Awesome Authors: Nick Eliopulos

Nick Eliopulos lives in Brooklyn and works as a children's book editor in Manhattan. He blogs, though not as often as he should, at interrobanger.blogspot.com.

Blogs are a central part of the Bradford Novels universe. If you have a blog, why did you start blogging, and how did you come up with the name for your blog?
I meant for my blog to accomplish two things. One was to help me practice my craft. (I love making comics, so my blog is in comic format.) The other was to keep up with friends—especially friends left behind in Florida, who might want to know details of my life that I don't get around to reporting in e-mails. That other people have found it and enjoyed it is an unexpected pleasure; it also forced me to reconsider posting some of the more risque details of my life. THOSE I can save for e-mails.
As for the name—my roommate took a typesetting class and came home one day having learned a new word: interrobang. It's a combination of a question mark and an exclamation point. Something about that felt very comic-book-y to me, very much a confluence of visual and verbal language. But "interrobang" was taken and "interrobanger" adds a sense of activeness, of agency (and, maybe, of super-heroics?). So I went for interrobanger.blogspot.com.

What's your favorite thing about blogging?
I love getting comments. It's validation, reminding me that I'm not just gazing into the abyss; I'm connecting with people. And if those comments are from random strangers, all the better!

What's the difference between a blog and a diary?
I think it's impossible to blog without understanding that others will see it. You might make every conscious effort not to censor yourself, but in my experience that awareness can't help but affect how you portray events—and especially how you portray yourself. Sometimes I've made blog entries specifically to communicate to someone in my life. Sometimes I've told myself an entry is done in spite of the fact that a particular person might see it. And the sorts of anecdotes I've chosen to focus on have definitely changed as my readership has grown.

Spencer Grace Kelly, the main character in GoldenGirl, is named after her distant relative, the Princess of Monaco. What's your favorite Grace Kelly movie, and why? Rear Window. It's actually the only Grace Kelly movie that I've seen, but I love it. And she's fantastic in it.

GoldenGirl is full of scandals and exposed secrets. What was the biggest scandal at your high school? Did your classmates discover any of your deep, dark secrets? Ha ha. Well, my best friend and I were secretly dating our entire senior year. I was more or less openly gay. But he didn't identify as gay, so he didn't want anyone to find out. Some friends claimed in hindsight to have known, or at least suspected. But those we told right before graduation were shocked and, in fact, seemed to think it was an elaborate prank. That was an exhausting process, so I only told a few friends and let the news spread on its own. And it certainly spread.

What's the worst thing you ever did to a friend? Are you still friends with her or him?
Given that most of my friends are exes, there's a lot of water under various bridges. I can't say that a "worst thing" stands out—there's always drama, and I always try to make it work. But I did lose a friend a couple years back because I was unreliable—constantly late, that sort of thing. He couldn't deal with it. So while I wasn't doing anything malicious, I did mess up.

What are your most recent books? What new projects are you working on now?
I've had short comics published in the anthologies Stuck in the Middle and, drawing David Levithan's script, in First Kiss (Then Tell). I have another short piece in an upcoming, as-yet-untitled anthology—that's due in Spring 2010. And I have a full-length comic project in the works, but it's too early to talk about it!