GS: Does your A-Z of Geekdom reflect your personal preferences, or merely the general perception of geeks? (Aside from the “Virgin” one, of course... heh.)

MG: I did the A-Z of Geekdom just for fun so it's mostly pulled from my own interests. If I was doing that poster now I probably would've gone with "V for Visitor". I tried to hit a lot of genres as well, comics, movies, animation, sci-fi, fantasy, it was tough to narrow it down to just 26 images. It was supposed to be the first piece in what was going to be a series of A-Z posters but other things came up and I ended up with just the one poster.

GS: Do you consider yourself a geek?

MG:  Absolutely. Though my tastes have changed over the years. I don't spend hours playing Final Fantasy anymore, but I can spend all day playing Settlers of Catan or watching some Simpsons DVDs.

GS: When did you first come to that startling realization? Was it a startling realization?

MG:  I think it was that first (and only) season of pee-wee baseball that did it. Did not care for it. Would much rather be inside watching Godzilla on Channel 11. I wouldn't say it was a startling realization as much as an innate understanding of my psychological makeup. Sports bad. TV and pizza goooood.

GS: Love that you have art you did as a kid up on your site! When did you first know you wanted to draw for a living?

MG: In kindergarten I would copy comic strips out of the Sunday paper and sell them to my classmates for their milk money. Peanuts being a favorite of mine at the time. I would bring in my drawings from the weekend and set up at the long table in back of the classroom. Almost immediately the teacher frowned upon my initiative and cut short my budding business model, (if kids wanted art and milk they should have brought more money!). I feel I was lucky to discover what I wanted to do with my life so early.

GS: What did your parents say?

MG: "That's nice. What's your back-up plan?" (I had none, it was this or Astronaut and I really don't have the calculus skills). They were, however, extremely supportive when I finally made the decision to go to the Joe Kubert Art School. Really, the only place I could have gone to get the experience and instruction I was looking for.

GS: For how long have you been self-publishing your work?

MG:  My brother and I printed our first comic together in 1996. He was the writer and I was the illustrator. It was called Black and White Theater, we even got it into the Previews catalog, but sales were low and it fizzled after a few issues. Then I printed my first Story Poster in 2000. Actually, it was a portfolio of 4 different posters, all black and white in a nice printed envelope. I had 1000 sets printed up. BIG... Mistake... I had those forever! I think I still have 200 or so sets left. I use them for scrap paper now. Very nice, highly glossy, scrap paper.

GS: What made you go the Small Press route, and what has been the biggest challenge for you in getting your work seen?

MG:  Honestly, I wanted it to be fun and not seem like a job. Which basically means not having someone else tell you what to draw. Luckily I had a day job that afforded me that opportunity. The biggest challenge for me, and still is, is being your own biggest fan. You have to believe what you're doing is good enough that someone else would want to buy it. I see it every convention, the one guy sitting at a table with a scowl explaining why everything he's doing is wrong and wondering why no one's bought anything. Smile, have a good time, it's comics!

Also, finding the right format for what I was doing was definitely trial and error. The first poster set was 10x15 since that was the typical size of an original comic page and black and white because that was cheaper to print. They sold ok. Not offering them individually and not being a standard frame size hurt sales initially (I think) so I switched to 16x20 full color prints. That was wayyy too costly upfront to maintain. Then I hit on the 12x16 size and that seemed to be the right combination of framability and price.

There's also the phenomenon of critical mass. With only four posters it's easy to walk on by but when I got up to ten-twelve posters sales across the board took a jump. I think with variety and volume it became easier for people to find one poster they connected with.

What was the question again?