1. What initially drew you to comics?
It’s pretty much how I learned to read. I have fond memories of sitting in my grandfather’s lap as he read me things like Jimmy Olsen, Superman and the Legion of Superheroes. After that, it was in my bones, so to speak. Though I expanded my tastes into prose and studied lit in college, I remained a regular comic reader through my thirties.
2. What do you do to refill your creative reserves?
A long time ago I gave myself permission to write whatever came into my head, so I’ve never had writer’s block, per se. For me, as they say, 99% of the writing is rewriting. As far as ideas, they can come from anywhere, conversations, news stories, nightmares, daily moments that can be sublime, garish and/or absurd. You name it. It’s mostly about paying attention.
3. I first became aware of you through the X-Files — any particular title or storyline that was memorable to work on in this shared universe or any other?
There’s a lot of my X-Files run with Charlie Adlard and Miran Kim I remain proud of. Issue #7, Trepanning Opera is probably my favorite. We had to fight to keep the best part, the final page, in which Scully wonders if she actually died in an earlier scene, and was only dreaming she was still alive. The licensor was worried readers would believe she was actually dead. Go figure.
Oddly enough, two of the pages were printed out of order, both originally and in the collected editions, but no one seems to have noticed except me…
4. Please tell us about Squalor and any recent work you’d like to highlight.
Squalor, my breakthrough comic series, will always be dear to me. I was incredibly fortunate to work with the late Tom Sutton on that. I believe he enjoyed it as much as I did.
I was pleased to work with the characters and the concepts again in a four-book YA series, Timetripper for Penguin. While I keep a hand in comics, I’ve since gravitated more toward novels, with things like Ripper, Dead Mann Walking, and licensed books like Deadpool: Paws for Marvel.
I’m currently working on a graphic novel called Serpent’s Vine, with Matt Medney, co-author of the sci-fi saga Beyond Kuiper, and current publisher of Heavy Metal. Vine reimagines the story of Adam and Eve in some surprising ways. It’s coming along very nicely – the art by Renan Shody looks amazing.
I’m also pleased and proud to be consulting with director Ana Joanes on a graphic novel anthology about real/living transgender people illustrated by trans artists. Geared for younger readers, the stories don’t necessarily focus on their gender identity or gender “journey”, but it is the common denominator.
Unfortunately, I have no release date for either project yet.
5. Where can we find more information about your work?
Google my name, put it in Amazon’s search engine – like the truth, it’s out there!