The first volume of that series is out Wednesday.
ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: The main concept, of a guy transformed into a cat/bird/human hybrid, is really fun.
How did you first come up with this idea?
Credit: Johnnie Christmas
So I think its been in my subconscious for quite a while.
I did make some preliminary sketches, but theyre kind of lumpy comics and very basic.
I said, okay, if I was going to do this comic, how would I do it?
Johnnie Christmas
And can you help?
It was she who put me together with Dark Horse and Johnnie Christmas.
Tamra Bonvillain, the colorist, came with Johnnie because hes worked with her before.
Johnnie Christmas
So thats our team.
We had huge weekend supplements with all the colored funnies in them.
It wasnt just kids reading them, it was adults, it was [all genders].
Johnnie Christmas
There wasnt any geeky club.
It was a general part of pop culture.
What is the conflict between cats and birds when it comes to conservation?
Johnnie Christmas
But its not the only thing.
It is shiny glass windows and habitat loss and it is poisoning.
So those are the four biggies.
So will volume 2 have more of a bird focus?
Yes, there will be more of a bird focus, and a part-bird female love interest.
You get to see the inside of Castle Catula.
How would you like to be swarmed by 100 wives of Catula?
How have comics changed since you were first reading them?
It feels like more of a subculture now.
Its a subculture, but I think its moving back into the mainstream in a somewhat different way.
It used to be that you would get them in the drugstore.
Thered be the magazine rack, and on the magazine rack thered be these whole shelves of comic books.
So they were very easy to come by.
There werent special comic book stores.
I dont know when it became so specialized.
I think it happened decade by decade.
They used it for quite different purposes.
I think that was a widespread phenomenon.
We just hadthat interesting book about hera few years ago.
Well, no more Nazis.
She was the Nazi fighter.
She was a wartime Nazi battler, sort of like Captain America.
She wasnt allowed to use guns, just the magic lasso and the bullet-deflecting bracelets.
Do you think youll do more comics in the future?
After volume 3, if this is still going, why not do three more?
You could just go on forever.
Well, not quite forever, but it could go on.
Lord knows, Angel Catbird can go anywhere in the world.
