Christopher Golden is best known for his novel ‘Baltimore, or The Steadfast Tin Soldier and the Vampire’ which featured illustrations from ‘Hellboy’ creator Mike Mignola. Golden was also the writer of several of the ‘Buffy the Vampire Slayer’ comics before Joss Whedon took over duties for ‘Season Eight’. Already an accomplished author of several sci-fi and fantasy novel, his creator-owned series ‘Baltimore’, based on his original novel, is scheduled for release this fall.

How did you get started working in the industry?

CG: I started trying to break into comics around the same time I sold my first novel.  Ironically enough, my first paid comic book work was for Dark Horse…an adaptation of Joe Lansdale’s novel The Drive-In, which ended up not being published because of a disagreement between Joe and Dark Horse at the time.  (All the way back in 1992…I was 25.)  I kicked around the comics industry for a while, doing some jobs I was really pleased with, like The Crow: Waking Nightmares and issues of Spiderman Unlimited, and some I wasn’t so pleased with.  I’ve been in and out of comics ever since.

What are you doing instead of going to Comic-Con this year?

CG: Working. I’m writing a screenplay for Fox at the moment, a new novel with [Mike] Mignola, and another novel with Tim Lebbon. I’d rather be at Comic-Con, but there are too many editors who would kill me on sight if I were to show up there.

What’s the most important aspect of the industry that you feel goes unnoticed in the mainstream coverage of comics?

CG: Almost everything.  The media likes to boil comics down to its lowest common denominator.  To them, comics are always going to be BIFF POW BAM, like the 1960s Batman TV series, which is ridiculous, because comics were more than that even back when that show was on the air.  The mainstream media is so condescending to comics, almost universally portraying it as an unsophisticated medium.  There are exceptions, of course, but they’re all overridden by the people who come with their cameras to San Diego and only want to film people in costumes so they can flash ten seconds of video on the news and then mock those people.  No matter how big the business has gotten and how much a part of pop culture, that snark remains. I’m not a cosplay guy. It’s just not for me. But I hate the snark. There’s so much more to this medium than guys dressed up like Big Blue Robots and girls in skimpy costumes.

What is your favorite Dark Horse comic?

CG: Hellboy, of course.  But The Goon runs a close second.

If you could have one superpower, what would it be?

CG: I used to say flight, but now I’ll go with teleportation.  Long rides confined in cars, planes, or trains make me want to crawl out of my skin, so to be able to teleport would be fantastic.

Interview by Aaron Colter