A Conversation with Phil Foglio

An interview with the boy genius behind GIRL GENIUS

By Kurt Wilcken

When I belonged to a science fiction club in college, back in the antediluvian '80s, each month someone would bring the new issue of DRAGON Magazine to the meeting. We'd all take turns pawing through it, and invariably, we'd start by turning to the back where the cartoons were. The first thing I'd always read in DRAGON was Phil Foglio's "What's New" strip. Well, I'd also try to figure out if there was a point to "Wormy", but I gave "What's New" priority. In his strip, Phil and his semi-fictitious partner Dixie Null, would explore the weird world of Fantasy Role-Playing Games.

Since then, Phil Foglio, (the "g" is silent, like in "polygnostic") has had a long and varied career, touching upon just about every aspect of fandom imaginable. Currently, he is drawing a comic book entitled GIRL GENIUS, about a brilliant young inventor in a Victorian-Era world of steam-powered uber-tech, (as seen in our last thrilling episode).

We meet Phil on board his palatial airship fortress, hovering somewhere above the Carpathian Mountains.

You started out doing fan art. What were some of the other things you did before and during your DRAGON days?
Phil: A little bit of this, a little bit of that. During this period I was illustrating the Mythadventure novels for Donning/Starblaze, doing monthly cartoons for Swank Magazine, and various freelance illustrations. Enough to keep my rent paid and my cats fed.

What kind of art background did you have?

Phil: I always liked to draw, and was actively encouraged by my mom, who had wanted to be an artist herself, but didn't get the chance. I didn't really think about becoming a professional artist until high school, when I realized that everything else required too much math. Once that was decided, I went to the Chicago Academy of Fine Arts, where I got my BFA in cartooning, with a minor in animation.

How did your association with Robert Asprin come about? And the MYTHADVENTURES comic you did for WARP Graphics?

Phil: During college I was very active in science-fiction fandom. I went to a lot of conventions. Another person who went to a lot of cons was Bob Asprin. You see the same people week after week, you start to hang around with each other. When they needed a new illustrator for the MythAdventure book series after Kelley Freas quit, Bob said, "Hey, I know this guy who'll work cheap." When he sold the comic rights to WARP Graphics, they asked him if he could recommend someone as artist, and again, he thought of me. It's true, kids, it's not what you know, it's who you know.

I'm sure a lot of people associate you with fantasy because of your work in DRAGON, but one of your early, and long-running characters was pure space opera. Tell me about BUCK GODOT, Zap Gun For Hire. How did he come to be?

Phil: I was between projects, and wanted to write and draw SOMETHING, but I didn't really like anything I was producing. Then I read a short underground comic story by Rich Larson featuring the crew of the BUN-E. I had an epiphany. You could write perfectly good stories about about perfectly dreadful people (what can I say, I was young and impresionable) and they could still be good stories. As it happened, I had a friend who was a good person who liked to present himself as a dreadful one. Using him as a role model, I created the first Buck Godot strip. My only requirement for that first story was that there had to be a fight or an explosion on every page. Naturally, no one wanted to publish it, but I liked the character, did a few stories to keep my hand in. I was thrilled when he actually saw print, and even happier when people liked him.

You've always shown, let's say, a healthy appreciation for biology; most notably in your adult anthology series XXXENOPHILE. I've drawn the occasional adult story myself, and I've always tried to follow your example. There seems to be a joy in these stories; a sense that sex and fun go together and if both parties aren't enjoying themselves then they're doing it wrong. Do you have a philosophy behind these kinds of stories, or am I over-thinking this?

Phil: Not at all. XXXenophile started because while I am fond of the IDEA of adult comics, there were very few that I could stomach. Most creators seem unable to keep "taboo" subjects properly compartmentalized, so when they try to do a sexually explicit story, they feel they can throw in some excessive violence, or dismal "real life" consequenses or some political satire or whatever, and seem to be unable to understand why this can make it unappetizing. I was bitching about this and said bitching ran along these lines; "Why the hell can't people just write nice happy stories about people having happy sex? That's what I want, and I bet a whole bunch of other people want it too. There's a real market for this. Why doesn't some fool realize this? Hey..wait a minute...I could be that fool!" The rest is history.

You also co-authored a novel with Nick Pollotta: ILLEGAL ALIENS, a science fiction comedy about a First Contact gone wrong. Can you tell me about that? Have you done any other non-illustrated writing?

Phil: I was hanging around with Nick at the time, and one day he said, "I had a weird dream last night, where this street gang was fighting a giant robot armed with a mop." A discussion ensued as to why such a thing might have happened, and the result was 'Illegal Aliens' now available from Wildside Press. Buy two. I've done other prose writing, some articles, a couple of short stories in Amazing Stories, and my wife and I are in the process of novelizing Girl Genius. The big news however, is about a book called 'Dealer's Choice' by James Ernest, Mike Selinker, and myself, that is coming out this spring. It's a book about poker. Not casino style high stakes Texas-Hold-'Em like you see on TV poker, but a book about running a game in your own home, and instructions on how to play the hundreds of stupid, wild card games that people like to play at two in the morning, like Night Baseball, Frankenstein, and Hamlet Meets the Three Stooges. And yes, we have the definitive rules for Strip Poker in there as well.

One of the most unexpected places I've ever seen your work turn up was in DC Comics. You did three limited series for them: ANGEL AND THE APE, STANLEY AND HIS MONSTER and I believe PLASTIC MAN. So, who did you blackmail to get them to let you do this?

Phil: Mike Gold. He had just moved to DC comics from First Comics, and pretty much was allowed to do whatever he wanted. I went in and pitched a few ideas about, and he liked them. I have to say I found working for DC unsatisfying; of course, this was back in the eighties and nineties. I'm assurerd that things have changed. The Plastic Man gig I got through Hilary Barta, who was ramrodding that through DC. He wanted me to help with the writing and scripting, and it was a lot of fun.pt src=http://www.advipt>