ONE STRANGE EGG - Chris Reilly Interview

I think the best way to describe Chris Reilly is that he's a Renaissance Man from the Eighth Dimension.

I've been friends with Chris for over a decade and not only is he a columnist for this site, but also one of the most unusual personalities to have walked the Earth.

Since breaking into the comics industry in 1995 with his Rogue Satellite Tales, Reilly has become a bit of a Forest Gump of the industry, accomplishing such feats as being a Harvey and Ignatz Award nominee to a prestigious Eisner Award judge all while rubbing elbows with some of the most respected names names in the independent comics arena including Jhonen Vasquez, Roger Langridge, Paul Friedrich, J. Chris Campbell, Bob Burden, Mark Buckingham, Jackie Estrada, Ben Towle, Derf, Crab Scrambly, Chris Grine and Batton Lash

Reilly's newest book, Strange Eggs Jumps The Shark will be released in comic book stores this Wednesday.


FOG!: In addition to being the co-creator and one of the writers, you have functioned as the overall editor for the series. What do you think attracts the talent to participating in books?

CPR: Well, I am not really the overall editor; I gather most of the talent and then at the end Ben (Towle) has to do the real hands on work. He flips and shuffles this stuff in every weird bat attack direction. Ben is a Charlotte, NC guy just like Billy Bob, the puppy I adopted this past Sunday.

I didn’t rescue Ben, but he is the shine on my sequential spit when it comes to putting the Strange Eggs book together. He’s a weird, potentially right wing vampire, but he’s a good man and he is the one who does the final edits and puts the book together. Ben sent publisher Slave Labor Graphics a print ready PDF of the book, so when you see how it is put together that should be all his doing.

Ben was less involved in this book as a creator, his only story being the one we did together to introduce the theme. Still, he is a third of the book.

You and I have spoken at length in the past about the need for good children's comics and in the past Strange Eggs has been geared to an all ages audience. This particular volume, Strange Eggs Jumps The Shark, is not. Why the departure from the formula?

Co-creator Steve Ahlquist and I wanted to do an all ages Strange Eggs graphic novel that would have been how we would have made the movie in the 70’s with a Roger Corman budget. I don’t believe in children's comics, they are like troll bridges and you just can’t pass over them without getting attacked. I think a good kid’s comic is a book that a kid likes. So, I do believe there should be more comics that kids can enjoy, but publishers shouldn’t have “ages 6-10” in their crosshairs.

Did you know they did a MAD For Kids a few years ago?

Did you have any trouble understanding MAD when you were 7?

Me and you are about the same age, I’m older, but we’re from the same generation. Parents are like the government these days, in that they love to bat shit scare their kids, because they think it is good parenting. They actually tell kids what is scary! Did they read about this method of madness in some Oprah article by Dr. Phil.

I saw Jaws opening day, which would have made me six. There were no such things as play dates or other neo-psychobabble parenting back then. Your dad saw a preview to a film that looked cool and he took you to see it. We were not taught to be scared by our parents, like the PC breeders of today.

Our parents didn’t ask stupid questions like “Is there a racial slur in the film? Is it violent, racy or scary? Is there a really ugly dog in it and if so, does it bark?”

It was a fucking movie and we were not hot house flowers that would wilt at a moment’s frightener. I hate how the nub-bar-crunch modern parents of today make their kids scared of films, comics, TV shows, not because I’m a fan of those things but because this will only lead them to being frightened of other things that should not scare them. They are psychological, PMRC terrorists and their children will suffer for the self righteousness of their parents who think their own parents did such a shitty job on them that they need to make their kids world something out of John McGreevy penned episode of the Waltons.

Can you imagine in ’74 if your parents had sat around asking “Will Jaws frighten them?” Fuck, go vote for Nader (again) you pseudo intellectual post “new age” weirdos. Do you have a parent teacher conference on whether or not your kids will be terrified by a roller coaster? I know I am ranting, but I am passionate about this, let kids be kids.

We were all young, we went to the kindergarten the following Monday and all boasted that we were going to see Jaws again next weekend. Our parents, flawed as they may have been, had not read psychotic “how to" books on how to terrify us through their warped compassion. They may have screwed us up, but at least they didn’t read books and take classes to figure out how to fuck us up.

Then, Parent: "It is Saturday, so it must be watch monster movie day. Turn on the Creature Double Feature."

Now; Parent: "It is rated G but I think we should have a family meeting before we let the kids watch it and emphasize that there a moment in it where a goat looks a bit creepy."

Hell, we’ve already terrorized them, so just imply they will be scared and the poor kid will opt the fuck out. I know they mean well, but their weirder and spookier than what they are trying to scare their kids with. There were the baby boomers, we were Generation X and these poor kids will be the fear generation, in treatment for life.

Back to your question (finally) I do think there should be more comics for kids to enjoy, but for that to happen their parents will have to ease up a bit. Don Rosa’s Disney Duck books are a great example of books that kids should read, but Rosa doesn’t write them as kids books, he writes what he wants to be reading and they work on every level.


Kids also used to like horror comics; It’s not like forty year old men were reading Tales From The Crypt when Dr. Wertham helped create the comics code to protect the children and completely wiped horror comics off the map.

Kids loved those EC horror books and were the core audience, and this old prick comes along, writes Seduction of the Innocent and for no good reason (let’s not get into Starchie) took something away from them that they truly loved. Wertham, (practically) overnight brought on the Comics Code that reduced American comics to a childish mentality.

This is the fourth Strange Eggs comic anthology. For the uninitiated, what is Strange Eggs and what is the origin of the project?

The actual dictionary answer to the first Strange Eggs all those years ago is: Strange Eggs #1 included a fictitious back-story claiming that the comic book was based on a now-cancelled television show produced by “The Christian Learning Network.” The premise of this supposed show—and therefore the premise of all the comics stories in Strange Eggs #1—was the following: The young twins Kip and Kelly Hatcher live with their father, a scientist, on a farm in rural Maine. In each story, deliveryman Roger Rogers delivers the twins an egg and they are forced to deal with whatever hatches forth. Creators can have virtually anything hatch out of the egg, and have the twins deal with it in pretty much any fashion.

jump the shark v. In a television show, to include an over-the-top scene or plot twist that is indicative either of an irreversible decline in the show's quality or of a desperate bid to stem the show's declining ratings.

In Strange Eggs Jumps the Shark, the original Strange Eggs has been on the air for many years and its ratings are increasingly poor. The network executives are desperately searching for some twist to the show’s basic premise, or some outlandish gimmick, that can save the show. For Strange Eggs Jumps the Shark, each creator (or creative team) should produce a story that features just such a twist.

No idea is too ridiculous!



What is the origin of Jumps The Shark?

We did a panel at Comic-Con three years ago and someone asked the same question. We had no prepared answer so Steve and Ben huddled while I talked to the audience about waffles and cream soda, they came up with the idea and we announced it. People were thrilled because it stopped me from talking about waffles; what a room broom that turned out to be. This book will piss off all static cloned robots’ that get their opinions dictated from AM radio.

Hint: most of us believe in evolution.

As the co-creator and co-editor, as well as a writer, what do you think attracts the talent to participating in books?

I think people like to work with us, because they know we are very passionate about the book, it is a fun concept and they know their hard work will see print. We have a good crew of creators and they seem to like the idea of just busting loose and having fun.


Anthologies of every kind are always a mixed bag. How do you keep the series from running the gamut and produce an overall entertaining product?

Have 100% faith in the creators. For example, is Derf going to hand you a bad story?



What else do you have coming up?

Adora and the Electric Elephant, O Tesla: The Death of Topsy and a biography about my uncle Henry, tentatively titled Henry’s Bataan Death March.

Oh, and a book about me called The Life of Reilly. I tend to hate auto-bio comics but my friends Baton Lash, Jackie Estrada and Meagan Parker talked me in to doing one, based on the fact that I have lived a weird life and it wouldn’t be about me explain to my girlfriend why I wet the bed that night. Meagan is going to publish it.

For the sake of historical record, can you tell the raccoon story.

One day they announced a possible rabies outbreak in Rhode Island. That night/morning I got off work at the bar and drove to my friend John Teehan’s house. I saw, though beer goggles, what I thought was a gray tabby cat in a bush and kneeled down to pet it.

“Nice kitty” I said sticking my hand in the bush, and then the screaming started as the rabid raccoon reputedly bit my hand.



I went to the hospital and said a Bush Monster attacked me.

I had no idea what it was, but it definitely was not a cat.

The hospital called animal control who found the poor beast still in the bush, too sick from rabies to walk. They told me I needed a rabies shot/shots. Three injections into each bite. I had twenty bites on my hand four of then piercing fingernails.

I got up and said it had been nice knowing them, and then the cops guarding the door stopped me and told me I could receive the shots voluntarily or they would quarantine me and give me the shots.

Then my mother walked in with the vaccine. I thought I’d died and gone to hell.

My mom worked as a doctor’s assistant next door at Pediatrics Center Inc. and they, for some reason were the only medical facility to have the vaccine on hand.

When they got the call, she heard my name mentioned and to make a bad situation a horrific one volunteered to deliver the vaccine. From the look on her face, I would have rather gone another five rounds with the Rabid Bush Monster.

Long story short, I was technically the first person in Rhode Island in 42 years to be infected with rabies and in state's history, it's only rabies survivor.