Damn you, Barbara Walters! In stark, haunting contrast to Steven Grant's recent intelligent interview with Ed Brubaker ("Sleeper," "Gotham Central"), I present to you .... the ComiXtreme interview:

Andrea Speed: "I assume you collaborate on story lines with Greg Rucka on 'Gotham Central.' Has there ever been an issue he's written where you think 'I wish I had written that'?"

Ed Brubaker: "More like scenes, so far. We've only each done one full arc on our own yet. I thought 'Half a Life' was really brilliant, though. A great way to do a personal story as a cop drama, because it ultimately turns out to be both at the same time."

The question's a bit shallow and predictable, but I've read worse. In fact, for the worst question ever asked in a comic interview, I only had to skip down a paragraph, in which Andrea asks -- I shit you not -- "If you were a fruit, what fruit would you be?"

Yes. Read that again. She asks one of the best writers in comics 11 questions, and one of them is, "If you were a fruit, what fruit would you be?"

Then, at the end of the interview, as if to unburden herself of the embarrassment and overwhelming guilt that should come with asking the worst question ever asked in a comic interview, she writes, "Andrea Speed would like to thank Ed Brubaker for answering her silly questions (for the record, she's a pineapple) ..."

And, for the record, Brubaker responded "kiwi" in "Citizen Kane"-like fashion.