Myatt Murphy and Scott Dalrymple: Second to None

By Mike Jozic

When Fade From Blue was first brought to my attention, it could probably be said that most comic book readers did not know much about this title, or the company that produced it. Flash-forward a couple of months and there is a fairly dramatic change in the status of Second 2 Some Studios among the industry as a whole. On top of a great deal of media coverage in the print and online press, the series’ creative team of Myatt Murphy and Scott Dalrymple have recently received an Eisner nomination for Talent Deserving of Wider Attention. Fade has also been certified cool many times over by Diamond Distributors, and singled out by Wizard and the Comic Buyers Guide as a title to watch.

Second 2 Some’s writer Murphy comes to comic books from the magazine world, where he has written for various publications like Men’s Health, Cosmo and Maxim. Artist Dalrymple spent two years training at the Joe Kubert School of Cartoon and Graphic Art before hooking up with Second 2 Some, penciling the popular back-up series, Far From Saints, and eventually handling the art chores on their other two titles as well.

Their latest offerings include Christa Shermot’s 100% Guaranteed How-To Manual for Getting Anyone to Read Comic Books! - a humourous and tailor made guide for new and lapsed comic book readers - and their continuing series, Fade From Blue - now on its 7th issue.

I spoke with Myatt and Scott about Second 2 Some’s titles, their roles in the creation of those titles and Free Comic Book Day.


MIKE JOZIC: I want to try and cover everything possible here, but let us start with where the name Second 2 Some came from?

MYATT MURPHY: A long list of studio names that I forged years ago. I had the usual super-slick titles brewing, but then we just thought that being honest about our books was a better approach than claiming they were the greatest things on the planet. So we went with the self-effacing Second 2 Some, because maybe our books look better than most indies, but compared to some books out there, we're definitely in second place.

JOZIC: And how did the group of you come together to form Second 2 Some Studios?

MURPHY: I was working at a magazine when I met Chris Rhoads, an artist whose day job was designing best selling books. We decided to try our hand at teaming up just for fun and started pulling together a real twisted one-shot story starring Shang-Chi from Master of Kung-Fu. About 8 pages into the story, I realize that even if we finished the comic, we could never do anything with it, since we didn't own the rights to the character, so we decided to inject that darkness into a comic idea I had called Two Over Ten. From there, we scooped up Scott Dalrymple and Jay Davis - both attendees of the Kubert Art School - and that was it.

JOZIC: Having successfully written for non-comic book publications, what drove you to enter this industry?

MURPHY: It's definitely different in a lot of respects from what I'm used to writing for mainstream magazines, but I think I just was drawn to the fact that comics allow you to visually tell any story you can possibly conceive. No other format lets you do that as easily and as inexpensively.

JOZIC: I’m curious about the circumstances surrounding Fade From Blue’s genesis, and how much you had "completed" by the time Scott became involved and the series was launched?

MURPHY: Scott was there right from the beginning. We had completed Two Over Ten and were waiting for the last few issues to be lettered so we could approach Diamond with a complete package. We hadn’t worked on anything for about six months while we waited for all the lettering to be complete, so we toyed around with a few ideas just to try out.

We were working on a very dark story that I thought would be fun to try out as a one-shot - a story we’ll be trying later next year, by the way. Anyway, I was on my way home in New York City walking the streets and I passed a person that looked just like Marit - the eldest sister of the book who’s also a detective. At first, I wasn’t sure if it was a man or a woman, since the person had this lean, chiseled look about them. So I doubled back and passed them again, only to notice that it was a woman, one whose face wore this look of determination, anger and sadness all at the same time. I immediately rushed home, started working on an idea that would make a person look that way and Fade From Blue was born.

I then infused a lot of things friends and family of mine had gone through to create more sub-plots and structure that was more believable, so there was a lot more human drama happening at the same time. Scott and I usually touch base every night, so by the time he called me to check in, I told him to stop what he was working on and start on character roughs for the four women I had in mind for Fade.

JOZIC: How long will the first story arc in Fade last?

MURPHY: The first one is expected to last from issues #1- #10. That storyline takes place within a week, but it’s a crucial week that not only addresses the underlying plot, which is who killed all four of their mothers, but each sister is going through a sub-plot that will resolve itself by issue #10 and start them growing in a new direction. Most times, major life changes aren’t as abrupt as people think they are, they kind of just happen over time caused by one turning point or another. That is what we’re going for with the first arc.

JOZIC: Was it difficult finding a story to drive the book beyond the characters’ individual arcs?

MURPHY: Not really. Everyone’s heard stories of dead-beat dads with kids in every town, so the premise of a man that has four kids with four different mothers wasn’t too out of the norm. But, adding the fact that the four wives don’t know about each other, or the fact that their husband was a bounty hunter - and when I say that, I mean a legitimate bounty hunter, not some souped-up version that TV typically depicts - was brought in later to give the story line some quirkiness.

As few people realize, Fade was always meant to be very dark in nature. That’s why seeing the humor and drama aspect of it stepping forward and being what people love about the book - and now, that’s become what I love writing in the book - continues to be a surprise.

JOZIC: Once that underlying/overarching plotline is resolved, what kind of direction do you hope to take the series in?

MURPHY: Well, the first thing readers will notice is the lack of another story arc. Fade From Blue is written more like a TV show than a comic, but after #10, it will be written even more like a TV show in that every issue will be self-encapsulated. After we finished Far From Saints - a one-shot story that originally ran in the back pages of the mini-series Two Over Ten - both Scott and I really liked the idea of one-shot comics that still have a deeper history to them. People talk about high prices and lack of comics for kids being the main reasons why comics aren’t doing as well as they once were, but I think another major reason is a little thing called continuity. I know I’m intimidated from picking up a title because I know, most likely, I’ll be catching it in the middle of a story arc and won’t have any beginning-middle-end resolution by reading just that issue.

Fade’s no different, even though we put a long intro right in the front for all new readers to bring them right up to speed if they’ve never read a single issue. But after #10, I want each issue to have that kind of single-shot satisfaction. Seeing how successful it worked for us with Far From Saints last year and how many of the publishers we respect like Oni and Alternative have been doing the same thing for years to bring positive stories to readers looking for that as well, it just feels like a natural thing to do.

JOZIC: I really enjoyed the Far From Saints one shot. Is there any chance of you and Scott revisiting those characters?

MURPHY: You and every one else that read it, Mike.

Far From Saints was written in one night and drawn in two months and remains the one book we’ve done that not a single reviewer didn’t like. Everyone wants to see it turn into a series, and to be honest, with all the attention it’s gotten, we may do it one day. That is a storyline that could easily continue on in one-shot format, since it’s written like a sarcastic Quantum Leap TV show. So don’t be surprised if we give it another go in 2004.

JOZIC: Reading it I got the sense that the story and ideas flowed very naturally and quickly. Was it an easy book for you to do?

MURPHY: Thank you for that. And, yeah, it was the easiest and fastest to write and draw out of the three.

What many people don’t realize is that Far From Saints was actually written as a back-up for Two Over Ten, and was our first attempt at writing and drawing anything for comic books. I think because we saw it as this little knock-off back-up story, it was less tainted with worrying if fans would like it, are we using the right format and all the other things you consider when producing a comic book. We just did it as if we were doing it to have fun, which is probably why it comes off pure.

Fade From Blue has really taken that same mentality. I think after seeing how well accepted Far From Saints was, we realized that our strong suit is just to do it the way we want to do it and not try to be anything we’re not. We’ve begun to lean in the direction of what reviewers and fans tell us is our strongest asset, which is characterization. That style is the easiest for us to do, and it seems like it’s what we’re known for now, so anything we do in the future will be riddled with that same style, you can be sure.

JOZIC: Getting back to Fade, I think that the removal of the one big arc is probably a good idea after #10. Is that a long-term decision for the series in your minds, or will there still be a payoff down the road the way a season of Buffy or Angel ends?

MURPHY: No, it was always meant to fall that way. The first 10 issues deal with one week in the lives of the girls. It’s the beginning of the end of a nine-year journey of remaining in hiding and keeping silent. After the arc, I’d like to have each issue be more episodic in nature so they stand out on their own, but at the same time, there will be small elements that will push the story forward. Only readers of the 1-10 arc will see those advances, if we do it right.

JOZIC: Will we see the sisters have to move and change names again? It would be a pretty jarring experience for the readers, but possibly a rewarding one in the long run.

MURPHY: Let’s just say things are coming to a head soon. You’re going to see with #8 how they prepare for what is the same-old, same-old when it comes to leaving town. Will they ‘all’ be leaving Brooklyn? Hmmm… to tell you would be giving up too much, so I’ll have to say ‘stay tuned and see”.

JOZIC: Speaking of names, where did the names for the sisters come from? Christa is pretty much the only "conventional" name in the group?

MURPHY: Damn, there’s a question no one has ever asked us before. You’re right, Christa is the only one with a more traditional name, which was done intentionally. Because the sisters come from four different mothers, I wanted to be sure the names reflected that, but not too much that it was overly obvious. Iya’s mom was most likely Scandinavian or Russian, for example. But as for where the names came from, three of them are actually friends of mine so Iya, Marit and Elisa are dedicated to them.

Christa, however, was originally named after Christa Miller from the Drew Carey Show, mostly because her character proves that women can go toe-to-toe with a guy at acting like a guy. Christa’s by far the most popular character of the book because she’s not afraid to speak her mind, no matter how nasty the subject matter is that’s brewing in it, so a year later, I still think the name fits.

JOZIC: You seem to have a good handle on the inner dialogue of women. The back and forth the four sisters often share is really well done. Did you grow up around sisters?

MURPHY: Nope. It's really just about listening to my friends, ex-girlfriends and family all these years and writing down their thoughts and experiences. I really don't think of it as writing women as much as I'm writing people. I think that's why Fade From Blue never comes off stereotypical. It can't be because it's based on the personalities of real people in my life all squeezed into these four unique sisters.

JOZIC: Are there any characters in the series with whom you identify, and does that change the way that you approach your portrayals of them?

MURPHY: Oh, I relate to all of them in some large or small way because, with the exception of the murder sub-plot, most of the actions are based on the real-life experiences of friends I know. I think the only real ties I personally have to any of the characters probably lies more in Dag - Elisa’s best friend - than anyone else. He’s a classic case of unrequited love, and what guy hasn’t been there before.

JOZIC: Scott, I don’t want to leave you out, here. What was it that initially attracted you to drawing Fade?

SCOTT DALRYMPLE: The money, of course! [laughs]

No, I think it was the chance to work with Myatt again on something that was complete from start to finish. I came onboard Two Over Ten - the first mini-series Murphy wrote - with issue #4 and #5 to close it down, so I never had the chance to do a story from beginning to end. We also worked on the Far From Saints one-shot together, but I really wanted to try something that wasn’t being done in comics. Myatt and I were working up a proposal on a sci-fi story that was much darker and I was already going crazy working up character roughs, then Myatt called me up and said, “Stop! I have a better idea about a bunch of sisters, four dead mothers and a polygamist bounty-hunting father that’s actually going to be funny and sad at the same time.” After I heard the plot, I just knew it was something that no one was doing much of in comics nowadays and I really wanted to be a part of that. It was also a chance to do something I like to do and that’s draw realistic people. What’s been great is hearing how so many people like the book because all the characters are easily identifiable with real bodies and no silicone-injected, over-inflated builds. Being able to use that style on a book like Fade just felt like the perfect match.

JOZIC: Reading that two page "montage" at the beginning of issue #4 where you show the sisters coming and going and Christa writing until she crashes, how much of that was scripted by Myatt, and how much of it was your contribution?

DALRYMPLE: Hmmmm, I’d like to take credit for that, but that whole sequence all came from Myatt’s script. What he wanted me to do is draw two pages that spanned nine hours and completely explained what the sisters did within that time without saying a single word. All you have to give you clues are the clocks and noticing certain things that either come into panel or leave the panel.

MURPHY: I knew what I wanted to say, but when it came down to the angles of how to execute it, the whole spread would never have been as effective if Scott hadn’t reworked my thoughts. I knew I wanted fixed camera shots, almost like a reality TV show, but some of the angles I chose weren’t working right and Scott went in and took a different approach which smoothed out the rough edges.

JOZIC: This may sound pretty trivial, Scott, but why the change in how you draw Christa's hair?

DALRYMPLE: Ahhhhh…the great debate - well, not really. Good catch for noticing, by the way.

In issues #1-#4 of Fade From Blue, I added lines in the hair of Christa and Iya, then removed them starting with #5. It was an element of Japanese style I wanted to play with, just to see what worked and what didn’t. What was funny is that we had a few readers that really had serious issues with it having lines, claiming their hair looked too metallic! Just for fun, I played around with a few other styles and actually preferred it without the lines. Since Iya and Marit are both blondes, I felt that adding color to Christa’s hair kept it from looking like three blondes and one brunette when you see all four girls in black and white.

JOZIC: Was there an overall stylistic shift for you with #5? There were few things that seemed a bit different starting in that issue.

DALRYMPLE: If you mean in how the characters are being drawn and the approaches I’m taking in my art, I think I’m just getting more comfortable with the characters now. We’ve never patterned the book on any other book, so not being a copy of something else already being done gives us more room to grow, I think. But nothing is being done differently style-wise intentionally, so when people say the book keeps looking better and better, it’s good to know we’re evolving in the right direction.

MURPHY: You’ll also see more detail starting in #6 of Fade. By pure accident, we were forced to use a different scanner program when doing Fade From Blue #6 and a lot of the line work, white-out tricks and zipatone details that Scott adds were more powerful than before, so we’ve stuck with using that program now to keep that stuff in there.

JOZIC: Scott, have all your projects more-or-less come from the same place design-wise, or have you tried a different take with each one?

DALRYMPLE: I can’t really say. Far From Saints was my first work, but that story takes place in two rooms for the most part, so it was like staging out a one-act play. There really wasn’t much room to play with extreme camera angles and all that, so it was a challenge to draw it like a play but keep it interesting. When I took over Two Over Ten, there was a lot of room to grow, so I went a little more angular with my POV’s.

But, that story was different than Fade because we did it Marvel-style. I didn’t have the script, all I had was what Myatt was trying to express. The words were all added later, so getting into the emotional side of it was harder than Fade From Blue, where I have the full script before I even start breaking it down in thumbnails.

JOZIC: To date, what has been your favorite part of drawing Fade?

DALRYMPLE: I know this sounds kind of cheesy, but it’s the opportunity to draw realistic women. It’s something that I never really did before, growing up with comics that kind of overemphasized female anatomy on every page. As a matter of fact, I couldn't really draw women well at all before we started producing Fade. This posed a challenge to me and gave me a opportunity to improve on illustrating the female form, so I think it was that challenge that made me want to work on Fade From Blue at the start.

JOZIC: Myatt, Christa's column is one of my favourite parts of Fade. I had read that you actually have real relationship columnists ghost writing these columns for you. Was that a difficult thing to set up?

MURPHY: Not when that's your day job. What many people don't realize is that I'm a magazine writer by day just like the character Christa. I do a lot of relationship stuff for Maxim, Cosmo, Glamour, Bride's from a "guy's point of view", and the articles you read in Fade are articles that already ran worldwide that I own the rights to. So far, all the articles have been mine, but I have many friends in mainstream pubs that plan to contribute when I run out of stories.

JOZIC: When putting together Christa's columns, do you gear them towards the story thematically, or are they done totally sans ulterior motive?

MURPHY: Nope. I just throw them in there. Because the articles don’t always mesh with what’s going on in the life of Christa, that’s probably more fitting than most people realize. Magazine writers generally write articles completely out of synch with what’s happening in the immediate, mainly because they have to write four months ahead of when their articles come out. I’ve had to write about winter ski gear in the middle of August and spring workout clothes in the middle of January! You’re almost never in synch with the what’s really going on, so having Christa write about love and relationships when she’s bitter and not even in one is ironic and, believe it or not, more real that way.

JOZIC: Fade has been touted as a female-friendly comic book. Have you guys heard back from any female readers who are offering praise or criticism?

DALRYMPLE: The funny thing about Fade From Blue is that we have just as many male readers as we do female readers. That's something that surprises us, not because the book isn't for both sexes - because it is. It's written like a 10 o' clock TV drama which most are written for men and women. Still, we thought people would label it a girls-book because the main leads were women, but thankfully, everyone came on board in equal numbers.

MURPHY: From our female readers, we've gotten heaps of praise, which is always great to read, and it's rare to see any criticism of Fade From Blue - thank God. But, like every book, we have had one or two critics that sometimes take umbrage of the fact that a guy is writing a book about women.

What's ironic is that my day job has been writing for millions of women, both young and old, on a monthly basis for many magazines such as Cosmo, Glamour, Redbook, Better Homes and Gardens, etc. If I didn't have some semblance of being able to address the issues of women as well as men, I wouldn't have a roof over my head.

But, I never take what little criticism we ever get to heart. It's impossible to create something that pleases everyone and the moment you try, you lose what you were originally trying to get out of yourself. That's why I've always believed if someone doesn't like what I write, that's OK. That means it's not for them and if I change my work to suit a critics needs, then the readers who are in tune with my vision suffer and lose out when I dumb it down or change it. I could never do that to so many readers that do get what we're creating here.

JOZIC: This might be kind of a crazy question seeing as the series is still fairly new, but are you ever worried that at some point the characters will become cliches?

MURPHY: Never. I’m more worried that readers will be more concerned with the girls not staying in their respective roles. I think what’s been great is that almost every reviewer down the line has said that what makes Fade From Blue strong is that the sisters never read like cliches, they read like real people. And as we all know, real people change - well, most do. Trust me when I say that after the first story arc, the four women will start down four separate paths that will surprise readers into seeing what each sister evolves into.

JOZIC: I wanted to address the price of Fade From Blue, which is amazing. Most indie books are usually a lot higher priced than anything you guys put out.

MURPHY: Well, we wanted to create an example, to be honest. Most people blame the fact that comic books are destined to head the way of graphic novels if they are to survive as an art form in the next decade, mainly because the pricing is too high. Comic books are definitely at a price that makes me hold back the amount of titles I would normally buy, and that's a shame because I'm sure everyone else does the same thing and that means we're all finding out about great titles too late in the game. We wanted to see if dropping the price would affect sales, and it definitely seems to help, especially at the shows. We never have any problem selling out because we're half the price of everyone else.

JOZIC: Now that you're six or seven issues in do you see the price staying at $1.50 for the foreseeable future?

MURPHY: Yes, we always set out to keep Fade From Blue at $1.50 for the first arc of the series - which ends with #10. After that, we plan on toying with the idea of bringing the price back up a bit, but not to the standard $2.95. What we wanted to do was offer an alternative in the comics industry for those readers that complained that comic books were too high in price, just to see if we could.

JOZIC: You mentioned to me earlier the collected Fade coming out in July, I believe. Will we be seeing a straight reprint of the 10 issues, or will there be extra fun stuff in there as well?

MURPHY: The first Fade Trade will only be 1-5 - we’re almost out of issues, so we need to have something in print until we collect all 10. Then after #10, we’ll round them up as they were always meant to be in trade form.

But yes, both editions will have extra stuff, including a lot of Scott’s extra sketches, thumbnails of covers that never worked, etc. We always like seeing that type of stuff in books so we’re hoping the fans will like it too.

JOZIC: After reading Fadeand Two Over Ten in their entirety, I still couldn't figure out what the titles meant. For other cloth-eared nincompoops like myself, could you spell it out for us?

MURPHY: Ha! Don't worry, it was never meant to be easily gotten. The titles were one of those things I love seeing other authors or creators do, which is throw in something that doesn't make sense right away and makes you reach for the reference books.

Two over ten, itself - the expression - means nothing, but if you look at the symbol on the cover, which is the number 2 over the number 10, which looks like the numerical expression meaning "two-tenths", that symbol is part of a collection of symbols that was once used by hoboes traveling from town to town. To make things easier for the next hobo that stumbles into town after them, they would carve symbols into trees, posts and such to let their fellow hoboes know what to expect in that town. In Hobo-language, if you saw "two over ten" it meant. "there are thieves about... so watch what you have." I found it poignant, since everyone in the story was looking to take something away from someone. It fit the mini-series perfectly. The fact that the two main characters end up traveling from town to town in search of more people at the end of the story was the clincher for using it, since they essentially become nomadic as well.

Fade From Blue was a name I had kicked around, I believe back in 1996, as a studio title. It would have been Fade From Blue Studios. I just liked the way it sounded. But when Two Over Ten started leaning towards dark fiction, I realized that wouldn’t mesh, so I went with Second 2 Some Studios. When it came time to name the new series, I found Fade From Blue and it just stuck.

Blue can be different things to different people. For some, it’s tied into sadness, but for others, it’s a happy color, like the open sky or crystal-blue water. Knowing the direction Fade From Blue is heading, which is a departure from both sad times and happier times, the title really made a connection, so I kept it.

JOZIC: You seem really hung up on the three name titles: Second 2 Some, Fade From Blue, Two Over Ten & Far From Saints. Is that by design?

MURPHY: Hey, you can’t say that about our Free Comic Book Day offering!

I’m not quite sure, but Christa Shermot’s 100% Guaranteed How-To Manual for Getting Anyone to Read Comic Books! may very well be the longest comic book title out there. The title was so long, even Diamond couldn’t get it all on their order form that they sent to us! But I think you’ll see that it was just coincidence that those titles are similar when you see some of the other titles that will spring forth in short story form in 2004.

JOZIC: You tended to use a narrator in Two Over Ten more often than you used actual dialogue from the characters to move the story along and describe what was happening in each scene. Was that a conscious choice on your part?

MURPHY: Yes. Well, I wanted it to be a sort of book meets comic book. Plus, there were certain forms of expression, certain poetic phrases and prophetic explanations I wanted to use that if they came out of a characters mouth, they wouldn't sound believable because no one ever speaks that way. The ironic twist is that it's not until the epilogue that you realize that the narrator was actually one of the main characters.

I never liked stories that had people coming off with clever phrases that wouldn't be said, and the only reason Breeze - the narrator of the story - is allowed that right at the end is that you realize he's got, literally, thousands of minds in his head at once. I think the collected intelligence of thousands of people would probably turn them very prophetic by default.

JOZIC: I also got the feeling, looking at Two Over Ten and Fade, that you seem to be more comfortable writing the latter. Was Two Over Ten a kind of testing ground for you, craft-wise?

MURPHY: Well, I think when it comes to anything in life, you get better the longer you do it. No one realizes - because it came out in 2001 - that Two Over Ten was actually written in 1996, five years before Fade From Blue, and it took four years to illustrate. Far from Saints, which was written one year after in 1997 and many people believe is our best work to date…the difference between those two is night and day. If I would have written Two Over Ten today, it would be a completely different read, but I had already been vested in paying for the art by the time my style started to change so it's hard to turn back.

I think most writers start their first projects trying to be write like someone and it takes awhile until they start writing like themselves. That's the difference between Fade and Two Over Ten. I didn't start writing like myself until issues #4 and #5 of that series.

JOZIC: Scott, I’m curious why the first three chapters of Two Over Ten were done by Chris Roads, and the last two done by you?

DALRYMPLE: Well, I didn’t come on board Second 2 Some until around the time issue 2 of Two Over Ten was being produced. That's when Myatt and I teamed up to work on Far From Saints. After we finished that up, Chris needed to take some time off right after #3 of TOT - Chris' day job is being a designer, so doing that on top of drawing a comic and being the father of three was getting harder to juggle - so Myatt asked me if I wanted to take over the job of drawing issues 4 and 5.

JOZIC: Two Over Ten is long since completed, but the ending of the series was pretty open to returning to the concept. Any plans for that in the near or distant future?

MURPHY: The good news is that we've gotten interest on the book as a TV series, but we're still early in negotiations to get into any of the specifics. But the mini-series was always meant to serve as a two-hour pilot of a very X-Files-esque series.

JOZIC: Are you hoping that Fade will also generate some interest in that area?

MURPHY: Sure. I think there are only a handful of creators that would say no to a question like that and I definitely admire them for it. But, at the same time, if Fade From Blue was never made into a TV show, that’s fine too. We created the comic because there was a story that I felt needed to get out of my head. Now that it’s on paper and rolling along, that goal has been reached.

But I never look at TV or movies as selling out, because as a creator, you have a story and want to share it with as many people as possible. Having the comic converted into a larger medium isn’t selling out, it’s sharing an idea with more and more people. Plus, it’s yet another example to the general public that thinks comic books are childish fodder that comics are, and have always been, the underpinnings of some of today’s blockbuster hits. The more comics we can get converted into a mainstream genre, the more we have to be proud of as fans of the industry that ‘we know’ starts it all.

JOZIC: You've gotten a decent amount of press for an indie company and series, popping up in Wizard and various comics news websites in the last little while. If any press is essentially good press, do you feel that it has had a positive effect on the reception of Fade by fans and retailers?

MURPHY: Most definitely. It’s been a fun slow build, which is the only way I would have wanted it to be. It’s always a thrill to hear that someone new was introduced to the book, whether that’s a reader or retailer, from each new mention in a comic magazine or web interview. We’ve had customers buy our entire line in one shot with no prior experience to our work based on just all the press we’ve gotten, so if that doesn’t say a lot about the power of the press, I don’t know what does.

The whole thing has been quite flattering, to say the least. We’ve been ‘certified cool’ by Diamond five issues out of seven now. They only throw that honor to 40-50 comics every 500-page catalog, so to achieve that five times now has been amazing for us. Wizard labeled us a “buzz book” in their Edge magazine, putting us in among some heavy hitters in the industry, plus, we’ve been in their price guide for months now - which always floors me every month when I see us between Fables and the Fantastic Four. CBG has given us A’s on Fade From Blue and Far From Saints over some of Marvel and DC’s better books, calling Fade “one of the best-written comics on the market”, so it’s stuff like that which can’t hurt and still blows my mind.

It’s also brought on other publishers asking us to do future work for them recently, but we’ll see what I can juggle between Fade and my day job. I’d rather be true to Fade From Blue if I wouldn’t think I could manage all the options now available.

JOZIC: Do a lot of your experiences writing for mainstream media bleed into the comics work?

MURPHY: No, not much. With the exception of being a deadline beater and getting things done on time, the structure is completely different. I do try to bleed comics though into the magazines I write to get people in the comics industry more exposure. After doing an article on Joe Mad for Men's Health, he told me he wished he could get into Maxim because that was a magazine his brother-in-law really liked, so I added him into a feature I was doing for them which included Regis Philbin and Steven Baldwin for the hell of it. It was great seeing someone that was once huge in comics, but definitely unknown by the general public, mixed in with other well-known celebrities to give comic books a sense of equal importance, you know?

JOZIC: You seem attracted to developing "complex" ideas. Some people thought Two Over Ten was too dense, Far From Saints tackled religion and Fade looks simpler than it really is - four daughters of a polygamist father sounds pretty complex to me.

MURPHY: Hmmm, I don't think about it that much. I just write what I like to read, which isn't always the most popular or fully understood stuff on the market. I hate plots I can see through and always have, so when I wrote Two Over Ten, I made it complex for that reason. Those that got it were amazed at how it was really a story that explains, technically, every mystery that has ever occurred in history, from how all religions were most likely started, the Ice Age, etc. Instead of taking the premise that we will one day evolve into mutants with extraordinary powers, Two Over Ten made readers realize we've always been gifted with these abilities since time began, but just like your tailbone or wisdom teeth, they are just something that we rarely use anymore.

Fade is actually a lot simpler than it is complex - so I guess I'm trying to fool people yet again so they don't figure out the ending - which will make sense towards the end of the first story arc. It's really not the big Alias/La Femme Nikita ending some people are expecting. It will tell a fully believable story that could have happened.

JOZIC: You say that when you write you think of what you would like to read, which begs the question, when not writing your butt off, what do you like to read?

MURPHY: When it comes to comics, I read mostly manga. At this period of my life, I like plots that are rooted in realism. I think what’s being done in independent comics today is definitely a positive shift in that direction. The problem is a good portion of it is teenage-rocker-goth-angst, which definitely has a home in many reader’s hearts, but it’s not who I am anymore so I can’t make the connection to it like I wish I could. It’s also easier to switch genres in manga. Back in the 80’s and early 90’s, I read all the sci-fi or fantasy manga like Nausicca, Sanctuary, Ranma and such, but as I’ve gotten older, my tastes changed and now I lean more towards Erica Sakurazawa’s stuff - for example, I just read parts of Between the Sheets and loved it.

On the book front, it’s reference manuals and newspapers mostly to stay up on what’s going on in the world. Some of the best books are always being derived from real events anyway, so I guess I like hearing about them first in the news.

<JOZIC: Scott, when I look at your art I think of Terry Moore and Paul Pelletier. It got me wondering who your artistic influences are, inside or outside of comics?

DALRYMPLE: Most of my early influences were guys like McFarlane, Jim Lee and Art Adams, mainly because I didn't see many other artists work back then. But once I got to the Kubert school, I was introduced to some of the masters like Neal Adams, Frazetta, Wally Wood and Bernie Wrightson. Out of all of those guys, I'd say Bernie was my favorite and probably my biggest influence. I still try to ink like the guy but fail miserably. Outside of the field, it is mainly painters like Da Vinci and Drew Struzan.

JOZIC: Fade is a very "talking heads" style of book, which is something that can drive a lot of artists in comics batty. Do you ever crave a cosmic battle scene or two, or is this the kind of stuff you set out to do?

DALRYMPLE: Well, I've never been a big fan of the huge splash type pages. I just think it's a cheap way to tell a story. I mean, sure, every once in a while, it's OK to put in a splash page, but when I see it used on every other page, I think that's just lazy. As an artist, we're supposed to be telling a story, not just drawing flash pictures. Working on books like Fade kind of falls right in line with what I like to do, which is figure out how to make non-dramatic art seem fun for the reader.

JOZIC: I was once told by a friend who attended the Kubert school that he didn't learn a lot about the creative side of making comic books, but he did learn the work ethic and the business side of the industry. What was your experience at the Kubert school like?

DALRYMPLE: I would have to say that the school is a boot camp for comic books just like they say it is. Basically, you had 10 individual projects due a week, so they really worked you to the bone. The business side of things really didn't come until the 3rd year of the school and I had only attended the school for 2 years, so I really can't answer that part of your question. But all in all, I thought the school was a good experience. I don't think I would have moved to the next level artistically if it wasn't for them.

JOZIC: At the risk of sounding like an advertisement for Joe Kubert's school, what did you take away from your experience there that helped you move to the next level artistically?

DALRYMPLE: The greatest lesson I left with was that you’re either in or you’re out. Comics take a lot of work and I don’t think many people realize that until you take on the medium on a regular basis. That’s what the school did by bombarding you with assignment one night after the next. I can’t think of a time where I didn’t have several projects all due at the same time. It’s that insane deadline schedule that lets you know quickly if you have what it takes to do comics full-time, because if you’re too slow or too picky about your work, you’ll never get it all done. I never went for the third and final year of the schooling, so I missed out on the business side of the education I’m told they give you. But, having my first professional work be with Second 2 Some Studios, I got a taste of all that pretty quickly.

JOZIC: Now you're also working outside comics as well with some magazine work. How are you finding balancing the two?

DALRYMPLE: It’s working out fairly well. The Lord of the Rings piece I did for Cracked should be out now and that was a real fun project to work on. On the magazine side of things, working on illustrations that have nothing to do with comics is a nice change-up. It’s also given me the chance to do more color work, since many of the pieces I’m doing for magazines require that the pieces be colorized.

JOZIC: Myatt, at the beginning of the interview you mentioned another project, a darker story, that you guys want to tackle next year. Could you get into it more than that?

MURPHY: Ahhhhh…it’s so simple in theory that my fear is that someone would run away with the idea. We’ve also recently had a publisher interested in any ideas we have since being nominated for an Eisner in the “Talent Deserving of Wider Recognition” category, so I’m not sure what we’re allowed to spill beforehand, should we go with having someone else publish this one for us.

JOZIC: If one of the big four called you guys right now and said you could work on a project of your choice, which one would it be and why?

MURPHY: I’ve never really given that idea much thought, but I think I’d rather bring something different to any of the four instead of rehashing “my spin” on a character that may be overplayed.

DALRYMPLE: That's difficult to say. It would depend on which company contacted me. There are so many good titles out there that I really would have a tough time deciding on which one I would like to do. I'm really game for anything that helps me grow as an artist, providing it doesn't get stale doing it.

JOZIC: For Free Comic Book Day you guys went above and beyond the call of duty producing an almost all-original book specifically for the event and promoting everybody else's books to boot. Who came up with that idea and was it a difficult task putting it all together?

MURPHY: It was harder pulling Christa Shermot’s 100% Guaranteed How-To Manual for Getting Anyone to Read Comic Books! together than any other issue of Fade From Blue, mostly because it was using art from other issues that we’ve done, stripping out backgrounds, words, etc. then creating an entirely different story around it all.

I think the idea hit me after we did a signing on Free Comic Book Day last year. A friend of mine came to see us and I reminded her to snag a free book when she walked out. She never did, but told me she didn’t because she wouldn’t know which one was worthy of checking out. That’s when I thought that a manual geared to educating non-comic book readers in a fun way about how to understand comics would be a help for retailers and comic fans looking to get their non-reading friends into books. Giving a checklist of comic books in the back that lets people find a comic that’s in line with their interest, is an idea that’s been around on many websites for years. We just borrowed that format and brought it to print. Mentioning over 125 other comics that aren’t ours - in fact, we never even recommend Two Over Ten or Far From Saints in it - was right in line with what our initial goal was for Christa’s How-To Manual! We did it to get people into comics, and we realize that our style of book reaches a certain segment of the general public. To make sure no one escaped thinking about it, flooding it with great books that reach every possible audience was a smart bet.

Our hope is that maybe next year, many publishers can throw down their axes and team-up to create something that improves on what we tried to do. Being able to show how Men In Black was a comic, how storyboards are laid out and all the things that, as comic readers, we already know but most people don’t… would be a powerful tool in educating the general public into seeing why comics are for them.

JOZIC: One criticism I've heard recently of FCBD is that if you really wanted to snag new readers, you'd put the free comic books in the hands of mass market booksellers or magazine stores where you would expose the product to new people. Considering the nature of your FCBD book, were there any plans to reach out and touch the proverbial non-comic-book-someone?

MURPHY: I have to stand up for all publishers and retailers against that argument. Why would a magazine store support FCBD when they no longer sell comics for the most part? Book stores could help, but again, if you were a major book store chain, why would you support anything that encourages people to read something you don’t sell? Sure, that sounds great in theory, but that’s not smart business. Pushing the issue with libraries - who encourage reading on any level - has been the first step, which shows FCBD is evolving.

The thing fans have to realize is that FCBD is a new event and it’s one that will evolve into something more powerful each year it’s done. I think this year, a wider diversity of comics and more participating stores shows that it’s growing and that’s proof that the industry is figuring out how to make it even better with time. And even though these books are free to readers, all those retailers participating have paid money for each and every book they are giving away, so they should be praised for that alone. Every comic book fan out there needs to realize that we’re all in this together. If sales of comics slip, there’s less money to take chances on creating other books that may not be as popular. After FCBD happens, if you can think of a way to make it better, then you can’t complain about it, you have to do something about it. That’s what we tried to do with what we’re offering. That’s also why we threw as many other publishers as we could in our book. If the industry wins, we all win: fans, creators, publishers and retailers alike.

As far as pushing it in other directions, we’ve donated 1,000 to libraries nationally with Diamond’s help and now, we’ve also been asked to donate comics overseas to the troops, so we’ll be doing that shortly as well.

If you enjoyed this interview and would like to leave a question or two for Myatt or Scott, head over to the Feature Fiends Forum, click on the Feature/Forum Project link and hit the Second 2 Some thread to post your thoughts and queries.

	Mike Jozic has spent the last several years of his life interviewing comic book creators and other entertainment related personalities for various publications. He has been published both online and in print, with his work appearing in The Comics Journal, FearsMag.com and Silver Bullet Comicbooks. He maintains his own website at www.meanwhile.net and currently serves as the Features Editor for SBC.