When I was in high school, one of my favorite records was this fun little album called “…Is A Real Boy,” by a band called Say Anything. It’s something I’d find myself listening to a lot, whether with friends in the car or on my own, and at some point I had to buy a second copy because I had wrecked my original from how often I listened to it.
Of course, later I would find out that the guy behind the album, Max Bemis, shared one of my chief hobbies: the love of comic books. And I remember at the time thinking, “Well, if Claudio Sanchez and Gerard Way can put out comic books, where’s the Max Bemis comic book?” The answer to my question is — later this year.
In April, that book – “Polarity” – arrives from BOOM! Studios, with art by Jorge Coehlo. And today, we talk to Max about “Polarity,” comics, life, the universe and everything.
So, why comics?
Max Bemis: Well, I mean there’s two answers to that. One is why comics for me and how they fit into the scheme of my life, or the readers, the appreciator of the medium, and then there’s why comics in general.
In general, I would say I think it is my favorite medium, or at least on par with music in terms of my personal taste artistically. I get more joy out of reading a comic than I think even watching a movie, and I think it’s because there are liberties you can take with pacing and design for evoking an emotion with a comic that you can’t do with film, or even with music, which I know pretty intimately. I love that the medium ranges; it’s such a diverse medium. There’s basically, as much as with film also, I think even in the small world of comics that we live in you can do more interesting things, there is less pressure to make a lot of money by selling them, and … I don’t know. It’s just, on a more aesthetic level, a lot of comic art is so beautiful because you can focus on these moments that, in terms of a film, one frame of a film usually doesn’t get the most attention in relation to the entire two hours of a film, whereas one panel or even a simple piece of dialogue gets so much attention in a comic that there’s not much to go around in terms of narrative and content. So that’s why I think comics are particularly great.
But then for me on an emotional level, it goes back to the fact that I’ve been reading them since I was very, very, very young. I must’ve been six or seven years old when I got into comics, and I was reading the cheesiest stuff you can imagine, whether that be X-Men comics or whatever, which at the time were pretty cheesy. My mom, not really knowing what she was doing, bought me a lot of mature readers books, so at the age of, like, eight or nine I was reading “Sandman,” and when “Preacher” first came out I was reading that. So they really got their hooks into me, and I was just obsessed. I would draw my own comics and, really, I was pretty die hard about it up to a certain point in my life where I became so obsessed with music that everything else in my life took a back seat. Four or five years past and I started having these random dreams of being in a comic store and being able to start reading comics again, and so on a whim I went into a comic store and I thought, what the hell is happening with this medium? I’ve been off the grid for five or six years, and one of the writers I grew up with was Garth Ennis, having read “Preacher” when I was super young, and I was thrilled to see that that book had ended so I could read the entire story (even though it was over for years). But I also thought, what else is this guy doing? And I saw, oh my god, he wrote Punisher! So I picked up all his Punisher books, and I picked up “the Boys,” and from there it became a nightmarish ever-increasing obsession, and I just found that during that time where I’d taken off from comics, the most exciting stuff had happened. That was during that period when Brian Bendis came into comics and Ed Brubaker and Matt Fraction sort of appeared and started doing cool stuff. It was so up my alley I was like, oh my god, how did I miss this? And ever since I’ve been hooked and I literally I spend all my time reading comics.
Continued belowSo when it comes to why comics to create them, I mean, they are my greatest source of material happiness. This is my life. I’m simply obsessed with the entire medium. If you could see my entire collection, it really ranges from everything. It’s borderline unhealthy. So the fact that I would start creating them at some point… In a way they sort of saved my life, because I didn’t have any healthy outlets for a while, and comics kind of became that for me. So, that’s why.
“Polarity” is going to be your first published comic, but you mentioned that you’d done your own comics by yourself before. What were those like?
MB: I mean, that was only when I was eight years old. They were very much so a rip-off of “Wildcats,” “Youngblood” and “Cyber Force.” They were super cheesy and bad, but that’s the way I… I just loved creating them. I was obsessed with creating them. I would sit in class and create them with my friend who was, like, my inker. I was super young.
And then a few years ago, probably two or three years ago, it occurred to me that I could maybe write a comic, but it frankly really scared me. So I went about getting into doing it in the most ass backwards way possible, which was that I set up some meetings with certain comic publishers that would probably be interested in working with me because I’m in Say Anything. I had a few pitches, but I hadn’t really started writing, and one of those companies was BOOM!. So during this phase nothing really came of it because I hadn’t really sat down and started scripting, and BOOM! was the first company that said, alright, we really love this, lets get you scripting. And since I’ve started doing so, it has become second nature to me to actually write comics.
So in terms of writing a script, how does it differentiate for you from composing a song?
MB: It’s a lot … Hmm. That’s a good question. It’s basically, I feel like you can do a script quicker, at least for me, and have it be closer to the finished product. Often times when you’re writing a song, you’re imagining it with certain arrangements, and you make changes sort of indefinitely until the song is done being recorded and mixed. For scripting, I personally work very quickly when it comes to scripting just on my limited, limited ass experience. It just flows out of me and its super fun.
One thing I talked about is how, what a joy it is to be able to work on something creatively where I can actually have a movie on in the background. I can sit there with my wife, having a fun night and meanwhile I’m writing a comic, whereas when you’re sitting there recording music, you can’t really do much but sit and record music. It’s all encompassing; it takes over your entire psyche. I work best writing sort of casually, and then it starts coming out very quickly.
Another thing is that there’s so much history attached to when I write a song at this point. There’s all this psychological history that comes with it at this point that in a way its not as pure, even though it still comes from the heart, whereas with comics since its my first few experiences with it I don’t really have any negative associations. My only association is that they’re the joy of my fucking life, so when I sit down to write them I’m like, oh man, what would I wanna read? I just want to make the best thing possible. It’s my first work, as opposed to, ok, I’ve been doing this for fifteen years, how can I outdo myself? I’m sure accomplished comic book writers feel that way about writing comics, but I’m not at that stage yet.
The comic medium can afford the ability to be much more straightforward than lyrics often are, since lyrics are supposed to be more poetic in their basic nature, so would you say its easier or more difficult to put together a full comic story than it is a conceptual album?
Continued belowMB: I would say its a little more difficult in a very superficial way because it requires more work, whereas to me concept records or even songs come together pretty intuitively. But there are certain things in a comic that have to line up in and make sense in the best way they can be. For instance, BOOM! has an amazing editorial staff that’s really like a bullpen kind of situation. It’s not the typical indie publisher where they say do your own thing and hope it will sell. They do it as any of the major companies would be editorially, except they’re very smart and with it. It’s a lot like, oh, should this page be a splash, or should we move this piece to there or this piece of dialogue to here. It’s really specific. When you’re writing a concept record or writing a record in general, I don’t know, at least in my experience with Say Anything since the band is basically me on the record there’s a lot less of that dialogue.
So it’s technically easier, but at the same time … I wouldn’t say it always feels easier to create a whole record and mix it or anything. It just kind of… it’s methodical, it’s something I’ve done for so long that it’s like, here we go! Next step, next step, next step. “Polarity,” as I’ve been writing it, this is all my first time doing this because whenever I do something its the first time I’ve ever done it, so its a little more challenging I guess you could say.
In terms of writing comics, who would you say are your influences?
MB: Oh my god. So many! One thing I’ve always been excited to discuss as a comic fan as I transition into being a creator, and I’ve always fantasized about being open about this, is that I tend to see there’s a lot of glorification of certain creators and certain eras in comics as being influences, and it’s almost like music where people just love to cite the Beatles and love to cite David Bowie and the Stooges. It’s almost the same thing in the comic world where there are certain go-to people, and people can’t admit what they actually grew up reading.
For me, I tend to be sort of futurist when it comes to comics. I enjoy certain stuff that’s older than, lets say, the 80’s, but it’s actually more spare than that. I mean, I’m a child of the 90’s, I grew up reading the most contrived action-based stuff, so for my main influences — I could go on forever, but I would go with Alan Moore, Warren Ellis, Brian Bendis, Ed Brubaker, Grant Morrison, Brian Wood… There’s so many, but they’re all pretty current, except for someone like Alan Moore whose just kind of stuck around. I really do get excited by what the comic industry has created, and Garth Ennis like I said brought me back into comics.
It’s kind of like, you know, more of the current crop of writers that have done stuff in the past ten or twenty years, I find it the most exciting. I love Stan Lee and Jack Kirby’s “Fantastic Four,” but at the same time I have more fun reading Jonathan Hickman’s run. I feel like people are kind of… afraid to admit that. I almost feel like the medium has improved so much people are afraid to admit that what’s being done now is kind of the best stuff that exists. To me, anyway. That’s just how I feel.
You just listed almost all of my favorite modern writers in one go, so —
MB: Yeah, exactly! People will definitely go out and say these are the main dudes right now, but I feel like its really hard for people to say… Like, “Cerebus.” I really love that book. But do I think it’s the best indie book in the past twenty years? Probably not. There is stuff that has surpassed it. I think it’s just the nature of a medium evolving, and I’m very all for current people like Paul Pope who, to me, I love more than Kirby — even though that’s, like, a sin! But it’s the truth. And I think it has to do with the fact that I didn’t grow up in the 70’s or the 60’s and I grew up with Jim Lee and Liefeld, and those guys are the people that I grew up reading.
Continued belowFor instance, you know the comic Sleeper by Ed Brubaker and Sean Philips? That blew my fucking mind when I discovered it when I first got back into comics, because I was like, oh, I remember being obsessed with Wildstorm when I was nine years old! And when I saw Joe Casey and Ed Brubaker attacking these properties that were so outdated and making them as exciting as the current Hollywood movies, to me, that was the most exciting thing ever. It didn’t make me… I’m not one for romanticizing the past at this point in comics.
That’s absolutely great, and I think its probably a wise idea when looking towards the future and trying to make your own way, to see what else is going on now.
MB: And I still own all of those books. I have every Silver Age omnibus and I’ve read a few of them and I really enjoy them. In particular I really like Walt Simonson on “Thor.” There’s a few of those things, but Frank Miller’s “Daredevil” is great.
I just find myself drawn to the forward-thinking stuff a little more.
I was going to say, reading up on “Polarity” in the press releases, it sounds sort of like the type of comic you might expect from a guy like Grant Morrison.
MB: Totally, yeah. It’s somewhere between Bendis, Grant Morrison and maybe Brian Vaughn or something, I guess you could say.
BOOM! was very into the concept because that’s what they were first introduced do. Conceptually it makes a lot of sense and it has a hook to it which is interesting, but when you read the book I think the thing people are going to take away the most from it is sort of the character interactions and the dialogue and the world that we’ve created that you can’t really explain in a blurb. And that’s the type of thing that, well, how could you really explain anything that Brian Bendis has done without reading Brian Bendis? Oh, there’s this new Spider-Man, and he’s half-Latino, half-black, and it sounds great conceptually but then you read the book and it’s like, oh, these are such interesting characters, they have the most remarkable and accurate dialogue, and that’s why you read the comics by half these guys, for the nuance of it. I’m hoping that I have my own little style, nothing that has occurred to any of those dudes at this point. I think that’s what, if people like the book, that’s what they’re going to like most about it.
The book, “Polarity,” focuses on a young guy in Brooklyn, NY, who is bi-polar and discovers that he’s actually a superhero.
MB: Essentially, yes. That’s definitely a good… yes.
Obviously you have some personal experience with this disorder, but what is it like for you to write this into a character, and write someone who deals with the same things that you have but in a more fantastical situation?
MB: Well, it’s very intuitive. The character himself, although very much so derived from much of my qualities, he’s different enough from me where I feel like I don’t have to represent myself with this character. He’s sort of like a cliche of all of my most neurotic and self-deprecating qualities. Basically, I wanted to create the perfect guinea pig for this situation, so he’s kind of a combination of me and many people I’ve known, and my concept of the average twenty-two year old guy who lives in Brooklyn and is a struggling artist. The fact that he’s not exactly me makes it very easy for me to put him through a bunch of shit and know exactly what he would do in every situation.
People are really complex. I don’t know what I would do in any of these situations, but I know what Tim would, and it has made him extremely easy to write. The concept, being that I’ve gone through this, it has made his character arc very, very, very much my character arc, so that made it completely easy to write. The fact that it’s an action adventure book has lended itself… those are the times where I’m putting more thought into it, like how can it be the most exciting story or, you know, where the nuance of actually writing a comic is. But when it comes to knowing what needs to happen to him in order to tell my story to some extent, it’s very easy.
Continued belowOn a scale of one to ten, to what extent would you consider “Polarity” somewhat autobiographical?
MB: I’d say a six, seven maybe. Again, all the characters are very exaggerated. There’s a character who is Tim’s best friend, and he’s not exactly anything like my best friend… he is this archetypal version of what the best friend of someone like me might have. And the sort of love interest is the same; in many ways, she’s nothing like my wife, but then again represents my wife.
The entire concept is based on this idea of a guy who is bi-polar, but then discovers not only is he bi-polar but he has some kind of mutated form of the illness that affects him physiologically where he develops more superpowers the crazier he gets. Obviously that didn’t happen to me, but at the same time when I was manic I really did feel like some kind of superhero. I really did feel like a messiah and I felt like I could really grasp what people were thinking, and in the book Tim can actually read people’s thoughts.
So everything is super exaggerated but comes from some emotion or experience that I had. Overall, as I said there are elements of it where it becomes sort of, like… it is an action adventure.
I also saw that you described the book as somewhat like your version of a Spider-Man type coming of age superhero story?
MB: Yeah, it is very much so. I’ve been writing the third issue recently, and there’s direct Spider-Man references, super shameless. Tim sort of pictures himself as Spider-Man, or a Spider-Man character. He’s playing off the archetype or the cliche of being a superhero because that’s all he knows, as we all are very familiar with the heroes journey. Tim is a part of it, but he’s also super aware of it because he’s been inundated with Spider-Man movies and comic books and he’s seen it before, and that’s part of the element of how the story is told.
The last thing I’ve seen you compare this to is the major label debut for Say Anything, …IS A REAL BOY. For you to revisit that material, that blueprint, but in a completely new medium and in a different way, how did that aspect of your past within the scope of this comic fit together?
MB: It’s actually kind of a creepy, very meta-ish thing that happened with it, as a lot of things in my life have been.
Basically, what happened was — before I even knew I was bi-polar, when I was in the early throes of experiencing it even though I didn’t know it was happening and I was just sort of starting to lose my mind while making that record, I had this idea that the record would be a musical. The musical was basically about the story of this character, very much so based on myself: a young hipster who lives in Brooklyn, who is very conflicted and is really distraught over the hypocrisy of the society he’s involved in. So he develops this ability to extract truth from the people around him and sort of call them out and he gains notoriety for it, and that was the plot of this musical. But then, it sort of started happening in my life in a very Grant Morrison/”Invisibles” sort of way, and I lost my mind. I was committed, and then being bi-polar became an element of it.
But that story that created the concept of that record, it became something I lived and therefore it stuck in my mind. Every time I’ve thought about doing something creatively and telling a story, in the back of my mind I thought I should tell that story because it has been there from the beginning and now it has even more gravity to it because of the bi-polar element where these things actually happened. I was able to extract these truths, or I thought I was, because I was so manic.
So for a while I danced around the idea of writing a screenplay, and then sort of reluctantly when BOOM! had asked me for a few pitches of different ideas for books I threw it in there. I feel like this is definitely a viable idea, but I was almost reluctant to throw it in there. BOOM! was like, this is the one, this is the one that we think is the most original, this is the one that we think is the most exciting, and I pursued it. But it had almost been written abstractly, and it has taken on a much more literal form. It existed ever since I lived it ten years ago, so its been germinating for ten years.
Continued belowIn looking at the book, more specifically the cover, this amazing cover by Frazer Irving – I guess we should discuss, how did you manage to get Frazer on the book? Because that’s just awesome.
MB: I think it was just a BOOM! thing. They brought him up to me and I was already a fan, and I thought, really? It was one of those things where — this happened a million times since we started working together. A million things that they suggest that I think, you guys are going to do that? With me? Jesus. Ok. And so, Frazer’s involvement was one of those things, and then we got other really great artists working on variant covers, all of whom I’ve had that same reaction to, where, like, whoa. Thanks. So, yeah, it was definitely them.
I couldn’t help but noticing on the cover, there appear to be elements that are references to songs that are on the album, like the spider that’s sort of in the center. What I’m wondering is, we talked about how music plays a role and the differences between writing a concept album versus a comic, but in crossing over elements like that between the two, where it’s something where fans of Say Anything can say, oh, I remember this song…
MB: There’s a … I’m not going to spoil it, but there’s a few Easter eggs in the book that are direct references to the work I’ve done, and also just the entire feeling. The entire concept of this, a kid in his twenties who feels alienated in a hipster society, looking for love in all the wrong places, loses his mind… these are all the standard tropes of Say Anything.
The thing that people won’t know until they read it is that the tone of the book and my writing is unmistakably the exact same voice I use to write songs. You take a band like Radiohead or Sunny Day Real Estate, that would be a very difficult comic to trade with how those people write. It would probably be a circa-90, ’91 Dave McKean drawn, weird —
Like “Cages.”
MB: Yeah. Just some abstract, weird Alan Moore piece. But for me, I tend to be very literal and sardonic in my lyrics, and so it’s literally a direct translation of that voice, and people are going to be like, oh my god, this is exactly how he writes songs. For better or for worse.
For the book’s artist, for Jorge Coehlo, is that another one of those things where BOOM! brought him in, or is he an artist you specifically set out to get?
MB: He was one of the people who came to their mind when I said, you guys come up with it, I’d rather see what you guys think first. And there were maybe three or four artists they brought up, and we were all really excited by him. I sort of realized — “Forgetless,” which is one of my favorite Nick Spencer books, well, Jorge had worked on it and I really loved his stuff there. I realized that after I had already approved his art on the project, too, where I’d said this guy’s great, yes, lets do him! He did a test page, and then I realized I was already fan, so that was kind of cool.
What do you think it is that he brought to the table in terms of translating this vision that you had for the book?
MB: I think one thing that he is doing is making the book beautiful, quirky, but it’s so evocative and accessible. I had a few artists in mind that were a little more crazy and probably would’ve made the book less accessible, but we talked a lot about it with BOOM! and they sort of led me down this road where, like, this is more than just an “indie comic,” and we wanted to find someone who rides the line between the artistry and being able to make it something anyone could pick up and read and immediately connect to the emotions.
I’ve been finally getting in finished pencils, not to mention all the character work. It’s so blatantly perfect. It all comes down to a creative spirit. Some want to make the less obvious choice because they feel, oh, I want to be mysterious or I want to add some gravity to the work by making it a little weirder. Jorge, though, he’s super artistic and it’s very detailed and cool and over the top. But at the same time, had “Y The Last Man” been illustrated by someone who was a little less succinct, who knows if you would have been able to grasp it and hold on to the character, or even with Steve Dillon on “Preacher.” It’s artists like that who take a work like that and really just make it instinctive and deep and I think that’s what Jorge brings to this.
Continued belowHow important do you feel it is for you, with this being your first outing in comics, to create something that the regular comic reader like you who has read every Grant Morrison book he can find as well as someone who has never read anything in comics but knows you from your music to find this accessible? Is it more important for you to make it accessible to the newer person than it is the regular reader, or is it somewhere in the middle?
MB: To me, that’s somewhere in between. I have to confess, and this is no slight because everyone who knows me knows I’m obsessed with my fanbase and I do a lot of stuff to cater towards them, but I think it’s almost a compliment to how I think about them. I think hardcore Say Anything fans would rather me just express myself and not worry about what they think or just make a comic that Say Anything fans will like. They want me to really express myself and have creative freedom, and that’s when they enjoy my work the most.
If I find myself “writing for someone,” it’s either myself or the discerning comic reader. I think Say Anything fans are already picking up the book and pre-ordering it just because they’re such big supporters of what I do. I think they’re going to love it because it’s so me, whereas… I want to be a comic writer. I don’t want this to be my only book. I want to be writing five books a month!
The way I’ve been tying to think about “Polarity”… some of my favorite artists and writers, creators, their first work or at least one of their first works are kind of like milestones. You can always go back to them and be like, whoa, this is a root of everything that came after it. It’s so important to their work as a creator, and very much a romanticized, but they have to be really damn good. Yes, some people get their start doing an issue or two of this or that or a small run on that, but when you think of Bendis in particular, you kind of think of Jinx and think, oh, this is the book that got people asking who is this guy? And I know he had done a lot of stuff before that, but it was a little different. In my mind, I’m writing this book so hopefully “Polarity” can be that for me as a comic writer. Whether people like it or hate it, I want it to leave a big impression.
It’s definitely over the top in many ways and I think that it sets the bar for what kind of writer I’m going to be in certain ways. So that’s what I think of the most when I’m writing it, just for fun. Then usually I’m just trying to entertain myself and express myself and all that sort of general pander to the creative process.
It might be a little bit too early to say on this one, but looking at an album – and obviously if I listen to IS A REAL BOY I take away a certain message that speaks to me about what I think this album is about, how it makes me feel, etc. When looking at “Polarity,” what are you hoping that this book will say to the average reader?
MB: Without giving away too much, the book is about finding yourself and becoming a man essentially. It’s very much about the struggle when you feel the pressure to conform. How do you gain to control over your life? Do you give in? Do you try to feel bigger or better than other people, or do you reach in to your empathetic true heart and soul?
I think that “Polarity” is very much the journey of a character discovering that there are many stages on this journey where you think you have the answer to life, and the real answer to what he’s looking for is the most obvious thing. I think the message is a very cheesy, Spider-Man-esque thing about taking responsibility for your life and being a good person, despite the fact that society around you is pressuring you to be a certain way. I think that has a lot to do with what I do with Say Anything that’s often times the most prevalent message in Say Anthing’s work.
Continued belowIt sounds very simple, and you can sort of take a lot of meta-analyzing and go on forever, but that’s really the core of what it’s about. It’s the heroes journey to some degree, which I know some people are bored of, but I think I’m presenting it in a way that, sure, may be good or bad, but it’s not boring.
Given that “Polarity” in some way is kind of an origin story, do you see “Polarity” as Part One of a bigger, longer story? Or is this a one and done?
MB: Right now I’m not. I’m picturing it as a work in and of itself. It’s the type of thing where it’s definitely a little open ended. I don’t want to give away how it ends, but a lot of things are wrapped up in a vey finite way. I didn’t write it so that there could be a sequel, I prefer to resolve everything and then… who knows. It ends in such a way where I guess it might be possible, but there’s a lot of things that are pretty definite about the ending without giving anything away. You’re gonna get the feeling you get when you watch a movie that has no sequel, and it’s just within itself and you’re satisfied with it. It’s not like the Avengers or something, where this is the beginning of a five-movie series about the Avengers. It’s one of my favorites, but you know they’re building a franchise. “Polarity” is definitely not me building a franchise, so I’ll say that much.
The other pretty exciting thing about “Polarity” is that each issue is going to come with a song that you’ve written to basically form a mini EP that is exclusive to this book. Obviously music is important to you, but how did you sort of come about that decision that you wanted to offer a cross-medium promotion like that?
MB: It was one of the first things that I thought of, kind of in this plaintive state of being, like, please make the book with me. I will do anything to sell it, you know? One easy thing we could do to attract people that like my music is put a song on it. And then what I came to realize after is that, despite it being sort of a vain or shallow inclination to do that, to bring people who listen to my music in and attract them to the book, was holy crap, I get to write about this period of my life that I haven’t gotten to write about in ten years. I’d grown up. But revisiting that, I found it really rewarding and fun, and it’s really special as well. It’s not just a stupid promotion.
But in my head, I thought it was one of the most obvious things we could do to attract Say Anything listeners to give this a chance, and offering music is sort of one of those things. And BOOM! said yeah, of course, but they didn’t push it on me, it was my idea. As I sort of let the idea grow in my head, its become less of a stupid, marketing ploy and more of something that’s going to make this even cooler, so I’m definitely really excited about it.
In looking at the sort of people who really embrace and go at music with all their heart and then looking at the other side of the fence, with people who do that for comics, people who really care about the lives of fictional characters sometimes more than people that they know, do you feel that there is any kind of divide between the two groups? Or, straddling that line, do you think there are a lot of similarities?
MB: You mean in terms of readers of a comic, how they’re going to take it? People who get more attached to the character in fiction versus people who just passively read it? I think “Polarity” is nothing if it isn’t a very sympathetic story, and I feel like unless you don’t have a soul or a heart you probably will connect in some way with what this guy is going through, whether you like the book or not.
Continued belowI think that’s the main impetus, that in the same way Say Anything’s music does, it invites you into this guy’s world. I think if it wasn’t for that aspect of how people are coming to care for characters, I think the book would be a total failure. Hopefully they’ll see Tim as someone they can relate to, even though he’s not the most agreeable or likable guy necessarily. He’s definitely an everyman, so I would say we’re definitely aiming for people who are going to be able to put part of themselves in it There is a narration that is Tim’s inner monologue, and it’s very much one of those things where you’re drawn very quickly into Tim’s experience versus some kind of objective world. He doesn’t just go crazy and get superpowers, this is how he feels about it.
And on more of a general level, when you’re looking at the type of people that like comics and like music, what do you think of the two crowds as a creator who is doing both?
MB: Wow. Well, first of all I find that there’s a lot of overlap. I find that comic people love music. I find that a lot of music listeners, particularly people who like eclectic bands like mine, a lot of them do like comics. A lot of my followers on Twitter are comic fans. I think it’s outsider art to some degree, even though music is a much more commercial thing when it comes to a band like mine. It’s the fringe society. It’s fringe-y people who like bands like mine and read comics. I think there’s a lot of crossover.
Wrapping up now, you still keep up with comics regularly, right?
MB: Oh god, yes. Oh, yes. OH yeah.
But, and I don’t know how many people this is going to prevent me for working for or from me being friends with in the industry, but I’m actually a wait for trader. What makes me different than that is, in that respect, that I buy every trade. I’m not rich by any means, but the majority of what money I do have goes to comics. I buy everything from every publisher out there, and I buy every Marvel trade with very few exceptions.
My viewpoint, which I hope to expand on as a creator in the future, is that I do think the graphic novel and the hardcover and the omnibus is a very big part of the future of the medium, and I don’t think it deserves to be derided as much as it is. Someone like me, and I think there are other people like me who will buy every single “Walking Dead” trade in every format — I’ve spent hundreds and hundreds of dollars on that series, possibly more than anyone who has bought the single issues, and yet there’s still this sort of bias against people who wait for trade. Sometimes it’s just, and for me in particular, I just like the feel in my hands of a hardcover. I’m sort of a few months behind on everything which is really annoying, but I get the majority of the trades from the major publishers and a lot of the indie publishers. I get them all.
Just to answer your question of whether I keep up or not, yes, completely.
That leads to part two of this question, which is what are the things you’re currently reading?
MB: This is really hard for me to answer because I read every day… Yesterday I was reading “Butcher Baker, Righteous Maker,” that Joe Casey book?
Oh, I love that book.
MB: Yeah, it’s great. It has been a little while since I’ve read some new Joe Casey stuff, and I was really blown away by it, especially the art. Last night I started that Image reproduction with new coloring of the Paul Pope “One Trick Rip-Off” that just came out. It’s mind-blowingly good, and it’s so beautiful. Jamie Grant, the guy who colored it did “All Star Superman,” so it’s really, really beautiful.
Before that … I read through the entire “Northlanders” series because the last trade came out, and I hadn’t been keeping up with it. When I hear that a series is ending, I kind of hold off on the last trade or two so I can do a full read through and have the ending be near. I did that with “Scalped” recently, where I read half the series and then bought the rest as they came out, waiting desperately for the series to end so I could read all of it. Just did that with “Northlanders” and that was great, and I recently read the Conan hardcover that contains the first Brian Wood arc, which is great. That’s just the past week or so of what I’ve been reading.
Continued belowThat’s a pretty great line-up of books, if I do say so myself. It’s funny, you and I are on the same length of what we enjoy. Paul Pope is just the best, and Joe Casey and Brian Wood.
MB: Yeah, I love those guys. People will start to discover if I am in any way successful with this, and if its not the last interview I do which is possible, I have read so many books, and like we’re talking about earlier, a lot of the modern stuff. I’m hoping I can continue to be that way and I don’t get jaded and stop reading as much, or become to busy writing to read. What I usually do is I find a writer I like, and I read everything he’s ever written. Someone like Brian Wood, I’ve read every book he’s ever published. Grant Morrison, pretty much the same thing except for the really hard to find stuff. Actually there’s a lot of that with Grant Morrison. But everything relatively accessible I’ve read. So, yeah, I’m an addictive obsessive character.
One other thing I think about comics that’s really cool which I don’t think about movies or music is that the general consensus to me tends to be a little more accurate. For instance, when Scott Snyder started coming to prominence and everyone’s like, oh, this is the new big writer? In music, when you get someone like Mumford and Sons and everyone’s like this is the new best thing in the world, I just don’t get it. I’m sorry, I’m not into it. But in comics? In comics, I tend to always agree — it’s weird — with the general consensus. If Bleeding Cool is telling me that this is the new thing I need to check out, I always sort of begrudgingly check it out and think, well, you’re right! Every time. I think the comic community is really discerning, so when everyone’s behind something, it’s like EVERYONE gets behind it. And it’s usually pretty justified.
So in closing, when you look at the current state of comics with the New 52, Marvel NOW! or Image’s big resurgence in the past few years, what do you think of when you look at how comics are operating now versus ten or twenty years ago?
MB: Well, ten years ago was a wonderful name for comics, because that’s when a lot of these mainstay writers sort of started to gain confidence and create these amazing works, so ten years ago we were in a pretty great place too. Twenty years ago, not really so much. The 90’s were pretty barren. There was some great, amazing stuff, but in general, and this sounds naive, but I think we are constantly, ever since I got back into comics, every single thing has gotten better in terms of the general level of quality.
I know a lot of more jaded creators and writers and fans would disagree, especially the really snobby or annoying ones, but to me I think this medium is just pushing itself forward. And there are so many amazing and beautiful comics coming out, whether it’s the New 52 or the most mainstream stuff ever. You’ve got books like “Animal Man” which is just superb, and the Batman stuff going on, even “Wonder Woman,” all those books are just so forward thinking and evolved. Same with Marvel. Marvel is arguably my favorite publishing house, and it’s also the most successful and biggest one, and I think that they’re still pushing boundaries. Image, it’s just amazing to see what they’ve done with the comic.
It’s all so exciting to see for me as a reader, so as a writer, I can only hope that if I am given the opportunity to continue writing comics, it’s a pretty perfect climate for me in terms of what people like — inventive, creative, risk-taking stuff that’s also engaging and entertaining. That’s what I love, that’s what I like to do and I couldn’t think of a better time to get into doing this. It’s just a question of whether people like it enough to keep buying what I write, which I’m not going to take for granted in any way.
