So David very kindly agreed to do an interview with Mindless Ones, as we’re all tremendous fans of his disturbing, enthralling and brilliant comics.

That’s one way to put it.

Another would be this. Posing as travelling Bible salesmen, we drugged Lapham up to the eyballs, dressed him up like a little girl, and tied him to a chair. Then we set Mr Stairs, our resident knife-wielding monkey to work on that pretty face of his.


After a few hours with Mr Stairs, he was very keen to answer our questions. There’s lovely!

More after the jump

Crime comics, genre, anxieties about, that’s stuff you should leave at the door. I want to talk about a dead girl and a tragic young man.

The opening panel to Stray Bullets number 1

Stray Bullets #1 is that rarest of beasts in the dark woods of serialized fiction, a first issue that’s on a par with the best of the run. David Lapham doesn’t need to find his stride, he hits the ground running, in fact his biggest problem as the series progresses is sustaining the quality, and perhaps the purity, of the early issues. I’d argue he’s largely succeeded, but that’s a topic for another post.

Here be spoilers…

More after the jump

Man, no-one writes assholes and losers like David Lapham. His merciless dissection of Middle America’s underbelly easily matches Dan Clowes or Chris Ware. Plus he has tonnes more fights and dancing. In fact fighting and dancing is a nice way to sum up Young Liars his new ongoing from Vertigo, seeing as how the first issue begins with a band about to start a riotous gig before cutting immediately to a girl’s fist smashing into a bouncer’s nose.

More after the jump