This week’s six questions will be answered by the one and only Shaenon Garrity.

1. What drew you to comics?

It’s so hard to remember now… I loved comic strips as a kid and read my Bloom County and Calvin & Hobbes collections over and over, doing all the voices. As a teenager, I was drawn to the gothy charms of Sandman, then graduated from that to various indie comics and manga. After that it was all over.

I was fascinated by the interplay of word and image, and it’s enticingly easy to start making comics–just draw some panels and staple them into a minicomic or post them to the Internet. I think I also liked the idea of comics as the ghetto medium: you can get away with any crazy thing that pops into your head, and there’s no need to come off all deep. Maybe comics are taken more seriously now, but they weren’t at the time, and I dug that.

2. What do you feel is wholly unique about that medium that differs it from the others?

It has Popeye. No, wait, he’s also in cartoons.

3. What, if anything, pushes you away from it?

It’s really hard to do comics well. You have to master three disciplines, really: drawing, writing, and visual storytelling. I don’t think I’m especially good at any of these but writing, so it gets frustrating for me. There are always a million new skills to learn.

4. What is the best piece of wisdom you’ve ever come across about comics?

Phil Foglio once told me, “In comics, there’s always someone better than you, and there’s always someone worse than you who’s getting work.”

5. Twenty five words or less: You’ve been made the emperess of all comics. What do you do with the power?

Oh, man, Andrew and I discuss this all the time. Our favorite plan is to put Roger Langridge, who currently writes and draws the Muppet Show comics, in charge of DC, and our friend Rob, who has written approximately 300 failed pitches about Terror Inc. and/or the Yellow Claw, in charge of Marvel, and give them the power to do whatever they want with those companies for a year. We call this the “Viking Funeral” plan.

Was that twenty-five words or less? I’m too lazy to count.

6. What is the alternate reality version of you up to right now?

Working for a legitimate book publisher in Manhattan and writing science-fiction stories about rockabilly bands in space.

If you could provide a “Just the facts, ma’am.” bio with some links for the few curious readers I can probably provide, that’d be awesome as well.

Shaenon K. Garrity is a cartoonist, manga editor, and blogger best known for the webcomics Narbonic and Skin Horse. She lives in Berkeley with her husband, Cartoon Art Museum curator Andrew Farago, and their cat, Tesla. You can check out more of her work through www.shaenon.com.

I’m going to run the questions first from now on.

I figure if you’re following a link here, that’s what you came for. So why not give you what you want in an easy, convenient manner instead of making you work hard for it. This isn’t a Spider-Man comic book after all…

Speaking of how the internet has destroyed comic books.

If an industry focuses, to the exclusion of all others, on a very specific demographic that is guaranteed to shrink over the years, while treating that very same market like a bunch of saps, blaming the internet doesn’t really erase the fact of that industry’s own short-sightedness and greed is the reason they’re not making as much money as they did back in 1987.

I only ever needed a lawyer once.

It was to look over the wording in a contract for some work-for-hire for a small production video game. Today I’ve read enough contracts in enough detail to be able to find the bullshit immediately. One of the benefits of working in Korea for six years. If I knew then what I know today, I wouldn’t have agreed to be paid from the profits.

Small scale video game, right? There weren’t any. Live and learn.

At least I broke even: Started with nothing, ended with nothing. If the game had sold Halo like numbers, the game owners would have using my ideas to become millionaires while I would have long ago spent the pittance they paid me. The only option I would have had, if I wanted to keep working in that industry, would have been to keep selling my ideas at a pittance while the industry raked in the cash with them.

It strikes me as a shit situation to be in. But if it’s all you know, I can see why you’d get upset when that industry is in an upheaval.

Which is why I think you should hire a lawyer to get your ideas back so you can make the money for yourself instead of for them.

Oh wait, I’m talking about comics again. Off on a tangent there…

Just in case I haven’t beaten this to death enough:

Next week, the site will go 900 pixels wide. That means larger file sizes and longer load times. You probably have broadband and a big monitor, so I’m not too worried about it. Also, Yes You Can! will run Monday and Wednesday. Photos will switch to Tuesday and Thursday. Friday Filler will switch to Sunday…

TO MESS WITH YOUR MIND! OOOooooeeeeOOOOOOeeeooooooOOO!

P.S.: That’s not true.