I’ve gotten to know Bill Anderson these past few years as he’s helped make ITHACON, the nation’s second longest comic convention, better and better. He’s a phenomenal guest and always great with fans and attendees.  Although many comic fans think of him as a Marvel or DC inker, he’s also written, designed, colored, lettered  and edited many educational comics.  While he’s worked on Silver Surfer, the X-Men series Uncanny Origins and Spider-Man at Marvel, as well as Batman and the Outsiders, Action Comics, Superman, and Superboy at DC, he’s also lent his creative talents to stories featuring the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, The Elementals, and Jonny Quest. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg.

Bill’s got a cool new project in the works, and I was eager to catch up with him about it.

Ed Catto:  Can you tell me about the project?

Bill Anderson: Orphan Works is a 264 page anthology, featuring short works (ranging from four to eighteen pages) that are either previously unpublished, or published in very obscure and low-run places. In the case of those that have appeared before, there is generally a marked difference in this new publication, such as now appearing in color, or in one case sepia tone. The amazing list of creators involved is Rudy Nebres, Luke McDonnell, Trevor Von Eeden, Matt Haley & Tom Simmons, Christopher Schenck, Stefano Cardoselli, Brandon McKinney, Roberta Gregory, Jeff Bonivert, Tom Stazer, Dean Haspiel, Kerry Callen, Don Simpson, Michael T. Gilbert, Rob Walton, Fred Hembeck, Joe Pruett & Ken Meyer Jr, Greg Giordano, Mark Weber, Bill Anderson & Rick McCollum, and Gérald Forton!

EC:  What a lineup!  So many of my favorites are in that list. How did you come up with this idea/what’s the genesis of it all?

BA: I started thinking about an anthology like this when I was organizing my studio, and came across a few unpublished short stories in my files. It got me to wondering if other creators had similar stories sitting in their files, so I started contacting friends and acquaintances and soon discovered that a significant number of them did. Not all were interested in having them included, but enough were that it snowballed into the book that I’m now Kickstarting.

The other aspect of the book’s creation was my long-lived irritation with The Orphan Works Act of 2008, a Senate bill that attempted to limit the restitution that creators could seek for the use of their work if the offending party claimed they made a good faith search for the creator. Even though the bill ultimately failed to pass, I’m still annoyed enough by it eighteen years later that it inspired the title for the anthology.

The attitude within the bill is more dangerous now, with the rise of social media, where these “abandoned” works can sometimes be posted without proper accreditation, so I thought that one of the best ways to fight that would be with a proper publication of the material.

EC:  What parts of this are you most excited about?

BA: That’s a tough question to answer, since all the contributors are either cartoonists whose work I’ve admired for decades, or in a handful of cases, creators who I was introduced to by other contributors to the book, whose work blew me away.

So I guess I’ll say that the thing I’m most excited about is the possibility that readers could have that same experience, for example, backing the project to get Trevor Von Eeden’s first new sequential work in six years, and discovering the work of Rob Walton.

EC: I’ve especially loved Trevor Von Eeden’s work over the years.

I just backed your project and readers can back it too. Here’s the link on Kickstarter.  But hurry, Bill’s Kickstarter only runs for FOURTEEN more days.

Thanks so much and good luck with this one, Bill. See you at  ITHACON #49 at the end of April.