The material in Michael Neno's Reactionary Tales was produced over a 12-year period, so I had much time to shape the book and think the material through. My artwork could be considered Silver Age, old-school, or out-of-date, depending on one's point of view. But I was adamant that the work be deliberate and uncompromising despite its use of genre material, and I was surprised and glad that the Xeric Foundation funded the book despite the avalanche of genre material already glutting comic book shops across the nation.

Early on in the production of Reactionary Tales, I decided to send only digital files to the printer, partly because I didnít want to send my original art through the mail, and also because I felt working with digital files was a process I needed to learn (I'd scanned in art to be used for a website, but had no experience in digital prepress for books or periodicals). It was only as the printing deadline loomed that I realized that the application I was using wasn't completely up to the task of coloring the cover the way I had envisioned it - that is, to look like an old, weathered comic book one might find in an attic, hidden under a stack of stuff. (I was quite happy with the look of the inside of the book.)

From contacting the distributor to choosing a printer and readying the material, it was all new to me, an invaluable learning experience. What I didn't do so well the first time, I can learn from and correct with the publication of my next issue, which I have no doubt will look much-improved. And what I did do right is due, at least in part, to the support of the Xeric Foundation.