Latest / Half the Picture / #16 - GRANT MORRISON (RETURNS!)

Transcript

#16 - GRANT MORRISON (RETURNS!) · Half the Picture

• 0:00
  people would might expect this to be similar to Deadpool Wolverine, but Wolverine's a much more
• 0:05
  stoic, gruff character. Batman to me is, as I've said, he's a guy who's gone through on the
• 0:10
  entire lifetime of studying the world's, you know, finest martial arts disciplines and meditation
• 0:16
  and he's won 1,000 battles, he saved the world, but he also has a sense of humour and as I say,
• 0:21
  it's a super dark sense of humour, so you can't really, can't really get around him, you know,
• 0:26
  and the reason for that is that my favourite line in it is where Batman just says, look,
• 0:30
  I spent years like fighting crime alongside a hyperactive kid and my arch enemies are
• 0:35
  disfigured clown, you know, are you still talking? Hey everyone, I'm Billy and welcome back
• 0:50
  to Half the Picture. I'm so excited to say that I guess this episode, I'll return and guess
• 0:54
  I might add, is none other than Grant Morrison. The combat writer behind such works is all star
• 0:59
  Superman and Batman Arkham Asylum. We had Grant on today to talk about Batman Deadpool,
• 1:03
  the latest comic, which is, as you can probably imagine, is a Batman Deadpool crossover.
• 1:06
  By the way, if anyone wants to check out our first conversation with Grant, you can do so at the
• 1:10
  link in the description or you can check out the channel. I was so thrilled to talk to Grant
• 1:14
  about Batman Deadpool and I really wanted to dive deep into their process right in the comic,
• 1:18
  you know, get into the nitty gritty of how they put it together with all the characters and how
• 1:22
  it worked with DC as well and just a meticulous craft of putting together the story.
• 1:26
  And we also touched based on James Gunn Superman movie, which, you know, when we last spoke,
• 1:30
  yeah, it would just come out. I really wanted to pick their brains on, you know,
• 1:34
  Grant's thoughts on the movie because obviously Grant is such a sort of scholar of Superman.
• 1:37
  So without further ado, let's roll on my conversation with Grant Morrison. Enjoy.
• 1:43
  Hi Grant, welcome back to Half the Picture. How are you doing, sir?
• 1:45
  Hi, Billy. Pretty good. Thanks for inviting us back.
• 1:48
  Our pleasure. Our pleasure. It's so much, it's so great to have you back on. I mean,
• 1:52
  we loved having you on last time when you were talking about Superman and like an all-star Superman
• 1:56
  and you're, you know, the influence I had on James Gunn's movie and I think while we talked about,
• 2:00
  we started off talking about that and then we kind of quite quickly weren't often to all sorts
• 2:03
  of weird and wonderful areas. Yeah, tangents, tangents. Yeah, so it's great to have you back on
• 2:09
  and hopefully go down a few more rabbit holes and tangents with Batman Deadpool. So I guess,
• 2:15
  yeah, for a kickoff then. So Batman Deadpool, you know, is a wet by the time this is out,
• 2:20
  the comic couple are hitting the stands. It's, you know, it's great to have you back on our stands,
• 2:23
  you know, putting a comic out there and it's your first superhero comic in a little while.
• 2:28
  So I guess how did this project come about? Like, what was the sort of starting point for you
• 2:32
  writing this? Well, it was kind of easy. There was Marie Javins, who's a head DC comics,
• 2:39
  just sent an email and said, do you want to do Batman Deadpool? And it seems so obscure that they
• 2:44
  would even consider me for something like that. You know, I felt like I'd be the last person
• 2:48
  in anyone's list, but I had an idea straight away and that was it, you know, it's the sort of thing,
• 2:54
  I usually turn down, but I instantly had an idea of what I wanted to do with it and that was it.
• 2:59
  So I really got into it, you know, I decided to take it as seriously as it deserved and that was
• 3:06
  that. It was, yeah, it was a very easy process. And in terms of the idea that you had, because I think
• 3:12
  when we, when you last came on the show, you said that you, because you mentioned the comic,
• 3:17
  and you said that you, when they pitched it, you had this idea instantly. It was almost like this
• 3:21
  instant catalyst of like, oh, the spark went off. And I was curious to ask, like, what was
• 3:25
  specifically the idea that set you going? That set you off on this story? Well, just the fact
• 3:29
  that it was Deadpool and Deadpool notoriously breaks the fourth wall. And that took me right back
• 3:35
  to my first sort of success in the American comics with Animal Man. And obviously in that story,
• 3:41
  Animal Man breaks the fourth wall more in a dramatic way than a comedic way. But
• 3:46
  because of that story, you know, I'd put myself into the story as a character, almost as the writer
• 3:52
  of the Animal Man's adventure. And I'm trying to explain to him the existential horror of being
• 3:58
  a character in a story. Because I did that, it was then taken as read that somehow I was now a
• 4:03
  character in the DC comics universe. So another writer in a copy of suicide squad comic decided
• 4:12
  to make me one of the suicide squad. So they introduced this writer, this character called the writer,
• 4:18
  who's dressed in this weird like it was an echo of an echo of an echo of what I was actually
• 4:23
  wearing at the time. So it looks like a kind of Russian peasant blouse. It's this kind of, you know,
• 4:29
  kind of fiddler on the roof look with the boots and then the tucked in trousers and this,
• 4:35
  this bizarre blouse. So I look really, really weird in it. But I've also carry in this little
• 4:41
  keyboard. So the character that's ostensibly me has the power to type into his keyboard and
• 4:49
  basically alter reality. And the gag in the story was that he has writer's block and can't type
• 4:55
  fast enough to save himself from these kind of beast ear morphs. We were kind of, uh,
• 5:00
  we're wolf type creatures who'd been changed by the goddess, uh, Kyrgyz Cersei into animal.
• 5:07
  Man, so that was the story and they left me for dead and one of these things jumped on me because
• 5:12
  I couldn't come up with a plot. And it always, it always annoyed me subsequently because like,
• 5:17
  we don't have writer's block. If you're a working writer, you can't afford to write as block,
• 5:22
  writer's block is for novelists who've got 10 years to write a book, you know, when you're writing
• 5:28
  monthly comics, there's no room for writer's block, you wouldn't have a job. So it always annoyed me
• 5:33
  and I would never get trapped in that situation. So, so honestly, this thing has just been, it's
• 5:39
  been etching in the back of my mind for like 40 years. And finally, I got the chance to set
• 5:45
  the record straight and do something with that writer character and with that whole, uh,
• 5:50
  Cersei's squad mission that went so disastrously wrong for me all those years ago. So it was that,
• 5:56
  everything came as a lightning, but yeah, I can get my revenge for this, you know, it's kind of,
• 6:01
  it can kind of come back and just keep this story rolling on.
• 6:05
  So it was like, it was, it was the opportunity to write those characters of Deadpool and Batman,
• 6:09
  but also it was an option to settle a, settle a few creative, uh, scores, I guess you could say.
• 6:13
  Well, there was, I mean, I guess that was the real, that was the gold that made me do it. I mean,
• 6:17
  obviously, if it was Batman and Deadpool and they're the two super well-known characters,
• 6:21
  and I did like the idea that I could do a story that could just be for readers who don't only
• 6:26
  familiar with these guys from the movies, you know, it wasn't really, although there's a lot of
• 6:30
  comic book Easter eggs you don't need to know what they are. That's why it's kind of like the film
• 6:34
  version of Deadpool and it's almost like a filmic version that's had, you know, a kind of platonic
• 6:40
  kind of ideal version of Batman as well. Yeah, I mean, your voice is, I mean, it was, what was
• 6:45
  apparent to me reading the comic and I'd like to end and thank you so much for providing me with
• 6:50
  a copy that I could read before it went out. It was such a privilege to be able to read it
• 6:53
  before it came out. Is, uh, you haven't missed the step. It seems to me at all with writing like
• 6:58
  Batman and, and all these characters that, you know, you're so first with, obviously, like,
• 7:03
  you know, famously you wrote Arkham Asylum and then you're incredibly sort of epic Batman run
• 7:07
  that you did for six years, you know, 2006 to 2012, but it seems like you haven't missed
• 7:11
  at all a step of like that, like there are bits of dialogue, like when, because when we,
• 7:15
  when you were on before, you said that like Batman's super power against Deadpool is almost his
• 7:19
  stoicism. It's like, you know, he's not ruffled at all by Deadpool's absolute mouth.
• 7:23
  And in fact, Batman's almost, he's almost the comedian in this and Deadpool gets forced to be
• 7:29
  the straight man because Batman's sense of humor is so dry and so dark. You don't even know he's
• 7:34
  being funny. So Deadpool's going to stuck with that. He just has to go along and react and every
• 7:40
  time Batman says, I'm Batman, Deadpool's, oh, God, yeah, okay. You win.
• 7:47
  And you mentioned your, your animal man run because there's such, I guess,
• 7:51
  we'll be, I guess we can get into spoiler territory a little bit with talking about some aspects
• 7:55
  of the comic that I'd love to dive into with you. There's this lovely homage to your animal
• 7:59
  man run in the first few pages where Deadpool counts down the walls and then he gets to the fourth
• 8:04
  wall and he turns and he looks at the reader and he says, I can see you, which is exactly the same
• 8:08
  as buddy did in that incredible moment in your animal man. And also, I guess, sticking with animal
• 8:13
  man, because animal man seems to me to be a comic about kindness. It's about kindness to animals,
• 8:17
  about kindness to each other, kindness to ourselves, even our fictional characters and what that
• 8:22
  reflects back and what that says about us. And I guess even, and in this comic, I felt the same
• 8:26
  thing. It's a thread that I think can go through a lot of your work, but in this comic, I felt
• 8:29
  that same sense of kindness and empathy, even to our fictional characters. Was that something that
• 8:34
  you were conscious of when writing it? Definitely. I mean, when I started with this, I knew
• 8:39
  what the first scene would be and it'd be the two universes coming together. You know, they'd
• 8:44
  appeared prior to this in the GLA of Angels book back at the start of the century. And it was
• 8:50
  the anthropomorphic representation of the DC universe and the Marvel universe getting together.
• 8:56
  So that I knew that was going to be my story that would be a kind of sordid version of that.
• 9:03
  And I'd started the story with this kind of cosmic kiss and then gone straight into the
• 9:09
  world where Deadpool and Batman find themselves the strange maze and it just didn't work at all.
• 9:14
  And I realized that what was missing was a mission for Batman. And as you say, it had to be a
• 9:19
  compassionate mission to give a human element to the story and to see just an ordinary world
• 9:25
  before we start to move into the surreal world. So once I'd figured that I realized, yeah, this is
• 9:29
  what the special source of this really needs is for there to be a framing story where it's Batman
• 9:35
  doing something to help somebody. And he's doing something to help ostensibly a bad guy, you know,
• 9:41
  a criminal who's who's given up and gone straight, but who's now found himself in a bad place.
• 9:47
  And so that really gave me the anchor for the story. Then it became about some that became a
• 9:51
  but Batman doing something nice for somebody as you say. And really for me that meant the rest
• 9:57
  of the story fell into place. I could get away with a lot of the surreal stuff in the daft humor
• 10:02
  as long as I had a storyline that was then sealed off at the end where you see, oh my god, Batman
• 10:07
  just did that, you know, that was what that's what this was all about. So yeah, no, absolutely,
• 10:12
  I felt the need that the story had to have that through line. Yeah, and it really hit
• 10:19
  home for me. I mean, the, and again, like, don't even touch you back to Animal Man, because I guess
• 10:22
  in terms of comparisons, this is quite an action comparison because you have that the post-modern
• 10:27
  force fourth wall breaking, even the fact that in the end of Animal Man, you have, you know,
• 10:32
  you yourself bring back Buddy's whole family. That's a deliberate reprise of that moment,
• 10:38
  you know, it's kind of once as you see, once you sport that, you realize, oh, that's what it is,
• 10:42
  it ties directly back to Animal Man. But I loved that. I loved how, and it was very moving and
• 10:47
  touching, and unlike the fact that it's also a kind of Christmas story as well, but you know,
• 10:51
  Batman says happy holidays. It's just a lovely, and you make that sort of stuff feel so authentic
• 10:57
  to Batman, who's typically very, you know, poised and stoic and very sort of, and gritty.
• 11:02
  There was also, they used to do a lot of really great Batman Christmas stories, you know, back in
• 11:06
  the early 70s and the start of what they called the Bronze Age, I guess. And there would be a lot
• 11:12
  of those like really great little, you know, eight-page stories with Batman at Christmas, and it
• 11:17
  was surrounded by fireworks and snow, and it'd be dressed as Santa and given toys to the orphans,
• 11:23
  kind of thing. I felt there was already, there was already a space in Batman for that type of thing,
• 11:29
  to see Batman celebrated with really bright lights and fireworks and a kind of more optimistic
• 11:36
  positive thing. He still works, you know, Batman works in any milieu at all, because I knew the book
• 11:41
  was coming out sort of round about Thanksgiving as well. So I figured that it takes place in that
• 11:46
  period between Thanksgiving and Christmas. Yeah, it's lovely. And you mentioned that the opening,
• 11:52
  because the opening made me laugh out loud, that opening of the two universes, the anthropomorphic
• 11:56
  DC and Marvel universes basically getting off of each other, which I mean, just as a fraving
• 12:01
  device and as an opening sort of throw down the gauntlet, like here we go, I just absolutely love
• 12:05
  that. I mean, I guess it begs the question like who's better in bed, Marvel or DC? I mean,
• 12:09
  I guess drawing for personal experience. Well, I mean, I think we see at the end, you know,
• 12:14
  I mean, the DC universe is just kind of looking at the phone at the end of the story and the
• 12:19
  Marvel universe is, hey, wait a minute, are you rating me here? So you can make it one mind
• 12:24
  off of that one. Yeah, it just made me laugh so much. And speaking of that Marvel DC, going,
• 12:31
  I guess, deeper into that crossover, like you, I mean, I guess like I say, I guess we can go into
• 12:35
  a bit of spoiler territory here, people who haven't read the comic yet, but like you bring
• 12:39
  back two of your most sort of beloved characters that you've created for those two universes,
• 12:44
  Cassandra Nova from New X-Men and Damien Wayne himself, Batman's son from your Batman run. I mean,
• 12:49
  and what was it, why did you want to, why were you keen to bring back those two characters?
• 12:54
  Well, again, the very simple brief I was given was, okay, it's Batman is Deadpool. The villain
• 13:00
  has to be from the Marvel universe because the previous one, the villain was from the DC universe,
• 13:05
  the Marvel book. So they had the Joker and you could have one guest star. And I thought, well,
• 13:10
  the guest has got to be Robin, it's got to be Damien and the villain, and I was stuck for a little
• 13:16
  bit, who's it going to be, Dr. Doom or, you know, and then suddenly, not of course, it's Cassandra
• 13:20
  Nova because Cassandra had just been in the film with Deadpool. So again, I thought when people see
• 13:26
  Deadpool, it's an easy leap to make when that character appears you get it. You know, I don't have to
• 13:31
  do a lot of work to introduce the villain. All that has to happen is you see her doing her thing and
• 13:36
  everyone will remember that because it was such a memorable image the way she, you know, manipulates
• 13:41
  people with her hands plunging into their brains. So I figured that that would work really well
• 13:47
  just simply because yes, she's utterly recognizable. And then only then occurred to me that I'd
• 13:52
  created both of those characters. And so that was probably my biggest creation for both Marvel and
• 13:57
  DC and the most, you know, the most long lasting one and the most well-known creations. So then
• 14:03
  you that had to tour them in the story with this writer notion with all the fourth wall stuff that
• 14:08
  was happening. Honestly, it was like a Christmas gift, you know, it couldn't it worked out any better
• 14:13
  and allowed me to do that kind of, you know, the crazy ending that's in there. Yeah, I love that.
• 14:19
  And with the writing those characters again, like writing in those voices because you talk so
• 14:22
  eloquently, yeah, I've heard you talk so eloquently before about writing the writing a character
• 14:26
  like Batman or even going back to like, yes, like Marvel, like Scott Summers, you get that voice
• 14:31
  in your ear. And it can, and I remember you saying that when you finished up writing your Batman epic,
• 14:35
  it was weird not hearing like Bruce's voice in your ear. And I guess like picking up this comic
• 14:40
  and writing it, like what was it like hearing, was it like, did you hear those voices again in your
• 14:44
  ear and was it kind of like writing kind of old friends again? Yeah, again, immediately. I mean,
• 14:48
  obviously I haven't written, I haven't written Deadpool, but Batman was just immediate.
• 14:54
  And the first thing when I started to think about it, that's what I heard was a lot of dialogue,
• 14:59
  you know, as I've said to you before, or something, I mostly start with images in my book and work
• 15:04
  out the comics that way. But this one was just like, I've run a dialogue in banter and I've got
• 15:08
  like 10 pages, or just me trying to keep up with these two guys just doing banter. And I didn't
• 15:15
  use all of it, obviously, I mean, I used the best lines, but yeah, it was, it was, it came
• 15:19
  it very easy to me. And I also knew that Batman's voice would be very different from from something
• 15:27
  like Wolverine. You know, people would might expect this to be similar to Deadpool Wolverine,
• 15:32
  but Wolverine's a much more stoic, gruff character. Batman to me is, as I've said, he's a guy who's
• 15:38
  gone through on the entire lifetime of studying the world's most, you know, finest martial arts
• 15:43
  disciplines and meditation and he's one 1,000 battles, he saved the world. This is a sorted guy,
• 15:49
  you know, in my version of Batman's very together and very defined and very direct, but he also has
• 15:56
  a sense of humour. And as I said, it's a super dark sense of humour. You can't really, can't really
• 16:01
  get around him, you know, and the reason for that is that my favourite line in it is where Batman
• 16:05
  just says, look, I spent years like fighting crime alongside a hyperactive kid and my arch enemies
• 16:11
  are disfigured clown. You know, are you still talking? That was it. That was, yeah, because Wolverine
• 16:18
  can be griils, but Batman can. Batman's been dealing with guys just like Deadpool's entire life
• 16:24
  and that's he's used to that kind of thing. So I thought that made it funnier actually because
• 16:30
  it's like Deadpool just cannot get one over on Batman. I agree. And that line was one of the lines
• 16:35
  that that was one of my favourite lines as well. And that was the line that made me feel like,
• 16:38
  you know, like I say, you're so keyed in to Bruce's voice and Batman's voice and that line of
• 16:44
  maybe laughs so much because and also because you're so good at tapping into these little
• 16:48
  deceptive truths about the characters like Batman, because, you know, I think it's fair to say
• 16:52
  that there's not many people who understands and loves these characters more than yourself and
• 16:58
  the amount of stuff you've written for them and about them over the years. And like, that is
• 17:01
  true. You know, Batman, you know, was it had a hyperactive working class 10-year-old kid by
• 17:06
  side for years? And Joker is, you know, a textbook about a mouth. So Deadpool isn't even going to
• 17:12
  it's like water off a duck's back. Yeah, absolutely. It's what he's used to dealing with. Like I say,
• 17:17
  he just tunes out most of the thing, which is why he's like, are you still you've been talking
• 17:20
  this whole thing? And it's a kind of almost kind of stoic dad thing in that. Like, you know, he's
• 17:26
  like obviously Robin being his ward, you know, he's kind of, he can just sort of, it's not noise,
• 17:30
  but he can just tune it out. He's used to it. It's like, you know, yeah, it just, he just
• 17:34
  hears the important stuff, you know, if he hears like knife, knife aimed at your head, Batman, he
• 17:39
  knows to duck, but everything else is getting ignored. Yeah. And then on this story, so you brought
• 17:44
  on Dan Moira, you know, the great converc artist who you worked with on Clause, which is your
• 17:50
  sort of origin story of Santa Clause, you brought him back for Batman, Deadpool. And I was
• 17:54
  wondering that if you could talk a little bit about what's so, what is it that's so special
• 17:57
  about working with Dan and like what, why are you, why are you bought him back on for this story?
• 18:01
  Well, that date basically DC told me that Dan would be drawing it because I think Dan draws
• 18:06
  every DC comic these days. Anytime. And especially if there's a, if there's a special edition
• 18:12
  thing or a special issue, Dan tends to always draw it. And it's just, I think he's the quintessential
• 18:18
  comic book artist right now. I mean, the fact that he's, he's work is so good, but they can do
• 18:23
  so much. I mean, that's what they dream of in comics. You know, it's like a Jack Kirby who could
• 18:28
  do seven pages a day sometimes, which was kind of nice. But Dan must be in that, in that region,
• 18:35
  but what I love about him is just he's a brilliant storyteller. The characters are always acting.
• 18:41
  And as I've said, a lot of my work is about the nuances, it's about the glances and the
• 18:45
  expressions and the postures and the, the, the stands. And sometimes artists will miss that
• 18:51
  because they've got their own way of blocking things out of the characters in power poses.
• 18:56
  But for, as I say, my stuff kind of relies on, on the subtleties. And Dan is just great at that.
• 19:02
  So he really does have the work, you know, he does what you need your artist to do, which is come in
• 19:08
  and make sure that every single character is acting and reacting correctly to what's going on.
• 19:13
  And that really makes a difference. As I say, he's great action. He's great at interpreting
• 19:19
  the, the, the ideas that I give him is fast. He's a lovely style. You know, it's like new
• 19:26
  Neil Adams or something meets John Bunn. So now he says, he's just the, I see the quintessential
• 19:31
  comic artist and is the best person I could have got for this, I think.
• 19:35
  His work is incredible. And in fact, that opening sort of you mentioned Neil Adams and like,
• 19:39
  you know, John Bunn, those sort of classic 70s and 80s artists. When I was reading that opening
• 19:44
  over the two universes getting off from each other, I was really reminded of that sort of gym style
• 19:48
  in 70s era and others, cosmic comics and, and the visuals and also Brendan McCarthy's work a
• 19:53
  little bit like Rogan Gosh. And obviously, I know that you're a big fan of those guys. Was that
• 19:57
  something that you were consciously thinking of when you were sort of writing the script and sending
• 20:01
  that to Dan? Well, definitely though, that first page is almost written as a, apparently they are
• 20:06
  a pastiche of Steve Engelhart. And even though Steve Engelhart, I don't think he wrote these
• 20:11
  particular two characters, but I'm sure he wrote about what's his name, he turned the two,
• 20:16
  the Marvel one. It was just kind of a parody of that 70s style that almost, you know,
• 20:20
  the caption heavy, but like him and Steve Gerber would often lapse into rhymes and just weird
• 20:26
  things because either they, you know, they were stoned or whatever those guys were back in the day.
• 20:30
  So I just have it going into this ridiculous rhyme and I wanted it to really have that
• 20:35
  feel of a of a 70s Marvel comic. But then when you turn the page, the idea was, I was looking at
• 20:42
  Bob Haney's stories from the 70s as well. Those amazing runner braving the ball that he did with
• 20:48
  with Jim Apparro. That was really, that was the template that I wanted for this because it's a
• 20:53
  Batman team up, but you know, it's basically braving the ball Batman Deadpool. And so I went back
• 20:59
  and looked at his, his stories were amazing because every issue, there would be a new kind of big
• 21:04
  thriller idea every issue, a new idea of the issues like a new movie. And so I kind of wanted
• 21:10
  that feel and broken into a bunch of chapters as well. So that was very much on my mind.
• 21:15
  I was trying to recreate the feel of that, which is why those first two Batman pages are the way
• 21:20
  they are. You know, it's the kind of, it's that Bronze Age Batman. And as I've said before,
• 21:26
  I was really happy that the new Batman comic with Mark Fraction and Jorge Jimenez has Batman
• 21:34
  in that really bright blue again, because that's what he wore back in those braving the
• 21:38
  bold stories. He just cost him the, they used to have this fantastic blue color, which I call
• 21:42
  swimming pool blue. It's so bright. And I've never seen it since. I wish they'd bring it back,
• 21:47
  but they're the new Batman is the closest that we've seen to that. So again, that really fitted in
• 21:53
  to the aesthetic that I was trying to create with this. And if everything was just like I say,
• 21:59
  it was all very easy to put together. Yeah, that colourful Batman, which I think you
• 22:05
  clearly have so much fun writing. I mean, you're right. You don't see that, which I think is a great
• 22:08
  shame because, you know, when you see it done and done so well like like in this, it's so much fun.
• 22:14
  Yeah, well, with the new Batman stuff, as I say, they've given them all that blue again and it looks
• 22:19
  great. I think it looks fantastic. And for you, I mean, like, because like when I was reading this,
• 22:23
  something I was aware of was your four real voice as a writer in the comic, because it seemed
• 22:28
  to me to be written by someone who's having so much fun with the written word. And I must say,
• 22:32
  I think in the last few years, that's the sense I've really gone from you in your work in terms of
• 22:36
  like, even with stuff like Luda, your prose novel, which is fantastic. And even your newsletters,
• 22:41
  which hands up, you know, I'm a big fan of, I read them regularly, you know, you have so much fun
• 22:45
  with the written word it seems these days, or have been having so much fun with the written word
• 22:49
  these days. And that's the impression I get anyway. And with this comic, it really felt like you
• 22:53
  were really just like, you know, just indulging and relishing like the language of it, which I really
• 22:58
  appreciated the captions. Definitely. And particularly of, as you say, the way Deadpool speaks,
• 23:04
  because Deadpool's just motor mouth, he's always running his mouth. So you can just have a great
• 23:10
  stream of consciousness with Deadpool and just have them saying all kinds of ridiculous things.
• 23:14
  And that was just so much fun. But yeah, I was, I was very precise about, you know, in many
• 23:19
  words within the panels. And I took it all quite seriously for this one, quite formal. It's almost
• 23:24
  a how-to to write superhero comics, you know, so I'm going to do it on the web, the newsletter.
• 23:30
  I want to do a complete breakdown of it, because it is so technically put together, you know,
• 23:36
  there's a lot of things there that if I explained it to people, they'd go, oh, that's how you write
• 23:39
  a comic, but okay, okay, that's interesting. That's interesting, then. So it sounds like a very,
• 23:45
  like, say, quite formally crafted piece of work in terms of you really put the, I mean, how long did
• 23:50
  it, if you're asking me, how long did it take to write? Do you, do you really like deliberate,
• 23:53
  like, okay, like, you know, very carefully constructed? The way I work is I just, I'll sit with my
• 23:58
  book and I turn a dialogue, as I said, and then I started breaking that down. What's the best
• 24:03
  bits of dialogue here? And the story started off quite different, you know, it started off in the
• 24:09
  strange maze world. And then a bit, but I've just threw out the stuff that I don't like and
• 24:16
  bring in stuff that I do like, as I said to you before, probably I go by a feel, you know, on these
• 24:20
  things, and it feels right, or sounds right, or sounds wrong, I keep going, but it sounds right,
• 24:26
  then I know it's time to stop. And that's what it was with this, but there was, there was very
• 24:30
  specific things where I did it like one of those, you know, I saved the cat type screenwriting books,
• 24:36
  where I said, okay, right, directly in the middle here's where the big game change moment happens.
• 24:41
  So right in the middle of the story is where you do the turnover and there's Cassandra Nova,
• 24:45
  suddenly to explain what's going on. And then, you know, then there's more twists, and then I was
• 24:50
  thrown in different kind of just fan favorite things like putting dark claw in there and creating
• 24:57
  that new amalgam character for just one panel, just to annoy everyone. It was all really worked out
• 25:02
  in the, you know, the twist comes exactly the moment in a script where the twist is meant to come
• 25:07
  and so on. So yeah, it was pretty, I had a lot of fun just sticking to rules, you know, like a dog
• 25:12
  made film, and I just thought, okay, here's what the rules. And I've got to do this, you know,
• 25:17
  and Batman and Dead 2 have to be in the same number of pages and a whole bunch of other stuff
• 25:22
  that I did. That's fascinating, because yeah, it just sound like so meticulous. And you're right,
• 25:26
  like when I remember my most reaction reading those beats is exactly, they have the exact
• 25:30
  effect like boom, you have Cassandra, and then boom, you have the revelation of you and the quantum
• 25:33
  keyboard and the writer figure and it's, and it really works, you know, I must say it really works,
• 25:38
  and obviously, I mean, you've been doing this for, you know, you're a dad-hand at this.
• 25:42
  It sounds like it was so much, it was a lot of fun to write, or say, despite how it is, it was,
• 25:46
  it was just a blast. I mean, it was out the case. Yeah, the meticulous elements of it are just
• 25:50
  going in and fixing things, so it's not a chore at all. It was just great fun. And then everything
• 25:56
  after the initial blast of ideas is just editing and editing is always fun, you know, because you're
• 26:03
  honing things down, cutting them down into the best version. So now, the whole thing was great,
• 26:07
  it really reinvigorated my interest in doing comics again. So, you know, I've been doing a bunch
• 26:13
  of new things and kind of re-energised by Batman Deadpool. Great, I'll be curious to ask about
• 26:20
  those, because something I was, I'll be thinking about is, is the fact that, and I think we even
• 26:24
  talked a little bit about it, I put like half, is the fact that, yeah, this is your first sort of,
• 26:27
  sort of, mainstream, super-comic for quite a while, and I guess, I remember you saying that like,
• 26:32
  you've done so many of the big characters that you love, like, obviously Superman and the JLA
• 26:37
  and X-Men that, like, maybe, you felt a little bit like, okay, there aren't too many more that you
• 26:43
  haven't written, but it's interesting to say that you said that this is kind of, I guess, reinvigorated
• 26:47
  some of your passions for writing them. Yeah, I'm not so much the superheroes, unfortunately,
• 26:51
  so if anybody's hoping that I'll come back and do more of those, it's unlikely, but I'm going to do
• 26:57
  I've got a bunch of horror things that I wanted to do for a while, and they're mostly written,
• 27:02
  so I'm going to start with that, and I knew Sebastian O. Story as well, the comic that I did in the
• 27:07
  90s for vertigo, so I got a really good new idea for that, and again, things are unexpected,
• 27:13
  I never thought I'd have an idea for Sebastian O. again, and then I got one, and I asked Steve O.
• 27:18
  if he wanted to do it, and he was up for it, so yeah, I mean, it's interesting just to be able to
• 27:23
  have a notion and then bring it into reality. Yeah, that's an amazing, I mean, I really like
• 27:29
  Sebastian O. It's one of my favourite of your vertigo comics, and Steve O. L's such a great artist,
• 27:33
  he worked of you on Xenif as well, of course, and I remember, I mean, I heard you say that you and
• 27:38
  Frank Quietley, Vincent, are also talking about maybe working on a horror project.
• 27:43
  Yeah, no, we've got a, it's like a 12, 14 page thing, like one of those trailers that I do in
• 27:50
  Xanadin, which are like movie trailers, but done as short comics, and we have this thing called
• 27:56
  it's a dead, dead, dead, dead world, and it's a really different take on zombies, and you'd be
• 28:03
  surprised there are still different takes to be found with zombies, so honestly, he's had it for
• 28:08
  two years, he's in San Diego right now doing a teaching session, and he's promised that he will
• 28:15
  get on to it again, he's done his layouts, but it could happen anything, we could all be dead,
• 28:20
  the sun could be, you know, turned into a red giant, but he is, he is, he is allegedly working on
• 28:25
  this thing. It's a great idea. That's great to hear, because one of the fantastic things about
• 28:32
  you guys when you guys get together and you work on a new comic, is it, it feels like you only
• 28:36
  get together when you have something that you want to say, or you're particularly enthusiastic about
• 28:40
  a story, so that's great to hear that you guys are working together again on something that is,
• 28:43
  you know, pretty sparking you off. And it was just to do something different from
• 28:47
  we wanted to do a kind of groundhouse thing, because the last thing we did was Pax Americana,
• 28:51
  which was about as formalized as you can possibly imagine. You know, every single panel was
• 28:56
  walked out in this crystalline watchman-esque kind of way, so we wanted to do something that was
• 29:02
  a bit grungier and go back to, you know, kind of back to Vinnie's underground routes.
• 29:09
  That's great, and yeah, like you say, I mean, you know, it takes, you can take a while to draw,
• 29:13
  to draw a comic, but like, you know, it's the, you know, the proof is in the pudding, and they're
• 29:16
  always worth it, because you know, I mean, there's always the best comics, but my god, it takes
• 29:20
  his time. And I guess he's in demand a lot these days, obviously, but we've all started
• 29:25
  with man being as popular as ever and we're free and everything. I think, I think about Vinnie,
• 29:30
  he's very focused on his family and on food and enjoying himself, so he tends to, he tends to not
• 29:38
  overwork because he's got the right attitude, you know, he works on big projects, usually for
• 29:43
  corporate clients these days, like he'll do murals and hotels, or he did an amazing series of,
• 29:50
  of drawings for Bowmore whiskies. They're incredible, they're actually like whole
• 29:55
  stories that are unfolded, so it's in the shape of the Bowmore box, and it's like folk tales,
• 30:01
  so he's got one with a devil being chased through a village, but it's almost animated, so you start
• 30:06
  on the back and you see the devil and the shadow on the wall, and then you need to go to the next panel,
• 30:11
  and the devil's further down, and then on the front, it's giant devil climbing through the church
• 30:16
  window, and you can follow this whole sequence, it's like a comic book on an unfolded background,
• 30:24
  and they're really, they're really incredible, you know, the background is just one background,
• 30:29
  but all the figures move through time in that background, and honestly, they're astonishing,
• 30:34
  and nobody even knows about them, unless you buy these ridiculously overpriced whisky, but
• 30:42
  whatever they call them, but special boxes, but you won't even see this stuff, but that's the
• 30:47
  kind of stuff he does, and like I say, he's over in San Diego, teaching right now, so I think he
• 30:54
  tries to enjoy himself more than the rest of us, they're all workaholics. Wow, and that's
• 30:59
  incredible, and actually, hearing you describe that sort of, those illustrations that he's doing,
• 31:04
  he reminds me, we had Brian Talbot, you're old, they made Brian on the part on Monday, and Brian
• 31:10
  was telling us about the queue line, I think the queue line that he designed, which in kind of
• 31:14
  comic book form, that sort of tells the history of Sunderland across the sort of town centre, and he
• 31:19
  described it as a granite comic, he was very much, you know, still even though he wasn't
• 31:24
  formally like a comic book, you know, he was doing it like he was doing a comic, but over like
• 31:28
  years and building meticulously this huge long granite line. Well, that's the same kind of thing,
• 31:33
  you know, and it's very innovative, and it's, you know, I was looking at a thing, my god, if you
• 31:38
  did a comic like that, you know, well, it's just only the figures move and the landscape stays the
• 31:43
  same, but you're seeing a whole story unfold across a long shot of a landscape. Yeah, and Brian
• 31:49
  actually was, he was like, he was reminiscing a bit about, because I mentioned that you were coming
• 31:54
  on the pod, and he was reminiscing about the near miff stays, where you guys first met back in the
• 31:57
  70s, when he was doing loop for our cry, and you were, I think that was your first published
• 32:01
  comics work, am I right? Yeah, it was, yeah, it was a very first thing, they were the first people
• 32:05
  would give me any money, ten pounds a page, it was astonishing, I can believe myself. Wow, and he
• 32:10
  was saying that like in those days, it'll be like run out of the, by Rob King was the publisher,
• 32:14
  and he was running it out of the Edinburgh science fiction shop, and it was just a sea of dope
• 32:18
  smoke, and he was saying it was just like, it was quite heady, and that was pretty good. Well,
• 32:21
  it was, because I mean, I didn't smoke, I mean, I've never smoked, but I certainly didn't smoke
• 32:26
  dope, and I would come out of these meetings, just like, what the hell, you know, I remember just
• 32:30
  going into a chip shop, and I'm still there like 40 minutes late, and you went, is it, did, can we
• 32:35
  do anything for you? So I know I did, they were, they were, they were pretty, pretty intense meetings,
• 32:42
  it was very, very much in the underground comics mold. Yeah, and he was saying that he even had
• 32:47
  to, because it was so, there was so much sort of dope being smoked, Brian had to sort of come
• 32:51
  in and be like, right, okay, I'm taking over the, you know, this needs, I'm taking over the book,
• 32:54
  this needs to be done properly. Yeah, pretty much that's what happened on issue five, I think,
• 32:59
  as you four, Brian just had to come in and take over. Yeah, and he was saying he was talking about
• 33:05
  how the, like back in the day, like a comic like NIMF could get national distribution, but these
• 33:09
  days, like, you know, you have to pay the publishers for them to put it out, and it's such a different
• 33:13
  ballgame, but you guys like you and Brian, we'll be able to get your first workout there to a
• 33:17
  mass audience and really put your get yourselves out there. Yeah, it was, it was, it was strange
• 33:22
  that that kind of super experimental material, and up, aside from Brian's work on Lutherart, right,
• 33:27
  it wasn't that great, you know, I mean, I, that was very young, and some of the other artists
• 33:32
  weren't, weren't great, but there was so much enthusiasm about it, and all the strips were very
• 33:37
  different, they did different kind of intelligence behind them. So it was, it was an amazing thing,
• 33:43
  it'd be able to do. And as you say, we were going to comic conventions and being kind of
• 33:47
  fated for this, this comic that nowadays, it would be given away at conventions and hoping
• 33:53
  someday might read your comic book, you know, you'd be handing it out, but we actually had it in
• 33:58
  new stands up on the top shelves next to the porn lags. And am I right in thinking that that
• 34:04
  sort of like your near myth stuff kind of led into Captain Clyde, because Captain Clyde isn't
• 34:08
  of a character that I want to say you're bringing back. He was your first superhero. Yeah.
• 34:12
  Well, Captain Clyde, Captain Clyde came about pretty much the same time. There was near myths
• 34:17
  and then Captain Clyde, and it was, it was three local newspapers, The Govern Press,
• 34:22
  The Clyde Bank Press, and The Rent Through Press, which are on the, you know, the Clyde here,
• 34:26
  it's three smaller towns that had their own papers, but they were all, all pretty much similar news.
• 34:33
  And my dad was always writing into them, you know, because he's, he's, he's,
• 34:36
  activism, he was constantly writing letters to them, so he'd become quite friendly.
• 34:41
  And these, they were losing their comic strip, or fact, and at that time they didn't have a
• 34:45
  comic strip, they wanted a comic strip, and my dad said, oh my son can do that. So I was given
• 34:50
  this comic strip to do, and it was great. I did it for three years weekly, and it got super dark
• 34:57
  at the end, and it was a bit, I'm glad they stopped me because it was getting worse. But yeah,
• 35:02
  I lasted for three years now, we get replaced by Tom and Jerry, but I'm, I'm bringing it back
• 35:07
  with Etienne Kubwabo, who's a sort of a director, and he does this comic called Beats a War,
• 35:15
  and Etienne is from the Congo, and his characters are an alien, who's arrived on Earth, and he's
• 35:21
  in Glasgow. So when we met up, we just thought, wouldn't it be great to do my Glasgow superhero
• 35:26
  from the 70s and your Glasgow superhero from the present day, and contrive some way where they
• 35:32
  can team up, and compare and contrast the different Scotland's and the different Glasgow's that we live in,
• 35:39
  and you know, all this different stuff that I thought was really interesting to talk about using
• 35:44
  these superhero characters. So yeah, that's another one we're doing for, we hope to have it
• 35:49
  this year, but things didn't work out, so it's about next year. Great, and where are we going to
• 35:54
  be able to find this? Is it going to be in the pages of the local Glasgow, like Clyde was originally
• 35:58
  in the past? No, no, no, this will be a comic, but I mean, all of where this is all going to be
• 36:04
  coming from is I've yet to reveal. Oh, amazing. Well, I can't wait to read it. So last time,
• 36:12
  something that I've been really keen to ask you about, is last time you came on the show, it was
• 36:16
  the day of the release of James Gunn Superman movie. It was Superman Day, I guess you could call it,
• 36:21
  and we were both really excited about seeing it, and I wish I wanted to say you have now, you were
• 36:28
  writing about it in your newsletter, and I'm alright in thinking you wrote, you said it was
• 36:32
  like your favourite piece of Superman media ever, but you really loved it. I say it was the best
• 36:38
  Superman movie, it's what I thought, I didn't say it was the best Superman media ever because
• 36:42
  that's probably a lot of things that I love more, but no, I thought it was the best Superman movie
• 36:47
  to date, and that's what I said, and I did, I thought it was better than all of them, as much as
• 36:53
  I liked those Christopher Reeve ones, in hindsight they're kind of hard to watch, aside from Christopher
• 36:59
  Reeve, the stories are pretty terrible. This one just was more like a comic, and I thought it
• 37:04
  came the closest to capturing what Superman feels like, and I had a few things that I didn't like
• 37:10
  about it, I thought I wish they'd done that or gone in that direction, but again, I didn't have
• 37:15
  to write it, James did, and they made specific choices, I think were made for dramatic reasons
• 37:22
  understandable, but just things didn't sit well with me, I felt the issue would have saved the
• 37:27
  Kaiju for instance, that's what Superman would have done, and found a home for it, and once they're
• 37:32
  island or something, I think in order to make them seem more relatable, they had them getting
• 37:38
  beat up and awful lot, and it just seemed like I wanted to seem stuck getting beat not when
• 37:43
  getting fight back, so there's a couple of things, but all in all, I thought it was a great start,
• 37:48
  I'm looking forward to the next one, once they kind of get over the whole introduction thing
• 37:53
  and see what you can do next, but definitely for me it was the best Superman movie in terms of
• 37:58
  capturing what Superman's really like in the comics. I'd agree, I think I had a blast of it,
• 38:04
  I really enjoyed watching, I think that's the other thing is I think James is really,
• 38:08
  he understands as much as it's a great film, obviously about Superman, it's also just a great
• 38:13
  time in the movies, I think all of his movies, he understands the importance of the experiential
• 38:18
  side of like you're sitting in a, like you talked about before, like sitting in a dark
• 38:21
  and room and the director is in control and he's taking you on a ride, and I think he really nailed
• 38:26
  that with this movie, I mean I really do think he did. Yeah, and it was funny, I just saw fantastic
• 38:30
  four, which is actually almost the same story, which I found interesting, and that that was pretty
• 38:36
  good as well, it was good in the same way and it wasn't great in the same way as what I felt,
• 38:40
  you know, but both of them suggest something really great that they could do next once like I say,
• 38:47
  once they got over just the introductory nature of these things,
• 38:51
  kind of once the ground's been set, kind of like Batman begins, when you make,
• 38:54
  when you made your back, Batman begins, you can then make the dawn on. Yeah, because Batman
• 38:57
  begins as kind of conventional movie and then you watch the dark night and it's a while,
• 39:01
  where did this come from? Well, they had to do Batman begins to get there, you know?
• 39:05
  Totally, and I mean the thing I really liked about Fantastic Four and appreciated was as someone
• 39:09
  who's a big Kirby fan, it was so nice that like at the end of the movie they have that dedication
• 39:14
  to Kirby, which has been in my opinion a long, long time coming for one of these movies to finally
• 39:18
  fricking say, you know, acknowledge the enormous debt, enormous debt like they owe him, but also like,
• 39:24
  I really liked the fact that Ben Grimm, the thing had is the Jewish roots of that character
• 39:28
  were there, like he goes to the synagogue and I really liked all that, I really liked that,
• 39:31
  they paid attention to those details. Well, and just just that it was Kirby's Galactus,
• 39:36
  it was proper Galactus, you know, and he's gigantic and it looked great and it just shows that
• 39:42
  that's all you need to do is follow the lead of the comics and you'll get incredible imagery,
• 39:47
  because I thought I thought that the last act was the best, you know, I thought the whole fight
• 39:51
  with Galactus was really, really worked well in that movie. I agree, yeah, and I mean, even though
• 39:57
  there's even Ralph Anderson playing Galactus, there's a little bit of me that can't help but see
• 40:00
  that's Chris Finch from the office, like you know, massive girl Kirby soon. So I didn't know that
• 40:06
  and I also had been totally distracted by that. Yeah, I just couldn't help think of him saying,
• 40:11
  you know, not a rat, bloody good rap, bloody good rap, you know, so I'm glad you enjoyed that,
• 40:16
  because yeah, we were talking about that before about how like, you know, those two movies,
• 40:19
  these sort of huge foundation stone characters are both those, again, both universes getting off
• 40:23
  of each other, like both those universes coming out. But they also, those two films, they both
• 40:28
  had the heroes being sort of beloved and then something goes wrong and the body comes in and
• 40:34
  Superman, they steals the dog and in this one, it's the baby, the populous tons on them and they
• 40:40
  have to solve that problem. They were almost exactly the same story, which was funny. That is
• 40:45
  very true, actually, and actually, on that subject, I mean, because I think one of the most sort of
• 40:49
  talked about things about the Superman movie is that twist of like, okay, Jorrel and Lara, not
• 40:54
  what they appear to be and Superman, you know, the message being that, you know, the message that
• 40:59
  Jorrel sent with the rocket with Cal is being corrupted and the rest of that message was actually
• 41:04
  him saying, you know, you feel free to dominate, you know, mate. And I guess like, what was your,
• 41:09
  it sort of take on that, I guess, I guess it's quite similar to the John Byrne version of Superman,
• 41:13
  I want to say, right? I suppose it is a little except Byrne, they were just more cold and
• 41:18
  scientific and lacking in emotions, whereas this was, they were out and out fascists and they
• 41:23
  would just go and take over and then shag all the women. So I didn't like it because a
• 41:29
  prefer when cryptons this lost Utopia, I like the idea that there was something amazing and nature
• 41:36
  just wiped it out and their own, their own lack of, you know, lack of attention to detail,
• 41:43
  allowed them to be wiped out. I think there's some much more poignant about that. For a long time,
• 41:47
  people like to take those Utopies and go, well, what if it wasn't really Utopia? There was actually
• 41:52
  racism and there was actually this and it was actually just like here. And that's what happens,
• 41:57
  it becomes, well, it's just, just like here now. And that, that kind of, to me, diminishes it.
• 42:03
  But as a, as a twist in his version of the story, I thought it really worked because the thing that
• 42:08
  I found almost upsetting in it was that it felt like Superman's morality was quite fragile
• 42:15
  throughout, that it was just based on this wishful film and bullshit that he's seen his parents.
• 42:20
  Well, you'll go out there and do and I kindly did every day, son, only to find out that,
• 42:25
  meanwhile, they're, you know, they're racist monsters. So that's what I felt that that,
• 42:34
  lost my train of thought. That's one of those ones that I started out in a long, long ramble
• 42:38
  and then lost myself on the mountainside. I guess like the fact that, yeah, that his morality
• 42:42
  was quite fragile. Yeah, the morality, the morality scene fragile because it was based on this
• 42:47
  nonsense. And so I constantly felt like Superman in it could just become a bad guy easily. You know,
• 42:54
  he was like Batman and Killinger. It was one bad day can mess up anybody. So that actually,
• 42:59
  I found quite disturbing that all it needed was something bad to happen. These whole head would
• 43:04
  collapse. And so what I liked about that revelation at the end is that he was able to ride on
• 43:09
  through it and I thought, okay, that's Superman's, Superman could handle that and then he just shifts
• 43:13
  his attention to all the good memories he's got of his earthly parents. But again, I don't know
• 43:18
  how well that worked because the earthly parents seemed like I've got almost nonexistent presence
• 43:23
  in the movie until the very end and even seem to have different personalities at the start,
• 43:27
  where they came across as these kind of local characters and then later they'd seem to develop a
• 43:33
  completely different kind of vocabulary and intelligence. So there was that too. But yeah, I thought all
• 43:40
  the story choices that I didn't necessarily like worked really well for this movie. So
• 43:45
  again, it's just it's a version, isn't it? And it's like, do you like the version? And I kind of like
• 43:50
  the version, I mean, does this able to go? Me too. And I must say, I agree with your points
• 43:57
  totally. I mean, that was how I felt coming out of it. I felt I enjoyed it, but I liked it,
• 44:00
  but I was a little conflicted. But the longer I've let it sit with me, the more I've kind of,
• 44:04
  I think emotionally it lands. And I think that scene, because the scene I was going to bring up was
• 44:08
  the scene, I think that you're talking about where, you know, his morality continues. So the scene
• 44:13
  where he sort of faces off with Lex and says, you know, being human is making mistakes. But you
• 44:18
  know, I, you know, that's what's my greatest strength. And I feel like for me, that is very much
• 44:23
  for a lot of people become a very important moment in the film and really resonate with people. And
• 44:27
  it reminds me, it's completely different. But it's that, for me, it's the heart of the movie and
• 44:30
  the way that the, the girl on the rooftop and also Superman is, is the heart of your sort of
• 44:36
  also Superman. When you saw that, was that something that kind of, how did that resonate with you,
• 44:40
  that scene? Yeah, well, again, I was happy to see him kind of surely superman strength, you know,
• 44:47
  because I like I say, I felt, I felt there was a fragility there, which was worrying to me.
• 44:52
  And again, that works, that's dramatically that worked, because I was instantly kind of worried
• 44:57
  about Superman, which is pretty good, because you know, he's Superman, he's a tough guy, but
• 45:02
  they put him in a position where I was concerned that he would, he would break down, or that he'd lose
• 45:08
  his, you know, his, his compass. And the fact that he didn't was just nice to see him,
• 45:13
  God did, they just showed that Superman is different from us, you know, he processes things,
• 45:17
  definitely, and he finds the good in things. And he allows himself to be vulnerable as much as,
• 45:23
  obviously, he's in, is in vulnerable, but like he was also, you know, he's a person as much as
• 45:27
  he is an alien, you know, so he has that, so he is vulnerable as well. And that I guess is,
• 45:31
  becomes part of his fiber, you know, and he's so, and that's okay, you know, to be.
• 45:34
  Yeah, but I like that, because again, as I said to you before, with Superman, what you can show
• 45:38
  is someone who processes things, definitely, but it gives, it gives ordinary people a way of
• 45:44
  thinking about how they can process it differently, you know, with when Superman's heart are alone,
• 45:49
  or grieving, or guilty, he processes it, definitely doesn't break down, he finds ways of acknowledging
• 45:56
  it, of dealing with it, of making things better. And I think that's always helpful to see that
• 46:01
  dramatized. So totally, so totally, and, and it comes back, I guess, to empathy, because
• 46:06
  something that we touched on earlier, we're going, going back to Batman Deadpool, I mean,
• 46:09
  the act of, the sense of kindness that is present in that book, and in so many of your books,
• 46:14
  how important do you think it is as a, as a writer to be, and just as people to be kind,
• 46:19
  even to the, our creations, even to our fictional characters, because that's something that you,
• 46:22
  like, is explicit in our man and the Batman Deadpool, like the acts of kindness, even to the things
• 46:27
  that we create, and what that says about us, like how important do you think that is?
• 46:30
  Well, I think it's very important, but there's a lot of people who think it's not important,
• 46:34
  and so I mean, it just depends which side you choose to take. I mean, for me, it's definitely
• 46:40
  important to be as, I mean, kind, kind always sounds, it's kind of trying to claim a
• 46:45
  medal for yourself, but it's not, it's just doing the right thing in the situation.
• 46:50
  If someone or something's in trouble, and you can give a hand, then you do it, you don't walk
• 46:55
  by. That to me, it's just a kind of pragmatism, you know, and I don't know how you could walk by,
• 47:01
  but I guess some people can and not feel that that's a bad thing, or that they've done anything that's,
• 47:07
  you know, out of the ordinary, whereas for me, it would seem like the wrong thing to do.
• 47:12
  I don't know, I guess it's a personal thing, yeah, I definitely think people should try and be kind
• 47:16
  and look after, you know, even bees that are falling on the road, you pick them up and you put
• 47:22
  them on a flower, it's simple, ordinary stuff like that. So definitely, yeah, I mean,
• 47:26
  Superman has the power to be kind on a, on a global, interstellar level, even, but we've
• 47:33
  got the power to be kind in our own, you know, little patches and in our own environments. And
• 47:38
  well, yeah, of course you should do it as much as possible. And the more you do it, the more you get
• 47:42
  it back as well. Come a time where you need kindness and it'll be good, you know, for us people there.
• 47:48
  Totally. And I think what's fascinating about you and your work is the fact that you extend
• 47:52
  that kindness to even, to even the characters that you create and the characters on the page,
• 47:56
  like Buddy and his family and animal man, like, like, there's that moment where you're talking to
• 48:00
  Buddy at the end of your last issue of animal man, where you're in the comic as the writer and you
• 48:04
  say, perhaps we, you know, we can be kind, you know, we've been sort of abusing you and your
• 48:08
  family for drama, you know, as, you know, for an audience of readers, but like, perhaps we can be
• 48:12
  kind. And it's the same thing with Batman Deadpool, with Batman, he gives Victor back, you know,
• 48:17
  his, his wife and it's lovely. And I guess like, even the things we create, we, you know, that,
• 48:22
  that says something about us, whether we're sort of kind to them or to as extensions of ourselves,
• 48:27
  or if we, I know, maim them or something, you know, I mean, also, and you, you'll read people and
• 48:34
  you've got to kill your darlings and that doesn't mean just your really good sentence that you liked
• 48:39
  in a story that doesn't fit. It means being able to kill characters and thinking, well,
• 48:44
  this, this person that we like in a story is going to get killed by the monster of killed by the
• 48:49
  vampire. But as you say, I kind of trouble with that, you know, and I've always had trouble with that
• 48:55
  and I sort of feel that, okay, I'm in control of this universe. And yeah, it may be in the real world
• 49:01
  that person would be killed, but in my universe, things are different, you know, I felt that in
• 49:06
  W3 when I thought the reality is the animals would just all be short dead and that would be it. But
• 49:12
  in my story, that's not what happens because it's my story, you know, and in Brian K. Vaughan's
• 49:17
  Pride story, Pride or Baghdad, based on a true story, but all the lines get shorted and you've
• 49:23
  grown, you've grown and loved them for like a six day old page and then they just all get killed.
• 49:27
  And that's our real fucking down, and it doesn't really. It doesn't help me, because you're ready
• 49:35
  feeling bad and also when you close the book and say, oh, they're all dead. So again, in my
• 49:41
  universe, I always feel like, no, because I wish that I lived in a universe with someone like me
• 49:46
  just going, okay, today you don't have to die. And so yeah, I do think it's a kind of responsibility
• 49:54
  that's stupid probably to think, but it doesn't form the way our approach is story and it gives
• 50:00
  characters a really good chance to survive in things that they might not survive in other
• 50:04
  writers stories. So I think that's why the characters would prefer to come and be written by me.
• 50:11
  Well, it's like, but also it has an emotional effect because like, yeah, you say, I mean, because
• 50:15
  having read Pride or Baghdad and we free, like, you know, they're both great. I mean, the thing
• 50:19
  about we free that's so poignant, it's about that you do have that emotional free line of like
• 50:22
  bandit and then the cat survive. And like, you have that free line, you still have characters
• 50:28
  at the end who you obviously care about and love. And it's so it all lands. I mean, it's a very
• 50:31
  different kind of, obviously, Pride or Baghdad also lands, but it's, but you have that free line
• 50:35
  and it's really, it's beautiful. Yeah, and it could happen that way, you know, they could be saved.
• 50:39
  And so this is how I always like to write about the time when things go right, you know.
• 50:45
  Yeah, which I think, and going back to what we talked about when you first came on, I think
• 50:48
  it's so needed and what was in this day and age in the sort of the, the tenor of the times,
• 50:52
  there isn't enough of that around. Well, I think, but honestly, thank you, but I believe that really
• 50:56
  all films are kind of, there's a sentimental version of it and I'm guilty myself, but films
• 51:02
  are really always a bit, the story always works out for everyone. There's always a happy end.
• 51:07
  And when, in fact, in real life, you know, it's the only ending for everyone is the same,
• 51:12
  but it just, it just depends where you choose to stop the story, whether you get a
• 51:17
  tragic one. So it's kind of always like that, but what I've tried to do is at least to confront the
• 51:22
  kind of that, the darkness, as I've said, to at least talk about it and the possibilities there,
• 51:28
  but there's, I'd like to think it's a different level of saving characters than that,
• 51:34
  just the sentimentality of a Hollywood film where you know, the hero in the heroine are going
• 51:38
  to make it to the end, by and large, you know, at least you do these days watching a bunch of
• 51:43
  70s films again and nobody makes it to the end. But, but yes, I think about that. I'm trying to
• 51:49
  do that in a different way around is the obvious saccharine, like the good guys always win in these
• 51:54
  stories. To me, it's like, the good guys always win because there is a power behind this that
• 52:01
  is trending towards the good, you know. Yeah, well, it should be authentic. I guess I hear what
• 52:08
  you're saying and I guess for me, it's like, it's not a question of just like putting a happy face
• 52:12
  on a bad situation. It's like, no, it's recognizing and reckon, you know, the truth of the reality.
• 52:17
  And then, but I guess it's like, what's what they've then like is the question is like, what's your
• 52:21
  response? Like the royal you like, what's what, how do we respond and respond? Yeah, to try and find
• 52:26
  ways round, imaginative ways round the situation that might have ended in disaster, but you know,
• 52:31
  it's the possibility of, well, what if there was this guy comes along? What if this does happen?
• 52:35
  That things like that can happen. You know, people can find an animal lying by the side of the
• 52:40
  road and save its life. So I guess, I guess that's what I'm always looking for is in the darkest
• 52:46
  night. Where is the light? And always the little light to follow to see how we can get ourselves
• 52:50
  out of this one. And as I've said to you before, Gran, that's one of the things that resonates
• 52:55
  with me about your work. And we actually, we had Owen likes comics, who's a great sort of YouTube
• 52:59
  comics essayist. And we were talking about that exact thing in, you know, also Superman and other
• 53:04
  comics too. And how important that is, you know, and it's very, and it's, and how profound it is.
• 53:08
  So, and it's valuable, you know, absolutely. Today, very briefly, something that I've been
• 53:14
  curious to ask you for a long time is, so going back to Super Gods, your book, your memoir,
• 53:20
  and section of superheroes, you meant, and I guess mixing that with superhero cinema, you talk a
• 53:25
  lot about, there's a segment of that book, we talk about, Unbreakable, the M Night Shyamalan film,
• 53:29
  which you sort of, you call the high water mark of sort of the cinematic treatment of the themes
• 53:33
  of the superhero. And I guess I just wanted to ask you a bit about, about that. And also to ask,
• 53:39
  have you seen the two sequels split in glass? Yeah, I've seen both sequels. I don't think they
• 53:43
  really work in the way that Unbreakable works. I think Unbreakable stands alone, and it's a really
• 53:47
  just a great movie. And one of the best superhero movies ever made, you know, I just love it.
• 53:54
  Yeah, because it's, it takes, it's one of the few movies that actually takes those themes,
• 53:59
  like at face value, and takes them seriously. But also in a really intelligent, profound way.
• 54:04
  You know, like the like Bruce, where Bruce Willis is extraordinary in that film.
• 54:07
  And the way that it presents things that you see in every superhero story,
• 54:12
  like where he's sitting at the table with his kid, and the kid recognizes that the dad is the hero,
• 54:18
  and there's the whole little sequence where he hides the newspaper, he taps the newspaper,
• 54:24
  so the mother doesn't see it. And the whole thing is he's just acquired the secret identity,
• 54:29
  he's just acquired a sidekick, he's just acquired a love interest that he hides his secret from.
• 54:35
  And the whole movie's like that, you know, the bit where there's this fight in the guy in the room,
• 54:39
  and it's like an entire Jack Kirby fight scene, but contained in a bedroom. It's a monster,
• 54:44
  you know, the guy's just, I mean, never speaks, he's just a gyna, an orange jumpsuit who's,
• 54:49
  well, I think he speaks once to say, I'm your house is now mine, it's something horrifying.
• 54:54
  And it's the monster fight, you know, and even when you see, like Samuel Jackson,
• 54:58
  and you suddenly realize, wait a minute, he's in a basement surrounded by all these screens.
• 55:04
  Oh shit, he's a super villain. And we didn't even notice it, you know, because I was so used
• 55:09
  to getting it, my friend Jim, as they just died, he's shot by all these screens, and he sat in his
• 55:13
  basement office, and you suddenly go, wait a minute, I've just been buying into this without realizing
• 55:19
  everything in it's a depiction of something that you wouldn't see as a trope in a comic,
• 55:24
  but done in such a way that you only recognize it with a double take, you know,
• 55:29
  and I love that about it, like everything's in there, he's got his costume, he's even got the,
• 55:34
  you know, the security thing on the back. And I think any further development of it just didn't
• 55:40
  didn't work in the same way, for me at all, just didn't do it, all the the whole stuff, and I mean,
• 55:45
  he was great, obviously he's a good actor, but just didn't do the job. The first one just does
• 55:51
  it all, the first one's just a piece like the Matrix, it's one of those is perfect, one off movies
• 55:56
  that didn't need sequels. It's funny, because in Super Gods, you basically predict the next
• 56:01
  movies you say, like there's this, there was a rumor that it was going to be a trilogy of like
• 56:04
  unbreakable, breakable and broken, and it's funny, and then we got split anglas in some ways,
• 56:11
  very simple, so it was, it was kind of kind of creepy that, you know, the kind of the prediction
• 56:16
  there, whether you tap into it. He probably just read Super Gods and thought, okay, I'll do that
• 56:20
  about changing the names. But it's great, because he clearly is such a lover of the material and
• 56:26
  of comic books. I mean, that's the other thing that is rare about it, is that like it's,
• 56:29
  it's made by someone who really gets what, not only Superers, but what comic books are about,
• 56:34
  and the iconography and the imagery and the, and like the fact that he frames things like
• 56:38
  comic book panels, like broken it, with pillars standing in for panel lines and all that. It holds
• 56:44
  up to this day. It's a remarkable film. And actually, I first heard about it through Super Gods.
• 56:47
  So tap off again, hats off again. Definitely worth seeing. I think everyone should see that one,
• 56:53
  at least once, and if you like superhero stuff, it's just great, because it's just again,
• 56:57
  it does it in such a very different way from anything else than and refreshes stuff that's very
• 57:03
  tropey and and cliched. I mean, this is quite, I mean, I guess it's a big question, but like, would
• 57:07
  you say that's your favourite sort of superhero film then of like all of them all? I mean, there's a lot
• 57:12
  of them. No, yeah, there's a lot, but yeah, that's, that's as a standalone, yeah. But also the Matrix
• 57:18
  is one of my favourites to me, because Neil is a superhero in the last frame of that movie. And
• 57:23
  again, to me, that's where it should have stopped. That's the, the promise of the Matrix when he
• 57:28
  just flies up towards you in the coats like a cape and suddenly you go, oh my god, this is what
• 57:34
  you can do now. And you never, you never need another one, you know what I'm saying? It's so
• 57:39
  perfect and ending. So that, that's another superhero movie I love, and as for the rest of them,
• 57:46
  I don't know, I don't know, I don't think, but yeah, Unbreakable probably is one of the purists,
• 57:50
  and it's, it's kind of like like a miracle man, a marvel man, that kind of thing. It's just
• 57:55
  standing on its own and it does something very different with very familiar material.
• 58:00
  Great. Well, thanks so much for coming on the podcast, Granite. This was such a pleasure.
• 58:04
  You too. And it was great to touch base of you about Superman, but also to dive deep into Batman
• 58:08
  Deadpool. And I can't wait to see what you've got, you've got a lot coming out for us to look
• 58:12
  forward to. I'm so excited. I do know I was great talking again, Billy, thank you.
• 58:25
  Hey guys, thanks so much for listening to my follow-up chat with Grant Morrison.
• 58:30
  Remember to like and subscribe to the podcast, see another missing episode,
• 58:33
  and stay tuned for more exciting interviews and guests coming soon on half the picture.