Talking “Mind the Gap” with Writer Jim McCann [Interview]

The acronym “FOC” is an extremely important one for creator-owned comics. Meaning “Final Order Cut-Off,” this date is the last one retailers can change an order for a comic on its first printing.

Today is the FOC date for Image Comics’ “Mind the Gap,” a book we’re really excited for from writer Jim McCann and artists Rodin Esquejo and Sonia Oback. This supernatural thriller follows Ellis Peterssen, a young woman who was assaulted on a subway platform in New York City and is now in a coma. While in the coma, Elle works to figure out who she was (she’s stricken with amnesia after the attack), who attacked her, and who everyone around her is in relation to her.

You can check out a free preview here, but this is one book you should undoubtedly pre-order at your local comic book shop.

You can find our talk with McCann about this upcoming book, how the team got together, how this book will unfold, and a three-page preview after the jump. Thanks to Jim for chatting with us, and make sure you check out this book when it arrives May 2.

This project is a different direction for your work, touching more on the world of “supernatural thrillers” than you have in the past. Where did this idea come from, and what about it spoke to you as a creator?

Jim: It’s something that came to me as an idea for a TV pilot. I had been wanting to tell kind of a long form mystery in the vein of “Twin Peaks” and “X-Files” for some time, like in the back of my mind. It was one of the genres that I really wanted to tackle.

Thriller, mysteries…are something I absolutely love. Then it was like “Revenge” from ABC came on and I thought “this would be a perfect show to come on before ‘Mind the Gap!’” (laughs) I had already started writing “Mind the Gap” as an ongoing series, and it immediately changed to a comic book when, honestly, I realized that I was absolutely in love with the idea and wanted to see it made no matter what. And the best way to get something done no matter what is create it yourself.

And for a visual medium, you go for creator-owned comics.

Then at San Diego Comic Con last year, Rodin (Esquejo, artist) was there and Sonia (Oback, colorist) was there. I of course knew both of them for a while, and the three of us individually talked about working on something together, and they were both standing in front of my table and I thought “oh my god, this is the team. You guys have to do this.” And everything clicked into place there. I kind of verbally pitched them there, and they said “yes! Count us in.”

And the rest is history, present and future.

I’m thankful you’re doing this as a comic, if only because it allows us to finally see interiors from Rodin Esquejo. I LOVE that guy’s art. How did you get paired up with him and Sonia, and what was it about their style that fit the book so well?

Jim: They are the Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup of comics. I feel like they were made for each other, and as pages come in, I’m just like “yay! This is even better than I imagined.”

Rodin had a couple sequential pages in his portfolio at San Diego, and I love his covers. He was nominated for an Eisner last year, for a short story he did in Image’s “Fractured Fairytales” book, but he told me he only had a total of seven sequential pages under his belt.

And I said, “do you want to work on an ongoing series?” So he was a little nervous, and then pages started coming in and I said “dude, you have no reason to be nervous.”

You can tell by his covers that he knows how to tell a story. Which is really important because sometimes covers can be really static images and you go “oh wow, that would be a really cool poster!” But his covers have movement and story to them. Even if it’s not something that is a direct event in the book, you already pick up the feeling of what you’re about to read from the cover.

Paired with Sonia, for “Mind the Gap” they provide what I really wanted. I really wanted to do a story that is both very much grounded in the real world and Rodin’s people…look…I mean, you can feel the weight of the clothes, their movement. They’re not just standing there. Someone may have a hip cocked or their hand in a hoodie and you can see the fabric stretched down if you really were wearing those clothes.

They feel alive, and Sonia adds to that with her rendering and modeling. It really gave a really good, real world feel to it. I know when we get to some of the more gritty parts, like when we investigate Elle’s attack and things like that, it’s going to look more realistic.

Some people might have gone with a darker artist for this, like Michael Lark. Personally, I figured it’d feel more uncomfortable and realistic if the people looked like this was…if this could be happening to somebody. Almost like a movie. Or a TV show like it was going to be.

Also, the two of them…the other half of this book takes place in a sort of mindspace that Elle has around her. So there’s this supernatural quality to it, and the coloring and the artwork, they blend so well, and when you actually put together…when Elle is looking down at her family…when the two collide it’s going to be really cool to see.

There’s a really cool juxtaposition because it immediately…they both have the talent to immediately with the storytelling and body positioning and color palette that you’re in this other place. Based on their art. It gives us this really cool juxtaposition that really I love. You will not be confused when you’re going from the real world to Elle’s mindspace.

I’ve always found that even in his covers, Rodin’s characters are very gestural and real feeling. I recently talked to Mike Carey and Peter Gross about “The Unwritten” about Yuko Shimizu’s covers, and Rodin’s covers remind me of hers in that they are a dynamic, beautiful image, but the cover itself is a metaphor for everything going on the inside all condensed into one image. That’s why I’m excited to see this — what can he do with a full book?

Jim: You haven’t seen nothing yet. It’s been a challenge doing a double-sized, 48 page first issue. Challenge might not be the right word. It was definitely an intense beginning to his sequential artwork, but you honestly would not know when looking at it. His storytelling is incredible. The way he interprets the script.

And then, even something like two doctors having an argument in a hospital, you kind of feel like you’re watching a show. You’re watching these people because nothing feels static to me. Nothing in his artwork feels static, and then especially being able to do the mind space…I’ve got a rather out there imagination at times so I will show things there that I will try and verbalize, but sometimes I can’t convey what is in my mind. And I’ll tell him a general feeling I have in my mind and tell him to go for it, and trust that he can do it.

Just like Janet did on “Dapper Men.” There’s one page on “Time of the Dapper Men” that we’re working on where I said, “it’s two figures facing the opposite direction and showing that they’re about to have a parting of the ways. This is an image will probably get tattoos of. Go!” (laughs) That was the page description and she turned in this amazing work of art.

I like to be able to trust them, and it’s so nice to see that he rose to the challenge. That Sonia can light that up with him. She’s so gifted anyways. I personally feel like she gets a chance to shine. She’s…as much as Rodin’s linework and storytelling will get attention, I really feel Sonia deserves a lot as well.

I don’t like to say “pencils” and “colors” by. I like to say “art by.”

Going back to the idea of TV and everything…one of the things I like most about comics is that you can do anything that you can imagine in comics. There’s no budgetary concerns or anything like that. What could you do with Mind the Gap in comic form that you wouldn’t be able to do on TV?

Jim: A little bit more with special effects. More in Elle’s mind world. A little more visually. There’s a two-page spread where Elle is trying to remember something and, I guess you could do a cacophony of sounds and a little dialogue, and we were able to show this chaos with the lettering and everything. There are some things in Elle’s mind world that would be a budget issue on a TV show possibly.

At the same time, I think we’ve come a long way in both mediums.

I would say that the biggest thing is that I would be able to control the pacing and the cliffhangers. It would be difficult…we’d have to do it so four issues would equal one episode. I can give you this issue that makes you want to come back month after month, and let the story unfold and breathe a little differently than what I would do for a TV show.

I can concentrate on this mystery completely and how it affects other people, without having to worry as much about “okay, what is going to be the week to week aspect of the TV show.” I can tell Elle’s story and then as things unfold her parents, her boyfriend, her best friend…all of those things will start to unfold and will effect everything. It’d be a little more focused in on just the one story as opposed to “this week we have a very special episode about ‘this character’” or something like “do we make this a procedural?”

Or do it like Lost where you have character-centric episodes.

Jim: Yes. Pretend I said it that way. (laughs)

With a Twin Peaks-ian air of mystery all around, there are going to be a lot of questions raised. In the world of instant gratification that we live in, one of the problems with this kind of narrative is people get restless when it comes to waiting for answers. With this being a brand new creator-owned project, how do you hope to balance the question to answer ratio without burning out readers?

Jim: Honestly, every answer the reader gets raises two more questions.

And it will build to a boiling point and then end when all of the questions are out there and the answers start coming in a way that I’m really excited to get to. It’s going to be like a runaway train. It’s like right now I’m setting up the tracks and you may find as you’re digging up the ground to lay a railroad track, a human skull. There are going to be “whoa wait?!” moments that make you really question and Elle really question what’s going on.

That’s one of the things that I love about dealing with Elle as an amnesiac. She isn’t just having to rebuild the mystery, but her entire world.

All she has to go on are thoughts from other people. And some things will trigger memories and work up thoughts like “oh shit, what happened there?” And as the mystery is uncovered, it’s like, “well, is that the person who really did that, and if not, why are they a suspect?”

The short answer goes to the tag of this book that I have always said, which is “everyone is a suspect. No one is innocent.”

Naturally if the person is a suspect, especially for Elle who has no background, they have to be a negative in her life. She has to be naturally suspicious of almost everyone around her.

Jim: Absolutely. And everyone else has to have their own secrets. We’ll see unlikely alliances form. We’ll see friends turn on each other because of, just like in real ife, we all have secrets with each other. Now imagine that’s all heightened because there is a crime behind it. What does that to? Say you have the family from hell…or is your boyfriend who you thought he was…do you really trust your best friend, when you find out what they really think of you deep down?

And also, how much do you really want to examine and remember the kind of person you are? Because sometimes there are things you don’t want to know about yourself and that you wish you could forget, and when you remember them you’re like “oh shit. I made a massive mistake!”

This is completely off subject, but do you watch “New Girl” by chance?

Jim: Oh yeah.

Last night there was an episode on called “Secrets,” and I just started thinking of that if there was an evil mystery at the center of it as opposed to two characters sleeping together.

Jim: It’s kind of…this is how I see people being able to relate to it. I’ve been saying X-Files meets Twin Peaks in the kind of supernatural mystery tone. It really is like Revenge meets Memento with a bit of Kill Bill in there.

I’ve really been taking a hard look as we get deeper in. I definitely know where we are going, where the end is, I know who done it. That’s another of the reasons, one of the reasons I was really excited to do this as a comic is that there really aren’t that many ongoing “who done its?” in comics. An honest to god “who done it.”

There are plenty of overarching mysteries but nothing really based around one central crime.

Jim: Yeah. I thought that would be exciting to do in comic form. It works on television, it works on movies. Let’s do it in comics. Let’s show you can do this in comics too.

So I was really, really excited to be able to do that. And I hope everyone enjoys the ride and plays along. This is kind of my send up to Agatha Christie’s “Ten Little Indians.” Or “Sleuth.” Or “Death Trap.” I really wanted to be able to do that in comic book form.

Let’s talk about the lead, Elle. In talking about this book with Jennifer de Guzman from Image, she shared that she loves how the book doesn’t use an attack on a female character as motivation for a male character, rather, it’s something that inspires Elle’s to go on her own journey of self-discovery. In this industry, treatment of female characters is an increasingly hot topic. With Elle, what are you looking to accomplish, and who is she to you as a person?

Jim: Elle is just always there to me. It wasn’t like, “alright, I want to write a story about a girl. It was…the way it is. In all honesty, I don’t write her like, “okay, what would I do if I was a girl in this situation.” I’m writing what Elle would do.

So that’s one of the cool things about working with Elle as an amnesiac. She doesn’t know what she would do either. Sometimes she’ll have gut reactions, and other times it’s just a journey of self-discovery and self-preservation.

I really wanted at the core of Elle…there is a very personal story with her. It would kind of give away a little bit about the story. Her story is very tied in…very much a personal story. I can personally relate to her story. I’ve never been mugged and put into a coma on a subway platform. Everything up to that point I can relate to, so that’s where it’s coming from.

There’s a line in the preview where she’s talking about her dad and she asks “am I that fragile?” This is a woman who is rebuilding her life in a place where she is not fragile but broken to being a strong woman taking back her life, and defining herself and her strengths and coming into her own on her terms.

I’ve read I believe 11 pages, and so far there has been a character introduced on every page. Or rather, there have been eleven characters introduced for the eleven pages. With more assuredly coming, how do you manage a cast of that size while still tying it all back to the central narrative that surrounds Elle?

Jim: I have a relationship chart of who is tied to whom, who is tied to the central mystery.

I wanted to start this in the middle so you learn as you go along just like Elle. You’re really with Elle. She’s the eyes and ears of the reader. She’s learning how these people relate to each other and related to her. There will be some surprises in how they relate to the central mystery, the core mystery. Was it just a simple mugging, or was there something bigger behind it?

I’ll give you a hint…the answer is the second one. (laughs)

(laughs) I don’t doubt it.

Jim: If you look at the book, Elle is half-Asian. It’s a multi-racial, multi-gendered cast, and going back to Elle and women characters and things like that, I actually found myself making her best friend a guy. Then I went back, and thought about my real New York experience. Just like the world, it’s not a white washed place. We’re not all one thing.

That’s been really fun to have because having, like it says in the preview, having a Korean tiger mom. I had a couple friends who had that and shared personal stories, and I think “oh my gosh, yay. I’m exposing myself to different cultures as I write this.

I’m hoping this simulates the real world experience. But it wasn’t an agenda that I set out to do. I set out and looked at the characters that I knew I needed. I needed to find who Elle would need in her life. And I set down and wrote it, and Jo, who is the first person who we meet in the prologue; she’s sassy and has a bit of an edgy look. At first she was kind of sweet, kind of saccharine bubble gum popping and I thought, “you know, that is not who Elle’s best friend would be. She would not be friends with that person.” That’s kind of how things came into play.

I wanted it to be as much of a real world experience, as far as it being a melting pot and a gauge of today’s population. It really is how people are. It wasn’t like “oh, I need a black person.” It just happened to be that way.

Especially in New York City. It’s such a melting pot. It’s not like there’s just one type of person. It’s multi-gendered, multi-sexuality, everything. It wouldn’t feel as organic if it just felt like a whitewashed world of archetypes. I find that attractive as a reader.

A prologue was released online that introduced some of the characters and laid out the concept. Will that prologue be in the first issue?

Jim: It will. It’s going to be in print in the Ashcan that’s going to be available at C2E2. There’s going to be a limited Ashcan edition that’s going to have the prologue and design pages and commentary about the characters written up by me with Rodin’s process and how the characters evolved in look and feel.

Actually, Rodin’s character sketches helped the characters evolve too. I was like “you know, actually, that character should be a little softer.” And that’s why I really liked working with Rodin, because you know what you’re going to get in facial expressions and body language just from a rough sketch.

Also, at first it wasn’t going to be in the first issue. I was going to save it for the trade or something like that. And then I realized that prologue gives you a lot of information about the major players, and I didn’t want to do that again, especially for people who have already read that. It’d be giving those readers a lot of information again.

By starting it in the middle of the attack, or literally second after the attack, then you really are here at the beginning and also, the page where Elle looks down and you see the polaroid’s, and they really are the first three snapshots and thoughts of her family.

Instead of having a big argument where it shows that the dad really loves her and the mom is being quiet and the brother is an ass, I wanted to give her perspective. You’re going to see more things like that. Character revealed by action. I think that’s the best way to reveal character is through their action.

Being an amnesiac, Elle would have to take everyone on their actions and not their words, because words can easily be distorted. Actions speak volumes about who they are.

Jim: Absolutely. It’s really fun playing with a blank canvas. At least as far as the book goes and the character goes, except I already know what the full painting is. It’s a blank canvas, and you’ll see everything coming together and I really love that.

And the good thing is I know how everything comes together and I’m not writing into a corner or having random tangents.

I love things like what Brian K. Vaughan did in “Y the Last Man.” I went back and read stories like that to see how things are seeded even in an off-handed remark and how they come together later.

Y is a good one to look at for that. That last page just kills me.

Jim: I always just skip over the Ampersand part.

Oh I know. I did a feature on my favorite BKV’s best creations, and Ampersand’s death is just heart wrenching. It just kills me.

Jim: Oh I know. When I was rereading it, and I missed a line that said that type of monkey can live for forty-five years. I’m at the age right now where that’d be awesome to have that pet that would live with me because it’d be great to have a monkey!

Yeah!

Jim: And it’d be far better than having a turtle. (laughs)

I’ve read that you have the ending already envisioned but you don’t know how long it will take to get you there. How much of the in-between is planned as well, and when plotting something that has an undetermined length such as this, how do you ensure you don’t get too far away from the heart of the story in the process?

Jim: I’m not writing for the trade, but this being a mystery, it’s going to have a beginning, middle and an end. I’m just not going to tell people when it’s going to end because I want to keep people guessing.

I know how I want each volume to end but I’m also looking at this as a three act structure. I know the big reveal points and the little things that lead up to that. And sometimes something pops right in as I’m writing. I love the little surprises that characters give me as I’m writing.

And then I’m going to be doing this a little differently where they’re going…where Rodin and Sonia are going to be doing the first four issues of every arc, and each arc will be five issues. I’d like to give surprising and intriguing moments in each issue, but the fourth issue is going to be the “oh shit” moments or the huge reveals. That fifth issue will be done by a special guest artist who is going to fill-in either the back-story or pull together the ties and say, “this is why this just happened.”

I’m really excited about that because it gives you this…it gives the reader and myself the writer the chance to break things and think, “wait, how did that happen?” and you know you’re going to get an answer to that probably in that arc. And then you’ll get…we’ll be able to show how we got to that place. Why that person made that action? What behind the scenes got us there? It will be like a Lost flashback.

And it will help not kill Rodin.

Jim: In all seriousness, it really will help keep us on schedule. I think that’s one of the most important things for any book, but more specifically creator-owned books, with today’s audience. With books that cost $3.99 or $2.99…ours costs $2.99, even the double-sized first issue.

You need to think of the reader also within all of this.

It will keep things on schedule, and it’s out of respect for the audience. When you’re telling a mystery, it almost has to be monthly. You can’t let them lose interest and forget what happened the month before. The plan…and everyone is doing everything in their power to make sure this is monthly, with the fifth issue being a guest artist probably with a framing device from Rodin and Sonia, and the sixth month being a trade and then getting right back to the mystery.

Do you have any of the guest artists laid out yet?

Jim: I do, but I don’t want to share them yet. I want them to be a surprise. I am very lucky to have very good friends in the comic community and to have worked with some people in the past that I may be working with again.

Also, it gives me the chance…at a convention, behind the scenes someone says “I really want to work with you on something” and the schedules never line up, and usually it’s “I want to work with you on a four-issue or a six-issue arc,” and this is a one-shot. Usually people can work this into their schedule, and I write far enough ahead and work on it over two months ahead. Even someone who might be on another ongoing with another company can do this in their spare time.

I have a guess, but I’m not going to get into that. But I have a guess. I hope it’s correct.

Speaking of — you have quite a bit of background of both writing at Marvel and writing for PR. For you as a creator, what are the biggest differences at Image versus one at Marvel? What do you feel like are the biggest benefits?

Jim: There are benefits and challenges. The biggest challenge is selling a brand new set of characters and world to an audience as opposed to having forty/fifty years of exposure. The benefit, to me, is kind of the opposite side of that coin; you are there on the ground floor and you get these people’s stories in one place. It doesn’t crossover with anything, you’re not going to have to pick up an issue of something else. You’re getting a full story in a creator-owned book, and generally there are very few assumptions, and you’re getting the whole creative team.

From issue one, you’re getting almost a guarantee in what you’re buying. It’s kind of like buying a house? No, that’s a bad metaphor. But, well, you know what you’re getting into right away, and you know you’re going to be there or your audience will be there.

As a creator, you don’t have to worry about anything but the people you’re writing: you’re in your own sandbox, these are your own toys, it’s challenging and yet freeing at the same time because you can’t necessarily fall back on forty years of continuity or how other people have written the character so they already have an established history.

As a creator doing a creator-owned book, you get to world-build, you get to reveal this world to the audience. This is a roller coaster — you know there are going to be ups and downs, but you know it’s self-contained as opposed to getting on the Los Angeles Freeway.

For me as a reader, I grew up reading all Marvel and stuff like that. Now I’ve branched out into creator-owned, and they both do different things for me as a reader and I like the idea of creator-owned just because you get in on the ground floor. If you buy the first issue of Saga from Brian K Vaughan and Fiona Staples and stuff like that you know that everything you’re going to see is going to be this purely original idea that is going to be taken in a direction that’s going to have a beginning middle and end and you’re just never going to get that with Iron Man.

It’s one point of view getting this across. It’s the creative team in a pure form of expression without having to worry if they kill a character off, how is it going to affect three other books?

Right, and when will that character come back.

Jim: Yes! And that shows you can surprise the hell out of people. You really don’t know what’s going to happen next. You can do that in mainstream comics, too; a lot of people do that really well. Nobody knows right now who is going to come out on top in Avengers vs. X-Men.

Yeah, even with Rick Remender on Uncanny X-Force. That guy — 2011 was in a lot of ways his year just because he was telling a story that really no one knew what was coming next, and you don’t really see that as often in the Big Two comics.

Jim: Right, and I think Mark Waid has done an amazing job on Daredevil.

Yeah, Daredevil is great.

Jim: Marvel’s Daredevil is so unpredictable and it’s a very easily accessible book to all readers. I mean, I was just talking to somebody the other day, and I don’t know if you noticed but within the first or second page, he doesn’t need a recap page he has a way to recap what is happening within the story without it being all expository. He’s great.

2012, and even 2011 too, but I think that that book has just done such a — here’s the interesting thing. I know some people who actually don’t like the book specifically because they say it doesn’t feel like Daredevil because he’s had years of pressure and horribleness thrown upon him because first you have Frank Miller and then you Ann Nocenti and then you have Bendis and Kevin Smith and Brubaker and Andy Diggle throwing him down the ringer. And some people just don’t like that its a somewhat happy take on the character and, I don’t know, I think it’s a really fresh perspective on the character.

Jim: Well I think if you read the most recent issues, he’s pulling the curtain a little and showing that Matt is working at being happy, something that even the people who don’t have awful lives kind of take for granted. He has to even work at being happy, and he made that choice — and you know what? That’s a cool thing about the Big Two, to me; they just CAN make that choice. They can step out and say, you know what? Now this is what I believe. Civil War set up those lines up in a lot of ways, but in the case of Daredevil, he can say “this is what’s happening. Here’s what I’ve been through. Do I continue to let what I’ve been through define me, or can I change?”

And you know what? If you have something serialized that’s going to continue, you have to let the characters decide that they’re going to change, or decide that they’re going to make moves that surprise the reader. I think Daredevils actually been one of those characters over the past number of years, especially starting with Bendis’ run, in that you never knew what he was going to do. Becoming the new Kingpin?

I have to admit, I missed the Bendis run at first and I jumped in with Brubaker’s first stuff, “the Devil in Cellblock D,” and all the choices he makes and all the things that he has to do to … I don’t know. I find the character himself to be very fascinating, and I do think you’re right. Even when he was going through a dark time, it was because he was making choices that led him down the path. Now he’s kind of going the opposite direction, and I think Waid is doing a fantastic job with that book.

Jim: And Hickman did a fantastic job on Fantastic Four. Right now, everybody is really doing their best to put out good stories, and not to belittle the past but I’m really excited about comics right now. Personally I am because I’m working a lot on creator-owned books. I’m really excited to read other people’s creator-owned things as well, which is funny because six years ago I didn’t read anything like that. Then I started Y, and I became friends with a lot of these writers and most of them had creator-owned stuff so I wanted to see what they had to say with their own voices and their own characters, and that’s what really encouraged me and got me excited to do Dapper Men, now Mind the Gap and some upcoming other stuff. It’s really exciting, I think. It JAZZES ME UP.

I only have one last question, and it involves Dapper Men. I was curious — what’s going on with Time of the Dapper Men, and when can we expect that book?

Jim: I could give you an answer about that in about three or days. Janet and I are working on it right now. She’s actively working on some new pages. The way that book works as far as the creation of is really organic. I have the overall arc, and I know the big beats that we’re going to hit, but I only write about twenty pages ahead of Janet because she’ll draw something and suddenly a subplot or a character becomes more entitled to a subplot because I see how she’s drawn them and I’m like, “this character has got to be way more in there.” We feed off of each other, so now we are definitely working away on it, hoping to see it by the end of this year if not the start of next year. But there will hopefully be an announcement soon. It’s kind of like our Empire Strikes Back…

Oh no! Going dark?

Jim: Well… not too dark. Empire Strikes Back took about three years after Star Wars and then Return of the Jedi took two after Empire, but that’s because it took them really — I think Lucas was almost overwhelmed at first at the success just like we were. We were absolutely overwhelmed by the success and then feel responsibility to ourselves and to the readers and retailers to craft an even better story that shows… especially because this is… Dapper Men at its core is the journey of Ayden as he grows up. As he grows as a person and a dapper man, we have to up our game and almost grow on my writing and Janet’s art. I can absolutely tell, I don’t know my end, but Janet is succeeding.

Well we’re all really excited for it. We all loved Return of the Dapper Men, and it’s a momentous thing to come.

Jim: Well, I’m really excited. I’m really, really excited because now — we did the first one and, you know, we planted a couple of seeds in there for if we wanted to go back or if we even could. Or, if it was a flop, it could just stand-alone by itself. So we have a ways to go, but people really embraced it. Now that we know that we can do the trilogy, it’s exciting because, just like with Mind the Gap or anything else, that we know we get to tell a bigger fuller story with a beginning, middle and end. You can complete things, you can take more chances and more risk. Usually that’s done in the second act. The things that happen on the last couple pages — no one’s going to see this coming.