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Washington City Paper: What type of comic work or cartooning do you do?
Carla Speed McNeil: I write and draw longform comics, analogous to short novels. Occasionally I draw what I’ve written, on other occasions I draw what other people have written.
CSM: Summer of luv.
WCP: Why are you in Washington now? What neighborhood or area do you live in?
CSM: I live in Bowie, sort of. While he was in the Navy, my husband was stationed here, and we stayed.
WCP: What is your training and/or education in cartooning?
CSM: Self-educated, mainly. I do have a B.FA, but most of what I needed to know to do comics has been by my own efforts.
WCP: Who are your influences?
CSM: Cerebus, the Hernandez brothers, the Twilight Zone, and National Geographic.
WCP: If you could, what in your career would you do-over or change?
CSM: Learn to write before I started, not after.
CSM: I hope it’s my self-published book Finder, which has recently found a home at Dark Horse. Might be for my run in spy procedural Queen & Country.
CSM: Whatever I’m working on at any given time.
CSM: Go back in time and draw a story arc of Neil Gaiman‘s Sandman?
CSM: Read. Pace. Joggle things around in my mind. Writer’s block only means there’s a piece missing.
CSM: As long as there’s a copy machine and a bamboo bicycle to power it, there will be comics.
CSM: The Edison/Tesla war is highly overrated.
CSM: All of ’em. I prize stamina.
WCP: Do you have a website or blog?
CSM: www.findercomics.com