My contributor copy of Michael Allred: Conversations, edited by Christopher Irving for University Press of Mississippi, arrived yesterday. The longest of its 13 interviews — some Q&A, some article-style — is the wide-ranging talk that Stefan Blitz and I had with Mike for Comicology in 2000. It’s a smart little hardcover sure to be a fascinating read.

Allred made a bit of noise with Grafik Musik before really turning heads on his creator-owned pop sci-fi existential superhero adventure Madman. Even a cursory list of his credits wouldn’t be complete without mentioning his Marvel work on X-Force, FF, and most recently Silver Surfer or the Vertigo series I Zombie, created by Allred with Chris Roberson and now a hit CW show whose cool opening credits feature his art.