC FOUR and WATCHMEN and Garth Ennis scripts and Carmine Infantino and Dick Sprang and Mike Wieringo art and not let them out until they learned something about how to craft a fuckin’ page. Which segues us nicely into the next question…

Indeed. Call me self-indulgent, but I’m opening the floodgates. :)

What are the key elements of good comics writing, in your opinion?

As you are well aware, I can do eight hours on this without pausing for breath, so since I presume you’ll want these interview answers sometime in our lifetime, I’ll limit myself to the key elements that first come to mind. I’m sure there are others, but at this exact second, this is what’s on my brain:

1. Clarity. Which often gets bad-repped as “simplicity,” and that’s not at ALL what I mean. Comics don’t have to be for kids, they don’t have to be for boobs, and some can be written for a very sophisticated audience, if that’s the writer’s intent. I’m not saying every comic has to be MARMADUKE. There’s no reason a comic can’t be as profound and as layered as any great novel, and we’re getting closer every day to seeing a perfect exemplar. But too many authors throw obstacles in the readers’ way just to show their peers that they’re kewl and edgy writers. I’ll go to my grave insisting that audiences love to be intrigued but they hate to be confused, and the great writers are the ones who know exactly where that dividing line is. For Christ’s sake, introduce your characters as if we’ve never met them before–that’s what you’d do in any other medium. Define their goals and their obstacles (which don’t have to be obvious, but they do have to be on some level understandable to readers if you want them to invest). Baffle me, but first establish that I can trust you not to simply leave me hanging.

2. Brevity. This is specific to comics regardless of genre. Tarantino can afford to open a hundred-minute movie with five minutes of gangsters arguing about something that has nothing to do with plot or theme. That’s because five minutes is one-twentieth of a hundred. You do that in a comic, you’ll have eaten up about a fourth of your page count. Five pages of a comic-opening wasted on cool, punchy dialogue about Everclear or YouTube that doesn’t MOVE THE FUCKIN’ PLOT ALONG is indulgent crap, period, end of tough-love lesson.

3. Movement. This is specific to super-hero comics. Never forget that these are stories about CHARACTERS IN MOTION. Even non-costumed characters should be MOVING. Their scenes should be full of interesting, character-revelatory stage business. Standing around doing nothing, having a conversation that’s not even framed in a novel way by your artist, is death. Four pages of medium shots of two guys in business suits having a conversation in a generic office? I can get that on TV for free. Take every opportunity to make every scene visually interesting. Go overboard if you have to err; trust me, your artist will just turn it into a six-panel grid, anyway.

You hit on everything I knew you’d say, but one: investment of self.

D’oh. Well, yeah, of course. Let’s assume I left that one off the list out of forgetfulness, not because I’ve abandoned it as a technique — which I haven’t. Investment of self is HUGE, and I’d rather read a flawed piece of work where the writer is speaking to me, however obliquely, than a technically spectacular story that is, ultimately, without insight. There was a time when I’d drop anything I was doing to read whatever Alan Moore story I could get ahold of, but (while he’s still the best writer this medium’s ever seen) these days, I’m not as manic about them. I no longer perceive any new truth to his recent work–just gobs and gobs of style. And his storytelling tricks and gimmicks are always fresh and clever and worth studying… but I really get the sense, not so much with Lost Girls but certainly with his ABC stuff, that he’s bored. Or, more charitably, that his cynicism accompanying how badly he feels he’s been treated by American comics has affected his work. So, these days, give me some Greg Rucka or Brian Vaughan instead; there’s more voltage.

But, yeah, investment of self. Make me feel something when you write. Connect me with the emotions surrounding the character. Don’t be afraid of sentimentality or rage or joy or darkness. Just bleed it out onto the page. Think the characters through and be prepared to live in their skin. They’re your story’s real source of conflict, not the meteor that just fell into Times Square or the coming alien invasion or the Mind-Swapping Ray . Share your feelings, not the ones you copied from last night’s episode of Gray’s Anatomy. Hone your craft, but be an artist.

Bought anything cool on eBay lately? :)

Even now, I have one ear cocked listening for the UPS truck that will bring me my life-sized fan-made Hawkman helmet. Which I promise not to actually wear around the house. Well, maybe once.

What would you like to do in comics that you haven’t yet done?

Within the medium? Dunno. Bad time to ask. I’m so very, very tired.

Within the industry? Find a way to teach.

If you read my blog, then you’ve probably heard me rave on about Joe Hill. My darlings, I only rave because he’s really, really good.

Being really, really good will get you a reputation and public endorsements from others whose “really, really good”ness is already firmly established (I can still see Ellen Datlow in my mind’s eye, calling out a parting shot of “read Joe Hill!” to a crowd of specfic fans at KGB Bar after a reading), but, publishing being what it can be, building a following of readers is a little trickier. Joe’s first collection of short stories, 20th Century Ghosts, was published by a lovely English small press and is now sold out, I believe (though I did manage to nab two copies, and no, you can’t have one). Ergo, too-few people found it, read it, and became rabid fans.

This is about to change. Amen.

In other news, I love these interviews because I get to ask people about all my favorite subjects.

You seem to have a thing for ghosts. Why do ghosts matter?

You’ve probably heard Faulkner’s famous line: “The past isn’t dead. It isn’t even past.” In stories, ghosts are always a case of the past staining the present.

In the book I’ve got coming out, Heart-Shaped Box, the hero is a jaded, burned-out rock star named Judas Coyne, a guy in his fifties who has spent years and years riding the pop culture rollercoaster. Almost as a publicity stunt he winds up buying a ghost from an internet auction site – it comes in the form of a haunted suit, which UPS delivers in a black heart-shaped box. And it isn’t long before Jude begins to find a spectral old man stalking him, the previous owner of the suit, and a very bad kind of spirit. But even before he bought this ghost online, Jude was already a haunted man. He’s haunted by a whole lifetime of questionable choices, by the memory of bandmates dead and gone, a lover he misused, an abusive father he fled as a boy. In the course of Jude’s struggle to deal with this very real, very bad ghost that’s coming after him, Jude also has to deal with all those other personal ghosts. So if I like to write about ghosts, then at least in part it’s because they create the right environment to explore the way a character is shaped by his past.

What is your first memory of writing?

When I was four I wrote my name all over the walls of my parents’ house in Bridgeton, Maine. I tagged everything.

My earliest professional submission was a comic script I sent to Marvel, at the age of twelve. They had a book, The Marvel Try-Out, with a Spider-Man story in it. The story didn’t have an ending and prospective writers were asked to script the last few pages. I spent four days writing my ending to the story. I got back a form rejection, but Jim Shooter, Marvel’s then-editor-in-chief, scribbled a short, unreadable message across the bottom. I kept that rejection in my pocket for weeks, and treated it like holy writ.

After I was all growed-up, a talent scout at Marvel, who had read some of my short stories, asked me if I wanted to write an eleven-page Spidey story, for Spider-Man Unlimited. They took my script, and it was illustrated by the late Seth Fisher, and it turned out pretty well. It was a great experience – like opening a door and stepping into one of my childhood daydreams.

How ’bout reading?

We’re back to comics again. Probably the earliest thing I can remember reading was one of D.C.’s ghost comics about the Phantom Stranger. Although I’m sure I read stuff before then: picture books and so on. I remember reading the Little Big Books, those thick hardcover adaptations of the classics, with all the illustrations inside them. I think I read The Three Musketeers that way. And The Man in the Iron Mask.

My favorite early memory of reading comes from probably when I was about ten or eleven. I was allowed to stay up an extra hour, as long as I was in bed reading. And I discovered I could read a Sherlock Holmes short story in exactly an hour. So I read one a night for a little over two months (it took four nights to read the novels), until I had read them all. I was mad for Arthur Conan Doyle. I had a deerstalker cap I liked to wear around my bedroom.

What does your workspace look like? What do you write on?

I have a little office with a desk and an office chair, and another chair to read in (except I never sit and read in it – that chair is really for the cat) and a couple bookshelves with reference materials on them. When I’m feeling creative and getting some writing done, the place tends to get very disordered and sloppy-looking, piles of manuscript and books everywhere. When I’m stuck, I clean the place up, just to have something to do. If I’ve been stuck for a while, the office gets very tidy and sterile and unlived-in looking. A certain amount of creative clutter is a good thing.

I write on a MacBook Pro most of the time. Except sometimes I get sick of the internet and email and I put the computer away and write on an enormous cast iron IBM Selectra III. I’ve got a whole fleet of Selectras. One of these days I’m going to write an entire novel on one. A typewriter can’t compete with a computer when it comes to revising something, but when you’re working on your crappy first draft, I think you could argue they actually have some advantages over computers. For example, when it isn’t going good, if you’re working on a typewriter you can’t just switch over to your browser and waste a half hour on Friendster. You’re forced to sit there with the empty page, and that’s not necessarily a bad thing.

You seem to like to make lists, what with the LibraryThing thing and the extensive recommendations on your website (which I just killed an hour and a half pouring over — thanks, dude). So here’s one for you.

What, in your opinion, are the top five most important books for aspiring horror/magical realism/dark fantasy writers to read and learn from? I’m talking the stuff that’s really worth studying and picking apart.

You’re right, I do love lists – I’m not sure the listing mentality is such a great thing, but it seems to be my thing. I probably spend too much time advertising my opinions about books and movies and comics and so on.

I could make a list of five favorite stories in the genre of modern fantasy, but I’m not sure that would be the same as books aspiring writers should read and study. I think if you aspire to write in that genre – in any genre - you should relentlessly track down the stuff that most powerfully speaks to you on a personal level. Give yourself permission to let your tastes form organically. Because the books that really set your imagination on fire are the ones you’re likely to learn the most from. Beware of expert opinions, and lists of required reading. I learned a lot from Alan Moore’s Swamp Thing tales, and Jack Finney’s I Love Galesburg in the Springtime, and Kelly Link’s Stranger Things Happen, and John Bellairs’ The House with A Clock in its Walls, and Harry Potter. Those are books that popped my fuses, but only for my own weird particular reasons, which may or may not apply to others.

Bonus round: your top five movies, same terms.

Mm, I have to give the same non-answer to this one I gave to the last. That said, anyone looking for a current double feature could have a hell of a good time with Pan’s Labyrinth followed by Children of Men. One is set in the past, and the other in the future, but both are very much about the politics of the present, and both offer up very rich, very fable-like narratives of wonder and terror.

Jim Rugg made quite the spash on the indy comics scene a few years ago with his collaboration with Brian Maruca, STREET ANGEL. Eager Rugg fans (yes, that would be me) patiently awaiting his next big work will soon have a doozy on their hands: The PLAIN Janes (with Cecil Castellucci), the first release from Minx, Vertigo’s brand new and sure-to-be-awsome young adult line.

You just finished a 150-page young adult graphic novel in record time. How do you feel?

I feel good about it. I always hate my drawing when I’m doing it, but DC just sent me a couple of galleys of the book, and I’m pretty happy with how it turned out.

How long did it take, from start to finish?

About six months.

About a year and a half ago (if memory serves, which it may not), we were chatting or emailing and you mentioned that you were wary of the scope and magnitude of your chosen projects because you didn’t want comics to feel like a job. How do you feel about that now? Do you have any desire to be a full-time comics maker?

I just gave notice at my job. In a couple weeks, I will be making comics full-time. I’m looking forward to it. It’s a big change from my usual routine, but I’m eager to give it a shot. I think there are drawbacks to doing comics full-time or doing them part-time. I forget how to draw very quickly. If I go a couple of days without drawing, it takes time to readjust and get back into it. So drawing full-time offers me a chance to improve my drawing (hopefully).

It will also give me more time to have a life. My wife has been incredibly patient the last few years as I worked 70-80 hours a week. I’ll have time to read books again. So there are trade-offs, like seeking dependable pay checks, but I look forward to the benefits too.

I hear you on the reading tip. I’m looking forward to that myself (note to readers: I also just bid adieu to my day job). What’s in your “to be read” pile?

Right now, I have bookmarks in the following titles:

Cold Black Preach (Robert DeCoy)
Ghetto Sketches (Odie Hawkins)
Blood Meridian (Cormac Mccarthy)
Popeye vol 1
Yes Yes Y’All: An Oral History of Hip-Hop’s First Decade (Ooo! I must pick this up…)
The Machine in Ward Eleven (Charles Willeford)
That Greg Irons book that Fantagraphics put out last year…
I just won some Herbie’s on Ebay (which I’ll probably have to read as soon as they arrive)…

Got any New Year’s resolutions?

Exercise now and then. Make better comics. Stop adopting cats.

Stop adopting cats? Sounds like there’s a story there….

Not really. I had a cat. Then I adopted another one to keep the first one company, and then I ended up with a third one. It was an accident. She wasn’t planned. We rescued it from an abandoned house, and we couldn’t find a shelter that would take her. And over the next few days, we fell in love with her. Now we have 3 cats, and that’s a lot. But they’re all real awesome, so it works out. But I don’t think we can have any more without becoming the crazy cat people whose house is smelly.

Have you ever skateboarded?

Very little, but enough to almost break my hip.

What’s next?

PLAIN Janes! Look for it in May. After that…I don’t know. I’m inking American Virgin from Vertigo. I’ll probably draw another PLAIN Janes book. And Brian Maruca (co-creator of Street Angel) and I have been working on an Afrodisiac series forever, so I’m optimistic that will finally see the light of day.

Ceremonial magician and esoteric badass Lon Milo Duquette is one of the coolest guys I know. A leader in the O.T.O. and an expert on Aleister Crowley (admit it, you went through a phase), Lon has written about a dozen books on magic so far, including the only book on esoteric Qabalah that you will ever understand without hardcore magical training. Lon also wrote the only book on Crowley’s Thoth Tarot that you will ever understand. If you’re interested in learning more about magic, but your only exposure to a Real Magician was a panel with Grant at San Diego or a DVD of that Disinformation guy, Lon just might rock your world.

Lon’s latest book, THE KEY TO SOLOMON’S KEY, takes a peek at Freemasonry and ruffles a few feathers in the process. Secret societies? Sounds like comics…

Your writing style is erudite and delightfully conversational. Have you always been a writer? Or did you pick it up to serve a larger goal of demystifying esoteric information?

No, I haven’t always been a writer. I started out as an invalid infant but that didn’t work out. I thought about being a writer as I was growing up, but because I didn’t have anything to say and there was no such thing as ‘spell check’ I gave that idea up too. In fact, in high school my girlfriend (now my wife of 39 years) had to write most of my English term paper for me.

I didn’t start writing professionally until I turned 40. By then I realized that the rock star/screen idol/gigolo/cowboy/astronaut/President of the United States thing wasn’t going to work out. Also, I woke up one morning and realized that most people that knew more than I about western occultism were dead and that after all these years I might have something to say. Finally, the real thing that drove my decision to become a writer was the availability of ‘spell check.’

Can you talk a bit about your recent forays into Freemasonry?

No. That’s a secret.

Please? C’mon.

Okay. For you.

Even as an invalid infant I’ve been interested in Freemasonry. My father was a Mason and would tease me with all his titles and strange books full of symbols. When I asked him to tell me more he said, “I can’t. It’s a secret.” Dad was a cool guy and I thought if the Masons turn out cool guys like Dad I wanted to be a Mason too. I belonged to DeMolay (the Masonic young men’s concordant organization) but didn’t actually join the Masons until I was 50 years old. By then I’d spent over 25 years studying the hardcore esoteric sciences that beat unnoticed by most Masons at the heart of Craft. I have to say that my occult education has made my involvement in Masonry extremely rewarding.

Is the study of Freemasony an asset to a fledgling occultist’s education? It has always kind of surprised me that there aren’t more ceremonial magicians practicing Masonry, simply because there’s so much magic there and some magical traditions have drawn from it so liberally.

From an educational standpoint the “study” of Freemasonry is a huge asset to a fledgling occultist’s education. But for the new occultist involvement in Freemasonry isn’t necessarily much help at all. One learns most of the juiciest stuff from sources outside the lodge room. Indeed, in most lodges today you’ll be hard pressed to find any of your lodge brothers interested in the esoteric roots of Masonry. Sure, there a research lodges, etc. but they are just exploring material that is open for anyone to study.

That being said, for the seasoned, practicing magician, already well educated in the occult world, involvement in Masonry is mind-blowingly rewarding. The occultist Mason see things most of his lodge Brothers don’t see. The ceremonies and lectures come alive to the occult Mason and the various degrees become truly transformational experiences. Even though I feel that every member is enriched in some way by their involvement in the Craft I truly feel sorry for most of my Brothers. They do all that work and don’t have much of a clue of what it’s all about.

It feels like every time my husband turns on the History Channel, it’s either Peter Weller talking about ancient Rome, or a show on the Templars, or the Masons. Thanks to your archnemesis, Dan Brown, secret societies and conspiracy theories have finally gone mainstream. The general public flocks to the fancy displays at Barnes & Noble, and yet their interest seems to stop there. Your book mentions that today’s Masonic brothers are generally old dudes. Where are all the whippersnappers?

I’m 58 years old and I AM the whippersnapper in my Lodge! Actually, all the Dan Brownish stuff is bringing younger and younger people into the Craft. Membership figures are starting to improve. I believe if Masonry is to survive it will be due largely to the young esoteric Masons.

Your latest book contains some shocking revelations, such as the idea that the Old Testament… shall we say… might not actually be a historical document. Have you personally experienced any backlash?

H appily,
E very Mason offers his
L oving support to any Brother who
P ublishes what they

M ight consider secrets of the Craft.
A nyway, in the book I’ve revealed none of the
S igns
O f recognition
N or would I reveal
S ecrets of Degree work which I’m vowed to keep.

W hen the book came out
A ll my Mason friends of course
N eeded
T o read it.

T o my relief, none
O f them objected to anything, and were very

K ind
I n their comments and review
L etters. Brotherly
L ove, Relief and Truth are the watchword of

M asons
E verywhere!

I come across a lot of people who are drawn to magic, read a ton about it, but don’t practice it. They seem to want to. What advice would you have for someone sincerely interested but not quite able to make the leap?

Seriously (did I say that?) the decision to leap or not to leap is up to each person. If a person just wants to frolic on the outer-court steps of the great temple of magick, who am I to say that’s wrong.

I write the books that I wish had been available to me in the first ten or 15 years of my esoteric studies. (Also I hope they are valuable to more experienced occultists who may need a little reality check.) Hopefully my works shave a few years off the magical learning curve. But even with the learning curve shortened it can’t take the leap for you.

Have you considered writing a biography of Crowley? Or do we have enough good Crowley biographies? I read one that was kind of lame.

No. “Perdurabo” by Yale University’s Dr. Richard Kaczynski is the finest, most thorough Crowley biography ever written.

If you could ask Aleister Crowley one question, what would it be?

Are puns funny across the Abyss?

When stuck in traffic, what’s the best way to make a parking spot appear?

Look in your rear-view mirror.

From The Library is a series of interviews with some of my favorite storytellers. For the latest SCHEHERAZADE update, click here. For NIGHTVISIT, click here.

SCHEHERAZADE returns next week.

Jen Caban, better known as Molly Crabapple, is a burlesque dancer, a talented illustrator of twisted yet whimsical Victoriana (yeah, top that), proprietress of Dr. Sketchy’s Anti Art School, and a total babe. Her first book, Dr. Sketchy’s Official Rainy Day Colouring Book, drops on December 1.

I think I remember reading somewhere (oh wait, it’s on your website) that you learned to draw in a Parisian bookstore. That’s pretty great. Explain.

When I was 17, I graduated high school early and slummed my way across Europe. It was the usual course in poverty, skullduggery, and bathing once a week. I found Shakespeare and Company in Paris. Shakespeare and Co was a gorgeous old English language bookstore staffed with backpackers, who manned the till in exchange for sleeping upstairs.

I was flirting with a rather disreputable older gent (probably an alcoholic), who gave me drawing lessons. Having neither job nor responsibilities, I drew hours every day. My style, detailed as it is, was honed over in Paris.

I’d imagine that, like the rest of us, you have a lot of influences. If you could have dinner with one of them, alive or dead, who would it be and what would you talk about?

Me and Colette would talk about getting pasties to stick.

Got any tattoos?

Not yet.

Name a favorite book (this is From the Library, after all).

Low Life: The Lures and Snares of Old New York. An amazingly detailed history of gambling, prostitution, cops and Tammany Hall, years 1840-1890. For instance, I learned that Boss Tweed was prevented from fleeing to Spain by a Spanish border guard who recognized him from the Thomas Nast cartoons. Hark, illustrators, and learn how to do a likeness!

You pimp yourself very well. Give us your top three self-promotion tips.

1. Don’t be afraid to email your idols. The arts are a bastion of low pay and crushing ego blows, so many of your favorite creators may love to hear from you.

2. Getting into the media isn’t a mystery. It’s a science- and there’s a whole section of Barnes and Noble devoted to it. Grab a frappucino and study those books in PR section.

3. Get a website. The internet is this generation’s Gutenberg. If you’re not online, you don’t exist.

Name a guilty pleasure.

Grabbing some sugar- caffeine-whipped-cream concoction, doing nothing, and reading biographies.