So Super Duper Creator Brian Andersen Dishes About the NEW CBG Comics

In the less than two years since I last interviewed Brian Andersen, his CBG Comics has grown from a one-trick pony to a full-fledged comic book publisher. I recently had the opportunity to interview Brian again and it's amazing to see how much CBG Comics has grown!

Wow, you sure are a busy guy these days. Last time I interviewed you, you hadn't even finished So Super Duper #3 yet. Where's the series at now?

It's funny because I don't consider myself to be a very productive person as I'm inherently lazy. Yet somehow I seem to find myself busting out comics after comics.

So Super Duper is currently on its 7th issue, which just came out in February. At this point in the story main character Psyche has finally realized that he's totally, super, way, way, way gay, his BFF single gal-pal Skip thinks she and Psyche are a romantic couple (cause they shared a brief make-out session in issue 5), and the evil Dr. Wicked has managed to infiltrate Skip's hair salon so that he can wreck all kinds of havoc on Psyche and his unsuspecting teammates in the Amazin'Naughts. Also, issue #7 has a surprise (maybe even shocking!) traitor who reveals him/herself to be in cahoots with the villainous Dr. Wicked. Let the drama hit the fan!

Oh! And So Super Duper is now syndicated twice a week, Tues and Thurs, on the blog for mainstream comic news site Newsarama, www.newsarama.com. So that's pretty darn exciting.

CBG Comics is publishing more than just So Super Duper these days? What are some of your other projects in the works?

Yeah, suddenly I'm an imprint! I don't know how the heck that happened. But I recently published Rick Worley's A Waste of Time and comic book living legend Trina Robbin's classic 1980's indie series California Girls, which I adorned as a young teenager.

I also put out two new comics of own last year, the first being Unabashedly Billie, written and drawn by little old me and inked and lettered by my long-suffering boyfriend, which is a slice-of-life, black and white, semi-autobiographical story depicting how I came out of the closet and realized I was "so gay" as I was preparing for my first boy-on-boy date. I actually created the story back in 2004 but never felt it was good enough to share. Thankfully my dreamy boyfriend told me how stupid I was being and encouraged me to publish it. You can read the entire issue for free on my site, www.sosuperduper.com, as well as on Prism Comics, www.prismcomics.org. I'm working on a second, follow up, issue now.

The second book I published last year is called Reignbow and Dee-Va, which I created and wrote, featuring awesome art by the sensational Celina Hernandez. Reignbow and Dee-Va is a Kung Fu, high-action, spy romp, with tons of quips, punching, kicking and a healthy amount of off color innuendos sprinkled here and there. The main characters are very Will & Grace-ish, if Will & Grace also happened to be ass kicking secret agents who battle scary vampires! Issue 2 is in the works now. I can't wait for it to come out, as Reignbow and Dee-Va issue 2 has zombies, a mermaid, and lots of shirtless men! It should be out in May.

Aside from these already completed projects I'm currently working on a new short story called Loser 80, about rogue cartoon characters from the past that go all evil and try to eat the imagination out of little children. The first story is about the Hate Bears, twisted versions of the Care Bears, who just love being bad and attacking sleeping children. Luckily the children of the world have saviors in the form of teenage heroes who battle these naughty cartoons. Brin, the star of the story, is just such a teenage hero, and there is far more to her than meets the eye. I created the concept and am writing the series with art by the very talented Jimmy Misanthrope from New Zealand. This is my first (at least not overtly) non-gay comic. So I'm trying to branch out a smidge.

I have also written and created another short comic story called Sex and the Superhero, which is basically Sex and the City meets Superheroes, only gayer. All the heroes in my story are gay and the characters gather together in this clubhouse type penthouse-y place to dish on their superhero adventures and how their sex lives tend to overlap with their hero-ing. It's totally campy, totally funny (I hope) and features amazing art by the very talented Nefty Centeno, who I found via the amazing Comic Book Queers podcast (which everyone SO needs to check out and listen too ASAP as it's majorly hilars, www.comicbookqueers.com).

I also have a new one-shot comic coming out soon called Friend of Dorothy, which I am co-creating and co-writing with the uber witty, clever, fabulously creative Michael Troy, who is also handling the art on the book. Michael recently created a wonderful gay spoof of the Watchmen called Crotchmen. Michael and I am still finalizing the story, but the basic idea for this book is a superhero who is a butt-kicking Wizard of Oz warrior dude, complete with gingham and sparkly ruby boots, who just happens to be, uh, a friend of Dorothy.

Finally, (whew!), I am developing a kid's comic about a group of Hollywood It Tween stars who also happen to be superheroes. The comic is called Myth Kids, my artist on Reignbow and Dee-Va is handling the character designs for me, and I'm gearing up to pitch it to some indie publishers to see if there's any interest. If not, I'll probs just self-publish it. Why the hell not?

I notice you picked up rights to reprint Trina Robbins' California Girls. How did that come about?

I asked. Haha. It's that simple. Trina actually lives two blocks away from me in San Francisco and we occasionally meet up for coffee and comic chat. It dawned on me that no one had ever collected her classic California Girls comics and asked if I could do it. She was resistant as first, only because she felt the stories were too dated, but I convinced her that nostalgia is huge and that everyone loves the 80's. How can you not? The 80's, and the California Girls comics, are totally tubular!

Some fans have noted that with all your recent new projects, issues of So Super Duper are coming out slower than usual. Is the workload getting to be too much?

Really? I have fans? Wow! Well, that's exciting! I thought my fan base consisted of my mother and my boyfriend! So now I have three! Score!

Yeah, each issue of So Super Duper requires so much work that once I finish an issue I am so nearly burned out from living inside my head for so long that I just need a break. It's not the writing and the drawing that drains me, although I would prefer not to draw my book, to be honest, as the number one criticism I get about So Super Duper is how "crude" and "amateurish" the art is (I would tell those critics to F*** off, but I have to admit, they're kinda right), as it's the lettering, coloring, formatting, all the grunt work that just poops me out. So I find I need longer and longer rest periods between issues to keep the nuts and bolts of self-publishing a comic book fun and fresh.

Don't get me wrong, I love creating comics, and I am SO totally grateful for all the (rare) positive support I have gotten over So Super Duper, but I think once I wrap up my story I'll shy away from penciling and try to concentrate on just writing. Time to leave the drawing side to actual artists, I say. At this point I really just want to see the series through to its finale, I've had offers for outside help, but I really want to wrap these last few issues up the way the series began, with me doing everything, for good or bad. I've done every step in creating this comic up to this point and I just want to see my baby through to the end. As lame as that sounds!

So, besides the new projects you've already mentioned, what else have you got planned for So Super Duper and CBG Comics?

So Super Duper should be ending soon. I can probably safely say I have about two or three issues left, judging on how my story plays out. I would say by issue 10 or so So Super Duper, as we know it, might be done. That doesn't mean I wouldn't be interesting in creating new comics using my So Super Duper characters, but I think if I went that route I would really seek another artist to help bring my stories alive. I already have the very last page of So Super Duper all planned out, so hopefully I don't get hit by a bus before then. I told my boyfriend that if I do meet an untimely end he needs to continue my story for me. Hopefully he can read my chicken scratch and decipher all the notes I have on what's coming up in the next three issues. If not, he can just make it up. As long as it gets finished. Haha.

As for CBG Comics, well, I feel as though the sky's the limits. I mean, I never, ever in a bazillion years thought I would ever make it past issue 2 of So Super Duper, much less be creating additional comics and publishing other creators. I mean, who knew? Really? Not me. So I would be most happy to expand my publishing side of things and help to get other creator's work out there. There is so much great talent out in the world that I would really love to be able to help other creators see something they slaved over make it into print. It was always a dream of mine to create a comic book, see it printed, maybe sell a few issues, and now that I have done it I would love to help others achieve that same dream. That to me is the greatest reward. Aside from those two or three fans of mine, of course.

More information about Brian Andersen and CBG Comics can be found at http://www.sosuperduper.com.