Richard: What is the basic story outline of "School: Ghost Story"?

Brian Defferding: School: A Ghost Story is about a 12-year-old girl named Lindsay Buckner; who suddenly one day wakes up as a ghost inside an elementary school. She has no idea why she died, how she died and why this school, so she needs to figure out what happened to her in the last moments of her life - however, it is impossible for her to leave the school. So she becomes a victim of this dizzying tale of claustrophobic horror.

Richard: Just how scary is it?

Brian: It is absolutely frightening. Seriously. My goal is to make this the first comic that even adults get scared out of their wits reading. I've read some creepy comics, but they were not creepy enough to make me think twice about turning off the lights before I hit the sack. I want this comic to wet your pants and blow your minds.

Richard: What kind of monsters are in the pages of "School: Ghost Story"?

Brian: The biggest monsters right now are the "Soul Stealers." They were ghosts just like Lindsay was at one time, but they lost their will, hope and drive to remain alive, therefore their soul withered away to almost nothing.

In order to regain their soul back, they consume another's whole soul. The prey becomes nothing, while the soul stealing predator regains themselves and sense of well-being. Because of this lack of will soul stealers have, they can alter their bodies to shapeshift, grow tentacles, whatever they can to wrap around a ghost and eat them. They look at Lindsay as fresh meat, so Lindsay not only has to figure out her past, but also fight off these soul eating monsters.

Richard: Can you tell us what Lindsay Buckner is like?

Brian: She is a girl who has lived a bad life and now an even worse afterlife. The byproduct of this is she's slowly turning into a giant ball of anger and hate. As a ghost, her fatal wounds which killed her remain on her body, forever bleeding. This story is an ultimate test to see if she can stay "alive" and find closure, or succumb to her hate and wreak horrifying bloody havoc.

Richard: Is this a mystery or horror story?

Brian: It's 60 percent horror, 40 percent mystery. It's both. Part of the horror is the mystery itself; as the saying goes we often fear the unknown as a protective instinct (like our fear of the dark), so the two elements feed and compliment each other. This book drapes itself in black to set the mood.

Richard: What is the first comic you ever worked on?

Brian: Unprofessionally I started drawing comics in 7th grade. I used my school's assignment notebook to draw cartoons in. There were rectangular slots where we were supposed to put our daily assignments in, instead I used them as ready-made panels for my own comic book. I had three recurring characters, Bob the Commentator, Guy Smiley and Jack S**t. They were always insulting each other, talking about girls I liked, and made snarky comments about my teachers. When the teachers asked to see my assignment notebook, I found myself in detention hall later that day.

Professionally, I was an intern at Dead Dog Comics in the Twin Cities; lettering comics, doing grayscale shading for their black and white comics, handling the letters/editor's page, and readying the comics for the printers.

Tim Seeley was their main penciler during those times and he showed me the ropes.

Richard: What is "The Fast Food Restaurant In The Middle of Suburban Utopia"?

Brian: It was a minicomic I made from a 4"x5" notepad, just for fun. It's about two post-teenagers doing some Sunday driving and decide to go into their town's newest subdivision out of curiosity. They find out soon this subdivision is a lot more than what it appears to be, and may not be driving out of the subdivision anytime soon.

Richard: Do you enjoy doing murals?

Brian: I do. My favorite part is dropping back after a hard day's work and admiring your progress. The sense of accomplishment is fulfilling to say the least. It can be tedious at times, but so can making comics; and the fun far, far eclipses the tediousness.

Richard: Do you like dancing?

Brian: Ha ha ha! I take it you saw me on YouTube? I LOVE dancing. I don't care how bad or stupid I look, I go balls out and ham it up. Plus, the girls love it. It also helps that I'm a dead sexy m***********r. It's become almost tradition now that people film me dancing behind my table at comic book conventions. I think it would be a hoot that I get a YouTube reputation for various small 20 second snippets of me dancing. So if you're reading this right now, feel free to stop by my table and film me dancing.
But only if you buy something from my table, ha ha!

Richard: What future projects do you have planned?

Brian: I'm working on a new project titled "Space Diner." It's a complete departure from School: A Ghost Story. It's in color, I'm painting it, different format and everything. It takes place in the distant future where space travel, aliens and galactic economies are commonplace, and evolves around a lonely diner worker named Nat Sammich (all the characters are named after food). Nat befriends a beautiful female stranger, then shortly afterwards gets framed for murdering her.

So he sets off to clean his name, but not only that, but to show the world that even in the big vast black of space, where one can be easily forgotten, one can still be worth a damn. It's part Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, part Cheers, part Mickey Spillane crime fiction.

Richard: What was the first comic you read?

Brian: It was The Incredible Hulk #362 and Iron Man #248. I still have them out on my coffee table in my apartment, it serves as a nice reminder of how it all began for me in the comics medium. I remember being 12 years old and stopping at a small bookstore, reading them and being entertained with the witty dialogue, the drama, and the art.

Richard: What comics did you read as a kid and do you read now?

Brian: After Incredible Hulk and Iron Man, I got into X-Men, Deathstroke the Terminator, Deathlok, Wonder Man and Spider-Man. This was when Jim Lee and Todd McFarlane were ripping it up with X-Men and Spider-Man, setting sales records. While some called this the "dark ages" of comics because this was the time of variant/gimmick covers, they were pretty good times to me at least.

Richard: How can someone contact you?

Brian: Email me at deftoons@deftoons.com ; or at MySpace, I check it daily - http://www.myspace.com/deftoons , or a ComicSpace - http://www.comicspace.com/deftoons .

Richard: Any final words of wisdom?

Brian: In the words of Cheap Trick guitarist Rick Nielsen, "There are a million bands out there that are better than us. The difference is we never quit." You have to persevere, welcome rejection and use it as a source of improvement of your craft, and keep going. Success will follow over time.

Plus, never bend over with a pencil in your pocket.