Reynolds and PItzer interviews

I think there’s tons of stuff I could do better. I know there is. I’m 36, I’m not quite willing to go to the extremes I would have 10 years ago. I think about what I and we can do better all the time. Sometimes it’s hard to see the forest for the trees. Time and money are the biggest concerns, if we were rich we could do all sorts of awesome things, but because we’re not, we all here spend a lot of time covering a lot of bases that in a bigger company would be entire departments of people. Jacob [Covey] and Adam [Grano] would have a team of assistants and not have to stop everything several times a day to create a simple PDF for me to send to a magazine on deadline. Jason [Miles] would have a fleet of sales reps to pound the pavement. Gary would have an assistant — tell me Gary doesn’t need an assistant! But anyway, there’s always room for growth. It does get hard to tell sometimes, but I know I’m way better at my job now than I was in my first year.

PITZER: I forget who came up with “whimsy” to describe AdHouse. It was probably Joel Priddy. He’s good at that type of stuff. So, while we publish what some consider one of the most depressing comics created — Skyscrapers — I think there are still elements of whimsy to be found within its pages. When people ask me to describe why I publish certain books, I usually fall back to what Jeff Mason said to me once: “Publish what you love.” So, first I have to love the book, since it will take time, money, stress, etc. to make it all happen. That said, I like bringing new voices to the people when possible. Other buttons of mine that can be pressed: smart, funny, designy, original. The sad part is that I’m interested in many more books than I can publish. At some points, I’ve had to pass on certain things that I’ll see published elsewhere, which is one of those sad/happy moments. It’s probably in their best interest, though.