Omar: You also worked at Vertigo.
Steven: Yeah, I worked there a lot.
Omar: You started there, you had Sandman Mystery Theater that was there, American Virgin, and...
Steven: House of Secrets.
Omar: House of Secrets, of course.
Steven: Crusades, those are my monthlies that I did and I did a bunch of specials in
one shots and so on.
Omar: How did you come to work there and what was the, was it still creator owned there
or was it a mix?
Steven: Yeah, when I was there, I was there early, so it was very creator owned.
It got less so as time went by.
And so, I fall into things.
I'm very intentional, everybody who meets me is like, "Oh, he's very systems and intentional".
And that's true except about my life.
My life has been a series of "What?
Okay, whatever."
And I go do that and that's my career for many years strangely, until recently.
I think in the last five years I've been more; this is what I'm going to do, but I was never
that way.
So, I was living out here in California.
I was teaching at Pasadena City College, speech and debate because I love speech team stuff,
a geek from way back when my wife still coaches that on occasion, so, I kept my finger on
it.
I moved out here, I was teaching a speech team at Preston City College, I was friends
with a comic writer, James Robinson, at the time who was like, "Why don't you do comic
books anymore?".
And I'm like, "Because I'm a teacher now".
He's like, "Well, you should go to New York with me and meet some editors, and then, you
could probably get some comics works".
I'm like "I'll go to New York with you and try to get some comics work".
So, we flew to New York, he introduced me to Bill Kaplan who then went to Image, he
was that editor, and Bill Kaplan was like, is this guy any good?
And James like, yes, he's been nominated for Eisner already.
He's like, what are you doing now?
I'm like, I'm a teacher.
He's like, Why aren't you doing comics?
I'm like, I don't know.
He was like, Okay, pitch me some stuff.
So, I pitched him a book that they bought as a monthly, and at the same time, Matt Wagner,
who did Grendel and Mage, still doing Mage at Image right now.
He called me because I'd done a Grendel tale story for him a long time ago before this
and he was like, "Listen, I'm doing Sandman Mystery Theatre for Vertigo, I've done a
year, I'm going to quit, they want me to stay, I told I'd only stay if I got a co-writer,
do you want to co-write with me?".
And I was like, "Weirdly enough, I'm selling a book to DC already, so, I'm probably too
busy".
I said; but also, you and I, like I love him as a person, like; but you and I are a lot
alike; we're really headstrong, I think we just fight, I don't think it would go well.
He's like, "Fly to Portland, let's talk about it".
I'm like; errr.
So, I flew to Portland, went to his house.
He's like; I'm going to cook you dinner, he's a really good cook.
I'm like, "Okay, I'm in for that".
And he's like, "Here, watch my daughter", he had just had Amanda Wagner, his daughter,
she was like months old.
He's like, hand me this little, I'm like I don't know what to do with babies.
Says he got to go to the store, I'm out of stuff and he just left.
I've got this baby, it's like a Lone Wolf and Cub with me and this kid.
I'm like, kind of just wandering around, I'd never even, I don't think I'd held a baby
this young ever.
And then I would get near the refrigerator, she goes, (crying softly).
I'm like, I'll move away from the refrigerator, she's like (crying loudly), back to the
refrigerator.
I'm like, he's gone, when is he coming back?
What does this baby want?
I'm like; refrigerator, think this through Seagle, you can do this.
And I'm like, formula!
There's something that she's - - okay, so I opened the refrigerator, I pulled out the
formula and she's like "glug glug glug" (chuckles).
I'm like; oh, thank God you didn't die while he was gone.
And then he came back and he made dinner and I'm like, why did you leave me with your
baby?
And he's like, "Ah, you're fine, you'll get used to it.
I got used to it."
And then we ate dinner.
And then, he's like, "So, here's we're going to do for the next four issues".
And I'm like, "Okay, but what about all that", and we just started working and I was like;
I've been duped, we didn't have a conversation about how we would work, we just started working.
And then, we worked, it was super easy, it was just super easy to work with him.
And then, I spent the rest of my time with that book trying to convince him not to quit,
because every year he'd be like, "Okay, you, just do it".
I'm like, "No, I don't want to just do it, I want to do with you".
And so, I would always negotiate a way for him to stay on.
I'm like, "What if you just give me like a page of an overview for four issues and
then I'll send you something and you can...
So, and we just negotiate how we could both keep doing it.
And eventually, he quit.
Omar: How long did it take him to quit?
Steven: Five years, it's pretty good.
Omar; So, that's a pretty long run.
Steven: I think he did five years, and then, I did five years.
So, he did the first year without me and I did the last year without him.
Omar: Oh wow!
Steven: And Guy Davis and lot of great artists the whole time, Guy Davis is the nicest person alive.
So, it was easy to work on.
Omar: Nice.
And after that, you worked on American Virgin?
Steven: House of Secrets.
Omar: House of Secrets was after that.
That is you've done a lot of issues of House of Secrets.
I think there's, the Omnibus is...
Steven: We did 25 monthly issues, then we did two prestige 48 painted issues, Teddy
Kristiansen who I worked with a lot was the primary artist on that.
And he's just not a monthly guy, like he wanted to be a monthly guy and I wanted him to be
a monthly guy and we just got more and more behind on our schedule.
So, DC was like; listen, we like this book but maybe you just do specials when they're
done.
And I'm like, "Could we paint those?".
And they're like, yes.
So, that made him come out even later than they would have, so we did that.
And then, Teddy and I stopped doing it because I sold them "It's a Bird", which I didn't think
in a million years they would do a Superman book about how much I don't like Superman.
And they said yes.
So, then we had to do that.
And that took about two years to get through it, it's 128 painted pages and it was a
lot of work.
And by then, we were like; we're kind of done with House of Secrets, so.
Omar: But you finished House of Secrets then?
Steven: We had already finished it, or did we do?
See, I don't know, my mind is a fall.
We might have done It's a Bird, and then, House of Secrets facade or maybe the other
way, I don't know.
Omar: They were like you have to wrap up House of Secrets before you do that.
Steven: Well, there's no wrapping it up because House of Secrets was wildly experimental;
every story arc was told in a completely different way, the scripts were even radically different
story arc to story arc.
So, Teddy, that was one of things that Teddy wanted, he was like, "I want to be surprised
every new time that we're telling a new story".
So, I started then sending him scripts that were written just in radically different ways
and going; make sense of this if you dare!
Because not only like the narrative point of view would be different, the storytelling
modality would be different.
I'd be like; this one is all two-panel pages with five different narrative arcs that interweave.
This one is told backwards.
This one is a time travel story.
You know, so it was a lot.
Maybe I exhausted him, maybe he wasn't slow, maybe he was tired.
Omar: And he was like, "I don't know what to do anymore, it's too much coming at me
from every angle."
Steven: No, he always knew what to do, he did a great job on that.
Omar: You and Teddy have been working together for a long time so you guys have a great relationship.
Steven: He once said to me, he's like, "I like you, let's just make comics until one
of us is dead".
Omar: Wow!
Steven: And I was like that's either really creepy or really romantic.
So, I'm going to go romantic and say yes.
Omar: I love this.
Steven: So, we're still trying to make comics together.
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