CHANNEL ZERO was your first professional comics work. After being in the business for a few years now, is there anything that you would have changed about the book?

Aside from drawing parts of it better, there is nothing I would change. The reason that CHANNEL ZERO came out the way it was, all non-linear and experimental, is because I didn't have a clue as to how "normal" comics were made. I was still completely in art school mode, and was producing it as art, not as a sequential piece of comics.

That may be good, or bad, depending on how you want to look at it, but the fact remains: it is what it is, and wouldn't have been the same if I knew then what I know now.

Looking back on CZ, do you think it was the product of an angry artist or a socially conscious writer?

I will always be an artist first, and a writer second. If I never picked up a brush again for the rest of my life, and instead wrote fifty novels, I would still be an artist who writes. It’s just how my brain is wired. I was born an artist, and grew up drawing. It’s an integral part of who I am. I didn't start writing until my late teens, and writing seriously until my mid-twenties.

As far as being "angry", I don't know about that. It’s such a cliche. I honestly don't remember being filled with anger as I was drawing CZ, but I was becoming very socially and politically aware around that time. Let's just say I was a "Concerned Artist".

You don't see the anger in the book? Maybe anger is an overly strong word, but I see a lot of outrage in CZ. I always assumed it was from your having to live through Giuliani’s social engineering attempts in NYC. There seem to be a lot of parallels.

Oh, I think there is anger in the book. I just wouldn't describe myself as an angry person. I tend to be pretty laid back most of the time. The only thing being pissed off all the time does for you is frustrate you and give you stress. I have learned to focus that anger so I am not storming around all the time scaring little kids and old ladies.

Walk me through the construction of a normal page of CZ. Do you script first, thumbnail first, or just wing it?

All right, this is where I start to look a little half-assed. The way I approach a page, and a story, visually, pretty much ensures that 99.9% of comic editors in existence would never ever hire me. I do everything the "wrong" way, according to normal comic rules.

I start off with a general idea of what the story will be, and what happens on each page. Very general. I pencil each panel and immediately ink it, and move on to the next panel. I work in waves; I will pencil and ink a page that way, and then go back in with the brush a couple days later and refine what is there. Sometimes I will re-draw a particular panel and glue it over the old one. It’s a very organic, evolving process, much more like fine art than comics illustration.

As one might imagine, this results in a lot of discarded panels and pages, because once I have a decent draft of the art completed, that’s when I actually write the story, and without fail some of the art needs to be redrawn. I am not exaggerating when I say that I have hundreds of unused CHANNEL ZERO drawings in storage.

It seems insane, I know, but it’s the easiest way for me. I have made numerous attempts at playing by the rules, pencilling a page or a sequence of pages in detail, and then inking them, like most people do, but its impossible. The work is ugly, stiff, and feels wrong somehow. So I do what comes naturally.

It also sounds slow, and at times it can be, but at my peak I was drawing three or four pages a night using this method. It’s all just a question of what you get used to.

So one day might we be seeing a collection of some of this unused CHANNEL ZERO artwork? Sort of a CHANNEL ZERO Rough Cut?

Nah. Most of it was discarded because it sucks. Besides, I can only milk CHANNEL ZERO so far. (laughs)

How is the new CZ book that you've mentioned you're working on going to be different from the first series?

Yes, the perpetually in-progress OGN.

It will be different is just about every way, I think. It’s not
focusing on Jennie 2.5, although she remains in the book. Its the
"next generation", so to speak, fighting the same fight but for
different reasons, and in very different ways.

I tried to broaden my mind here, to look at the concept of CHANNEL ZERO as abstractly as possible, and discovered literally dozens of new ways to interpret it. I am having a lot of fun experimenting with it.

Why did you decide to republish CHANNEL ZERO with AiT/PlaNETlar rather than Image?

Image wouldn't reprint it, basically. They didn't feel that it would get enough orders to pay for itself, much less turn a profit of any kind. Even after I started writing GENERATION X, they still didn't feel it was economically possible.

Suffice to say, I disagreed. When the Image TPB was solicited, it got very few orders, but quite promptly sold out of its back stock. In under a month, I am told. In fact, all the single issues sold out within a few months. So I knew that it would do better than they thought it would.

Meanwhile, Larry Young at AiT/PlanetLar had been offering to get it back into print for sometime. He had always been a huge supporter of the book, and a fan, and he is a tireless, expert promotions guru. I really had nothing to lose by reprinting with him. The choice came down to a company who refused to reprint, or a company who was chomping at the bit to get it into mass-market distribution and sell the shit out of it. What else could I do?

Will this new trade include the final issue of CZ that wasn’t included in the Image trade?

You refer to DUPE, which despite being solicited as CHANNLE ZERO #6 was really more of a special issue. I was finishing up my obligations at Image, and decided to reprint some old CZ stories I had drawn way back before I hooked up with them.

They aren't part of the CZ storyline, and wouldn't make much sense to be included in the collection. It would just be confusing, plus the art and writing are old and kinda suck to be honest. So DUPE is out, sorry to say, and unavailable.

It's for the best, trust me.

You’ve made it rather public that in order to survive working in comics; you have to have a full time day job. If there’s no money in it, why do you do it?

That’s a really good question, and I have asked myself many times why I stick with comics, instead of just chucking it all together and immersing myself completely in web design or something. But I just can't, and I really can't tell you exactly why I feel this way.

I enjoy the medium, and the interaction with readers, so maybe that's all there is to it. But it feels like there is more to it than that.

What are some of the PRO’S and CON’S between your self published work, and work for hire at Marvel?

The Pro's of doing an X-book is the huge exposure. My name and work gets in front of fifty thousand people every month. Plus its nice to get a paycheck, albeit a small one.

The Cons are obvious. It's work for hire, first of all, and I am mired in years and years of back story, and restricted by the Comics Code and editorial, who for all their good points, and they do have good points, cannot let you do whatever you want.

And doing whatever I wanted is how I ended up with CHANNEL ZERO.

But what about creative PRO'S and CON'S? Is it liberating to be working with other people on a book, or constraining?

Working with Steve Pugh on GENERATION X has been fantastic. I feel it’s a real symbiotic relationship, creatively. I have been a fan of his for ages, so I write things that I want to see him draw, stuff that I think would look killer in his style. At the same time, I provide Steve with a really loose script, so he can really flex his artistic muscles.

The result, I think, is a really cool blend. Steve fills in gaps, corrects mistakes I make, ads panels here and there that totally save my ass... its really great. And in the couple instances where
we have had fill-in artists, I really miss Steve. Not to dis the other artists at all, but we aren't on the same wavelength like Steve and I are.

I have every intention of working with Steve again, hopefully on the sort of project where we can really let rip with the visuals and story.

The cons of such a relationship are few, but mainly it’s just the times that the art comes back and it’s NOT what you envisioned. But that happens so rarely on GENERATION X that its not even worth talking about.

Do you approach GENERATION X as a super hero comic, or a teen melodrama?

A teen drama. Christ, I wouldn't know how to write a straight superhero book even if I wanted to. I have had editors ask me to pitch them superhero books, and I am a total idiot about it. I go back to them after a couple weeks with nothing, apologizing profusely.

GENERATION X, to me, has nothing to do with superheroics. Its about kids who are different than others, and generally treated like shit for it, something that I can totally relate to.

I'd wager that a lot of comic fans could relate to that. I know critics seem to really like the book, but how do the fans seem to be reacting to it now? I remember a huge negative reaction from a few vocal members of the books fan base when you first took over, but it seems to have quieted. Have you gotten any retractions?

Critics seem pretty mixed about it. They seem to like my dialogue and characterization, and Steve's facial expressions and body language, but they really rip us apart on other things, like the costume designs, the plots, stuff like that. I would say that the response from the critics is an even 50/50.

The fans want us dead, for the most part. They have settled down a bit now that we are in the flashback arc, because they see the old costumes and they see the characters they miss... but when issue 70 hits the stands all hell will break loose again, mark my words.

What was the most amusing, scary or strange reaction to your work on Gen X that you received?

A lot of fans are idiots. I am not trying to be mean, but it’s a fact. Some of the reactions I have read are funny/scary testimonials to the fact that they spend WAY to much time and emotional energy thinking about the book. I have received a few death threats, but those aren't all that scary. I think the oddest thing is just being thrust into the whole "X mythology"... Being visible to fifty thousand people each month, going to the X-MEN movie and seeing characters that I am currently writing, and being stopped at conventions to sign all sorts of shit, one notable exception being an original Nintendo cartridge for an X-MEN game. Something I obviously have nothing to do with.

What kind of music are you listening to when you’re writing or drawing?

I listen to a lot of old punk and reggae, the music I grew up on. But during the time I was drawing CZ, I was dusting off a lot of old sixties ska and rocksteady, the old Trojan shit from Jamaica, like
Desmond Dekker and the Ethiopians. That music just makes me feel good all over. There are times when I feel it is the best music ever created in the history of the world.

Most of the time I would play underground hiphop, the new music of the revolution; pure innovation and artistry, dedication and soul. This isn’t the shit you hear on MTV, people, this is totally contrary to the mainstream. It’s very inspiring.

So how important to your creative process is music?

Music is always on when I work, so I would imagine very important. It makes me happy, it gives me energy, it keeps me from being bored when I have to draw the tats on Jennie 2.5's arms over and over and over again...

If you were given the power to alter one thing in the way the comic industry is run, what would it be?

This is a no-brainer: distribution. Comics should be sold in every bookstore, every music shop, anywhere culture is to be found, there should be comics.

And yet only a handful of publishers have even considered this. How are we going to change the minds of the people who actually have the money and run the big companies?

By taking some of their money away from them, like Larry Young at AiT/PLANET LAR is doing. He is breaking the mould of "comic book publishing and distribution" and showing all concerned that money and success can be a result of that. Sooner or later the big boys will take notice.

Scott J Grunewald and the staff of PopImage would like to thank Brian Wood for taking the time to conduct this interview with us. Scott J Grunewald is the publisher of PopImage.