TS: What Julia Childs was to cuisine, what Stirling Moss was to racing, what John Glenn was to space, Chuck Dixon is to the comic book and animated TV world. Chuck Dixon is a veteran comic book writer with thousands of titles to his name including a record run on Batman at DC. Much to his fans’ delight Chuck has recently moved into the genre of true crime fiction. I’ll be honest with my readers, I hadn’t read a comic book since Archie and Veronica. While doing my research for this interview, wherever I went in the comic book world, to this day, the aficionados told me I was in the presence of royalty. Today we’re going to read about Chuck’s writing process, where he finds the characters for his stories and what led him to murder mysteries.
Q. Where do you write? Do you have a special room, shed, barn, special space for your writing? (please provide a photo/s of your shed, room, closet, barn….) Or tell us about your ‘dream’ work space.
CD. I work in what is described by realtors as a “home office.” It’s basically a cubby hole filled with books and toys. It’s where I work since moving to Florida. My dream work space was the office I had up north; a big addition to the house with built in bookshelves and lots of room for artwork on the walls.
Q. Do you have any special rituals when you sit down to write? (a neat work space, sharpened #2 pencils, legal pad, cup of tea, glass of brandy, favorite pajamas, etc.)
CD Does checking emails count? A neat work space is NOT a priority. All I require is enough desk space for my keyboard. A mug of mate or tea is nice.
Q. Could you tell us something about yourself that we might not already know?
CD. When I was a kid I found the metal-munching mice in the Bullwinkle cartoons frightening. For some reason the idea of a huge robotic mouse climbing to the top of the house to eat our TV antenna unsettled me.
Q. You are such an icon in the comic book and animated TV world. What inspired you to switch from that genre to writing fiction?
CD. I simply got tired of waiting for someone else to give me permission to write. The possibilities offered by digital publishing are endless. Why go through the painful, tedious, and often fruitless, process of pitches and development when I can simply go from idea to finished product on my own? I turned to prose because of the massive production expenses involved with doing comics. My only investment is my time. And, truth to tell, there are a lot more people who read prose than read comics. I’m reaching readers now that I never could have reached writing comic books.
Stay tuned! Part two and three are scheduled for Sept 28th and Oct.3
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DON’T MISS UPCOMING BLOGS featuring INTERVIEWS with best-selling AUTHORS! Grant Blackwood (Tom Clancy) in Sept. and Julia London in October and Matt Jorgenson later this winter. Coming in December! My review of a new release by Dean Koontz,
Ashley Bell.
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