Wiley Miller - Books

Books

Books by Miller include Dead Lawyers and Other Pleasant Thoughts (1993), The Non Sequitur Survival Guide for the Nineties (1995), Non Sequitur’s Beastly Things (1999, foreword by Jules Feiffer), The Legal Lampoon (2002), Why We’ll Never Understand Each Other (2003), Lucy and Danae: Something Silly This Way Comes (2005), Homer, the Reluctant Soul (2005) and Extraordinary Adventures Of Ordinary Basil (2006).

In 2004, Wiley Miller, his wife Victoria Coviello, and their four Jack Russell terriers moved from Santa Barbara, California, to Kennebunkport, Maine. He explained the relocation to Stephanie Bouchard of the Maine Sunday Telegram:

Part of the attraction for both of us is in a creative sense. Santa Barbara is beautiful. As far as year-round climate, it's perfect, but there's no real change. These dramatic changes really spark the creative nature because it's change. It gives you a fresh look at the world. It's invigorating. Santa Barbara is too nice; hard to get work done. We spent eight years in Iowa. Iowa is always overcast; it's awful. Here, in winter, we don't go out much so we get more work done.

When Bouchard asked him about the Maine setting in some of his strips, he responded:

I created a series of characters that came from our visits to Maine. Offshore Flo is patterned after the Maine Diner in Wells. I wanted to capture the essence of Maine people's genuineness - down-to-earth, good-natured people - and work in the accent. I heard from displaced New Englanders. I got E-mails from people who said how dead-on the accent was and how dead wrong. It's tricky working phonetically because you still have to be legible, finding the balance of how far to take it. It's set in Whatchacallit, Maine. I realized there had never been this setting in comics. I hate following. More fun blazing a new trail. Nobody's ever been to Maine in the comics.