I was a production assistant. Actually, a non-paid intern. I was 19 or 20. When Jeff Combs first breaks into the morgue and looks at toe-tags, I'm "malpractice." I was young, so toe nudity happened.

I think you can eventually live down toe nudity.

I went to the comic shop and got the latest Casanova, among other things. This is a little bit of the backmatter -- Matt Fraction talking about how he wrote the script:

And I'd gank what I could from my favorite episode of the late, lamented show FIREFLY by Joss Whedon and Tim Minear.

There's an episode called OUT OF GAS. In it, a thing on the titular spaceship our intrepid heroes travel on breaks, leaving them more or less OUT OF GAS.

And it opens with our main intrepid hero bleeding to death in a de-powered, dark, and otherwise abandoned ship. Then the credits come up.

BEST! OPEN! EVER!

What follows is a story that's fractured into three timelines, each one feeding into and informing the next. It's a bit of narrative bravura, a piece of writing that's pure art for art's sake and I know that, as a novice, I learned a hell of a lot from studying it some. So we interwove between Cass' three faces in some kind of... retardedly obscure tribute to OUT OF GAS.

In interviews, he's also talked about looking at Buffy & Angel for inspiration in balancing episodic stories with arcs.

Wow, that's kinda cool.

From toe-nudity to retarded tributes. Life is just a windy adventure.

Okay. Strega, I read that six times. It's actually wicked cool.

I thought so, too! If I'd known, I'd have gotten another copy.

I can't watch Out of Gas with the commentary any more. It makes me cry.

favorite episode ever.

The commentary makes you cry? Jesus. The commentary on "Billy" makes me cry. What were we thinking?

"Suckers"?

It's my favorite ep, too.