The Village Gossip has a bag of 64 questions...every visitor who comes past must answer a totally random selection of these, the first twenty pulled from the bag. This week Dr. Preston Park Cooper stops by, editor-in-chief of Septagon Studios, whose book Scorn: Obsessed #1 has been spotlighted by DCD and easily available for re-order:
http://news.septagonstudios.com/index.php
What are you working on at the moment?
Lots of things that my wife Barbara and I have written, all currently top secret.
What is the best comic you've ever read?
I think I’ll not count those written by persons in this household. Having said that… best is still too broad a term. Scud the Disposable Assassin is something I’m rather fond of, but then there’s Alan Moore’s early work— you can’t compare the two (save perhaps with D.R. and Quinch?), and I don’t mean in quality, I mean by nature. But why narrow it to one? I certainly like certain Gerard Jones stories, and Morrison’s Doom Patrol…
Downloading illegal torrents will kill comics, discuss.
Downloading music digitally—illegally or illegally, will kill music, because considering the music being made these days and what the music industry asks for it, people don’t respect the music industry anymore, so they do what they want, and there are too many people doing what they want to prosecute them all. But, really, it won’t kill music, will it? Too many people will always want to make music. It’ll just kill some of the big companies. You tell me if that’s "killing music."
Then, decide how and to what degree what I just said applies to comics. Discuss.
Do you like your own name?
Yes. I didn’t when I was younger. But there are lots of things you don’t like when you’re young that you like when you’re an adult, just as there are lots of things you have to put up with when you’re young that don’t matter one bit when you’re an adult.
How clean are your hands?
Extremely.
How did you spend your 18th birthday?
Don’t really recall. Nothing too special. I did absolutely nothing weird nor risky nor insane, and look, here I still am, in quite good health. Unlike that kid who did that thing with all the beer and drugs in that car near that lake that time.
What was the last book you read?
Currently reading THE BEETLE by Richard Marsh, 1897, the same year as Dracula—and it outsold Dracula, for the first 12 months… Before that, I suppose I was reading some Larry Niven. I feel like I’m forgetting something else, too…
What’s the worst comic that you’ve ever been involved in, or read?
Nothing I’ve been involved in… as for read... anything I say will insult someone, and what will that accomplish, save to get someone mad at me? I do try not to purchase comics that aren’t good, these days…
What’s your earliest memory of comics?
Huh. I suppose everyone’s earliest memory (from a certain era) are Harvey Comics and Archie comics. My various older cousins on my father’s side read mainstream comics, and when I went to my uncles’ and aunts’ houses, I’d read theirs. DC’s Arak, Marvel’s Spider-Man… such as that. Oh, and Hergé’s Tintin was serialized in the backs of Children’s Digest, and they kept those around one house…
Which - if any - established comic would you most like to be part of?
Wow, it took me a surprisingly long time to start seeing how I could answer that question. Many of my favorite comics from the 1990s are dead— Doom Patrol, Green Lantern Mosaic, Milestone, Shade the Changing Man, Starman… I suppose I could have some fun with Dr. Strange, or Daredevil… But I can hardly imagine doing some things now, like X-Men or Spider-Man or JLA, because of the continuity… I just interviewed Jeff Parker, who told me that on Marvel Adventures, he’s encouraged not to worry about Marvel Proper Continuity… thank goodness! But, really, writing my own comics is very satisfying. Not that I’ve been able to try writing established mainstream comics yet…
Which part of your body would you most like to change?
CHANGE? I think it’s all good, actually. I’d like to REINFORCE certain parts, such as my vertebrae and my teeth and I suppose my hair follicles, to avoid problems later on as I age… but right now, Barbara and I are pleased with the body I have currently.
Who was your first crush?
Does anyone really care who my first crush was? Hands? Anyone? No? Fine then. My wife will not have to find nor kill anyone today then.
Who’s the best James Bond?
Gah. I haven’t seen Daniel Craig as Bond yet. Perhaps when it comes on cable. Certainly Connery beats the heck out of Moore, but we all know that. You could argue that George Lazenby’s was the best Bond, since he actually got Diana Rigg’s character to marry him. I like to imagine that all the women Bond sleeps with and abandons after her are because they don’t measure up to Diana Rigg.
Who’s the nicest person you’ve ever worked with?
My wife. Besides her? Wicker Man Studios’ Ryan Howe, who illustrates Barbara’s GUN STREET GIRL comes to mind, but really, one can’t make a contest out of it. Almost all the people I choose to work with for any length of time are nice, because I don’t want to work with them, otherwise. It’s like the opposite of the worst comic I’ve ever read—naturally I try to avoid those, don’t I?
What is the most exciting thing happening in comics right now?
Septagon Studios’ future, and that of Wicker Man Studios… and other than that… does manga count as comics? Do digital comics/webcomics count?
Another problem I’m having with the question besides the meaning of the word "comics" is the word "thing." I mean, does what people are doing with Wowio count? Does Clickwheel count? Do you mean "a thing that’ll change the future of comics as we know it" or just "a thing that people are excited about?"
Then there’s the word "excited." It seems to me, these days, that a lot of the things in comics that people I see online are getting excited about are things they’re excited about in a negative way… they hated Civil War, they don’t like the event-y-ness of Countdown, they hardly like anything about this One More Day thing, they got pretty excited over that "Hentai for Hire" cover, there was the whole "Amazons Attack" comic or whatever that was, everyone got pretty vocal hating that… When you think about seems to be getting fans excited regarding comics these days, it’s kind of depressing.
If the comics industry died tomorrow, what would you do instead?
But it won’t. Oh, heck, I’ll answer it anyway—I’d switch to writing nothing but prose novels. Barbara and I have already gone in that direction—after San Diego Con 2006 we decided we didn’t need to wait for artists every time, we could go on and tell stories both with and without them.
What book means the most to you?
Again, discounting anything I’m involved with creating… Ah… I suppose I like Bradbury’s DEATH IS A LONELY BUSINESS pretty well. It’s really quite hard to narrow it down like that, though… There are lots of them—again, it’s not a contest.
What is your favorite color?
Blue
What is your favorite soup?
Oh, regular tomato soup, I suppose.
If you weren't answering these silly questions, what would you be doing instead?
Reading the start of my pal Josh Wagner’s new novel… communicating with artists… putting finishing touches on this semester’s syllabus… reading The Beetle… playing some video game… writing a new column for SBC… one of those.
If you'd like to drop by the Village to answer the Gossip's questions, email craigjohnsonesq@aol.com to chat. Similarly email if you have a question you'd like the Gossip to include in his bag.