Sure - the ideas and illustrations of Dorothy, Alice, and Wendy recounting their peculiar sexual histories to one another on the eve of World War I are all from the minds of Moore and Gebbie, but when it comes down to the point man in bringing the work to American audiences, it's Top Shelf Publisher Chris Staros.

Already, the book is at the eye of a hurricane of controversy, given its graphic depiction of virtually every sexual act, as well as imagery of fictional characters, who are underage, engaged in sexual acts. To say that Staros is coming into Lost Girls and the potential controversy its contents may bring unknowingly is not the case at all though - in addition to being the Publisher of Top Shelf, Staros is the President of the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund, the organization which defends the comic book community against legal challenges based upon First Amendment issues.

Some have already claimed Lost Girls to be a case for the CBLDF, just wating to happen, while others point to its literary and artistic merit. We spoke with Staros for an insight on the history of the work, rumors that Lost Girls would not be carried by a chain bookstore, possible problems that may dog the work out of the gate, and his hopes for how the work is received.

Newsarama: Let's start with a little of the history of the project. As both Alan and Melinda have said, this is something that's taken roughly 16 years from its original conception to seeing full publication. You came along in the third quarter of the entire process, but even then, there's been some distance between the time it was announced that Top Shelf would be publishing this, and the actual publication. When you came on, how far along was Lost Girls, and how long did it take to get everything wrapped up?

Chris Staros: Originally, Lost Girls started in Steve Bisette's anthology, Taboo, which was published in 1991. Eventually, Kitchen Sink put out issues #1 and #2, and then the series went silent for quite some time.

When Alan left DC for the first time, and broke out on his own with Mad Love, he started three major works: From Hell, Lost Girls and Big Numbers, and he was working on all of them simultaneously. Obviously, From Hell was completed 11 years on, and is an absolute masterpiece of comics form, and probably one of the greatest graphic novels ever done. Once we published that, it seemed obvious to me that the other key projects Alan had stared needed to be finished.

Alan has no interest in completing Big Numbers, but Lost Girls was left out there as another amazing work that needed to see completion. Brett and myself were big fans of the stories that came out in Taboo, and the issues that came out from Kitchen Sink, and wanted to see this series completed.

So after getting to know Alan through Eddie Campbell, I was able to meet with Alan and Melinda about Lost Girls. The truth is, nobody had contacted them about Lost Girls in quite a long time, but unbeknownst to anybody, they had been tinkering with this thing all along, slowly but surely moving it forward.

When I talked to them, it was in early 2000, and they had about half of the total work done. I pitched them the idea that this book needed to be finished, and needed to be collected. Something that Top Shelf normally doesn't do, but on a book of this nature, we were more than happy to do, was to put a page rate together for Melinda to go ahead and work on this thing, so that she could go ahead and work on this and get paid for it while she's doing it.

They were excited that we were excited about it, and we were ecstatic that we were going to be able to publish Lost Girls, because it's such an important book.

NRAMA: Let's get into that - you've called it an important book, as well as the most important graphic novel Top Shelf has ever published. Why is it such an important book in your view?

CS: Alan has done something with this book that I haven't seen before, which is to take pornography and make it literary, thoughtful, humane, and exquisite. It is a truly rare thing, especially when you talk about it in terms of it being visual, and not a novelization of something.

Also, the fact that Melinda is the artist on the book adds a femininity to the whole story which is just remarkable, and the story itself as its written and illustrated is so female-friendly, and to me, so non-offensive when you read it, it just seems so natural and beautiful. A lot of the people who've been criticizing it haven't read it yet, and have only heard about it, and yet, when you sit down and actually read the book, it just comes off as a masterful work of art that really challenges one's notion of what pornography is and makes it quite literary.

NRAMA: But at the same time, while challenging the notions of what pornography is, it's pushing the boundaries of the readers while going into some areas that…well, make people question whether or not pornography's traditional sparring partner of the law will play a role in the larger Lost Girls story. Case in point, as many have noted, and some attacked the work for - the story contains pictures of, albeit fictional, underage characters engaging in sexual acts. Can you give an overview, in your view of the overall legality of the book, and let's start on the bottom rung - does Lost Girls have a legal right to even exist?

CS: Absolutely. The book is legal on every level, and it deserves a right to exist. If it gets criticized or challenged in any way, it's the kind of book that's going to challenge America to live up to itself. If we live in the land of the free, and free speech is the law of the land so much to the point that we're putting our soldiers in mortal danger to bring this right and freedom to people who've never really had it, we must respect freedom of speech on our own soil. If not, we're not exactly being American anymore.

There's no doubt that it's going to push some people's buttons, but it is legal. For one reason in particular, the book has artistic and literary merit coming out of its ears. It is one of the greatest works of literature I've seen in comics, or maybe in any form in a long, long time. Anything that has artistic and literary merit cannot be obscene. That is the rule. Therefore, it is not obscene, it is a work of art.

NRAMA: Let's be totally upfront here though - while that's a terrific sentiment, there's a vast gulf between the view of the Constitution and what's enforced at a local level. The rank and file police officers, and even detectives are not generally Constitutional scholars, and there's a growing concern that Lost Girls could be a target - especially in an election year - of local-level District Attorneys, candidates, or others, primarily due to its underage sex…

CS: There are things that are sometimes prosecuted at a local level wrongly. If this is prosecuted at a local level, it will be a wrongful prosecution. If there is a conviction at a local level over somebody selling a book, it will probably have to be answered by the higher courts. Unfortunately, that's the nature of the law in some ways. Sometimes, you need an appeals court or a state Supreme Court or even the Supreme Court of the US to make decisions that clarify or reinforce that these things are, in fact, legal.

The Supreme Court's ruling about obscenity is pretty clear - you have to fail all three prongs of a test to be declared obscene, one of which asks does the work have literary or artistic merit? This book cannot fail this test. If it does fail that test on a local level, then it is a wrongful failure on the part of the prosecution. We would have to fight that up the line.

Is a book like this risky to publish? Yes. But if you're going to do a book like this, andf take on a project that may have that much heat around it, what author better to do that with in the comics medium than Alan Moore? He is our best writer and creator, and his abilities to produce works of literary merit are unparalleled in our industry. If you're going to publish a book and end up taking a stand on something, he's the man I'd want to stand with.

NRAMA: At the same time, wasn't it reported in Publisher's Weekly that Border's has refused to touch it? Doesn't that at least make you question the legal reception this book will receive if a major chain with all its resources and legal experts aren't carrying it?

CS: Actually, that's not true. When the PW article came out, Border's had passed on it, but it didn't have anything to do with the content. It was about eh behind the scenes deals we were trying to structure because there were so few copies available of the first printing. But since that time, everybody is on board. Amazon.com, Amazon in Canada, Border's, Barnes & Noble, Ingram, Baker & Taylor - all of the major distribution houses, and of course the direct market is behind it in spades - which will probably be the biggest distribution outlet for the book. Everybody's agreed to carry it, and there's a lot of good press and publicity that's starting to come out in support of it being a work of art and something that needs to be published.

NRAMA: Speaking for Top Shelf in particular on this - it's a very expensive book, which is, in no small part due to a very expensive printing bill for you to cover. Financially, how much of a risk is this book for you as a business? Are you literally gambling your company on it?

CS: I guess in one sense, that is true. This book is going to tie up a years' worth of printing resources on a single title. If it sells, great, we're still in business, if it doesn't…not so great. I'm not so much worried about the book selling - I think it's going to sell quite well, but it is a big gamble for us, but we're willing to take that on. The truth is, since we're small press…I can't tell you how many times the company's been gambled to keep us alive. Launching Blankets and other books in the past were all equally big gambles. Not as huge financially or legally as Lost Girls - this is definitely the biggest undertaking we've ever done, but risk seems to be inherent to the game we play.

NRAMA: Getting back to the risk aspect of the content…what's your gut feeling? Not meaning to be offensive, but you talk a good line - Constitutionally speaking, it would be very strange and signaling that the country has changed fundamentally if Lost Girls was not seen to have artistic or literary merit. But still - speaking pragmatically, do you still have fears about this book? After all, before anything else, this book has to clear US Customs, which you already have a history with…

CS: Well yes, I do worry about those things, but at the same time…sometimes you have to do what you think is right, and move forward with it. If fear was my only motivator in life, I would have never published my first book. The fear of losing money in comics is a fear I maintain constantly. I think everyone in comics does.

Top Shelf has published 150-160 books now over the last nine years, and have quite a good reputation for doing literary endeavors, and this is another one of those, and probably the most important one that we've ever done. Ultimately, what we're talking about here is ink on paper. There are no real people involved in this book, it is all ideas and thoughts and feelings and emotions, and that is it. In a country where ideas are freely expressible, I can't imagine that putting black ink on white paper, in this country, would be an offense. It strikes me as wrong that would be the case. I know that sometimes, people will be offended, and call out, and there may be problems there, but ultimately, my opinion is, that this is ink on paper, it is wholly ideas, and the pen should be protected.

One of the reasons why I've been so involved with the CBLDF all these years is that is makes be very upset when I see local municipalities take the sword and try to silence the pen. As we've all been taught - the pen is mightier than the sword, and the pen is the freedom to use it to express ideas what the country is founded upon. When we start to silence that, we are doing the opposite of what we say we believe in, as Americans. That's why the CBLDF is there, that's why I've been happily involved with it

NRAMA: So you see a merging of your roles coming up?

CS: With Lost Girls, who knows? I may end up wearing both hats to a certain degree.

NRAMA: In that vein, have you heard from retailers who are, not necessarily opposed to the work itself, but who are either wary of carrying it in their stores?

CS: Yes I have. One thing I do support is everybody's freedom to buy or not buy, stock or not stock products of their choice. This is a free market. Everybody knows what their local municipality is like, and it may be that they've had a lot of problems in the past carrying anything remotely near this kind of material, and they just don't want the heat or the trouble for it. So be it. Others live in more liberal areas, and it's not an issue, and they're planning to carry the book. Everybody has the right to carry it, but everybody also can choose for themselves whether they want to buy it, read it, see it, or carry it.

NRAMA: Best case scenario for you - say, end of the year, and there haven't been any problems, where's Top Shelf, where are you, and what are you feeling?

CS: Ideally of course, the best case scenario is that the book is widely accepted as a work of art right away, and it is not challenged as such. Publisher's Weekly called it "beautiful, literary, and moving," and a lot of other publications will be chiming in between now and then along the same lines. I'm very confident that all the places that review Lost Girls are going to find it to be quite moving and quite beautiful. Once the public gets a hold of it, I think they'll see that's the case.

Being that it's being distributed through all normal channels and will be on sale at all normal places, and will be promoted in the normal fashion by many of the outlets, I think it will be legitimized rather quickly. That's what I'm hoping for. I don't really want an enormous amount of scandal to come with it, because such issues could be very problematic for a lot of people, obviously.

At the end of the year, if the book is distributed and gets out there, and sells well enough to pay off the printing bill, pay Alan and Melinda their royalties, and is deemed to be one of the most important works to come out not only this year, then this decade, that's where I'd like to see us.

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