MARK: We're all co-workers and co-workers love to gossip around the water-cooler. We don't have a water-cooler because we all living in different countries, but we've got the internet and we've got Lying in The Gutters and that's probably the next best thing.

RICHARD: Every Monday, come rain or shine. The same kind of regularity can't be seen with your work. Your Authority was late. Red Son is very late. Ultimates is late. Ultimate X-Men is late. Younblood: Bloodsport is late.

What's happening here, and is there a common factor?

MARK: I like working with slow artists. What can I say? I don't mean this to sound cruel, but look at what Hitch is doing on Ultimates and then look at some other books out there which also cost 2.25. See anything different?

Sure, Hitch could churn out two books a month, but it wouldn't be the top-selling book and it wouldn't be something we're going to pore over for the next twenty years when they're collected into hardcovers. There are some rare beasts out there like JRJR who can hammer out books overnight and still manage to produce the best-looking stuff on the market, but most people can't. You just can't draw a book as good as The Ultimates every four weeks.

It's virtually impossible. That said, Hitchy's got a bird up the duff and will need some serious dosh this year so expect SOME kind of increase in frequency.

RICHARD: Maybe you carry some kind of disease that you pass on from artist to artist?

MARK: I like the idea of that as long as I didn't have to have sex with them to actually transmit the disease.

RICHARD: Moving on. Please, please, please, moving on. Scotland is a country known for unruly drunken citizens, ungrateful, cynical and dour to a man. Are they really the best people to be portraying the colourful, positive inherently American outlook? And by desecrating such a genre, are you not bespoiling the intellectual pool of Americans to come?

MARK: Our desecrations are being eaten-up by an awful lot of colourful, positive, inherently American individuals so we must be doing something right. I'm sure, in a few years time, what we're doing now is going to look as out of date as eighties and nineties comics do right now and our entire approach will be trashed and replaced with something else. But that's good. That's evolution. In fact, I rather hope I'm one of the people DOING it in 2007.

RICHARD: If your liver last that long. Failing a major collapse of your bodily functions, what is your ultimate plan for the comic industry?

MARK: I want our industry to be as respected and successful as the movie industry. Computer games are already halfway there for God's sake. They make much more money than movies and are already being reviewed in the quality magazines and newspapers. Comics, I'm pleased to say, are heading in the same direction and, precisely as anticipated, are heading towards the huge boom we're going to experience between 2006 and 2012. Everything is being set in place beautifully-- quality creators are being lured onto the franchise books which have and always will be the cornerstones of the medium as we understand it, book-stores are saying graphic novels are their fastest growing market and are hungry for material and companies are getting much more flexible with regard to the creator-owned deals and exploitation possibilities.

Someone was telling me just the other day that they've just sold the movie rights to their new book for 600,000 bucks whether the movie gets made or not. And this isn't even a top 100 book. We're a petri-dish for every other medium out there and a relatively inexpensive one. If we can somehow balance the mainstream, publicly recognized characters (our equivalent of name movie stars) with our own, brand-new material then we're going to be the next film industry. And we will. As I've said before, if we could ride out the '90s collapse, we can ride out anything. What's coming next is going to be a massive, collective orgasm for anyone with any genuine love for this business.

RICHARD: And I'll be on hand with the tissues. Thanks Mark! You can read Mark's work in Ultimate War, The Ultimates, Ultimate X-Men and Youngblood: Bloodsport. When they come out. Cheers!