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| << January21, 2006 - [ComicBookNetwork E-Mag] CBEM 559.05 |
January21, 2006 - [ComicBookNetwork E-Mag] CBEM 559.09 >> |
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***** RICK VEITCH TALKS By Alex Ness I was compelled to be a fan of Rick Veitch. When SWAMP THING was at its creative peak in the 1980s I was onboard, and I believed in the collective creative staff from that book. I liked the work but even more than "like", I felt the crew had accomplished something new, and noteworthy. Thereafter, whenever I could afford to, I bought the new works of any of those talents from the title SWAMP THING. Thereafter to the present, Rick Veitch has written and illustrated many comics I like to read, so getting the opportunity to chat with him is deeply appreciated by me. Alex Ness: What was your first published comics work? Rick Veitch: I consider TWO FISTED ZOMBIES, written by my brother Tom Veitch with art by me, as my official first published work. It came out from Last Gasp in 1972. But Tom and I had previously collaborated on a weekly strip for the University of Vermont campus newspaper, THE VERMONT CYNIC. It was called CRAZYMOUSE and ran for ten or twelve weeks, I think. Alex Ness: You went to the Kubert School, to what extent did it prepare you fully for work in the comic book world? Rick Veitch: Kubert School was exactly what I needed at that point in my life. To spend two straight years completely focused on comics was a real gift! The school gave me the first honest art instruction I'd ever had. It also prepared me for the business end of things and because it was located near New York, put me in a good position to make my initial contacts in what was then the center of comics publishing. And of course I made some life long friendships that have been very important to me. Alex Ness: Who are your influences artistically and writing wise? Rick Veitch: As a kid I essentially taught myself to draw by copying whoever my favorite artist was at the time. So I drew from all the usual suspects like Frazetta, Kubert, Infantino, Williamson and especially Kirby. Jack not only influenced my art but also my storytelling in a very organic way. He was definitely my main guy growing up. I only began to think about writing professionally when I was at Kubert School. During that period Joe Kubert and Bob Kanigher had the most influence since I was working directly from their scripts. My early professional work was over at Marvel under Archie Goodwin and I was also lettering Archie's stuff for Al Williamson so a lot of his stylisms found their way into my early style. Then, I guess, Alan Moore showed up and changed the whole paradigm for all of us and since I was lucky enough to be working on his scripts I picked up on him as much as I could too. Alex Ness: As a writer and artist do you find that the creative people who compose your list of influences would be less craft centric and more philosophy about creativity? Rick Veitch: I think most of the people in comics who influenced me did so through an appreciation of their craft. But I was in awe of Kirby's creative imagination. He seemed to up the idea ante with every new issue he drew at Marvel in the sixties and then kind of topped all that with the FOURTH WORLD stuff; consciously and successfully creating a modern myth. Outside of the comic book continuum, I read a lot and I do tend to gravitate to authors who grapple with big spiritual questions. Henry Miller probably had the most profound impact on me. Alex Ness: Swamp Thing had a writer and two artists (Bissette and Totleben) yet you were heavily involved in the book. What would you define your work upon that title prior to your own run as writer /artist? Rick Veitch: I helped Steve on a bunch of issues in his run, beginning with "The Anatomy Lesson". It wasn't a true collaboration in the sense of other stories we had done together such as "Monkey Sea" in EPIC or "1941" for HEAVY METAL. The SWAMP THING gig was Steve's and represented his unique vision. If anything, I acted more like an assistant that a collaborator, drawing things Steve hated to draw, like buildings and cars, so he could cut loose on the horror stuff he loved. My name never went on it until the first collection and Steve was nice enough to add me to the credits then. I think my real function in all this was getting Steve started when he was blocked and keeping him focused amid his chaotic day to day existence; things which were always a terrible problem for him when he drew. Whatever I did, it was all done in the spirit of our early post-Kubert School days when Steve, John Totleben, Tom Yeates and I shared a house in Dover New Jersey called Flying Dutchmaster Studios. Working and partying kind of blended into each other in that place and we frequently pitched in to help each other just for the sheer creative fun of it. Alex Ness: Your own run ended in such a way that I ended up personally boycotting DC comics for a couple years. Was the ultimate reason DC's fear of religiosity in their books, Jeanette Kubla Kahn's personal religious views or something else entirely? Rick Veitch: I still don't know what DC's reasoning was. I do cop to having overreacted when I resigned. I should have finished the last three issues as I'd promised and then walked away. It would have been the professional thing and I wouldn't have spent the last fifteen years with a hole in my heart because I never got to finish my novel. Alex Ness: Will fans ever be able to read the censored story? Rick Veitch: I donated a copy of the script to the CBLDF and I think they sell photocopies at their convention table. Alex Ness: How was your perception of the character of Swamp Thing any different than Alan Moore? Rick Veitch: I benefited greatly from the depth of characterization Alan had accomplished with Swamp Thing and Abby and all the other regular characters. What changed was the tone of the title. There's quite a strong streak of social satire that runs through my SWAMP THING stuff. I'm sure there are old time DC readers who never forgave me for trapping ROY RAYMOND in the back of his limo for all those months. In Alan's run the plot situations are essentially set up so that the hero's task appears hopeless and impossible, and SWAMP THING and ABBY bob along on events that are beyond their control. My SWAMPY and ABBY have a strategy and clear goal to fight for. Alex Ness: King Hell Press is your publishing outlet, to what extent did that come from your experience at DC Comics? Rick Veitch: The real influence on me to self publish came from Peter Laird, Kevin Eastman and Dave Sim who had all been able to prosper outside the large companies. This was in the mid 1980's when Marvel and DC were doing business in the old way. Alex Ness: The ONE, Maximortal and Brat Pack are all available through King Hell, so do you censor yourself by any means? Rick Veitch: Well, none of those titles are meant to completely release the sublimated Id of Veitch in the same manner S. Clay Wilson or Rory Hayes approach their comics. With BRAT PACK and THE MAXIMORTAL I'm trying to get under the skin of comics; peel it back to reveal the pathologies at play. In that sense I don't censor anything. Alex Ness: I have been told that there are some people who consider Brat Pack's satire of the super hero sidekick cliche to be an anti gay statement. I read it, do not think it so, but I think from a mainstream publisher you could not have said something similarly. Rick Veitch: BRAT PACK was a satire of the hidden socio-psycho- sexual elements that super hero comics have always traded in. It's all in there; vigilantism, objectification of women, fetishism, misogyny, hyper violence, drug use, child endangerment. How can a book that takes on those subjects ignore homo-eroticism? Look to the language; the phrase "Batman and Robin" has been slang for a certain type of homosexual relationship since the '40's. I have met a few people who were hurt or angry about the depiction of the Midnight Mink (Dirk Deppey told me the book traumatized him so much as a teenager that he burned it), but BRAT PACK was meant to piss off EVERYONE who was still hanging onto an unconsciously neurotic fascination with super hero comics. Alex Ness: I bought and enjoyed 1963, but wondered what it was. I realize that there was homage involved, and good stories, but wonder why the series happened. Your work at IMAGE on the series 1963 ended with a spreading of the creative assets among the creative talents (Moore, Bissette and yourself) involved. Why did it fail? Rick Veitch: 1963 was Alan's reaction to how insane and awful super hero comics became in the early 90's. He told me he felt somehow responsible by letting the cat out of the bag with WATCHMEN and wanted to completely reverse course and get back to that 'state of grace' that super heroes existed in during the Silver Age. The point of the series was to be demonstrated in the 80 Page Annual when the sweet and simple 1963 characters battle the pumped and vicious Image super heroes (the basic concept was later lifted for KINGDOM COME). 1963 failed because the Annual was never completed. Alan began the script, finishing the first 24 pages, but Jim Lee never started the art. Steve Bissette also pulled out while I was drawing Book 6 and since he was scheduled to handle the production on that issue everything then fell into my lap and it just wasn't possible at that late date to reboot the Annual. In the years following I've tried to organize a number of publishing deals, some of which were built around a new approach to finishing the project. But so far I've never been able to put all the pieces together. Alex Ness: You continued to work with Alan Moore or at least, Alan Moore's intellectual properties with Greyshirt for Wildstorm and then Wildstorm/DC. Did your continued work relationship with Moore suggest that you were not a party to the split between Bissette and Moore? Rick Veitch: Those two guys really loved each other and I love them both so to be in the middle when they split apart so wrenchingly was one of the worst relationship things I've ever had to deal with. Alex Ness: Upon RAREBIT you've collected and presented sequential adaptations of dreams, both yours and those submitted by readers and contributors. What is your goal there and do you believe in dreams as anything but interesting source material? Why? Rick Veitch: I've always done dreamwork, which is essentially just paying attention to your dreams. But at a critical moment of my young adulthood (as described in CRYPTO ZOO) my dreams clearly pulled me out of the mess I'd made of my life and showed me where my true path lay. So I have a deep connection and respect for dreaming and have always relied on it as a sort of sixth sense. Making comics from dreams is the most satisfying art experience I have ever had (and I've had a few). When I create comics from my dreams I experience a lovely circuit of intuition that moves through me. RARE BIT FIENDS may have been difficult for comics readers used to being entertained with linear and coherent stories, but for me it was a journey of self discovery. Alex Ness: Upon The Question and Aquaman you've returned to DC Comics properties, what was your goal upon each and why did you return to work at DC? Rick Veitch: I got drawn in through the back door when DC bought Wildstorm and ended up owning our contracts for ABC in the deal. I was pretty unhappy about it at the time but resolved to finish out what I'd promised. While doing that, Scott Dunbier and Bob Wayne worked really hard to negotiate a way out of the 13 year old dispute. AQUAMAN was me getting my toe back in the mainstream after being out for over a dozen years. The final product was pretty much a failure in my mind. But THE QUESTION I am very proud of. I got to write the kind of complex and otherworldly kind of script I like and was blessed to collaborate with Tommy Lee Edwards. I'm hoping DC will collect it. Alex Ness: What titles characters at DC would you still like a run at? Rick Veitch: None that I'm gung-ho on. But you can always find something worth teasing out in any of them if an editor calls and asks if you are interested. Sometimes the best characters to play with are the ones that the company has just about given up on because you can be a lot more creative with them. Alex Ness: Why DC and not MARVEL or other publishers (outside of course, of KING HELL)? Rick Veitch: I do work for other publishers. WHAT IF/DAREDEVIL with art by Tommy Lee Edwards on sale now. CAN'T GET NO original 350 page graphic novel written and drawn by me which will be released from Vertigo this year. ABRAXAS AND THE EARTHMAN collection of my full painted color EPIC series from KING HELL PRESS. ARMY@LOVE new series from Vertigo written and penciled by me. Alex Ness: What is your goal at Comicon.com? It would seem to be a well visited site about comics, and you do a great job, but I've read that you make precious little money from the site. SO... if not for money, what? Rick Veitch: We launched right about the time the direct sales distribution system fell into the hands of the big players so our original goal was to become a clearinghouse of ideas to find a new way of doing things. But we quickly became a sort of 'big tent' site, with a constantly growing base of comic fans from all corners of the community. The wild growth of the early years has leveled off and our audience logs over a million page views a month. Advertising has really picked up and it looks like we'll be able to put the site's co-creator Steve Conley on the payroll in 2006. Comicon.com is an amazingly complex site to maintain and Steve's been webmastering all these years gratis! Why do we do it? We frequently ask ourselves that question. Alex Ness: Comic News is surely important to fans and professionals, but is the Pulse, or Newsarama or CBR, presenting more promotional material than news, and if so, who does that benefit? Rick Veitch: I've got an interesting perspective since I'm involved with the PULSE (which is unashamedly fannish) and I spent four years running the SPLASH (which covered the business stuff). And the PULSE easily outpulls the SPLASH fifteen or twenty to one. I could never get a single regular advertiser for the SPLASH while we've got sponsors waiting in line to get on the PULSE. Advertising is critical for any kind of meaningful reporting because it costs a couple thousand a month to keep a reporter. The fact about comic news on the internet is that the audience for fun features is significant while the audience for hard industry news isn't. Alex Ness: Outside of the aforementioned Comicon.com/Pulse and Panels where can fans and readers find you and your work? Rick Veitch: My own booth at Comicon.com/Veitch is in need of freshening (that's on the to-do list). All my trade paperbacks are available on Amazon.com. A new retail site, PaneltoPanel .com is opening soon and they will be running my daily LITTLE OMENS strips. These are about a hundred and fifty short dream comics culled from my sketchbooks, 24 hour comics, mini-comics and wherever. FINAL THOUGHTS: Thanks to Rick Veitch. ***** A talk with Josh Joshua Hale Fialkov is a new writer in the comic book field, but he is by no means a novice writer. As this interview shows, Josh has worked in creative mediums a long time, and has been creative since his earliest memory. I adore his work ELK'S RUN, and hope that upon reading this interview you will go out and buy that book. It is a title with a troubled publishing history, but I have no trouble recommending it. It is a dark, emotive work that gives me substantial chills. AN: At what point in your life did you decide to be a writer? JHF: Pretty much from as early as I can remember. I did what a lot of kids do... I had a Fisher-Price tape recorder and I recorded myself doing shows. But, what I think I did that most kids didn't do, was actually do continuing stories, and daily shows. So, every day at four o clock, I'd sit down and record my "Rock N Roll Radio" show, and every day at five I'd do the next chapter in The Shadowy Avenger. I was a weirdo. AN: Wow, why do you think you were so early developed? JHF: Good follow up. I had a considerably older brother and sister. So, when I was born, they were nine and seven. By the time I was toddling around, my brother was becoming a teenager. And so I never really watched Sesame Street or Mister Rogers. I was watching Doctor Who reruns, and Monty Python. I'll never forget in like first or second grade, we had "Show and Tell" in music class. This was when Raffi and Tiffany were the 'hot shit' with the kids. I brought in that Queensryche album "Empire" with that damn single that was so popular... My teacher probably have a fit, if we hadn't just listened to "I Think We're Alone Now" ten times in a row. AN: so for you there was a sense of needing to entertain others with your writing as much as a need to express something JHF: Well, a lot of it was trying to keep up with my older siblings. Between wanting my brother to accept me, and trying to make my sister loathe me, I became a pretty big show off pretty early. AN: So how did you educate yourself to be a writer? JHF: I read. A lot. My parents made a big deal about me reading early and often, and I spent a good amount of my time as a child with my nose in books. Their big mistake, however, was letting me find a copy of Stephen King's Cycle of the Werewolf (it's what the movie Silver Bullet is based on), when I was six or seven. I devoured it in a few days (I even attempted to do a book report on it for my second grade reading class. That didn't go over well.). Since then, I've just been a voracious reader. I read at least a novel a week still, sometimes more. I was also, and still am, a huge fan of episodic TV. Which led me to comics, and so on. AN: Did you take high school classes that were academic or vocational? JHF: I spent most of high school heckling my way to barely passing. AN: Oh dear so that was not the time of your "great awakening" JHF: Actually, it sort of was. Here's the thing. School has always felt sort of useless to me. My parents are from South Africa. Which, when they were growing up, still had that sort of British mentality about education. They learned Latin, Greek, English, Africaans, and then one additional language. In Elementary school. So, when they came here, and they saw how 'lax' American schools were, they took it upon themselves to really get me trained up. AN: So you had a lot less of a brutal edumacation? JHF: Yeah, it wasn't aggressive on their part, they just figured, "He's 11. He should be reading Charles Dickens." "He's 13, he should be reading Shakespeare. "So, by the time we read that stuff in High School, it was like "Kid's stuff to me." I'll never forget getting 9th grade English, and being given Animal Farm to read. I raised my hand and said, "When are we going to read books for adults?" Cause to me, Animal Farm was a book for 12 year olds, not 15 year olds. I didn't get it. I think that's sort of symptomatic of one of the big problems in this country. We're a country of short cuts, and the fundamentals get ignored. AN: I taught in university and my wife is a kindergarten teacher I think education is constantly being retooled to adjust to political agenda and perceived value hence the concentration upon feel good bullcrap and science and math to the exclusion of Arts. JHF: See, that's the thing, there are certain pieces of literature which are the basis for everything. Just like you need to learn to add before you can do multiplication. But all great scientific minds were obsessed with the arts. The arts are where ideas and genius and inspiration come from. AN: My studies were in history and I dealt with tons of people who said I do not need this and they were right they have every reason to be ignorant it is less involving and they can go right on to their Jerry Springer. JHF: Look, if we had a country that knew its history, and saw what's happened in the world over the past century, do you think we'd have the political nightmare we currently have? I don't. Everyone throws Vietnam around, but let's look at Nazi Germany. Look at what Hitler did. He decided that his belief structure and government model was correct, and he invaded other countries to inflict it upon them. Is what has happened these past five years been as bad as Nazi Germany? No. Of course not. But, Nazi Germany didn't happen overnight either. AN: I am not saying we should or should not learn history just that if people cannot see the utility of it they won't likely ever see it no matter how interesting life of others in other places and times have been JHF: And that's why all of the art programs get cut. Because what we do, the purpose of what an artist does is to make history relevant. To make events and times memorable. To hopefully instill lessons that seem to 'cut and dry' in history books. Or even beyond that. Look at the early Marvel Comics. The FF and Spider-man. Those speak more about their time than any movie about the 60's ever could. AN: Set deeply in their era JHF: Exactly. Just like the Golden Age stuff. AN: Which is why I loved the Golden Age. JHF: Which makes what's happening now in comics so strange. Everything is drawing from the past. We're not writing about today or tomorrow. We're writing about the past. AN: Yes there is a recreating of the wheel all the time in popular culture, but the moment in time that great comics are MAUS or Dark Knight or Watchmen all books that were different from anything before them. JHF: I think there's something about those books from the 80's that's sensational. Partly how revolutionary they were, but also how seeded they were in their era. We've spent the time since emulating and raising them up on a pedestal. AN: That and ignoring the fact that so much of what they did was tell good stories period, yes. JHF: Instead of doing what they tell us to do. Which is to MAKE BETTER COMICS. Exactly. AN: So do you have South African Comics? JHF: I don't. My mom talks about reading Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck comics when she was a kid, but other than that she said they weren't really around. My dad had some British War Comics and such. AN: So your earliest comic book memory? JHF: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, the original Mirage Series, Issue #9, I believe. The Turtles and April go on a picnic, and meet up with some hunters. AN: Oh my, black and white and Eastman and Laird JHF: The goooooooood stuff. AN: Did you then want to write comics or books? Or was there a distinction between them for you? JHF: I originally had wanted to be a playwright, actually. I was a performer for the time I was a kid, first as a concert pianist, and then as an actor. Then I started getting involved in the technical side of theater, from Assistant Directing to Lighting. So from most of high school I was working in the independent theater scene in Pittsburgh. Theater, rather. AN: Wowser JHF: Yeah, my college degree is in Writing and Directing for the Stage and Screen. AN: You were lucky to be so prescient to know you want you wanted to do so early JHF: Yeah, I have some regrets about it, because I didn't get to have 'fun' like other kids. I've been a work horse since I can remember. From the time I was fourteen, I went to school full time, had a 30 hour a week job, did theater, AND had a band that practiced 2 days a week. AN: My parents wish they could have adopted you rather than me right now, I took forever JHF: Yeah, but I'm a starving artist, who has to sell personal possessions to pay rent and get my books published. AN: Do you cook and clean too? JHF: I cook. AN: No clean? JHF: If you saw my apartment, you'd know that I don't clean. AN: Ha! JHF: My girlfriend and I've both been sick for a week or two, and it's like walking through thigh high grass in here. AN: So how and why did you start into comics? JHF: Well, I've loved it since I was a kid. I dropped out of comics as a fan in the mid 90's when most everyone else did. I just didn't have the time or the money for it, and it was during the 'dry times.' so I don't think I missed much. A friend got me back into comics about four or five years ago now, with Ultimate Spider-man, Fables, and Y: The Last Man. AN: Y is awesome. JHF: At that point, I was getting pretty frustrated with my creative work. I'd developed a pilot with a friend, and had it get picked up for development, and then crumble apart in the space of a few months. We tried to get it back together, and it just felt like no one was interested. Then, when I saw what incredible things were happening in comics, I realized that it was the place to be. And so I caught up on what I missed, and just really fell back in love with the potential of the medium. AN: ... and with your education and skills comics become a cinematic medium even more so JHF: Yeah, but it's very different at the same time. AN: Tell me how JHF: I think that comics should be about opening your imagination to story, beyond what's seen on the big or small screen. But, at the same time, it's about moment to moment action more than anything. In a film, you can show nuance much more easily, to really accomplish it in comics take a delicate touch. And, because of the main focus of the medium, men in tight underpants smacking each other around, you don't get to see it that much. AN: So are you more of a film director than screen writer in comics? JHF: Everything I write, I write visually. I have a distinct visual identity for what it's going to be. That's one of the bigger problems with my screenwriting stuff. I tend to direct on the page. And in comics, it works. You artist is your cinematographer, and gaffer, and production designer. AN: Are certain artists better under direction? JHF: I think that really every artist needs some kind of direction, even if it is just marvel style explanation of action. In that through your word choices and sentence structure you convey mood and theme and style. From my time working in Film and TV, I think the job of a director is sort of misunderstood. Directing is a lot of directing traffic. Ultimately, no matter how involved the director is in every stage, it all comes down to directing traffic. They say the 'good director only deals with problems he expects on set.' Meaning, you know everything that can go wrong. I try and take that to comics. You provide the information necessary to allow your artist the ability to both express themselves, and their version of the story, while ensuring what they're conveying is what you intended. AN: When writing do you write to the artist's strengths? or away from their weaknesses? JHF: Pretty much always. I've done so work for hire type stuff where I have no idea who's drawing it, so I write a bit more 'stiffly' in terms of description for that. But, if you look at a script for Elk's Run, versus a script for say, Western Tales of Terror, it's completely different. Even the format. Different artists have different needs. I think that's one of the biggest problems a lot of guy coming up have. They pound out their script and then search for an artist, and instead of reshaping the script to match the artist they get, they just give it to them and say "Good luck." It's a collaborative art form. Again, to use the film metaphor, if your Production Designer can't get a blue couch, you have to figure out how to work with the red one instead. AN: Your work on Elk's Run is about the most intense horror I've felt in comics where does that come from in you good writing, deeply pained psyche? JHF: Heh. Well, thank you. I don't know. I mean... I certainly know what it's like to be the odd man out. To feel like an outsider. I got the shit kicked out of me on a regular basis as a kid by the other kids in school. So I'm sure that helped Thanks for subscribing to the Comic Book Network Electronic Magazine (CBEM) --------------------------->Disclaimer<--------------------------- This is an ANNOUNCE only mailing list, only the Editor can send messages to the list. 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