INTERVIEW: Craig McGill
Interview Conducted by Jonathan Ellis

Craig McGill is a journalist whose work has been featured in such publications as TIME, The Herald, The Mirror, The Guardian, Penthouse, Ninth Art.com and even here at PopImage. He is also the author of the following three books; Football Inc, Do No Harm: Munchausen Syndrome By Proxy and Human Traffic: Sex, Slaves and Immigration. Craig's comic work can be seen in the recent Variance Anthology and the forthcoming An Eternity Of War, both from publisher Variance Press.

We recently spoke with Craig about some of his forthcoming works which comics fans may be more familiar with, such as the upcoming and controversial graphic novel, Know The Provo as well as the Grant Morrison biography.

A few ideas have been thrown around as to the title of the biography. Have you decided what to call it yet?

At the moment I'm thinking of 'Insert Your Own Grant Morrison Biography Title here' as we still haven't decided on anything. There's been a lot of good ideas - Grant's favourite is Skinhead Mystic which I'm not keen on as I think it would throw the non-comic and magic reading crowd- but nothing's set in stone. If anyone reading this has an idea, get 'em to drop me an email at mcgillcraig@hotmail.com. Indeed if anyone has Grant anecdotes or has worked with him and I've somehow missed you out, drop me a line.

I did quite like The Invisible(s) Man or Supercontext, but they've both been used to death in interviews with him. We might try for a play on one of his favourite films like The Man who Fell to Earth. One of his ex-lover's came up with a great title, but it more applies to her than him: "I left a millionaire comicbook writer who was a great lover for a homosexual" It's a bit wordy though....

How did you land the particular gig of doing the Grant biography? Did it have anything to do with your work on Human Traffic?

Absolutely nothing to do with it. I actually had no intentions of doing any more non-fiction. Having written three of the buggers, and having felt especially drained by some of the heartbreaking tales in Human Traffic and the one before it Do No Harm, which is about moms accused of harming their children, I'd had enough of that thank you very much and I was looking forward - at the time it all kicked off - to planning my wedding, writing some non-fiction for my agent and concentrating on just having a life for a while, getting drunk and so on. For pretty much three years, every day - including holidays - had involved at least some small amount of work, so I thought it might be nice to try and not work.

Also writing Human Traffic skinned me a bloody fortune in terms of travel and speaking to various shady types, so I wanted to write something that would bring in a decent advance - and fiction is more likely to do that. The alternative was to set up a website like that New York girl did to clear twenty grand of debt - and she did!

However, I was sitting one day and into my head popped the idea about doing a biography on Grant. I don't know where it came from - probably a myriad of places - but it wouldn't shift. And the more I thought about it, the more I quite liked the idea, but not just sticking on the comics angle or an expanded version of the DisInfo Invisibles book [Anarchy For The Masses], but covering all of his work. I wanted a bit more than that. Give me all your Grant or none at all sort of thing.

Who proposed the project? Usually biographies tend to focus on older individuals, with the exception of athletes, dead celebrities and political sex scandal figures.

He's 43 now! I wanted him before Alzheimer's claimed him. Seriously though, I dropped Grant - or to be more specific Kristan - an email asking if they had considered anything like this and if so, did they fancy me writing it? I didn't expect a yes, I just thought that if I didn't ask then it would bug me forever - if only men were so brave asking people out on dates eh? The not knowing what the answer would be. However, Kristan then turned round and said, let's talk.

For those that like an event to justify a book though, 2004 is roughly Grant's 25th year in the comic industry as his Near Myths stuff was 78/79 and it might be interesting to look back on his career. So (before I drifted...) I fired off Grant a copy of my three books - the aforementioned Human Traffic, Do No Harm and the soccer book Football Inc - and said if you fancy the idea of a biog, let me know. Before that, I think Grant and I had crossed paths a handful of times - once when I asked him for copyright of one of his old projects, Captain Clyde, and once or twice for interviews.

He and Kristan came back to me and we started to get the ball rolling. It's a good time because not only is it his 25th year in comics, but also, with Alan Moore moving on, Grant is now the unofficial Granddaddy of UK comics. He's been about the longest. The likes of Mark Millar, Warren Ellis, Neil Gaiman and so on all came after him. So Grant's the father figure in that sense.

Why Grant though?

A couple of reasons popped to mind - and one of them being that he was in the same city as me, making access quite convenient. One of the main reasons for picking Grant was because he's Scottish. Scotland has a great habit of running down its heroes at times. Don't get me wrong, at times it can be a good thing because that sort of self-depreciation can stop you getting big for your boots and full of yourself, but at other times it looks spiteful and nasty. But Grant - and this is no secret - is fairly well-off, he has a large built-in audience that ranges from 25,000 to over 100,000 a month depending on what he's working on and that's quite an achievement if you ask me. Yet he's unknown in Glasgow. Big deal, I hear you say. Well actually it is.

Grant comes from Govan - which is a hellhole in Glasgow. It's truly one of the most deprived parts of the city and also the country - terrible housing, squalor. I mean politicians have written off a lot of these people - something for which I think some of them should be brought up on charges of dereliction of duty for. Not many go to
University, many more end up with drug habits, poor health. For many, social aspirations is getting their next benefit cheque or being a drug dealer. Basically, there's not much hope and what there is can be snuffed out by day-to-day life. That's not to say there's not a lot of good people there - there are, but the environment they are in stacks the odds against them.

Grant came from that and more or less off his own back, is now mingling with celebrities and is relatively comfortable. Don't get me wrong, he probably couldn't afford to stop working tomorrow and never type again, but he owns a quality house and is certainly doing a lot better than many from his generation. In his own way he's a role model. He shows that there's a way out. You can live your dreams, even if you can't go down the traditional route of being a sportsman. We should be shouting about people like Grant from the rooftops. He's the boy who done good. Now I know he's not unique by any stretch of the imagination in that regard, but it never hurts to highlight another success tale.

Also, there's never been - as far as I can see - a mainstream biog of anyone in comics apart from Stan Lee. Time to change that. And who better to do that with than someone like Grant?

On top of that, there's more to him than just the comic writings - there's the musical side, the books, the travel tales and the magic. Also, by bringing in everything, you'll see where things connect and what has influenced the comics and so on. That seemed like the best way to approach this, given that Grant has literally put a lot of himself into the comics.

I was also interested - even though I have very little experience of magic - in the idea of the book being a spell in its own way, or rather a glamour. Because people will read the book and see that as the real Grant so the book will shape reality and how people perceive Grant (and in effect how Grant reacts to them), just as it is reality in the first place that forms the basis of the biography. So the flesh informs the book which further propels the flesh. That sounds fairly pretentious, but I think it's an interesting experiment.

For people not convinced of what I'm saying there, look at newspaper articles. What appears in print, shapes people's perceptions in reality. If you constantly read that someone is a prick in a newspaper and you meet them, your first assessment is going to be that said person is a prick and that assessment - based on the newspaper readings - is going to be part of your initial dealings with the person, so the words influence the reality.

How's it been working with Grant on this?

It's been good. Certainly interesting and Grant's reaction to the final text will be as interesting as anything as some people aren't holding back in their opinions. To be fair, Grant isn't either so we'll see how that plays out.

On one level it's been intimidating - and I don't mean by the likes of the emails I got when this project was first announced, e-mails saying to me "you're only doing this to ride on his coattails and get a job in comics" which is not the case at all. Yes, I want to write comics, but this is a book and I'm more concerned about making this a good book. In fact, I would argue that at least one editor I'm on decent talking terms with just now will take the huff after this comes out - not because of anything I say, but because of what someone else says (no, not Grant) and the odds are it will be the messenger - me - who gets shot for it. Which is a shame, but what am I meant to do? Put out a crap book in the hope someone loves me down the line and takes a story? Can't do that.

It's also been intimidating in the sense that Grant's brain goes off in a million places - and I don't deny that there are times that I've had to go "hold on, rewind, treat me like an idiot" and at times that looks as if it has done Grant's head in. His brain fires things off quite fast and I think it can be frustrating for him because he'll look at me and go 'you don't get that do you?' and you've got to be honest and from an interviewer's point of view as well that can be rotten because by slowing the subject down, you might be missing out on something. But at the same time, you just hate to look stupid y'know?

Having said that Grant's been generous as hell with his time. There's over 40 hours of fresh taped interviews with him in the book and he's been cool when work on it has had to take a back step to other stuff - moving house, decorating the bloody thing, looking after pregnant wife and so on. He's a very down to Earth guy, something a lot of people who only see the mad personas he projects, might not see or get.

He's also been incredibly generous with the book in the sense that he keeps trying to get things from my life in it. Moments of bizarre synchronicity. Two examples of that which spring to mind include when the book was started and my cat started to hang about with foxes - they even had a wee scuffle once, but mostly they would just run about my house - and the fox is Grant's totem sign. Even more weird was the timing - and we checked this - of the funeral of Grant's dad and my first look at my unborn child. At one point during his dad's cremation - as the body was being lowered - there were drummers belting out a really powerful beat. By all accounts it was very intense. At that moment, I'm about 5 miles away seeing the first ultrasound of my first baby.

Of course that skips the fact that Grant actually played a 'role' if you will in the actual conception of the baby, but that might be a story for elsewhere.

Save it for the introduction. How about format, is this strictly a novella project or were you planning on showcasing certain chapters with sequential storytelling?

Strictly words, though there will be illustrations throughout the book. If permission is given, we'll reference a lot of his stuff, perhaps also put in a script or something so people can get a grasp of his scripts. While the idea of writing it as a comic could be an interesting piece of work, it's not the aim of this project. Depending on how things work out, it might be an idea to approach some people to do sketches of Grant for the back of the book. I dunno. Or if Grant wants to do a part of the book as a comic, then I'm game. But it comes down to - if other people draw parts - at how to pay people for that and it might be more hassle than a publisher wants.

Is there a particular focus of Grant's life that will be the epicentre of the book? Magick & the Invisibles? His abduction? His career in underwear modeling?

All of the above. As I mentioned, the book is now about everything in his life - school years, when he dressed as a woman, the drugs, the friends, the fallouts, magic. Everything.

Doing it chronologically will make it easier for the incoming reader who is not au fait with Grant's work and the book will probably run in a very linear sense. I think if I had to sum up one core part of it, it would be honesty. It covers all of his life, but he's being very blunt with himself and about others. There's an emotional core to the book, I don't know if there's a focus on one part of him, more than any other though. In the first draft, there's more about the comics than the magic and other stuff. Before the second draft is done though, that will change.

A lot of your work on the book took place during a fairly hard time in Grant's life, do you look at some stuff and fear that that time in his life may set a specific tone that resonates throughout the book or do you just see that as another piece in the entirety of the biographical puzzle?

Yes and no, but it's a bloody good point and question to ask. What the reader doesn't see is the fragmented nature of writing a book. For example, Grant might talk about Person A in June and then not mention him again until December. And if he's fallen out with them during that time, then he will say a lot more about them, which gets worked into the book.

Have you been met with any real challenges in doing the book?

Nothing major. Some companies have been less forthcoming with details and interviews that I had hoped for and some people have asked that their names do not appear in the book because they want to keep working in the industry, but that's all par for the course. The biggest problem was me at one point actually. I was wanting something completely shocking and Over The Top for the opening of the book and was thinking of referencing the famous Invisibles sigil session. Of course I wanted this from Grant's point of view and wanted him to describe it. Of course that would have meant him describing parts of his anatomy on the opening page. Kristan had a good laugh at that and then was good-naturedly enough to talk me out of it. So we're now thinking of just making it the cover instead.

Who will be publishing the book?

No one as of yet. There have been some offers, but I want to get it into the hands of my agent as soon as [I can] and see what he suggests. Ideally, it should be a big company because this is a book that will shift copies, especially if someone takes the time and effort to go to San Diego with it, but sometimes a big company can take a book and hold it for ages, while a smaller company can get it out the door quicker. So, at the moment, no one is publishing it, but no one has been ruled out. One thing it won't be is self-published though.

Hopefully it will be out by the end of this year, but failing that next year, Either is good because the next 18 months are going to be incredible for Grant.

Anyone dying for an advance read though, can go to the site of Just 1 Page - a charity anthology for the Trinity Hospice Charity. It contains a chunk from the first chapter and they might get a complete chapter for their auctions too. Anyway the anthology costs £5 or $10. It's a good cause so if anyone is really keen to see what the book's going to be like, they can buy that and see the start of Chapter One.

What sort of appeal do you think this book will have for readers unfamiliar with Grants work?

Lots. In fact they are the target market. Grant has come from squalor to be one of the most creative and interesting people on the planet. So there's the inspirational angle. There's also Grant the creative, for people who want to see what is behind the comics that he has done. Then there's the age-old question of 'what makes him the way he is'

There's also a lot of fun tales - travel, celeb mixing and so on. For the comic reader, there's lots of gossip as well as news of Grant's far ahead upcoming stuff as well as insight to the stuff that's already been out. And the stuff that wasn't. Like Marvel Boy 2, Ultimate Fantastic Four - not once, but twice - and so on. The people he helped and the people he felt betrayed by. There's going to be plenty in this for everyone.

Let's talk about your upcoming graphic novel, Know The Provo. Could you describe the title for those only just now hearing about it?

Know the Provo came about when I became aware of an Irish Loyalist hitlist being touted about pubs in Britain and also America. It took a bit of undercover work to get my actual hands on it, but when I did I found that it was 300 names - nearly 200 pages - of a properly organized hitlist with personal details on a number of people, including high-ranking politicians in the US and the UK, as well as some major stars.

The OGN will be about the discovery of the list, how I got it, who's on it and what happened when the information was made public. It's not all about the list though as there's a fair chunk set aside to how modern journalism works, so it should open some eyes for people thinking of going into media or wanting to see how the media work.

Is there a tentative release date for Know The Provo as of now?

Not right now, no. Hopefully this year, more likely early next as it's suffered a terrible amount of delays due to my personal life and people making threats about the thing being published. I'm also, if I'm being brutally honest, wondering if it's such a great move to get it published because my family are quite concerned - for me obviously - but also for themselves. And while I accept that if I write something, I'm a fair target, I don't like the fact that there are people out there who would go for my family instead, thinking that would cause more pain. It's something I'll be deciding in the next few weeks probably, after I meet with some people who can advise me because I don't think I'd have anyone thanking me for putting this story out if you know what I mean.

Which brings me to my next question, not even out yet and you've been getting threats for at least over a year now. Aside from the graphic novel in the works had you done any reporting on the existence of the list elsewhere?

It was carried in the Sunday Mirror and the Daily Mirror in the UK. After we ran with it, a US mag - that I can't remember the name of - picked up some work on it as well and did a piece, but not be me. I don't know if they've ever seen the list. If I could get my hands on it, I'm sure others could too.

Could you tell us what happened the first time you were approached, or should I say 'warned', about the project?

At first it was just a bundle of phone calls warning me about writing about the list and then it got physical. Apart from a scuffed bum and a bloody nose, there wasn't much damage - though I can be light-hearted now, I was terrified at the time - and that was just after the Mirror had the bottle to print it. After the revelation that I was looking at doing it as an OGN I had some phone calls - the main number I was using at the time of finding the Provo list had since been changed thankfully - and one encounter in the street where a guy just said to me "I can't believe you'd be so silly as to open this up again". Now, Glasgow and the West coast of Scotland - just 30 minutes from Belfast - aren't that big that you don't know who most of the major operators are or what they are capable of, so even a one sentence chat like that can carry a lot of weight.

And no doubt there's people out there just now going "What happened to the truth must be out there, print the story at all costs?" Well I did that, not once but twice with this list, it hasn't exactly brought peace in Ireland has it? But at the same time, that's all very well saying when you run the risk alone, but most violent people know fine well that the best way to hurt someone is to go to their relatives. If I was a violent man, it's what I would do.

The thing is, I don't even have a copy of the list any more. That was burned a long time ago for the obvious reason.

As you mentioned you're doing some work with Variance Press, and as anthologies seem to be making a comeback it's only natural they'd do one as well. How do you feel your contribution, Last Orders turned out?

I'm quite pleased with it. I don't think the ending works quite as well I had it in my head and with hindsight it could probably do with a few more pages of conversation at the end when yer man in the pub is talking to the disguised alien to get what I was aiming for a bit better, but overall I'm bloody delighted with it, especially as I think the opening pages capture it well. Page one: Aliens say they will destroy the world, starting with Oz, pages 2 and 3 Oz gets it. If that doesn't capture your attention then I don't know what will. It always seems to be Oz that gets it in the comics though isn't it? Poor buggers. That'll teach them to get caught for shoplifting 300 years ago.

Also, to be fair, the script was a bugger. Graeme McMillan did a great job with it. I'm officially taking credit for 'discovering' him, even though I didn't and everyone should be counting the days until his Zombie! Zombie! Zombie! Project out later this year, which can be summed up as Z: The Last Zombie. I can't wait for it. Check out the preview at: Variance Press.com

Was this the type of project that evolved out of a group of friends, or something you were asked to come on to?

Travis - whom I hardly knew beforehand - invited me on after hearing about a pitch I have in somewhere else called Hotrods, asking me to pitch and it seemed rude to turn him down. Fortunately he liked a couple of my ideas, one of which has appeared in the Anthology. Travis is really passionate about this and I hope it pays off. It's always good to see folk be determined. If I get a developing career in comics, it'll be in no small part thanks to Travis.

Even though books like Know The Provo and the Morrison Biog are still in the works, you're fairly well known in the field, which is great 'cause it's really a shame when I see a lot of independent artists putting out high quality work but don't take any steps towards marketing it. Do you have any recommendations to up and comers as to how to help market themselves?

A few, if no-one thinks that sounds too presumptuous. Don't be shy, but at the same time don't be a false arsehole either. Places like here, the Millarworld Forums and the Delphi Forums are decent places to pop by, say hello and slowly build up contacts. Do work for the websites too. Write a few articles.

Also, be true to yourself. There's no need to try and emulate Grant and give it "I've taken all these drugs, done this and that" when you've done none of it. Some of the funniest people I know are middle class accountants and computer programmers, while some of the most deadly dull and poo-faced are the complete opposite.

My tactic - if it's of any use to anyone - was to try and get myself known over a period of time and see how it goes. As you know, Bristol is the main comic convention in the UK with spin-offs like Moniave being more social occasions (but great fun), so that meant going to that.

The first time I went to Bristol was last year, so that was pretty much a case of touching base and putting some faces to names, which I did and made some contact with people.

This year was all about building on that, a bit of profile boosting so to speak and again meeting a few people. I get very conscious at the cons because of the Scottish accent. It's an accent that can throw a lot of people so it takes more work for people to understand me or you can have a situation where I'm being sarcastic and they think I'm being deadly serious.

Anyway, thanks to Lee Barnett inviting me onto his excellent Hypotheticals panel, a few more people know me, so that's mission accomplished.

By next year - if not Bristol, then San Diego - I would hope that there's a bundle of stuff out. The Variance anthology is out, if there's a second I'd love to do that, I've also promised Variance an OGN and I'll honour that, then there's the Grant book and maybe some other stuff, so that would be a decent body of work to go over to SD and try to boost my profile there with.

Of course you're talking to the guy who dreams about writing a series based around the Daily Planet staff - a la Gotham Central where the superheroes take a backseat and do every issue like Lou Grant - so there might be no hope for me.

In fact that would be my advice to people trying to break in: don't pitch any Daily Planet tales to DC. Nah, seriously, if you think you're good and can accept comments from other people that will make you better, then don't give in. It doesn't matter if you are 15, 35 or 55, you keep at it because someday someone will notice. Don't let anyone else drag you down.

To comment on this article, contact Co-Editor in Chief Jonathan Ellis at ellis@popimage.com


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