To kick off the restart of the hallowed Comixpedia Community Interview series we've invited Shaenon K. Garrity to "sit" for your questions. The rules are simple: Submit a question in a comment to this post before midnight October 13th and we'll send the best ten questions to be answered. When we receive Shaenon's answers we'll post the whole thing for you right here.
Shaenon K. Garrity is the hyper-prolific creator, writer and/or artist of Narbonic, Lil Mel, Smithson and Trunktown. She also, most recently, took on the reins of editorship at Modern Tales. Shaenon also edits manga for Viz Media and volunteers at the Cartoon Art Museum.
Shaenon, you edited Modern Tales Longplay, now you edit all of Modern Tales and manga for Viz. That much sucess can not be coincidence, so what advice would you give to a neophyte, or hopeful, comics editor?
Tim Demeter
does a buch of neato stuff.
GraphicSmash
Clickwheel
Reckless Life
In your strip Narbonic, there is an episode where Helen is progressively transformed into Dave, her henchman, soon-to-be lover, and soon-to-be mortal enemy. When Helen is about half-turned into Dave, you drew her very much as you drew yourself in a Sunday strip shortly thereafter. Was this deliberate? Whether or not it was deliberate, is it significant, and if so, what do you think it signifies?
I see no one has yet trotted out the hoary old Desert Island-type questions yet, so let me be the first:
If you had to pick five individual issues (or some reasonable equivalent for cartoons not following said format) of any comic from any time or genre, worldwide, to intellectually sustain you on a desert island for an extended period of time, which issues would those be?
You're reportedly doing another Marvel Christmas Special this year about AIM, which leads me to wonder: When will you be pitching for a Wolverine comic?
Cuz this is the best design for the character I've seen in years.
While Smithson and Narbonic are both tightly-paced, colorful, and entertaining, they contrast sharply in tone and characterization. What's the biggest difference, if any, in your approach to writing the two comics? Is there something that you want to do with Smithson that you aren't aiming for with Narbonic, or vice-versa?