"The Janes were kind of kicking around my head for a while," she says. "I liked the idea of four girls named Jane at the reject table at lunch. Four girls who might bail on each other for better lunch tables. It kind of morphed from that into a girl art gang once I knew I wanted to do it as a comic, and also I wanted the girls to hang out. The thing that appealed to me making the Janes into a comic was the fact that, for one it was a new way of telling a story for me, which is always fun. Also, the leanness of the words coupled with pictures. And the idea that maybe, if I am lucky, I could keep writing about these girls. Jim's first sketch made my heart sing, 'cause I can think of all kinds of trouble and torture for these girls."

Artist Jim Rugg came aboard after hearing from the editor. "Shelly Bond contacted me about doing some work for her, and shortly after that, she told me about Cecil's Plain Jane proposal and asked if I'd be interested in drawing it. So I read the proposal and Cecil's first book, Boy Proof, and I liked the idea of the Minx line. I gave it some thought, and decided to give it a try (I wasn't sure how I'd do with a project of this size, but it worked out)."

Enough about the genesis and the team coming together, what about the book itself? "I can tell you that it's about a girl named Jane, whose parents move her to the suburbs after a terrible thing happens to her in her hometown of Metro City. There she decides that being popular is not all that, and she goes straight for the "C" crowd. Also, Jane likes art - a lot. I can tell you that I think the book looks beautiful, thanks to the amazing artistic stylings of Jim Rugg."

Rugg says the story appeals to him because "the main characters and the setting both ring true to me. Cecil captures youth very well. Everyone wants to be cool, and no one really is (not even the popular kids). There's rebellious energy coursing through all the kids in the book, and no obvious way to express that restlessness...it reminds me of things I saw and people I knew when I was in high school. The kids don't know as much as they think they know, but their feelings are so intense.

So I guess her characterization appealed to me. And once the scripts started coming, I was impressed with it even more."

Castellucci has more stories planned for the Janes past this first graphic novel. "If I get the chance I have ideas for more stories. Like I said, whenever I look at Jim's original character sketch of the four girls, I laugh, because those girls wear their hearts on their sleeves and tell me their secrets, which naturally I am eager to share with the whole world."

How do the two creators work together? "Shelly sends me a bit of the script and I do thumbnails and return them to Shelly, she approves them, and I draw the final pages," replies Rugg. "During this process, I give a tiny bit of feedback to Shelly and Cecil over the phone or email, and often this feedback consists of me asking questions when something in the script isn't clear to me. Or if I get an idea on a sequence that I think might be better than what is in the script, I'll mention it to them (this probably only happened once or twice, I don't want to give the incorrect impression that I'm helping to plot the book, it's usually a matter of an extra panel or some background detail). I think Shelly goes over the artwork with Cecil too, so it's a lot of just passing around our contributions, and asking questions or offering suggestions.

"By the time I get the script, it's very tight, and ready to draw. We talked a lot about character design in the beginning. Emailing images, clothing ideas, discussing hairstyles..."

Castellucci is very happy with the collaboration. "I think that Jim brings life to the girls in a way that text just could never do. In my opinion he really captured their essence. The girls feel fully fleshed out thanks to the incredible soul he put in them and all the other characters and I think that shows up on the page. Basically, I kind of felt like I was writing to honor the girls he created, which made the whole thing feel like an awesome collaboration. He definitely made me raise my game. I'll say it here. I'll say it loud. I love Jim Rugg and his art."

Did Rugg approach the art any differently since this was a graphic novel as opposed to a monthly comic? "Not really. I drew the originals smaller because the printed book is smaller and I didn't letter Plain Janes, and I grayscaled it (which has nothing to do with the graphic novel format compared to the traditional comic book format). So overall, I'd say my approach wasn't much different between the two books, especially in terms of breakdowns/storytelling. One difference I just thought of, the Plain Janes art is probably influenced less by superhero comics than Street Angel was."

So you read The Plain Janes, like it, and want more. Where else can you find work from these two? "I'm working on another series with Brian Maruca (my Street Angel collaborator)," Rugg says, "but it's probably too early to discuss (we've been writing scripts for it but I haven't begun drawing it yet). I'm also inking Becky Cloonan on American Virgin, beginning with issue 12."

As for Castellucci, "I do have a new novel coming out in May as well called Beige. It's a Young Adult novel about a girl named Katy from Montreal who has to go to Los Angeles to stay with her estranged dad, nicknamed The Rat, for a few weeks, who is the drummer in an infamous punk rock band called Suck and she hates music."

And in conclusion, she has this to say, "I'm glad to be here in comic land. And yes, thanks, I will have a cup of tea and am happy to stay a while."