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And to top off the evening, from ,

1) Why Ireland?

Lifetime dream come to fruition. My grandfather was born in Ireland, so my sister and I have (through a literal grandfather clause!) citizenship, which makes it comparatively easy to move here. There are political and financial reasons, too (or there might be the latter if the dollar wasn’t so low against the euro), but mostly it’s because we *could*. It’s an adventure!

2) Why Cork?

Ted got a job down here. *laugh* Beyond that, it’s a big enough city to have things to do, without being so alarmingly large as Dublin. I’m not a city girl.

3) Why Rogue?

It started as a fascination with the hair (which, in turn, was probably mostly due to Jim Lee’s artwork, ’cause I started reading X-Men when he was drawing it, and pre-Lee Roguehair is just, eh, whatever). I just like her hair. But the agony of her situation is appealing, too, ’cause the woman’s unstoppable. She’s got an incredible mutant power, and a huge debilitating mess to go along with it.

Now, with me fifteen years older and wiser, I’ve become frustrated with the never-ending pathos of it all. Rogue’s powers are controllable; Carol Danvers was able to control them when she was in charge of the body. Rogue’s problem is a psychological one. There’s been very little attempt to deal with it on-screen, and I’ve lost my patience. (My problem with ongoing comic books is I like resolution. Unfortunately, I realize that if Scott and Jean (or Peter and Mary Jane) get married, it takes a big part away from the structure of the story.) Oddly enough, it’s Emma Frost who has recently made at least some small attempt at working with Rogue as if her problem is a psychological one. That makes me happy.

Plus, she can fly. I want to be able to fly.

4) Tell me about Mount Doom?

Ah!

Three years ago (give or take a month) I went for a walk and was just about hobbling with pain after a mile. I thought that was pretty pathetic and embarrassing, and resolved to walk more and get in better shape. A matter of days later, the Eowyn Challenge came onto my radar.

The Eowyn Challenge was originally to walk the distance from Bag End to Rivendell in 6 months time (before the opening of Return of the King), but people mapped out pretty much all the distances in the books and lots of people kept walking after they reached Rivendell. For some reason, the idea of the thing worked really well for me, so I’ve been pursuing this walk for three years. Not quite as fast as the hobbits, but they didn’t have day jobs, you know?

I really have no idea why I’ve stuck with it. Just under 1800 miles is a lot!

5) Am I right in thinking you’re working on a graphic novel? Tell me more!

I am! Or, well, I hope I’m working on a comic book which will eventually be put out in GN format, but as comics first. :)

I have described it in a nutshell as Batman meets Ghost. It’s about a woman, Frankie Kemp, aka Chance (or something like that, depending on trademarks, sigh), whose child was killed through an act of street violence, and whose reponse was to become a vigilante, despite living in a world where superheroes are a thing of Saturday morning cartoons. The story begins when she’s been doing this about five years, and shortly after a genetically engineered virus has given a lot of other people actual superpowers. She’s wondering if there’s a place for her in a world with superheroes.

It’s my goal in the story to try to deal with Frankie’s grief and psychosis through the trappings of the superhero genre. I have a 60-issue story arc planned out, and intend to produce the first issue in full color and issues 2-12 as pencils if I can’t get somebody to pick it up, and after that, well, we’ll see. Mind you, when I say ‘produce’ I mean ‘in the worst case scenario it’ll be a very cool and expensive web comic’, but I think I can do better than that. :)