FREQUENTLY ASKED (AND ANTICIPATED) QUESTIONS

Q: What is this?

A: If you ever watched the old Adam West Batman series, you noticed that none of the villains, from the Joker to Egghead, ever got anything done without the aid of their henchmen. If you paid REALLY close attention, you noticed that a lot of the time, the same actors portrayed the same henchmen for different villains. So I always wondered what the life of these common "thugs" must be like, going from job to job, boss to boss, getting beat up by the same heroes over and over again. And from that it was a logical step to: "What if just once the thugs got lucky?" and offed one of the major players? Think about it...not only would the superheroes be after them...most of the superVILLAINS would be out to do in the person who took out their rival before they got the opportunity. Especially when it's a no-talent, no power goon with nothing more than a gun and some extreme luck.

Q: Is it a parody? Comedy? Drama? Satire? Gag-fest? Soap opera?

A: Yes. I want you to laugh, cry, get angry, then laugh again.

Q: What are your influences?

A: To me, comics achieved a major milestone the day Marv Wolfman started working with George Perez on the 1980's Teen Titans run. It gave me everything I ever wanted from a comic book, and I still enjoy my back issues of that run. I'm also a huge slobbering fanboy of Keith Giffen, Sam Kieth, Christopher Priest, and yes...I won't apologize for it...I consider Scott McCloud's Zot! series to be one of the greatest comic books in the history of the genre.

I'll pester Steve to put his influences down here...I know he's a huge Judge Dredd fan, as well as Alan Moore. A few conventions back I got him John Wagner's autograph and he recently framed it. I know he took a course studying under Wil Eisner, so that must have been extremely educational.

Q: What's your production schedule going to be?

A: We're trying to live by a simple creed: "There will always be something new up on Monday." Now, "something new" may be a couple new pages, it may be a sketch, or in the most dire of situations it may be a "Hey! We're behind schedule, no strip this week" apology. But we'll always do our best to make sure that if you make our comic part of your Monday morning routine, after reading all the other webcomics out there, we'll have something here for you to look at.

Q: Just once a week? That's not very ambitious...

A: Neither are we. Seriously, we have day jobs, which we need to pay the bills. This is our labor of love, but it's not how we make our living...at least not yet. We're not doing a four to five panel gag strip. The tale we have in mind is massive in scope and we're working on the first print issue even as I type this. Big pages take more time, and I don't rush Steve when he's got paying gigs to handle. It takes time, but I think you'll enjoy the wait. Try not to look on the days when there's no new material as "filler" (even if that's what it is)...there's plenty of stuff we have to show you.

Q: Aren't my children exposed to enough violence without them seeing superheroes getting killed? What kind of sickos are you two?

A: This comic is definitely not for your kids, and if we go to press I'll be first in line pushing for a "Mature Readers" label on it. We're not doing porn, we're not cursing a blue streak, but there will be a lot of violence in this strip. Nothing worse than you'll see on a regular prime-time evening of television, but c'est la guerre. I don't want your kids to read it, at least not until they're ready to read it or you're ready to let them. If that day never comes, then I salute you for being one of the few parents out there willing to give a damn about what their kids are doing. Mine were the same way and look how cool I turned out! Fact is, *I* cannot stop your kids from clicking on a button. You can. Do it. And while you're at it, take the Xbox controller out of their hands and let them get some fresh air for a change.

Q: I have a really cool idea. If I let you know it, are you just going to steal it?

A: Hell, yes! We're hoping to have a bunch of really cool things go on with this site, like coloring books where you guys can play around with Steve's art, maybe a "Design a Cover" contest, or heaven forbid, a guest week or two. But when we do anything of the sort, I'll have a massive picture of Denton or someone saying "HEY! WHEN YOU SUBMIT THIS, IT BECOMES OUR PROPERTY!" or something like that. I don't really anticipate this being a problem, but I don't want anyone's feelings hurt if we actually use their idea and don't pay them...because it's not like WE'RE making any money off this!

Q: How long do you plan to keep this up?

A: If this is the Yoda question "Will he finish where he begins?", I really don't know. Steve and I are both enthusiastic enough about this project to be willing to throw our own cash behind it, which is usually the first stumbling block. Neither of us have any immediate plans to move or relocate, and with so many writer/artist teams working whole countries apart, that's not so much an issue anymore either. The main thing is to keep the enthusiasm high...we're both pretty seasoned at this kind of work, so we know a lot about pacing ourselves and taking this in baby steps. At the same time, webcomics remains an infant, if a quickly growing one, and while much real estate has been set up, there's an infinite amount of room for more.

Q: If you guys like superheroes so much, why make a strip about killing them?

A: That's not quite the point of "Thugs", and as time goes on that will get revealed. Steve and I both grew up around comics, and can probably carry on conversations for hours about which Iron Man suit was the best or why Adam Hughes is better than Greg Land when it comes to drawing females. To say that we love comics is an understatement. They're a part of our lives. Same goes for the costumed heroes that have populated so many of them over the years...

But of late, comic-book superheroes have begun to get very dark, almost anti-heroic, and none of the major companies have been immune from this trend. Hopefully, you've read our first six-page intro. Dark Cowl and the Finch are NOT role models, yet they're looked up to by people, simply because they're on one end of the gun.
If this isn't immediately clear, bear with me. I'm a huge Christopher Priest fan, and while I could never hope to match his non-linear storytelling style, I'm damned if I'm not going to try! :)

Q: Do you think anyone is still reading this?

A: Don't know...I kinda hope not...

c. 2006-present Stephen Reid & Alan Sparrow. All rights reserved. Any unauthorized duplication, in any media, is a violation of applicable laws. We will hunt you down and burn your comic book collection, thereby making our own collections all the more valuable. This is a work of satirical fiction. Any resemblence to actual superheroes, real or imagined, is a coincidence, and not intentional. Well, I mean it should be patently obvious, really, but again, we're poking fun, not trying to copy.