Adam Gallardo: What led you to develop the Maverick line?
Diana Schutz: Maverick's success, in large part I think, has to do with giving creators a home, providing a home for creator-owned properties -- providing a certain identity to those creator-owned labors of love that distinguishes them from Dark Horse's licensed books. For instance, you think about a book like Sin City and that fits better in a line that encompasses such titles as Hellboy, or even Sock Monkey or Too Much Coffee Man, just because it is the creator's labor of love. It's an individual vision. And therefore very distinct from the sort of assembly-line comic book that Dark Horse also publishes. One of the reasons that Maverick was started, really, was to provide a kind of identity or specific line for those sorts of individual creator visions. I think it's been fairly successful in that regard. And the other thing, of course, is having a section in Diamond Previews can't help but solidify that identity a little bit. It reminds people that Dark Horse really does publish creator-owned books [laughs]. You know, I think Dark Horse's identity has gotten a little confused over the years. And people often see the company primarily in light of our licensed books, and Lord knows we do publish a lot of them, but the roots of this company are with creator-owned books and Maverick was an attempt to underline that aspect.
AG: The line-up has always been eclectic; how do you decide whom you want to be in the line-up?
DS: You know, I wish there were some hard and fast rules to tell you, but there aren't. It has to do with personal taste and with a certain standard of quality, I think. It has to do with creator and with pushing the boundaries of the medium. It has to do with all of the above, and I can't really define it any more than that. The bottom line is it kind of comes down to Mike Richardson and me. But certainly other editors -- like Phil Amara, for instance, who recently signed up Eric Drooker to do a reprinting of his seminal graphic novel Flood -- and then Phil and Scott Allie worked together on Scatterbrain -- so other editors are certainly involved. But, no, there are no hard and fast rules as to what constitutes a Maverick title or how we set about looking for one. If push came to shove, I would say it has a lot to do with the particular project being a labor of love for the individual creator.
AG: Have you found that your approach to material you want for Maverick has changed in the last few years. Has it stayed constant, or are you still looking for the same kinds of things?
DS: As I get older, I tend to look for things that push the medium a little bit. Unfortunately, those are always the hardest things to sell. And as in any publishing enterprise, you have to be concerned with the bottom line. If it were purely up to me, I think the Maverick line would probably look a lot more bizarre than it does. So -- have things changed? Well, yeah, to some degree, because I am looking for the stranger kinds of things. Do those stranger kinds of things get accepted for publication? Well, not always.
AG: Do you find that the anthologies are good for that? A place where you can have more mainstream stuff and then put in your stranger, personal favorites?
DS: Absolutely, and that's been one of the joys for me in putting this year's anthology together: being able to pair up people who already are very well-established talents -- people like Frank Miller and Sam Kieth -- with the young up-and-comers, like Farel Dalrymple or Gilbert Austin or Jason Hall and Matt Kindt. To be able to give the new kids a chance, because they are good, too. Their work is really good, but our marketplace is small and a little bit unforgiving or unreceptive, and it's hard to introduce new talent to the comics marketplace so this is one way of doing that. Really, the thrill of the anthology is to be able to get the best work out of some of the best people in the business and then to provide a home for new, very talented kids.
AG: This year's anthology is much bigger than the previous year's. This allows you to get more material in it. Have you considered publishing it as, say, a quarterly to get even more material out there?
DS: Anthologies, as you well know, are crazy-making for editors. I'd proably tear my hair out if I had to do too many of these! I don't know how Randy Stradley or Bob Schreck managed to keep Dark Horse Presents running on a monthly basis all those years without going to the nuthouse! It is really hard... juggling all those people and all those stories. The Maverick Annual is bigger this year because Chris Warner suggested to me that people would be more inclined to purchase a larger anthology rather than, you know, a 48-page comic that you can roll up and stick in your back pocket. Right now I am juggling two anthologies: I've got the 96-page Maverick anthology -- subtitled Happy Endings, by the way -- and I've got the next four issues of Grendel: Red, White, & Black -- what that means is I'm dealing with roughly 35 artists all of a sudden, and that's hard. That's a lot of phone calls, a lot of schedules to juggle. I might think about doing the Maverick anthology maybe twice a year, but I don't think much more than that. I value my sanity [laughs]! What little there is left!
AG: You mentioned Grendel: Red, White, & Black a moment ago. What other titles are coming out from Maverick in the near future?
DS: Maverick month begins with the release of the Happy Ending anthology. Then there's the next American Splendor series, called Unsung Hero, which is written by Harvey Pekar, of course, and illustrated by David Collier. It's a three-issue biography of a fellow named Robert McNeill. Robert went to Vietnam at the tender age of 17 and grew up right quick. Harvey met him while working at the Veterans in Cleveland and spent a lot of time interviewing Robert about his life and experiences, primarily in Vietnam. Those are now being recorded in a three-issue series that is pretty hard-hitting. There's also a Sock Monkey hardcover children's book called The Glass Doorknob. Then there is The Complete Pip and Norton trade paperback, collecting all the Pip and Norton strips by Dave Cooper and Gavin McInnes. There's also a two-issue Hellboy series called The Third Wish, and Usagi Yojimbo #60 which features the long awaited dual at Kitanoji, in which we see the duel between Usagi's sensei, Katsuichi, and the deadly Nakamura Koji. Then Grendel: Red, White, & Black will be out in September.
AG: What's coming down the line? I know there's a Frank Miller story in the anthology. Is there any Frank Miller work coming down the pike?
DS: Well, you know, just today Frank finished his "little Batman gig" [laughs], as I like to call it, and subsequently, yes, we have a few things on tap. He's doing a short story for the anthology, as well as the cover. He has a brand new Sin City character and, if I'm not mistaken, the entire story takes place in the bar, which is a great place to be in Sin City. Then we have The Art of Sin City, which will be an actual coffee table art book, featuring some never-before-seen artwork as reproductions of art from the graphic novels. One of the reasons I want to do The Art of Sin City is to get across this feeling that as an editor, I'm kinda blessed to have. When Frank sends in his original art -- and it's big, his art is big -- it's big and it's brash and it's bold -- and I open the package and I have these giant, beautiful pages of art in front of me. And I'm not reading the story anymore, I'm just completely overwhelmed -- it's an aesthetic experience -- and that's what I want to give to readers and fans. Because Frank doesn't sell his original artwork, or at least not much of it, and what does get sold is extremely expensive. So I thought, if I do a big coffee table art book, that will help give that kind of experience to his fans. That's slated to be out in time for Christmas. Also, this weekend, we're flying Frank to Florida to spend time with Will Eisner, so the two of them can get together and have a conversation that we'll edit and publish. Very much like the Hitchcock/Truffaut book, which was a seminal film studies book Frank and Will are going to sit and have a two-day conversation about their approach to comics and comics storytelling.
AG: So it's a conversation, then, between Frank and Will as opposed to Frank interviewing Will...?
DS: Correct. Once, a few years back, in San Diego, I spent the night in the bar of a hotel sandwiched between Frank and Will, and in those few hours I listened to them do exactly that -- talk to each other about their approach to comics and argue, and go back and forth, and agree and disagree. Even though at that point I'd been editing comics for some 16 or more years, that was probably one of the most instructive nights I have ever spent, just listening to the two of them go at it head to head.
At this point, Diana had to take a call from, speak of the devil, Frank Miller, and our interview came to an end.
The Maverick Annual, Happy Endings, is a 96-page trade paperback measuring 6"x9". This year's Annual features story and art by Frank Miller, Tony Millionaire, Brian Michael Bendis, Mike Mignola, Harvey Pekar, Joe Sacco, and other. It will be available on September 4.