By Henry Barajas

IDW was kind enough to invite me to a see a magic show at their booth at the San Diego Comic Convention as if there wasn’t enough magic in comic con. I have to admit I was a bit leary about attending a magic show. I’m very ignorant of the whole thing. I was afraid they were going to saw me in half and separate me from my nicely shaved legs. I got to the booth and I was greeted by the creators of Smoke and Mirrors, Mike Costa and Jon Armstrong. Jon is an award winning magician that has been performing internationally for over twenty years. Before we started the interview Jon was kind enough to do some card tricks.

Mike and Jon had a lot to say about the last issue of their series coming out in August, the history of magic in comics and what to expect in the trade paper back set to be released in September.

Henry Barajas: What is the process like for translating magic to the comic book medium?

Mike Costa: I leave it to Jon Armstrong to develop and figure all that stuff out from a life time of experience and expertise. That’s what Jon does for the comic. We are co-creators of the comic, we developed the book together. I write the script and he develops the magic.

Jon Armstrong: The magic itself, what we are doing with the book, it’s all interactive. Mike is able to take a lot of these ideas I have about how to an actually do a trick that affects the reader as they read. What he is able to do very seamlessly is not take them out of the story while that’s happening, in fact, but the tricks enhance the story as they read and makes them feel they are a part of this world. The hardest thing is coming up with new and creative ideas every single time because we have done a new trick in every issue. We have made it a big point to do something different every single issue.

Read the rest here