Catching Up with
the
Fastest Man Alive (Part 7)
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Part 5 | Part 6 |
Part 7
It's
David Lynch does Charlie's Angels. ...
It’s Lovecraftian and
everything,
but it’s also bright
and breezy with
a different song in
it every week.
I think I’ve gone
through most of the questions I’d planned to ask you. Let me ask you
one other question, though.
Mm-hm.
You sound like you have a lot
of plans for the coming year. I’m sure there are things cooking
over there in your brain in Glasgow this morning that I haven’t even thought
to ask about.
[Laughs.]
Anything exciting for the
next year?
I’m trying to think
what I haven’t mentioned here.
I think I’m going to do
some Batman projects because I’ve been speaking to the Batman guys,
and I’m doing one soon. I’m going to actually start it in a couple
of weeks. They said to me, "You know Batman Chronicles?" They
said, "You want to do a whole issue of that next year as a big
special?"
Have you had a chance to
read any of the stories that have appeared there?
Yeah, I’ve really
enjoyed Batman Chronicles; I think they’re great.
Oh, it’s the finest
[Batman] book in a while. I’ll really be looking forward to your story
there.
There’s two I want to
do, and there’s one they said I could have the whole comic [for]; I
could have the 38 pages and do it as a [special].
There’s a guy called
Chris Weston, who drew one of the Swamp Thing stories—he drew the Nazi
one. He and I were going to do a Batman story, and it’s all from
Alfred’s point of view. It’s basically this insight into the death
of Jason Todd, when Alfred had decided after Jason Todd dying that
enough was enough and he wasn’t going to hang out with this crazy rich
guy anymore. And this is all getting out of control, so it’s
like—it’s this big, expansive Alfred story that takes in Batman’s
entire career. And there’s a lot aspects; it’s a very big, complex
thing, and that’s why we said, "Do a whole issue like this; get
Chris to draw it."
We’ve talked to him
about doing a couple of others, like a Batman special project as well.
But besides that, I think
with my first love in life being Superman, I’d really, really love to
write Superman. And my Red Son editor said to me, "Would you like
to sort of have fun and do an issue of Superman Adventures?" And I
did an issue of that that’s out in November or December, I think.
I’ll be looking for
that too.
I’m so happy
with it. Actually, it worked out great, ‘cause—what, all my life?—
I’ve been waiting to write Superman in his red-and-blue suit. You
know, the real Superman, with Clark Kent and everything.
And actually writing that
was brilliant. I had such a great time doing it, and I think they’ve
got—
I know Scott McCloud,
he’s leaving it—
Oh, I didn’t know that.
—and I think they’ve
got someone else lined up, but if it falls through with the other person
I really, really want to write that book, you know?
I don’t want to write
more than two books a month, but ideally I’d like to be writing Elseworlds
as a monthly book and Superman Adventures. And doing Saviour
and stuff like that and all the other special projects—just doing that
between.
But yeah, Superman
Adventures—actually writing something that children can read and enjoy
as well as adults is such a lot of fun to do. I’d really like to try
that again. Especially when you’re writing real-sex stuff, like
Vertigo stuff.
[Laughs.] Exactly.
I think it can definitely
balance out your karma if you write something like Superman
Adventures.
Keeps your life on an
even keel?
[Laughs.] Yeah! Well,
Grant and I are doing a lot of telly and things like that, as well.
Hm. Really?
Yeah. Actually, right now
we’re doing a sitcom for the BBC, you know?
That should be
interesting. Any idea what it’s going to be called?
Oh, yeah. Actually,
we’ve just gotten the first episodes out. It’s called Jacob's
Crackers—
[Laughs.]
—and it’s a Charlie's
Angels thing. It’s David Lynch does Charlie's Angels, you know?
That’s a comedy. [Laughs.]
[Laughs.] Must be very
interesting.
It’s Lovecraftian and
everything, but it’s also bright and breezy with a different song in
it every week. It’s bizarre that everyone seems really psyched about
it—which is good, you know—but we really just thought nobody is
going to laugh at this shit ‘cause the things that make us laugh
don’t make anyone else in the world laugh. But they do, so it’ll be
interesting to see what happens to that show.
Well, "a different
song every week" certainly sounds interesting!
[Laughs.] Grant’s doing The
Invisibles for the BBC, as well, and I’m talking about doing a
drama about the Royal Family.
I don’t know if you
know this, but there’s a company called Date Management in Hollywood
where they’ve signed up a few comic guys. They’ve got Garth Ennis,
and they’re talking to Mark Waid, and Grant and I are thinking about
working with them as well. [W]e met with them recently in Los Angeles,
so—
Yeah, I had heard that
Grant had written a script for Lawnmower Man 3.
Oh, that was a separate
thing altogether, that was.
Our first love is comics,
though. We really do enjoy comics, but these other things pay better
than comics. You know, you do something else when you can’t write
Superman or the Flash, but [you’re] always drawn back into comics.
Well, Mark, thanks so
much for making time to talk with us this morning.
Not a problem.
Hope you have a fine
afternoon. We’re getting ready to open the store and start selling
some copies of Flash.
[Laughs.] Good stuff. I
hope you sell tons of it.
Me too!
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