Well, last week (Week 4) was a bit of a blur for me! Pencils and colours for Page X, an appearance on The Gutter (yes, I am the keeper of various demons and their mysterious audio effects), some personal joy (gonna have a new book of poetry out this fall!), AND... Robert and I put together a "Quid Pro Quo" interview for your reading pleasure.

Part 1 of the Quid Pro Quo interview - complete with a peek at Page X

Part 2 begins... now! 

Quid Pro Quo: Jennica, You mentioned Neil Gaiman, Brian K. Vaughn, Joss Whedon but who is your favorite writer of the bunch? Also which comic book title is your favorite that you can't wait to read each month?

JH: The only titles I'm reading in monthly form are Buffy: Season 8 and Angel: After the Fall. They're some of the first titles I have been aware of ahead of time that I knew I'd want to read. Everything else is trades, because I've had to "catch up" on a title. And then trades just sort of became my main way of experiencing comics. I'm more of a book-collecting junkie than an individual-issue collector anyway. But I do get calls from my local shop when the new trades for Fables, Y: The Last Man, Ex Machina, Walking Dead, etc. come out.

If I had to pick a favourite writer... wow. That's so tough. I'm terrible at this. I think in my mind I have a whole tier of things that are "favourites" and picking among them is like Sophie's choice. I read everything each of these guys writes. But I guess if I had to answer, I'd say Neil Gaiman. I say this because I read and enjoy pretty much anything the man puts out there: ongoing series, one-offs, novels, short stories -- I even own all the Gaiman/McKean children's picture books. I don't have kids, but I love these books -- they're like works of art for children. Gaiman's weakest work is entertaining, and his best work is mind-blowing. Take the Sandman arc "A Game of You". Ho. Lee. Crap, is that good storytelling.

Quid Pro Quo: Robert: I think everyone on Z2H knows of (and appreciates) your comic book geekery, given your devotion to Between the Staples. Tell us about your first love... the first comic you loved, that is!

RP: Yeah I keep forgetting how good "A Game of You" was. I know when I met Neil Gaiman, he asked what he had written that I enjoyed the most and I said his short run on Hellblazer since I found he needed to write within the world of Hellblazer. Gaimen was limited in what he could do since it was apart of a company book rather than anything he created on his own. Looking back I wonder if I should have mentioned "A Game of You" since it is some of his best work. I personally am hit and miss on Gaimen and have been since I met him. Actually, thinking about it now, since I met Warren Ellis I have been hit or miss on his work as well. Hmm...

Ah thanks for both the kind words and plug for BtS. My first comic love... The New Teen Titans #1. I remember back when I was really young I was getting comics here and there and reading them but not really taking it in. Comics were just another thing to do with friends but once I went to a comic store and I got The New Teen Titans on the day it came out. I read it so much it got damaged. This was my first taste of the Comic Book Gods of the comic book world, Marv Wolfman & George Perez. This was my first hit of the addiction and I have been chasing the dragon ever since. Very few books have come close to that feeling I had. Orbiter by Warren Ellis was one of them.

Quid Pro Quo: Jennica: Speaking of artists (such as George Perez) and that AW is fortunate enough to have Sandrine Replat working on the book, who are some of the artists you enjoy in comics today? Is there a single artist that you enjoy more than others or is it a certain artistic look?

JH: This may be even harder than the favourite writer question! Like I said, I'm so often "in it" for the story. As someone who has virtually no artistic skills, artwork is both more mysterious and more impenetrable to me. I don't necessarily know why I like what I like.

I think I mentioned Dave McKean. He's probably the artist I'm most consistently drawn to -- everything is so textured and rich and surprising. (A fairly good touchstone for Sandrine, I believe, and so very exciting for AW.) That said, I think the experience in which I was most drawn to the art in a book (at least, consciously) was probably Kingdom Come (Alex Ross). Maybe an obvious choice for those who are big into superhero (sorry, pervert suit!) comics but probably not that obvious a choice for me. But reading that book, I found myself truly lingering over every single page. So beautiful.

Quid Pro Quo: Robert: Same question!

RP: From the old comic gods I would say Gil Kane, he co-created the modern (Hal Jordan) Green Lantern which is one of the many things he did. Wonderful art for its time and still stands against much of the junk drawn today. Closer to now I always loved Chris Bachelo but mainly his work on Neil Gaimen's Death: High Cost of Living and what brought him attention was Peter Milligan's Shade, The Changing Man (of which only 1 trade has been done which is pretty sad) before Chris got popular on his Marvel run on X-Men.

Much more recently I prefer the artwork of Vertigo artists like R.M. Guera (Scalped), Mike Hawthorne (Un-Men) and Eduardo Risso (100 Bullets, Logan) along with John Cassaday (Astonishing X-Men, Planetary), J.H. Williams III (Desolation Jones, Promethea, Batman) and John Romita, Jr. for my pervert suit addictions. Oh and Keith Giffen is another favorite artist who's work and wit I enjoy.

Quid Pro Quo: Jennica: We have covered a great deal. What words of advice would you give upcoming writers and potential Zeros 2 Heroes?

JH: Write a lot. Have a lot of different things going at the same time. Trust in good feedback and nod politely with bad. Give like you get (looking at other people's stories teaches you just as much about storytelling as actually writing). And be brave!