Strangers in Paradise is a Eisner Award winning book done by Terry Moore.
Mainstream comic readers might remember it best when it was at Image
Comics, but it is still one of the most successful and well known
completely independent comic books around.
Coville:
What is your daily schedule like?
Moore:
I start work around 10 o'clock and go until about midnight, breaking for lunch
and dinner. I do this seven days a week. Most of the work is writing and
drawing, some of it is business and email things.
Coville:
How much time do you spend writing vs. drawing?
Moore:
Most of my waking hours. I go to bed hoping I'll dream of scenes. I lay in bed
in the morning running scenes and setups through my head while it is still
uncluttered.
Coville:
How many times do you go over your story/script and change it before you
begin to draw it?
Moore:
Countless. Endlessly. I write and rewrite until I finally draw and ink it and
then I change it the next morning. Then I finish the sequence and make
changes, then I finish the book and make changes just before I send it to the
printer. Then I read the book and think I should make changes and realize I
can't anymore. Then I consider changing it for the tpb.
Coville:
Are you completely satisfied with your work when you finished?
Moore:
No, never a whole book. But there are panels and scenes and moments that make
me very happy.
Coville:
What part of the book do you enjoy writing the most? The Poems? Comedy? Drama?
Moore:
I love it most when I capture the emotion I was going after, no matter how I
did it. The tools don't really matter. Just, if I can make the reader feel
connected to the moment.
Coville:
Do you find it easier to write male or female characters?
Moore:
They require the same effort, it's just their perks and mysteries are in
different places.
Coville:
Will Katchoo ever have a sexual relationship with a female lover?
Moore:
She has already had several.
Coville:
Since you know women so well, what do us geeks have to do to get laid?
Moore:
Well, Bill Gates came up with a good solution. I don't think he had any
trouble getting dates before he got married.
Coville:
What's the latest news about Strangers in Paradise in other media?
Moore:
There is no SIP interest or activity outside of the publishing industry. The
HBO deal is dead.
Coville:
Any chance of a Strangers in Paradise novel?
Moore:
Maybe, someday. I certainly have it all outlined.
Coville:
Is there an official SIP website?
Moore:
Not yet. But we're building one now.
Coville:
I noticed your recent art doesn't emphasize the more extreme melodrama
parts that was in your earlier issues. Are you consciously changing that?
Moore:
I think so. I allow the art to morph and evolve freely. I don't try to conform
it to a "SIP look". I don't want to be trapped by my own creation.
Coville:
What do you have a hardest time drawing?
Moore:
Architecture and sequeway scenes I have no emotional attachment to.
Coville:
What advice can you give to struggling indy comic publishers?
Moore:
Work under the assumption that all you need to do is make the coolest comic in
the world and everything will work out. If sales are low, look at the book and
what it has to offer that no other book in the industry has. If you have a
genre comic or a new improved version of something that's already out, you're
going to be disappointed I'm afraid. This industry needs brand new ideas
packaged with jaw-dropping gorgeous art.
