Joe Casey is a busy guy, if you look left of the dial. Sure, he’s putting in work for the big boys, doing Vengeance for Marvel with Nick Dragotta, and taking up the reins on Robert Kirkman and Todd McFarlane’s Haunt with Nathan Fox later this year. (Weird trivia: This would be the third time he’s worked on a project co-created by an Image founder, after Wildcats and Youngblood.)
But when we got a chance to talk to the famously fierce, infamously iconoclastic Casey this weekend, it wasn’t to talk about that stuff. It was to talk about three other irons he has in Image’s fires: the ongoing Butcher Baker the Righteous Maker with Mike Huddleston, the original graphic novel Doc Bizarre M.D. with Andy Suriano (due out October 19th), and a re-release of Officer Downe, his ultraviolent collaboration with Batman Incorporated artist Chris Burnham (due out in December).
Or, well — that’s what we were going to be talking about, in theory. Instead, topics from all over the comics world got covered, giving a portrait of both Casey the creator, and Casey the fan. Not a fan of any one character or company, but a fan of comics, period, and the unique mode of expression they offer.
MULTIVERSITY COMICS: In the past decade, working on things like Uncanny X-Men, Wildcats, The Intimates, etc., I would have called the main themes of your work “influence” and “information.” Now, though, the main trend I can spot, especially in gigs like these Image ones, is “freewheeling destruction.” Was this a conscious move on your part — the shift from Spartan and Archangel talking business itineraries, to Officer Downe screaming “PULL OVER, COCKSUCKERS?”
JOE CASEY: Well, a guy’s gotta have some fun, right? I suppose I do go through my phases, but I guess every creative artist does. It’s wherever the muse takes me, and nothing is all that conscious. My creator-owned work is about providing something that I personally want to see on the shelf. If it moves from one extreme to the other and back, I guess that’s just how it falls out of my brain. If I was trying to be more calculating, I don’t think it would be as satisfying an experience for me.
MC: I can’t help but notice another trend in your work — a seemingly constant attempt to shrug off or otherwise spite the comics zeitgeist. When the rest of the X-Men were running around shouting and punching Galactus, you turned Cable into a spiritual leader. In things like Wildcats 3.0 and The Intimates, you countered the grim-faced military-cinema of a post-Ultimates mainstream with boardroom intrigue and media-blitz storytelling. You regularly tackle out-of-vogue stuff like G.I. Joe, Youngblood, and Pre-RDJ Iron Man. All of which is a build-up to asking: is this a conscious tendency, toward embracing the stuff that’s separate from trends or fads?
JC: Identifying and then bucking trends is like a parlor game. It’s a fun diversion. You could also say it’s a skill I’ve cultivated over the years… and while it doesn’t gain me a very large readership, the ones that are there seem to get it and like it. In mainstream comics in particular, when something’s a bona fide trend, that usually means it’s already gotten old and boring, that there’s already too much of it. As a way to brand myself, I can’t speak on its success or failure, but at least it keeps me out of the horse races that contribute to beating these goddamn trends into the dirt. The other aspect of this is a more practical one… I tend to work at least a year ahead of publication, if not more. I put in a lot of lead time and try to have as much material as possible in the can before I even solicit a book. That means I’m predicting the future… I’m betting that in a year’s time (or more, in some cases), readers will be interested in the ideas I’m coming up with today. You can’t do that and be a part of any trends, because trends come and go at alarming speed. What’s trendy now is over in a year, so why even bother? I’d rather take a shot at creating my own trends, even if I’m the only one following them.
Continued belowMC: The current load of projects you have coming out of Image — Doc Bizarre M.D., Butcher Baker the Righteous Maker, and a re-release of Officer Downe — have three very different artists drawing them. Andy Suriano triangulates Doc Bizarre between Ditko, Bruce Timm, and classic MAD Magazine. Mike Huddleston infuses Butcher Baker with spacy Levitation-style macho psychedelia. Chris Burnham’s clean, 2000 AD-style lines give Officer Downe a colder tone than the other two, reflecting its no-bullshit hero. In one of the Butcher Baker afterwords, you called writing a comic partially an act of discovery — did you discover anything new about these stories when you saw how these guys had drawn what you’d written?
JC: I see what you’re saying, but I’ve been at this long enough to have a slightly firmer grasp on things than what you’re describing. Those projects were created specifically with those artists in mind. I had a pretty good sense of how they’d handle them. Sure, there are little surprises that spring up along the way, but for the most part I have a definite idea going into them of what we’ll be creating. If anything, my main track of discovery is in the preliminary development and in the actual writing. I like the idea that, when I hand over a script to an artist, I’m pretty fucking spent. I try to leave it all out on the field. In his prime, Springsteen would perform to the point of exhaustion and because I was both born to run and born in the USA, I take my creative inspiration from that work ethic.
MC: Some of the most entertaining reading in comics, month in and month out, comes in the back pages of Butcher Baker. Instead of a banal list of what your latest purchases were from the iTunes store or what’s on your DVR, each one is a seemingly unfiltered insight into where you’re coming from with this whole “comics” thing. Where do these come from? Is it just what’s on your mind when you remember that you need to have some back matter to the editor by noon tomorrow, or are these premeditated topics you’ve been waiting to get up on a soapbox and talk about?
JC: Well, first of all, I’m the editor, if you could even use that word, so the only motherfucker I have to answer to is myself. It’s certainly not a soapbox, because I’m under no illusion that whatever opinions I might be carrying around mean shit to anyone but me. The original notion behind the extensive backmatter essays was to provide readers with more content than they’re maybe used to in superhero comicbooks. Usually, the capes-and-tights corner of the industry is a very get-in, get-out kind of experience, at least from the single-issue standpoint. I wanted something that had a little more heft to it. But I had no idea what I’d actually be writing about. It wasn’t until I sat down and spewed out the first one that a rough format sort of presented itself. It’s a different kind of writing, and its one that I enjoy doing on occasion. But I like to keep it pretty free-form, in the same way the comicbooks themselves are. They’re very improvisational, and once I’ve written them I tend to forget that I wrote them. I feel a little uncomfortable when I’ve met readers at Cons over the past year and they’ve commented on things I’ve written in those backmatter pieces that I don’t remember writing. That’s the danger of this stuff… I know a lot of it reads rather personal, but I don’t necessarily see it that way.
MC: In another Butcher Baker afterword, you ask (rhetorically, but still) what it means for a superhero to dress up in the American flag in 2011. I found it an unusually resonant question, but I want to alter it and put it back to you. When so much of post-2000 comicdom is drawn from wells beyond the medium’s own history (cinematic “widescreen” comics, scripts structured to read like TV episodes, toy-like collect-them-all product lines), and as someone with your own Hollywood career in way more lucrative media… What does it mean to make a comic book in 2011?
Continued belowJC: To put it bluntly, it means everything. If you’re man enough to accept the responsibility, it means total creative control. It’s not for everyone. There are plenty of creators out there that have unfortunately been institutionalized to such a degree that to even attempt to take on the workload of building a comicbook from scratch would send them into seizures. And has. Poor bastards. The whole idea of comicbooks emulating other media just makes my teeth itch. I’ve busted my ass — for what feels like my entire life — learning and mastering the art and the craft of telling stories using the language of comicbooks. I’m committed to the medium in a way that’s probably a little unhealthy, but what’re you gonna do? It’s my lot in life to be forever loyal to this art form, to forever explore how it works and how I can be better at it. Whatever my success or failure in other media might be, nothing can possibly ever compare to my first love.
MC: Around Butcher Baker‘s launch, in another interview you summarized the state of superhero comics as “pretty goddamn boring.” So how do you make a comic that’s not boring? Is it entirely down to personal investment and expression, or is it something in the collaborative process with the right artist? Is it explosions, sex scenes, Kirby dots…? What’s your Charles Atlas regimen for making a man out of comics?
JC: I make these sweeping statements in the press because I’m pretty sure what the effect will be. It’s all part of the dance and there’s not many professionals out there who can dance faster than I can right now. But I hope the intent is obvious, even when I don’t say it out loud: it being that most superhero comicbooks are boring to me. It’s clearly a personal opinion, and I suppose that’s an important distinction, but I also get a strong sense that I’m not the only one who feels that way. If I was, sales would be better. Yeah, the DC relaunch is getting good sales numbers out of the gate, but how much insight into creating meaningful genre entertainment does it take to put #1’s on everything in one month and have it all sell fairly well? Not much, I’d imagine. It’s been interesting to see the harsh, unforgiving eyes of the comics blogosphere, the podcasters and other critical writers actually try to come up with something insightful to say about Justice League or OMAC or whatever. It’s weird enough to imagine that there was some general consensus within DC that Batman fucking Catwoman on-panel was a good idea, an idea they were excited to put out in the world.
I feel like most people are simply missing the point with the “new DC”… but their mandate is blatantly obvious to me: to put out crappy superhero comics on time. And I’m not using “crappy” strictly as a pejorative. DC in the 60’s and 70’s had pretty much the same ethos. And aside from a few bright spots here and there, DC Comics back then were pretty crappy. They were never meant to be innovative or forward-thinking or even very good. They just had to come out every month. And so it seems to be once again. But, in some twisted way, that does kinda make them beyond reproach. Don’t expect too much from the majority of DC Comics and I guarantee you won’t be disappointed. Hell, you could apply the same low standards to most of Marvel’s output… except that Marvel sometimes markets themselves as Great, Important, Neo-Classic comicbooks comin’ atcha each and every month. That’s where you get weird, creator-centric marketing gimmicks like “Young Guns” and “Architects” and “Plumbers” and “Fry Cooks” and whatever oddball label they’ll come up with next. So, to answer your initial question, I do think it comes down to personal investment and self-expression. Granted, I don’t think those things are impossible for creators to achieve with WFH superhero comicbooks, and it still happens on the rare occasion. But it certainly doesn’t seem like a top priority right now. And that’s fine… these things work in cycles and one day the wheel will turn once again. I’ll be thrilled when that happens.
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MC: Following up on that idea of making not-boring comics… how do you sell not-boring comics in the current climate? I recall Butcher Baker in particular having a pre-launch campaign that was about more or less flooding the available spaces with Butcher Baker art and quotes and what you called “white noise.” Moving from Marvel, DC, and Cartoon Network to a more giving-you-enough-rope operation like Image, how have you had to rethink positioning your comics (and yourself) in the marketplace? It’s not enough to just take out an ad in Wizard anymore…
JC: Marketing comicbooks, for me, is all performance art. It’s all in fun to manipulate a content-hungry Internet audience with something that gives them pause, makes them think, makes them wonder what the hell’s going on. You can get creative with it and have a good laugh and that’s what it’s all about for me. But ultimately, they’re going to sell what they’re going to sell. Marketing is about creating awareness (duh), but never kid yourself into thinking you can market a book that would normally sell 7500 into one that will sell 20000. That might work for the big corporate IPs, but not at the indie/creator-owned level. Generally, indie comics sell exactly what they deserve to sell, based on their subject matter, their timing and, at times, their quality. I don’t think Image Comics in particular is in competition with either Marvel or DC or even Dark Horse, for that matter. They’re in a class by themselves and I think they’re rightfully proud of that.
MC: One theme I’ve picked up on — that is, because you’ve said it a lot — is your love of having “no limitations” in your creator-owned comics work. What that makes me wonder, though, is how the idea of “no limitations” relates to process. Even the Surrealists made up rules for their games, no matter how arbitrary. When you indulge in the complete freedom to challenge yourself and your artists, how do you know where the hurdle is? Is it enough to say “I want to write a comic about a cop who shoots people in the dick without hesitation,” or do you have to bring other parameters in to give yourself a frame to paint within, so to speak?
JC: I suppose whatever parameters that will end up existing in a project will make themselves known as you’re developing it. And sometimes it’s even a situation where you realize the parameters you’ve set up for yourself, even unconsciously, but it’s after the fact. At that point, I immediately look for ways to bust out of them. That’s the challenge, to force artistic evolution in yourself. Having done this for a while now, I guess could probably pump out a competent superhero comicbook that hits all the right beats for the current readership without much effort on my part. But just because I can doesn’t mean that I should. I mean, I don’t want to be part of the problem… I want to be part of the solution, if there even is one.
MC: One of my favorite things about Butcher Baker is the lyrical style of the captions — that is, they skip out on the blunt, Frank-Miller-on-ADHD-drugs “I am this guy, doing this, because of that, and that guy is there, and I am here…” style most superhero books use. They’re more elliptical, more suggestive than literal (and at the same time more raw and unfiltered). So as my final huge paragraph to you: what music do you think those words go best to, in your ideal Butcher Baker soundtrack? I would guess Van Halen, but…
JC: There’s only one motherfucker who could score Butcher Baker, and his name is Krzysztof Penderecki. Maybe I should send it to him…
