The Knave Reviews X-Men: Messiah CompleX!

With guest artist Neil Dutton, the Knave brings you his take on X-Men: Messiah CompleX. What a surprise... he loved it.

The Professor of Kandor Interviews Illinest!

Fear not, Zuda-Heads, we may be finished with our interview with the competitors for the January competition, but as a parting Zuda shot, our own astute Professor of Kandor has conducted an interview with a staple of the Zuda Message Boards, Illinest.



(click for full size, "Illinest" avatar created by Lina Chen)

The Knave Interviews SuperTron's Sheldon Vella!

And in our final interview of the January Competition, The Knave has a chat with Sheldon Vella, creator of Supertron.



Knave of Krypton: Could you explain the history of SuperTron? I've heard that this series was actually published, in Image Popgun? Is this a story you've wanted to tell for a long time?

Sheldon Vella: Haha, to tell the honest-to-god truth, there's puddles in the street deeper than the history of SuperTron. I was working construction and got sent to a new site on "SuperTron Avenue". Being totally bored with my job, but completely inspired by the street name, I spent all day planning out the SuperTron script in my head, while jackhammering away in 35 degree (Celsius) heat.

More often than not, most of my story idea's come from cool words I'll see out and about, or a line out of a song i like. Idea's come to me easier when I'm not trying to think of them.

And as for the Popgun Anthology, my name was passed on by my good mate Elio ( www.eliohouse.com), and I got invited to contribute an entry. Being my first ever published work, SuperTron seemed like a fairly "all-rounder" story to intro myself into the industry.

KofK: You're utilizing a pretty non-conventional, almost radioactive color palette. Is this something that you chose for the web or do you think this would also work in print?

SV: Even before Popgun, SuperTron was intended for print. But, this being my first published piece, my experience with printing colours was ZERO. If this were a perfect world, everything on screen would look like it does on paper.

That said, my reason for the colour selection was simply a question of mood. SuperTron being a "fun/frenzy" themed comic, one would assume the colour scheme should reflect and support said theme. After some colouring tips (thanks charmaine! xoxo) I went with the acidic/toxic greens and yellows pushing out the baby-ish pinks of the robots.

KofK: What was it about the Zuda model that was appealing to you and caused you to submit this series?

SV: The money.

KofK: Honest answer...

SV: Haha, well that AND the fact that I saw so many hardcore critics on there slaying and praising the other entries, I just couldn't wait to get my share of those sweet sweet comments. I'm a total whore for attention.

KofK: Okay. So who are some of your artistic influences?

SV: Like I mentioned before, I get alot of my drive from things outside the comic industry like graff/urban culture, tattoo art, heavy metal music, porno e.t.c. But as far as PICTURE artists go i'm a big fan of Geoff Darrow, Katsuhiro Otomo, Frank Frazetta, Simon Bisley...blah blah blah. Name dropping influences is boring.

KofK: Sorry I asked! I particularly enjoyed the diagram cut-away on page six. It really adds to the industrial/technological feel of the series. Are there any bigger ideas you'd like to make with SuperTron or is it mainly for entertainment?

SV: Haha that panel was a total fluke, but I'm glad you liked it. I needed something to make Spinbot's little "talking-to-himself" moment a little more exciting. And i think because i made the design of the characters fairly simplistic, i wanted to show that they still had all those awesome moving parts underneath their shells. And i pretty much just referenced car parts for Spinbot's insides, it was a lot of fun to draw.

So i guess the next time the comic starts to "slow down", I'll come up with something to make it entertaining.

KofK: Do you think it's a challenge to make dynamic characters out of robots? Do you look for ways to humanize them?

SV: "Challenging", not really. "Fun", oh fugging definitely. You could be drawing any kind of "mechanical/inorganic" object, so long as you give it the flair and the fire, it'll jump right off the page. And given the assumption that their faces are made of metal, giving the mouth that slight bend or twitch to an eye-brow expresses that tiny little hint of emotion and, I think, gives them all the humanity they need.

KofK: Anything else you'd like to add?

SV: Just my love and appreciation to my entervoid.com crew, and all my other freinds old and new, home and abroad who have supported me this far (not just in Zuda either) and have brought me to where I am today.

The Knave Interviews Pieces of Eden's Seth Sherwood and Diego Tripodi!

Next, an interview with the creative team behind Pieces of Eden.



Knave of Krypton: Your series is one of many Zuda competitors this month that are less traditionally narrative. Why are you presenting your story in this way?

Seth Sherwood: As soon as Zuda released their format guide I was exited by the possibilities. It looked like a Sunday comic strip, and yet I couldn’t shake the notion that this was DC, and that they might be wanting what boiled down to an online comic book. If these panels were going to be one-a-day though, I’d hate to break up the narrative. To me, each panel would have to stand on its own in some way. The traditional word bubbles and runs of dialog wouldn’t work. Of course, since I initially thought that, a ton of Zuda strips have done it just fine. What I did though, was to come up with a few different formats and styles that would work one-a-day. My favorite was a stream of consciousness confessional of sorts. That struck me as perfect—so the form came first. From there I came up with a character who might think like that—and the broken Eden just came to life from there.

Diego Tripodi: Once we decided where we wanted to go with Eden's story, our working process for this comic went something like this: Seth would send me the text of what Eden is thinking about. Based on that, I would draw what I thought was fitting to Eden's words. Being a character whose point of view and reality are broken, it just seemed fitting to be as fragmented as possible. The cue to all of this is on page 3, where we see Eden in a fractured mirror.

KofK: Your artwork is very engaging. Care to tell us about the process at all?

DT: I usually start by drawing very rough layouts of what I have in mind for each page. Once I arrange the panels in a way that I thought would tell Eden's story while also allowing me to doing cool graphic stuff, I started penciling. Due to the tone of the story, I wanted the inking to be grittiest thing I had ever done in terms of texture. Once I was finished with the first round of pages, I sent them to Seth, who tried a color approach that was different to things we had tried on projects in the past. Early on he came up with the color style that the pages now have. It was a collaborative process.

SS: VERY collaborative! When Diego sent me the inked panels I had been planning to do low key, matte colors. The inking though… it was SO moody and had his controlled chaos to it that coloring it traditionally, even in muted colors, killed it. It took a bit of experimentation, but eventually I settled on this red palette, with the occasional spot colors that really looked cool. When I made it all noisy though, that’s when it seemed to really match the art. It’s funny, Diego’s art made me color as grainy as I could—and yet when I sent them back to him, he responded by making his inks even noisier. We were trying to out grit each other I think. I also felt like this time out our roles intermingled. Diego certainly directed the story by working based on Eden’s words alone and not a script, and I had some influence on the art with the color. It’s like we handed it back and forth until it came out nicely sculpted.

KofK: How did you guys meet up and decide to collaborate on this series?

DT: I first contacted Seth in mid/late 2006. He had placed an ad on Digital Webbing and was looking for an artist interested in working on a "Jack Kirby meets Ed Wood" type of project. I thought that sounded interesting, so I emailed him with a link to some comic pages that I had recently finished working.
(http://diegotripodi.deviantart.com/art/SMA-Chapter-I-Page-1-of-6-37482730),
The pages starred a Mexican luchador called Diávolo. Later that same day, Seth e-mailed me back telling me about the project he had in mind. It turned out his story shared some of the elements that I had drawn in my pages (a wrestler, a car, the desert, etc.). So we took it from there, pretty much mixing what we had done on our own and added new stuff. Looking back, it could be seen more like an experiment than anything else, really, but it was a good learning experience. After that, we worked on some other comic projects, and we've tried different approaches every time, doing what we thought was the best for each of the stories we were creating. When we learned about Zuda, we already knew that we worked well together so we started talking about creating a new series for the format.

SS: I used to really abuse Digital Webbing’s classifieds. Sometimes I get an idea, and throw an ad up before I really know what I am doing. Diego responded to more than one of them. Not because he was just he was one of those people who respond to any ad—but because we have the same taste. Midgets, luchadores, zombies, dirty clowns, Ed Wood, demons, one-armed hookers… really the weirdest stuff I can come up with Diego has already doodled. That first project which he mentioned—I was so excited. He was literally drawing stuff I thought I just made up. From there, we had an open dialog.

KofK: Why did you choose to submit to Zuda?

SS: It’s run by DC. There’s an open submissions policy. They pay. It’s really the best of multiple worlds. I was excited for it from the first press release. I know Zuda has some serious detractors, who tell me I could put a webcomic up on my own site, and maintain the IP rights. That may be true, but we’re newcomers here—and it’s not that easy to get people to know my website even exists. Even if we lose, it’s great exposure considering that the top 3 slots in both competitions thus far have tens of thousands of views.

KofK: Is this series something you developed for Zuda or something that you'd already been working on?

DT: We started developing this series right after we learned about Zuda, purely to submit it to them.

KofK: Who are some of the influences you're looking to as you develop this series?

DT: That's hard to say. Our working method usually begins by building up a story by talking about the things we'd like to do, and discussing why they would or would not work. I guess the readers are probably more able than ourselves to detect influences. I think anything-- comics, movies, music, books, etc., can become an influence and show up in our work even if we don't realize it. That said, some of the things Seth and I talked about while working on Pieces of Eden included Jack the Ripper and David Lynch's movie Blue Velvet. I remember having mentioned to Seth a video by Guns N' Roses for "The Garden", which I thought that, visually, was something that could be part of Eden's world.

SS: Visually I took a step back on this one. In the past I have ideas of how things should look, but this time I let Diego do it all. I wanted to just write her thoughts, and let him imagine the world. Tonally, we talked about things like Lynch films, noir classics and a lot of trashy 70s and 80s heavy metal, Hollywood hooker stuff. I suppose you also can’t really do anything about serial killers without invoking Seven in some way… no mater how hard you try not to. Narratively, I looked to some of my favorite books from the fragmented, stream of consciousness field. Kathy Acker in particular. Then I filtered that through the lens of the horror genre.

KofK: Thanks for the interview, guys, anything else you'd like to say?

DT: We really enjoy reading the comments that people leave. We appreciate that somebody would take the time to write about what they like and don't like about Pieces of Eden. We have many ideas about where Eden's story is heading to, and are looking forward to developing this project. Last, but not least, a BIG thank you to all the people that voted for us!

SS: Definitely a big thanks to everyone who voted for us. I know that it isn’t everyone’s cup of tea, but we really hope we get to continue developing the tale. It’s been a fun experiment for us.

The Knave Interviews Demons in the Closet's John Zakour and Amy Watson!

Behold an in-depth interview about Zuda, working on spec and Demons in the Closet with:









Knave of Krypton: Tell us a little about how you guys found one another and collaborated?

John Zakour: I heard about Zuda and knew I wanted to enter Demons in it . I work with a number of different artists but none of them were right for Demons. So I posted a couple of "help wanted" ads on sites artist types hang out at. I offered money in advance , a lot of people applied. I thought Amy's style worked the best.

Amy Watson: John put up an ad on OnlineComics.net. I answered it since he actually offered payment, and most would be writers who advertise on forums don't... Most (usually very amateur writers) expect artists to see how "fantabulous" their mediocre work is and offer to work like dogs for nothing. Anyway, as it turned out, John is a published author with a number of books, scripts, comics, etc. at companies with recognizable names, and he's over 13, so that made him a diamond in the rough on the internet. Although, I think that particular ad was for someone to do a graphic novel version of one of his sci-fi stories. He suggested I illustrate Demons in the Closet later after seeing my comic work, unless I'm mixing them up. He's sent me scripts and story concepts for a lot of different projects. He's not a one-hit-wonder, for sure. He might be better at pitching than writing though; he's so prolific on ideas.

JZ: Could this perhaps read: EVEN better at pitching...

AW: I suppose it could be changed to that. :P

KofK: Wow, so John, you believed in your project enough that you were willing to pay to get it made?

JZ: Short answer: Yes. Longer Answer: Oh yeah.

AW: John's a professional writer. If he didn't believe he would get paid by Zuda, he would not have paid me. Furthermore, why bother submitting at all if you don't think you have a good chance of success? If we were just doing this for fun, we could have made a goofy webcomic and posted it on a webcomic community site or a personal site and avoided a lot of stress.

KofK: Why do you think it takes that to get an artist you're comfortable working with? I know a lot of people who cannot find artists to collaborate with them, who'll go into as a joint venture, and I know a lot of artists who flat our refuse to work on spec. Why do you think the writers have to shoulder the financial burden?

JZ: I think it's just a question of time and demand. It takes more time to draw than to actually write (though writers spend a lot of time developing ideas and stuff) and there aren't that many talented artists out there.

AW: Frankly, I don't need a writer. I can write and draw, which makes me a one man (woman) show.

JZ: Frankly, I don't need an artist either, I just would have had to do Demons in stick figures (ala Avast Ye) and while that worked for Avast it wouldn't have worked for Demons.

AW: Hey, Avast Ye did much better than I thought it would. Don't knock stick people too much.

In fact, if I didn't write my own stories, I wouldn't have gotten into comics at all. I would work as an architectural draftsman and draw ponies as a hobby (or gotten more deeply into civil engineering or architecture). However, though I don't really need a writer, I do need money. I have a work at home job so that I have the time I need to work on my comics, but it doesn't pay well at all. If someone wants to pay me a decent amount to do a task that I do everyday anyway, I'm likely to take them up on their offer. So, if John had just said, "Here's my story, will you draw it?" I would have said no. Even if he'd said, "Here's my story; if you draw it and we win then you can have half the money," I would have said no, because I 've been burned on that kind of thing before. A certain person told me he had an inside track with an editor at a certain company that printed graphic novels, and he asked me to do character designs for his story submission, which was sure to be printed since he'd been published there before. This person didn't pay me and ended up going with another artist, so I got nothing for my time and effort and can't even do anything with the art because the characters aren't mine.

AW (cont'd): A writer who is not also artistically (visual arts) talented has quite a problem on his hands if he wants to make comics, which are a visual medium. He must find someone who can not only draw well, but who can lay out pages and panels in a logical, appealing manner. Drawing pages takes a great deal of time, not to mention all the equipment and software involved, which can be expensive. A comic artist is like a draftsman. If someone is going to ask him or her to do spec work, I think it only fair to compensate for the skilled labor involved. Comics probably take more work than any other form of commercial art, yet pay the least (for the time invested). The writer is the one who is most attached to a story. It is his creation, his baby, and usually, his copyright. Therefore it is on his head to do what is required to get the story published, which includes hiring and paying an artist.

JZ: That's why writers whine so much.

AW: If the writer happens to know an artist personally, and the artist likes his work, then the artist may work for free, especially if the artist contributes significantly to the plot. This happens, but it's pro bono, and not something a writer should expect. The artist may bail on the project whenever he gets bored, since the project is effectively just a hobby. He's not under any contract, nor does he have any professional responsibility to the writer. It's a big deal to ask someone to illustrate a full length series. It's also very difficult for the artist, since he doesn't know what the writer is thinking, and scripts are often either not descriptive enough, or too insanely micromanagingly descriptive, or try to cram too much into too little space, or something. I've worked on scripts for a handful of writers, and it's always been a headache to convert the text into pencils, if only due to the fact that I wasn't the one that originally imagined the scene. This is one of the reasons many artists refuse to do work for hire.

KofK: Back to Demons itself: where did the idea for this series come from?

JZ: The series actually started a couple of years ago when a company that no longer exists asked me to produce "some sort of magna" for them. The only specifications they gave me is, "it has to be like Death Note and Bleach but different and fun and happier." The concept I came up with was Demons. The company never got to see it because they decided they wanted to get out of comics.

KofK: What are some of the ideas you had that didn't make it?

JZ: Well first I had one about a kid coming from a planet with a red sun, then one about a kid who watches his parents get murdered and become a vigilante, then I had an idea about a kid who gets bitten by a radioactive spider. But then I found out all those were already taken, I was pretty bummed. Then I came up with this concept.

For a while it was called Demons in the Workforce and was all going to place in the DMV, but then I figured, "nah, too realistic." I also toyed with the idea of "Demons coming out of the Closet" about a bunch of demons who stop hiding their sexual preferences but then I figured that's been done to death!

AW: Oh darn, you know, I would have loved that. Somehow I don't think this is the right audience for that, though.

JZ: I kicked around the idea of Dancing with Demons, where each week a different demon would dance with a popular star and then eat them but then I figured FOX must be working on this concept already.
AW: With the writer's strike to contend with, what else can they do?

KofK: What are some of your influences?

JZ: That's a pretty personal question! Or you mean on my writing. I come from the pulp SF and cartooning world so I'd have to say: Douglas Adams and Charles Schutlz and Tom Seaver. I'd like to think Ghandi, Einstein, Divinci and Ben Franklin have played in my career but they probably haven't. Though I bet Ben would have loved Demons in the Closet.

AW: Since 2003 my work has been predominantly manga/anime influenced. I fell in love with the beautiful backgrounds and character designs in Escaflowne, Miazaki's works, especially Howl's Moving Castle, and assorted other series. Full Metal Alchemist, Bleach, and Inuyasha are also heavily reflected in my work, both by way of character designs and emotional content. Of course I grew up with Disney, Dreamworks, etc. so movies like Fern Gully, The Secret of NIMH, The Lion King, Titan AE, and Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron form the basis of what I think a graphic story should look and feel like. I flirted briefly with superhero comics, like Wolverine, The X-Men, Spiderman, and Batman, but presently I prefer softer character designs and supernatural content rather than pseudo science and utility belts. I enjoy stories that provoke a lot of emotion; otherwise I get bored and can't work on them for long.

KofK: What are you trying to do with this strip?

JZ: Make money and entertain people. Not necessarily in that order. It's meant to be a long range kind of project. For instance it ends with Sky becoming president.

AW: Demons in the Closet means a lot of different things to me. If it wins the contract, this will be the first time I've done work for a large company. It would be a validation that I can eek out a living as an artist, which is rather important since to my parent's horror I pretty much threw away a lucrative career path in order to work in comics, which is not exactly known for high salaries, when it pays at all. Actually, I suppose at this point I can say I've done fairly well, since we've made it into the competition, at least, and what's more, we're not dead last in the rank or anything. This is also practice for me, since I'm the sort that does epics (my webcomic, Crowfeathers, is now at 27 chapters and barely begun). My goal is to become the best graphic storyteller of my generation (small goal, yes), so the more comic stories I can manage to complete (either as illustrator or writer-illustrator), the better. This will be my second stab at illustrating a campy, comedy style story. My personal preference when I write is drama interspersed with light comedic moments, so working on this story, which is comedy sprinkled with dramatic moments, will be an interesting change.

KofK: Care to tease any of the other demons we might meet? Are any of them more sinister than the friendly two we've met thus far?

JZ: Ah, yes. The first two are the mellow demons. Others aren't big fans of humans they think they are wastes of molecules (except they love Dick Cheney for some reason.) Of course Amasta has an agenda of her own also. Part of the "hidden message" of Demons is things aren't always how they appear, the world has more shades of gray then we can comprehend. and one person (or demons) good is another's bad or real bad.



KofK: Amy, I noticed you drew yourself into one panel of this series. Was that your idea or was that in John's script?

JZ: That was all Amy's idea. Her quest for the limelight. :)

AW: Yes, that was my idea. It just seemed like the kind of story that would break the fourth wall, make pop culture references, and all that sort of thing. I probably shouldn't have done it, since that sort of thing ticks off the erudite comic critic elitists to no end, but then, it didn't seem to me that this particular story was a work of high brow literature. It's not as low brow as Ren and Stimpy, of course, but certainly campy and not too far removed from Futurama or Disney's Aladdin (specifically referring to Robin Williams' character, "Genie"). At least that was my take on it.

JZ: That's a pretty fair take on it. Especially since I am now pitching Futurama stories to Bongo. (Like Sage says I write a lot.)

AW: I can't say that I know the entire script, and I'm not even sure whether it's entirely fleshed out.

JZ: It's fleshed out but not all written. The next 8 pages are drafted so if DC said, "You win you go live next week" I'm ready for that. I do know where the story is headed but we're at the point where we could still modify things depending on what the readers like and don't like and how things jive and technical stuff like that.

AW: John's sci-fi novels are meant for the pulp fiction crowd. It's also a common feature in manga for the mangaka (head artist) to add editorial commentary either within the story pages or as a quickie comic between chapters or at the beginning or end of a graphic novel volume, so since this was meant to be manga-styled, it seemed appropriate.

KofK: Anything else you'd like to say?

AW: Please vote for us, the winter is oh so cold, and heating oil is so expensive... a contract would be so very nice...

Seriously though, I wish the best to everyone. I thought several of the other entries were worth following regularly, so I hope the contestants consider continuing their comics elsewhere if they don't win. If we don't win this round, I expect we will enter again either together or separately, possibly both, as time allows. I'm not sure what will become of Demons, but we'll see. Also, if you like my work, you can check out my webcomic, Crowfeathers, at http://www.crowfeathers.net.

JZ: Well I'd like say a vote for us is a vote for world peace, but that's probably not true. I've been really impressed with the wide array of talent this month in Zuda, I wish the others luck but I still want to win.

The Knave Interviews The Fool King's Alexander Kanaris-Sotiriou

Another comic strip interview for you today, this time with everybody's favorite jester monarch, followed by an interview with the Fool King's creator, Alexander Kanaris-Sotiriou.



Knave of Krypton: Tell me a little about the history of the series. Is this something that was conceived of specifically for Zuda?

Alexander Kanaris-Sotiriou: I became interested in attempting a comic at the beginning of last year. I had fleshed out a couple of ideas when a friend sent me a link to a news story about Zuda.

I thought it'd be an ideal opportunity to 'cut my teeth' on something. I went away and wrote the 8 page script and then started on the character designs and art. So it was all Zuda tailored from the off.

KofK: What are some of your influences, either in the art or the writing?

AKS: The two big influences growing up were “Asterix” and “Tintin”. In the last 4 years I've been reading more American books. Grant Morrison’s “Invisibles” sparked my interest followed by “Preacher”, “Y the last man” and “the Walking Dead”, pretty much anything that grabs my imagination. My current favourites are Robert Kirkman's “Invincible” and the Luna Brother’s “Girls”.

KofK: What do you think is the strength of webcomics? What are some of the weaknesses?

AKS: The strength of a webcomic is in its accessibility, you can reach people anywhere around the globe very easily. It’s been a big thrill to receive comments from people around the world in the contest.

On the other hand, I like to read in the bath and I guess with webcomics that’s a big 'no no'. I think I would miss the tactile elements of a physical book, but it seems everything is going in that direction: video games, movies and music.

KofK: So does that mean you want to achieve success in print comics, or are you primarily focused on the web?

AKS: Either, I'm not fussy. As long as I get to have fun writing and drawing I'm not that concerned which avenue the end product would take.

KofK: Your series starts out showing us how the story ends. Have you plotted your series out for 60 screens, to be completed by the time your contract ends, or could you go on indefinitely with the Fool King's adventures?

AKS: It’s plotted to conclude at 60 screens. In any media, comics, books or film I always appreciate when things aren't drawn out too much. I wrote the script over the Christmas holidays and it’s pretty much complete. I want to revisit it to make a few alterations in light of some suggestions from the forums, but generally it's done and I’m excited about it.

KofK: Anything else you'd like to add?

AKS: Not really just thanks for reading and good luck to the other competitors.

The Knave Interviews Untrue Tales' Sam Little!

After a disastrous comic strip format interview with the as-of-yet-unseen star of Untrue Tales, Gabe Stein (see below, art by Sam Little with colors by Rob Berry), the Knave finds solace in a much more pleasant interview with the strip's creator, Sam Little.


Knave of Krypton: Sam, your series is almost the text book definition of a talking head strip. Will future strips break some of the conventions set by this first outing? Will every screen be three panels? Will we ever see action, movement?

Sam Little: Well, the next strip I have lined up involves a couple of guys with Uzis getting in the soup with some cops. It's even got a car chase. Although I quite like the three panel talking head format as a story-telling device, if every episode were like that it'd get real old, real fast. More fun to mix things up.

KofK: Well that's good to hear. I certainly didn't mean to imply that the visuals are lacking. Care to tell us about how your process, how you get this distinct look?

SL: Once I get a script nailed down I do really simple thumbnails of the action and the character expression I'm looking for. Then I take a bunch of photo ref since I like to go into a lot of detail and complex facial expressions. I'm sort of playing with the readers perceptions of "how true is this story, how real are these characters?", and using this type of super-realistic line drawing helps to further blur that line.

Anyway, I pencil each panel individually usually about three times the size it'll appear on the actual "page". Sometimes I'll pencil a full background by itself and drop it in behind the separately drawn figures (like in this case). Then I scan the pencils and digitally ink each panel by tweaking the levels in Photoshop and tightening things up with a drawing tablet. Finally, I put the whole thing together in InDesign.

KofK: Is Gabe based on any real entity?

SL: Gabe is a far worse and much better version of various incarnations of myself.

KofK: So the series is autobiographical?

SL: It's 100 percent autobiographical except for the fact that I'm making it all up. Let's just say, a comic book about my life would be dreadfully boring, but a comic about Gabe's life has the potential to be anything but. The series is called "Untrue Tales" for a reason.

KofK: What about the girl you interview in the first thing? Is she based on some one you know?

SL: I did used to know a girl like that. More I ain't saying.

KofK: Why did you choose this sequence as the first installment of your series? What makes this a good introduction?

SL: It fit nicely into 8 screens? Seriously though, I think this story is a pretty good showcase for my developing skills as a writer and artist. Plus, I did want to tell a story that could stand as a complete and satisfying experience for the reader even if the comic doesn't end up winning.

Also, I figured having a pretty lady talk about boobies wouldn't exactly hurt me with the voting public.

KofK: Will other entities in the series pop up more than once or is Gabe going to be the only real through line, the only recurring character?

SL: There will be several major reoccurring characters whose stories will intersect with Gabe's and occasionally branch off onto their own paths. We'll also see subtle subplots carrying through several stories. This is a really, really big puzzle and the pieces are going to slowly come together to eventually form a complete picture of a life. The process I have in mind is a long one though, which is why I feel it's important to tell this story in segments that can be enjoyed as complete in themselves.

KofK: Well thanks for stopping by and taking the time to talk with us. Anything else you'd like to say?

SL: Just that I'm incredibly excited and honored to be part of a contest featuring such a talented group of people. This is pretty much the first comic stuff I've done that's seen the light of day and I'm really thankful for the opportunity to show it to a wider audience than I'd ever imagined would see the darn thing.

And big thanks to you guys for taking the time to do these interviews and Knave of Krypton strips and stuff. It's a lot of fun and adds a cool extra level to the Zuda carnival.