Chip Zdarsky currently writes Captain America for Marvel Comics and has worked on numerous other iconic characters. His creator-owned series for Image Comics, Public Domain, won the 2023 Eisner Award for Best New Series. He has won and been nominated for the Eisner many times, including a 2017 nomination for Jughead in the Best Publication for Teens category. He also illustrated Sex Criminals, an Eisner-winning and New York Times bestselling series.

Daily Dragon (DD): Welcome, Chip! When did first know you wanted to write for comics?

Chip Zdarsky (CZ): To be honest, I’m not sure! I always enjoyed making comics as a kid and just continued it into adulthood! It probably wasn’t until my late thirties when I even considered that I could write comics for other people to draw.

DD:What was your first job in the comics industry, and what was your road to it?

CZ: Besides work that I self-published, my first actual comics gig was as the colorist for a Dark Horse miniseries called Fierce. The creators were casting about for potential colorists online, and I sent them some of my illustration work.

DD: You won the 2019 Eisner for Best Single Issue or One-Shot for Peter Parker: The Spectacular Spider-Man #310. You both wrote and illustrated this issue.  Do you find covering both sides of the story more challenging or less so than doing only one side of it?

CZ: It’s less challenging because I can just focus on crafting the story instead of having to explain it poorly to others. The downside though is that I’m not that good of an artist, especially drawing superheroes, so the art process takes a long time.

DD: When did you decide you wanted to be an artist as well as a writer?

CZ: Both kind of happened simultaneously! I enjoy both jobs, so it just seemed natural to handle all the duties on my early books.

DD: Do you have any advice for someone wanting to break in as a writer or an artist today?

CZ: For writers, it’s learn to draw. Even if you don’t get your work up to a publishable level, it’ll help you understand the page better and make you a stronger writer. After that it’s just about self-publishing, either by yourself or with an artist. You need to just get work out there to get better (and noticed).

For artists. my advice is to just draw comics. It’s really the only way to get better, to put yourself in the position where suddenly you have to draw, say, a street scene, or a living room or a castle. Most artists who say they want to be comic book artists really just want to draw superheroes fighting, but comics is much more than that.

DD: You also launched a Howard the Duck book for Marvel. Why Howard the Duck?

CZ: ‘Cause it was offered to me! I did some small things for Marvel, and an editor there, Wil Moss, asked if I was interested. I read Howard the Duck growing up, and l thought it would be a fun job. And at that point I’d never written for another artist, so I was interested in what that might be like.

DD: You’ve worked on a wide range of very different characters. When you set down to write one that’s unlike your most recent ones, what’s your mental approach?

CZ: I do a lot of reading. If they’re pre-existing characters, it helps to get a sense of their voice. If it’s a new character, then I tend to just write out characteristics for them until I have a good sense of what they’re about.

DD: Were there particularly fun or specially challenging aspects to writing Jughead?

CZ: I mean, it’s Jughead! It was all fun! The joy of writing Archie characters is that their voices are so embedded in my head already, it’s like you’re just a conduit for them.

DD: When you’re illustrating and not writing, how do you approach the story?

CZ: It’s about conversation with the writer, trying to get their ideas across while adding your own. You want the story to shine, so you just have to find ways to do that without distracting from the heart of it all, I think.

DD: Where did the idea for Public Domain come from, and what is it about?

CZ: I’m obviously a comics fan, but I’m especially a fan of the history of the comics industry. Public Domain is about a fictionalized family where the dad created a superhero decades earlier that is now massive in pop culture. So, the story is about creator rights, ownership, and the joy of making comics.

DD: What was the inspiration for Sex Criminals?

CZ: Genuinely just from the desire to work with Matt Fraction. We were pals who were fans of each other’s work and were trying to figure out a project together. When Matt gave me the one-sentence pitch for Sex Criminals, I immediately said yes.

DD: How did you and Matt Fraction set up your collaboration process?

CZ: We would have a lot of conversations before Matt started scripting, about story and character. Then he’d write up a script, send it to me, and then, a couple of months later, I’d deliver the final product, fully colored and lettered. I rarely showed him what I was up to because I wanted to surprise him with the final product and the inane things I put into the pages.

DD: What’s next for you?

CZ: The sleep of a thousand years. Oh, and The Avengers for Marvel.

DD: For more information about Chip Zdarsky and his work, visit his website, https://www.zdars.co.