Sarah Michelle Gellar

EXCLUSIVE: HUGH STERBAKOV’S SOPHOMORE YEAR

"Freshmen II" Comic Book writer reveals sequel’s title and how he got Sarah Michelle Gellar cover quotes.

Will the creator quotes on the cover be back?

You mean the sarcastic quotes? Absolutely. I’ve already got the first two. I still can’t believe we got Joss Whedon for the sixth issue. Thank God Seth is famous. I taught myself how to write screenplays by studying Joss’ work long before the Buffy show, and helped talk Seth into taking that role, and then I managed to get him to put his name on our cover. That’s pretty darn cool.

How’d you start getting those, anyway?

Well, Top Cow had a tradition of putting review quotes on the covers of their issues. I knew about it, but I didn’t know for sure if we were going to do it. Nobody mentioned it to me. So when I saw the first issue, with a reviewer’s quote, I was kind of...well, I was underwhelmed. It was a great quote, but what did it really mean? There’s no Siskel and Ebert of the comic book world, no famous reviewer whose endorsement would mean success. I thought to myself...is anybody going to pick up this book because of that quote? And could I do something better with it? The tone of the book is funny...hopefully even a little subversive, and I thought I could get more attention with something in that vein.

I’m friends with Sarah Michelle Gellar (I met her through Seth and I regularly whup her husband but good in Halo, although now he’s trouncing me in Fantasy Baseball) and I’ve coached her through the world of comic books before. And so one night we were at dinner and I asked her if I could use her name for a quote. She said yes, anything I wanted, and together we came up with something that was indifferent enough to be funny, eye catching and totally devoid of honest endorsement, "If I ever were to read a comic book, it might be this one." There was a lot of buzz from it. Huge turnaround from the straight review quote. Look, when you’re on the shelf next to Infinite Crisis and House of M, you’ve got to take advantage of every opportunity to get people’s attention. We went back to a review quote for issue #3, and, again, no buzz. So I decided then and there that we had to get funny celebrity quotes for every issue. We got Geoff Johns, Mila Kunis and, believe it or not, Joss Whedon to give us quotes for subsequent issues, and we’re going to have some fun on Freshmen II as well. It’s just a way to twist things a little. It’s not to say I don’t appreciate the good reviews, though, my fragile little ego can always use some more sunshine, a brief respite from the darkness of my soul. That’s right...I said it.