How many stories can you tell about yourself? It’s something we seemingly never tire of doing. What’s interesting are the patterns within the stories we choose to share with the world, and how they define us and shape the way we behave. Are we victims or heroes, tricksters or passive, the voice of reason or the spurned lover? Listen out for the stories you tell, and the stories you hear. Listen and learn, and then think about how they apply to the fictions you write.

Once you’ve worked out the kind of stories a character tells about themselves, you’re a long way to working out what kind of person they are in practice. I’ve never been a big fan of the whole detailed biography approach to character creation where you know what they had for breakfast and what colour socks they wear. Too much information. But if you get a feel for the way they talk about themselves, the stories they share and roles they play in them, other stuff starts to fall into place.

Someone who plays martyr in their tales, and likes to be different without having the smarts to figure out an original way of doing so…it’s kind of easy to see them wearing a big old leather trenchcoat. Contrarily, a character who never realises the joke is on him…well, there’s something about putting them in a ‘comedy’ tie, and having their clothes chosen by their mother into their twenties and beyond. These things have a logic of their own: you might not agree with my choices, and that’s fine as long as you’ve got your own radar for such nuances.

Nuances are what it’s all about. The distinctions a character makes inform their place in the world, and what they are capable of doing to change it. Norris Cole of Coronation Street meticulously places everyone on a social scale that’s of utmost importance to him, while Phil Mitchell of Eastenders pays heed to social convention only when it doesn’t interfere with his personal goals.

When different worldviews meet, sparks can fly. Drama often reaches its climax points when characters who have been close are polarised by their attitudes and actions in a new situation. The trick then, is to know your characters well enough to find situations that will force them apart. Will they accept the new reality, or will it cause them to redefine their relationship?

Alan Moore’s Watchmen is full of fine stuff emerging from a profound understanding of the distinctions between his characters, ably illustrated by Dave Gibbons. All are superheroes, each has their unique take on what can and should be done about humanity, the distinctions between them leading to a monstrous plot hatched by one of their number in the name of the greater good. Other, more grounded characters, have their more human response to the grand scheme, but are so ‘normal’ in their perspectives that they are easily outfoxed by the mastermind. It’s brilliantly realised, and for all the structural excellence on display that takes it several cuts above any other work in the comics form from a technical viewpoint, the character work is what makes Watchmen tick. And it all starts with the stories they tell themselves, about the world and their place in it…

I’ve written about Darwyn Cooke before, in a review of the collection of his take on Will Eisner’s Spirit. I’ve kept an eye out for more of his work since, and recently picked up his two volume exploration of the DC superhero universe’s roots, The New Frontier.

As ever with Darwyn, his work looks out of time. He’s fascinated by commercial art from the 1940s onwards, and that shows in his take on Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, and the other characters in this globe-spanning adventure. His style is deceptively simple, and relies on a minimalist approach. It means he’s got less to hide behind: every line has to count for something, whether it’s a just-so facial expression, perfectly formed experimental jet, or fierce dinosaur. Take any element away and the whole would fall apart - it’s pretty much the antithesis of detail-heavy art that the likes of Ethan Van Sciver specialise in, and gives it a lightness of touch that I find refreshing.

The same elegant approach applies to Cooke’s scripting. He writes well plotted tales with lean characterisation: the look of his heroes tells you as much about them as what comes out of their mouths, a synergy that’s best realised when the person writing is also doing the art.

The retro approach here isn’t a mindless indulgence in all things fifties. Cooke carefully incorporates social issues into the world he portrays in ways that were never addressed in the comics contemporary to the period the story is set in. No surprise, since comics were firmly seen as kids stuff then, but it’s interesting to see how an awareness of race, for instance, plays out in a story that is a homage to the roots of today’s comics.

Cooke’s mastery of page design marks him out as one of the medium’s sharpest creators. Most of the time he sticks to one illustrative style, but dips into other approaches - childrens’ book illustration for instance - where that serves the story best. And it always is what serves the story best: unlike some of Dave McKean’s experiments, the focus here is always on making the narrative as clear as possible.

What’s next for Darwyn Cooke? I just picked up a copy of western adventure Jonah Hex that he illustrated, which was great to look at but felt overwritten compared to the stories he writes himself. And it’s just been announced that he’ll be adapting the Richard Stark Parker crime novels in comic form for IDW: considering they include one that was brilliantly adapted for screen as Point Blank, I’m gagging to see what Cooke comes up with. He’s already shown his affinity for crime and period tales, so the combination should be sublime.

***

Anyway, that’s all for a few days. I’m off on holiday for a little while. Expect me back around Monday August 4. Enjoy…

So, I got round to seeing Wanted, with a writer friend who I have occasional ‘man dates’ with where we go and see films together that no self-respecting woman would be seen at. And so far we’ve picked on films that have their origins in comics, what with the pair of us being comics geeks. Only, after Wanted I’m left wondering why studios persist in going for the big whizzbang kind of comics, when the medium has so much more to offer that could bring something fresh to the screen…

I’ve not actually read the series that Wanted is based on, having very mixed feelings about its author, Mark Millar. He did a pretty fine job on The Ultimates for Marvel, reinventing some of the company’s core characters for a new cine-literate generation, but I find his grandstanding hype and mixed-up politics put me off much of his other work. Plus, there’s the feeling that he’s better at the big shocking concept than the actual delivery.

The idea behind Wanted is simple enough: what if you found out you weren’t just an average citizen, but had amazing abilities, and could use your powers to shape the destiny of the world? Classic adolescent powertrip stuff in other words, and that’s pretty much the film in a nutshell. Beyond that, it’s spectacle piled on top of spectacle, connected by some frankly ludicrous ideas. Trains crashing into canyons while people fight on board. Secret mind powers that allow you to bend bullets round corners. A lorryload of rats wired up to explode the baddy’s base. The baddy’s base itself, to all intents and purposes a castle in a previously overlooked medieval quarter of New York. Riffs from Fight Club and The Matrix recycled blandly like the soundtrack’s generic guitar attack. It’s all kind of fun at the most superficial level, but five minutes after it had finished we were discussing something else entirely, since the whole was utterly devoid of content.

All is not lost though. There are some fabulous comics out there coming to the screen sooner or later, and the one I’m particularly keen to see is Y: The Last Man. Brian K Vaughan’s series for Vertigo is now available in full as ten trade paperbacks, and there are more ideas of consequence in there than have troubled Millar for his whole life.

The core concept is that one man and his pet monkey somehow survive an apocalypse which wipes out all other males of every species. It’s a big dumb B-movie conceit, and Vaughan knows how to write action-packed stories with cracking cliffhangers. But he also knows how to populate them with characters you care about, and ideas that drive stories which zig when you think they’re going to zag, and consistently pulse with intelligence regarding issues of gender, politics, and the practicalities of living in a post-apocalyptic world.

Don’t get me wrong. I have nothing against action blockbusters and in particular ones based on comics. I absolutely loved Iron Man, and am really looking forward to Christopher Nolan’s next Batman film. But there’s an awful lot of chaff out there that could be replaced if studios forgot about looking at the big names in comics and searched around some more for quirkier talent.

And maybe that’s starting to happen: Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely’s stunning animal action escapade We3 is coming to a cinema soon enough, with Morrison himself writing a script that’s received considerable acclaim from those who’ve read it. Andy Diggle and Jock’s excellent political thriller Losers is on the way too, or was when I last heard anything. Let’s hope those films do their source material justice, and maybe even send people from the cinemas to book shops or comics stores to pick up the stories that inspired the films.

What with its cast of a gifted and dysfunctional faux-family raised by an eccentric millionaire and his manservant, you’d think The Umbrella Academy was created by Wes Anderson, he of The Royal Tenenbaums and other films about emotionally distant cod-aristos. But no, this collection of the first six issues of the comic is scripted by none other than Gerard Way, driving force behind the band My Chemical Romance.

It’s a handsome volume, published by Dark Horse, beautifully illustrated by Gabriel Ba. His elegant Mike Mignola-influenced linework is what impressed me most about Casanova, the Matt Fraction-written series about a superspy which has so far failed to make an emotional connection with me, and I’m not sure is much more than the sum of its very apparent influences. Colours are by Dave Stewart, who once again demonstrates that modern colouring has come into its own thanks to digital technology.

The Umbrella Academy is a fine piece of work, one I’d been recommended by Laurence Campbell, a superb illustrator doing a fine job of bringing a noirish vision to The Punisher for Marvel. Laurence knows my tastes in comics, and this particular recommendation was spot-on.

To get the obvious comparison out of the way, Gerard Way’s writing most resembles that of Grant Morrison, who provides the introduction to the collection. That is, it veers into some pretty leftfield territory in terms of concepts and execution, but is grounded by credible and touching relationships. Thus, the first installment features an attack by an animated Eiffel Tower, and the overall story arc is about a piece of music that, when performed, will bring about the end of the world.

It’s a highly accomplished piece of work that manages to include some comicbook staples - talking monkeys, weird powers, sinister plots - with credible stuff about families and relationships. The story centres on the children of the titular academy, a bunch of them adopted by eccentric inventor Reginald Hargreeves after a series of spontaneous births by women who were unaware that they were even pregnant. The emotionally distant Hargreeves raises the kids to standards that they cannot but fail, even with their uncanny powers. After saving Paris from the menace of a zombie-robot Gustav Eiffel the Academy disbands for a decade until their mentor’s death brings them together again.

The sense of loss and need for connection between the disparate Academy members is palpable, and brings real emotion to what could otherwise be mere spectacle. There’s heart as well as fizzbang at work here, and some very smart touches in the writing, such as the way that each chapter ends on a tangential coda taken from some statistics or a quotation. You can trace some of the devices back to Michael Moorcock’s Jerry Cornelius stories, the big influence on Casanova, but Way handles them with an authority that I don’t personally find in Fraction’s work there, all the more powerful for using them occasionally and not throughout the story.

The Daily Mail complained about what it felt was the pernicious influence of emo bands such as My Chemical Romance, and fans responded by picketing their offices. Maybe someone should tell them that Gerard Way is writing comics too, and they’ll start a new moral backlash against them that we can all picket them for.

It’s fair to say that I don’t know a great deal about manga, though I’m pretty well versed in comics generally. Japanese titles have been a big story in book stores in the west for the last few years, and I wanted to check out the cream of the crop.

My first port of call was Death Note, which started very promisingly with a supersmart teenage boy who is befriended by a demon. He uses his power to kill people to eradicate criminals, and himself becomes the subject of a criminal investigation. So far, so good. Only, our protagonist gets a girlfriend a few volumes in, and she’s so annoyingly depicted - we’re pretty much talking Lolita fantasies - that I gave up on the series.

Thing is, I know a lot of manga isn’t going to be to my tastes. Acres of it is devoted to subgenres designed to appeal to 13 year old girls, or 9 year old boys, or for adults but about subjects such as baseball that hold no interest for me. Which leaves a whole bunch of science fiction material, and thrillers, both genres I can enjoy.

So, I did a bit more research, and discovered that Monster, by Naoki Urasawa, is highly rated. It’s a clever thriller with intriguing elements: a Japanese doctor gets a job at a hospital in Germany. Dedicated to saving the lives of everyone, and not just the dignitaries that hospital politics dictates he should devote his talents to, Dr Tenma keeps a young boy alive. Oops. The kid turns out to be a killer, and the good doctor sets out to find him and rescue his reputation. In the process, Tenma falls among criminals and uncovers secrets better forgotten in today’s Germany.

That’s as far as I’ve got anyway: I’m three volumes into a series of 18 small inexpensive volumes. So far the ride has been a lot of fun: the characters are more plausible than those of Death Note, though sometimes stereotypical, brought in from Central Casting to bring particular moral questions alive for the reader. I identify less with Dr Tenma than the dilemmas he faces, put it that way.

In terms of plot and action, it’s exciting stuff, with all kinds of fun twists and turns. But there are times when it becomes melodrama. A cop turns up to arrest Dr Tenma in a remote location he’s been sheltered, only to discover that Tenma is operating on the cop’s own mother! Her life is in the hands of a man the cop believes to be a bad ‘un, and the situation is not only milked but the milk then turned into cheese of the ripest sort.

But maybe I’m being a little unfair: after all, I swallow the most ridiculous nonsense on a regular basis when I read superhero comics, on the rare occasions when I still do (Brian Vaughan’s excellent Runaways has been a recent favourite, now written by Buffy creator Joss Whedon, though I’ve not checked any of his issues out). Only, I grew up reading that particular kind of soap opera, so I know what to expect. Maybe I’m encountering a particular form of manga histrionics at this point, and I’ll get used to it if I read more. And there’s more to Monster than that: this is young adult fiction of a high order, though without the maturity and sophistication that, say, Pete Milligan or Jason Aaron regularly bring to the table in their comics.

For now, I’ll stick with Monster: a volume every couple of months as bedtime reading suits me fine at the moment. And then maybe I’ll explore the quality end of the manga science fiction scene, to see what I can find there to recommend. Anyone with any favourites, please let me know.

Generally speaking, I agree with the adage that the best person to compare yourself with is yourself at another time. That way you can see progress, how you’ve developed as a writer or in other ways. Sometimes though, it’s useful to have a peek at who else is out there, and see who they’re doing. At the very least, it’s useful to have some idea of what professional benchmarks exist for the field you’re in; how many script pages per day will support you, how long it takes to put a decent treatment together, and so on.

All I can say is, I’m very glad I’m a writer and not a comic artist. I’m reading Kirby: King of Comics at the moment, an impressively large book for a man who still casts a shadow over the industry he helped to define. Comics had existed as newspaper strips since the turn of twentieth century, but it was Jack Kirby who defined the distinctions between what could be done in a four-panel strip and what was possible in a full-length comic. His pace, energy, and vision drove an incredible capacity for creation; in the 1940s he was routinely drawing 8 pages a day, and his peers agreed they were the best in the business. These days, many comic artists struggle to do 22 pages a month. Yes, the requirements are more sophisticated today, and correspondingly greater skills are required…but that doesn’t make the work being produced now any superior to what Jack Kirby was doing way back when.

Kirby co-wrote and drew westerns, crime stories, war tales, romance and science fiction, all long before the superhero titles that secured his reputation for posterity. It was with Marvel’s Stan Lee that he enjoyed his most fruitful partnership, the pair of them hacking out title after title, coming up with characters and stories that are still being reprinted to this day, and which today’s comics creators continue to mine for inspiration. Captain America, Iron Man, Thor, and The Hulk are just a few of the iconic creations that poured from Kirby’s mind onto the page, and few of the superheroes created since have captured the public imagination in anything like the same way.

Kirby: King of Comics is written by the artist’s longstanding assistant and friend Mark Evanier, and I find it an easy and entertaining read. Kirby was hampered by his inability to capitalise on his creativity in an economic sense: others would always make more money from him than Kirby ever saw. And that’s why he had to draw so much; driven by a fear of being unable to support his family, he would continue to get the pencils out and create, because it was the only thing he knew.

It’s a physically impressive book, substantially illustrated with a cross section of Kirby’s work, reproduced from the originals in many cases. I find it thoroughly enjoyable, but some net critics have noted that it doesn’t show or tell anything new. True enough if you’re one of the geeks who subscribes to specialist magazines about Kirby, but if you’re a fan without that exhaustive knowledge, I’m sure you’ll find this a rewarding book.

Kirby is one of my two favourite original Marvel artists, and he died some years ago. The other, Gene Colan, is in hospital at the moment. Their styles couldn’t be more different: Kirby is brash, energetic, his characters physically impossible but commanding all the same. Colan’s work is more sophisticated, all about the dance between light and shade, with characters conjured to perfection from the simplest of lines.

Where Kirby is primal rock and roll power, Colan is a sinuous Miles Davis composition. Sure, he could kick out the jams when called for, and did so in The Avengers and Daredevil among other titles, but his real skill was in the depiction of nuance and atmosphere. Howard the Duck wouldn’t have been the same without him, and his art on Tomb of Dracula made that series work in a way that no other comic artist could have. If Gene Colan and his work have meant anything to you at all, tell him so: send a Get Well card to him at this address:

Gene Colan
2 Sea Cliff Avenue
Sea Cliff
NY11579
USA

How do you bring new life to a theme or genre that’s tired? One answer is to bring new influences in, the tack that the makers of the Daniel Craig version of Casino Royale took when they wheeled out the James Bond franchise for its latest iteration. The speed and action of the film that resulted clearly owed something to the massive success of The Bourne Identity and its sequels, films which successfully redefined what a spy franchise can do in the post-Berlin Wall and post-Twin Towers era.

Horror films have been faced with a similar dilemma. There’s a danger that werewolves and vampires and other monster staples can feel hackneyed, so what else can be brought to the table? One route is to explicitly explore the horrors that people are capable of inflicting on one another, which was handled with pathos and credibility in Wolf Creek but unfortunately also led to a host of crappy torture porn films such as Hostel and Saw.

But what if you’re still attracted to the old style monsters? Ginger Snaps demonstrated that intelligent ideas about female adolescence could be brought to a werewolf film, in a story that in its own way did for the werewolf what comics writer Alan Moore did for a whole host of horrors in his socially aware run on Swamp Thing.

And now, writer Brandon Seifert and artist Lukas Ketner have reinvigorated the horror comic anew with their title WitchDoctor. In essence, it’s House in a horror setting; the rare conditions explored by the magical medical specialist are vampirism and other forms of monstrosity, framed in a quasi-scientific way that’s a lot of fun to read. The creators have put their demo episode up at www.witchdoctorcomic.com in the hope of attracting publishers, and I wish them luck: it’s a sparky and well-executed concept that’s got the potential to inhabit its own very particular niche with style.

As for how to go about reinvigorating your own concept with the energy of fresher ideas, first look at your core story and decide whether it really does merit the time you’re going to spend on it. If it does, and it’s a new take you’re interested in, check out possible role models by exploring their style and structure: what can you borrow from, say, the new take on Dr Who that will help you to write your proposed security guard drama serial? If it’s family-friendliness, then how exactly does Dr Who manage to attract an audience of whole families, and what of that approach can you emulate in your own script?

This method isn’t, hopefully, about copying: if you learn well from a role model you can incorporate elements of their own success into yours in a way that transcends ripping off. And if not, then so be it; just bear in mind Tom Lehrer’s words: ‘Plagiarise/Let noone else’s work evade your eyes’.

The Spirit was a classic Sunday newspaper detective strip, originated by Will Eisner and delivered by him and his team from 1940 for the next 12 years. Eisner and crew delivered fast and witty crime-fighting action for a family audience, drawing on the vocabulary of cinema while also accomplishing artistic feats that could only be achieved in the context of comics. The stories were short, and often featured mysterious noirish women who would embroil the strip’s protagonist Denny Colt in adventures taking in fisticuffs, fast talking and foreign locations.

From time to time there have been attempts to revive The Spirit under creative teams who have shone elsewhere but typically fail to get under the skin of this very particular piece of comic history. Most recently, and most successfully, that revival has been undertaken by Darwyn Cooke, an animator who’s also made a name for himself in the comics world in recent years.

Cooke is the ideal person to bring The Spirit back, his work emerging from a timeless Americana with elements of deco and diners. And dames. Darwyn loves the dames, and renders them beautifully with the assistance of J. Bone on inks and Dave Stewart’s wonderful colours.

Despite the retro elements, Darwyn Cooke’s interpretation has one foot in the modern world. The first story in the hardback collecting the first seven issues has Denny rescuing reporter Ginger Coffee from the attentions of a mob boss, only for her to turn the tables and declare that it’s she who rescued him, the story of their escape broadcast live using her mobile phone. It’s a neat repositioning of the hero and his world, while still in keeping with old school versions of the story. Plus, it rehabilitates the black character Ebony White, here Denny’s proactive cab driver, formerly a two-dimensional caricature the subject of much debate among Spirit fans and detractors.

The first six stories reprinted are inventive examples of how a concept can be reinvented while remaining true to its roots. The stories are by no means radical, but are executed with utter panache: the visual detail and frame by frame storytelling is often superb. This is pulp fiction of the highest order, and I’ll be picking up the remaining stories when they’re collected on that basis.

What doesn’t work for me is the final tale, a limp Batman crossover that exists merely to showcase the supporting casts of both characters. The effect is like following round a group of tourists in an art gallery. Mona Lisa, check. That Picasso one, check. A random Dali, check. All lined up and consumed within seconds, no time for engagement or contemplation because there’ll be another one along any minute. The story in question is written by Jeph Loeb, and not Darwyn Cooke, whose art remains strong even as the story continues to grind on.

Make no mistake, if you’re looking for edgy contemporary crime fiction, you’ve come to the wrong place. But if you’re at all interested in how one of today’s leading comic creators can reinvigorate a seventy year old title and do so with effortless pizzazz, then Darwyn Cooke’s take on The Spirit is for you.

Warren Ellis is a writer I have mixed feelings about. On a good day, he can turn a sharp concept into an elegantly written comic, odds are featuring a protagonist who has a more than passing familiarity with one or more countercultures, and deals with the ills of the world partly through sharp dialogue expressing a cynical cosmology. On the other hand…well, just take a look at how much Ellis writes, and tell me how he can possibly hope to maintain consistent quality.

No surprise then, that I’m pretty fussy when it comes to investing in Ellis. I thoroughly enjoyed most of Global Frequency, a 12 issue series that ended up giving rise to a stillborn tv pilot, and have picked up a few other titles over time, particularly enjoying Frank Ironwine, his one-off collaboration with artist Carla Speed McNeil. Frank Ironwine was Ellis’s indie comic riff on the tv detective show, and he seemed to enjoy writing it more than some of the projects he takes on for Marvel.

Three years ago, Ellis returned to the world of the detective in his series Fell, created in a new format for Image. The slimline format has fewer story pages than regular comics (making up for that deficiency with what Ellis calls ‘backmatter’, which serves the function of DVD extras) and is a dollar cheaper, the idea being to give readers a good slab of pop culture for a low entry fee. Also, the stories are self-contained, an approach which usefully contrasts with the nonsensical degree to which Marvel and DC comics need readers to have an exhaustive knowledge of not only the comic they’ve just bought, but maybe half a dozen or so which overlap with it.

Detective protagonist Richard Fell has newly been transferred to Snowtown from across the bridge, where a more civilised existence can be led. Here in Snowtown, smog and murder are the order of the day, and both are ably depicted in the art of Ben Templesmith. Sketchy, vague in detail but clear in feel, Templesmith’s art perfectly captures the confused and messy sense of life in this urban sprawl, and confirms once again Ellis’s flair for bringing out his artists’ strengths.

Fell is a sharp cookie, and needs his smarts to get by in Snowtown. Even friendly faces can mask danger: his developing relationship with the young woman who tends the local bar leads to her branding him on the neck. Their gradual intimacy is skilfully depicted, each issue moving Richard and Mayko’s story forward while concentrating on another dismal crime: their first date turns into a case that Mayko assists Richard to investigate.

The crimes themselves are drawn from less savoury headlines across the world, and if you’re familiar with Ellis’s online presence you’ll have a good idea of what to expect: this is a man who turns his ongoing research into a promotional exercise. What he does with that research is what matters, and in Fell he’s created a world in which his seedy fascinations make some kind of sense. Besides, the plotting is always good for a few surprises, and the dialogue is lean and distinctive.

What Ellis has done in Fell is to create a comic that can be easily appreciated by fans of detective fiction in prose or screen form. If you liked Se7en, if you’ve enjoyed Joseph Wambaugh, if you’re into Homicide, then this is a comic you can relate to. I tend not to read individual issues, so this review is based on Feral City, the first volume in the series, containing the first eight comics but none of the backmatter.

How do you begin to describe Dave Sim, and Cerebus, the comic that he put out 300 monthly issues of? A middling sword and sorcery parody when it started, within a year or so Cerebus started to find its feet and became a hugely accomplished and ambitious tale taking in politics, religion, relationships and gender.

Cerebus is an amazing, frustrating, complex piece of work, sometimes magnificent, other times wildly self-absorbed. For the first 200 issues at least though, it was following a clear course, and its sometimes obscure subsequent waywardness can be forgiven: no one else has tackled something as ambitious as Cerebus in the world of comics, at least in terms of scope, and perhaps they never will.

Sim’s lettering portrays personality beautifully, and after a while he was joined by collaborator Gerhard, whose input ensured that the comic’s backgrounds were as striking as Sim’s rapidly improving character work. And if that weren’t enough, Cerebus became the focal point of the small press revolution, inspiring countless people to self-publish their own comics. Many failed, but those that survived helped redefine what comics were capable of. Bone, Strangers in Paradise, Kane, A Distant Soil, Bacchus: all undeniably influenced by the success of Cerebus and its creator.

I interviewed Sim and Gerhard in 1993, and found them hospitable, intelligent, and fascinating company. This was before Sim’s infamous anti-woman outburst in issue 186 of his comic, and it may be that the interview would have taken a different tack had it been published before we met. That said, it’s arguable that his views have been stereotyped by people eager to shout misogyny but silent when it comes to putting them in the context of Sim’s historic mental health problems (I say this based on experience of working with people with mental health issues). It’s also the case that his beliefs didn’t get in the way of Sim creating some of the most compelling and three-dimensional female characters to be found on the comics page.

One issue of particular concern was the balance of left and right brain, of the linear and non-linear, in creating a project as vast as Cerebus. I asked what the blend of planning and spontaneity was in the comic:

Sim It’s a nice mix. As Neil Gaiman put it, it’s as if you’re building a bridge, but you’re not building a bridge sequentially, the way you have to do it in the physical world. The moment you start building it on this side, it starts growing from the other side. And you just start trying to predict where all the curlicues and whatnot are going to be, and all of a sudden one of them shows up, and you’ve got a chunk of the bridge about 30 feet out in mid-air that’s about 15 feet higher than you thought it was supposed to be.

AR And you don’t know how the hell it’s going to work.

Sim You don’t let that trouble you. You just start building the rest of it, and eventually some dramatic curve comes in and you go ‘Oh, alright, it’s going to rise up in some way and hook up with this side. And I can see now looking at all this stuff that’s getting built on the other side in my unconscious mind that yeah, this could be quite attractive when it’s done. You know, it could be quite symmetrical.’

Which is as good an answer as you’re likely to get, and accords with my own experience of planning and writing scripts. However much you plan them – and you need to if you’re going to feasibly bring in a workable story within however many pages you’re working to – there are and always will be elements that find a place in the script without you having intended them to be there. And quite often they’re the ones that make the whole thing shine. But that magic doesn’t happen without planning: you have to prepare the ground carefully before something unexpected will grow from it, fly over it, or tapdance in the centre of it all.

If you’d like a copy of the interview I did with Sim and Gerhard, please get in touch: it runs to 20 pages and hasn’t been published. And keep an eye out for Judenhass, Sim’s forthcoming solo story about the Jewish Holocaust, which advance reports are saying is very good indeed: see www.judenhass.com. There’s also Glamourpuss, just starting, an ongoing series that’s a curious hybrid of homage to womens’ fashion and photorealistic cartooning: www.glamourpusscomic.com.