What current projects are you working on?
Counter Terror, various covers, and another book I’m not at liberty to speak about at the moment.
Use one word to describe how you work.
Traditional.
What’s your workspace like?
My studio now is my oldest daughter’s previous bedroom. She’s young so the color scheme is based on Tinker Bell. It’s quite the space.
What do you listen to when you work?
Music, podcasts, and when the stars align just right, blissful, uninterrupted silence.
What’s the best advice you’ve ever received?
Stop caring what other people think.
How do you get into art mode?
Look at my bills.
Is your work paper or digital based?
Paper.
What’s the one thing you wish you could improve about your work?
Speed.
When’s the best time to work?
8:00 PM until 2:00 AM.
Who do you consider to be inspirational creators in your field (classic and modern)?
Todd McFarlane, Art Adams, and Mike Mignola are the trinity. But others like Capullo, Weeks, Lee, Ramos, Campbell, Charest, Moore, McNiven and way too many others to name.
What current projects are you working on?
Editing creator-owned comics published by Image Comics including:
Black Science, by Rick Remender & Matteo Scalera
Deadly Class, by Rick Remender & Wes Craig
Drifter, by Ivan Brandon & Nic Klein
Southern Bastards, by Jason Aaron & Jason Latour
The Goddamned, by Jason Aaron & r.m.Guera
Spread, by Justin Jordan & Kyle Strahm
Tokyo Ghost, by Rick Remender & Sean Murphy
Use one word to describe how you work.
Many-hats-wearing.
What’s your workspace like?
I work from home so it’s fairly basic: desk, computer, laptop, three calendars marked up in many colors, coffee mug, cellphone and one lazy dog napping on the floor.
What do you listen to when you work?
A lot of metal, melodic and doom-y stuff when I’m reading and writing, faster Thrash and Black to power my way through planning schedules and calculating deadlines.
And I always play ZZ Top’s “Just Got Paid” when I’m writing and sending out invoices.
What’s the best advice you’ve ever received?
“Learn to identify the times when you need to throw yourself into oncoming traffic and when to get the hell out of the way.”
Email or Skype?
A lot of both. I prefer email, a paper trail is a good thing. But a proper chat on the phone or Skype usually saves hours.
Organizing projects – on paper, or in the cloud?
On paper. All acts of organizational brilliance begin on a frantically scrawled notepad, usually with doodles of Godzilla shooting lasers at jets in the margins.
What’s the one thing you wish you could improve about your work?
The work I do is pretty solitary most of the time, and while I do love that, a part of me wishes I had more opportunity to work with a colleague or assistant. Someone I could show the ropes in what it is I do, how the business works and how I think our industry could be changed and improved. To have a person I can teach, but also learn from as they take what I have to give and then carve out their own path.
When’s the best time to work?
Early morning for creative work, writing, brainstorming.
Mid-day for calls and pressing work, since you’re in the sweet-spot where people are in the office and you can reach most everyone in most time zones.
Afternoon and evening for solo/wrap-up work, reading, prepping materials, proofing.
Nights for having the best ideas just as you’re trying to fall asleep, so you have to get back up and write them down.
Who do you consider to be inspirational creators in your field (classic and modern)?
Too many to list, but off the top of my head.
Artists I read growing up and that still inspire me: Hal Foster, Bill Watterson, Katsuhiro Otomo, Herge, Goscinny & Uderzo, André Franquin, Akira Toriyama, Ozamu Tezuka, Go Nagai, Yoshihiro Tatsumi, Kazuo Umezu, Steve Ditko, Frank Miller, Alan Moore, Garth Ennis, Alex Toth, Edvin Biuković.
Contemporary creators I’ll drop everything to read: Naoki Urazawa, Hiroaki Samura, Goran Parlov, Asano Inio, Moyoco Anno.
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