Like many new creators in the comics industry today, Duane Swierczynski comes to comics as a cross-media creator. He earned his writing chops not only as a crime novelist with three books under his belt—The Wheelman, The Blonde and Secret Dead Men—but he is also a journalist and current editor-in-chief of the alt-weekly Philadelphia City Paper. After writing several one-shots and annuals for such Marvel series as Moon Knight and Punisher MAX, Swierczynski is poised to step further into the mainstream comics spotlight with Cable, a Marvel series about the popular mutant antihero slated to relaunch in March 2008 after the Messiah CompleX crossover series. Swierczynski talked with PWCW about better writing through journalism, the joy of the pulps and what moved him to make the jump to mainstream comics.

PW Comics Week:How do you pronounce your last name, exactly?

Duane Swierczynski: “Smith.” (The Polish sure do love their extra consonants.) Some, however, pronounce it “sweer-ZIN-ski.”

PWCW : What drew you to comics, after your previous experience as a journalist and crime fiction novelist?

DS: Actually, it was the reverse. I started out reading comics, which served as a gateway drug to horror novels, then crime novels. At a fairly young age I realized that it would be difficult to make a living writing fiction, so I decided to pursue a career that would teach me how to be a better writer: journalism. And then I went and fell in love with journalism, too.

PWCW : How did you get involved in journalism? Do you plan to continue indefinitely as an editor and journalist?

DS : I started out as an intern at Philadelphia Magazine, then landed a job as their fact-checker. It was just like Bright Lights, Big City, only minus the models and cocaine. Okay, it wasn’t like Bright Lights, Big City at all. But it did teach me how to pick apart a magazine story—fact by fact, quote by quote—and learn what made them work.

I do plan on continuing to toil in the fields of journalism, even though everyone says it’s a dying profession. I disagree. Storytelling is the oldest human profession—I think it’s even older than prostitution—and it’s not going away. In fact, I think that should be journalism’s battle cry: “Older Than Whores.”

PWCW:Both crime fiction and comics have both been considered “pulp” media in the past. Do you see any similarities between the two today?

DS: Oh, definitely. Just like pulp magazines before them, crime novels and comics are where you find the cool stylists and innovators—people like Warren Ellis, Ken Bruen, Ed Brubaker, Allan Guthrie, Megan Abbott, Garth Ennis and Charlie Huston, to name just a few. With “pulp” media, there’s a lot more room to experiment, which is hugely appealing to me.

Yet like pulps of the 1930s, there’s a stigma attached to comics and crime novels. You can be sitting on the train, kicking back with a copy of Ed Brubaker’s Criminal, and some people will look at you funny—which is probably the same look people received when they kicked back with a copy of Black Mask back in the 1930s. Oh, well.

PWCW : Was it difficult as a writer to make the transition from the medium of novels to comics, or from the genre of crime to superheroes?

DS: It wasn’t too bad, once I read sample scripts and saw how the basic storytelling impulses are the same (show, don’t tell; never let the reader get comfortable; when in doubt, send in someone with a flame thrower).

As far as moving from crime to superheroes: the protagonist of my first novel, Secret Dead Men, is a guy who absorbs the souls of the dead and keeps them in a hotel in his brain. And in The Blonde, the title character has to keep someone within 10 feet of her at all times, otherwise her head will explode. So it’s not too huge a creative leap for me to be writing about a time-traveling mutant with a glowing eye.

PWCW : What is it like combining your efforts with those of an artist, or as part of a larger comics universe?

DS: As far as working with an artist, the impulse is the same. In a novel, you want the reader to see certain things in his/her mind. Same thing with an artist, only the poor bastard then has to go draw it. So I’ve had to learn to be very specific about action sequences, whereas in a novel you can get away with something fast and cheap like: “Rich killed Larry with a two-by-four.” And as far as coordinating with the Marvel universe: I’ve had to study up on some of the X-Men history I’ve missed over the years. But c’mon, like that’s work?

PWCW : As a character, Cable has one of the most convoluted histories in the Marvel universe. Is that daunting to you to be relaunching his series as a relatively new comic book writer?

DS: A little. But Axel Alonso, my editor, and I talked a lot about digging down to the core of the character and figuring out what makes him tick. And while we’re certainly not ignoring the backstory, we’re also not letting it weigh us down. Thankfully, I have the boys in the X-Office (Nick Lowe and Will Panzo) watching my back just in case I do screw something up. That is to say, when I do screw something up.

PWCW : Are there any other genres of comics you're interested in writing?

DS: Well, Cable’s at least part sci-fi (along with healthy doses of police procedural and spaghetti western). And I’ve just started working on a horror project with another Marvel editor, Warren Simons. I’m a longtime horror junkie—I grew up reading Stephen King, Clive Barker, Joe Lansdale, David J. Schow, Skipp and Spector, Richard Matheson. Fangoria’s still my favorite magazine (aside from the New Yorker).

PWCW : You've done a Moon Knight and Punisher MAX annual recently. Will you be doing any more work in either of those series?

DS: You might see my consonant-laden name on another Punisher comic later in 2008.

PWCW: Is there any planned end point for your run on Cable?

DS: They’re going to have to pry Cable from my cold dead fingers.

PWCW: You have a new novel coming up, Severance Package, which has a cover by penciler Tomm Coker. What's that about, and when is it coming out?

DS: Severance Package is about a boss who wakes up one morning, traps his employees in their 36th-floor office in a skyscraper in downtown Philly, then tries to kill them, one by one. The fact that I’m a boss at the City Paper has nothing whatsoever to do with this story. Nope, not one bit. It’ll be published May 27, 2008. Coker’s cover, by the way, is amazing. I can’t tell you how happy I am he took this assignment.

PWCW: What else do you have planned for 2008?

DS: Aside from the projects I mentioned above (Punisher, something horror that I can’t talk about just yet), I’m also working on my next novel for St. Martin’s Minotaur. If anyone wants to catch up on what I’m writing or reading, I keep a blog at secretdead.blogspot.com.