The Fix #1

Steve Lieber is the popular and award-winning artist whose work includes Alabaster, Shooters, Underground, Whiteout, and more! He’s reuniting with his Superior Foes of Spider-Man collaborator Nick Spencer for The Fix. Lieber talked with Westfield’s Roger Ash about this upcoming series from Image.

Westfield: What was the genesis of The Fix?

Steve Lieber: Nick Spencer and I worked together at Marvel on a book called Superior Foes of Spider-Man, an Eisner-nominated knucklehead caper comedy about five loser villains. (The omnibus edition just came out in February.)

It was insanely well received, with the most enthusiastic fans of any comic I’ve ever worked on. People come up to me at every convention and talk about their favorite moments. After wrapping up Superior Foes, we immediately started talking about collaborating on another project. That became The Fix

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Westfield: You’re working again with Nick Spencer on the book. What makes this a good partnership?

Lieber: We’ve got similar senses of humor. Also we’ve put together a unique way of collaborating that’s based on our trust in each other’s skills. Sometimes Nick writes Marvel style- plotting without dialogue. Sometimes he just writes the dialogue for a scene and leaves the visuals and pacing in my hands. Sometimes he writes a traditional script. Sometimes he tells me what a scene needs and I just go wild. In all cases I try to take what he gave me and put a spin on it when I send it back to him. We’re constantly surprising each other.

Getting readers to laugh out loud at a comic is hard, but Nick and I can do it.

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Westfield: What can readers look forward to in the book?

Lieber: Terrible people making terrible choices. Laughs. Shocking reversals of fortune.

Westfield: Who are the main characters readers will meet and what can you tell us about them?

Lieber: Mac and Roy are two crooked cops. Josh is a monstrous, sociopathic crimelord who brews his own kombucha. Donovan is a movie producer with poor impulse control. Pretzels is an LAPD beagle, and the only member of our cast who isn’t complete moral garbage.

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Westfield: One of the characters I’ve been curious about since the title was announced is Pretzels the drug sniffing beagle. How did a dog become part of the cast and what storytelling challenges/opportunities does that present?

Lieber: We had a corgi puppy who played a small but significant role in Superior Foes of Spider-Man. It was clear to anyone who read the book how much fun Nick had writing him and I had drawing him. Dogs are great!

The challenge for me is getting clear and believable expressions and body language on a beagle. He’s just an ordinary mean little beagle. This is a crime story, not a fantasy, so he can’t talk or anything like that. That means the pictures have to tell the reader everything they need to know.

The Fix #2

Westfield: Any closing comments?

Lieber: Nick and I are hugely proud of this book. It’s genuinely funny, full of twists and turns, and it reads like nothing else out there. We’re knocking ourselves out on it, and we think readers are going to love it.

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The Fix #1

The Fix #2