Steven Seagle on Writing for Vertigo Comics

Dreamer Comics Full Episode channel:    / dreamercomicspodcast   My Links ● Website: https://www.dreamercomicspodcast.com ● Twitter:   / xenoglyphs   ● Instagram:   / dreamercomicspodcast   ● Facebook:   / dreamercomicspodcast   Thanks for watching, dudes! Ratings, favorites, and general feedback is always appreciated :) 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 monthly’s that I did and I did a bunch of specials in one shots and. Omar: How did you come to work there and what was the, was it still creator owned there or was it a..? 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 a man away from 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 (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, “guy, 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…”, 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”.