An SPX Chat with French Cartoonist Anais Depommier

by Mike Rhode

Anais Depommier is a young woman illustrator who has just had Sartre, her first graphic novel (really a graphic biography) come out in English from NBM Publsihing. She attended the 2017 Small Press Expo and I got the opportunity to interview her there.

Her NBM biography is charmingly translated rather literally (and a little outdated as you'll see later in the interview): Anaïs Depommier was born in the late 1980s in a small village in the Southeast of France. Growing up a close friend of Mathilde Ramadier, they can't do enough sleepovers from one's house to the other. Inseparable at school, they spend their weekends building huts in the bush, watching the gendarmes go by, playing "Mouse Stampede" on a Macintosh Classic, and reading many comics. When it becomes time to prepare for the entrance exam to art school, they meet later in the evenings at the painter Jean-Michel Pétrissans' workshop in Valence.

Anaïs studied drawing for four years, then co-created the OneShot workshop where regular life drawing classes and other exhibitions are held. She now lives in Paris and works in comics, graphics and animation design. 

For those not familiar with the French philospher Sartre, NBM's blurb for the book reads: For some he was the philosopher of existentialism, for others the constant provocateur, the politically engaged author, the uncertain militant, the repenting bourgeois, the life companion of Simone de Beauvoir… From his first readings in the Luxembourg Garden to his refusal of the Nobel Prize for Literature, Jean-Paul Sartre was all of this at the same time.

Mike Rhode: So SPX is your first American show... is it a little overwhelming?

Anais Depommier: Absolutely.

MR: And Sartre is your first book in English?

AD: Yes, and also my first graphic novel. And also for the writer Mathilde Ramadier, actually. It was our first book.

MR: Did you propose the book together to the publisher?

AD: We've known each other for a long time, so we created the project together and then asked some editors [if they would be interested in it].

MR: Biographical comics are fairy popular in France?

AD: Yes, that is true.

MR: You didn't serialize this in a newspaper first; this is an original graphic novel.

AD: Absolutely, we started everything through a contract with our French editor. Dargaud is our publisher; it's one of the main and oldest ones in France.

MR: Did you have the book already put together, or was it just a proposal when you approached them?

AD: It was just a proposal. Works like this in France are usually [done this way now].

MR: So they gave you an advance?

AD: Absolutely.

MR: Moving on from the business side to the subject, so why did you pick Sartre?

AD: At the beginning, it was the writer's idea. She got her masters degree in philosophy, writing about Sartre, and she's passionate about comics (like I am). She thought it would be a good idea to depict him in comics, so she asked the artist that she knew - me - and I totally agreed with her. We started like this.

MR: Did she give you a script that you then broke down?

AD: Absolutely. In the beginning, she explained to me in conversation what she wanted to say about him, and then she wrote all the script. I made my own layout. She didn't really criticize the scenes - I decided the layout myself.

MR: Right, so she didn't give you thumbnails or sketches?

AD: That's true.

MR: This is a fairly substantial book... how long did it take you?

AD: Oh, a little time. Two and a half years, more or less. 135 drawn pages, and [an appendix] at the end to explain who is who in the book, for 160 pages in total.

MR: Did you have a hard time illustrating any action in a philosopher's life? I saw in the early pages that he was a rough-and-tumble school boy.

AD: Absolutely. It was kind of fun actually to draw that part. [laughs] It was interesting to show this man not just as an intellectual philosopher, a serious guy, because he had a lot of humor. I liked the pages where there was more action, and all his travels, all the trips he made. It was interesting to read the documentation and get the atmosphere.

MR: Did you work from photo references?

AD: A lot. And also from videos. We still have some interview videos of him. He died in 1980. In his last fifteen years, he was not that active outside his house. He was really sick.

MR: Who is the audience for this in France? Is this an all-ages book in France?

AD: Yes, and that's interesting. In festivals, we meet a lot of professors who don't really read comics, but they are curious about it, so that's great for us. Also, the opposite - comics lovers who know Sartre by name but don't know his books and they buy our book because they are curious.

MR: Were you influenced by any of the other biographies that came out? Anne Simon was here last year [at the Alliance Francais] to talk about her books that had been published in English.

AD: Yes, Einstein and Freud... I met her because we have the same French publisher. I think her first book, Freud, was published during the time we were doing the first pages of our book. So she's not really an influence because she has a totally different point of view. I really like her work - it's totally another thing, another approach.

MR: So what's next?

AD: Right now, I'm just starting to work on another story. It's still really, really beginning. It's fiction, and kind of dark.

MR: Your own characters?

AD: Yes. I will work with another writer, an Italian one, and we'll see how it goes.

MR: Is this your first time in America?

AD: Yes it is, and it's really exciting.

MR: Where are you going next?

AD: Before I was in Baltimore at MICA and I met some students, and it was really interesting. Tomorrow I will be at the Brooklyn Book Festival, and then next week I will be in Miami in an art school and then a book store.* The counrty is really different already even between Bethesda and Baltimore so I cannot imagine New York and Miami.


MR: I'm sorry you don't have the time to see Washington while you're here since it was influenced by Paris. Any thoughts about the Small Press Expo? Have you been able to walk around?

AD: Just a little bit this morning, and I will go again now. It seems to have really cool work; so many different comics and illustratioins. It's full of variety and I love it. It's a little underground and I really like that.

SPX floor by Bruce Guthrie

MR: SPX isn't a normal American superhero convention. In France, do you usually attend Angouleme or other festivals?

AD: I've been there twice, but always just to visit. It's a huge festival, and editors send their author with a new book, but Sartre was published in March, and the festival is in January, so it didn't match. Still, it's a crazy festival and a really interesting place to go.

MR: Have you done other French shows then?

AD: Yes, in France - a lot. In Paris, a lot, in Lyon, a lot and so many in little cities.

MR: Do you see a difference about a show in France and one in America?

AD: Here in America everything is bigger. Also the buildings too. It's impressive. I can find the same family atmosphere, a relaxed and fun atmosphere is a common point, for sure.

MR: I should ask you about your background before we end...

AD: What I did before my book? I was in university, in École Émile Cohl, a traditional school with an academic program, and I studied comics and illustration there. After that, I created a studio with friends, and did exhibitions and drawing classes, still in Lyon. Then I went to Paris and I started this book. I've made a lot of little works for newspapers, and been a graphic designer for lawyers,. This book took me so much time. I'm also doing work in Lyon Capitale, a French newspaper that has several pages a month about the history of the city. It's not really serious. There's always a historical background, but the story can be fictional. I'm still working for newspapers as a graphic designer, and I'm starting a new book, but I've also moved to Rome. I don't live in France anymore.

MR: Why Rome?

AD: It's a personal choice, not a business choice. It's a gorgeous city and I really love the Italian south.

The drawing she did in my book

*If you're in Florida tomorrow:
 Anais Depommier Book Signing
Books & Books / September 20 at 8PM
265 Aragon Ave Coral Gables, FL
http://booksandbooks.com/event/anais-depommier/

Comics and Craft Beer: A Chat with Kate Hoke of Heroic Aleworks

by Mike Rhode and Chris Ingram

Heroic Aleworks, a brewery with comic book-themed beers, opened in Woodbridge, VA this past January. We recently met Kate Hoke, co-founder and co-owner of the brewery, and interviewed her on comics, cosplay and beer making.

What type of comic work or cartooning do you do?

I wrote the first issue of our comic, which tells the Solasta origin story, and will be doing the bulk of the writing going forward.  Fortunately, we have professional artists to handle the drawing part!  For each one of the beers my husband, Tim Hoke, and I create all the characters in terms of deciding who’s a bad guy and who’s a good guy, what are their powers, where to they fit in our comic universe, their name, and basically what they look like.  Then I put together a Pinterest board for the artist to give them examples for hairstyles, armor, weapons, poses, backgrounds, etc., that get turned into the final work.  Although we have only one issue right now, each and every one of our beer characters fits into the larger universe we’re creating and will all play some role in the ongoing stories.

I also do all of the graphic design work and web design for Heroic.

How do you do it? Traditional pen and ink, computer or a combination?

Haha.  I pay people!  But the artists we work with use a combination of traditional pen and ink, along with digital rendering.  The artists who created the characters for Sid Fist and Murdock the Merciless (Raymond Francis and Robert Spencer), for example, start with traditional pencil and paper and once the sketch is complete they do a high resolution scan and finish the piece digitally.  Our first comic was done entirely digitally.  My impression, however, is that most of our art is created through a combination of the two.

How did you find your artist's stable? Who are the people in it?

We work with artists literally from all over the world, many of whom I met through artist commission websites.  We also have a few local artists that we met at comic conventions, and I’m hoping that number will increase over time.  Here’s a breakdown of everyone so far, their website or Facebook page, and what characters they’ve done for us:

Ian Richardson (Great Britain)
o   http://pencilsandstrings.deviantart.com/
o   Solasta, Max Nix, Doctor Enigma, Mind Trappe, Death Blossom, the 63 Scottish Fold Oracle, and our logos
 

They Did This! - Illustration and Design (South Africa)
o   Primary artists are Karl Mostert and Andrew Cramer
o   https://www.facebook.com/TheyDidThisStudio/
o   Mistress of War, Master Heist, Oda the Huntress, Krystal Palast, Goldfang (coming soon), Confounded IPA (Moray Rhoda, artist)

Keith Hinman (Michigan)
o   http://kwh-illustration.deviantart.com/
o   The Dark Enemy, Baron von Blackbrane

Raymond Francis (local)
o   https://www.facebook.com/C3Comics/
o   Sid Fist

Robert Spencer (local)
o   https://www.facebook.com/C3Comics/
o   Murdock the Merciless

Zachary Davis Bradley (New Mexico)
o   http://zachdb.deviantart.com/
o   Heroic Aleworks Presents Issue #1 sequential art

Tim Hoke

When (within a decade is fine) and where were you born?

Tim and I were both born in the 1970s.  I was born in Philadelphia and he’s from Southern Illinois.  We met during our first year of law school in Northern Illinois and soon thereafter the army brought us to Virginia.

Why are you in Washington now?  What neighborhood or area do you live in?

I went to law school at William & Mary in Williamsburg, VA, but came up here after graduation because this is where most of the good jobs are.  We currently live in Woodbridge, which is why we opened the brewery in Woodbridge.  But Tim & I still have to commute to our day jobs in Washington, DC at least 3 days a week.

What is your training and/or education in cartooning?

Zero.  I just read a lot.  When I’m reading more, I find that I have better ideas for writing the comics.

Even for the graphic and web design, I’m entirely self-taught.  Mostly a whole lot of online tutorials and YouTube videos.

Who are your influences?

One of my biggest influences is Neil Gaiman.  As we start publishing our books, you’ll see a lot of Gaiman-esque magical realms hidden within our own, but not visible or accessible to most folks.  We will also be having a whole “Old Gods” line of beers, which is obviously a Gaiman influence.  I love the way he tells stories such that the reader shifts seamlessly between fantasy and reality and is left wondering if there’s even a difference.

In terms of comic book authors, Kelly Sue DeConnick has had a huge influence on me due to her masterful handling of strong female characters that retain their humanity and even femininity.  We’ve been quite deliberate about how we conceptualize and portray our female characters, and I aspire to bring some Kelly Sue sensibility to our stories.

If you could, what in your career would you do-over or change?

I often like to believe that I would have preferred to pursue a career in the arts at an early age.  But honestly I can’t say that there’s much I’d actually like to change since that would mean I wouldn’t be here doing this right now.  That said, there are probably a million small things we would have done differently in how we approached opening a brewery!  Lots and lots of lessons learned there!  The good news is that we’ll take all of that knowledge into the next phase when we’re ready to expand.

Kate Hoke at Baltimore Comic Con 2016

What work are you best-known for?

So to spin off in a completely different direction…  I’m probably best known in the local cosplay scene for my Winter Soldier costume.  I was doing it before it became super popular AND when I decided to do a female version of him, I wanted to honor the essence of character and not just slut it up like lots of ladies do with their gender bending cosplays.  I’ve been told that keeping Bucky a total badass is part of what makes it sexy, more so than when people just expose as much skin as possible with their costumes.

What work are you most proud of?

That’s a tough one, so I’ll answer it in a couple of ways.  I’m immensely proud that we actually pulled off the whole brewery in the way that we did.  In particular, I’m proud of the taproom.  I did all the painting, made the restroom doors (the Tardis door and the entrance to the Mines of Moria from Lord of the Rings, a.k.a. the Doors of Durin), did all of the decoupage work for the bar, and did all the decorating.  I even made one of the pieces of art that hangs on the wall!  Suffice it to say it was a very busy December last year!  The taproom décor sets the tone and makes our place unique among craft breweries, so it’s been a very significant accomplishment for me.

On a solely personal level, I’m quite proud of the leatherwork I did for my latest cosplay.  I’m completely self-taught and I recently created a Viking warrior version of the traditional Slave Leia costume that required intricate weaving and carving like I’ve never done before.  And not only does it look amazing, but it’s actually comfortable to wear, which definitely isn’t always the case with cosplay!  This one laid the foundation for some crazy stuff I have planned for next year for Tim & me.  Next level stuff, for sure.

What would you like to do or work on in the future?

First and foremost I’d like the brewery to be successful enough that Tim & I can quit our day jobs and run the brewery full time.  In my case, that would mean a lot more comic writing, more time for planning and promoting events, and a whole lot more time for making costumes.  

What do you do when you're in a rut or have writer's block?

Have another glass of wine!  Just kidding.  Sort of.  More helpful, though, is switching back and forth between my various creative endeavors.  If I get stuck for words, I’ll turn to doing something visual and vice versa.  Beyond that, if I get in a slump doing graphic art on the computer, I find that making physical art, such as my leatherwork, can give me the space to recharge my brain.  Sometimes I simply talk it out with my husband and he’ll see an angle I hadn’t previously considered that gets me back on track.

What do you think will be the future of your field?

Geek culture is certainly experiencing a golden age right now with the proliferation of comic-based movies and television shows and surging popularity of comic/pop culture conventions.  Even if this moment passes, I believe good storytelling will always find an audience.  Creating a narrative and having a story behind each of our beers gives our customers a little something extra to relate to and I think that will hold true even if comics fall out of mainstream culture.

And even if the growth of craft beer levels off, the market for great beers and solid brands isn’t going anywhere.

The fact that Heroic is an intersection of the two gives us some very unique opportunities so I think we have a lot of exciting things ahead of us.

What local cons do you attend? The Small Press Expo, Intervention, or others? Any comments about attending them?

We have traditionally attended Awesome Con and Baltimore Comic Con, both of which are great for cosplay and for networking, but less so for actually collecting comics these days.  We’ve noticed prices going up significantly, with vendors asking way more for books at the show than they sell for on eBay.  For serious comic collecting, I tend to prefer smaller affairs where there’s more opportunity to browse and have conversations with the vendors.  This year will be special because it’s the first time Heroic will have booths at both Awesome Con and the new NOVA CON.  We’ll still be attending Baltimore, but as civilians.  I’ve promised Tim that we’ll have at least half a day at each where I’m not in costume so we can enjoy our time together instead of getting continuously interrupted for photos.


How do I get the first issue of Heroic Aleworks Presents: Solasta? I can't see any way to buy it on your website.

We'll have them for sale at Awesome Con

What's your favorite thing about DC?

With the Kennedy Center and so many other theaters around, there’s never a lack of live entertainment options.

Least favorite?

It’s a close tie between the traffic and how politics seeps its way into everything.

What monument or museum do you like to take visitors to?

Who has time for that sort of thing?  We used to enjoy the National Zoo a lot and wish we could get there more.  I’ve also always wanted to do a tour of the Masonic Temple in Alexandria.

How about a favorite local restaurant?

Cock and Bowl in Occoquan has been a go-to of ours for a long time.  Their croque monsieur is amazing and they an extensive and interesting beer selection.  The brunch at FireFlies in Del Ray is also at the top of the list.

Do you have a website or blog?

The brewery’s website is www.heroicaleworks.com.  We’re also on Facebook (@HeroicAle) and Instagram (@HeroicAleworks).  I also have a separate Instagram page for my cosplay work @kateskostumes, which I have been shamefully neglecting as of late.

You currently have 9 or so beers on tap - which are your flagship brews and which are your seasonal brews?

Our flagship brews are the 5 we started with, the Doctor Enigma IPA, the Max Nix English Porter, the Solasta Kolsch, the Death Blossom Red Rye Ale, and the Mind Trappe Belgian Dubbel.  Together these 5 characters form our core team of heroes named “The Superhuman Syndicate.”  The rest of our beers are seasonals or special releases.

Is there any particular style of beer that you would consider to be your most outstanding?

Our Max Nix just took a gold medal at the Virginia Craft Brewer’s Guild Beer Cup, so we’re feeling kind of partial to that one right now!  But the award bears out the feedback we’ve received, not only from our customers but also from other professional brewers, regarding the quality of this beer. 

Brewmaster Leon Harris

Which of your beers are you proudest of (whether in terms of challenge to brew, originality, or some other criteria)?

Our Head Brewer, Leon Harris, is most proud of his Maibock.  This recipe was the first one of his beers to get produced commercially.  Back when he originated the recipe at Capitol City Brewing Company, the beer was named “Murdock’s Maibock.”  Murdock is Leon’s son.  So when we did the recipe at our place, we wanted to keep “Murdock,” but to put the Heroic spin on it, Leon and I worked together to create the “Murdock the Merciless” character.

Which beer is your most popular (or top seller, if that's the correct way to think of it)?

We’ve been tracking this pretty closely and all of our flagship beers sell pretty evenly across the board.  Murdock has been one of our top selling seasonal beers so far.  But nothing has rivaled the popularity of our 63 Scottish Fold Oracle Scottish Wee Heavy (a.k.a. the cat beer), which we did as a limited release beer back in March.  It’s cats in tin foil hats!  Plus it’s pretty high alcohol, which could explain some of the enthusiasm!

You have a broad range of styles that you have brewed so far, is there a style that you have not tried brewing that you would like to take on?

Leon is anxious to get into some sour beers, but also extremely nervous because there’s just so much that can go wrong – like contaminating the entire brewery with the lactobacillus bacteria!  From what I understand, there are some pretty specific procedures to follow to prevent infections, and it’s helpful to work with a fellow brewer who has a few sours under his belt to get the technique down.  Which leads into the next question…

One of the beers we tried at your DC Conspiracy event was a collaboration with Lost Rhino (Nova Confounded) - do you have plans for more collaboration brews?

We’ve been discussing a sour collaboration but haven’t been able to coordinate brew schedules yet.  I’m hesitant to go into much detail before any plans are finalized, but we’re having conversations with a few different breweries both up here in the DC region and also down in Richmond about collaborations.  Although it’s not a collaboration with another brewery, we are in the planning stages of partnering with the Museum of Science Fiction to create an exclusive beer for them like we did with Nova Con.  We’ll be doing a release party and sci fi celebration party here in August, and hope to be part of their convention, Escape Velocity, in 2018.

Any plans for future expansion of the brewery or taproom?

That’s certainly the goal!!  In the near term, we have enough space to significantly expand our brewing capacity at this location by adding equipment and staff.  It’s still a little too soon to figure out what the next move will be, but the plan is to become a regional distribution brewery. 

Do you have plans to package in cans or bottles?

We hope to start canning by the end of the summer.

Do you find that the folks who visit your brewery & taproom are mostly local (ie Woodbridge and surrounding areas) or from farther afield?

Right now we have a lot of regulars that are local, but we get a good mix of people from all over the metro DC area.

What are your most popular recurring events?

Karaoke has been extremely popular.  So much so that we’re starting to do it twice a month. And we generally fill the house every Wednesday for trivia night.  And although I they aren’t regular events in the same way as karaoke and trivia, people have responded really favorably to cosplay events.  So we try to put something on the schedule every month or so where we invite people to dress up and offer drink specials for folks in costume.  Lastly, people love steal the pint nights!  I’m working on a new design for some Game of Thrones themed glasses for a July event, and then we really, really want to do an Oktoberfest ‘Steal the Boot’ night – like with those silly boot-shaped mugs!

Finally, a more open-ended question about your origin story: how did you decide on the comic / superhero theme for your brewery and beers? 
 
We really just wanted to do something new.  We’ve seen some breweries do one-off comic book character beers, but never anything quite to the scale we’re doing it.  And given the growing competition in the craft beer scene, we wanted our brand to be something that stands out from the crowd.  Tim came up with the concept originally and, given our long-time passion for comics and sci-fi, it just seemed a natural fit.  Honestly, I think in the beginning the idea was more specifically “superhero,” but it’s evolved a lot since then.  Now I’m not super crazy about when people describe us as a “superhero” themed brewery because the comic universe we’re creating is so much broader than that.  For example, like I mentioned above, we have a lot of fantasy-based characters that would fall outside the scope of the traditional superhero sub-genre of comics.  In addition, we’re heavily influenced by, and do a lot event planning around, more general pop-culture stuff like Game of Thrones, Doctor Who, etc., which don’t involve “superheroes” at all. 

Which comes first, the beer or the name/superhero? Do you try to match the hero's characteristics to the beer?

We generally plan the brew schedule months in advance to allow time for character creation and art development.  Once we know what beers we’ll be releasing, we try to find some way to reflect the spirit of that beer in the character.  For example, the Kolsh is a very light style of beer that makes you think of summer and hot sunny days.  So for Solasta we had her powers come from a freak encounter with a solar flare, but also made her personality very “sunny” and cheerful.  One that’s less obvious, but kind of a cool connection, is our Baron von Blackbrane Schwarzbier.  Because “schwarz” is German for “black” we wanted to incorporate the idea of black some way.  A black brane is actually a series of equations that describes black holes, so Blackbrane is the character’s name and he’s a mad scientist type who uses black hole technology to build weapons.  Max Nix is similar – it’s a dark beer and Max Nix was transformed during an accident in his laboratory while studying dark matter.  His personality is also dark and brooding.  So stuff like that.  Or we use Scottish Fold cats for a Scottish Wee Heavy.  So sometimes it’s serious and science-y and sometimes it’s a bit silly.
 
But we try to avoid being too literal about it.  Like we would never name an IPA “Captain Hops” or something like that.  We also avoid using beer puns in any of the names because our goal is to make these legitimate comic book characters and not just gimmicks.

Now that our comic universe is getting more established, though, we have characters that are looking for beers.  Like we have an evil organization called the Pentaverate, but only 2 Pentaverate members so far (the Baron and Murdock).  We know who the other members are generally, so it’s about pairing them with the right beer at the right time.

Meet a Richmond Comics Writer - A Chat with Gary Cohn

Mark Lindblom (l) and Gary Cohn

by Mike Rhode

Gary Cohn co-wrote two of my favorite 1980s DC Comics, Blue Devil and Amethyst, Princess of Gemworld. I recently got to meet him at Heroic Aleworks Brewery's minicon, and he answered my usual questions.

What type of comic work or cartooning do you do?

A: I’m a writer. I work with artists.

How do you do it? Thumbnails? Traditional pen and ink, computer or a combination?

A: I work in either of the standard comics writing styles. I can write full scripts when I don’t know or don’t trust the artist; I write plot/dialogue when I trust the artist and when we’re full collaborators. I’m happiest when I can give an artist an outline, and then the artist throws me some visual surprises that I need to integrate into my original conception of the story. In the early part of my career when I was writing stories and often didn’t know who would draw them, I did thumbnail sketches of pages to accompany my scripts. They were the crudest of cartooning, and I was disappointed when some artists chose to follow my thumbnail layouts completely instead of taking them for the suggestions they were meant to be. I assumed that an artist would have a better visual imagination than I have, and would be able to take my suggestions and run with them, not just follow them slavishly.

When (within a decade is fine) and where were you born?

A: I was born in NYC in 1952—I’m a child of the 50s and 60s, and all the pop culture of that era.

Why are you in Richmond now?  What neighborhood or area do you live in?

A: It took me twenty years to realize that I wasn’t going to make a living writing. So I became a NYC high school English/social studies teacher and did that for 14 years. When I retired I realized that a “short” pension was not going to keep me going in NYC, and after 30 years there I wanted a change of venue. I had an artist friend living in RVA (ie Richmond, VA), I’d visited her a number of times over the years, and when I was considering new places I narrowed it down to RVA and St. Petersburg, FL. I wanted someplace a lot cheaper than NYC, warmer, with some history and culture and a creative community. Since my 90-year-old mom still lives in NY, I decided on the place where I could get to NY more quickly and easily. Roads not taken… I still wonder about St. Pete. I live in the oldest neighborhood in RVA, Church Hill. It’s been a very good move.

What is your training and/or education in cartooning?

A: Choose-your-own-major BA degree from Michigan State (defunct residential Justin Morrill College allowed us to design our own major: mine was creative writing/science fiction and fantasy lit); MA from the Department of Popular Culture at Bowling Green State in Ohio; course work completed towards a doctorate in US History (US naval history, esp 1880-1900). Basic teaching certification courses from NYS.

Who are your influences?

courtesy of the Grand Comics Database

A: Nothing. Everything I come up with is sui generis and without compare. Joking, of course. My influences are six decades of reading, watching, consuming American popular culture, “serious” literature, academic history and the range of liberal arts subjects. I was a guy who thought he disliked school… so of course I’ve spent my entire life as a student and a teacher.

If you could, what in your career would you do-over or change? 

A: Amethyst would have been developed as a toy line by Kenner when they were planning to do it, BEFORE She-Ra came out, and I’d have made a fuck-ton (that’s a technical term) of money; and spent most of it on motorcycles, adventuring, and wild women. There’s been a fair amount of all three in my life, but I’ve never really been able to afford to fully indulge myself.

What work are you best-known for?

A: Amethyst and Blue Devil from DC in the early ‘80s. My standard line is that for a short while I was a little bit famous and successful in a relatively obscure pop sub-culture.

What work are you most proud of?

A: Demon Gun, published by Crusade about 20 years ago, which is the only piece of my published work that I actually own--well, co-own with artist Barry Orkin. I understand that there are comics writers who claim sole ownership over properties. I’ve always believed that anything I create in comics is co-created by the artist, because I can’t make comics without one. If I wanted sole ownership, I’d write prose exclusively.

What would you like to do or work on in the future?

courtesy of the Grand Comics Database

A: Blue Devil artist Paris Cullins and I have been slowly developing our own property, New Devil. It’s unrelated to DC’s BD, except that it’s a “devil,” but it has that spirit and bounce. With NY artist Ray Felix I’m getting ready to self-publish the first issue of “NYX, Daughter of Night.” I’ve got a zillion ideas, as always, and I hope to be able to get some of them out there before…well, you know.

What do you do when you're in a rut or have writer's block?

A: I’ll tell you when I’ve solved that problem. While I was a teacher I wrote very little. Since I’ve been on my own I’ve been struggling to find the old mojo. A deadline and a paycheck were always good incentive. Right now I have neither from writing.

What do you think will be the future of your field?

A: No idea.

What local cons do you attend? The Small Press Expo, Intervention, or others? Any comments about attending them?

A: Until I have something to peddle, some new wares to spread out on a table, I’m staying close to home. Any Con in Richmond that will let me in for free, I’m there. Beyond that, I went to the Baltimore Con last fall and liked it, I stopped in at Tidewater this year to see Paris and a few other folks and because it made a nice motorcycle run, I’ll probably head down to some other Cons in VA and NC in the next year, and if one of Mike Carbonaro’s NYC cons is going on when I’m visiting, or Eternal Con on Long Island, I try to stop in to schmooze with old industry buddies.

What's your favorite thing about Richmond?

A: Hard to say. It’s a very nice small city. I’ve met a lot of great people, I’ve connected with the thriving comics community here, found the perfect motorcycle shop and car repair place, discovered terrific restaurants… I’m thinking the answer is, my apartment and neighborhood. It’s a great space in a great location.

Least favorite?

A: The wannabe Confederates. I’m a carpetbagger Yankee.

What monument or museum do you like to take visitors to?

A: The VMFA (Virginia Museum of Fine Arts) is a very good small-city art museum; then there’s Monument Ave (or as we carpetbaggers like to call it, “Losers’ Lane”) with all the ridiculous Confederate statues and one very badly designed but well-intentioned Arthur Ashe statue.

How about a favorite local restaurant?

A: This town is full of very good restaurants; but Lemaire in the Jefferson Hotel is an amazing experience and a world-class dinner. I let a visiting stockbroker friend pay for it.

Do you have a website or blog?

A: Nope.