Remaining an in-demand writer for 25 years isn’t easy, but Steven T. Seagle’s work continues to impress readers and viewers. While he’s remained busy with extraordinarily popular projects like co-creating the Ben 10 animated series as part of the Man of Action creative studio and writers collective, and is known for past runs on popular superhero franchises -- including time on Sandman Mystery Theatre, Uncanny X-Men and Superman -- Seagle has also carved out space for more personal and experimental projects, such as the award-winning Vertigo graphic novel It’s A Bird and his Image Comics book The Red Diary/The Re[a]d Diary (both with illustrator and frequent collaborator Teddy Kristiansen).

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This February, Seagle presents another side of himself in a new book of essays presented in comic book form. Published by Image, Get Naked features 19 essays on a variety of subjects, but all tied together by one common thread -- Seagle’s own nudity. Drawn by 19 up-and-coming illustrators (Emei Olivia Burell, Tina Burholt, Patricia Amalie Eckerle, Christoffer Hammer, Andrada-Aurora Hansen, Rebekka Davidsen Hestbæk, Hope Hjort, Angelica Inigo Jørgensen, Bob Lundgreen Kristiansen, Silja Lin, Sim Mau, Ingvild Marie Methi, Thorbjørn Petersen, Aske Schmidt Rose, Erlend Hjortland Sandøy, Mads Ellegård Skovbakke, Cecilie “Q” Maintz Thorsen, Fred Tornager and Thomas Vium) and diving deep into themes of exposure -- both internal and external -- Get Naked shows off a side of Seagle readers haven’t seen before.

Taking time from his hectic schedule of animation, feature film and comic book collaborations with his Man of Action studiomates, Seagle spoke to CBR about Get Naked, including why nudity became the book’s unifying theme and where a book of essays about male nudity fits into the current climate of powerful men being exposed for pushing their sexuality onto others.

CBR: While not entirely unprecedented, essays in comic book form aren’t something you often see. What motivated you to pursue writing in this format?

Steven T. Seagle: I’ve read things that I thought had the feel of a graphic essay, but I wanted to really own that idea and start with that as a form for comics. So I literally wrote the 19 essays in the book in prose form with no thought about the visual aspect of them -- something I’d never normally do when working in comics. I was really excited about seeing what a variety of cool, young artists would do with the challenge of making a different kind of text work in comics format.

What made nudity the common tie between these essays? They spin out into all sorts of areas and nudity is sometimes only tangential -- they could’ve been unrelated essays, but you went for a theme that unites them all in some small way.

I didn’t just want a collection of essays in a book, I wanted a thematically linked collection of essays. I wanted the book as a whole to have an arc, not just be random thoughts. A lot of these are stories I tell all the time verbally, and quite of few of them are directly about or butt up against my longstanding discomfort with being nude in any kind of semi-public setting. Physical nudity is sometimes tangential to the essays, but nakedness is present in all of them -- emotional, physical, spiritual -- all kinds of nakedness. I also felt like getting people in the door for comics essays would be more possible with the title Get Naked.

Your nakedness seems to always be in accepted places, but does the current climate of powerful men exposing themselves (and far worse) change how you feel about the theme or the presentation of this book?

The almost daily revelations of (almost entirely) men using their positions of power to expose themselves to their subordinates is repugnant -- as is the abuse of any kind of power in a relationship. When I set out to write these essays late last year, I made an intentional choice to focus on non-sexualized nudity because I wanted the pieces to be able to dig in on the idea of body shame/body acceptance -- both externalized and internalized -- without having those ideas conflated with sexuality -- a predominantly American limitation.

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How did you find the artists for this project? How much time went into corralling all the artwork and getting everything done on time?

I knew I wanted to do this project, and I had talked to some of my favorite artists about it and had even gotten some tentative interest a few years back. But I really got hung up on what the form should be in terms of text/visual layouts. And I couldn’t crack it in an interesting way. But I was watching the online work of some of the students at a place in Denmark called The Animation Workshop -- an international college that offers majors only in animation, computer graphics and graphic storytelling -- and they were posting comics journalism pieces which I felt had unique balances of textual and visual information. I pitched the book to them, got 19 people aboard, and then wrote all the essays. We did a crazy initial production period where everyone did a complete page a day for two-weeks. So we went from zero pages to 190 in a flash. That was back in the spring, and since then I’ve been acting as editor and fine-tuning the essays with the artists who, while mostly new to the comics scene, are brilliant.

Are all the essays newly created for this volume?

Each essay was written specifically for this collection. Some are based on stories I’ve told friends for years, so they had a familiar feel for me. But I really admire the essay writing skills of people like David Sedaris and the craft of a great Spalding Grey monologue, so even on familiar life stories I started clean and thought about them as essays for this collection.

Did you enjoy working in this format, the comic book essay? Have you given any thought to a theme for a subsequent collection?

I had a great time doing this book and have a ton of ideas for a second. But first we have to see if the world wants graphic essays. I’m hoping people will get Get Naked, and if they do, I’m definitely down to make another book in the future.

You and your Man of Action cohorts have published a lot of comics that have gone on to be optioned for various media adaptations, yet you still make time for the occasional personal project or style experiment that doesn’t seem to lend itself (easily anyway) to other media. Even while working on animation and film, how much do you value having comics for these smaller projects that maybe aren’t quite suited for mass consumption?

Everyone in Man of Action -- Joe Kelly, Duncan Rouleau, Joe Casey and I -- loves comic books. And we all believe in making comics because the story is right for that particular medium. We think comic readers know when something is just a screenplay pitch wrapped in comics form and we’re not into that. When we do get things optioned the first meeting is always along the lines of, “This was a cool comic, but how do we make it a TV show or a movie?” And we like that question, because it means the book worked as a comic first and needs to change to work in another form.

Even though our days are filled with making cartoons like Ben 10 and feature films like I Kill Giants, we greatly value having the opportunity to do comics still. And I can’t speak highly enough of Image Comics -- everyone who works so hard there -- and especially Eric Stephenson. I told him two years ago: “I want to do a book for 10-year-olds about a girl who accidentally winds up at a summer camp for monsters,” and Eric said, “Sounds cool. Do it.” This year I told him, “I want to do a book with 19 essays about American perceptions of social nudity,” and Eric said, “Sounds cool. Do it.” That’s the breadth and boldness of Image Comics right there.

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You have a very full creative plate. Can you share anything else on it that readers can look forward to in the near future?

We are involved in some very cool projects. Very few of them are things our non-disclosure agreements will allow us to talk about, but the new Mega Man cartoon that we’re working on for next year is looking great. That will be on Cartoon Network. Zak Storm, a show we created and pitched at the same meeting that we pitched Ben 10 at, has just dropped on Netflix and is a great looking show. We thank our friend Jeremy Zag for getting that one moving after so long. We have several other shows in production that haven’t been announced yet. And we have some live action hour dramas moving along -- many based on our comics. And more feature films as well. We’re busy! No time to Get Naked these days!

Get Naked is available in comic book stores on Feb. 7, and in bookstores on Feb. 13.