That would have been at San Diego Con. He had seen my work on Nightbreed, and approached me at the convention, and we just started hanging out.

So is it just coincidence, or is there any particular reason why you've done so many horror movie adaptation comics?

I started out in comics doing horror illustration, and horror related books. That's my first love. If I had my druthers I'd do that just constantly. Every book I'd sign onto would be horror related stuff. But when you flounder around in obscurity for enough years, and you're tired of it, eventually I think a smart thing to do is sign on to a monthly, and hopefully you'll have some success with the book. When the book does well, and people know who you are, later in your career you're in more of a position to dictate the kind of stuff you want to do.

It seemed to take a while until you starting popping up, more and more, into the mainstream comics. With your earlier works. . .(At which point, Harris starts to make sickened sounds). . .taken into consideration, such as the Nightmare On Elmstreet comic, up to your work in Werewolf: The Apocalypse, I was wondering, was it your original plan to make it into comics?

No. I graduated from high-school and moved to Athens, Georgia for awhile, and tried to get into commercial art. But you're competing with the art department, and there are college students who will work for almost nothing, so that was a dead end.

I didn't actually start reading comic books until I was about 18. I mean I picked them up here and there, like everybody did when they were kids, but I really didn't develop a "love" for the medium until I was about 18 or 19 years old. I don't know why, but I just one day decided that that's what I wanted to do. My father let me move back home for awhile, until I could get on my feet, and I got lucky enough to have met some professionals in the industry, made some friends, and got work that way.

How much creative input do you have on the Starman story-line, and it's characters?

Not as much as I'd like. (Laughs) I do have, pretty much, total control over the visual aspect of the book. I got to work with Chuck Kim, the Assistant Editor, and Archie (Goodwin. Editor of Starman) of course, and they work with me on developing things.

It's always good to get outside input as far as the visual stuff is concerned, because people see things that you don't see, because you're so closely attached to the work. Archie and Chuck have been a pleasure to work with. As far as the story goes, there have been a few elements to the series that I brought to it, but not as much as I would have liked. Obviously James (Robinson. Writer and Co-Creator of Starman) is very, very busy, and hard to get on the phone, and when we do get on the phone we got to go over a lot of material very quickly.

David Merritt and the Poster Demon, was an idea I had come up with six or seven years ago. I threw it at James one day, when we were brain storming on the series, and he liked it. He grabbed it, and threw it into the series, added the whole Oscar Wilde thing and The Picture of Doren Grey, and it turned out to be a really neat story. So he took a very small idea that I had really not fleshed out much at all, and turned it into this wonderful subplot.

Robinson mentioned in the past, wanting to give Opal City a really definitive look, where you could recognize sites and landmarks. Will you and Robinson perhaps be creating a map of Opal City, much the same as Alan Moore created a map for Gotham City, in his Swamp Thing series?

I'm already working on it. I've been working on it for months. Like I said, I got enough to do with the series, so it's kind of an in my spare time thing. I don't remember to be honest with you, James ever mentioning anything to me about wanting to do a map. But that's something I've always wanted to do, because I've just sort of had to, through the course of about 28 issues, map the city out in my head. Referencing back to full page splashes and stuff, that I've done of the city, and making sure that this building faces the correct way when I'm drawing it from a different angle, and blah blah blah. But recently, I got a bug up my ass to finally do the map. When I get it done I'm hoping I can talk DC into actually putting it out in some form or fashion.

There's talk about doing some kind of Starman special related item, in the next year. It's really sort of bare bones right now, and we don't even know if it's gonna happen. But it's gonna compile a whole lot of sub-material on the series and the characters. A sort of supplement to help the people who have been reading the series understand it better, and to help the new readers who are coming on with Issue 29, hopefully (that's the big push), not feel so lost.

Opal can be a very daunting place, 'cause it's so huge and there's so much to keep up with, because James loves to start 15 to 20 stories in one issue, and then take another 12 to wrap them all up. (Laughs)

And I won't even ask about the whole William Payton thing.

Ah, well don't. (Laughs)

Speaking of definitive looks, a quick question, which may not get answered: How much of your own appearance do we actually see in Jack Knight?

The favorite answer among the creative team is that we'd like to think of Jack as a fifty-fifty combination of me and James. He thinks and talks and acts probably more like James does. He looks more like I do, and (his) body language, and the way I jump around and stuff.

I try to bring as much, visually, to Jack, and make him as personal as I can, as James does when he writes him.

How do you personally feel about DC's wanting to really sort of push Starman into the lime-light?

It's about damn time. We've got over two years of books out now. We're gearing out to put out the second trade, and the entire time I've been on the book, I've been bitching and complaining about them not pushing the book enough. I've seen them push other properties twice as hard as they push Starman, and they weren't half as good. That sounds a little pompous, but it's true. There's just way too much crap floating around in comics right now that's getting too much press, and the good stuff doesn't get enough. And I'm really, really glad that their finally doing it.

And when they've finally decided to do it, they're not going over board, but they're blowing it out of the water. We've got tons of merchandise coming out. A trade collecting ten issues in one book with a bunch of extra sketch material and characters in it and stuff that I did. Posters, two different T-shirts, a spin off from this series (The Shade mini-series, a four tale thing), and just tons and tons of stuff. Everybody's very excited.

Well are you happy with the success the series has seemed to have done on minimum publicity?

Yeah, sort of. It's been kind of a word of mouth thing. There again, that burden falls on DC's shoulders, because they could have pushed it and they didn't. I'm not gonna sit here and say they didn't do anything, because they did. A lot of people have likened our success to Sandman's, because Sandman didn't catch on immediately. It took a while for that to catch on, and slowly but surely we've built a pretty solid-core readership. I think with things that we do here and there, we're bringing new people in. I've been told, indirectly, that the last story-arc we did, having the three covers that all fit together into one image, actually helped sell the book.

You had mentioned The Shade mini-series. Is there any particular reason why you won't be doing the art in them? Time. I think originally there may have been some talk about me doing the whole deal, I can't remember. At one point I was going to do the first issue, and then all the covers on all four. Then time became a major factor, and I decided that it would be better if I'd just farm it out to some other guys, and let me concentrate on the series. Which is fine by me, because we have enough to do.

Now, will you be doing those covers?

Oh yeah. Yeah, I've already done two of them, and in fact I'm gonna start the third next week.

You mentioned loving the horror genre, so would it be safe to say that it is your favorite style of writing to draw for?

Yeah, absolutely. As a matter 'a fact, I'm working with Event (Comics) right now. I'm gonna be doing a creator title for them called The Hour of Reckoning. It's a four issue mini-series. I'm writing it, drawing it, inking it, and painting the covers. I'm not quitting Starman to do it, I'm doing it on the side. If everything goes according to plan, the first issue, I think, is going to be out December of '97.

Personally, what aspects of your artwork do you think have improved since your work on the Nightmare On Elmstreet comic?

Everything. If I had it all to do over again I probably would have waited a little while longer before I jumped into comics, because there was a lot of stuff that I was doing that I just had no clue. I look back at a lot of that old stuff, especially that Nightmare On Elmstreet stuff, and I had no business doing a fully painted book at that point in my career. Non-What-So-Ever.

How do you feel about the other artists who do the Times Past stories of Starman? It's been good and bad, I'm not gonna be specific. There again, I don't have as much input into that part of Starman as I would like. James seems to have a little bit more control over who actually does the Times Past. Probably rightly so because he's the one writing them, so he should probably have a little bit to say as to who draws his stories. I'm just doing the covers.

We've seen, here and there, your artwork in cards as well. Will we perhaps be seeing any more of your work in a collectable card set?

Coming up, next year, they're doing another one of those Overpower deals. Starman is supposed to get a pretty huge chunk of that set. I think it's gonna be between 12 and 18 cards that we'll get. Wade (Von Grawbadger. Inker of Starman) and I will both be doing those together. Hopefully those will be cool.

All right, stepping into some tabloid statements here. A direct quote from James Robinson, in reference to your taking over the letter column, "Try not to give the poor fellow too many long words to read. He gets tired and confused so very easily." What is your response to that?

Well, James has had his fun on the letter column, and had a bunch of jokes at my expense. I finally get to take the letter column over and I get to talk about the stuff that I want to talk about, instead of rambling on about collectibles each issue. (Laughs)

About what issue do you think you'll be getting that?

I don't know. I've already done one, and I'm not sure what issue it's gonna be in. They're alternating The Shade's Journal with the letter column. As of right now, the letter column's mine.

So is there a lot of sarcasm among the Starman crew, or is everyone as mean and egotistical as Chuck Kim makes you all out to be?

No, no, no. We're a pretty tight group. Everybody keeps in touch, except James (Laughs). I mean, he's out in Burbank. James is a screen writer as well. When he's not doing comic stuff, he's out there dealing with folks from Hollywood. He's really, really tough to get on the phone, but he tries.

Besides your comic for Event, are there any other non-Starman related books you might be doing on the side?

There's a couple of things that I'd like to do. I'd like to get my hands on Batman, as I think everybody might eventually in their career. Right now I'm trying to focus all of my attention on Starman. I don't plan on going anywhere. I think I'm just gonna stick with it until the very end. Other than that, The Reckoning is taking up all my time. That's my baby. I've been working on that thing for over six years now, and I've finally got a publisher. I'm back to my horror roots. I'm doing pretty much the whole thing, except the lettering and the coloring. As far as those aspects go, they're letting me pick my team on that. I got to do that on Starman, so it's nice to do it again.

I'm lucky in that aspect, because not too many guys can say they got onto a monthly for a major publisher and got to pick their team. James came to me, and we took Starman to DC, and pitched it to them. Which a lot of people don't know.

Just a warning to you, and the people reading this... some fanboy questions. Who are some of your favorite comic book artists?

Mike Mignola, who I have had the pleasure of actually getting to know the past couple of years, which has been great. Charlie Vess, Kevin Nowlan, Mike Kaluta. Bernie Wrightson, who (was) a huge influence on my work early on. The Gaijin guys: Brian Stelfreeze, Adam Hughes, Jason Pearson, Karl Story, Jason Martin, Cully Hamner. I was there (Gaijin Studios) for a year as a matter of fact. That's where I got my career started, at that studio. I have the utmost respect for all those guys.

How about comic book writers?

James obviously. Ron Marz. I worked with him back on Green Lantern a while. I haven't really had that much exposure to many other guys. I think Mignola's a great writer, now that's he's got to actually do it all himself. I don't read a lot, mainly because I don't have time. But the guys I have read, I've really enjoyed. I think Mark Waid's really talented. I think he proved that with Kingdom Come. Kurt Busiek, I think is interesting.

So do you actually collect comics?

No! I go to the shop, and if something looks interesting I'll pick it up. But see, I actually read my comics. I don't put them in little bags, and stick them in a box somewhere. I mainly just have a group of artists that I follow, like the guys I mentioned. Any time they have something coming out, I'll pick it up, and check it out.

Lastly, if you could do any project, what would that dream project be?

I'm working on it. I'm on it right now. We are in the ideal situation here. Two guys, who had an idea, with a company owned character, took it to them. They said yes, and they're letting us do whatever the hell we want... within reason. James and I both have partial ownership of Jack Knight now. So we're basically getting to do a creator owned book for a major publisher. With almost all the rights you have when you do your own thing. The characters are great, So I'm doing it.