At the San Diego Comic Con, the United States Post Office announced that, in honor of her 75th anniversary, it was issuing a series of Wonder Woman stamps. This makes me very happy, since I just ran out of Batman stamps.
Also at SDCC, Warner Bros. released the first trailer for the Wonder Woman movie, due out in February. There were other trailers from Warners and other studios, but Wonder Woman is what everybody was talking about, at least on my feed.
While Supergirl was the first super heroine I loved, I also always adored Wonder Woman. When I first read her stories, they were as silly as many other comics with guest stars who included mermen and bird men. I didn’t know about her kinky origin, but I did notice that every story involved someone getting tied up. That didn’t bother child-me because I was too enthralled with her daring escapes and triumphs.
There is a lot that is wonderful about this trailer. Gal Godot looks fantastic, in costume and in civilian clothes. Her training in the Israeli army is obvious in the way she moves, and I completely believe she has the skills to be a super-powered warrior princess. I like the armor. It looks like it moves in battle, which is what armor is supposed to do.
Robin Wright is appropriately regal as Hippolyte. Chris Pine manages to convey Steve Trevor without undue camp.
On the minus side, there is also a lot of slow-motion fighting, which makes it look, to me, like Zack Snyder might have had too much influence. I remember thinking the Batman vs. Superman trailer didn’t look horrible, and then it broke my heart. Please don’t let that happen this time.
Still, I have hope. There is a scene where Steve Trevor is trying to stop Wonder Woman from going to a fight, and she says, “What I do is not up to you.”
That’s my Wonder Woman…
…Which brings me to the Democratic National Convention.
There were women who spoke at last week’s Republican convention, and I’m not questioning their sincerity nor their passion for public service. To me, however, their words defending their party were belied by the platform it approved. And the women who got the featured time slots in network broadcast were, for the most part, relatives of the candidate.
As I write this, the Democrats are just starting. Michelle Obama, wife of the president, had a prime time slot. But so did Sarah Silverman and Elizabeth Warren and non-famous women who spoke about their own, unique realities. The schedule for the rest of the week includes Bill and Chelsea, who are Clinton family members, but also many other women with professions and missions that show their personal commitment to this country, and to their candidate.
And then, later in the week as I write this but last Tuesday as this gets posted, Hillary will be nominated. She doesn’t have her husband’s charm as a speaker but she is intelligent and determined and she does her homework. I expect to be quite moved as she is/was the first woman to be nominated for president by one of our major political parties.
What do you think about when you think about conventions?
If you’re a pedant like me, you might think a convention is a social norm.
If you’re a corporate type (sometimes like me), you think a convention is a trade show where industry insiders get together to discuss current developments in their field, while a variety of vendors try to interest potential new customers in their products.
If you’re a political junkie (also like me), you might think a convention is an event at which a political party nominates its candidates.
And if you’re a geek (again, I self-identify), you think a convention is a long weekend of panels, exhibits, cosplay and shopping.
As it happens, I enjoy all but the first of these conventions. My dad took me to a few shopping center conventions and I loved walking through the exhibit halls, considering new kinds of fixtures to put in the stores I imagined I owned. Once I went to a television convention where various studios shilled their programs for syndication, and I met Pat Robertson and Alan Thicke. And I used to love ABA, the convention for the American Booksellers Association, where bookstore owners planned their fall purchases.
This year, the political conventions of our two main political parties wrap around the San Diego Comic Convention. Can we tell them apart?
Both political conventions and SDCC involve huge numbers of people who have traveled great distances to be there. Some people are there because it’s their job, but most are just fans who aren’t involved in any of the decision-making.
Both star celebrities who are paid to be there. Both feature people marketing a current project and, maybe, auditioning for the next one.
Both disrupt normal city life for residents, who put up with it because the celebrants spend a lot of money.
Both seem to encourage people to dress up in outlandish costumes or, at the very least, funny hats. In both cases, some people do this more successfully than others. A lot of them do this well enough that strangers want to take photographs. Nobody does it well enough for me to want to give them any money.
Both feature mostly straight cis white Christian men, many of whom are thrilled to be part of the majority for a change.
There are significant differences, however.
Comic book conventions don’t have boring speeches that monopolize the entire space. Instead, there are several parallel programming streams, so that if a speaker can’t hold the attention of the audience, the audience will leave. As a result, comic book conventions are more entertaining.
Comic book conventions don’t attract protesters who carry guns. Not yet.
Many people who attend comic book conventions are thrilled to discover comic books that are new and different from what they expect.
Political conventions have a lot more places to sit.
Political conventions don’t have long lines at the bathrooms because people are using the stalls to change into more spectacular outfits.
The only late-night television host who makes jokes at Comic-Con is Conan.
I won’t be at any of these events, but I look forward to bitching about them from the comfort of my living room.
Over the weekend I noticed my Facebook and Twitter feeds were overrun with new words and phrases. What is a “Pokewalk?” Why were so many people looking for gyms?
As you probably know, the cause was Pokémon Go, a break-out cell phone game that is crashing servers and bringing people together all over the country. This is in addition to a successful roll-out in Australia and New Zealand. In fact, “By July 8, just two days after its launch in the U.S., Australia, and New Zealand, Pokémon Go was installed on more than 5% of all the Android devices in the U.S., surpassing popular mobile-dating app Tinder, which was running on a little over 2% of all Android devices.”
Get that? Looking for cute little virtual animals is more popular than looking for convenient, no-strings-attached sex.
Sometimes, I just don’t understand kids today.
I missed the most rabid parts of the original Pokémon fad back in the 1990s because my kid was a little bit too old for it, but I can totally understand why this new game is so popular. In the original, you looked for a variety of Pokémon (or “pocket monsters”) on your video game screen, and when you collected the most, you won. Yes, there were more wrinkles to it than that, but the kids I watched play were more excited by the quest than by the battles.
In the new version, the game involves many of the cool features on your smartphone, especially the camera and the GPS. By looking at the world around you via your screen, you can occasionally see a Pokémon, and by swiping across, you can capture it. Then there are a bunch of things you can do with your collection, like taking them to the gym to make them stronger.
When I was at the Green Market on Saturday, talking politics with the folks at the Anthony Road Winery booth, two African-American women came up. One was ready to try wine, but the other was suddenly interrupting, taking pictures, and making us laugh. She was so excited!
Turns out, they had found a Pokémon.
Unlike so many video games, Pokémon Go seems to be encouraging people to get out of their homes, to walk around and explore (even if it’s just for some pixels), even meet new people and talk with them. In some cases, they might even notice the world around them and learn something.
This is a good thing. At least, it’s a good thing for those of us who enjoy a certain amount of privilege. The article in the link really made me question a lot of my assumptions. The author points out that if a black man is playing Pokémon Go, exploring a new neighborhood by walking around and circling in on a Pokémon, there is a real chance that someone will see him, assume he’s a criminal, and call the cops. The fact that he’s only looking at a phone won’t necessarily save him.
It’s also disturbing that the game imagery has already been coopted by racists.
Is this any reason to deny people joy? Of course not. The two women I talked to at the market were politically engaged and had been demonstrating all week with Black Lives Matter because of Baton Rough and Minnesota and Dallas, but on a Saturday morning, they wanted some goofy playtime. Whether I want to play the game or not (and, really, I stare at enough screens as it is and I don’t need a new addiction), I sure as hell don’t want to limit anyone else’s fun.
I’d just ask for people, in their zeal, to remember that there is more to life than finding Pokémon. There are other people on the planet, and on the sidewalk. Please don’t get so caught up in your quest that you wander into traffic, or into a unit of Storm Troopers.
I’d like to see Pokémon Go used as a force for good. For example, on Twitter, a person named Kris Straub said, “Dear Nintendo, please put super rare Pokémon at polling places this November.”
I realize this is a form of slacking. As a weekly contributor to ComicMix, I’m supposed to have the authority and gravitas that justifies the esteem in which I’m held by my colleagues, as well as the salary I’m paid. No answers, no paycheck.
Last week, my pal, Joe Corallo, wrote an impassioned column about Alters, a new series from AfterShock Comics about a group of superheroes that includes a transgender character. Joe was interested in the title but he confessed to a degree of fatigue caused by stories written by cis people about transitioning.
We met for tequila last week and talked about his column. While I hear his point, I think storytellers should tell the stories they want to tell. At the same time, audiences, of course, can ask for the kind of stories they want.
Apparently, Paul Jenkins, the writer and creator of the series, had somewhat similar thoughts. He reached out to Joe, and they did this interview. It touches on a lot of my obsessions. Who decides what stories get told? Who gets to tell them?
I don’t mean storytellers who are also fan, as my colleague Vinnie Bartilucci described. Fandom is its own thing, wild and free, which is as it should be. I mean people who are professional, who either work on creator-owned projects or get hired by the people who own the intellectual properties in question.
These people are, overwhelmingly, straight cis white men. They look like and talk like the people who hire them. Many of them create stories that move me and make me laugh or cry or hide under the covers with my cat because I thought I heard a noise. I’m very happy to live in a world where creators I like get to tell me the stories they want to tell.
At the same time, there are lots and lots of people who are not straight cis white men, who also tell stories that I enjoy. I like what I like. I hope you, too, enjoy getting to like what you like.
There are probably thousands (if not millions) of people of all colors and categories who also could tell me stories I would like, but I’ll never get to see them because they don’t have the same access to media as those mentioned above. I mean, I started to get work at Marvel Comics because I found out Denny O’Neil lived down the street from me, and I volunteered to water his plants when he went out of town. This is not an opportunity that anybody could have, even in the 1980s. It’s just about impossible now, not least because Denny is married and has a better support system for his botanical dependents.
Paul Jenkins wanted to tell a superhero story that includes a transwoman going through her transition. That’s the story that interests him. Joe has read a lot of stories like that (although probably without the super-powers parts) and he would like to read something different.
Who is right?
That’s the part I can’t answer. i’ve liked so much of what Paul has written over the years, and I’m looking forward to seeing what he’s going to do with Alters, especially since it seems like a terrific premise. I’m also with Joe, wanting to see more different kinds of stories.
However, I will note that the most recent issues of both Bitch Planet and The Beauty are telling non-transition stories about transwomen.
The Internet was supposed to change a lot of this. It was going to be easy and inexpensive to publish, and everyone would have equal access to the means of distribution. That didn’t happen in quite the way I wanted (perhaps I’m too old, but finding new comics and reading them online is frustrating for me). The big names tend to be the people who look like the editors, and the editors keep looking like the money people, and the corporations are overwhelmingly run by straight, white men – who also are in charge of distribution, retail, and media.
We need more people telling more kinds of stories that more kinds of people will like. We need to acknowledge, with respect, that some people want to create and/or read stories that we, personally, might not want to read. Having highfaluting discussions about the socio-political implications of our choices is a wonderful thing, and my life would be diminished if I couldn’t do it.
Those opinions are not the same thing as criticism.
Are there stories you want to read about parts of life you think shouldn’t be ignored? By all means, speak up. Tell publishers what you want. Maybe try to create that story with your friends, and self-publish. That would be great.
Do you want to see more diversity in the professional comics community? So do I. Make a lot of noise. Write letters. Post columns. Ask questions at comic book conventions, especially at panels. Our industry is way behind the curve in this matter, and we all suffer as a result.
Paul Jenkins should tell the stories he wants to tell at AfterShock. And AfterShock should have more than one woman on staff and more than three women creators on their roster.
This column was assigned to me so that I might bring you, Constant Reader, some insight into popular culture and, if we’re both lucky, a few laughs. It’s not supposed to be a virtual therapist’s couch, wherein I share with you the tortured depths of my very soul.
Bear with me. This week, you might get both.
When I was young girl approaching puberty, my mother explained to me that no boys would like me if I was fat. In case I might forget this, she repeated it numerous times throughout my adolescence and beyond. She wasn’t being (deliberately) cruel; she was passing on the life lessons she learned from her own parents. Too bad her words had precisely the opposite effect.
In any case, I would probably obsess over my body and what it looks like no matter what my parents said. I’m a woman and I live in a modern Western society. My sense of self-worth has been trained to depend on how I fit into the standards of beauty presented to me on television, movies, and magazines. Including comics.
Now, I’m more or less an adult, and a feminist, and the rational part of my self-image does not depend on attention from men. It’s the less rational parts that continue to eat away at me, no matter how much I try to berate myself over this.
In the process, as a defense mechanism, I can get really judge-y.
This was brought home to me vividly in the new book, Shrill by Lindy West. I was not familiar with Ms. West, a writer for The Stranger and for Jezebel, but the excerpts of her work printed in the review I read were hilarious, so I bought it.
Ms. West is fat. She’s also loud and opinionated and has the unmitigated gall to expect to be able to live her life without a lot of anonymous advice from strangers. Which, apparently, fat women get all the time.
I confess that I have worried about fat friends for health reasons. West debunks this concern with rather specific evidence that fat people can be healthy, and she has her own blood-work to prove it. I think she may oversimplify that obesity isn’t a health issue as much as those who think it is. Some people need to lose weight for medical reasons because that’s the body they were randomly assigned by whatever cosmic entity stopped me from looking like Tilda Swinton.
Some people can’t spend time in the sun, but we don’t shame them for their fair skin.
It’s also really insulting to think that any woman in the world in which we live doesn’t know how much she weighs, what size clothing she wears, or which parts of her jiggle. We know. We also know that we have lives. We have shit to do. We are not here to be ornaments on your world-view. We don’t exist for your judgment.
Remember when I said this would relate to comic books? Here it comes!
My pal, boy-editor Mike Gold, sent me a DC Bombshells story about the super-heroines in the Warsaw Ghetto. I hadn’t seen this particular story, but I love the series in general. Marguerite Bennet makes some of my favorite characters feel right at home in World War II, and her stories are a fun mix of fantasy and horror and fight scenes.
In this case, however, I feel like the creative team missed a real opportunity. The artwork, by Sandy Jarrell, tells the story beautifully, but the range of physical types is extremely limited. All the women seem to have the same body type, whether they are American or Roma or Polish, whether they are young women or mothers or grandmothers. Even the faces are similar, with hair color the only trait that differs from one to the other. It’s wonderful to see Jews and gypsies and softball players share an adventure, but it would be even more wonderful if they seemed like individual women, not generics.
As a palate cleanser, let me recommend Faith. I think this is the first Valiant comic I’ve ever bought, and it’s so much fun. Faith Herbert is a super heroine. She has a job. She has a sex life. She has interests that extend beyond these three areas. She’s fat and she wears spandex because that’s what lets her do her super-heroing.
This book is as refreshing as iced mint tea on a summer day. Have some!
A little over twenty years ago, Vertigo began to publish the Preacher series by Garth Ennis and Steve Dillon. It was my job to promote it to mainstream (i.e. non-comic book trade) media. I was already a huge fan of Garth’s run on Hellblazer and almost got a blurb for it from Sting until the corporate types told me that wasn’t allowed.
I loved every issue of Preacher. It was funny and scary and emotional and philosophical and brilliant. It simultaneously evoked John Ford westerns and Harvey Kurtzman slapstick. It had a character named Arseface, for crying out loud. I did some of my best work promoting that book, because I believed I was bringing happiness to millions.
Needless to say, I was thrilled to find out there was going to be a television show based on the comics (or “graphic novels” as it says in the opening credits). Unlike many, I wasn’t worried about the involvement of Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg because I loved This Is the End, both because it promised the right tone for Preacher and because it’s so damn funny.
I wanted to refresh my memory of the comics and reread the whole run in my collection of trade paperbacks. Alas, I can’t find them, so I went into the television show only slightly better prepared than a Preacher virgin.
Preacher is about Jesse Custer, a minister with a shady past who is suddenly able to compel people to do whatever he tells them to do. He lives in the small town in Texas where he grew up, perhaps hiding, perhaps trying to find himself. There are people (or beings who look like people) trying to find him and take away his special abilities.
The show begins before the comic book stories do, and seem to take major liberties with the plot. I don’t really care. Comic books are not television series, and can’t be precisely reproduced. And more than twenty years have passed since the comic began. A character like Tulip, who is pretty much just a love interest in the comic, is a fully fleshed out character in the television show, with her own problems and passions and sense of herself. More than a few critics think she’s the most compelling character, at least in the four episodes that have aired as of this writing.
A lot of these critics have compared the television show to a Coen Brothers movie, and I understand that. There are a lot of terrific faces in this series, faces that aren’t symmetrical or conventionally beautiful. The cinematography gives the exterior shots a golden glow that can be warm or bleak, and the interior shots can be exalted or claustrophobic or in-between.
Here’s what I remember most about the series: Steve Dillon would draw page after page of the three main characters (Jesse, the titular preacher, Cassidy, the vampire, and Tulip, the girl), and even though that’s supposed to be the most boring thing one can do in comics, I was mesmerized. A lot of that was Garth’s writing, but it was also the way Steve could convey so much information in a facial expression. There are actors that do this, at least for me (Claire Danes, Denzel Washington, Bette Davis), but very few artists in any medium.
The show doesn’t look exactly like Dillon’s art, but it feels like Dillon’s art, just like the Hughes Brothers’ movie From Hell felt like Eddie Campbell’s art without actually looking like his line work. Similarly, Dominic Cooper and Joe Gilgun feel like Custer and Cassidy without actually looking like them. Ruth Negga isn’t cute and blonde like the Tulip in the comics but, as noted above, she’s way better.
Garth and Steve both have their names on the television series as executive producers, and I hope this means the checks clear. I also hope I keep enjoying the vibe the show shares with the series. In the meantime, I’m having way more fun with this than the last few seasons of The Walking Dead.
Like my pal Joe Corallo, I find it impossible to think about anything other than the massacre in Orlando. Comic books and other pop culture ephemera seem trivial in the face of such unfettered and violent hatred.
That said, we need our entertainment more than ever. We need joy and pleasure in our lives. That’s what makes us who we are. That’s why life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness is in the Constitution. As John Oliver said at the opening of his HBO show on Sunday, about why the Pulse nightclub was a target, “Latin night at a gay club in the theme park capital of the world is the ultimate symbol of what is wonderful about America.”
It’s too easy to blame the attack on radical Islamic terrorism when so many radical Christians share so many of the same sentiments.
It is my opinion that most of the problems of modern American society come from our Puritanical mistrust of pleasure. We can’t allow anyone to enjoy sex or drugs or food or music or at without some suffering to offer in atonement.
It’s time we denounced these beliefs as un-American.
It’s time we minded our own business.
If a woman wants to wear a burqa or a hijab, or a thong and Spanx, she should go ahead and wear whatever she likes. I’m not going to wear any combination of those things, but any other woman’s choices have no effect on me.
If you want to be vegan or kosher or halal or gluten-free, that’s great. My food choices occasionally fit into some of those categories, too. Mostly, you should eat what makes you feel good in your body and what delights your taste buds. I would only caution you, as the Jewish mother that I am, to pay attention because as you age, you might have to adapt.
If you want to read sexist, racist, transphobic, homophobic, militaristic and/or xenophobic comic books, go right ahead. I might judge you, but I won’t stop you. Perhaps we can have a conversation about why you like them and I don’t, and we might each learn something useful about humanity.
It’s time we celebrate all those things that make consenting adults happy. This includes things that make us feel warm and fuzzy, like community service, but also things that delight the pleasure centers of our brains, like comic books, movies and television programs. And rock’n’roll music, hip hop, dancing and anything else consenting adults choose to enjoy.
Most of our parents and grandparents and great-grandparents and their ancestors came to this country because it offered them the opportunities they couldn’t find in their homelands. They came because the Constitution promised them separation of church and state. Freed slaves and their children were promised the same. It’s true that our governments have sometimes tried to renege on these promises, but that’s because it is a government by the people, and people make mistakes.
What makes us great as Americans is our inclusiveness. We don’t have to agree with each other about everything.
Over the last few weeks we’ve seen a vigorous discussion among people who create and/or love comics about the relationships and responsibilities of creators and fans. This is nothing new — fans have been demanding certain kinds of stories that authors don’t want to create at least since Conan Doyle was forced to bring Sherlock Holmes back from the dead — but the internet brings so many more people into the conversation.
And too many of these people on the internet don’t understand the difference between a discussion among people with different points of view and a unilateral demand for submission.
The specific irritant this time is the big reveal that Steve Rogers, our beloved Captain America, is and always has been an agent of Hydra.
Now, I don’t read Cap. Nothing against him, just not my jam. Still, when I read a commentary from the Israeli newspaper, Ha’aretz declaring that Cap’s creators, Joe Simon and Jack Kirby, wouldn’t have approved because of implied anti-Semitism, I found it interesting.
Interesting. Not canon. Not a papal edict. Interesting.
Apparently that story, while critical of Marvel’s editorial decisions, was an outlier. Many more fans took up keyboards to proclaim their displeasure and demand that things go back the way they used to be. Here and here you can read intelligent analyses of what happened.
I think it’s important here to draw a distinction between someone who says “I don’t like this,” and someone who says, “I don’t like this and you suck and I’m going to find out where you live and kill you.” There is also a difference between someone who says, “I don’t like the start of this story, and I’m not going to read it” and someone who says, “I don’t like the start of this story, but I’m going to read a few more issues and see if it gets better.”
Some stories, written by people I like, drawn by people I like, just don’t do it for me. Some stories, written and drawn by people I haven’t liked in the past, break through my previous assumptions and I enjoy them. Sometimes, because of specific things that have happened to me, a story will provoke an association in my mind that is different from what the authors intended.
That’s okay.
I can make connections that are interesting to me even if these ideas are different from what anyone else sees. Years ago, when I read Kingdom Come, I remember telling Mark Waid that the story seemed to be an allegory for the Democratic Party at the time, with the ideals of New Deal Democrats coming face-to-face with the new reality of Clinton’s New Democrats, which diluted and militarized FDR’s dreams.
Mark, of course, looked at me as if I was crazy. Maybe. Still, it was an entertaining conversation to have. At least for me.
Do I think Nick Spencer, the writer, and Marvel, the corporate entity, are deliberately trying to offend fans and insult Joe Simon and Jack Kirby? No, of course not. I think they are trying to tell stories that will entertain enough people to make a profit. At the same time, I think fans who buy comics and don’t like the story have every right to say what they don’t like.
Politely, and within the accepted parameters of comic book criticism (which I would define rather broadly). In other words, you can say the story sucks. You can say the writing/art/editing suck. You can say that corporate ownership of intellectual property inevitably decreases the value of that property. You can make an analogy to what has happened to Captain America since the Kirby/Simon days and what’s happened to Harlem since gentrification.
But you can’t make physical threats against people.
At the other end of this conversation, we have people who object when someone who created a beloved body of work continues that body of work. I’m talking about J. K. Rowling and her new Harry Potter stories. Apparently, there are fans who are upset that Rowling authorized and contributed ideas for a play about grown-up Harry and Ginny, their children and friends. To these fans, anything beyond the original books is heresy, and Rowling should do something else.
If Rowling somehow went back and erased all previous editions of her books and the movies based on them, maybe these fans would have a point. That isn’t happening. Those stories are still there. Fans can continue to read and re-read stories about Harry as a student at Hogwarts.
Just as they can continue to read and re-read the Simon/Kirby Cap, and any other issues they liked. In a few years, there will be a new creative team on the series, and I would bet money that this Hydra story will disappear.
At least, I hope so. I’m really hoping that this run of Wonder Woman will be forgotten as soon as possible.
For some of us, the 1990s was a certain kind of Golden Age of Comics. The success of Image Comics meant that creators were given a lot of freedom to do what they liked, with deep-pocketed corporations competing to see who could throw the most money at the talent. It was in this environment that DC launched the Vertigo imprint, and eventually set up a satellite office in London.
Art Young was in charge, fresh from a brief stint at Touchmark, Disney’s pre-Marvel attempt at the Direct Market. The only other person on staff was Tim Pilcher. Together, they published a slew of books (including most of the books originally commissioned for Touchmark) and generally made comics seem even cooler.
I only met Tim Pilcher a few times, although we talked on the phone fairly often. He always struck me as a delight, quick and funny and smart – although it should be noted that, like many, I am a sucker for anyone with an English accent.
Now he has a new book, Comic Book Babylon, not to be confused with this Comic Book Babylon by ComicMix pal Clifford Meth. Tim’s version is an account of his time in the Vertigo UK office, about the drugs and the sex and the blatant disregard for any sort of corporate decorum.
God, I wish I had been there.
MT: What titles did you work on? Were there any Vertigo UK titles you did not work on?
TP: Officially (meaning credited in the books) I worked on Face, Tainted, Shadow’s Fall, The Mystery Play, Rogan Gosh, Kill Your Boyfriend, and The Extremist. Unofficially, the first books I started working on were #4 of Enigma and #3 of Sebastian O. I was also working on Egypt, Flex Mentallo, The Eaters, Millennium Fever, and Tattered Banners towards the end of my tenure, but didn’t get credited in any of those. Other Vertigo UK titles I didn’t work on were the Tank Girl miniseries and film adaptation (which were pretty poor), and Mercy (as that was already completed by the time I’d started).
MT: Ever since I saw The Monkees as a kid I assume that all rock bands share a house, and from there, I imagine all kinds of groups share houses. There was a point when I was at UKCAC one year when I realized that I subconsciously thought all British comic book creators shared a house. While that isn’t true (not even for The Monkees), you did share a flat with a few. What is that like?
TP: Well, actually, at the time, many of us were mostly fans creating stuff for fanzines and writing and drawing for free. When I look back on it, it was a fun time and funny how I took all that creativity for granted. I lived with Fiona Jerome, who was a respected comics journalist and writer who went to John Brown Publishing and revolutionized their magazine publishing. There was Martin Hand, a very well regarded small press creator and Howard Stangroom (nee Will Morgan) who wrote lots of strips for Meatmen Comix. Plus, the house owner, James Wallis, who wrote for various comics magazines and eventually became a games designer. But there were little groups like this all over the UK. I used to go and visit the “Worthing crowd” who all came out of Northbrook College including Philip Bond, Jamie Hewlett, Glyn Dillon, and Alan Martin. They all used to share houses and hang out together, so it was quite common. The British comics scene is pretty small and incestuous!
MT: Did you resent having to go to a day job when they got to stay home?
TP: Not at all! I got to work in Soho, the coolest part of London at the time, and we had various creators and people popping by the office all the time. Plus, there was a free bar on our floor and private advance film screenings in the Warner Bros. building at least once a week!
MT: Can you describe your first week at Vertigo UK? What was most different from your other jobs?
TP: It was the first proper office job I’d had. Prior to that I’d spent almost six years working in retail, so not having to deal with the public and just me and Art in an office was a big change! I was very nervous and mindful of not screwing anything up! I probably put in far more extra hours than I needed to, as I was enthusiastic and really wanted to learn. In those days everything was much slower as we didn’t have computers (initially) so all our business was conducted by fax, phone and Fed Ex. It feels really archaic now, as I work with digital files being transferred all over the world and talk to my colleagues in Paris and L.A. on Skype on an almost daily basis. Technology has definitely made comics publishing much easier (in certain respects).
MT: Can you describe your last week at Vertigo UK?
TP: It was very bleak. In many ways it was like the emotional hangover of someone who’d been raving on ecstasy for three days straight and now had hit the mid-week depression blues. All the dopamine of the job had been used up. The fun had gone completely and things were very tense. I’d learned some very important, and hard, lessons. I think in many ways those hedonistic days of the Vertigo UK office have actually switched me around from a crazed party animal to an obsessive workaholic! Hopefully, one day, I’ll find the correct work/life balance!
MT: My tenure at DC overlapped yours, and our office was run much differently. For example, expense accounts were monitored so closely that we were not allowed to tip more than fifteen percent. Do you know if anyone in accounting was ever asked to verify your expenses?
TP: I think one of the major factors for Art wanting to set-up shop in London was exactly to get away from that micro-management. Karen Berger trusted him enough to run the London office, and as far as I was aware he had a pretty much carte blanche expense account (at least initially). I think as the spending went up, and the titles’ sales didn’t match that, questions in NYC were started to be asked. But really, it was impossible for DC’s accounts to prove how much an average taxi or a meal would cost in London, so they had to take our word for it.
MT: What was the most outlandish thing you ever expensed?
TP: I was actually very wary of pushing things because I didn’t want to kill the golden goose. In the book I talk about when Art took myself and our intern, Helen, out for my birthday to a fancy restaurant and spent the equivalent of around £450/$650 in today’s money on the meal and champagne, which was charged back to the company. So, thanks for that, DC!
MT: Have you seen the movie, The Devil Wears Prada? (Or read the book, although I haven’t done that.) Was Art Young like that?
TP: Actually, that’s a pretty good analogy, it was a little like that. Art was a tad flamboyant at times! I actually used Toby Young’s How to Lose Friends and Alienate People as my template in approaching the story: Eager, keen guy gets job of a lifetime and screws it up! To be fair to Art, he was a brilliant mentor, and I owe him a huge debt of gratitude for training me up and explain how the business works, and I’ll be eternally grateful for that…and all the free drugs.
MT: Finally, I asked Tim to tell me what people said about me, although I said I probably wouldn’t print that. Suffice it to say that he assured me that everyone thought I was the most beautiful woman in Puppetland, but he added this:
I can’t recall anyone being bitchy about anyone at DC at that time! You, Bob, Patty, Karen, et al were thought of as good guys. ;-) Sadly, it’s no longer the company we used to know! I don’t think there’s a single person left there working from our days! Nearly all the women have gone! All looks pretty bleak to me and sadly the company I grew up reading, loving and working for, no longer exists. Had lunch with Dave Gibbons the other day and he feels the same way!
Tell people that if they want copies of the book they can contact me on Twitter: @Tim_Pilcher
I’ve had computer issues for the last day and a half. Nothing major, but I needed a part, thought I ordered it from a place that would deliver in two hours, and, after my order was processed, I found out it would be two days, not two hours.
So this is late to my editor. And also, I thought I had a “Get Out of Writing My Column Free” card since I couldn’t use my computer, so I haven’t been thinking much about comics or pop culture. At least, not any more than normal.
So, here’s some thoughts at random.
Maybe I’m not reading the right sites, but I don’t recall any fuss about a woman of color playing Tulip on the television series, Preacher, despite the comic book character being a blonde, blue-eyed white woman. Have we grown up, or have too few people read the original story?
Or perhaps all the trolls are so busy trying to sabotage the new Ghostbusters that they don’t have any time for cable television.
On a related note, let’s all make sure to see Ghostbusters on opening weekend so those misogynist assholes don’t think they have any power. You know, like we did with Star Wars.
What’s with all the two-hour season finales of television shows? If they’re not any good, I stay rooted to my seat, afraid that if I change the channel, I’ll miss the cliff-hanger at the end. And if they are good, I stay rooted to my seat, engrossed in the story but still unable to go to the bathroom. Thank you, DVR and pause buttons.
The best new comic I’ve read recently in the category of “I Had No Idea This Was Going to Be Published” is Archangel from IDW, written by William Gibson and Michael St. John Smith, with art by Butch Guice. I confess that I was nervous about whether or not Gibson could write for comics as well as he writes fiction (I love his fiction), but I think he pulls it off. Cool twist on time-travel, interesting and diverse characters, and, unlike so many new series, I think I’ll be able to follow this without getting too confused. Pay attention, Ta-Nehisi Coates!
This Monday is Memorial Day. Thank a veteran, and do what you can to stop any more of them from getting killed.
