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1. How did you
get into comics? |
As a reader, my parents gave them to me as a kid, especially when we were
taking long trips between New Brunswick and Nova Scotia to visit my
grandparents.
As a writer, I started writing in junior high school and I was reading
stuff like THE MICRONAUTS, THE X-MEN and NEW MUTANTS at around that time.. I
wrote a lot of X-men oriented fan fiction in the early to mid-80s. I
dropped comics for a while when I went to college because it was too hard to
find them and I couldn't afford them, but by the late 80s I was collecting them
again and decided to write my MA thesis on the narrative properties of comics,
using Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons' book WATCHMEN as a case study.
In grad school I was allowed to take extra courses without extra tuition
charges so I took a first year studio art course to learn some fundamentals and
try to understand the art side of comics better. At around that time I
had stopped reading so many superhero comics and was reading more literate
independent books like LOVE & ROCKETS. The reprints of THE SPIRIT, AMERICAN
SPLENDOR and so on. I decided to start writing and drawing my own comics
in about 1991 and have been publishing them sporadically for the last 10 years.
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2. What was
the first comic you’ve ever read? |
Hard to say. I have dim memories of reading paperback collections of
PEANUTS in the back of the family car, as well as Spider-Man. I remember
the first one I tried to buy for myself was an issue of PLOP!, an old DC humour
anthology from the early 70s. I was just thinking today about some of the
fucked up comics I used to read back then when everybody assumed that comics
were just for kids.. the 70s were a strange time for comics, they had Harry
Osborn popping pills in Spider-Man and this one-shot book called THE GREEN TEAM
where the villain basically goes on an acid trip.. my older neighbor used to
let me read his issues of CREEPY and VAMPIRELLA, which were black and white
horror/erotic comics.. meanwhile I also read Archie comics, Howard the Duck,
Little Lulu, Disney stuff.. anything really.
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3. How did you
come up with the idea for “I Cook It You Eat It”? |
Anthony Stuart wanted content for his StuckTV website and I was trying to
think of what kind of show I could do that wouldn't take a lot of effort,
because I never seem to have a lot of spare time. I love to cook so I
decided to do an improvised cooking show.
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4. What has
been your favorite episode to do? |
Definitely the finale, that was fun.
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5. Which of
these two would you go see in a movie theatre first, New York Minute 2 or
Leonard part seven? |
New York Minute 2, no contest. The first one was bearable, Leonard
Part 6 is horrible.
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6. When you
first got the script for War Mongers, what was your initial reaction to it? |
I liked it a lot, thought it was a nice Dan Culbersonesque script.
The more I got into it the more depth I saw. I didn't realize until
almost opening night that the author of the play is this kid that Hayley went
on about in her journal all the time. He's got a lot of potential if that
play is any indication, I hope he keeps it up.
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7. How long
have you been writing for? |
Let's see, grade nine would have been 1981, so about 23 years, though I
don't know that I would count much of the first few. I feel it's only
been the last 5 to 10 years that I have started to really do any worthwhile
writing.
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8. What has
been your favorite play that you have written? |
I like aspects of all of them. I like that THE DOOMSDAY CLOCK was
enjoyed by so many. I'm perplexed that I seem to be the only person that
likes CHAIN REACTION, I think in some ways it is my favourite, for now
anyway. I like a lot of things about AN OTHERWORLD and PHOTOSHOP TIME
too.
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9. What was
your first ever-acting role? |
In junior high or high school I was in a play called THE BALD SOPRANO by
Eugene Ionesco with some friends, directed by one of the school's French
teachers I think. It's an absurd play like WAR MONGERS. We skipped
a couple of pages and no one knew the difference. I wound up marrying the
prompter. I didn't really act after that until I joined the SJTC.
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10. One thing
Saint John could improve on is? |
Getting over its low self-esteem. It's easily the best place to live
in NB and one of the best in the Maritimes.
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11. What has
been your favorite acting role? |
Hmmmm... hard to say. I like being characters rather than a
lead. As Stanley the waiter in DEATH OF A SALESMAN I got a nice
laugh from the audience in an otherwise deep and dramatic play. I got to
be the mime in a play I wrote called THE THREE BURGLARS. My characters in
WAR MONGERS and SPORTS DESK were fun, and I got to have fun as Pablo in
STREETCAR, though I was not very comfortable playing that kind of
stereotype. I would like to play a genuinely dramatic role someday but it
would be very hard work for me thanks to my Perma-Smirk(TM).
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12. What is
the hardest part about writing a script in your opinion? |
Getting on a roll. Much to Johnny Mazzer's annoyance I don't sweat and
strain over scripts very much, I tend to get on a roll writing one and it just
pours out.. but it can be a long percolating process to get on that roll in the
first place. After that, revising can be tough because I just want it to
be done and move on to the next thing on my to-do list.
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13. If there
were a movie about you, whom would you want to portray you? |
Haha.. Patrick Swazye of course. No, actually, probably John Cusack
and/or Jeremy Piven. If you could somehow merge them together.
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14. If you
could write a screenplay, what would it be about? |
Probably some kind of love story, that's what I seem to keep coming back
to. I fear it would be like all of Ed Burns' movies, just retreading THE
BROTHERS MCMULLEN over and over again, or maybe JERSEY GIRL.. something that
people wince at and say "oh man, he used to be cool."
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15. Have you
ever tried to create your own comic? |
As I said above, I have been writing and drawing and self-publishing comics
on and off for ten years. I did a six-issue series called DREGS that
collected mostly short comics, one or two pages in length apiece.. and a few
one-shot comics adapting songs I liked or poems I wrote or whatever. I
did a comic called DOOMED LOVE for a while in the early days of HERE newspaper
that I have not yet republished.. a lot of the undrawn scripts for DOOMED LOVE
wound up as plays, including THE DOOMSDAY CLOCK, which I might do as a
comic. Last year I wrote an all-ages graphic novel that I started to draw
in January and then stopped after getting involved in 4 plays this year.
I hope to start drawing it again Real Soon and publish it in installments at
first, then take it to a real publisher for the book version.
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16. Where do
you see Second Stage in five years? |
That's really hard to say. Something like it will probably exist but
Second Stage at this point is getting to be such an automatic quality producer
that it is starting to feel like a professional company. The SJTC might
need to create an intermediate step to provide more exposure for those who
don't make it to the Imperial for whatever reason but who are experienced
enough that they have nothing much to learn from Second Stage anymore.
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17. What does
Scott Marshall do to relax when he’s stressed out? |
Listen to music, play videogames, read, watch TV, go to movies, hang out
with friends, meditate.
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18. Do you see
StuckTV making a comeback? |
Probably. I plan to do some video stuff for my own site once its revision
is done so it may wind up getting "rebroadcast" on StuckTV.
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19. Now that
Theatre on the Edge is over, what are you up to now? |
Trying to pick up the pieces of all the stuff I let slide the last 6
months, get back into a routine at home and at work and in general. Get
some of the stuff on my to-do list done. Relax and enjoy myself.
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20. Any final
comments? Anything you wish to plug? |
Not really. Just that my website will be relaunching soon at
www.superior-studio.com. I'm aiming for Labour Day.
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