Dan Slott Interview

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Interview with brothers Steven and Dan Goldman
(creators of the comic Everyman)

exclusively for JHUniverse.com
10/27/04

SG:  I've dipped in and out of journalism since high school, but the burning desire to write fiction didn't hit me until my last year of my college's theater program, when I realized that I'd rather be writing, not acting.  I got out of school, started working on plays, short fiction, and hooked up with my brother shortly thereafter to do our first co-written comic script, which we pitched to Marvel (circa 1999).

DG: In fifth grade, I was in those "special classes" with better curriculum and teachers who cared. My Future Problem Solvers teacher, Ms. Sheila Firestone, made a present of Ray Bradbury's Golden Apples of the Sun. I read the whole thing that night and knew that storytelling, in one shape or form, was what I wanted to do with my life. I wrote my first story the next afternoon after school... it was called "Santa Claws" about an evil reptilian Santa who punished the bad children, and I illustrated the front page. Words and pictures have always gone hand-in-glove for me.

SG:  As a journalist, I've written for FoxNews.com and Flagpole, Athens, Georgia's free weekly, and freelanced for dot-coms that will never be heard from again.  In comics, STYX TAXI was my first published work.

DG: In comics, my first published work was "Schmear" in SMUT PEDDLER, Vol. 2; Steve and I wrote it and I drew the little sex-romp. My first longer-form work was published recently in the FLESH FOR BEAST Anthology, published by Media Blasters; again, script by Steve and I, art by me.

SG:  It's a completely unique medium.  It has none of the budget restrictions (or laws of physics) of TV or film, and none of the space or time restrictions of live theater.  It's also got a precision that is hard to match in other media. 

DG: Comics is an amazing vibrant medium in which you can tell stories unlike any other. Look at how movies are only now catching up to be able to tell these stories... but the beauty of comics lies in what comics can do that films can't. Imagine a film of something like Kirby's NEW GODS or PROMETHEA or Taiyo Matsumoto's NO. 5 or something paralleling the cut-up narrative structure of YUKIKO'S SPINACH.

My "day job" is a graphic designer, so writing/drawing comics is doubly interesting in that you're creating (to pinch from Paul Pope's phraseology) a "design container" to contain/present a piece of time, and to twist it and open/close to serve your own unholy desires as a creator. You CAN'T do that in a medium like film since it depends on time to move the images, nor in prose because all the images must be READ as words before they can be processed into image-structure.

SG:  My long-time favorites:  PREACHER, Paul Pope's 100%, PROMETHEA, LONE WOLF & CUB, JMS and JRJR on AMAZING SPIDER-MAN, and HUMAN TARGET.  Peter Milligan's a tremendous writer who shows us what it means to take risks; Garth Ennis is always in the back of my mind, smacking me around to keep my characters real; and JMS' work always reminds me that mine could use another polish, that the craft has to be TIGHT.

DG: I read alot of BD and manga for the approach to the storytelling, and alot of the work being done in America is some of the most daring and experimental (in terms of the form) in the world. Some of my current faves are PLANETES, anything by Paul Pope, Taiyo Matsumoto, Katsuhiro Otomo, Junji Ito. The sort of stuff that inspires me has to do with the sort of non-traditional stories that Steve and I are aiming for with our company FWDbooks; stories with heart and characters and quiet moments that tell you everything you need to know. Of course, mainstream comics are full of brilliant craftsmen, but alot of the time I am reminded of my friend Paolo in Miami, who earns his living painting exact replicas of famous works of art for patrons' houses. The energy of comics that attracted me in the first place is the ideas of SOMETHING NEW... and that's what blows me away and keeps me burning for it. Oy, I'm on a tangent, aren't I...?

SG:  More often than not, we work in the same room, both of us talking and one person typing.  When that's not practical (i.e., Dan's illustrating or there's a huge chunk of script waiting to be done), we break it up and work on sections of script separately, working from the same outline, then trade and refine the other's work.

DG: Yep; Steve's the only person I've collaborated with as a writer where I've felt that the vision is shared, or merged. There's a synthesis when we talk about stuff since we're bringing different ideas but the same philosophy to the table; the Brothers Goldman is working because it's such a perfect fit.

SG:  We haven't arm-wrestled lately.

DG: But I can spit farther.

SG: West Indian would work for me.  Jerk and curry, every day...that's a recipe for a healthy immune system!

DG: If it was a desert island with a restaurant, how would I pay for the food..? That's not fair. The food would have to be Japanese, as long as I can pay the waitresses for my sushi with long, extended makeout sessions.

Q: What inspired you to write this book?

SG: A combination of watching the media ignore the possible dangers of electronic voting machines -- most of the states using them have done security studies on them, and found them to be far from reliable at best, dangerous to the electoral process at worst (where machines drop votes to the point of a negative vote count for a booth) -- and at the same time, watching candidates vie for the presidency based on how much of a crowd-pleaser they can be, not how strong of a PRESIDENT they'd be.   

SG: People on both sides of the political fence have asked us, "well, what're you going to do about it?  Run?"  Dan and I are comic creators, so we decided to play futurist and dream the world we wanted to see into being on the page, while still taking into account the political arena as it is now...keep it in the realm of possibility so that people don't write it off as out-and-out fantasy.

DG: How can you look at what's been going on this entire Bush2 administration and NOT speak up? Again, we are merely comic-book creators, and the songs we sing have pictures. Beyond that, we felt that the ideas/symbols of OneLove contained within the pages of EVERYMAN were the sorts of things that needed to be seen/heard/percolated/acted upon. It had to start somewhere.

SG: Not yet, but we're not through the election yet.

DG: I'm going to be more concerned about this if W is still sitting in the same chair on January 20th; again, we'll see. As far as inside the comics community, people have dismissed us as polemic Dems, but that's honestly because they haven't READ it. Once you close that back cover, you'll realize that EVERYMAN is for all Americans, and it's a love letter with panels.

SG: Not at all.  The outcome of events to follow might, as Volume 2 is dependent on how things go in Iraq during the next year.

DG: It doesn't change the fact that the election of either candidate still allows our story to roll forward; it is a work of fiction after all, wink-wink. The direction of EVERYMAN from Volume 2 forward will certainly be shaped by the policies of the next(?) administration; Iraq, prison reform, the organized thievery of our healthcare system, American "education" (quotes intended), civil rights issues... all these will be addressed in coming volumes.

SG:  We wanted to make the book as appealing to readers as we possibly could.  The price point's low for a book this length, the size is perfect for commuters or folks wanting lunchtime reading, and it's just a smidge taller than Tokyopop's books.

DG: Word.

SG:  We've mapped out 8-10 volumes in broad strokes, following the rise (and possible fall) of a third-party in Washington and what havoc that political X-factor plays with the established habits, back-office dealing and legislative process in Washington.  OneLove doesn't play by everyone's rules, and both sides are in for some surprises.

DG: The playing field of the story opens wide by the end of BE THE PEOPLE, and there's so much more story to tell, so much more that we have in store for Mack and Dita and the rest of OneLove. You guys have no idea what they're planning to do with this nation of ours.