At some point in your life, someone may have told you that the worst mistakes are the best learning experiences. This may be true, but in my opinion, it misses the most important point: The worst mistakes make the best stories. And there is nowhere, nowhere about which that is truer than sex . . . (more)

Head on over to digital.darkhorse.com and download the Finder: Voice original graphic novel! And if you haven’t already, visit the iTunes store to download the Dark Horse app for your iPhone/iTouch/iPad!

Carla Speed McNeil self-published Finder for fifteen years, including the stories that you, lucky person, are about to encounter. It took way too many of those years before I discovered it, but once I did, it became my stock answer to nearly anyone who asked me to recommend a comic that would satisfy their particular interests. You like crazy world-building science fiction? Have you tried Finder? Smart relationship dramas that acknowledge that relationships and sex are really complicated? Have a look at Finder. Adventure stories with stylistic flair and top-flight visual storytelling? Anthropological satire? Ultra-dense allusive responses to pop-culture overload? Comics that are, in a lot of ways, genuinely not like anything else you’ve ever read? Let me show you Finder . . . (more)

When I was growing up, I kept books with me everywhere. I squirreled them away in the car-door pockets and between couch cushions and behind the shampoo in the tub. I got in trouble for sneaking paperbacks into class or to the dinner table. When, years later, my partner and I moved cross-country, we got rid of furniture, clothing, and tchotchkes, and still had to rent a van because we had more books than would fit in our compact car . . . (more)

I guess one might assume that a designer such as myself would have a logical and formulated process, and that my designs are the end product of a rational set of decisions based on principles years in the learning. Let me assure you that, at least in my case, nothing could be further from the truth. In reality, I create stuff just like most kids do: by looking and finding things that are interesting, putting them together, and then pushing those things around until they click, and the puzzle is solved. But there is some method to my madness . . . (more)

The first time I met Carla Speed McNeil was at Stumptown comics fest. She was sharing a table with my friend Bill. She was doing sketches, and I asked for one of Lynne. Speed whistled through her teeth, and said she’d need a few minutes: “Lynne’s difficult.” . . . (more)

If the Dark Horse Originals line has a flagship title, it’s Finder. Finder is an original in every sense: although its roots run deep and wide through comics and literature, it reaches far beyond the sum of its influences . . . (more)

I’ve been a self-publisher for a long time. I highly recommend it. Think of it (as you learn to live on beans and ramen) as an apprenticeship in our business. When you self-publish, you learn to create your own work method. You have to learn what gets you out of bed and away from the game console, the whole season of Stargate from Netflix, the big pile of comics you haven’t read yet, the day job, the significant other, the messy mind that talks you out of working like an anorexic’s mind talks her out of eating . . . (more)