RICH: You're in the fortunate position where you can pick and choose comics projects - or not do them at all. What would it take to get you back in the monthly game again? Is anything worth that daily grind to produce?
JEFF: Well, that's kind of you to say. In truth though, I've never been monthly. In the Gen 13 days, I believe I gave the illusion of being monthly, but honestly, those books came out anywhere between 1 1/2 to 2 1/2 months apart, with lots of breaks in between. I'm not saying that a monthly would be impossible, but I would have to cheat it by having issues build up in advance of launching or something like that. And it would probably have to be a solo character, and definitely not a team book. Everything I've ever worked on, including my top secret new project, has been a team book and they just take too long to draw. But if I ever draw a run on Spidey, or Batman, it will have to be monthly because that's just how those books work.

DANGER GIRL OVERSIZED HC

Truthfully though, I hate to compromise, and monthly comic books are chock full of artistic compromise. It's so unbelievably depressing to put out a product that you don't think comes anywhere close to representing what you are really capable of. I'm far too much of a perfectionist. That's not to say that I see my work as "perfect", just that I have an obsessive compulsion to strive for perfection. I feel that I would be producing the equivalent of a daytime soap if I was forced to produce a comic book monthly, and I'm striving to produce the feature film quality of something like Gladiator or Raiders of the Lost Ark. I also enjoy my family and sleep far to much to kill myself with around the clock work (which I seem to do anyway).

RICH: Some creators, such as Travis Charest or John Cassaday have found the European model of regular-ish hardcover albums to be a valid format for their work - more preferable to the US system. Certainly, seeing Danger Girl in that format seems to have been a motivating force for the Absolute Danger Girl volume (sitting beside me as I type this). Is that style something you see for yourself in the future?
JEFF: Wow, you picked that up? That's great! Yeah, I love those European books as well, and I have yet to run into a comic book artist over here that doesn't. And there are still so many great books from over there that comic book fans in America still have yet to see. Some of my personal favorites over the years have been Cyber Six, Franka, Sky Doll, and the just recently translated Blacksad. Awesome, awesome stuff. I don't see myself doing anything like that anytime soon though because American audiences have yet to embrace that model and I want my books to be as successful and available to my fans over here in the states as possible. And these days, everything is eventually collected into trades anyway, and if you're lucky, a nice big oversized hardcover that at least gives to appearance of a beautiful European volume. Now that's the best of both worlds!

RICH: You realize there's no way I'm letting you out of here until you give some indication of this top-secret book of yours. C'mon, no one reads this thing, they're all all looking at more allegations about Micah Wright. Let something slip, you big teaser you...
JEFF: Heh heh, nice try there, Rich. No, I can't. Believe me, I wish I could because keeping this a secret is killing me. I'm so excited about what I've been doing that I cannot wait to spill it! What I can tell you, and this is kind of a bit of news, is that you can expect a really big announcement from me about this new project later this summer. Best I can do for now. Oh yeah, and expect it to have all of those things above that I talked about were missing from so many comic books these days. There are a lot of clues in there if you look for them. If you really want, I could answer five "Yes or No answer questions" regarding the project? But then I really am being a big tease, aren't I.

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