Aurora Dizon: You refer to your humorous sci-fi novels as "bubble gum for the brain." What does that mean exactly?

John Zakour: It means my writing is mostly meant for entertainment purposes but hopefully gets you thinking a little bit. :)

Aurora Dizon: How did you get into writing?

John Zakour: I was working as a database programmer for a major university when my position got cut as part of state budget cuts. So I basically spent my unemployment on beaches, on the softball field, and in bookstores. While in a bookstore I found a book on gag writing. I decided to try it. I wrote a bunch of gags and sent them to magazine cartoonists, figuring nothing would come of it. Turns out every cartoonist I wrote to responded and bought a LOT of my gags. I then branched off into writing for comedians you see on TV shows and syndicated comics. After selling literally thousands of gags I branched off to my own comic.

The sci-fi writing was a natural extension of that. I wanted to write more than 3-panel comics. After all, I was always a bit of geek and sf fanboy. I just didn't think anybody would publish my novels as well, I had no formal training. So I had a an idea for book about a PI with a computer attached to his brain but I didn't really do anything about it. Then in 1994 I discovered this thing called The World Wide Web. I started publishing my own cartoons over it (called Computoons) and then in '98 (I think) started publishing an interactive Web adventure called The Doomsday Brunette. It was programmed by a guy named Ron Pool who would become part of the inspiration for Roy in working daze. The Doomsday Brunette was pretty well received. So that encouraged me to try to do more Web writing.