Interview: Tony Cliff

On July 22nd through 24th, while attending San Diego International Comic-Con, I ran around to as many of my favorite kids comics creators as I could and asked them all the exact same questions. Keep in mind, exhibit halls are crazy loud and crazy busy, so there is a lot of background noise. Let me know in the comments if you have trouble hearing anything and I’ll translate for you.

In the interest of full disclosure, I’m a huge Tony Cliff fan. Huge. Not in a creepy way, but in an enthusiastic supporter/read all his stories/follow him on Twitter/”accidentally” run into him at cons sort of way. See? Perfectly normal.

In my defense, his stories are lovely, both the art and the writing. They are sweet without being cloying, wry without turning nasty, and the adventure — oh, the adventure! Fans of the Flight series know Tony for his story Old Oak Trees in volume three (for which he was nominated for his first Eisner Award) and Delilah Dirk and the Aquaduct from volume five. But many people don’t realize that the Aquaduct story is actually Delilah’s second outing. Her first appearance came in Delilah Dirk and the Treasure of Constantinople (for which Tony was nominated for his second Eisner Award), and that’s where I fell in love.

Delilah is awesome. She’s the goodnatured swashbuckler-with-little-patience-for-self-doubt-who-does-all-the-things-better-than-the-boys-do heroine of my dreams. I would like to grow up to be just like Delilah. And if I can’t do that I would like to own a pair of her boots. (Seriously, this lady has awesome boots.)

Back in May, Tony began releasing an expanded Delilah Dirk story called Delilah Dirk and the Turkish Lieutenant online. It’s not yet available in print in English, but for those of you who speak French, take a look at this beautiful book!

To find out how Tony answered my 5 Questions, click below:

Books mentioned in this video:

• The Complete Calvin and Hobbes, by Bill Watterson
• Anya’s Ghost, by Vera Brosgol
• Smile, by Raina Telgemeier
• Astronaut Academy: Zero Gravity, by Dave Roman (see Dave and Raina’s interview here)
• Amulet #1: The Stonekeeper, by Kazu Kibuishi
• Missile Mouse#1: The Star Crusher, by Jake Parker
• Stardust, by Neil Gaiman

Filed under: Interviews