Andrew Buckley of Seeka Comics was kind enough to interview me in March, 2004.

Sunday, 07 March 2004
This months Featured Artist is Craig Stephens, creator, artist, and writer of the excellent small-press series BLUE COLLAR. BLUE COLLAR is a book that transcends the average in a market of small-press undertakings saturated by super-hero titles. It challenges the reader to both laugh at himself, and examine himself, through a perfect fusion of great art, intelligent scripting, and entertaining stories. Craig uses real-life as a canvas, and substantial talent as his brush, and produces a great comic book in the process.
Andy: Hi Craig and thanx for agreeing to do this.
Craig: No problem Andy. It's my pleasure.
Andy: Before I go in to the actual book itself, could you tell me a little about what kind of artists & writers you've found influential, and what kind of comics you yourself read?
Craig: I grew up reading Marvel Comics in the early '70's so artists like John Romita Sr. and Jack Kirby really defined what reality should look like in a comic book. I didn't really care who wrote the stuff back then. It all seemed pretty homogeneous to a ten year old. Now days I really like artists who have sort of a lower key style of drawing. Dave Gibbons, Steve Dillon, Pia Guerra and Romita Jr. come to mind off the top of my head. I like artists like that because the art doesn't distract me from the story. It's almost invisible. As far as writers go, I really like Raymond Chandler and Dashiel Hammett. They both have a great sense of dialogue, possibly because they both often write in the first person. In comics my biggest influences lately have been Daniel Clowes and Adrian Tomine. Eightball and Optic Nerve supplied the template for Blue Collar. I really like the fact that Clowes and Tomine do everything, drawing, inking, scripting and lettering.
Andy: And what about your own art training/education? Could you tell us a little about the ingredients that went in to making Craig Stephens, comic book creator?
Craig: I began drawing stuff out of the comics I was reading almost immediately. I got a lot of satisfactionfrom that. When I brought a decent drawing to school the next day, the other kids would think I was alittle bit cooler. When I was in my early 20's,

I apprenticed with a sign painter and learned how to do commercial sign work. We did a lot of big stuff like building walls and billboards. A lot of the signs we did had pictures in them. I learned the importance of being really clear and to the point with an image. During this time I was also getting my bachelor's in art studio at U.C. Davis. My emphasis was on painting and print making. I found out that the clarity of an image isn't that important at art school so I was a little conflicted.
Andy: Although you were born in 1963 like me, modern-day American youth culture seems to be a major theme in your book BLUE COLLAR. Is much of this drawn from your experiences as a high school art teacher?
Craig: Oh absolutely! Although I have to say, the modern high school experience is very similar to what I went through as a kid. It's an interesting combination of the funny, poignant and absurd.
Andy: What prompted you create a project centered on the momenta of everyday life and the idiosyncrasies evident in the human condition instead of shooting for what is considered more usual comic book fare?
Craig: I love the super hero stuff. I'm still a big fan of Spider-Man but comics are story telling medium like any other and I don't think the medium should be defined by the content that happens to be the most prevalent. The stories I tell are the ones I'm most familiar with and most comfortable telling. I'm still pretty unsure of myself as I writer so I tend to gravitate toward material that's similar to stuff I've actually experienced.
Andy: You have succumbed a little to the super-hero genre with THE NEGOTIATOR stories. Could you tell us a little about THE NEGOTIATOR, and what, if anything, gave you the inspiration for this superb character?
Craig: The Negotiator is a character I came up with as a response to the more typical super hero fare. I wanted to have a guy who's power wasn't necessarily physical. His primary power is that he has really good people skills. He's not a mind reader but he can intuit quit a bit by a person’s tone of voice and body language and of course he can use his own voice and body language to be incredibly persuasive.
Andy: MAD DOG is another of your stories that, like THE NEGOTIATOR, is presented as a kind of twenty-first century fable. Is it important to you that your work has a message/moral?
Craig: Not necessarily. Mad Dog might come off as being a bit moralistic because it's a young man's conflict seen throughan older guy's eyes. The idea that you could