To me, I was always just standing on the sidelines because up until issue 50, we were just doing Spawn. I wasn't recruiting anybody because I didn't have any books for people to work on.

That became a big time in comic books because it's when people were starting to break out into independent stuff, the market was getting choked with speculators and everybody was trying to do their own trick covers.

Obviously Spawn was at the top of the charts at that point so you get a lot of opportunities.

I guess The Grudge made over $100 million, but none of them had long legs after they came out but they all opened up and found an audience. If you could make those movies for a price, which is what I want to do with Spawn, then you could have some success.

Standing on the sidelines was killing me. I just wanted to go out there and see what I can do. I've always wanted to be the go-to guy and have people depending on me. I want the ball in my hands.

A lot was happening, plus there were an enormous number of people in the industry that were going to conventions, so it was a pretty fun time. Also there was a lot of controversy and I was at the forefront of some of that.