Interview: Dave Gibbons on Watchmen

Although I had met Dave Gibbons several times in the early 1980s, most memorably with a group of 2000 AD artists on the top deck of a bus on the way to a comic convention in Birmingham, we had never actually sat down and had a proper chinwag about his work. Then, when he began producing such extraordinary work with writer Alan Moore on the Watchmen series, I knew the time was right for an interview.

Dave suggested that he send me black and white copies of the last issue of Watchmen so that I would be properly prepared for our meeting at the Camden Comic Mart (in London) on 11 July 1987, the first day Watchmen 12 went on sale. Dave was mobbed by the appreciative fans, and happily signed copies of the comics before we escaped to a quiet spot nearby on a glorious, sunny afternoon.

Reading this interview now, more than 20 years later, I’m surprised at how mean I must have sounded to Dave. I give him quite a tough time. I come across as picky, critical and not very appreciative of his achievement. Still, gentleman and professional that he is, he persevered with me, made corrections to the transcript, supplied me with nice artwork to illustrate the interview, and a great painting for the cover of ARKEN SWORD 22 (one I have not seen reproduced since).

Below is an extract from the interview. If you are interested in reading the rest of the interview - the full version runs to over 8,000 words, and includes the cover and all 10 pages of artwork and text - then send $2 to my PayPal account (duncan821@btinternet.com), label it 'Gibbons' and I'll email it to you as a PDF file.

THE (NOT SO) SECRET ORIGIN

Dave: Alan Moore was asked by Dick Giordano at DC to prepare a treatment for the Charlton characters, which DC had just acquired. When they saw what Alan proposed to do they didn’t want this to happen to the Charlton heroes, and so they suggested that Alan & I come up with some alternative characters to go with the plot.

Let me explain how I got involved. I’d been working for DC before Alan started for them on Swamp Thing, and we’d often talked about doing something together. In fact, Alan had prepared synopses for Challengers of the Unknown and Martian Manhunter, which we’d intended to submit to DC, but for various reasons we couldn’t. The Martian Manhunter had already been assigned for instance.

Paul: That was the Greg Potter story that turned into Jemm, Son of Saturn.

Dave: Yeah. Well, Alan mentioned this Charlton heroes synopsis, and I was interested because I was a little dissatisfied about the way the Green Lantern series had been going. I went to the Chicago Con in 1984, and I got Dick Giordano in a corner and told him I wasn’t going to do Green Lantern anymore, but I’d really like to do what we later called Watchmen - I don’t think it had a name at that point. Dick said it was fine if Alan agreed, and I actually phoned Alan up from the DC offices and told him I’d be drawing Watchmen, and also asked if he wanted to do the Superman Annual with Julie Schwartz. So our DC collaboration started from that trip.

Paul: You’d collaborated before on short stories for 2000 AD – ‘The Clone Ranger,’ and ‘Chrono Cops’ for instance.

Dave: I’m a little older than Alan, but we’re of a similar age and background in comics, and I’ve certainly felt on his wavelength when I’ve had his scripts. I think ‘Chrono Cops’ is one of the best things I’ve ever done, and would certainly be among my personal Top Ten strips. It wasn’t easy to draw - Alan’s scripts are NEVER easy to draw - but he bends over backwards to make it suitable for the artist they’re going to go to. One of the things I like about them is that they’re always very challenging.

Paul: How did you develop the Watchmen characters?

Dave: The first time I read the script I visualized them as the Charlton heroes in their last costumes, so I had quite a difficult time at first devisualizing Captain Atom. Because there was no time pressure at the beginning, I didn’t just come up with costumes one Monday morning. I talked the characters through with Alan and he came up with most of the names, though I came up with Nite Owl, who was a character I drew as a kid. He seemed to fit the Blue Beetle position quite nicely. Then over a period of 7 months, I drew sketches of various things when the inspiration struck me, and the characters just fell into place. The Comedian didn’t have black leather at first. He was dressed in khaki and webbing - more military. But it’s very difficult for me to say with any confidence when I actually designed any particular character. I do remember a weekend after the October 1984 Westminister Comic Mart, when Alan came to my place and we went over the character sketches, ideas, how to do the adverts and covers. Quite a lot of it got settled then, as indeed did the Superman Annual. That Annual is also part of what I consider to be my Top Ten strips.

To diversify a bit, it was great to do Superman after loving him as a kid, but the real kick was to work with Julie Schwartz, who’s a real gentleman and probably one of the best and most helpful editors I’ve ever worked for. The whole thing was a joy.

Anyway, after the brainstorming, I did more sketches and Alan had more thoughts, which led to me getting the first script on March 27th 1985. Watchmen wasn’t scheduled at all until about a year later.

Paul: Did the characters go through a lot of changes?

Dave: What we found with the Charlton characters was that, with all due respect to their creators, they were very much generic heroes. They weren’t the most original concepts in the world. So we found we had a generic stable of heroes. We had the Batman-type character, the super-heroic nuclear hero, the avenger/Mr A character, the glamorous superheroine, the militaristic Judge Dredd/American Flagg! kind of character. So we found ourselves in the position to make our definitive statements about the well-known genres of heroic characters. So although we may have changed bits of dress and character, in broad terms they always fell into those archetypal roles.

I think the one that was the most fully-formed when he came about was Rorschach. Apart from him originally having a full-body costume, which was later changed to just a mask because having a blot over your body was hard to draw with any focus, his character sprang fully formed almost from the very first time Alan mentioned him.

We were afraid that Silk Spectre, who was based on Nightshade - she was just someone to be Captain Atom’s girlfriend - would turn out to be a non-entity, but strangely enough throughout the series they all seemed to get an equal share of the spotlight, and they all became equally interesting.

Paul: You could certainly influence the art, because you were drawing it, but how much influence did you have on the storyline?

Dave: The storyline was largely set, and the plot was sufficient to the purpose, so I didn’t really have any effect on changing the plot, but I certainly think a lot of my visualizations and details changed the emphasis. I wouldn’t presume to tell Alan what to write, but what I would do is talk in general areas like “I’ve always wanted to see a character do...” or “One of the things I’ve never liked about this kind of character is...” So when Alan & I talk on the phone we talk in a non-sequitor kind of way, about what’s on our minds at the time: books, music, etc, and a lot of things in Watchmen have come from that. There’s been a lot of serendipity in it where things haven’t come from Alan or I, but from the general atmosphere around us. Alan’s very perceptive, and I like to think that I am as well, and you can tell from knowing another person’s work what their strengths are, what they want to do, and the general feel they’re after. A lot of it is unstated. At one stage we were spending perhaps 8 hours a week on the phone.

We still respected each other’s area though. I’d never dream of telling Alan what to do. There again, if I saw a line which was a little off, or Alan saw a panel that wasn’t quite what he had in mind, then we’d tell each other. Comics is a collaborative medium after all, and although it may be a cliché, I think we’ve drawn each other out and there’s a sense that the sum is greater than the parts on Watchmen. So I think I’ve had a general influence rather than a specific one on the storyline.

Cinema: Man Push Cart (2005) / dir Ramin Bahrani

I just saw this film for the first time, and I was very impressed by it, so I present my thoughts here...

The title is a very simple one. It gives us a mental image of a man pushing a cart. But it is also a primitive title - the construction is naïve, as though written by a non-native English speaker. So, in some vague way, the story begins to form in our mind before we see the film.

From the beginning and throughout the film we see the central character, Ahmad, pulling his stainless steel bagel push cart through the dark, early-morning streets of New York City. He pulls the cart by hand. He is small and fragile as the mass of cars, trucks, taxis, and buses buzz around him, threatening to sideswipe him.

This physically demanding and laborious task is shown to us repeatedly. Much of Ahmad's life, and the screen time, is taken up with tasks involving the cart. He loads it, takes it on the road, parks it, prepares the hot water, coffee, tea, bagels, danish - all in darkness - then sells his wares to his regular customers, some of whom know his name. The day ends with him packing up, pulling the cart back to the lockup, washing it, and then making his way back to Brooklyn, asleep on the train. (Although there are elements of Neorealism, and perhaps Robert Bresson, in these scenes, their length and repetition remind me most of the fetching and distribution of fresh water in Kaneto Shindo's The Naked Island (1961))



The all-encompassing schedule of his work means that there is little or no time for Admad to develop a life outside of work. On the way home, he hawks porn DVDs to workmen, or trades them for cigarettes with another vendor. The focus of his life is to make enough money to pay for his cart. And when he has paid for the cart, he must then get it insured, and pay for his corner, and so on. It seems that this cycle will have no end, in keeping with the director's stated intention to echo Albert Camus' The Myth of Sisyphus, the story of a man who rolls a giant boulder uphill, only to find another at the bottom waiting for him, ad infinitum.

Ahmad is trying to build a stable life of certainty. From this base, he hopes to regain custody of his son, currently kept from him by his in-laws. His past is unclear. He was a rock star in Pakistan, but left that life to be with the woman he loved in America. (His wife died, but we do not know how.) He no longer sings, but during this long period of steady work, he begins to listen to music, and is encouraged to dream of a more prosperous life by Mohammad, a rich Pakistani man he becomes acquainted with. Admad even contemplates a relationship with Noemi, a Spanish girl manning a nearby newspaper stand. As a sign of this new optimism - or perhaps the end of his depression - Admad begins to nurture it a newborn kitten he found on the sidewalk.



The film is called 'Man Push Cart', yet with each viewing of the man pulling the cart, it seems that the cart is pushing the man. In one instance, it does push him over and it begins to roll along the street out of control. The cart is Admad's burden, a burden he must carry through life. It overshadows him, controls him. Perhaps it represents his past, or his inner self. Perhaps it was a shared dream with his wife, or a commitment that they both made - in her sole appearance, in a flashback, she places a sticker on the cart, which he washes around so that it is not displaced.

Even after Admad has parked his cart for the night, he carries its gas cylinder around - a part of the cart always remains with him. Only when he visits Mohammad does his relinquish the cylinder, and it is then that the prospect of a future without the cart arises.



The man and the cart seem inseparable - one cannot imagine one without the other. So perhaps 'Man Push Cart' refers to a single entity, a beast with a man in front and a push cart behind. It trundles through the streets of New York, unseen, untouched, uncared-for, only touching the lives of others, only visible, when it is on a street corner dispensing coffee and bagels.

Near the end of the movie, when the cart is stolen, it is tragic because all of Admad's past, and all of his future is invested in it. He has nothing tangible invested in the girl Noemi (she feels affection for him, kisses him, but is leaving for Barcelona) and has no use for potential music investor Mohammad (who is only interested in making money out of Admad, and bedding Noemi). He is lost without his cart, his other half.

As chance would have it, he helps another vendor pull a cart into a more lucrative corner uptown. There, left on his own, waiting, uncertain of the future, having to start again at the bottom, Admad seems strangely content. This is the way things should be for him. As if to illustrate his contentment, the trees around him light up. Perhaps it is only natural for a man to have a burden, to be driven by it, to be consumed by it, to control it. Perhaps, in the end, it is the only thing he can call his own.



I watched the UK DVD distributed by Dogwoof Pictures (www.dogwoof.com), which I bought on Ebay because it was unavailable from www.play.com.

Interview: Patricia Cornwell

I think I'm getting old. This Summer I have been contacted by people wanting to use past interviews I conducted for ARK and CRIME TIME. So I dived into my shed, which resembles Xanadu out of Citizen Kane, and found about 100 x 3.5 inch disks full of garbled text files. Transferring them onto my computer, I suddenly realised 10-15-25 years have passed since I wrote some of this material, and I resolved to actually begin posting it on this Blog. Hence...

The following extract is from an interview I conducted with author Patricia Cornwell at the Waldorf Hotel, London in 1996. She had just achieved superstardom in the UK and was very difficult to pin down, but the very nice people at Little,Brown allowed little old me to talk to her. I think the reason was two-fold. First, I interviewed another of their authors, Andrew Klavan, and did a good job. Secondly, we let Little,Brown buy the cover of the first issue of CRIME TIME, which made its debut in front of all the authors and publishers attending the pre-convention party of Bouchercon Nottingham in 1995. This interview was my reward, and I made full use of the allotted 30 minutes.

Whilst transcribing the interview, I noticed something which I think is very telling. Some interviewees talk in phrases, which I then stitch together to make them coherent, and most talk in sentences, but Patrica Cornwell talked in paragraphs. No umming and ahhing. No pauses. Just full-blown, concrete thought. So even though it was only 30 minutes, it was all great and all useable. Very professional.

Below is an extract from the interview. If you are interested in reading the rest of the interview - this full version runs to over 5,000 words - then send $2 to my PayPal account (duncan821@btinternet.com), label it 'Cornwell' and I'll email it to you as a PDF file.

Effect

"Dr. Kay Scarpetta is not similar to anyone. It probably has something to do with the fact that I didn't have anyone in mind when I came up with her. Also, because I'm so rooted in reality - to the real professionals and the real cases - I tend to get somewhat removed from literary, TV or film characters. They, to me, are not reality, so they have no bearing on my work. This means I have a difficult time trying to explain my characters because people like to categorise them by comparing them to other characters."

However, having created this popular character - a female medical examiner who works for the FBI at Quantico - all sorts of variations of her have started to appear in the past five years. The most notable is probably Dana Scully in The X Files, who has expressed some of the same ideas and thoughts as Kay Scarpetta.

"This is one of the reasons why Peter Guber and I are not wasting any time in producing the first Scarpetta film. Unfortunately, my books are the inspiration for other people to come up with other strong female protagonists, particular in the FBI or medical fields. I won't even watch or read these other things that people tell me about because they'll probably just aggravate me."

Scene

Patricia knows what she's talking about. In 1979, after graduating with an English major from Davidson College in Davidson, North Carolina, she became an investigative crime reporter for the Charlotte Observer. It was here that she first became interested in crime and, as part of her job, she gained access to police departments, morgues, laboratories, and detective squad rooms - the people and places that would later turn up in her books. After her move to Richmond, Patricia became a volunteer police officer and was on the streets in uniform. In 1985, she joined the Virginia Chief Medical Examiner's Office as a computer analyst. Patricia wanted to write crime fiction and it was the perfect opportunity for her to do research AND get paid for it at the same time. Eventually, when her manuscripts went unpublished, she ended up needing the job. For six years Patricia witnessed hundreds of autopsies, attended medical school lectures, labs and trials. She researched in the morgue's medical library, wrote technical documents, helped edit the Medico-Legal Bulletin, contributing articles on DNA profiling to link serial killers, the relationship between the medical examiner and the press, drug-related homicides in Virginia and even the importance of accurate technical details in crime fiction. She left the Chief Medical Examiner's Office in 1991 but is now a consultant for them - an honourary title which allows her access for her research. Patricia first went to the FBI headquarters at Quantico to do research for the Chief Medical Examiner's Office, but now visits to do training and research. She teaches classes in media relations and other subjects to the FBI and other investigative agencies.

"One of the reasons I've been fortunate enough to have access to a lot of places and information is because I have a platform of legitimacy from my profession and background. You also earn your credibility through word of mouth and by meeting people. I can't continue to enjoy the world these people live in unless they know they can trust me. They read the books, think I'm okay and the doors open."

She works to get the facts right.

"It's an unforgiving world. If you get something wrong, people turn off you just like that. Besides that, I want to get it right for myself, keep it honest. It's very important to me personally, to get it right, to know what it feels like and to experience it as much as I can."

Victim

With access to all this information, and with her two years experience as an award-winning crime reporter for the Charlotte Observer, I would have thought that Patricia would be writing fact, not fiction.

"Sometimes fiction is truer than fact. Actually, I do both, because the scaffolding of all my stories is fact, whether it is a procedure, or the type of case, or the kinds of individuals. It is all rooted in experience and research. That's the fact. The fiction of it is the way that I want the characters to work the cases.

"People have asked me over the years why I don't write true crime and I tell them that I could not bring myself to victimise people all over again. If you have a son or daughter murdered in what turns out to be a sensational crime about which books are written, and you have been on the side of the fence where I have been - seeing relatives sitting in the waiting rooms and the looks on their faces as they come to find out what's happened to their child - I don't want to write about things in gory detail that could upset those relatives all over again. There are cases where people find it cathartic to write about their experiences, and I don't bump the people who do it, it's just that I couldn't, and I don't want to."

Me, again... It was the mixture of both professionalism and emotion that I liked in the books, that make them such rivetting reads. She is still going strong, of course, with the 18th Scarpetta book, The Scarpetta Factor, due out now.