Peter Pan Complex - At Dinner with Torso's Marc Andreyko
Interview by Scott Grunewald.

Marc Andreyko is one of the best writers that you've probably never heard of. In between his occasional work for hire jobs at Marvel, he's impressed a small, but extremely loyal fan base with the gothic, homoerotic, vampires-and-Peter-Pan inspired series THE LOST. Most recently he stunned readers with his collaboration with Brian Michael Bendis, the Image Comics series TORSO, the true story of Elliot Ness and his quest to stop the world first known serial killer in Cleveland. I recently got a chance to sit down with Marc at a painfully trendy diner in Hollywood and hear his take on the industry, movies, gays in comics, and his humble beginnings as an avid Spiderman reader.

PopImage: Do you remember the first comic you read?

Marc Andreyko: The first comic that I remember reading was Amazing Spiderman #136. I remember reading it on a plane to Boston. It was Spiderman versus the Green Goblin. It was when Harry Osborne took over being the Green Goblin. I think it was drawn by Ross Andru even. I remember there was a scene in the book where Mary Jane goes to her apartment, opens the door and a bomb goes off. I think it was even a John Romita Sr. cover.

PI: So that was the kind of comic that you read while growing up?

MA: Oh I was obsessed with Spiderman as a kid. I learned to read from Sesame Street, Dr. Suess and Spiderman. I taught myself to read when I was really young with them, I think I was four or something. Spiderman was it for me; I loved Spiderman.

PI: So are those old Spiderman comics where you draw your inspiration from as a writer now?

MA: No, I don't limit myself to any specific genre. I like to write everything, I like all sorts of movies, all sorts of novels and all sorts of different types of music. I don't like one specific type of genre, I'm not a big horror guy, or a big science fiction guy, or a big historical drama guy or a comedy guy. If it's a well-executed story, it doesn't matter what genre is falls under. There are writers that I admire, who I would like to be as good as. Like John Irving. He wrote The World According to Garp. He's probably my favorite writer, I just think everything he does is fantastic. Then I also love the Harry Potter books, and reading books from the 50's. Once again, if a story is well told, that connects with me rather than the setting of the story.

PI: Why did you choose to write comics?

MA: This is going to annoy people that are struggling to get into comics. I grew up reading comics, I worked in comic book stores during junior high school and high school, then I went to college and went to Kent State University and a lot of comic professionals live there, Craig Russell, Jay Geldhof, Jill Thompson lived there at the time. So I became friends with Craig Russell while I was directing a play and Craig did a poster for me, and so I just sort of fell into [comics] backwards. I came up with this idea for THE LOST and I ran it by Jay Geldhof and Galen Showman, they said that would be a lot of fun to draw. It was originally a film idea that I had, but we ended up developing it together as a comic because it was a chance to see some ideas visualized and fleshed out. And my biggest break came when I was talking to Craig and he was always talking about wanting to re-do the Doctor Strange annual from the 70's that he did. He had plotted it, but a different writer was brought in to finish it. I said 'why don't you do that now?' (Because at the time, Marvel was really open to creative stuff) So Craig asked Bob Harras and Bob said "Sure, who's going to write it" and Craig said "Oh, Marc Andreyko" and Bob said "Who? Who's that?" and as a testament to the power of Craig Russell he told Bob "He's a friend of mine; he's a really good writer" and Bob said fine. So I wrote it, and that kind of put me on the map.

PI: So that was your first published work?

MA: That was my first published mainstream work. My actual first published work was for Eros Comics, for Fantagraphics. Another guy I knew named Dennis Cramer did this book called Mara -- this kind of Celtic witch sex comic. And he needed some help kind of editing it and script polishing it. So that was my first published work. So my first published work is for a Fantagraphics dirty sex comic.

PI: So where did the idea for The Lost come from?

MA: I've always loved the Peter Pan story. I love the old Mary Martin version and the Disney version which is to date the best version of the story, but there are a lot of missed opportunities in them. The story itself is so dark, like Alice in Wonderland is a really dark book too. All these things that we think are warm fuzzy kids books really have a lot of really weird sub-textual stuff. The vampire aspect of it was actually put in for comics to make it really high concept. There are hints of that in the original book actually. But our take on vampires wasn't crosses and crucifixes, it was just the blood that we created the whole mythology around. But that was the least interesting part for me, but we had to make it high concept for comics because people don't want character studies in comics. You're appealing to a 16 to 19 year old male audience so we have to have a hook, no pun intended.

PI: So where is issue #4?

MA: It will be done some day. But right now I've just done a couple drafts of the screenplay cause there's, I guess you could say some interest in it, but I don't want to sound like every other comic creator who is vague about a deal and then the movie never comes out. But #4 is written and is being drawn as we speak. The problem with a creator owned deal is this. The book did really really well. It did really well at Caliber, and then Chaos wanted to publish it, and they offered more exposure and more press for it, and every issue sold out. But because it was a creator owned book, we were doing it on a royalty base. Which means that we didn't get any money up front. And when we were doing the book, the black and white market just died.

The book sold big numbers; we sold out of every print of it, but we couldn't overprint because you don't know if you're going to sell five extra copies of a reorder or five thousand. Our numbers were huge on the reorders, but we weren't able to overprint enough to exploit that. But It's amazing to me how many people really read the book. In San Diego I started keeping count after the first day. Two hundred and forty came up to me and asked about The Lost. That's ridiculous, the book hasn't been published for two and a half years! I feel real bad because it has such a loyal fan base and I was hoping to have a more definite announcement by now about what's happening with the book, but I don't yet. There is stuff happening, but it's not signed/sealed/delivered. But, if what's supposed to happen happens, everyone should be real happy. The book will be done in its entirety and it will be out, but we'll see.

PI: Will there be a trade or collection?

MA: Ultimately there will be a trade. We're mulling over doing black and white and color versions of the trade.

PI: So the reason that #4 didn't come out wasn't because Chaos had objections to the content?

MA: Oh no no no.

PI: Because I had heard a rumor or two...

MA: No no no.

PI: ...that they were uncomfortable with the gay angle.

MA: Have you read a Chaos book lately? (Laughs) That's completely wrong. Chaos has been great. Brian Pulido is one of the best guys I know. It was all the curse of economics. There was no objection whatsoever. Brian Pulido is one of the most straightforward guys I know I have nothing but great things to say about him and Chaos. One of their biggest selling characters, Purgatory, is a lesbian.

PI: Well, there's a major difference between lesbians and gay boys.

MA: Well that's true, certainly in entertainment.

PI: I mean, everyone loves Rainmaker [of Gen13], but suddenly Midnighter and Apollo [of The Authority] aren't cool anymore because they're gay men and not a hot lesbian.

MA: I think [Authority writer] Warren Ellis should be commended. I was really impressed with the way he handled that. It wasn't done like that horrible Alpha Flight/Northstar thing. It's funny that people are uncomfortable with open homoerotic themes in comics. There are two kinds of men comic readers. There are the guys who want to be big buff super heroes and like the women with the big breasts. Then there are gay men for whom that whole 'secret identity' metaphor really deals with a lot of what their lives are about because, at least ten years ago there weren't a lot of gay role models. It wasn't as accepted as it is now, and now its not even as accepted as it should be. Then there is also that ideal that superheroes represent. Superheroes are generally the ideal body form for men and women. So it's kind of funny when people are shocked that there is a big gay readership in comics. It's huge, just huge, and I wish they would speak up more. There was a really great panel at San Diego about gay creators in comics, and it was really interesting to see how many straight people were in the audience, you know, they'd ask the questions and not care. I think most people don't care, I mean its such a ridiculous thing. So going back to the original point. No, that was never an issue, Chaos was totally supportive.

PI: Okay, so how did you hook up with Brian Michael Bendis?

MA: Well, I met Brian at a Motor City con in 1994 or 95. I think it was 95. I lived in Cleveland at the time, and we just became really good friends. He's one of my best friends, he's a great guy, and he and his wife are two of the people I'm closest to. We'd always wanted to work together, and I heard rumors about this Torso Killer and I started doing research about it, and I couldn't believe that no one had made this film. It had captured the publics' attention, it was as big as the Lindbergh Baby case, and at the time it was as big as O.J. and no one talked about it, it was forgotten. Eliot Ness hunted one of the first documented serial killers in the United States. That's about as high concept as you can get, and it was real! So I approached Brain about it. I was actually having Passover dinner at the Bendis House. It was me, Brian, his wife, his brother in-law, his mother and a friend of mine and I started pitching this idea to him over Passover dinner about this guy who chopped off arms and legs and heads. Everyone else was thoroughly nauseated, but Brian was like "That's a great idea!" So knowing Brian's background, we decided to work on it together. We always had cinematic aspirations for it but we decided to go with the comic because Brian had inroads with Image and he was just finishing up Jinx. [Brian] needed another [project] to keep going at Image, so we said "Lets just do it as a comic" because when it comes to studio executives, they're crows with tin foil. You show them a comic and they say "Oooo, shiny" Then Todd McFarlane discovered the book and hired Brian to write Sam & Twitch. Then Todd came out here a couple months ago and he and I went around pitching it and Miramax made an offer. That's actually the really really condensed version.

PI: Brian has a very, very strong and distinct writing style, as do you, and they are very different. How did you mesh these two styles together and not have one overpower the other?

MA: Well, the whole thing was very tightly plotted by the both of us. It was a give and take thing. Because he did the art, Brian did a lot of it; there's more of him than me in the comic itself. But because of time constraints, there were certain scenes that I scripted myself and then we'd toss them back and forth between each other and edit the scenes and make suggestions to each other, and it wasn't easy because of the distance between us. Not being in the same room is sometimes difficult, but because literally every scene was so totally plotted beforehand our presence was equally felt in everything. Even in the scenes that I didn't directly write the dialogue for and vice versa, we both put our thumbprints all over it beforehand.

PI: I'm curious why you think movie companies are hitting up comics more that ever now a days, especially considering that the movie industry is doing better than it ever has, and the comic industry is dying.

MA: Well, it's funny because I always joke that the only people that ever buy comics these days are the 18 to 35 year old die-hard collectors and studio executives. It actually makes sense. With a comic you have stories that are already told, and you've got designs already made. With movies being a visual medium and comics being a visual medium, it's a logical thing.

PI: Why do you think the comic industry is in the trouble that its in now?

MA: I think one of the reasons that comics are in the situation that they're in now is the lack of interesting genres in comics. We're still stuck in superheroes. I know I'm not the first person to say this, but if you go to Europe or Japan and it's considered an art form. They do romance stories, they do historical dramas, they do comedy, they do kids stories and they do sexy stuff. There are different types of comics like there are different types of books at a Borders bookstore. And we're still stuck in this 'if it doesn't have a cape and spandex, then no one wants to try it'. And it's really frustrating when people complain that there's not enough interesting stuff in comics, and when you do an interesting comic, nobody buys it. It's like the people who say that there aren't enough kids movies made, but then Iron Giant comes out and it's a bomb.

PI: You mentioned being trapped in superheroes-

MA: There's nothing wrong with superheroes. I enjoy a good superhero story, but its like if all you eat are bananas, then you're gonna get sick of bananas after a while.

PI: I mentioned in an editorial recently that it's no wonder the mainstream audience doesn't want anything to do with comics when you go into a bookstore and all you see are Spiderman and Superman comics.

MA: But you don't even see them in bookstores anymore and you don't even really see them on newsstands anymore. You go into a bookstore and you go to the comics section which is usually comedy or cartoons and you've got a Sin City trade, a Madman trade, and a bunch of Star Wars trades and a Superman trade, and they're all mixed in together. That's like putting Anne Rice next to an Atlas next to a Shakespeare play next to a bunch of Ziggy cartoons all in a section called 'Books'. And there's a lot of ghettoization in comics. You go to a comic book store on a Wednesday when the new books come out, and no one looks at each other. It's literally like going into a dirty bookstore and buying porn. There's this feeling that it's a dirty little secret and everyone is embarrassed to be there. How do you expect the art form to be accepted if you hide it under your bed?

PI: How could we get new people to read comics?

MA: It's accessibility. People would read comics if they could find comics. Comics are a disposable impulse-based art form. The reason people rent movies is because video stores are on every corner. The reason people drink Starbucks coffee is because there are Starbucks everywhere. It's all about accessibility and need. And cost! Comics are too damn expensive. You can buy an issue of US Magazine for what you pay for a comic book and get three to four times the amount of pages. Plus, comics should be available everywhere. They should be available in magazine form, on newsstands, and they should be returnable. The direct market was a great idea for a moment, but then it became this weird cult of the same readers. Comic companies are fighting over the same 80,000 readers as opposed to getting new readers involved. That's where we should be focusing our energies.

--

Marc Andreyko recently completed the Wolverine 1999 Annual for Marvel Comics, and says there is more X-work in his future. He is currently developing the script for TORSO with Brian Michael Bendis, due to be turned into a feature film by Miramax. PopImage would like to thank Marc for letting us interview him.

All characters, titles, images mentioned or shown are copyright and trademark their respective creators.

Scott Grunewald is the editor of PopImage.

Back

Attitude | ProFile | Industrial
Interviews | Reviews | Pi Comics
Talkback | Archives | Gallery