The polymathematic Joey Comeau has started a series of interviews with people important to him: i am other people. The series begins with the illustrious Ryan North of Dinosaur Comics. Best part? Joey and Ryan are friends, and the interview reads like a conversation half the time, both of them ending up being questioned.

New interview with the explosive Kate Beaton up at Girls Read Comics. Beaton got big by mixing history and awesomeness, but everything she does is pretty rad. Case in point below.

New York Times Sunday Magazine interview with Morgan Spurlock, director of Super Size Me:

What about “Super Size Me,” your foray into the world of fast food and weight gain. Didn’t that make a fortune?

Yeah, I’m a hundredaire. It’s still a documentary film.

Norwegian rockers Syme have been classic UMR favorites ever since they released their debut, Swing Swing, in 2005. They’ve already completed two successful tours in America, performing both at SXSW and CMJ music festivals. These interviews were conducted during their first tour across America!

Listen to the interview, mp3 style:

Introduction mp3

Interview mp3

Or read the transcript, eyes style

Where does the name Syme come from?

KETIL: It’s from the book 1984 by George Orwell. He’s one of the minor characters, in a way. He’s a guy called Syme who’s an expert in the language “Newspeak.”

How did Syme come together as a band?

BEN: The last day of high school we played a cover song – we were asked to play a cover song – so then we played this Swedish song. I played the drums, he played the bass, and he played the guitar – had a great solo with it. And that might seem completely irrelevant to some today, but the fact is that after that concert, or that one song, the whole summer, this was the last day of high school, and the whole summer we played together.
KETIL: Cause we started playing together
FREDERIK: Yeah, we started playing together and that’s…
BEN: And the whole summer we were together almost every day playing in the basement of his house, and 4 years later we came together in Bergen.
FREDERIK: We knew this guy, Eyvand, our guitarist, we knew him from our home town. He was a friend of ours. He liked our band and he played guitar so it was natural to ask if he would join our band. Then we were four, and we needed a drummer, so we had an audition in Bergen five years ago…
VIDAR: Still haven’t paid me!
FREDERIK: Shutup! So three guys showed up and this was the best of the three so we picked him.

How would you compare Syme to the other bands you guys are in?

KETIL: The other bands we’re working with are slightly different, but I would say Syme is the band where everyone comes together with their own influence, in a way.
FREDERIK: It’s the band we’ve been working on the longest. We’ve been playing together, more or less, as this band for five or six years now. I think it’s a good thing to have other projects that are different so that you can have an outlet for musical perversities, or whatever.

Why do you sing in English?

KETIL: In Norway you grow up and you learn English from your first year at school, and all your influences in culture and music, especially, are from English speaking artists. So in that way it’s kind of normal to sing and work in English, and most Norwegian bands do actually. Within Norway there aren’t too many people and we’d like our ideas to go further than just Norwegians, I guess.

Why is Syme touring in the US and how is the tour going?

FREDERIK: We’re here in the us because we’re trying to sell our syme product, which has grown strong in norweigh and playing in the US has been a really good experience. It’s just that we get better and better every time we play a show, and playing five or six shows in a row just, yeah, makes the band stronger. So it’s got nothing to do with how many people show up to the gigs, it just has to do withwhat we put into it. From my point we put 110% all the time, and that’s real important.

Why does Syme make music?

KETIL:Music is definitely the most beautiful artform there is, so we just want to make great art. ….And get free chips backstage at concerts.

Now that we’ve got that over with, some easier stuff…Is this everyone’s first trip to America /NYC? If so, is it what everyone expected it to be?

KETIL:Vidar (the drummer) has studied medicine in atlanta for 6 years, and I’ve been to New York for a holiday two years ago, but the rest of us are nubies. Personally I really love New York, and think it’s one of the friendliest towns I’ve ever been to.

Have you guys had some really great or terrible experiences yet?

KETIL:The squirrels in Central Park, the Planetarium at Museum of natural history and some transvestite-heavy parties are highlights so far. We were really worried about bringing our tons of musical instuments through costums, but when we got there they treated us like kings. One of the costums people just couldn’t believe we were not the Beatles.

In Norway, if I’m not mistaken, you recently headlined many tours. How are you dealing with being an opener again?

KETIL:Being an opener is just like being a goalkeeper at a penalty shootout in the world cup, you have nothing to lose.

How do you feel about the bands you’re set to open for? Had you heard of any of them before this tour?

KETIL:I sat hidden under my desk at the record shop were I work the other day, listening to some Middle Distance Runner.
Think they’ll suit our music just fine!

Are you excited about the Montreal Pop Marathon and CMJ showcases?

KETIL:We’ve been hearing some really good things about Montreal, so I think that festival gig will be one of the highlights. Great bill as well, and I get to practice my french
between the songs.
I expect CMJ to be more chaotic as we’re playing two shows on one day, but still it’s hopefully going to be some people with golden
handshakes cheering at the back.

Is making it big in America one of your main goals? If so, why?

KETIL:Focusing on the American market seems like a win-win situation for us right now, as this first US-tour has started a nice little Syme-buzz in Norway as well.
For some reason both american friends living in Norway, american magazines (like you!) and US labels have flattered us so much with their
praise that we just couldn’t resist giving you back some love.

What sort of a fan base do you have in Norway? Do you want more Norwegians, Western Europeans or Americans to like your music? Why?

KETIL:See above

I heard a rumor about another album in the works. When do you guys plan to release it?

KETIL:We’ve been playing quite a few new songs on tour now, so we can’t wait too long before we hit the studio. Our goal is to get things on tape by the end of the year.

Do you think you’ll ever hit the Midwest or west coast?

KETIL:We’ve already been talking about coming back to the US early next year, so I think we’re very likely to try out some other parts
of the country then.

File Destructor 2.0 – Not to be confused with File Destructor 1.0 (which sadly had the manufacturing defect of spontaneous combustion), File Destructor 2.0 provides you with a completely unopenable file. FD2.0 is perfect for the collegiate man or woman looking to get in a few

Interview with Daring Fireball’s John Gruber – A Mix of the Technical, the Artful, the Thoughtful, and the Absurd:

What graphic design is to a visual idea, writing is to a verbal idea. My goal is to craft my writing in such a way that makes it as easy and obvious as possible for the reader to “get” exactly what it is I’m hoping they get.

Obsolete Skills – Such as coding in BASIC, adjusting the rabbit ears on top of a TV, and getting to know your neighbors. Also: obsolete skills, identification of.

Spy Satellite Blast, Caught on Tape – Wired.com has updated coverage on the recent Star Wars-esque shenanigans of the US Navy. In space, no one can hear you scream, but we can definitely watch you explode into a million pieces.

In two days, the final season The Wire will be premiering, and this rapidly approaching moment has inspired retrospectives on both the show and its creator, David Simon. Surprisingly, a wide-ranging consensus has emerged: The Wire is relentlessly bleak ¹.

At the center of the discussion is Mark Bowden’s The Angriest Man in Television, an Atlantic piece warning against blindly accepting as truth The Wire’s depiction of Baltimore and its institutions. The show is dressed in realism, but it is far from a documentary:

Simon is the reporter who knows enough about Baltimore to have his story all figured out, but instead of risking the coherence of his vision by doing what reporters do, heading back out day after day to observe, to ask more questions, to take more notes, he has stopped reporting and started inventing. He says, I have figured this thing out. He offers up his undisturbed vision, leaving out the things that don’t fit, adding things that emphasize its fundamentals, and then using the trappings of realism to dress it up and bring it to life onscreen.

In leaving out the things that don’t fit, Simon has created, Bowden says, a vision of Baltimore deprived of hope. Instead of optimism, the show is filled to the brim with cynicism and pessimism. As Reihan Salam puts it in The Bleakness of The Wire:

David Simon thinks he’s constructed a critique of capitalism, but in fact he’s prepared an elaborate, moving brief for despair and (ultimately) indifference. … The Wire is ultimately premised on our inability to engage in self-help, and in particularly the inability of the black poor. It is about their lack of agency, and their status as eternal victims.

Matthew Yglesias further agrees, but sees it as a necessary evil of the mood Simon is trying to set:

Trying to do a piece of extended drama that embodied the values of pragmatic progressive reformism would be impossible. The results, if serious and true to the spirit, would be deadly dull. Moderate optimism about human nature and the possibility for change is, if done in an entertaining way, the stuff of light romantic comedies, not big-time drama.

The heart of these critiques seems split into interconnected halves. On one hand, there is a strong railing against how The Wire presents itself. The audience is to believe the television Baltimore and real-life Baltimore match one-to-one, and the show’s use of on-location shots, accurate vernacular, and so on all work to reaffirm this belief. But the personality of David Simon (closely explored in Mark Bowden’s article ²) and the supposed bleakness of the show contradict its proposed realism. As Yglesias says, “The result is the creation of a world — Simon’s Baltimore — that feels eminently real, but is imbued with all the artifice of Greek tragedy.”

It would be stupid to argue against this part of the critique. However, it is not entirely correct. The Wire may have political opinions that force it to overstep its bounds on realism, but (from what I have read) the show does provide an accurate portrayal of a facet of Baltimore life. There should be no problem in thinking The Wire presents life as it is for a certain set of people in a certain context in a certain city. Any misgivings should only arise when trying to extrapolate the show’s specific presentation to a wider swath of geography.

But small-scale or large-scale, The Wire may be bleak, but it is not hopeless. Given Simon’s experiences, he has written a show that continually rains down blows on the fat, unwieldy institutions (politics, police, education, gangs). However, individuals are hailed as saviors and sources of great change. Simon affirms this in a comment on Yglesias’s blog:

Writing to affirm what people are saying about my faith in individuals to rebel against rigged systems and exert for dignity. … The Wire is dissent; it argues that our systems are no longer viable for the greater good of the most, that America is no longer operating as a utilitarian and democratic experiment. … Camus rightly argues that to commit to a just cause against overwhelming odds is absurd. He further argues that not to commit is equally absurd. Only one choice, however, offers the slightest chance for dignity. And dignity matters.

Whether this opinion is practical is another story, but I think it highlights an important aspect of the show that undermines any desire to call it “relentlessly bleak”. Throughout the show, individuals are again and again shown to be making a difference, either in their own lives or the community. When they fail, they tend to do so as result of institutions. So The Wire is pessimistic about any broad social change, but very optimistic about radical, individual change. (Of course, the individuals in The Wire often have their progress negated by the overarching institutions, but Simon seems to be suggesting, Just keep throwing yourself against the wall until it breaks, it’s the only way.)

¹ I highly recommend reading not only the linked articles, but also the long list of comments following them. The article writers have come to a consensus against optimism, but almost all of the commentary thinks The Wire is much less bleak.

² Also online now is The Believer’s interview with David Simon. Home to illustrious statements like, “We won’t discriminate against a British actor who gives the best read, regardless of what you fucks did to our capital in 1812.”

I wonder if the New York Times has considered having multiple writers do its weekly interview for the Sunday New York Times Magazine. Deborah Solomon has proven herself quite the polymath (at least superficially), but surely there is something to be gained from using an interviewer with a little more knowledge on the topic, or a little less vitriol in the heart? At the very least, how about someone able to fill an entire page without resorting to personal questions?

In some ways, Solomon’s style is comparable to British journalism, but I think the problem is she does not know how to turn down the confrontation when interviewing people who don’t really warrant such harshness. For instance, her interview of diplomat John Bolton is no less argumentative than her other pieces, but its context makes this more acceptable. The interview also displays her intelligence (especially when she asks “Why are you assuming that the leadership of Iran shares the philosophy of suicide bombers?”), though it does eventually throw in some filler questions.

But when interviewing “The O.C.” creator Josh Schwartz, I have to wonder why she remains so in-your-face. After an alright discussion of his new show “Gossip Girl”, she runs out of relevant questions and resorts (again) to filler:

You were, at 26, the youngest person to create and produce a network drama when “The O.C.” went on the air. Do you feel guilty about all that success? I have to.

How do you assuage your guilty conscience? I go on the Internet and look for mean things that have been written about the shows that I work on.

How does that make you feel? Satisfied.

Why not just give away wads of money or do good deeds instead? There’s that, too. My girlfriend is definitely a big proponent of that. I’m more into self-flagellation.

Do you give money to any charitable organizations? I do. I give a lot back to U.S.C.

Your alma mater. And to my high school, the Wheeler School, creating scholarships for kids.

What kind of kids? For needy kids, or for gossip girls? Not for the gossip girls. For the kids who otherwise can’t afford it.

Given the tone of this interview, and her archive of interviews in general, it is difficult to pass off that ending “For needy kids, or for gossip girls?” question as a joke. From Schwartz’s response, it seems like he had some trouble with it as well. If it was not a joke, then I’m speechless. Did Solomon really suggest that Schwartz should give away his money, and then chide him when she learned he does? (Furthermore, does she not seem really sarcastic when she says “Your alma mater”?)

Of course, as we saw with John Bolton, Solomon isn’t all bad. Her Marjane Satrapi piece comes to mind, although I enjoyed Satrapi’s responses more than Solomon’s questions. (And it reminds me of Solomon’s interview of author Pierre Bayard, in that Solomon just wasn’t getting the point.) Also surprisingly good was her interview of professor Patty Limerick for last week’s film issue.

There is a sort of formula to this. The interviews tend to be much better when Solomon discusses past work rather than quickly diving into personal questions after three questions. And maybe Ed’s right. Maybe it’s all Bill Keller’s fault.

And now, your moment of Zen:

As poet laureate, don’t you think you should be better acquainted with European poetry?

Think of all the European poetry I could have read if we hadn’t spent all this time on this interview.

PBS television program P.O.V. has an online special feature to go with their episode “Tintin and I”, which looked at the life and work of Tintin’s creator, Hergé. The feature is a collection of interviews of six contemporary comic artists, most notably Chris Ware and Daniel Clowes (as well as Jessica Abel, Phoebe Gloeckner, Jason Lutes, and Seth).

The interviews are hit or miss (e.g., questions are rehashed from interview to interview, and answers are sometimes even shorter than the questions), but when they hit, they hit. The questions are, if redundant, very sharp, and the interviewees are some of the best artists to have for the feature. Insightful responses reign, dealing with both comics as a medium, and with the interviewees’ own experiences.

From Chris Ware’s interview:

I figured out this way of working by learning from and looking at artists I admired and whom I thought came closest to getting at what seemed to me to be the “essence” of comics, which is fundamentally the weird process of reading pictures, not just looking at them.

Again from Chris Ware:

If I could, I would like to mention here that comics are NOT illustration, any more than fiction is copywriting. Illustration is essentially the application of artistic technique or style to suit a commercial or ancillary purpose; not that cartooning can’t be this (see any restaurant giveaway comic book or superhero media property as an example), but comics written and produced by a cartoonist sitting alone by him- or herself are not illustrations. They don’t illustrate anything at all, they literally tell a story.

A common theme throughout the interviews is the sense that comics are finally reaching a point of acceptance and respect. None of the interviewees discuss an exact cause for this, but I think it has to do with, as Ware puts it, “because a generation who grew up reading them has, well, grown up.” He mentions this as the reason comic movies have been so common recently, but it almost certainly relates to the “growing up” of the medium as a whole. As the medium’s audience has matured, so too has the medium itself.

Nonetheless, although more widely accepted than ever before, comics are still progressing forward to reach respected status. It is a good time indeed, but work still exists to be done, and some creators are cautious.

From Jessica Abel’s interview:

And why does the need to explain comics still exist? Because [the prejudice that comics are specifically for children, and brain-rotting to boot,] still exists. It’s fading, but it’s still very strong. It’s important to keep pushing the boundaries of what people know comics to be so that they are receptive to the whole world of comics, not just one or two genres of work.

All in all, the feature is a great set of interviews. Read the damn things.

Jason Anderson is not a myth, a giant, or even a demigod. Yet he has taken upon himself the herculean task of reminding us that NO!, we are not too cool to have fun. That YES!, this night can be the best night of your life! In the past, his musical punch was a bit more subtle (or, in the way past, a bit rougher), but with Tonight, Jason’s upcoming album to be released August 21, the stops have been pulled. No longer can we sit around and listen to Jason croon as the snow falls. The sun’s up and shining, and Tonight is all about getting out there, dancing, and really feeling what it means to be inspired by that great pop song coursing through your bones.

The internet cites The Best as your band for the songs on the new album, but no more information on the band is available. Are they the ones backing you up on Tonight? What’s their story?

Yes. The Best is Joe DeGeorge, Juliet Nelson, Gregg Porter, Djim Reynolds and David Sapienza. They are some of my best friends and some of the best musicians I know. Thus the name, which started as an endearing joke, but, like all band names, stuck. I love these people. They’re amazing! Such solid people, and awesome players!

The mood of the album, musically, is obviously upbeat, but the lyrics can sometimes give a sense of longing. Would you say this a happy or sad album?

Much like life, I’m hoping that it’s both. Triumphant and melancholic, hopeful and cautious, joyous and wistful. There are lots of songwriters who just write sad songs, and some who are only happy. I think my favorites, though, are the ones that capture both. I’m still learning as I go, but I’m proud of these songs. I think they turned out okay.

You have created a distinct lo-fi sound (not far from Elliott Smith) in the past. Why the change to a more polished (and faster) sound?

Well, I think like anything one does, the way I write and record music has changed through the years. With this album we were simply trying to capture a certain feeling, and put the energy of the live shows into a recorded project. It worked for the most part. I’m pretty psyched with it. Thanks for asking.

The past two albums were definitely more “wintery”, making Tonight feel even more like Spring than it does on its own. Is there a Summer album in the future?

I’m glad you noted the winter elements! Thank you! That’s exciting to know it came across. Actually, with New England, I was going for autumn–my most favorite season–but, yes, The Wreath is straight snow. There is definitely a summer album coming, but also another winter one, that I hope will be released by December. Thanks for asking!

I have to ask: how does it feel being part of one of indie music’s first “wolf” bands?

Awesome question. Well, you know, it is weird to think I picked the Wolf Colonel name in 1996. That’s so long ago! Weird! I can remember making a poster for my first show, ever. I was a little apprehensive of going under my own name, so I tried to think of a weird, heavy metal sounding band name that would mislead and possibly distance people. Then I wrote down “The Wolf Colonel” and it seemed funny. And it lasted. A while, anyway. But, yeah, weird to see all these wolf names. It’s cool, though. It’s not like they are ripping me off. I don’t think many people have heard of Wolf Colonel. Haha. And that’s okay.

You are getting a considerable following and a lot more attention. Why stick to the smaller venues?

You are being generous here–and I thank you for flattering me–but, to some extent, yes, I suppose anyone is likely to make more friends when they tour full-time for five straight years, which is what I’ve been up to. When I play solo I don’t use a microphone, so smaller rooms are better. But regardless of size, I simply prefer art spaces and houses to bars. But I have played bars, also.

You obviously love putting on shows and connecting with the audience. Do any shows stand out in your mind? Good or bad.

Every night for the past five years has felt like the best show of my life, the first show of my life, the only show of my life. It’s absolutely impossible to pick a highlight. Either alone, or with the band, I give 600% regardless of how many people are there. It’s my favorite thing to do, and I feel immensely lucky to do it. Live music RULES.

You’ve mentioned going to a lot of shows when you were younger, and the importance of a show being a time when people can really connect to each other. What is one of the best shows you went to?

Gosh. So many pivotal moments as a kid. Seeing Green Day on the Dookie tour playing UMASS; then seeing FUGAZI at a medium-sized gymnasium in Vermont. The juxtaposition was incredible and inspiring. I think the show that has left the biggest impression on me, though, was being eighteen and seeing Elliott Smith play a coffee shop–Umbra Penumbra–in Portland, Oregon. It was stunning. Also, seeing Unwound and KARP play Olympia, Washington in 1996 was mindblowing.

Is touring more of a solitary experience, or do you usually carry an entourage of friends with you on tour?

I’ve done both, and I enjoy both. When you’re alone you have more time in the drives to be introspective, think about life, listen to music and make random pitstops. But with a group there is the awesome potential for conversation, jokes and mini-golf trips. It rules.

Are you working on any other projects?

Sure, always. I love playing with my friends. I have had the utmost pleasure of getting to back up my friends Mara, Guy and Gregg. They are all incredible songwriters from Maine, New Hampshire and Massachusetts. I just love making music; and I’m just as happy playing with friends as I am playing my own show. Oh, also Brian Michael Roff. I’ve been playing a little bass with him. He’s great. I’ve also played some drums for Harry and the Potters, and some guitar with Mount Eerie.

After dropping the Wolf Colonel name, your sound definitely slowed, but with Tonight it has come back up to speed (though definitely more poppy). Do you feel like you have come full circle at all?

Well, I think it’s always been the same, and always a mix, you know? Wolf Colonel actually started as a solo-acoustic projected, heavily inspired by the Elliott Smith show I saw. Then I went full band, but then dropped the name, then went acoustic again, and now have explored both, touring solo and then touring with the group. So it’s always changing and always the same, if that makes sense. Sorry for the confusing answer!

What do you think is the biggest difference between the music you made as Wolf Colonel and the music you’re making now as Jason Anderson?

No difference, really. It was just a name to hide behind. I think maybe the concerts are different because when I first started Wolf Colonel, as it were, I was more shy and not as comfortable with myself and thusly not as comfortable in front of others. But now I feel awesome about life and just love playing music and connecting with people SO MUCH!

So when are you coming out to Pittsburgh again?

Hopefully sooner than later. I love Steeltown. Thanks so much for the interview, man! It’s great to talk about this stuff. Excellent questions.

No, no, thank you.

Douglas Rushkoff, eclectic author of books on culture, youth, and religion, is now doing the writing duties on a Vertigo graphic novel, Testament. The comic relates events in a near-future society to stories from the Bible, demonstrating archetypes that reoccur in history since recorded time. With the help of Liam Sharp’s intense and memorable artwork, Rushkoff has injected interesting parallels and new ideas to explore into the sequential art world. He was gracious enough to grant Undress Me Robot an exclusive interview, answering some questions I had after reading Issues 1-5 of Testament. The on-going series is now available in its first collected version.

How far ahead do you have the storyline planned? It seems like it could be quite an epic.

That’s because it’s based on one of the most epic stories one can tell. I mean, how many are there? The Mahabharata? The Iliad? I mean, we can call Tolkien epic, but he wrote it over the course of decades – not centuries.

But the beauty of using the Bible is that, however “epic” it gets, it always stays on the level of real people. It’s really the story of humanity’s relationship with deity, told on the level of personal interactions. Even matters of state are told through the tales of competing brothers, star-crossed gay lovers, or guys who find out their wives are pagan sorceresses. The source material I’m working with scales better than anything I’ve ever read, working on both a human character level and a highly metaphorical level at the same time. It’s a great lesson for those of us who might otherwise get lost in the “meta” stories of our series. Keep to the people.

I’ve got the first four years of the story planned, but that only takes me through the first two books of the Bible. And even then, I’m barely skimming the surface. You have to remember, almost every sentence of the Bible can be pulled out and turned into a story richer than most of what passes for a 22-page comic book nowadays. For instance, in Exodus, God says, “I will harden Pharaoh’s heart.” What the heck does he mean? He’s saying that Pharaoh isn’t a good enough enemy for him, so he’s going to strengthen Pharaoh’s evil will – make a better adversary. And, at the same time, he’s taking Pharaoh’s free will away from him. Think of the story possibilities there… I know I’ll be using it.

Is Liam Sharp committed for however long the story continues? You play off of each other in an interesting way; what is your collaboration like?

Yeah – Liam says he was born to do this project, so my guess is he’s in it for life. When he got tapped for the project it all became kind of a fate thing, if you know what I mean. More than anything, Liam brings heart to this project. I do the plot, the intentions of the characters, the historicity and the allegory. Liam brings the personhood of both the characters and the gods.

He’s drawn a few of them way, way different than I imagined them. But that’s given me the opportunity to redesign the story arcs around who he came up with. Some of the characters are playing *different* Bible people than I had originally cast them for. But it turns out that it’s going to be much better – and more Biblically accurate – the way Liam has forced my hand.

What I’m saying is that by working from an emotional center, Liam has forced another kind of truth. And that truth has led me to do things that are actually more faithful to Bible. That’s how good the Bible is when you really click into its logic. Everything in there makes total sense, but you’ve got to approach it both intellectually and emotionally.

In going from novel and nonfiction form to sequential art, what have been the pitfalls and advantages?

Well, if I may be candid, the biggest disadvantage is financial. If you got a decent name and track record, book publishers will still throw a ton of cash at you upfront to write a book for them. I mean, nice money. Comics get you paid by the page. And doing just one of them won’t pay the rent. So you can’t just dig into one project and make that your life – which is the way I’m used to working.

But the advantages far outweigh that petty complaint. Sequential narrative lets you tell story from within and outside time, simultaneously. I’m amazed how few comics storytellers take advantage of the medium – but maybe that’s because they were never saddled by the extraordinarily linear limitations of regular book writing. Having spent ten or fifteen years writing text from left to write, I had accumulated a long list of narrative dynamics that I wanted to explore in a more dimensional medium. Just putting gods outside panels, for instance, is something I’d wanted to do since seeing the [Sergio] Aragones sketches in the margins of Mad. I kept asking myself why people hadn’t played with the convention before – created worlds around the very premise of sequential art.

The other difference between the literary world and the comics world is that the writers in comics aren’t assholes. Really – they’re just as smart, just as well read, and just as articulate as any of the New Yorker Magazine worshipped literary heroes on the “scene,” but they’re nice people. You tell them something you’re working on, and comics people voluntarily offer substantive suggestions for making it better. I mean, they share their actual ideas with you, for you to use. The people I had gotten used to in the book world simply nod and then steal the idea you’d asked for help on.

I think it’s because sequential art works more on an abundance model than a scarcity model. Everybody is happy on some level, so there’s a bounty of ideas. More ideas than any of us possibly has time to get on paper. So we all share with each other and – of course – end up with a much more fertile culture with yet more great stuff to share. It’s not a zero-sum game.

You seem to have a lot of trust in the readers’ intelligence. This is a rare thing in comics and very refreshing, but do you worry about being considered too academic?

No way. They say in the movies that you can never go wrong underestimating your audience’s intelligence. In comics, I think you can never go wrong overestimating your audience’s intelligence.

Sequential narrative is a cool medium, not a hot one. That means it’s participatory. Readers should be engaged, not immersed. They need to be comparing panels to one another, making sense out of sequence, finding patterns in the chaos.

Instead of fighting the alienating elements of comics, we need to be embracing them. Comics readers are both within the story and outside of the story watching the storytelling itself. That’s how this medium works. It’s why almost everyone who reads comics on some level knows they can write them. Why? Because they are already participating in the story making through their collaboration as interpreting readers.

That’s the only aspect that’s academic about it: me explaining how comics work as a medium. Hell, don’t trust me – read Scott McCLoud [author of Understanding Comics]. He’s totally right. It’s just that not enough of us are taking advantage of all that he told us about this medium.

So, no. I think readers appreciate a book that gives them more than just 22 pages of plot. Far too little happens in most comic books for the – what is it – $2.99 we charge for them.

I think we should pack these pamphlets with as much as they’ll hold. Give a straightforward experience for the kids who just want to flip through and find out who is screwing who or who got blown up and how – but then communicate on an entirely allegorical level, as well, for readers who want to experience the real possibilities for sequential narrative to wrestle with the themes of our age.

This graphic novel follows in the wake of Nothing Sacred, a book that caused you quite a bit of religious controversy. Out of the frying pan and into the fire?

Yeah, well, what I learned with Nothing Sacred was that the people who claim to be most interested in Torah or Bible are actually more interested in avoiding it. Nothing Sacred – a book that looks at the true core values of Judaism – was only controversial with the self-proclaimed protectors of the Jewish “race.” And they’re so committed to understanding the Bible in terms of race and nation state that they have lost all access to the stories and what they tell us about the illusion of race and the fiction of nation state! It’s all pretty sad and ironic.

But as I did the book tour for Nothing Sacred, I found very eager audiences everywhere I went that wasn’t a synagogue or church. People in bookstores were very ready to engage with these myths on a level much closer to the one in which they were intended. And that’s when I realized that a comic book might just give me both the ability to share these stories in the camouflage of a “non-serious” medium – and the storytelling tools I’d need to do it in a way faithful to the multi-dimensional tale I was telling.

Moreover, comics were a way to take the ideas and apply them to two storylines at once – the one that’s actually in the Bible, and the one we are living as a civilization, today.

It occurred to me that the comic is allowing you to tie together a lot of your previous media, youth, religion, and culture themes. Did it just happen like that or was it a conscious decision?

That’s just me. I mean, I’m one person so the things I’m concerned about tend to show up in everything I do. I’m talking to Vertigo about doing another book, though, and that one is more consciously attacking the problems facing young people living within a corporate-controlled mediaspace.

In Testament, these themes are part of a bigger picture. You have to remember, though, corporate advertising is the modern equivalent of religious proselytizing. Both are about spreading a particular set of memes, by any means necessary.

Will current events shape the story–is it malleable–or are you planned far into the future? I’ve read that you have four years worth of story, is that true?

Sometimes I fear that my story is shaping current events. I wrote about those riots in France just a few weeks before they started happening. And the showdown with Iran, as well as the new Mid East conflict are prefigured in there, too. If anything, I’ve been going back and changing things to make them *less* like what’s happening in the world around us.

But that’s the problem you always face when you write about a future taking place basically the day after tomorrow. If you’re really in the groove about it, you end up predicting a whole lot. It’s the kind of thing that would earn me a lot of money if I were a stock market type. But it’s unnerving as a writer, because in the six months between the time I write something and the comic actually gets published, stuff that would have seemed so “prescient” just looks ripped from the headlines.

Still, the object of the game for me is not to prove my own ability to prophesize, but to demonstrate the Bible’s ability to so accurately reflect what’s going on right now. And to the extent I can do that, I’ll be proving its writers pretty damn prophetic, at that.