THE GRASSHOPPER AND THE ANT
Review by Marc Deering
By Harvey Kurtzman
Denis Kitchen Publishing
Hardcover
$25
Ok. So I was thinking about genius the other day.
Will Eisner, Jack Davis, Jack Kirby, Art Speigleman, Lou Fine, Will Elder…and Harvey Kurtzman.
THE GRASSHOPPER AND THE ANT is a lost gem that hasn't seen print for over forty years and, as it stands, produced at the peak of Kurtzman's creativity. How can I describe the fluidity of Kurtzman's lines? The beauty of his watercolors? The changing of colors with the changing seasons?
Genius.
I had already viewed a sampling of the book back in April at the Pittsburgh Comicon where the honorable Denis Kitchen had set up a booth right next to us, the CBLDF. I carefully looked through each page and knew that I had to get a hold of it before it disappeared into obscurity, like so many of the classics do today. And now I hold it in my hot little hands. I giggle in joy at viewing this masterpiece of comic storytelling. But there's a back-story. Yes, there's more here than a simple tale of a Grasshopper and an Ant. There's an underlying tale of philosophy and life; and of the 60's "Beatnik Philosophy."
By the time 1960 rolled around Kurtzman was very much down on his luck. He had spent a lot of time with avant guard artistes and thinkers such as Lenny Bruce and Shel Silverstein. He very much wanted to be an artiste. He even shaved his head and posed barefoot for a professional photo shoot. He was drawn to the beat lifestyle. He exemplified the non-conformist: The Grasshopper.
At the same time Kurtzman was a very hard worker. He labored over every piece of work he did from his attic studio. His supported a wife and four children. He had a mortgage. He had responsibilities. He was the Ant.
These forces met at constant struggling points which never resolved themselves. Hence the creation of this book. And what a book. By today's standards his brush and watercolor technique might be deemed crude. But Kurtzman's style was purely his own and here, he was at the top of his form. Everything comes through clear and distinct in a format deserving of the tale.
THE GRASSHOPPER AND THE ANT appeared only one time before the publication of this book: in the May 1960 issue of Esquire. At the time, Roger Price, a popular satirist in his own right, said he liked THE GRASSHOPPER but the illegibility of the format distracted him from its greatness. Well, Roger, here in high resolution is THE GRASSHOPPER AND THE ANT, pure and unblemished in it's re-telling.
This book, while a little expensive, is well worth the money. I feel honored to have this little book in my hands.
HIGHLY RECOMMENDED
Marc Deering is a regular contributor to PopImage
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SUBSPECIES: Prose, part 2
by Benjamin Russell
There used to be a joint in Northampton, Massachusetts called The Words & Pictures Museum. Run by Kitchen Sink Press, if you walked in on the ground floor it was a small comic book store, but it really looked more like a gift store than your typical longbox back issue garage. The upper floors were an art museum. I have sat here for fifteen minutes and tried to remember the many and varied works that I studied and peered at and had to be told to stop smudging my nose on by the cute NoHo girl who worked there. There were too many to recall.
The remarkable, standout piece of the permanent collection -- a phrase that chimes with sad irony -- was a page from Eclipse Books’ “M”, illustrated by Jon J. Muth and based on Fritz Lang’s film.
The image was remarkable in that it possessed no storytelling in a comic book manner. It told a story the way that the “Pieta” or “A Study in Blue and Grey” tell stories. The great masters of portraiture and Realism painted pictures that held a scale that exceeded that which was constrained within the frame. The emotions of the people portrayed and the atmosphere of the surroundings provided a scope that was far wider than the segment that had been articulated with such detail and expression. Muth’s page had all of the grandeur and subtlety that one associated with grand masters, yet it was a two panel page, essentially repeating the same image.
Why was this image so effective? Muth’s skill at painting the solid shades of the human form without a single hard outline were fantastically real and tangible. And the simple repetition of the image made ones eyes flick from one to the other, seeing the additional details in the room, trying to divine the role of and relation with the second character that appeared in the second frame. It became, like most fine art, a work of audience interpretation, and intimate relationship between artist and audience with the image as the complex game of cipher between them.
When I read “M”, I passed right by the image without recognizing it. I read all four issues, realized I hadn’t seen it, and had to go back, page by page, until I found it hidden between pages 38 and 40 of the first issue.
How is it that the page could have left such a vivid impression on me while I was in The Words & Pictures Museum, but upon reading it, I would not have even recognized it? The key word to the answer is in the question: “reading”. I did not recognize the page because it became subservient to the words.
The juxtaposition of words and images is a strange, arranged marriage. Once a person learns how to read, one is unable to see a word as its individual component letters. The associative meaning for the word supplants its physical construction. When this word is seen in the future, it is not read, it is recognized, and the brain skips straight ahead to the associations. It is only in rare occurrences that one experiences a moment of ROSENCRANTZ & GUILDENSTERN ARE DEAD-like confusion where “all of a sudden you haven’t the faintest idea how to spell the word ‘wife’-or ‘house’-because when you write it down you just can’t remember having ever seen those letters in that order before” (Stoppard, p38).
The viewing of visual art is a completely different mental process, and there is no true juxtaposition of these two neural routes; one activity must submerge to the other, and reading will almost always take precedent.
And word balloons over painted artwork are perhaps the least juxtaposed of any two elements in a comic book. Again, when a page is painted as Muth does, with no solid outlines, a word balloon with its flat white background and clearly delineated border sits on top of the art, rendering it flat where the color and shading had attempted the illusion of depth. Jeff Smith is printing the word balloons in ROSE with a semi-translucency, so that the combination is not so jarring. Marvel Comics went a different route, adding visuals to the word balloons. Characters like Wolverine and the Thing now “speak” with a distinct font, attempting to provide visual cues as to what the voices must sound like, and adding an artistic dimension to the dialogue. A misguided attempt, perhaps, but a natural side-effect of having fun while messing about with computer-generated lettering.
Marvel is about to host an “event” in all of its ongoing series titles. Christened with a phrase that pays homage to one of Marvel’s most fervent creators, the comics giant is presenting a month of entirely wordless comics under the banner title of ‘NUFF SAID. Ignoring the trite title, this event is not necessarily a bad thing. It has the potential to showcase what comics aficionados have been crying from the rooftops for years now.
I ask you, what term is synonymous with “children’s book”? The answer: “picture book.” I have clear memories of being taught at some time in childhood that all children must put books that used both pictures and words behind them. Pictures were a crutch, training wheels that must be abandoned. This cultural slight against pictorial storytelling has withstood detailed examinations of Neal Adam’s artwork, where he composes not just individual panels, but the entire layout of a page as a giant picture. Scott McCloud’s lengthy chapter detailing the genetic ancestors of the contemporary comic would not sway the popular opinion that comics are a cheap entertainment for kids.
The feeling is that the word is always paramount. Clichés like “a picture is worth a thousand words” may come all too quickly to one’s lips in response... but you will notice that said platitude is composed of words. This mistrust of the communicative power of words is behind the practice of redundant captions that has existed almost as long as comics as we know them (“The occupants of the car are shaken out --” ACTION COMICS #1, panel 66, 1938).
A month of silent storytelling from the most well-known comic publisher in the country does not actually stand a chance of successfully demonstrating that stories can be told wordlessly, in pictures, with as much eloquence as a prose passage. The stories, after all, will still be the superhero tales that one has come to expect from Marvel Comics. Just because a storytelling technique has been ordered from on high does not mean that the tales being told will also suddenly be revolutionized.
However, when asked to pick top five comics of 1999 for an article in THE COMICS JOURNAL (#220, Feb. 2000), contributor David A. Beronä named only wordless comics. Co managing Editor Eric Evans and writer Bart Beaty later singled out ALINE ET LES AUTRES by Guy Delísle for his skill at wordless communication. Silent storytelling is noticed, and it is noticed as exceptional.
Not to continually jump all over Marvel, but the so-called “Marvel Style” of comic scripting may be largely responsible for the dearth of pictures without additional narrative. The Marvel Style, it has been explained to me, runs thusly: an outline of the plot and action is written and sent to the artist. The artist then breaks down the action into panels and pages, and returns it to the writer. The writer then creates dialogue to fit within the panels provided.
The natural result of this technique is too much exposition. The Marvel Style produces wordy comics, because the writer inherently doesn’t trust that the plot, as he scripted it, can be told through a visual narrative. So each panel is then filled with redundant dialogue and captions in order to make the author feel secure that a) the storyline is obvious to all, and b) he has had the final word.
I don’t have the ability to fully delve into all of the examples of comics that have attempted to vary the balance and explore the verity of the “juxtaposition” of images and text. However, I encourage you to read the following, if only to explore the dynamic yourself.
- In 1979, EPIC comics published the first volume of ALFRED BESTER’S “THE STARS MY DESTINATION”, adapted for comics by Howard Chaykin and Byron Preiss. The second volume was never published independently, but in 1992, EPIC republished the first part along with the previously unseen second half in one complete volume.
Chaykin does some amazing visual gymnastics in order to break up the prose so that it relates specifically to certain panels. His layouts are far more mathematical than anything he attempted in AMERICAN FLAGG, and are -- by and large -- successful. Note the changes from prose dialogue to screenplay format and back again.
- Cyberosia Publishing has just recently printed FRIGHTENING CURVES by Antony Johnston and Aman Chaudhary. Again, the text switches between prose and screenplay format -- what is so compelling about paring one’s writing down to nothing but dialogue? -- but there is an organized method here, as opposed to Chaykin and Preiss’s more haphazard transitions.
FRIGHTENING CURVES runs 128 pages, with a font size of 10 and some of the most cramped line spacing I’ve ever seen. There is a lavish illustration by Chaudhary approximately every third page. My cynical instinct is that if the font were any larger, or the spacing more relaxed, the pictures would appear more along the lines of every fifth or sixth page, and the balance of words and text would seem... off.
- Brian Michael Bendis is perhaps the most verbose comics writer around. He is not held in disdain for this trait, it is not deemed a flaw, because it is all naturalistic dialogue. If he succumbed to the lure of vast amounts of inner dialogue in floating square captions, it would not be excusable.
The GOLDFISH collection published by Image Comics in 1998 ends with an eight page prose story featuring the title character. Bendis is exceptional, however. He also switches from word balloons and pictures to nearly six pages of straight dialogue without illustration during the central confrontation between the two main characters. He knows how to use white space and large amounts of solid black in his illustration. He organizes space much in the way that Chaykin does: layout is just as much a part of the vocabulary of the story as the words and images are themselves.
Additional Reading: Any Paradox Press BIG BOOK, THE BOGIE MAN by John Wagner and Alan Grant, KRAZY KAT by George Herriman, CAGES by Dave McKean, and THE DARK KNIGHT RETURNS by Frank Miller, Klaus Janson, and Lynn Varley.
Benjamin Russell was geek enough to dress as King Mob for Hallowe'en. He scrupulously avoided mention of the fact that THE INVISIBLES were a revolutionary terrorist cell. He is also the Columns Editor for PopImage.
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The Words & Pictures VIRTUAL Museum
INTERVIEW: J.M. DeMATTEIS: UPDATED
Conducted by Jonathan Ellis
Reality, dream, god, redemption, love, tragedy, universal truths, Sinatra and more. You can't chat with J.M. DeMatteis without mentioning these.
From SPECTRE to SUPERGIRL to BATMAN, these are just some of the projects he is currently developing. Read ahead, maybe you'll learn something.
I see Spectre has a strong sense of family, do you feel your own experiences as a family man has had a strong baring on your recent writing? One minute you're reading Alice in Wonderland to your kids, the next you find yourself inspired to write a whole new arc.
All my experiences feed into my work; but, of course, my family being such an intimate part of my life, they can't help but have a profound influence. I'm sure there are aspects of my relationship with my daughter in Hal's relationship with Helen (not that I'm doing it very consciously).
Joker. Our Worlds at war. Do you find big inter-company crossovers have a negative effect on your storylines? Interrupting set plans with special tie-in issues and so forth?
To be honest, I've always HATED these Big Crossovers. Find them nothing but an annoyance. That said, I always try to do my best to come up with as good a story as I can within the context I'm presented with. But, if I had a choice, I would NEVER participate in these things.
Speaking of Joker, I know you're a Batman fan - but I see Joker as a particular constant with you. Do you feel you're drawn more towards the chaos in characters?
The Joker is one of those incredibly fascinating characters... perhaps because we don't really know who he is or what made him into the lunatic we so love and fear. He could have been any of us before he snapped. Yes, as you note, there's a chaos in the Joker... and it's a chaos we all have within us.
My four-parter "Going Sane," which ran in LEGENDS OF THE DARK KNIGHT about nine or ten years ago, remains perhaps the best super-hero story I've ever done - and it's because I got to explore the Joker's psyche in a whole new way.
All that said, I think over-exposure can beat any character into the ground... and I hope the Joker gets a rest when this current crossover is finished.
I see you've got a new LEGENDS OF THE DARK KNIGHT arc starting up, and from the description it seems sort of like Robin vs. Kathie Lee. Could you tell us a little about the story?
"Grimm" is set in the early days of Robin's career... Dick Grayson's a pretty innocent, inexperienced kid, still in awe and, yes, a little frightened of Batman. The villain of the piece is Mother Grimm: a throw-back (at least initially) to the more innocent, less psychotic villains of the 60's. The whole story has a Dickensian feeling. Oliver Twist in tights. My main goal with this one was simply to have some fun. Nothing earth-shaking here... just a good, solid story. Trevor Von Eden did the pencils. The amazing Garcia-Lopez did the inks.
Also coming up is the Batman Hardcover ABSOLUTION. Knowing you the title alone is interesting enough to make me want to hear more. Could you share with us the story? Has an artist been chosen as of yet?
ABSOLUTION is the opposite end of the spectrum from "Grimm." It's a very realistic story... no costumed characters other than Batman himself.... that begins a decade ago with the bombing of Bruce Wayne's office building by a left-wing terrorist group. The story follows Batman's pursuit of the woman behind the bombing... and it takes him around the world... ultimately to India, where what he finds is not at all what he expected.
The question at the heart of the story is: Can a man truly atone for his horrendous deeds? Can he balance out the evil that he's done by acts of compassion? (This, of course, is also the primary theme of Hal Jordan's quest in SPECTRE.)
The fully-painted art is by a newcomer named Brian Ashmore. I think he's about two-thirds of the way done with the book by now. No release date set... and given current events, I have a feeling DC might wait a little longer than planned to put it out.
Understood. It is a little eerie how so many themes in comicdom draw parallel to recent events. It should be known that this story was in development before the events of September 11th.
Speaking of Hardcovers. They're beautiful. Look nice on your shelf. And are terribly expensive. Do you see the growing abundance of Hard Cover exclusive stories a good idea or are the increasing HC books maybe a bit too much all at once?
I love the format. For something like WILLWORLD, where Seth Fisher's art really deserved a superb presentation, I thought it was totally appropriate. At the same time, I agree with you: That's a lot of money to dish out... and I think the high price may just limit sales in an ever-shrinking marketplace. At the same time, I think these kinds of items, placed in bookstores (as opposed to comics shops), and promoted properly, will do very well. So perhaps a soft-cover version for the direct market and a hardcover for the bookstores...?
What made you decide to have the narrative of Monsieur Stigmonus interact directly with the audience? I feel almost drawn to the theatrical sense of drama.
I love Monsieur Stigmonus. He's one of those characters who just came alive on the page. So, really, I didn't decide anything: he did. That device just suited his personality perfectly. I look forward to bringing him back in Year Two of THE SPECTRE.
Was there any specific influence for the character? When I say theatrical I can't help but relate Stigmonus to the old melodramatic villains that would turn his head to the audience or lean downstage and explain his evil plans. Encouraging boos and waxing mischievous moustaches.
I was looking for a character who would inject some energy into the book. An opponent who would be, in all ways the philosophical and moral opposite of the Spectre, and yet who would have real depth and be interesting, colourful, chaotic. When I was doing MAN-THING at Marvel, I (with brilliant visual help from Liam Sharp) created a character called Mr. Termineus, who had many of these qualities. I decided to come up with a character who would be, let's say Termineus's distant cousin, living in the DC Universe. And starting from that, Stigmonus began to take on a life of his own.
Speaking of which... Do you ever intend on maintaining certain patterns in your work. The relation between characters such as Stigmonus in SPECTRE and Mr. Termineus in MAN-THING for instance. Both visually similar, both strongly connected to a child.
Yes, all the work connects up. Old themes re-emerge. Old characters find new forms. I think most writers, artists, and musicians have certain themes and ideas that obsess them. We're all trying to tell our story, sing our song, and constantly refining it, trying to get at it in new ways. I think that you have to look at any artist's work as one piece. I certainly look at mine that way.
How would you describe SPECTRE to new readers? See, I don't think of it as a DC Heroes book, and it's not a Vertigo book. It's something in between. Between the super-hero and the unnatural, and 'Supernatural' is just too easy and answer.
How to describe SPECTRE? Supernatural? Super-Hero? New Age? Dark Fantasy? It really does depend on the issue, doesn't it? In the coming months, the book is going to veer off even more into different directions. We've got a Christmas issue that features Santa Claus, Charles Dickens, and Ebenezer Scrooge, another issue that will be presented as prose accompanied by illustrations, another in which the Spectre doesn't even appear until the end of the story. Then we're going off into space for something a little more (excuse the expression) comic-booky. Spaceships and aliens and strange new worlds. So we're trying different things.
At its core, it's the theme of the book that matters, I think: Hal's search for redemption-and hope-for himself... and for the world. It's a theme that's become even more powerful, and poignant, in light of recent events.
Considering we create our own heaven and hell, is Hal Jordan's quest for redemption even necessary? If he need only to discover the power to redeem within, can he continue his outward quest for long, and if he were to find redemption would he continue as the Spectre despite it?
I think you've hit on something very important: Hal himself has to totally believe he has redeemed himself in order for his personal mission to be fulfilled. (Just as Abin Sur had to realize that he no longer needed to be in a Hell of his own making in SPECTRE #9.) It's not really God Hal's waiting for. God, I believe, is far more forgiving than we are.
And, even if Hal does achieve it-or realize that it's already there-there's still his broader mission in the world: helping us, as a race, realize what he is in the process of realizing. Where will it end? Well, I could see Hal coming to the end of his quest and having someone else take over the role of Spirit of Redemption. Or he could finally divest himself of his Hal-ness... evolve... and stay the Spectre for thousands of years. This is the kind of book that can go off in any direction-and that's the fun of it.
Heh. Even in one's own spiritual quest. You're your own worst critic. Speaking of the book's evolution into any number of directions, do you see yourself as staying on for long as possible or could you see yourself one day passing on the title to another?
I have no clue. I've been working in this business long enough to know that something could happen tomorrow and I could find myself booted off the book. Or I might suddenly decide that I've said whatever I need to say via this character and his world and quit. Or I'll find myself so filled with story ideas that I'll stay for three years. Or I'll PLAN to stay for three years and the book will be cancelled. You never know.
Now I came on this book without reading the LEGENDS OF THE DCU arc which preceded it. I feel I can read it well enough without having read those issues, but there are numerous references to the events carried out therein. Should readers use the LEGENDS OF THE DCU arc as a jumping on point before coming to the series? Any set plans for trade paper back collections of the LEGENDS OF THE DCU stories or the first few issues of SPECTRE?
No plans for a trade paperback of the Zulli-illustrated stories from LOTDCU. I think it's helpful to have read it, but the book has been moving along under its own power long enough that a new reader doesn't need to have seen those stories. I think, when the previous stories are referenced, we make things pretty clear.
I see Ryan Sook has come into some extra work recently, is he set for the series as far as future issues go? I also see Craig Hamilton is back for another guest spot, any chances on his filling the role of 'official' fill in artist or does DC have plans for him?
Craig Hamilton is our official fill-in guy. And he's done-and is doing-an incredible job. His work on SPECTRE #14, an interesting piece about a vampire, is his best yet. Blows away his previous issues.
As for Ryan, who quickly became one of my All Time Favorite Collaborators, I'm sorry to say that SPECTRE #13 will be his final issue. Happily, it's also his best issue... and the story just may be our best so far. It really breaks my heart to see him go. We had such a terrific time working together. But he had an offer he couldn't refuse and, really, that's the nature of the business.
Norm Breyfogle (of Batman fame) has signed on to do the arc after Craig's vampire story... and I hope he'll be sticking around for a while after that. His work is very different than Ryan's: Norm brings a new kind of energy to the book. He is extremely passionate about what he does... and it shows on the page.
Might that last issue of Ryan's be the prose issue?
Yes. SPECTRE #13 will be Ryan's last and that's our prose/illustrations issue. I'm extremely happy with the way it's turned out.
Do you ever find you adapt a script to fit a certain artists strengths. Maybe even something as small as a location, or certain symbols.
As I get more comfortable with an artist, I find I can trust them more. Once I knew what Ryan Sook was capable of, I knew I could push things as far as I wanted. That he would "get" what I was saying and not just visualize it but embellish and expand it.
Craig, too, is an extremely creative artist and I love his way of interpreting a story.
But I think that, rather than tailoring the story toward an artist's particular strengths, what happens is that, as I get to know what first-rate artists like Ryan and Craig are capable of, I relax and just push the borders outward, knowing that they'll be able to do whatever I ask... and then some.
That said, the final issue of Spectre was very much tailored to Ryan. I had discussed the story and my ideas about it with him and, based on that, he did a cover. One look at the cover (which I think is one of the best comic book covers I've ever seen) and I knew just how the story should be told. The cover gave me the method of telling the story.
Something similar happened years ago with Jon J Muth on MOONSHADOW. 
We had discussed the story, he read my original outline, and then he showed up at my house with these wonderful Dickensian sketches. Looking at his visual interpretation of my ideas I suddenly understood how I should tell the story. His visuals gave me Moonshadow's voice. And that's the great joy of collaboration, isn't it? Writers and artists inspiring each other, pushing each other's comfort zones so that they'll try new things, discover new ways of telling the tale.
If reality is a dream, how would you envision your dreamer? Or your dream for that matter?
That question requires a book to really answer it; but I will say that, based on my own experiences (and all of this is so totally personal; everyone has to come up with their own answers), there's only One Dreamer and that's God... Who doesn't just dream all of us, but, like a writer getting profoundly involved in one of his stories, becomes all of us.
Now we all have different conceptions of God/The Dreamer and I tend to relate to the more personal aspects: Divine Incarnations like Rama, Jesus, Buddha and, above all, Meher Baba (and their female counterparts). In my experience, in my dream, what it all seems to come down to, no matter what spiritual/religious tradition one comes from, is Love. The universe may be an illusion, but Love is the Reality that binds the Dream and the Dreamer-that binds all of us-and makes our lives truly worth living.
That's the short answer, anyway. (Maybe I'd better get going on that book!)
Since each individual has the ability to shape dream/reality, will the Spectre then be drawn into particular individuals dreams of reality?
We touched on that at the end of the Stigmonus storyline... with Stigmonus being so rooted in his dream/worldview that he was literally incapable of seeing the other, more hopeful, universe Spectre was trying to show him... and we've touched on it, thematically, in the whole series. But a story that addresses that issue so directly is actually an intriguing idea. Maybe we'll do it.
HaHa! Of course once he gets stuck in one dream he may very well be pulled into others, and once you actually exist within a dream how could you NOT question reality? Also, think about dream as a whole other realm. If dreams exist on a separate plane, then do dreams continue to exist once the dreamer passes away? But then that's a whole other book isn't it?
Yeah. But (in my experience) it's not just about dreams. It's about the REALITY underlying the dream, connecting up all the dream-universes of the individual dreamers. And that Reality is God (the Original Dreamer. The Dreamer in all dreamers). And, to very loosely paraphrase Meher Baba, the reason why God dreamed all of these universes, dreamed all of us, into being... is so that the Love that He Is can have expression.
But then, that's a whole other book, too!
Last we talked Swamp Thing was brought up as a possible guest appearance and having just recently read the latest trade, the idea of 'What is evil' was brought up...
"Aphid eats leaf. Ladybug eats aphid. Soil absorbs dead ladybug. Plant feeds upon soil...
is aphid evil? Is ladybug evil? Is soil evil?
Where is evil, in all the wood?"
Alan Moore: BOOK 4 - A MURDER OF CROWS
...An idea crucial to the role of the Spectre. Have any Yin Yang conundrums popped up in writing this series?
Isn't the whole universe-on one level, at least-just one big "Yin Yang conundrum"? How could that not be reflected in anyone's writing? The whole Stigmonus storyline was certainly a Yin Yang ballet.
What I was thinking was also in terms of the Spectres quest. He who is intent on stopping evil and rectifying wrong. How does he decide on what is and isn't evil? Especially if evil doesn't exist? But then that's a whole other book isn't it? [I think that'll be my new mantra]
The Spectre's quest has become less and less one of seeking out evil. I'd say that the Spectre is not an anti-evil force, but A PRO-MERCY FORCE. Remember, he is no longer the Spirit of Wrath, he is the Spirit of Redemption. So the Spectre isn't intent on punishing/ending evil, he is intent on opening the doorway into good that exists in each soul. (But of course all of this is still a little confusing for Hal Jordan. It is for me, too!)
Have the obsessive Hal Jordan fans of the world been beating down your door over the series yet? "Hal wouldn't say that! He doesn't look right! He should use a giant mouse trap!"
I think there are quite a few old-time Hal Jordan fans out there who really hate the idea of Hal as the Spectre and no matter what we do, they're not gonna like it. But really, this isn't the Hal Jordan they knew. This is someone who went mad, went bad, died and was reborn in a new role, a new life. You can't expect him to be the same.
That said, I understand how they feel. As a reader, I never particularly liked the idea of Hal going nuts and becoming a murderer and I sometimes think the new Spectre would have been better served-and more warmly welcomed-with a brand new character instead of an old and beloved one. Still, I LOVE writing the character; Hal's been one of my favourites since I was a kid, and I think his journey is fascinating and opens up many wonderful story possibilities in all corners of the DCU. And I am extremely pleased with the way the book's been evolving.
Just so long as you weren't one of the people sending Kevin Dooley death threats.
Also upcoming is your SPECTRE: SOUL WAR story. Will this be a Hardcover as well? Knowing the OLD Spectre character, I'd guess this would be about judgement upon the heroes, but with the new direction I'm curious as to where this will lead. Can you tell us a little about it?
SOUL WAR is a Spectre-JLA story about an alien invasion of Earth; but, unlike the invasions we usually see, this one isn't on the physical plane: it's on the level of human consciousness.
Character-wise, the story explains the often strained relationship between the Spectre and his former partners in the JLA, with a special focus on the Hal-Batman relationship.
And, yes, it's another 96 page hardcover. Daryl Banks is the artist.
Now, are you a big fan of adversity? I've noticed in works like SPECTRE and GREEN LANTERN: WILLWORLD that just upon a moment of achievement or understanding there will be some obstacle that pops up to shoot them down, making them to start all over again. To forcefully change their way of thinking. Is this part of a mischievous sense of humour or perhaps your own technique for a more entertaining story?
Well, no story's gonna work without adversity. There has to be SOMETHING for the protagonist to push against... even if it's just that his feet are swollen and he can't get his shoes on in the morning. But more than being a fan of adversity, I'm a fan of the human spirit that can re-perceive adversity as a gift. The ability to come up against something that seems awful beyond words and use it to unfold psychologically and spiritually into something absolutely joyful.
Considering your work on books like SPECTRE and the SUPERGIRL: WINGS GN, have you been doing much research in terms of religious views and the mythology of Heaven and Hell, God and the devil? I see classic archetypal projections, such as the image of a snake have been showing up.
My relationship with-for lack of a better phrase-the Spiritual Reality has been at the core of my life, the hub around which everything else in my life turns, since I was seventeen years old: I couldn't keep it out of my work if I tried. So I guess living life is the real research.
"When I was seventeen... it was a very good year..."
One of your recent one-shots SUPERMAN WHERE IS THY STING [excellent] dealt with, amongst other things, Superman dealing with survivors guilt. A very interesting take on the complexities of Kal-El's psyche, I was wondering if this action was inspired by any specific person/people?
I just know-from my own personal experience and observation of other people-that children take on whatever's around them. If they're in an abusive situation, a traumatic situation, that makes them feel lost and powerless, they create guilt, a sense of responsibility: "It's MY fault. I caused this to happen!" In a warped way, by taking on the responsibility they are giving themselves a sense of power. (If you caused this nightmare, you must be very powerful indeed.) It's a method of psychological survival. But, once you're out of the situation, it's an utterly useless method and we have to grow beyond it.
As for Superman, what excited me was the fact that no one had ever thought of this before. Survivor's guilt is a fairly common thing in traumatic events. It wasn't a huge leap to think of the sole survivor of a doomed planet sitting on a toxic waste-dump of guilt. And I think it worked very nicely in the story. It gave us a new angle on Superman's psyche.
Can you tell us a little about your upcoming KANSAS SIGHTING GN? "It was a weather balloon! I swear!"
I've been fascinated by the UFO phenomenon for some time... especially the work of researchers like Kenneth Ring and John Mack who look at the UFO experience from a perspective of altered states of consciousness.
A few years ago, I was working on a Superman story and got to wondering who, other than the Kents, saw a UFO the night Kal-El came to Earth? Maybe that sighting has become legend in UFO circles? And maybe that rocket from Krypton wasn't the first one Jor-El sent? (Would you just blast your son off to another world without sending a few probes first?) And what if Superman himself was abducted by entities that were far, far different than the usual comic book space visitors?
Anyway, those thoughts led to THE KANSAS SIGHTING. I'm writing the first issue now (it'll be two 64 pagers), Jamie Tolagson is illustrating it, and I think it's going to be terrific, providing us with another, very different, take on Superman. But don't expect till 2003!
In stores as of October 10th is also the aforementioned SUPERGIRL: WINGS one-shot. Following an angel that has lost her way in her mission of caring for human souls. Wanting to disassociate from humanity, she is taken down a road of self-discovery that ultimately brings her closer to one soul than any other, that of Linda Danvers. Now I'm unfamiliar with Supergirl, is she an angel as well, what exactly is going on there? Why did you choose Supergirl to headline this story, as opposed to say, Zauriel, Superman or Aquaman who also make appearances but not in the leading roles.
I chose Supergirl for a very simple reason: The editor asked me to do a Supergirl Elseworlds! I wasn't all that familiar with the current version of the character (although I later read quite a few issues and have to say I was very impressed with Peter David's work on the book) before tackling this project; but when the editor suggested a story in which Supergirl was a literal angel (as opposed to the quasi-angelic superhero she is in the monthly), I got very intrigued and signed on.
The good news is you don't have to know ANYTHING about Supergirl to pick up WINGS. It is a complete, stand-alone story that has nothing to do with current continuity. Yes, we get to play with the DCU and see familiar characters in unfamiliar roles (Batman shows up as Satan himself, Aquaman is the literal Lord of the Oceans)-but it's the kind of tale you can just pick up and read without being burdened by years of back-story. I just got my copies this week and I think the book is quite lovely. Jamie Tolagson's artwork is elegant and truly magical. (Which is why I grabbed him for THE KANSAS SIGHTING.)
Now you're a New York boy, I hope you're well. Hope you and your family are well. Were you far enough from the towers to be safe? Have you made plans to address the tragedy in your writing or your music anytime in the near future?
Although I grew up in New York (Brooklyn, to be precise) and have lived in Manhattan, I now live a hundred or so miles away from the City... but I still have friends and family there so the whole thing was fairly traumatic. As for addressing the tragedy in my writing, I've signed on to do a story for DC's benefit book and that provides a wonderful outlet for my thoughts and feelings. And I'm sure these events will colour everyone's work in the days and months ahead.
As a music man yourself, what have you been listening to lately?
As I write this it's John Lennon's birthday (October 9) and I'm listening to lots of Lennon's solo work, which remains some of my favorite music of all time. Other things I've been enjoying? I've been on a World Music kick this year and (among other things) I've been listening to Krishna Das, Lama Gyurme & Jean-Philippe Rykiel, Jai Uttal, Tulku. But I really like all kinds of music, from the Beatles to Radiohead to Sinatra to Prokoviev.
Also in the works is J.M.'s ABADAZAD, a sort of contemporary Oz piece, an original graphic novel specifically aimed at a younger audience.
What can you tell us about ABADAZAD? Have any confirmations been made yet? I know you're interested in doing comics centered towards the children market, but rather then the comics industry why not take your books directly to other book publishers such as Scholastic? Wouldn't you have a better chance of reaching a wider audience that way, or are you just adamant about making a children's comic work?
No, I'm not at all adamant about only doing these stories in comic book format. I've completed one manuscript for a short children's book which my agent now has... and I am not adverse to doing something like ABADAZAD (or the equivalent) as a novel. In fact, I'm going to have to because it means so much to me.
But, as I've said before, I do feel that it's important for the comic book business to get its collective head out of its collective butt and start doing material that is accessible to younger readers. And I think ABADAZAD would be perfect. Michael Lark has expressed interest in illustrating the story, Joey Cavaliere wants to edit it, and, at the moment, we're waiting for Michael to finish up a project. When he gets close, the "official" proposal will go in to the Powers That Be at DC. So we'll see.
What about cross-promoting. Doing the story as a cartoon or movie simultaneously as a comic series or children's book?
Yes, I have considered that. I am STILL considering that.
In SUPERMAN WHERE IS THY STING you wrote about the mind and how it's not simply confined to one's head.
"Every cell in our bodies resonates with memories... intelligence.
Every atom of our being holds clues to who and what we are."
Which reminded me of something I once scribbled down about how our molecules are windows into other dimensions. Do you subscribe to the theory of a universe within? Power within ones self is obvious, but creation?
I guess I'd say that we're not just a PART of the universe (or universes) but we quite literally ARE THE UNIVERSE. I recently took a six day Qi Healing workshop with a seventy-three year old Chinese Master and the way he began each meditation was by saying: "You are universe... universe is you." I don't believe that's metaphorical. I believe that's the literal truth. The difference, as Meher Baba once noted, is in the states of consciousness. What we are (or aren't) AWARE of. It's one thing to say you're the universe, another to be that statement. And live from that truth.
Other then all mentioned, plug section. Plug away for all and everything you want.
Nothing to plug, really. Although I always encourage people to go to amazon.com's music section and buy lots and lots of copies of my CD, "How Many Lifetimes?".
Thanks to J.M. for taking the time to talk with us, and special thanks to J.M. for being an ever interesting interviewee.
For those who haven't yet discovered SPECTRE, keep your eyes open for a nice jumping on point in the months ahead. December's issue [#12] will be apart of DC's FULL COVERAGE month wherein the majority of it's titles will be tailored as entry point issues for new readers, all featuring specialty designed cover art. It's also a Christmas story, or as the solicitation reads:
"The Spectre of Christmas." The Phantom Stranger! Santa! Charles Dickens! Guest stars don't get any bigger than this. Our own friendly ghost joins in the ultimate team-up, as Hal Jordan takes on an evil Scrooge hell-bent on the destruction of Christmas, and ultimately, the hopes and dreams of all humanity. The Spectre must face demonic gargoyles and a blood-thirsty Victorian mob in order to save the world from an encroaching storm of darkness and despair!
And in January look for Ryan Sook's last issue with SPECTRE 13. A prose issue with detailed illustrations, which should be worth picking up for those reasons alone. Then in the following months, Craig Hamilton fills in, followed by a story arc featuring the work of Norm Breyfogle. So check it out, or if you're looking for a good self-contained story be sure to pick up the SUPERMAN: WHERE IS THY STING [featuring the best artwork Liam Sharp has done for years] and SUPERGIRL: WINGS prestige format one-shots, in stores now.
Jonathan Ellis is Interviews Editor for PopImage.
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DC Comics.com - DC Comics Online..
FEATURE: The Will Behind WILLWORLD - Seth Fisher explains his artistic process regarding the GREEN LANTERN: WILLWORLD HC.
J.M. DeMatteis INTERVIEW - Read the J.M. DeMatteis interview from January 2001
E-mail Us. - Send us an e-mail, commenting on this article.
FIRST IMPRESSIONS
All reviews this time by Brian Domingos (BD) and Matt Singer (MS).
FELON #1
Writer: Greg Rucka
Pencils: Matthew Clark
Inks: Ray Snyder
Eight Issue Mini. Minotaur/Top Cow/Image 2001
$2.95
FELON is the second release from Top Cow’s new Minotaur imprint and follows the newly released Cassiday, out of prison and going after what is owed to her. She’s a con woman of obvious skill and Rucka does a great job of showing us this. My beef with FELON is that it stinks of a Top Cow book. The art work, while tightly following Rucka’s pacing seems very ‘1997’ in its composition. The storytelling is sloppy at times, leaving you with indiscernible panels at times. The colouring doesn’t help too much either as it carries the TC ‘House’ tinge to it. It’s earthy and muddy and draws a very heavy feel to it. I doubt I’d pick up another issue, but it might work for HardCore fans of Rucka’s crime work. (BD)
FOUR WOMEN #1
Writer/Artist: Sam Kieth
Additional Inks: Jim Sinclair
Five issue miniseries Homage/Wildstorm/DC 2001
$2.95
I’ve never really been a fan of Sam Keith’s work, but I usually find him interesting enough to at least give everything a shot. FOUR WOMEN is his most recent work since last year’s ZERO GIRL, also published by Wildstorm. FW follows, you guessed it, Four Women on the way to a reception and is narrated by one of the Women, Donna, as she explains the story to a now-anonymous outside person. The story is mostly the women sharing stories and talking in the car ride as they head to their predetermined destination. The thing is, though, it’s really quite boring. I actually put the book down a few times only to come back to it later because I couldn’t take it in one sitting. I had a lot of trouble getting into the characters. The issue ends with a horrific tragedy framed with panicked dialogue and subtle artwork. I just didn’t care terribly much. (BD)
NOBLE CAUSES #1
Writer: Jay Faerber
Penciler: Billy Dallas Patton (I), Patrick Gleason (II)
Inker: Damon Hacker (I), John Wycough (II)
One-Shot
Image 2001
$2.95
Jay Faerber has finally made his way into the realm of creator-owned books with NOBLE CAUSES, a soap opera-esque book about a dysfunctional family of super-heroes immersed in the public eye. I respect Jay as a creator for his integrity and professionalism, and I generally enjoy his work so I thought I’d give him the much deserved shot. The script comes across as a bit trite at times, but he’s doing something new and finding his niche. He’s taken a big step and one in the right direction. The book is structured in two different parts; one with the main story and the second with a small back story that fills in obvious blanks. The characters are pretty straightforward and the artwork is cartoony with a tinge of flash to it. As the series progresses this could turn into a top-notch book. I’m enjoying it so far. (BD)
JOKER: THE LAST LAUGH #1
Writers: Chuck Dixon and Scotty Beatty
Penciler: Pete Woods
Inker: Andrew Pepoy
DC Comics
$2.95
There's been a lot of flack about this crossover around the internet; frankly, I've never been so into comics that I cared enough. I bought the first issue to check it out and my purchasing it or any other will be based on its quality. As much as I've enjoyed Joker in movies and a few comics (THE KILLING JOKEis essential reading for any comic fan in my opinion); I'm not a huge fan. So convincing me to read a mini series about a near-death Joker who is looking to go out with a bang is an uphill battle. Writers Dixon and Beatty are still a long way from the top with me.
While there is a nice B-plot with Nightwing and Oracle on a well-scripted date, the actual story of Joker turning everyone else into joker-type people really doesn't enthuse me. Pete Wood's art is nice for the regular humans, but not nearly menacing enough for the Joker - a character I've found best depicted as a mix of cartoonish elements and horrific undertones. But cover artist Brian Bolland has it down; this story would have benefited from his work in the interior art. All in all, there isn't much to get worked up here one way or another. And I'm not going to buy issue two. (MS)
ICEMAN: ICONS #1
Writers: Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning
Aritst: Karl Kerschl
Marvel Comics
$2.50
Iceman's a interesting character to me; one I found myself a fan of for no reason I can place. Puns about his coolness aside, he's usually a well-written minor character; plenty of funny lines, but not much to him when you get down to it. I suppose this comic, if it has a purpose besides just selling more books to X-MEN fans, is to add some substance to the character.
Interestingly, we find this character already with more background than I realized; this issue follows Iceman's trip to Hong Kong to visit a son he's fathered with a woman there. I must admit this is far from anything I would have expected for an Iceman mini, and the end result is fairly satisfying. Still, the book follows the rather unpleasant recent trend of starting mini-series with an issue that sets up everything, with little of anything aside from exposition, then throws the reader an exciting last page to get you to buy the next issue. Yeah, it makes you want to read issue two, but I paid money to get a good story now, not in a month. So while I am intrigued by the last page of ICEMAN, I wish that the rest of the pages had had that much energy to them.
I did enjoy the art by Karl Kerschl, whose work I am unfamiliar with. His slightly manga-influenced style (jeez, is every artist right now "slightly manga influenced?") works well with the book's tone and is well complimented by a clear and clean coloring style. (MS)
DOOM PATROL #1
Writer: John Arcudi
Artist: Tan Eng Huat
DC Comics
$2.50
The cover of DOOM PATROL #1 volume whatever (three at least, I think) is a close-up of good old Robotman with a disgusted look on his face, the reflections of the rest of a new team shining on his forehead. A thought bubble reads, "We're doomed." Prophetic words indeed. I don't know how long this book can last in this state.
While I've read and admired Grant Morrison's early run on the book (collected in the trade CRAWLING FROM THE WRECKAGE), I've never been so attached to it that I couldn't imagine reading and enjoying a new version of the team. And John Arcudi is a writer whose work has really worked for me on a few occasions. Here, we get a new team, including old Cliff Steele, who wind up together after a few twists of fate. Along the way there is humor (none of it as funny as any issue of BARRY WEEN for example), and a little bit of rather lame super-hero action. I don't quite know what I was wanting out of this book, other than to be reasonably entertained. And I was not. It all felt rather tame and weak. I have little invested in these new characters, and there was little reason given why I should start caring about them. Art by newcomer Tan Eng Huat is not particularly exciting, but it does match the tone of the book well. If this book is to survive, I think it needs to get bigger and smarter, and give us a reason why we should care about these goofy characters who aren't all that funny. (MS)
FIRST IMPRESSIONS runs every other week at PopImage.com. All artwork copyright it's respective owners and creators, used for purposes of review.
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INTERVIEW: MARC BRYANT AND MAL JONES
Conducted by Christopher Butcher
Local boys make big, come on the scene with new Original Graphic Novel.
I think the most important thing, about my interview with freshman creators Marc Bryant and Malcolm 'Mal' Jones is that Marc was late getting there. It's true. Mal, in his dorm room at art school, apologized for him twice before he showed up too. Where was Marc, you might ask? Out at the movies, with his wife. And to me, that really is the most important thing about the interview. Marc and Mal have lives, interests, and influences outside of the comics industry. It's that freshness that's so readily apparent in their new graphic novel, OVERTIME. They're comic fans, sure. But Malcolm draws from a wide variety of artistic influences, from classical to commercial. And despite having read maybe ten different stories that Marc has written, not one even flirted with superheroes. They're two very unique, very fresh voices, and OVERTIME is bound to be a very auspicious debut. I'm proud to bring you this interview with two friends and to show you how two PopImage kids made good.
POPIMAGE: First off, please introduce yourselves.
Marc Bryant: I'm Marc Bryant, writer and co-creator of OVERTIME.
Mal Jones: I'm Mal Jones, artist on OVERTIME
Marc Bryant: …and co-creator.
Mal Jones: …and co-creator!
Marc Bryant: Damn straight
POPIMAGE: That's interesting that you credit Malcolm with co-creation. Originally, you had started OVERTIME with a different artist hadn't you Marc?
Marc Bryant: Yeah, a very talented guy named Sherard Jackson. He did some of the design with me, when it was still an illustrated prose story at OPI8. Now, though, its gone through so many changes, it's as much Mal's show as it is mine. With Sherard's blessing, I might add.
Mal Jones: Sherard's stuff is so lovely.
POPIMAGE: Mal, how was it for you coming into a project which had begun with a separate artist?
Mal Jones: I had no problem with it, honestly. By the time Marc and I started working together on Overtime, we had already worked together on a few shorts (Afterbirth at NextComics and Date Night which will be in Cyberosia's Revolving Hammer). So we were vibing really well and Overtime had moved from prose to sequential art and was really becoming a new beast.
Marc Bryant: Mal took to it like a fish to water. He really knew what the story needed from day one.
POPIMAGE: Tell the nice readers a little bit about how you work together. Is it full script to artwork, or a little bit of give and take?
Marc Bryant: That's part of the miracle of the internet-we both chat a LOT during the day, so I'd send bits and pieces of what some people might call 'full scripts' then we'd riff on that until we had a scene or page that we were both pleased with. I can't believe I just said 'miracle of the internet'.
Mal Jones: Yeah, Marc sends me bits and I doodle out lay outs, send them to him, he adapts the scripts, I adapt my pages. It was an evolutionary style of creation.
Marc Bryant: At this point, between what we've done, and what we're working on, we have our own little 'virtual studio'.
Mal Jones: I would say Marc and I talked for at LEAST an hour a day during Overtime's creation. It was always changing and shifting. I have piles of unused pages and sketches.
Marc Bryant: At least an hour. Usually a lot more.
POPIMAGE: Mal, you've got a really unique graphic style. Was it a challenge adapting to what Marc was looking for on Overtime?
Marc Bryant: Hahaha…
Mal Jones: Hahaha… DAMN CROWD SCENES!
Marc Bryant: See, you're getting ahead of yourself again. :-)
Mal Jones: Honestly? Yes, it was hard. Overtime was my first "major" project. It had scenes where I had to draw 100's of people. Scenes where I had to evoke mood and tone in just a few panels of talking heads. Marc was INCREDIBLY patient with me. I was truly learning on the job.
Marc Bryant: And I'm pretty 'hands off' with artists in most cases. I left him to his own devices a LOT, which may have actually been frustrating for him at times.
POPIMAGE: Marc, this will be your first big project too, won't it?
Marc Bryant: Yes. By a long shot. Not the first feature length story I've written, but the first published.
POPIMAGE: Any sense of nervousness involved in the project for either of you? This is your first shot at really putting yourself out there, one would imagine it would be a little frightening.
Marc Bryant: Not as much nervousness as I would think. I was much more nervous pitching the book, than I am seeing it published. I always figured that would be the other way around.
Mal Jones: I feel the same as Marc. I mean, it's going out there in to the world like it should. It's not a story that is meant to be hidden away in the corners of closets. It should be in shelves, in homes. That's why we made it. It's just going out to where it belongs.
POPIMAGE: So what WAS the pitch process like, guys? Long and involved, and how did you end up with Cyberosia?
Marc Bryant: I met Scott Brown, ironically enough, when I was an editor at...Pop Image! We kept in touch, and met at the SDCC in 2000. He became interested in OT when it was still at opi8. When Mal and I hooked up after Sherard moved on to other projects, Scott and Kristen REALLY got interested in it. We pitched it at San Diego this past summer and now we're just a few months from seeing it published. The pitch process was relatively painless. Cyberosia know exactly what they're looking for in a book, and part of what they want is a book that is very true to the creators' vision.
Mal Jones: Painless?? The suspense was KILLING me! I'm so impatient
Marc Bryant: Well, you're young yet… You don't know long pitch process yet junior ;-)
Mal Jones: For me the pitch process was just part of the natural progress so you could say it took 8 months to pitch the book if you wanted. Marc and I hooked up in January, got to work, finished the book in the summer, pitched it at San Diego, and bam... one year after we started we will have a book in our hands.
Marc Bryant: Pretty good turnover rate for an OGN, even a shorter one, in this day and age I'd say.
POPIMAGE: Recently there was a post at the WEF where a creator was discouraged about pitching his project, as it didn't seem to be what the industry wanted. Yours is a science-fiction, original graphic novel. Not exactly a genre or form that's setting the world on fire. Was that a concern?
Mal Jones: Hell no. A story is a story. At least from my point of view :-)
Marc Bryant: I have to agree, and really, OT is a crime comic, disguised as a sci-fi piece. We've really tried to present it as such to. As far it being an OGN, I think people like AiT/PlanetLar and Top Shelf are seeing to it that OGN's DO start a fire. At least a small one.
Mal Jones: OGN's are such a great format. They look nice on bookshelves, stand up to time better then floppies. And OT's sci-fi elements are simply a setting for it to be a good crime story, akin to the type of thing one would see on Law and Order or Homicide. So the genre worries were pretty much non-existent to me.
POPIMAGE: Can you discuss some of your individual influences? Was there anything that specifically influenced this project?
Marc Bryant: The work of people like Brian Bendis and Ed Brubaker has had a big influence on the mystery aspect of the story, at least from my perspective. I'm a big fan of shows like Homicide as well. Originally, years ago when I had the idea, it was like a road story/romance set in the present day – except for the fact that everyone was immortal, it was a bit of a slice of life type thing. That idea didn't really have legs on it.
Mal Jones: I still like that idea.
Marc Bryant: Though, and little by little, it evolved into what it is now. I honestly don't remember WHAT my influences were at the start.
Mal Jones: My influences range from Monet and Manet, the impressionist school of painting, to Dave McKean and Bill Sienkiewicz.
POPIMAGE: Were there any significant changes made to the story between it's inception at OPI8 and the Original Graphic Novel coming in January?
Mal Jones: Yeah, Marc had to deal with my fine art lovin' artistic stylin'! :-)
Marc Bryant: Not really. I was in the process of writing it, as it 'aired' at OPI8. There were a couple changes (as far as the opening), and I made significant changes to Cafferty's character, but otherwise we finished up with the story I set out to tell.
POPIMAGE: You didn't find any difference between telling the story as illustrated prose and comic format?
Marc Bryant: Well, I haven't really written much prose, but that's what Chad wanted, so I was adapting my scripting style to prose from the beginning. The transition was very smooth.
POPIMAGE: Okay. I asked this question of Warren Ellis, and I'm asking it of you. What's more important to you, creating, or creating comics?
Marc Bryant: Ultimately, its creating. But if I have my say, comics will always be where I do the most work.
Mal Jones: Creating. To me creating is essential to my life. If it is in comics, then that's awesome. If I'm creating websites, awesome. If I'm making paintings, awesome. However, that said, comics as a form is intriguing and such a challenge that I don't think I'll ever not be trying to work in them.
POPIMAGE: Marc, what's the allure of comics to you?
Marc Bryant: I really did learn to read on comics. Its so hard to say what it is that attracts me to the art form, other than sentimentality. But it is such a fresh medium, and the possibilities are endless. Its been said time and again that you have a limitless special effects budget doing comics, and that's so true. You have a better shot of getting your own ideas in front of an audience, however small, than in any other medium really. I love comics. What else can I say?
POPIMAGE: You've mentioned that you worked very closely on the net, chatting back and forth. A lot of creative teams find the internet an obstacle in their communication, difficult to really feel out the other partner. Did any of these problems plague you?
Marc Bryant: In no way whatsoever. This book couldn't have been done without the internet. Its how we met, it's how we worked together, and it played a huge part in selling the book to Cyberosia.
Mal Jones: Nah, not that I've noticed. I mean, Marc may be sitting in his castle in the backwoods of Tennessee with a shotgun for all I know ready to blow my head off for what I did to his book. But that's the price of the internet, right? Seriously, no. Without the internet, OVERTIME would not exist at all.
POPIMAGE: How DID you hook up anyway? I don't think you mentioned how Mal came to be working on the project.
Mal Jones: I honestly have no idea how we hooked up.
Marc Bryant: The best I can recall, we met in the WEF chat one night, started talking, and then exchanged AIM screen names. The whole thing went from there. We knew each other's names from the WEF anyway.
Mal Jones: It was definitely through the Warren Ellis Forum, yeah. We did Date Night and then Afterbirth, and just putzed around with a couple of projects, and suddenly we started talking about Overtime and it just came together.
POPIMAGE: What have you got coming up? Anything you can discuss?
Marc Bryant: We have a short story, DATE NIGHT, in the upcoming anthology from CYBEROSIA, REVOLVING HAMMER. I have an article in the PopImage collection from Cyberosia. I also have a short strip in the works for NextComics, a couple of projects with Mike Norton, of THE WAITING PLACE fame, and Mal and I are already starting on another OGN. The working title is HAIL SUSAN.
Mal Jones: Well, as a pair we have Date Night, a short in Cyberosia's REVOLVING HAMMER, and I did the art for another short called MOMENT OF SILENCE written by Scott O. Brown that will be in it as well. Other than that I have some things that I'm writing and drawing myself that aren't worth mentioning more then that, and HAIL SUSAN with Marc. All that plus graduating from the University of Maryland means I've got a full plate.
POPIMAGE: Speaking of OGN's, why was it important to you that OVERTIME be in this format?
Marc Bryant: The main reason for me, was for it to have more appeal to non-comics readers, and to give a longer shelf life than if it was a serialized miniseries.
Mal Jones: As a fast paced crime story, it has this pacing, this structure, that just works as one solid read. The OGN is also viewed in a COMPLETELY different light by non comic readers.
POPIMAGE: What have you read recently that's really turned your crank?
Mal Jones: Well sitting on my desk right now is NON #5 from Highwater Books, SLOW JAMS from David Choe, ELEKTRA: ASSASSIN, and the DEADENDERS trade paperback.
Marc Bryant: I've gotten into a lot more 'indie' comics lately-PISTOLWHIP and MEPHISTO and the EMPTY BOX kicked my homesick ass. I also really liked Brian Ralph's CAVE-IN and Scott Mills' BIG CLAY POT. I'm also loving everything by Brian Azzarello, most of Bendis' work, COUSCOUS EXPRESS, and, surprise surprise the whole CROSSGEN line.
Mal Jones: Indie books eh, Marc? You've been hanging with me too much.
Marc Bryant: Please, I was reading comics when you were an itch in your daddy's rosy palm.
POPIMAGE: Crossgen, really? What do you like about it?
Mal Jones: I always enjoy the WAITING PLACE, the AiT/PlanetLAR series... my tastes are VERY wide so it's hard to really pick what I like a lot. Plus I haven't gotten new books in ages, so...
Marc Bryant: I like the fact that the CG books are first and foremost about the STORY, not the creators, not a franchise, not the company. About telling a good story. And the production values are top notch.
POPIMAGE: Interesting. OVERTIME is sci-fi/crime. What kinds of genres are you interested in working in? Anything in particular?
Mal Jones: Quirky Slice of Life. Anything really. EXCEPT superheroes.... at least not ones that wear tights. It's not that I'm this big ANTI superhero guy... I just don't enjoy drawing the damn things.
Marc Bryant: Right now, I'm leaning towards stories that fall outside of your usual genres. I'm interested in stuff like the Cohen Brothers do, or Wes (RUSHMORE) Anderson. Quirky, funny character stories, with a lot of suspense, and a lot of heart. Though I'm not above the occasional car chase. ;-)
POPIMAGE: Hypothetical: Marvel Comics comes to you tomorrow and asks you if you're interested in working with them. What would the answer be?
Mal Jones: Sure, why not, right? Marvel, no matter what anyone says about them, is a beast in the world of Comic Making. If they were willing to let me loose on one of their properties I would be too curious to say no.
Marc Bryant: My answer would be a resounding yes. The Marvel characters mean a lot to me, on a sentimental level, and I couldn't pass up my shot to make my mark on them, however insignificant. Plus, doing a Marvel book would put my name out there and help me build a following in a way most independent projects never could. If I could bring 20,000 people to something like OVERTIME by writing SPIDER-MAN, I would in a second.
Mal Jones: Of course, I'm going to do my best to bring 20,000 people to Overtime anyway, of course. I mean, come on, Jim Mahfood is doing the Fantastic Four! That's just smooth …
POPIMAGE: What do you think is the most important challenge facing the industry today?
Marc Bryant: Getting new readers, which ideally means creating books that can hold their own against other mediums, and creating the means to promote those books.
Mal Jones: The perception the "mainstream" has upon on comics. I mean, that's the problem right there... the fact that I have to refer to those that don't read comics as the mainstream. Comics are making headway in that area, but they still have a long way to go I think.
Marc Bryant: Can I add here, that Mal and I like working together so much, that we've formed an official partnership? It's called Overtime Comics, naturally enough, and we'll be launching the site soon. We intend to always be working on something. It's not a publishing venture, but its a creative partnership, that will inform and support everything we do creatively-together, separately, or with other creators.
POPIMAGE: What would be your dream project?
Marc Bryant: My dream project would be a feature length graphic novel, something like FROM HELL, published and distributed in the mainstream book trade, in hardcover and in color. Owned by myself and my collaborator of course.
Mal Jones: I don't have one, honestly. Any project that forces me to learn and adapt and grow as an artist is a "dream" to me. I'm not in comics for the money, heh. I'm in it for the craft.
PopImage would like to thank Marc and Mal for consenting to this interview. Just a reminder to check out their comparitively inexpensive Original Graphic Novel OVERTIME in January. For more on the series, please visit http://www.overtimecomics.com or the publisher's website at http://www.cyberosia.com .
Christopher Butcher is Assistant Editor of PopImage.
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STARVED FOR ATTENTION: THE GREAT PUMPKIN RETURNS
by Zack Smith
FADE IN: EXT.PUMPKIN PATCH - HALLOWEEN NIGHT
SALLY
I can't BELIEVE you're doing this AGAIN!
LINUS
Quiet, Sally! You'll scare away the
Great Pumpkin!
SALLY
"The Great Pumpkin." "The Great
Pumpkin." There IS no Great Pumpkin!
It's just some strange ritual you go
through every year that oddly resembles a
subtle indictment of organized religion!
LINUS
NO! There IS a Great Pumpkin! And he's
going to fly forth from the pumpkin patch
and give toys to all the good little
children...with a little help from me!
SALLY
What do you mean? And what's with that
weird book you're holding, the "Nee-Kro
Mon-I-Khan"...?
LINUS
I found it on Amazon.com! According to
the site, it can summon forth ALL the
spirits of Halloween! Um, do you have
any goat's blood on you...?
SALLY
Ask Lucy.
LINUS
Oh, it'll probably work without it...now
to read the spell..."Dark forces beyond
the veil of reality...wizened spirits of
Astograth...executives of the NBC
television network...summon forth the
black-hearted spirit of All Hallow's Eve,
and let him give me candy and toys!"
(pause)
I added that last part myself.
SALLY
Look!
The sky SPLITS OPEN! Ancient spirits scream the SCREAMS OF
THE DAMNED! "Inside Schwartz" actually becomes WATCHABLE!
And from the sky comes...
LINUS
It's him! It's finally him! It's the
Great Pumpkin!
SALLY
I don't believe it! You were RIGHT!
GREAT PUMPKIN
HA HA HA! AFTER THESE COUNTLESS
MILLENNIA, THE DARK LORD SAMHAIN IS FREE
AT LAST!
LINUS
Great Pumpkin! Down here! I never gave
up on you! Could I have some Jolly
Ranchers?
GREAT PUMPKIN
FOOLISH BLANKETED MORTAL! DO YOU
COMPREHEND THE AWESOME POWERS YOU HAVE
UNLEASHED THIS NIGHT OF INFINITE TERROR?
LINUS
Um...what about a Snickers?
FHWOOOM! The Pumpkin INCINERATES Linus with a blast of
FLAME!
SALLY
AAAAAHHHH!
GREAT PUMPKIN
I GROW WEARY OF YOU IRRITATING YET ODDLY
PRECOCIOUS MORTALS! I SHALL FIND OTHER
REALMS IN WHICH TO WREAK HAVOC!
INT.FAMILY CIRCUS - DAY
PRIEST
So why did you call me, Mr. Keane?
DAD
I think...I think my daughter may be
possessed.
PRIEST
What makes you say that?
BLAAAAARG! A wave of GREEN PUKE is hurled on them!
PRIEST
AAAAAAAAHHHHHH! Who did that?!
DOLLY
(tied to a bed; giggling
insanely)
Not Me...Not Me...Not Me...
DAD
Dolly! Put down that crucifix NOW!
INT.DILBERT - DAY
DILBERT
(roaming the office halls with
a shotgun)
Heh heh heh...need more toner...need more
toner....
POINTY-HAIRED BOSS
Dilbert! Stop that! Lunch break was
over ten minutes ago! You can shoot
people when you're OFF the clock!
INT.LITTLE NEMO IN SLUMBERLAND - DAY
LITTLE NEMO
Oh! Um! What a funny dream I had! I
dreamt that there was a horribly burned
child-molester with razor fingers coming
after...AAAAHHHH!
FREDDY KRUEGER
Sweet dreams, kiddie. Hey, wasn't this
strip cancelled like a hundred years ago?
INT.FUNKY WINKERBEAN - DAY
LES
Oh no! I'm being EVICTED!
LISA
Oh no! I have CANCER! Again!
FUNKY
Oh no! I'm about to fall off the WAGON!
DAMN YOU GREAT PUMPKIN!!!
GREAT PUMPKIN
ACTUALLY, I HAVEN'T DONE ANYTHING TO YOU.
YOUR STRIP IS ALWAYS THIS DEPRESSING.
FUNKY
Oh, right. Got any Scotch?
INT.PEANUTS - DAY
CHARLIEBROWN and the GANG are TRICK-OR-TREATING!
CHARLIE BROWN
Why do people always give me nothing but
rocks?! I mean, I'm wearing a COSTUME!
Do they just automatically hate me for no
rational reason?
LUCY
Your life is so oddly existental.
SuddenlySALLY runs up!
SALLY
HELP! HELP! IT'S THE GREAT PUMPKIN!
LUCY
Good grief. Not this again.
CHARLIE BROWN
Sally, there's no such--
GREAT PUMPKIN
HA HA! DIE, PREMATURELY BALD MORTAL!
ZAPPPPP!!!! A BLAST knocks the Pumpkin away from the Peanuts
gang!
CHARLIE BROWN
Who did that?
JASON FOX
Oh, hey there. I'm Jason from "Fox
Trot." My prodigious supergenius has
enabled me to construct anti-pumpkin
weaponry to take down this demonic force!
LUCY
You know, this sort of thing never
happened to Calvin and Hobbes.
JASON FOX
Bad news though -- I can't hold the
Pumpkin off forever! If we're going to
take him out, we need to put out the
magic candle inside his pumpkin-head! If
only we had something we could kick up
there, like a football...
Everyonelooks at Charlie Brown.
CHARLIE BROWN
Ohhhhhhh no!
JASON FOX
Come on!
CHARLIE BROWN
(sighs)
Look, I'll kick it...but Lucy, you're
going to have to hold it still this time!
The fate of the world is in the balance!
You CANNOT pull away the football!
LUCY
Charlie Brown! Of COURSE I'm not going
to pull it away! Don't be such a
blockhead! Now go on and kick it!
Sheputs the football down...Charlie Brown gears up, runs...
GREAT PUMPKIN
HA HA HA! I WILL DESTROY YOU ALL!
CHARLIE BROWN
(to himself)
Okay, this is it...got to do this...can't
miss...can't miss...
INT.FLAMING PITS OF TARTARUS - FIVE MINUTES LATER
SCHRODER
Lucy, you couldn't let him kick the
stupid ball just ONCE?
LUCY
Okay, I'm just going to admit it -- I
think I have a problem.
CHARLIE BROWN
WOW! This place is GREAT! For once, I
don't have to worry about being rejected
by the little red-haired girl, losing
baseball games, getting a kite stuck in a
tree or everything else in my life going
wrong, because I KNOW it will! I'm...I'm
HOME!
SALLY
Good grief.
FADEOUT.
THE END.
ZACK SMITH (zacharymsmith@hotmail.com) would like to wish everyone a happy Halloween! And special thanks to Kelley Jones for the Pumpkin art! Go read THE CRUSADES, which is a hella-creepy book, and one you should be reading! And extra special thanks to Marc McKenzie for that sweet coloring job! YAY MARC!
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INTERVIEW: ANN NOCENTI
Conducted by Dan Coyle
One comic I will always remember having a huge impact on me is DAREDEVIL #250, "Boom." I can even recall the place where I bought it- the Plymouth Meeting Mall, and the comic I bought it with- TRANSFORMERS #36 (that godawful "Spacehikers" story, and Jose Delbo's first issue- but that's another story). Sure, it had Daredevil battling a supervillain, Bullet, but this was no simple hero-fights-a-new-bad-guy story. Bullet wasn't just a criminal, he was a government agent out to discredit environmentalists to help a chemical company win a lawsuit. Matt Murdock was trying to keep a law clinic together while working for the plaintiff on the same lawsuit. Plus, there was the story of Bullet's son, a kid obsessed with nuclear war.
"Boom" may be best known as penciler John Romita Jr.'s first issue, but to me, it was something different. And I never forgot who wrote that story: Ann Nocenti.
Starting out in Marvel Editorial in the 80's, Nocenti has to her credit a wide range of diverse titles such as MARVEL COMICS PRESENTS, KID ETERNITY, WOLVERINE, SPIDER-MAN, SPIDER-WOMAN, and the graphic novel collaboration with artist John Bolton: SOMEPLACE STRANGE. But Ann is probably best known for her four-year run on the man without fear: DAREDEVIL. She also co-created two of the most offbeat characters in Marvel history, Longshot and Typhoid Mary.
Ms. Nocenti has spent the past few years outside of the comics field, and is currently editor of Scenario: The Magazine of Screenwriting Art. I recently contacted her for an brief interview; I'd like to extend my deepest thanks to Ms. Nocenti for taking the time to speak with us.
Okay, how did you "break in" to comics?
I saw an ad in the back of the Village Voice for an assistant editorial position, and when I called up, the woman wouldn't tell me what exactly the company published. Natch, I assumed that meant it must be a porn joint. At the time I was fresh out of college with a worthless fine arts degree, and was slinging cocktails at some jazz club in the city... so I wasn't exactly qualified for anything much anyway. But I had just read a Henry Miller trilogy, the one that opens something like: "33 years old, age of Christ crucified, a failure in every sense of the word" and somewhere in there Miller is looking for a job, has no qualifications, and is intimidated by NYC's tall steel towers. But one day he impulsively enters a skyscraper, takes the elevator to the top, talks a blue streak of lies to some exec in a penthouse, and (almost) gets a job. So, thinking of Miller's chutzpah, I figured what the hell, see if you can bullshit your way into a job, even if it's just writing porn. When I got to the address, the first thing I saw a giant Captain America cutout. I'd never read a super-hero comic, wasn't really sure what they were let alone know they were a rich and complex art form, but I knew I wanted to work in an office with a giant cutout like that.
So, remembering the passage in the Henry Miller book, I went into the big executive's office and talked a blue streak of lies, invoking Nietzsche, McLuhan, Warhol, and anyone else I could think of that toyed with superhumans, pop art, or visual linguistics. On the way out a very nice woman named Virginia Romita said to me: "You don't smoke, do you?" So, adding one more lie to the pile, I said no. (Winstons, pack a day). I never thought I'd hear from them, figuring my bullshit was transparent as glaze on a donut, but Jim Shooter (who interviewed me) called the next day and hired me. Who knows why, maybe he thought bullshit was the best qualification to write comic books. So, I quit smoking and hustling cocktails, and began working for Marvel Comics.
And, ironically, it was sort of a porn joint. (Only kidding)
"Cripes, man! Hookers reading bibles!
I don't want to live in this New World..."
You started out at Marvel editorial in the 80's- what was that environment like, during Jim Shooter's "legendary" reign?
Life under Shooter's reign was like life in any benevolent dictatorship. At least he had a vision and was passionate about it, and underneath him the suppressed masses had fun in their insurgency meetings, and eventual revolt that overthrew the despot. Think Castro's Cuba -the guy's been espousing free elections for what, 40 years? But damned if he'll ever allow one.
Shooter loved comics, understood them pretty well, and the basic structural storytelling principles he imposed on them were very sound, but he was so damn maniacal about imposing them he forgot, in the process, that great individual artists and storytellers rise out of breaking the form, breaking the rules in interesting ways. So, principled as he was, he failed in that he tried to force his theories on very creative people in a dogmatic, dictatorial way. It reached a point, just before his fall, when you can pick up ANY Marvel comic of that year and find the "can't/must" panel, the one he inserted into every comic, the point at which the hero pauses to say, "I can't (fill in the blank) but I must (fill in the blank). 
Shooter thought this would add instant conflict to every comic produced, but those imposed panels are just tumorous growths in otherwise healthy, unconflicted stories. But, that said, he was often very brave... I remember I wanted Bill Sienkiewicz to do a series of "experimental" painted covers on the NEW MUTANTS, and he supported me on that, and in many other things I wanted to try. Anyway, since the staff was unified in their anger at his bully methods when it came to story, many days at the office were a kind of fun complicity of rebellion.
The place was packed with creative editors: Mark Gruenwald, Louise Jones, Mike Carlin, Al Milgrom, Archie Goodwin, Larry Hama, Ralph Macchio, and many others, most of them witty cut-ups and pranksters that keep the office a very lively place. Plus, Steve Ditko, Bill Sienkiewicz, Walt Simonson, etc. etc... All these guys would visit and tell wacky stories and you could basically get through the day without working too hard. Anyway, it was a fun era (until it wasn't) and even though, during the years I was the editor of the X-MEN and all the "mutant" books, Shooter and I fought like hell, I always respected the guy for his passion for comics. And, as it turned out, the dullsville regime that replaced him makes him look practically open-minded in comparison...
Your first comic work, as I understand it, was a rather bizarre four issue run on Spider-Woman ending in the heroine's death. What was that like, having your first ongoing assignment leading to you killing your lead character off?
It was a wacky bit of fun, but I was too new to the game to understand that killing off beloved characters is a rotten thing to do. Looking back, I guess I was hoodwinked. I think Mark Gruenwald, who was the editor of the book, might have had some kind of personal agenda going on there, but I don't what, really. Maybe I don't want to know? Well, I was glad he gave me the work, and I had fun working with him, he was a very creative guy.
Actually, that wasn't my first job, my first comic work came from Denny O'Neil. He asked me to write a story for his BIZARRE ADVENTURES mag, and I think I wrote about a guy who "chased the bitch," as they say, chased lady luck too hard in the casinos. He beat the odds, but I can't remember how it ended for him, badly I think.
Longshot- where did this guy COME from? Reading the original miniseries, it seems at first he's coming from traditional fantasy roots but later on it becomes apparent he's from something entirely different- Mojoworld, 57 channels and nothing on. Did the character evolve as you were writing him?
I don't really know the answer to that one. I never read much fantasy or sci-fi, so he didn't come from there. I think I had some kind of muddled existential idea, that the Mojoworld was a funhouse version of our own media-obsessed world, Mojo produced completely manipulated beings, drenched in the tepid lukewarm bath of "culture", and Longshot stood outside that as a blank slate that had to create himself. Like, what is a human being if you could remove him from his world? Or something like that.
I don't think any of it was very planned or conscious, I just started at page one and had fun. I do remember when I came up with the glowing eye thing. It came from a one-eyed cat I was living with at the time, and how the one eye would glint in the dark at night. I thought that was so cool and eerie, I gave it to Longshot. I remember the editors I pitched it to (Carl Potts and Louise Jones), who were just amazing, very supportive of the whole project, but Carl was like, what do you mean, his eye glows? How can that be drawn? Why does it glow? Louise Jones was more like, who cares what it means, it's cool. But it worked out in the end, since Art Adams drew it so well, no one questioned it. And it seems to have caught on, 'cause years later there were dozens of characters with one eye glowing. I do know that Longshot's odd charm and innocence came from Art Adams... from the way he interpreted and drew him. Even though the writer does all the groundwork for a new character, they really don't come alive until they're drawn, so your question about did the character evolve, the answer is yes, most strongly influenced by Art. His work on Longshot was just so damn delicious, every new page was a thrill. When he designed Ricochet Rita, and Spiral (WOW!) and that little pup, I forget what I called him, that little puppy that grew and grew! You can't imagine how wonderful it was to be working with Art Adams.
You wrote DAREDEVIL for a very long period of time, issue #236, not too long after Frank Miller's "Born Again" storyline, to issue #291, with very few breaks in between. It's rather amazing, especially when compared to today's superhero comics, how much social commentary and smarter-than-average themes you were able to cram into Daredevil, and pretty much every other superhero comic you've done. Reading "Boom" (DD #250) or "The Billion Dollar Ashtray" (DD #273) were rather eye-opening experiences at my age.
Was the impression at Marvel that since the character doesn't sell unless it's got Frank Miller's name attached, you could pretty much do whatever you want?
Those Daredevil stories were a blast to write, and I always had great artists on that book, but the stories maybe could have used more breezy fun shit and less smartypants stuff. I haven't looked at them in many years, but if I read them again today I'd probably think they had too much politics and "social commentary." I just always had a problem with how the stories in super hero comics built to a violent conflict, and that's how the stories were resolved. Real life is very complex, and the way out of a conflict is just as often not violent. So, the fights were like tumors in the story, to me. On one level the fights are what make comics exciting, since action is cinematic and flows well from panel to panel, but it gets boring to build every story that way. So I'd try to mix that up by introducing stories where the conflict wasn't just a big bad villain or a monstrous threat to the planet - it was a little more complex, so the resolution was more complex than a simple fight.
"The sky exploded!
Daddy! This is IT! The end of the world!
Daddy! That was a nuclear explosion!
Back up! Radiation's coming!"
I think maybe it worked great sometimes, like with the Bullet character and his little son Lance in the bomb shelter, but sometimes the stories were crammed with too much talky shit, and they ceased to flow like cinema. Too much Oliver Stone, not enough Kurosawa. But, the reason I was able to do those stories was that Ralph Macchio, the editor, was a smart guy who liked smart stories. He was very supportive of everything I did, and we always made sure the stories were rockin' and kick-ass enough to keep the sales healthy.
Typhoid Mary. You could argue that no one has ever created a more fully realized female villain in comics. Where did you get the first idea for the character?
I guess I was sick of the girls in comics. They were the sweet hapless girlfriends of heroes, or they were bitch queens or evil witches, or the holier-than-thou goddesses, or whatever, but they bugged me. I wanted to shatter the female, and have all the shards form one woman. So Typhoid was partly the sweet hapless Mary, but was she so hapless? She was also the queen bitch, but was it men she liked to make squirm, or the innocent Mary inside her, forced to watch and participate? 
Bloody Mary was the extreme feminist, so much that it was as if she was annihilating herself. On the surface, Typhoid always related to men, had her attention on men. But really, it was a bunch of women in conversation with each other.
Anyway, any "mode" Typhoid was in was always supposed to be seen in relation to the sides that were suppressed. I tried to get you to feel the haunting, watchful, pained presence of the "others". Again, these characters were not created so consciously, but more intuitively. I'm sure a "real" feminist could rip apart Typhoid, take me to task for her. Yeah, Typhoid's over the top, but she's so much fun to write... I'd love to do another story with her someday. But who knows, maybe they've killed her off by now. I haven't really been paying attention.
"sssh. Listen."
"What are you listening for?"
"For what I know is always out there -
- human nature's dark side."
I recently came across a 1996 interview with James Romberger where he said a graphic novel project you had been collaboration with him on, JEZEBEL'S VIRTUE, had been canceled by DC before it was finished. What was this project about, and more importantly, what the hell happened to it?
JEZEBEL'S VIRTUE came out of a piece of journalism I did, about a serial killer who was killing prostitutes, but the cops didn't consider them murders worth investigating, since they were "just whores". Eventually, the guy killed an upper middle class white girl in suburbia, and only THEN did they investigate. I did a lot of research, went to PONY meetings (an organization to help prostitutes,) interviewed a lot of girls before writing the story. I think it's the best thing I ever wrote, but just when it was supposed to be published, like in 1994 or something, was when both DC and Marvel got hit with drops in sales and big cutbacks. So Jezebel's Virtue got cut along with A LOT of other stuff. As for what happened to it, it's sitting in a drawer in DC's offices, and maybe they'll print it someday, I hope so. It really is a great story.
The 1995 Typhoid miniseries was a fine comic that sadly didn't get the attention it deserved, I think. Still, it's one of the best books Marvel published in the past decade. What was the genesis of that series?
Sorta the same answer as above. The Typhoid miniseries is where I did the actual story of the prostitute killings case, whereas Jezebel's Virtue was more a "day in the life of a prostitute" tale, that used a killing as a springboard and went off in a different direction. Jezebel was inspired by some of the girls I interviewed, and the stories they told me. As for the Typhoid miniseries, that got made because Marie Javins and her assistant Polly liked the character, wanted a story, and suggested John Van Fleet once I pitched a noirish type crime tale. They were right, the mix was perfect. John is brilliant. He really understood the story and added a lot to it. My favorite, of all the great pages he drew, was the scene where Typhoid makes a cop eat his own gun. (Wow!!!) I hope to be doing a Batman/Poison Ivy series with him next year.
"I don't like men who suck lollipops"
Finally, give the viewers at home the answer we've all been waiting for: Where the heck has Ann Nocenti been and what is she doing lately?
So, since I left comics...
I was an editor on Prison Life Magazine. We published the fiction, art, and journalism of convicts, and offered an eclectic view of life "behind the walls." My first hand exposure to the US prison system was a large part of the content in the Prisoner X novel I wrote that featured X-Men. The past decade I've also written quite a bit of journalism, essays, and short stories for various mags, and also wrote a couple plays, both of which were performed, one at the Lincoln Center "Out of Doors" series. I sold a few screenplays, and then took a job as the editor of Scenario Magazine (www.scenariomag.com). For that mag, I interview directors and screenwriters. My latest film scripts, "FULL TILT" and "HOTLINE," one sold, one optioned, are both in early pre-production. I'm in the process of writing a couple Batman and Catwoman projects for DC Comics, as I still love comics.
Thanks Ann.
For those interested in seeing more of Ann's work, well, you could start a letterwriting program to Marvels Trade offices and see about getting the TYPHOID mini-series collected - if they haven't already begun to do so that is. Also coming soon: check out SOMEPLACE STRANGE over at coolbeansworld.com.
Dan Coyle is News Editor for PopImage.
All characters, titles, images mentioned or shown are copyright
and trademark their respective creators.
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INTERVIEW: BEHIND THE PANEL WITH BEN ABERNATHY
Conducted by Drew Reiber
The Collected Editions area is of growing importance at the Marvel offices these days. Thanks to staff such as Ben Abernathy you can look forward to a well designed collection to fit on your shelf. Ben took some time to speak with us about upcoming events in the special projects department at Marvel.
What brought you to Marvel Comics? Is it something you always wanted to do?
That's a good question... what brought me here initially? Well, money and growth opportunity! I was working in the Creative Service Department at DC Comics, in a position virtually created for me by the wonderful Richard Bruning (one helluva guy!) and I was working with the WildStorm crew. Unfortunately, after about a year, it didn't seem like there was much in the way of growth potential. I knew that Marvel was hiring (well, considering they'd laid off so many people, it stands to figure they'd be hiring SOMETHING). I landed a job interview for another Creative Services position, although it managed much more responsibility and was a definite pay raise. So, leaving all the great people at DC behind, I entered Marvel, working with their biggest licensees for approvals and whatnot. It was fun in the beginning (I got to play test the first Activision PlayStation games!!) but it hit a plateau. So, by chance, Polly Watson decided to pursue other opportunities and I got a call from Bill Jemas.
Knowing my editorial background from Dark Horse and having worked with Dale Crain at DC (another great guy!) he asked me if I'd be interested in heading up Collected Editions. I think I thought about it for about one second and then jumped at it. It was somewhat of a dream come true, to be honest. I mean c'mon, MARVEL COMICS EDITORIAL! It's pretty darn cool no matter HOW you look at it. Plus, it was a great time. Joe had just taken over as EIC, Bill was having astounding success with his various ideas (like the Ultimates), and Collected Editions was a promising area of growth. Besides, look at me now - people actually want to interview ME!!!
That's very cool. What position are you holding at this point and what does it cover in editorial?
My position is officially "Special Projects Manager" which means I edit all the reprints and then take on other fun products like the upcoming Recharge Collectible Card Game, the Marvel Masterprints, maybe some CD-Roms WAYYYY down the road. The title "Special Projects" is pretty wide open right now, but I primarily am the reprint man!
Aside from editing, where do you stand in the decision making process? If it's a group effort, who else gets a vote?
I'm on the front line of the decision making process. The main people making the choices are me and my boss, Bob Greenberger. Joe and Bill give a lot of input, as well as the editors (mainly Tom Brevoort, who I can accurately say, the books wouldn't be where they are without his input and guidance - Marvel is FULL of great people).
The people under me, especially Matty Ryan, also kick a lot of input and ideas. It tends to be a very democratic process. I like to gauge as many sources as possible when putting these together because my goal is really to put out a superior product.
Which collections are you most proud of? Any trade editions published thus far that excite you from a personal, fan perspective? I have to say the appearance of X-Men: Vignettes blew me away.
The collections I'm most proud of? Well, there's a few... Probably the one that I am singly most proud of, would be EARTH X. Now there's a couple reasons: This was my first book. I put a LOT of work into making this the package it turned into, even changing the page count at the last second and juggling hundreds of pages of film. I was so afraid I would screw up my first book, that when it came back and looked great (I still think it's one of our better designed books), I breathed a HUGE sigh of relief. It was sugar on top that Alex, Jim, John, and Bill all thought it turned out well. I made Alex Ross happy on my first try! Some of the other favorite books were the second DAREDEVIL VISIONARIES: FRANK MILLER V.2 (need I say more?). My older brother turned me onto Mr. Miller's DAREDEVIL in high school, so this one was especially close to home. It was the death of Elektra, man!
One I'm working on right now definitely has my fan boy stirred up: CAPTAIN BRITAIN! Working with Alan Moore and Alan Davis has been an INCREDIBLE experience! Alan (Moore) is the nicest guy you could ever meet, has been really supportive and helpful in the process. Alan (Davis) has always been one of my favorite artists (again, I can thank my older brother and those EXCALIBUR issues!) and he, too, is incredibly nice... I guess it's a British thing! The work these two gentlemen have done is amazing to contemplate and this particular work will wow new audiences for years to come... It's due out in December, so it's almost the anniversary of EARTH X... heh heh heh...
Any idea yet on how UNIVERSE X is going to be handled as a collection, considering it's roughly 20 issues?
That's funny you ask, as I'm working on volume 1 today... The first volume will collect UNIVERSE X issues 0-7 and the Spidey, FF, and Cap specials, as well as the relevant Appendixes, Intros, etc. Volume 2 will reprint everything else from the series, through issue X. They're going to be a great package and I'm excited about putting them together. Both Jim and Alex have been really helpful and supportive in the early stages of this, so I think it's going to turn out really well. I can guarantee any fan of the series that they will NOT be disappointed!
One of the topics covered at the Marvel panels during Wizard World 2001 was the need to make comics collectible again. Were the Collected Editions created as an answer to the greater story demands on the short term without going back to press for multiple printings, thereby diluting the value of the first copies?
That's an interesting question. I don't think the Collected Editions Department here was created for that purpose, no, although it does bolster the print-to-order/no second printings mandate by getting the trades out quicker. I think the purpose is more getting the stories that people want to read in a more affordable and manageable form. It's all about money, man! I could see how some might interpret what we're doing as an extension of that mentality, but I'd like to think we're a little more than that.
I really wanted to talk about a personal favourite of mine, the Visionaries trade program. Now that Marvel has finished Miller's DAREDEVIL, are there any other specific runs you guys are hoping to tap into somewhere along the way?
The only one really planned, at this point, is probably the start of a Peter David/Hulk Visionaries. Otherwise, there aren't many on the schedule yet for next year...
Odin's beard! How in the world are you guys going to manage that? We're talking nearly a decade, right?
Well, I don't think there's any plans to collect ALL of it... we're going to start with the first bunch of issues and go from there, I think. Although the possibility exists of going the Claremont-Visionaries route and making it more of a "Best Of". Wouldn't it be cool to get the complete run, though?
Absolutely! Unfortunately, I missed David's run as a kid. I've always wanted to see the run from the start, which is why I've shied away from the individual trades up until now.
Any chance for another volume of THOR: VISIONARIES: WALTER SIMONSON?
Probably no for the moment on a second THOR book. I do think the sale velocity of the first volume yet warrants a second printing, but maybe later next year... A lot of people are clamoring for it, but it's not in the foreseeable future!
I've heard the Essential program is by far the most profitable trade system Marvel has running right now. It's been a shock recently to see Essentials announcements like Howard the Duck, Fury & The Howling Commandos, and Ant-Man (Ant-Man?!?)... has the high profitability allowed Marvel to get more obscure with their collections?
The nature of the Essentials DOES make them a profit center for the reprint department, but that also means that a book doesn't need to sell crazy numbers to make money (due to the cheap printing). For instance, when we did the ESSENTIAL CONAN, it sold really well and surprised a lot of people. Most people wondered why we did Conan ahead of characters like Iron Man or Daredevil, but the sales backed up that decision! There are various reasons for doing the other Essentials. Part of it is variety - retailers and fans alike want more variety than just FF, Avengers, X-Men, and Spider-Man. I get more e-mails demanding random Essentials (like an X-Factor one) than for the next sequence in the multiple volumes. For the upcoming Dr. Strange and Ant-Man books, we are reprinting EVERYTHING so, like the Silver Surfer, everything will be in one volume. Also, in the case of Ant-Man, it's his 40th Anniversary and we have to do SOMETHING for him!
Speaking of those random Essentials... any plans for X-FACTOR or possibly even NEW MUTANTS? As for Ant-Man, nothing surprises me anymore. After all, Artisan licensed the property with Marvel as a feature film...
No plans for either Essential, sorry. We kicked around an X-Factor one for a while, but it fell behind suggestions like Ghost Rider or Punisher. Who knows, maybe when the next movie comes around there might be a demand for stories of the original X-Men...
Ben, I want to thank you for participating in this interview. I think you're at the forefront of what could be the most valuable and exciting aspect of Marvel today. It's been a pleasure talking with you.
I should thank YOU for the interview. It's been a pleasure! People usually don't care what the reprint guys have to say, but we are a growing area and if the rest of the world is any indication (since they traffic primarily in graphic novel form) we're going to be even bigger in the coming years. I think the sky's the limit when it comes to the trade paperback. Now, if only I could convince everyone who reads this to go buy a book or two!
Drew Reiber is a contributing writer for PopImage.
All characters, titles, images mentioned or shown
are copyright and trademark their respective creators.
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From Hell: Architecture in Time
by Bala Menon
A Review of Alan Moore and Eddie Campbell's FROM HELL
Alan Moore, long known as one of comicdom's finest writers, joins with Eddie Campbell to produce this tale of Jack the Ripper.
Here, Moore builds a tale that stretches in ripples across time, as he attempts his own explanation of the Ripper murders. Not a three-dimensional pattern across Whitechapel, but rather a four-dimensional pattern across time, with the effects (and causes) of the Ripper murders travelling across the centuries, one man's plan to transcend his own mortality, at once an act of personal worship as well as an attempt to exalt himself and finally attain the face of God.
Focusing, not from the point of view of the hunters, but of the Ripper himself, Moore analyzes the available information, chooses whom he believes to be the most likely Ripper, and projects the suspect's beliefs and motivations from what is known of his life. The result is an appallingly dark story, made even more horrific by the non-randomness, the callousness of the killings.
Immensely erudite, a rationale is presented for the Ripper murders. Not simply a hack-and-slash murderer, lashing out mindlessly at any woman who crosses his path, but rather, an intricate plan, aimed at specific targets, for a specific purpose.
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Campbell, a noted storyteller in his own right ( Bacchus, Alec), lives up to Moore's highly demanding scripts, portraying the dark immensity of London, from the hulking cathedrals towering above the city, to the people running through the streets.
This is the Ripper's story. From his early beginnings as a child, curious to learn the inner workings of the cosmos; to his professional rise, to become the Royal Physician; to his vision-inducing heart-attack, and awakening to knowledge of his Master; and to his final quest to further exalt that Lord. Not quite the malefic slasher of stage and screen, but a logical, intensely faithful man, carrying out what he believes to be his self-appointed mission for God.
But it is also London's tale, a tale of the city of that time and her people. Of the horror that existence holds for the people of that city, of several simple, callous, unthinking cruelties, that slap you in the face for their very unexpectedness. Despite the grander themes shaping the flow of the story, we are never allowed to forget the basic humanity of these miserable players on the stage.
There is no character in this tale so depraved, so brutalized, but that Moore and Campbell make them touch our hearts, see some small spark of humanity that we might empathize with. And thus further feel the horror of their tale.
The People (and London's architecture)
Moore and Campbell's characters are living, breathing people, bringing the London of 1888 to vivid life in our heads.
Sir William Withey Gull is a fanatic, a man so lost in his own terrible vision, that he is willing to do whatever it takes to achieve it, twisting his associates' arms, preying on the fears of his superiors, using his own unshakable will to forge through all obstacles like a juggernaut. A stern man, raised to hold Duty above all, but his devotion to that Duty swathes him in rapture.
Gull, alone, of all the characters here, rises above the demands
of the earth that he is rooted in, to seek out a higher, spiritual
plane. He maintains an ethereal attitude, striving to complete his
self-appointed task despite the frailty of his human tools, the
other players on this stage are very firmly rooted in their earth.
Moore takes a particular delight in parallels and double entendres, running through all his writing. In another of these, Gull is paired with Netley, an ignorant and unthinking man of the streets, a person conscious of nothing more than his desire to get ahead in life, a man very much of the earth, seeking higher knowledge only to aid him in this world.
Netley's shallowness, ingratiatingly servile nature and alarming stupidity make him the perfect unthinking tool for Gull to use.
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Netley is a little man, all too conscious of it, and seeking power and advancement; yet, when he realizes the nature of the immense maelstrom he has gotten himself into, he panics, collapses. It's not the idea of murder that bother Netley; life itself is cheap in London of the time. No, it's the consciousness of being totally overwhelmed, enveloped by an all-encompassing power that is now an inextricable part of his daily life; it's Gull's staggering revelation that he always has been surrounded by this grand magic. Awakening produces terror here, rather than the grand enlightenment and vision provided to Gull. (Chapter 4 pages 36-37)
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Inspector Abberline is a man thrown back into a brutalized, decomposing part of London that he loathes, but is forced back into, out of political necessity.
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Notice Campbell's depiction of the explosive frustration on Abberline's face, as he is transferred back to Whitechapel, the seat of his contempt; and contrast this to the disgust on his face when he realizes the true game being played within the corridors of power that he had coveted (Chapter 13 pages 8-11)
There's more than a small part of Abberline which empathizes with the denizens of Whitechapel; very much a man of the soil, it had been his home for fourteen years, and he knows it better than he understands the new realm of privilege that he has been drawn into.
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The prostitutes, Gull's targets, are perpetual victims, desperately trying to stay alive in a London that makes even day-to-day living difficult.
Look at Campbell's Chapter 5, where he visually contrasts the two Londons, Gull's London of privilege, and the hellish London of the poor. Soft grays ease Gull into his daily routine, while sharp cold blacks topple the women out of their peaceful sleep into London's cold.
The Ripper's victims are not particularly lovely women, and cannot said to be leading a happy life by any means. Observe the stark, hopeless terror of the prostitutes, faced with death or worse at the hands of the London mob (Chapter 3)
And yet Campbell never fails to sink in a needle to remind us of their humanity, time and again; Mary Kelly's calm, quiet smirk (Chapter 3, page 14) or the piteous misery of Annie Chapman (Chapter 7 page 5); or Kate Fellowes snatching a few moments of joy, in the midst of her drudgery (Chapter 9)it becomes impossible not to feel their torment, the sad, heart-rending despair, of a person condemned to this Hell through no fault of their own, and now unable to even conceive of an escape from it.
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London is no less a character in this tale, enveloping and shrouding the characters, driving them down its chosen path.
In the astonishingly powerful Chapter 4, we first see the grand plan drawn out by Gull, and the forces surrounding him that he capitalizes on to fulfil his task. Here, we see Gull's chilling revelation of his ultimate goal, made even more terrifying by the look of complete satisfaction on his face.
Gull's studies through Masonry have revealed to him the grand plan behind London's construction; the menacing constructions not only exalting the Deity but also stripping away the humanity from the little man; not bringing the man up to the level of the Deity, but
rather stressing the difference between them, making man far more acutely aware of how very little a thing he is. Every little detail, from the grand to the mundane, from the overpowering dome of St. Paul's, to the simple horse-brasses mounted on every carriage in London, bears witness to the grand magic mounted in this city.
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The city, an immense occult engine, prepared by occult architects and Masons through the ages, is now primed and targeted, prepared by a kill, and aimed at her Queen's foes by a fanatic willing to do anything for his Liege, and more, if it also serves his Deity. (Actually, serving his Liege is only incidental to Gull's higher plan, "the very tip of the iceberg". Victoria does not suspect what she has unleashed, in her attempts to protect her family's reputation.)
As Hawksmoor built up the colossal London above, so too does Gull now build up his task in the streets below. London's innocents are expendable pawns in a plan to extoll the Gods, and thereby complete Gull's mission on Earth.
Magnifying and focussing London's darkness ...
For London is Hell ...
Strangely, the protagonist does not seem to cause as much agony and despair as the environment itself. Whitechapel, a Hellish nightmare to its poorest inhabitants, produces far more misery to its people than Gull. Campbell does more than justice to Moore's script, in producing an image of a Pit, its frightened inhabitants preying on each other, resigned to their fate, perpetually yearning for a better existence but without any real hope of one, desperately snatching at whatever small morsels of joy they can extract from the darkness.
This London is a very Hell ... and there are no happy characters here ... all of them suffering, in one way or another:
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A Prince, bullied and controlled by his Imperial mother, denied any chance of his own happiness;
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The Empress herself, fearing revolution, living a cold and loveless existence;
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A shopgirl, robbed of her very mind, a pawn tossed about the
chessboard by forces beyond her control;
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The prostitutes of London, cursed into an early life of despair, with little hope of improvement;
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The Elephant Man, condemned to the Hell of his own body, but dreaming of the Heaven revealed to him by Gull;
Gull, himself, escaping a mortal Hell by an attempt to seize Heaven.
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The closest any of these characters ever come to Heaven is through their interactions with Gull; his casual words presenting the vision of a better world to John Merrick; and the few moments of childlike joy we see on the face of Polly Nicholls, a young woman robbed of her childhood, are those given to her by Gull, just prior to her death at his hands; a final contact with Gull's luminous Heaven, just before she passes out of the Hell that her life had become.
We are all of us in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars." - Oscar Wilde
In Moore's book, the only person who is looking at the stars is Gull himself. All the others are so lost in the pain of the gutters of Whitechapel that they see nothing beyond; no hope left. An occasional desperate dream of escape is all that's left to them, followed by the inevitable and quick dash of reality, and a return to their hopeless lives. Gull alone sees the glory of his task, permeating all the world.
Finale
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In another of Moore's mirrors, note Chapter 14, where Gull simultaneously plumbs the depths of madness, as he rises towards his ultimate goal, far above the common rut.
This is Gull's final triumph ... escaping from the earthy surroundings, into the grander, larger design that surrounds him. Then further, outside even the three dimensions, into the larger fourth; and finally, into the face of God. And the power of that ascension casts ripples through time, as the strength of Gull's faith, the intensity of his belief, affects others in his wake. The completion of his grand achievement simultaneously hurls him into the heights of his final goal as well as into the depths of madness.
He is swept up in the rapture that envelopes him, but rapidly losing all connection with his earthly life.
As he has made use of the structures built around him over time, so too does he now create his own occult structure, one extending through time, and spreading its ripples down the years.
And the strength of his creation influences other minds across the years, reflections and imitators, shadows of the original Ripper, sympathetic minds walking the path first traced by Gull; the grand design arising in shallower circles (first a century, then fifty years, then twenty-five and so on), moving through time towards a convergence.
And Gull's ascension completes, his mind reaching eternity, finally escaping his earthen body.
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Moore combines a skillful blend of research and fiction, not resisting the appeal of including several coterminous characters and vignettes (Crowley's presence in London, Hitler's birth) to bolster his tale across time. The detailed glossary of his research and annotations of his work in writing this book gives still more insight into the creative process behind it.
In the final appendix, Moore wryly makes note of the work done by prior Ripperologists, observing their effect on each other (including his own work).
He acknowledges the immense quantity of legend that has built up around the Ripper, and the extremely muddy line drawn between myth and reality (often crossing boundaries), and his own contribution to those legends (further muddying and blurring the waters).
This is easily one of the finest works in the medium, and well deserves a place on any reader's bookshelf. Richly detailed, the book rewards multiple reads with new insights into the tale.
Bala Menon is a contributing writer for PopImage.
All images on this page (c) Alan Moore and Eddie Campbell, and used under the Fair Use doctrine
FROM HELL (c) Alan Moore and Eddie Campbell, 1989, 1999
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The Movie FROM HELL
by Bala Menon
A Review of Twentieth Century Fox's Movie Adaptation of FROM HELL
FROM HELL, the movie, tells the tale of the Ripper murders, from the point of view of Inspector Abberline, a policeman who gets oracular visions which help him track down the killer. Unlike Abberline, however, the people behind this film seem to suffer from a staggering lack of vision. This movie manages to combine the intellectual depth of a Harlequin romance with the subtle, understated elegance of a sledgehammer to the head. Hollywood must be very sure that its target audience for this film consists of cretins, since it spells out everything in heavy, unambivalent terms. Good is good, bad is bad, and never the gray shall be.
The characters quickly devolve into a bunch of cliches, with little or nothing to give them their own voice. Abberline, the good, kind, always politically correct policeman, doggedly tracking down the murderer against all odds. Godley, the sergeant who's unswervingly loyal to his officer. Mary Kelly, the hooker with the heart of gold. The brutal London mob. The supercilious, class-conscious elite. Single-note stereotypes, all. Horror is depicted more by the addition of copious gore rather than any acting performance; subtlety is well and truly disposed of, as far as this film's concerned. The players
are reduced to solid black and clear-cut white, eliminating any silly, distracting hues of gray.
On the flip side, it does have some beautiful imagery; one particularly striking one was the Ripper's grapes, which (in Abberline's visions) begin pulsating, like the beating of several hearts. The settings are well-constructed, and the lighting effects excellent. The cinematography is, in fact, deserving of a much better plot than it's been dealt; the result being a movie that comes across as all style and no substance. There are also some decent acting performances from Ian Holm, Robbie Coltrane and Johnny Depp, working as best they can within the limits of the roles dealt them. However, if plot or characterization are of much consideration, then this movie probably isn't for you.
Viewed as a stand-alone movie, it's a hideously unsubtle plot, bolstered by some very pretty imagery. As an adaptation of the graphic novel by Alan Moore and Eddie Campbell, however, it fails colossally. In adaptations of books to cinema, it's not unusual to have some elements dropped, and others added, as the tale transitions between the two media. Here, however, the film alters its standpoint considerably, converting an elegant construct to a gory slasher movie;
and the elements of the book that did make it in stand out as garish, incongruous additions to the mix. They make little or no overall sense with regard to the theme of the film.
"If a gun is on the mantle in the first act, it must go off in the third." - Anton Chekhov
This adaptation suffers badly from trying to desperately squeeze in cool points of the original book, without necessarily seeing if it fits into the new framework of the film. Take the case of John Merrick, the Elephant Man. His appearance in the book served to further heighten the hellishness of that London and further, he served as a faux-Ganesha to mark an auspicious beginning to Gull's endeavours. In the film, his appearance serves no purpose beyond consuming a minute's worth of celluloid; aside from having appeared in the book, the sequence is an absolutely worthless appendage to the structure of the film.
The sole redeeming factor to this movie is that it will hopefully have added to the bank accounts of Mr. Moore and Campbell, and encourage them to produce more of their excellent work. By itself, however, it fails on almost every level save an example of "there-but-for-the-Grace-of-God-go-I".
Bala Menon is a contributing writer for PopImage.
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IRON MAN'S SENTIENT ARMOR: THE LOST TAPES
by Neil Kleid
Recently, I received a package from a Pepper Potts of the Stark Foundation containing a transcript of a long hidden telephone conversation. The pages revealed a fairly eye-opening account of one man's struggle with addiction... and another's struggle with the abyss before him.
PHONE CONVERSATION: STARK ENTERPRISES 8/17/99: 9:35 AM
SFX: (PHONE RINGING)
SENTIENT ARMOR: CAH-MON...
SFX: (PHONE RINGING)
SENTIENT ARMOR: HEE HEE...
[The receiver on the other end picks up; The next voice heard is that of Victor Von Doom, ruler of Latveria -- sworn enemy to the Fantastic Four.]
DOOM: YES?
SENTIENT ARMOR: GOOD MORNING... MAY I SPEAK WITH MISTER... DOON PLEASE?
DOOM: THAT'S DOOM, CRETIN. WHO IS THIS?
SENTIENT ARMOR: AH, GOOD MORNING, MY NAME IS RACHEL AND I WOULD LIKE TO TALK TO YOU THIS MORNING ON HOW YOU CAN SAVE UP TO TEN PERCENT ON LONG DISTANCE --
DOOM: BAH! DOOM HAS BETTER THINGS TO DO THAN THIS!
[The phone hangs up; sounds of the phone being dialed again.]
SFX: (PHONE RINGING)
SENTIENT ARMOR: (WHISTLING)
[The receiver on the other end picks up; The next voice heard is that of Victor Von Doom, ruler of Latveria -- sworn enemy to the Fantastic Four.]
DOOM: YES...?
SENTIENT ARMOR: GOOD MORNING, IS THE LADY OF THE HOUSE PRESENT?
DOOM: WHA- LADY OF THE... IS THIS SOME SORT OF JOKE?
SENTIENT ARMOR: (HEE HEE)... JOKE, SIR?
DOOM: WHO IS THIS? RICHARDS?
SENTIENT ARMOR: (LIGHT GIGGLING)
DOOM: WAIT A MINUTE... I KNOW THAT LAUGH...THIS IS YOU, STARK, ISN'T IT?
SENTIENT ARMOR: (HYSTERICAL LAUGHTER)
DOOM: MY GOD... YOU'RE DRUNK AGAIN, AREN'T YOU?
SENTIENT ARMOR: MMM...AYBE....
DOOM: MY GOD, MAN -- IT'S NOT EVEN TEN A.M. AND YOU'RE HALF IN THE BAG!
SENTIENT ARMOR: (DRINKING SOUNDS)
DOOM: STOP IT -- GET A HOLD OF YOURSELF... FOR GOD'S SAKE...
SENTIENT ARMOR: (DRINKING SOUNDS FINISH) OKAY, DONE. AHEM... HELLO, IS THE LADY OF THE HOUSE PRESENT...?
DOOM: WHA-? THIS IS INSANE. GET SOME HELP, STARK.
[The phone hangs up; sounds of the phone being dialed again.]
SFX: (PHONE RINGING)
SFX: (BEER CAN OPENING)
[The receiver on the other end picks up; The next voice heard is that of Victor Von Doom, ruler of Latveria -- sworn enemy to the Fantastic Four.]
DOOM: THIS BETTER NOT BE YOU, STARK...
SENTIENT ARMOR: NO STARK HERE. ES SENOR MOJO.
DOOM: (SIGHING) LOOK, I DON'T NORMALLY DO THIS... BUT IF I LET THIS GO I'LL NEVER GET TO FINISH WATCHING THE MCLAUGHLIN GROUP. STARK... YOU HAVE A PROBLEM.
SENTIENT ARMOR: ES NO SENOR STARK. ES SENOR MOJO... SENOR MOJO ES HOMBRE GRANDE (GIGGLING).
DOOM: FOR THE LOVE OF ETERNITY... YOU'RE A GENIUS WHEN YOU'RE SOBER... YOU HAVE FAME, WEALTH AND POWER -- WHY ARE YOU SO DEPENDANT UPON A DEPRESSANT?
SENTIENT ARMOR: AH, IF I ONLY HAD A HEART.
DOOM: OH, FOR THE LOVE OF --
SENTIENT ARMOR: BESIDES -- HIC -- BIG TALK FROM AN ADDICT.
DOOM: WHAT'S THAT SUPPOSED TO MEAN, CRETIN?
SENTIENT ARMOR: CAH-MON, VIC... YOU SPOUT OFF LIKE SOME SORTA, SORTA BIG TALKING SPOUTER... BUT KETTLES TALK BIG WHEN THE POT IS... (GIGGLING) ...POT IS BLACK...
DOOM: WHAT NONSENSE ARE YOU TRYING TO GET OUT?
SENTIENT ARMOR: SEE... YOU ALSO GOT A MONKEY ON YER BACK. DOOMY... YOU'RE ADDICTED TO RICHARDS.
DOOM: PREPOSTEROUS.
SENTIENT ARMOR: GESHUNDHEIT... (HYSTERICAL LAUGHTER; DRINKING NOISES)
DOOM: I AM NOT "ADDICTED" TO RICHARDS. THE MAN IS A VILE, INFERIOR REPLICA OF THE TRUE GENIUS THAT IS DOOM! SIMPLY BECAUSE I HAVE ENGAGED HIM IN A LIFELONG WAR OF THE INTELLECTS, AND LAUNCHED SEVERAL PERSONAL VENDETTAS AGAINST HIM DOES NOT MAKE ME "ADDICTED" TO HIM. I ALONE HAVE FOUGHT YOU IN BATTLE FOUR TIMES, AND SPIDERMAN MORE TIMES THAN I CAN RECOUNT. AND BESIDES... I CAN QUIT ANY TIME I WANT.
SENTIENT ARMOR: Y'KNOW, VIC... THEY SAY DENIAL AIN'T JUST A RIVER IN MISSISSIPPI.
DOOM: THAT'S EGYPT.
SENTIENT ARMOR: SO I FAILED GEOMETRY... SUE ME (GIGGLING).
DOOM: SIGH... LOOK... FINE... MAYBE WE BOTH HAVE A PROBLEM. WHAT ARE WE GONNA DO ABOUT IT?
SENTIENT ARMOR: WELL, I CAN ALWAYS HIRE DAVID CROSBY. WHO'S GONNA GET YOU OFF OF RICHARDS?
DOOM: MAN... I GUESS I BETTER CALL NAMOR. HE'S DONE THIS A FEW TIMES... JUST MAKE SURE YOU JOIN A TWELVE STEP PROGRAM, STARK.
SENTIENT ARMOR: SENOR STARK ES EL GONO. ES SENOR GALACTACOS GRANDE HOMBRE.
DOOM: SIGH... WHY DO I BOTHER?
[The phone hangs up; sounds of the phone being dialed again.]
SFX: (PHONE RINGING)
SFX: (BEER CAN OPENING)
[The receiver on the other end picks up; The next voice heard is that of Magneto, Master of Magnetism -- sworn enemy to the X-Men.]
MAGNETO: GOOD MORNING, HOMO SUPERIORITY.
SENTIENT ARMOR: (GIGGLING) AH, GOOD MORNING, MY NAME IS RACHEL AND I WOULD LIKE TO TALK TO YOU THIS MORNING ON HOW YOU CAN SAVE UP TO TEN PERCENT ON LONG DISTANCE --
PHONE CONVERSATION: STARK ENTERPRISES 9/2/99: 11:15 AM
SFX: (PHONE RINGING)
TELEPHONE OPERATOR: GOOD MORNING, SPRINT PCS.
TONY STARK: YES, HI... THIS IS ANTHONY STARK OF STARK ENTERPRISES. FOR SOME REASON MY LONG DISTANCE BILL IS OVER SIX THOUSAND DOLLARS THIS MONTH. NOW, I'VE BEEN... AWAY... OUT OF MY ...UM... CALLING ZONE, YOU COULD SAY. I'D LIKE TO SORT THIS OUT...
[transcript ends]
Neil Kleid is the co-founder of Third Eye Publishing and the creator of STAND UP COMICS- a series of forums designed to get the comics medium out into the public eye. He is a graphic designer, actor and improvisational genius.
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THE LAST LONELY SATURDAY
Reviewed by Paul Hanna
Writer and Artist: Jordan Crane
Published by Red Ink, 2000
Original Graphic Novella
$8
There are so many comics today that vie far too hard for the viewer's attention by playing up the overblown, larger-than-life angle -- big illustrations, big ideas, very dynamic. They draw the eye, but they often go for the visual cheap thrill. Jordan Crane's THE LAST LONELY SATURDAY shows how absorbing a much subtler comic can be.
It is a little, squarebound comic about an elderly man who plans to spend his Saturday visiting his wife, or so we are initially led to believe. We soon discover that his plan is to spend his Saturday at his wife's grave, as she apparently died a while ago. A minimal enough plot, yet Crane is able to draw a full range of emotion through his simple and elegant storytelling skill.
As a matter of fact, THE LAST LONELY SATURDAY works partly because the plot is so understated. This allows Crane to emphasize the sheer emotion of the characters. As a result, expression through words becomes negligible. Which is probably why THE LAST LONELY SATURDAY is, largely, a "silent" comic.
The line used in the illustrations is organic and lush. As the plot allows the emotion to become more prominent, so too do the pictures themselves. Crane's characters, drawn in a very uncomplicated and almost elementary way, convey a wide range of facial expressions that easily capture a diverse spectrum of emotion. And the two-color (reddish brown and yellow) format in which it is printed gives the book a classic feel that does not overpower the other aspects of the story.
The story's layouts are genius in their lucidity. Panel to panel transitions are completely seamless and consistent. When something changes rather abruptly, it is because we are meant to notice it. There are several such panels where the border style shifts to a solid line to one that resembles the edge of a cloud, the reader automatically realizes that the panel is flashing back to a memory. Perhaps this has been done before, but in the context of the story, a minor detail like this impacts the reader right away. The reader can pick up on it, and continue absorbing the story. Just like that. Without pause.
The book is charming, something you can read over and over again, something that changes or evolves in meaning each time. Crane's work here encourages the reader to bring his or her own experiences to the fore when reading. Some readers may want more substance in a plot, criticizing the form-over-substance approach that many independent books take. I would still recommend THE LAST LONELY SATURDAY to those readers.
Recommended
Paul Hanna is Assistant Reviews Editor of PopImage.
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BLACK WIDOW
Reviewed by Brian Domingos
Chicks in leather
with guns - and a solid plot ta boot!
Writer: Devin Grayson with Greg Rucka
Artist: J. G. Jones and Scott Hampton
Trade Paperback
Marvel Knights 2001
$15.95
Now I’ll admit it. BLACK WIDOW wasn’t a “must have” because of the story. In actuality, I didn’t even consider it until I saw the nice little trade paperback sitting on the shelf: a tight little bundle of fantastic artwork by J. G. (MARVEL BOY) Jones and Scott (LUCIFER) Hampton.
I was instantly won over. I’ve seen these fellows’ work before but with WIDOW, they blew away every previous conception I had. It’s a damned pretty book with equally impressive stories.
The collection starts with a story by that batgirl Devin Grayson which shows Natasha Romanov (aka the Black Widow) hired by the US government to steal a deadly bio-toxin. The only problem is the Russians also sent in their Black Widow: Yelena Belova. Yelena is a graduate of the Russian Black Widow program - a smug "I've surpassed you at everything!” sort of girl. But Natasha says, “Oh yeah? Bring it on.” It’s all high kicks, bullets flying and splosions for the whole family.
Grayson shows off her talent for thinking, feeling characters, showing dramatic tension plus tons of action without the story losing integrity. Her scripting pulls few punches delivering a full blown spy thriller. Jones' women are beautiful; his thugs, ugly and oozing with stupidity. All this, coupled with his superb storytelling skills make for the best summer blockbuster flick you never saw.
Daredevil also makes a small appearance in this story, but I found Grayson’s DD to be a bit too dashing, too jocular for my taste. It makes him seem more useless than he really is.
Act Two of the book adds Greg (WHITEOUT) Rucka to the writing team and adds Hampton to the artistic side of the equation. I wouldn’t have thought that Grayson and Rucka would mix but they make a great team. Grayson once again shows her flair for interpersonal interaction and Rucka floods the script with spy lingo, completing the story.
This story puts Yelena and Natasha in a “Face-Off” type of situation. S.H.I.E.L.D. kidnaps Yelena and she wakes up with Natasha’s face. Her new mission: Kill Yelena Belova. Natasha, now with Yelena’s face, tries to find nukes stolen by her former boss.
On the whole the book is a great read. Grayson and Rucka do their best to upset Yelena’s world and still raise the stakes for Natasha. The stories move quickly and the loose ends are wrapped up in one sitting. And the lusch artwork makes it worth the price from the get-go.
RECOMMENDED for all who enjoy a good spytriller or just those who like pretty pictures.
Brian Domingos is a staff writer of PopImage. To him, everything is espionage.
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