CHRIS SPROUSE interview

Interview by smoky man. Conducted in November 2008.
Originally printed in Italy on Scuola di Fumetto magazine (N. 65, February/March 2009, Coniglio Editore).
Presented here in English for the first time.
Above: Cover for Tom Strong Vol. Two.
Tom Strong published by DC Comics.
Chris Sprouse blog: sprousenet.blogspot.com

Right now you are in the comics biz from more than 20 years. How did it all started? Did you attend any artistic school or are you an autodidact?
Actually, this year is my 19th year in comics. I drew comics for myself all through childhood. I studied fine art and graphic design in a standard university, not art school, but all of my comic book abilities are self-taught.

Most of all, why making a living by drawing comics? Was it your dream as a child?
It was my dream as far back as I can remember. I wanted to do something creative for a living and I was able to draw and liked comic books, so it seemed like an obvious choice to me.

Which artists did influence you the most? Not only from comics but in Art in general… And why?
Herge was my first influence. We lived in India when I was a child and my parents bought us European albums to entertain us. Tintin was my favorite and is still my favorite comic today. I think I developed a "clean" style because I've read and re-read the Tintin albums my entire life. Later, my big American comic influences were Michael Golden, Frank Miller and Walt Simonson. Golden is a master of design and knows how to pick the perfect image or pose for every panel or cover he draws. Miller is the best visual storyteller in comics, and Simonson brings a sense of excitement and fun to his drawing that I can only marvel at and hope to understand one day.

Was it difficult for you to break in the biz? I think it could be said that your professional career in comics started at DC with Legionnaires in the ’80. What can you recall of that experience?
It was very easy to break in: I simply mailed sample pages to DC Comics and they called me two weeks later! I was very lucky! Legionnaires was my first big series and I loved drawing the book. It was also very exciting to be a part of that group of creators--Jason Pearson, Keith Giffen, Tom & Mary Bierbaum, Stuart Immonen--we all tried to do our best because we didn't want to disappoint anyone else. I would draw a Legion comic again in a second if they asked me!

Then you moved to the various Rob Liefeld’s Image studio incarnations in the 90ies. I remember you doing a couple of issues of New Men for him, a nice book. Then you were attached as the new regular artist of his flag-ship title, the Supreme’s run by Alan Moore. How did you get this assignment?
I drew three issues of New Men, then the series was cancelled. Coincidentally, the editor of Supreme was the writer of New Men, and he asked me to draw Supreme for one issue as a fill-in artist. That was issue #50, and they liked it enough that they hired me to be the regular artist.

Were you more excited or a bit “frightened” to work with Moore considering his writing status?
Both excited to be working with someone as good as Alan and frightened because I wanted my art to be as good as his stories and I didn't know if I was up to the task.

Drawing Supreme, had you any direct contact with him or did you work only on his scripts? I think at that time he had already finished his scripts for Awesome and had no contact with the company... What’s about the “quality” of his scripts? Were they as detailed as the legend says?
No, I had no contact with Alan while working on Supreme. The scripts were indeed detailed and very long, but they were so much fun to read! I've kept them all!

After Supreme you followed Moore on his ABC line co-creating Tom Strong. What’s about your contribution to this modern classic hero? Was is only limited to the visual aspect of the characters, the city (even if Millennium City IS a character in itself), mecha design and so on.. or did you also contributed to the story in any way?
At first, I supplied purely visual input, but supposedly Alan created all the ABC books with the specific creators in mind, or at least tailored the stories to fit each of our strengths and interests. Later, around issue #10, Alan and I did discuss stories very briefly and decided together to focus on the Strong family as a sort of homage to the family feel of the old Lee/Kirby Fantastic Four, which we both loved. Otherwise, I was very content to let Alan write whatever he wanted to because it would always be interesting and fun to draw.

After Supreme and Tom Strong, how do you weight your collaboration with Moore? Do you consider it as the highest point of your career till now? Any "strange magical" anecdotes to share with us related to yr long professional relationship with him?
It was definitely my favorite time in comics. I don't know if I was always able to do the best I could have every single issue, but I'm very proud of the work I did on Tom Strong. No real magical anecdotes in the literal sense, but it was very magical to work with Alan. I'm honored to have had the chance.

There are rumors that a new Tom Strong series (without Moore on the writing) is upcoming. With you as penciler. Can you reveal us anything?
Peter Hogan and I are doing a new mini-series called Tom Strong and the Robots of Doom which should be published next year. It begins with Tesla and Val planning their wedding, but events soon go horribly wrong when Tom's illegitimate son Albrecht alters the time stream. That's all I'll say for now!

Let’s talk about your style and drawing approach. You use a really clean line, more light than shadow, I like to define it as “realistic cartoony”. What can you say about it? How did you develop it? It seems an easy style, at first look, but I know it takes tons of thoughts and time to draw a page. Like for Mignola’s style, which is at the opposite style of your spectrum considering all the blacks he puts on.
As I said earlier, I think my "clean line" style started because of my interest in Herge's work. Since reading Tintin as a child, I've always liked clean linework, and when I began to draw, what I had learned from reading Tintin and other similar comics came out in my drawing style. It's all intuitive though--I just know when a page or drawing feels "right" or "finished" to me and when to stop rendering so that I like the finished result. Too many lines looks too busy and too fussy to me.

What’s the process behind your page? What kind of tools do you use? Any digital support?
I start by drawing quick thumbnails with a soft blue or black pencil on standard copy paper while reading the script. Then I either draw large full-size layouts on 11"X17" cheap paper or I draw the layouts directly on the final Bristol Board paper. The finished product from this step is all the "under-drawing" and construction work--I've worked out all the poses and anatomy and perspective. Next I put the layout on my lightbox on my drawing table and make a very clean-line tracing (with black H or HB lead) of just the necessary elements. Finally I do any shading and fill in black areas before giving the pages over to Karl story for inking.

What’s about your studio? Do you work at home? Any digital support?
I do work at home, in a studio full of reference books and models and props that I use for maintaining accuracy when drawing. I use a computer to shrink or enlarge sketches when needed, and for altering artwork for specific effects.

I think it’s correct to say you are basically a penciler and your clean pages are created (I suppose) keeping in mind that they have to be inked. You worked with inkers like Al Gordon and Karl Story, who are regular collaborators. What’s about your teamwork with the inker? I mean it is a kind of a matter of trust… Do you prefer they stay faithful to your lines or… for example I remember a great team-up with “embellisher” Kevin Nowlan (who’s also a penciler on his own)…
I really do prefer that the inker is faithful to the pencil artwork. It's heartbreaking to create a page you love only to see it changed by someone else. I work very hard on getting just the right expressions on faces or making sure technical details are correct, and these two things can be destroyed very carelessly by bad inkers. Luckily, for many years I've been able to work with good inkers I do trust. I prefer Karl Story over anyone else and we've worked together so long that I think we both know what the other expects or what the other will do. Being inked by Kevin Nowlan was amazing! He was very faithful, yet occasionally his own spirit would show through on certain details.

Why don’t you ink yourself? Is it just a matter of deadline? In Europe, comics artists draw and ink their own stuff which is quite unusual in the USA market, especially in the “superhero” field…
It's very much a matter of deadline. And since I haven't inked very much of my own work, I haven't been able to practice my inking skills and am not very good at it! The US publishers just don't seem to want to give creators the time to create longer stories in an album format--it's all about the monthly treadmill over here!

Do you prefer a fully detailed script or something more like Marvel-style script?
I think I prefer a detailed script. At the very least I prefer to know the dialogue when drawing expressions and poses. I recently had the chance to work "Marvel-style" with Walt Simonson on a Spirit story and it was a challenge!

Any desire to write your own comics?
Not at all! I love to draw and am happy doing just that.

Your sci-fi Ocean miniseries written by Warren Ellis has been optioned for a movie adaptation. Any news about it? Are you involved in it in any way?
I'm not involved in any way. I'm very excited about it--I love science fiction movies and to have created something which will one day be a science fiction movie is amazing to me. I just learned that the script is finished and it should go to the studio for casting and budgeting soon.

What’s your opinion about the strong relationship between the comics industry and Hollywood? There is for example a big hype around a couple of comics movies such as Spirit, Sin City 2 and of course Watchmen… Is it good for comics in itself or not?
I'm not sure if it is good. I suppose that good Hollywood movies based on comics has helped to make comics more legitimate in the eyes of the general American public. When I was in school, you could be ridiculed and even beaten up for liking comics, but now it's very accepted among all age groups and I think it may be partially because of the movies. No one has been able to say conclusively if the movies have helped generate more comic sales, but I don't think they have. I don't know. I can only speak for myself: I didn't get into the comics business to make movies--I just want to draw good comics and if someone wants to make a movie out of one of my comics, that's great, but it's not my ultimate goal.

What do you think about the graphic novel phenomenon?
I'm happy that there are more US graphic novels now! I would love to see even more.

Your last work is the Number of the Beast miniseries set in the Wildstorm Universe. What can reveal about this story?
Number of the Beast is about a group of superheroes form the 1940's and 1950's who have been kept in suspended animation. Now they are waking up and will quite possibly cause the end of civilization! That's the basic premise. I was attracted to the series because of the 1940's-50's characters. I designed nearly 30 characters for the series and I loved every minute of it. It was very hard work ultimately, but I enjoyed the series.

You are also working on some Superman covers even if you said in the past “I don’t think I can’t draw him well”…
I just finished my second cover an hour ago! Originally, I was supposed to draw a two-part Superman story, but plans fell through and DC decided to abandon it. I don't know what happened, but I was ready and willing. I'd resisted doing Superman for years because I never liked how I drew him at conventions, but I did a cover for one of Brad Meltzer's JLA comics featuring Superman and it looked okay, so I thought I could do it. I drew another cover this year in preparation for my two issues and I loved it, so I thought it would all go perfectly. Oh, well...maybe someday. For now, I'll be drawing a total of four Superman-related covers: two for Superman, one for Supergirl, and one for Action Comics.

Which comics do you currently read? Because you READ comics, don’t you? (It seems that many comics artists don’t do that…)
I regularly read Ex Machina, Hellboy, anything by Warren Ellis, Stuart Immonen's Ultimate Spider-Man, and Mark Millar & Bryan Hitch's Fantastic Four.

Article: DeZ Vylenz on Watchmen

At the end of 2006 - in the occasion of its 20th anniversary - I edited an Italian Watchmen tribute book which was basically a collection of 12 brand new essays by well known comics experts analyzing Alan Moore & Dave Gibbons masterpiece. The volume was published by Lavieri, a small Italian publisher, with all net profits donated to AIMA, the Italian Alzheimer organization.Writer and director DeZ Vylenz, the creative force behind the must-see documentary "The Mindscape of Alan Moore" (Shadowsnake Films), contributed to the book with an interesting essay titled "Infinity in a grain of sand - Alternative worlds, ucrony, dystopia and utopia in Watchmen".
In the following you can read, for the first time, the original English version. Thanks to DeZ Vylenz for the permission. Enjoy!Pictures included in this article are from "The Mindscape of Alan Moore" .

Infinity in a grain of sand
Alternative worlds, ucrony, dystopia and utopia in Watchmen
by DeZ Vylenz
Rorschach Journal, October 12, 1985. This city is afraid of me, I have seen its true face…

And so begins the literary tour de force called Watchmen, a profound study of the various notions of power which permeate our world’s political and social structures and in fact our entire history. With a sense of grand design and depth of characterization to emulate War and Peace or any literary classic for that matter, there was another major Moore punch to the stomach of critics and readers, friends and enemies: Watchmen is a comic and perhaps because of its magnum opus size and depth one of the first works where the new coining “graphic novel” was applied to; a term regarded by some as slightly pretentious but on the other hand often useful to separate self-contained works with a definite beginning and end which sets them apart from the ongoing serialized comics.
The title Watchmen in itself is ambiguous, as it could refer to the group of superheroes watching over the safety of society, but considering the leitmotifs of clocks, watches, time and human perception there is also a hint to the intricate watchmaker behind it all. Whether that be the creative forces of the universe, God, the nuclear scientist Osterman (who had ambitions to become a watchmaker, a reference to an Albert Einstein quote) before his disintegration or Adrian Veidt’s grand scheme of creating Utopia, it is clear that Alan Moore’s own approach to the comic has been that of an architect, mapping out not only the physical aspects of the world but also the spiritual and emotional dimensions of what it means to be a human being in the contemporary dark age of technology and struggle for economic supremacy.
Although the notions of power, fear and individual lives within a larger framework are the main themes within Watchmen, the whole book itself is a muscular exercise in embedded narrative; a profound meditation on time, memory and experience. This is most prominent in Chapter IV where the narrative is centred around Dr. Manhattan’s conscious structuring of time and events through flashbacks and flashforwards, as he roams the surface of Mars.
Depending on which ‘ism’ one might take as starting point to study this book, some might try to stick a genre label on Watchmen. In some respects the book can be viewed as alternative history or ucrony: “a story set in a time which never really existed but which might have if historical circumstances had been different.” Watchmen is after all a hypothetical world, an alternative parallel universe, diverged from the one we know because of the freak accident that created Dr. Manhattan. A thermodynamic miracle as it were.
Literary critics or narratologists could perhaps draw comparisons with Bram Stoker’s use of different journals, letters and a variety of media and descriptions all woven into the embedded narrative of Dracula or Orson’s Welles’ Citizen Kane. But Watchmen is not only modernist because it is presented in the relatively new and unexplored ‘Comic’ medium, but also because its world view is holistic in nature with every single event seen in relation to every conceivable facet of our contemporary world and the knowledge we have of the universe. This is not surprising; given the surge of media and information which has become available over the last hundred years. Readers and writers of our time experience the world in a different manner than those of a century ago.
But the book can also be viewed from a more spiritual side, the effect it has upon our consciousness as human readers living in a complex web of worlds within worlds, with layers of politics, economics, and the numerous facets of our society and personal and global events around us. Most of this reality is distorted by an overload of information through the modern mass media and intellectual analysis is simply not comprehensive enough to put it all into a clear perspective.
Watchmen is a massive piece of work that plunges the reader straight into an incredibly deep and complete experience on intellectual, emotional and spiritual levels.
Without getting too much on a personal side track, I can honestly say that from the first few panels I encountered in Watchmen as a teenager with then seemingly far-fetched ambitions to become a writer or filmmaker, something was triggered in some dormant brain cells which to this day has a tremendous effect upon my world view and personal artistic approach. From the enormous close up of a smiley (already introduced on the cover) the panels slowly “zoom out” to a breathtaking bird’s eye view from the window of a high flat building in the middle of an urban landscape with the “voice-over” captions reminiscent of Taxi Driver. This introduction signals a certain warning to the reader.
There is a holistic vision at work here and the reader is expected to bring on board of this journey, as much knowledge as possible on every level conceivable.
Though Film and Comic are both two-track media (employing language –or sound-- and images to convey the information), the way that the concept of time and perception is studied in Watchmen has an effect, which would be very hard to replicate in a film adaptation or a novel. There are numerous layers of information conveyed by the omniscient narration: essays, pirate comics read by characters within the book, articles, diaries, all of which compose the text world of Watchmen into a very complex cognitive process while the central part of the story still remains very accessible to the average reader.
In Chapter IX, page 6, Dr. Manhattan expresses the core idea of the book’s structure:
Time is simultaneous, an intricately structured jewel that humans insist on viewing one edge at a time, when the whole design is visible in every facet.

According to shamanic principles, time does not exist. There is no past or future. Only the Now. Everything exists at the same time. Moore has always had a fascination with time paradoxes and our perception of time, as is evident in his early short stories for 2000 AD Monthly.
Before Alan Moore transcended to another level of writing where the emphasis was more on magical and universal themes (a phase which started around his work on From Hell), Moore’s work was significantly influenced by pop-culture, contemporary politics and developments around him. Similarly to his character Ozymandias, he is very much tapped into the mosaic of information that the world media present. This mindset is one of the cornerstones of modernism, where writers and readers bring everything they know, the complete frame of reference that comprises our general sense of ‘history,’ to the experience we call story. Stories and events are no longer only viewed in a vacuum, or in the light of classical mythology, philosophy and so on. We now view everything in relation to recent and past events, make associations on various levels, whether that be biological, sociological or mystical levels. The prose of William Burroughs is a prime example of this phenomenon and enough to give linguists and students of epistemology a couple of field days. As our intellectual horizons expand, we read or experience things more and more within a larger context.
Quantum physics and Chaos theory gradually presented new alternatives to a scientific and strictly materialistic world view, governed by Newtonian physics and Keynesian economics. In Indian philosophy the human constructs (amongst which our concept of Time) and our perception of the world are considered as Maya: Illusion. Something constructed by human beings in order to understand the slice of that complex event which can be seen as the universe or life itself. In the shamanic world view, life is not seen as a linear event moving from left to right like a bead on a wire. The world is not seen as a place of strict hierarchy and stratification. On a larger scale things cannot be quantified or rationalised for simplicity’s sake. From a mystical viewpoint, the world is seen as a far more complex web of energy, which at some point emanated from the same source and manifested itself in the myriads of life forms in the universe. With our limited senses and human mind we experience the three dimensional plane of a more elusive four dimensional event.

Invisible before birth are all beings and after death invisible again. They are seen between two unseens.
(Bhagavad Gita, Chapter 2, verse 28)

At the end of Chapter IV there is an essay by Professor Milton Glass (another example of Alan Moore’s near schizophrenic capability to adjust the language to his fictional characters) which captures the essence of the Cold War and the mindset in Dr. Manhattan’s age. In the opening paragraph of this largely socio-political piece, there is another reference to the viewpoint the narratee is invited to:

Science, traditional enemy of mysticism and religion, has taken on a growing understanding that the model of the universe suggested by quantum physics differs very little from the universe that Taoists and other mystics have existed in for centuries.

Most storytellers are fascinated by the concept of time and the way it reflects in the mental construction of a narrative, whether that be oral or written. Time shapes our lives on a daily basis and in the modern world is generally regarded as a fundamental quantity, yet in more traditional cultures and models of thought, there is often a different and less formal perception of this concept:

If you look at the very earliest cultures, some of them are still extent upon the planet, the aboriginal cultures, most of their languages only have one tense. Everything is subsumed within the present. They can talk about things that happened and things that haven’t happened yet, but will happen in the future, but they talk about them in the present tense. Now it seems that not only have we split up our existence, our study of existence into all of these different areas, but we’ve also subdivided our notion of time into different zones. Whereas once, there was this great eternal present, which I assume to be the kind of constant Now that animals exist in for example. But, we as conscious individuals have as a species adapted this different notion of time, where we almost see time as a bead on a wire. That the now is this constantly moving, tiny little moment that we’re all in that is sliding inexorably along a wire from past to future. If you look at some of the models that people like Stephen Hawking have suggested for time, then you find something which is actually much closer to that primitive apprehension of how time is structured, than to our rather simplistic and fatalistic idea of past, present and future. I believe that Hawking talks about space-time as a kind of a gigantic, starry football, a rugby ball if you like. And at one end of it you have the Big Bang and at the other end of it everything comes together again in a big crunch. But, that the whole football exists all the time. That there is this gigantic hyper moment in which everything is occurring. That would mean that it was only our conscious minds that were ordering things into past, present and future.
(excerpt from the film: The Mindscape of Alan Moore)

And Watchmen is exactly this. A gigantic hyper moment which from the first panel (or in fact from the yellow smiley cover of the book) to the last is an experienced imprinted in the reader’s mind, a series of events which can be reconstructed by re-reading the book or simply perusing the pages. It is a particular moment in the midst of the Cold War, a specific mindset of humanity, but not necessarily a specific time and place. Whether that be in the 60s, 80s or any time in the past or future, the way the story is told makes it an experience of the Now, the present.
In fact the Gregorian calendar used in our daily lives is rather arbitrary and based on solar cycles, therefore much more masculine in spiritual terms . In contrast with for instance the Chinese, Mayan, Hebrew, Hindu or Muslim calendars, the Gregorian calendar has no immediate relation to the natural cycles of the moon. So in general, specific dates and numbers within esoteric or mystical circles are regarded as useless for magical or ritualistic purposes. Yet, still there is great significance given to certain dates, as happened with the approaching mass hysteria and doom scenarios before 2000.
So how will a 21st century reader view the beginning of the book, which starts in 1985? Will it feel too distant, too obsolete, too far removed from one’s own human experience? Fiction was never exclusively written by or for rational minds which would prefer to structure facts and events from A to B, from beginning to end with clear references to the most recent and familiar “reality”. Otherwise historical or science fiction writings would not be gobbled up by whole sections of the human population.
People read because they have a need for experience, for the discovery of eternal truth, the essence behind the complicated machinery that makes up our physical universe.
Imagination is not bound by time and place, fact or fiction. But it can certainly be influenced by these elements and vice versa.

This is a fiction, not a lie…
(Moore p 263, Voice of the Fire)

1985 is not really the 1985 that we as readers know, just as Orwell’s 1984 was more about 1948 and his dystopian vision of a society with no freedom of speech, language or even will. Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World is also science fiction, but the time indication is of a more abstract nature. In the same manner the 1985 that people in the former Soviet Union experienced is not the same 1985 that people in the West saw passing before their eyes and TV screens. When it came out in the cinemas, The Grapes of Wrath (Dir. John Ford, 1940) was seen in its American homeland as fiction (although of an early neo-realistic nature) while it was shown in the Soviet Union as an authentic documentary; heavy anti-propaganda to convince the Soviet citizens that they were better off than the poverty stricken American capitalist society. Cultural reality is often shaped by context and general knowledge.
In terms of epistemics and text worlds, the use of a specific date immediately prompts readers to access their own frame of reference. What do we know about 1985? What do we know about 1965? What if Nixon is still a powerful president in Alan Moore’s fictional piece of work in 1985, while the history books have a record of Watergate and we have that knowledge of him uttering his ignominious famous last words: “I am not a crook”. This creates a heightened sense of dramatic—or better said-- historic irony.
In Chapter IX, page 20, there is a conversational reference that the reporters Woodward and Bernstein are found dead in a garage. So in this alternative world the Watergate scandal was never exposed, most likely because these reporters (immortalised in the film adaptation of their book, All the President’s Men, directed by Alan J. Pakula) were assassinated in Moore’s alternative universe. History is written by conquerors and those who control the information that is presented in the media. History is after all a cultural artefact, constantly being rewritten to shape the public imagination. The masses are always one step behind the next “director’s cut ". But in the long run dystopian fictional works like Watchmen, 1984 and Brave New World (to name a few), remain powerful reminders of the dangers of mass control. Alan Moore also created another alternative world in V for Vendetta, an Orwellian story set in a fascist Britain:
I decided that if I wanted to write about this grim present, the best way to do it, was in the form of a story set in the future, which is by no means a new trend…Most dystopian science fiction is not actually about the future, it is about the times in which it was written.
(excerpt from the film: The Mindscape of Alan Moore)

Most of science fiction takes a “what if” hypothetical approach. What if Germany had won WWII, or what if the current Aids or Bird Fly pandemics destroy our societies, what if the current environmental problems deteriorate and we are left in a desert wasteland where water becomes the new currency. There is always an ominous hint or warning within a hypothesis of this nature. If set within a framework of recognisable events from our present reality, the involvement and concern of a reader with the story world is enhanced. Historical consensus is used to tap into the alternative parallel world as a new form of reality.
For example, years after I read Watchmen, I studied some psychological phenomena and discovered the concept of “the bystander effect” for which the text book example was an incident that occurred in 1964. Only then, as I recognised the name Genovese, I started to realise the true scope of experience that Alan Moore had been writing into Watchmen. Kitty Genovese was raped and stabbed to death outside her own apartment block by a psychopath while at least thirty eight bystanders looked on from the surrounding flats without taking action. The “bystander effect” is the psychological phenomenon whereby the more human beings are present in a certain critical situation, the more they will wait for each other to take action.

Responsibility simply means the ability to respond. The flow of water within its space, The harmony between Form and Content
(Lao Winti)

And it is exactly this ability which is lacking in the massively populated urban areas, with only vigilantes as the exception. Before becoming Rorschach, Walter Kovacs had taken the dress (which was never collected by a customer with an Italian name in 1962) from the garment industry where he was employed. He had found the fabric fascinating, black and white shapes moving in an amorphous symmetry. Two years later he discovered her death on the front page of the newspapers and recalled that Kitty Genovese was the woman whose dress he’d cut to pieces and kept in a trunk. Kovacs considered this a sign of fate; a bitter reminder of what humanity was capable of. This incident was one of the main catalysts that made him into Rorschach, the fabric of the dress would become his trade mark mask.
This kind of reaction to traumatic events, whether on a personal or more social level is a quintessential part of the archetypal super hero’s genesis. Batman who sees his parents killed in front of his eyes, Spiderman whose failure to take responsibility results in the death of his uncle and so on. But in Watchmen, because it is an actual event which occurred in the timeline of our history, the effect is even greater and of more mythical proportions. 1964 actually is part of our human history, Kitty Genovese was a real woman and the bystanders who did nothing were real people. Therefore Rorschach could have been a “real” person, not just a comic book character. So although the whole text world in Watchmen is an alternative world with several sci-fi elements, Moore’s weaving of fact and fiction, of environment and character into a coherent story makes the suspension of disbelief easier for the narratee.
Again, a single incident is viewed as part of a larger chain of events.
Perhaps it is no coincidence that shortly after the publication of Watchmen, Chaos Theory became extremely popular and bookshops were filled with fractal posters and new studies of cause and effect. A butterfly flaps its wings in Japan and causes a storm in the Caribbean.
Despite the complexity of themes and leitmotifs, Watchmen is not a cold scientific analysis, but a profound study of the dynamics between human beings in general and on more social and intimate levels. Later discoveries of more “real” facts, events and references came as a great surprise, because I had never analysed Watchmen in terms of pop culture references and trivia, but this was another reminder that the complexity and relevance of social and psychological issues were far more intricate in this book which was ostensibly a super hero comic. It is clear Moore must have waded through a tremendous amount of research in the process, as is evident from the numerous details, essays, facts, events and references.
Although the 1985 in Watchmen is an alternative universe, it is one constructed around actual facts and events. There are only a few “what ifs” and these variables still haven’t changed the essence of human nature or politics. The utopia Adrian Veidt is aiming for is simply impossible, because greed and fear are not easily eradicated from human civilisation, as the last few thousand years have proven.
Moore also makes numerous references to antiquity, the power mongers of the classical world. Veidt uses the superhero nom de guerre Ozymandias, the Greek name for Ramses II; the Egyptian pharaoh under whose reign scores of people died to build pyramids and other monoliths of arrogant power; a man of flesh and blood immortalized in the poem by Percy Bysshe Shelley.
The aspirations of historical figures, whether from legend or fact, still echo into the modern world. Alexander the Great was after all in many ways a spoiled child, with no other ambitions than to conquer more land. Hubris seems to be inherent to human nature, the aspirations of Icarus to fly past the sun with feathers held together by wax, or the grand plans to build our Babylonian towers reaching to the heavens. Instead of using our power to maintain that which we have at our disposal, we relentlessly search for the “new”.
At present multi-billion dollar expeditions are launched to find water on Mars, while a fraction of those squandered sums could be utilised to develop more energy efficient industries to keep the pollution of the earth’s environment to a minimum. As the old saying goes “The fool is thirsty in the abundance of water.” Similarly in Watchmen, most of the characters do not even realise the value of their power or cannot see the beauty of their world and the dynamics between its inhabitants.
Veidt, known as “the smartest man in the world” has the Alexander the Great syndrome running through his veins and considers himself to be above all humanity. He has taken on the role of a demi-god, gaining power through financial means with the intention to use that power not only to control the lives of people, but to create his own vision of Utopia. A planet where all of humanity will live together in peace.
Rorschach on the other end of the spectrum, is roaming the gutters and fringes of society, operating on the level of animal survival which is far removed from Veidts marble tiled corridors of power. While he decides to take action and fight crime and filth on a micro-scale from his worm’s eye perspective, Veidt schemes in Machiavellian ways from the heights of his ivory tower in order to solve society’s problems on a macro-scale.
Of all the characters, Dr. Manhattan is the most powerful and omnipotent, the closest thing to a god humans could imagine. He controls matter to the smallest atom and experiences life on quantum levels in ways which humans cannot even measure with the existing technology. Yet the great paradox is that his own power limits his course of action. Because he experiences everything simultaneously, in past, present and future, he becomes impassive to the needs of humanity around him. There is nothing more to achieve, nothing new to explore, no compassion to share, no destiny to fulfil. To Dr. Manhattan everything is, was and always will be, so there seems no reason to act or intervene. Veidt’s extraordinary intellect also seems rather void of compassion, but he still has human ambitions and visions of grandeur. History does repeat itself and although Veidt tries to improve upon Alexander the Great’s goal to create a united civilisation, he fails just as his hero did more than two millennia before. Veidt goes one step further and goes for the ultimate form of hubris: to control the entire world’s human destiny, not just his own. Where Alexander the Great tried to achieve unison through conquest of lands and other civilisations, Veidt attempts to control the world and shape the events to come by controlling the perception and mindset of human beings. He achieves this through the manipulation of the mainstream media by spreading panic about Dr. Manhattan’s supposed radio-active presence and ultimately through the telepathic fear of his bio-engineered “alien” creature, which perhaps can be seen as an echo of H.P. Lovecraft’s Ctulhu, all primordial fears amplified to a point of overkill. The last chapter which reveals the massacre that is instrumental to his goal, is ironically called: A Stronger Loving World.
History is predominantly shaped by a whole chain of despots who believe that the end justifies the means. Within a few decades of the 20th century alone, there are a few top of the bill examples. From Mao Zedong to Hitler to Stalin, who is often quoted: "A single death is a tragedy; a million deaths is a statistic." Although Veidt has travelled the far east and studied its philosophy and culture, he has taken on board only what seems fit to his Machiavellian nature. Taoists do not believe in attempts to control our life or surroundings, but in the natural flow of things. This does not mean we should remain passive, but that our actions should aim for balance and should remain as natural as breathing or eating, while acknowledging the diversity of live styles, ideas and cultures around us. Most tyrannical systems seek the opposite: uniformity, because it is easier to understand and control.
Chapter XI starts with Adrian Veidt’s reference to William Burroughs’ cut-up technique. Burroughs had developed this technique (in fact the original concept came from his friend, painter Brian Gysin), which simply entailed cutting up a text and placing words and sentences, paragraphs in random order to come to new meanings.

Cut-ups are seen as a way of duplicating drug states: non-linear, producing irrational or illogical material, they are a way of ‘deranging the senses’ in the Rimbaud sense, a concept that has interested Burroughs since the forties. They free the writer from the tyranny of grammar and syntax. They enable anyone to write poetry: ‘Anyone who owns a pair of scissors can be a poet.’ They are a way of discovering ‘terminal truth’, literally reading between the lines’. Cut-ups create new juxtapositions, breaking down ‘either/or’ logic and providing a way of thinking in association blocks. Cut-ups make explicit the actual phenomenon of writing and show it to the reader, revealing the psychological process of what was going on – literally a map of the writer’s consciousness, a true confessional.
(Miles p 131)

T.S. Elliot’s poem The Waste Land (published in 1922), is often regarded as a precursor of this technique, because of its modernistic approach and abrupt changes of narrator, setting and time, its vast range of references to various cultures and literary sources.
Burroughs has influenced many writers and artists, including Alan Moore and in many ways the whole of Watchmen can be viewed as a more organised and stylised way of executing this principle. In some respects it is reminiscent to Moore’s own theory of “under language” in comics where a combination of pictures and words creates new meanings. This is related to the way we can structure things either in a linear or nonlinear way inside our mind. When we are plunged into the world of fiction, time and dates become irrelevant. It is the pure essence of things we experience. Alan Moore has occasionally mentioned that his work should function like a drug and put the reader into a fugue state. In many ways, most of his fiction has a similar effect to psychedelic drugs (LSD, Psylocibin e.g.) which have the effect of warping time and opening the perception to a sort of hyper reality.
But Alan Moore’s work cannot be classified as strictly historical or metaphysical. His vision and interests often seem centered around the idea of a profound and intense mystical experience, an epiphany of sorts, very similar to the energy in William Blake’s work. He approaches the craft of writing as an act of magic, a ritual to subliminally weave this energy into the various genres and storylines of his comics. Authors who lean towards this approach are mostly occupied with the exploration of space in the broadest sense of the word, not just physical space as we know it from the common connotation. Like Michael Moorcock in books like King of the City, or William Burroughs in The Western Lands and other works, Alejandro Jodorowsky in his films and comics, many authors seek to explore the course of human history on different levels and in a more mythical and mystical context.
This can be compared to the kind of “associative writing”, where the reader almost experiences the story through a multi-channel mosaic, not unlike the mosaic of reality through which Adrian Veidt absorbs knowledge, forms his view on the world and devises his plot to achieve Utopia. In the film The Man Who Fell to Earth (Dir. Nicolas Roeg), David Bowie as an alien life form develops a similar fascination with televisions and studies the idiosyncrasies and nature of humanity through the kaleidoscope of TV screens.
In the modern world, we search and make up our own version of reality from the overwhelming amount of information which seeps through numerous sources and media. In many traditional forms of fiction, this has often been the main goal. The search for “Eternal Truth,” partly expressed in emotional truth. There are many levels of understanding beyond the ordinary senses or the rational and more linear streams of thought. In the whole programmed clockwork mechanism of rational and goal driven thought that has become so rigidly embedded in contemporary culture and consensus reality, Moore’s Watchmen is that upsetting grain of sand; a multi-faceted literary jewel.

This search for a metaphysical meaning beyond linguistics, beyond politics and characterisation is nothing new in fiction, but in Watchmen there is an incredibly perfect marriage between those often elusive extremes of Form and Content. Alan Moore’s grand script and Dave Gibbons clear-but-expressive style are alchemically fused into a detailed mosaic of visual and linguistic clues. It is very much in that tradition of the “metaphysical or literary detective” as encountered for example in the fiction of Jorge Luis Borges or the Rork comic series by the Bretagne based German artist-writer Andreas. Around the conception of From Hell in the early 1990s, Moore started to discover that the whole writing process for him really was an act of magic, the manipulation of consciousness through any medium he could lays his hands on. Moore’s own approach as an author is that of a historical detective, deciphering the smoke signals of civilisation through the passage of time, yet at the same time exploring the technical possibilities of storytelling (both form and content) in more depth.

Watchmen also grew out of the politically shadowy landscape of the 1980s, when the cold war was at probably at its hottest in 20 or 30 years, and when nuclear destruction suddenly seemed a very real possibility. Watchmen used the clichés of the superhero format to try and discuss notions of power, and responsibility in an increasingly complex world. We treated these fairly ridiculous superhuman characters as more human than super. We were using them as symbols of different kinds of ordinary human beings, rather than as different super beings. I think there were probably quite a few things about Watchmen that chimed well with the times, but to me perhaps the most important was the actual storytelling, where the world that was presented didn’t really hang together in terms of linear cause and effect. But was instead seen as some massively complex simultaneous event with connections made of coincidence, synchronicity and I think that it was this worldview, if anything, that resonated with an audience that had realised that their previous view of the world was not adequate for the complexities of this shadowy and scary new world that we were entering into. I think that Watchmen if it offered anything, offered new possibilities as to how we perceive the environment surrounding us and the interactions and relationships of the people within it.
(excerpt from the film: The Mindscape of Alan Moore)

Watchmen is in essence a study of power in the modern world. Various notions of power are analysed and how different characters, nations or individuals deal with them.
Power in general means the ability to do or act. There is of course the connotation of control over others or to make others do things, to manipulate. In other words, power has come to mean “authority” instead of energy. Dr Manhattan has perhaps the greatest power of all, but exactly because of this has no need to abuse that power. He is just a mass of energy, beyond the whims and desires of mortal human beings, very similar to that ideal of the Taoist sage. But beneath all the intricate plotting and philosophy, the elaborate and realistic characterisation conveys Alan Moore’s main vision as a compassionate author. There is a firm belief that every single human being has the power to control their own destiny and change the world with every form of action.
Twenty years later Watchmen is maybe even more relevant than it was in the Cold War period. We are now able to step back in some way and read the story from other perspectives. The current technological growth is almost frightening. Every so many months new and faster computer processors are available. Wars are started in the blink of an eye without international resolutions or political consensus. The world’s resources are depleted to fabricate consumer products and dreadful weapons which only a short while ago belonged to the realm of science fiction. The environment is under pressure from the growing human population. A quick glance at the newspapers and TV and it is clear that fear is still governing humanity and the global economy the world has become.
Everything is financially and geographically more connected than in previous centuries and yet the common threat of terrorism, crime, environmental issues and global pandemics are still not sufficient to deter humanity from waging wars. Therefore, Adrian Veidt’s vision of Utopia still rings naïve and does not take into the equation the simple element of human greed which is often stronger than that basic human fear which restrains violent urges . Greed is unfortunately a stronger and more prevailing driving force than the compassion for a larger community. Humanity is still preoccupied with the urge to own or control material objects, while there is still a general sense of hubris to search for those things beyond the immediate grasp. Because of the specific Cold War background, we are forced to look at the events in a certain political light, yet the book remains timeless as a complete experience of humanity’s sense of history and an appreciation for the miracles of life.
So at the heart of this incredibly dark narrative journey into the abyss, there is a sense of great compassion, a real concern from the author about the state of the world and how certain individuals take responsibility or power while the majority looks on.
Beneath it all, there is a moral conclusion: We simply cannot ignore actions of any kind in the present world we live in, because whether we view ourselves as a global society with a global economy or as human beings connected by each other in the spiritual space-time continuum of this universe, everything and everybody is connected.
Published in the 80s, with a story line starting in 1985 Watchmen remains a tremendously rich and polyvalent reading experience, with interpretations bifurcating into infinite possibilities, which is why the book continues to capture the imagination of millions of readers. Twenty years onwards, Watchmen has established itself as one of the greatest myths of the 20th century. In the end myths capture the essence of things beneath the surface and carry them forward to new generations. In an increasingly complex world filled with facts and statistics they are our only window to glimpse a part of that greater and purer sense of truth. Watchmen is in many respects an incredibly potent and lasting linguistic drug which still stirs the imagination of millions of readers.

Things does not mean only those things without sentience; it is said that man is a thing. The space between heaven and earth is the inn for the travelling back and forth of both men and things. In the end, there is no standing still for either men or things. The passing of time is like the unending passing of the traveller, and the gradual passing of spring, summer, fall and winter has not changed for a hundred generations. The body is like a dream. When we see this and awake, not a trace remains. How much time is left for the looking?
(Takuan Soho, 17th century Zen master)

Works Cited and Consulted

• The Bhagavad Gita. Translated from the Sanskrit by Juan Mascaró.Penguin Books Ltd. London. Copyright, Juan Mascaro, 1962.
• Capra, Fritjof. The Tao of Physics. Shambala Publications, Inc., 1975.
• Christensen, William A. and Mark Seifert. “The Unexplored Medium.” Wizard 27 (1993).
• Daalders, Martijn, ed. Stripjaar 1990. Amsterdam: Sherpa, 1990.
• Eisner, Will. Comics and Sequential Art. Tamarac: Poorhouse Press, 1985.
• Gonick, Larry. Neo-Babelonia: A Serious Study in Contemporary Confusion. Utrecht: Uitgeverij L.J.Veen B.V., 1989.
• Lefevre, Pascal & Jan Baetens. Strips Anders Lezen. Stichting Sherpa en het Belgisch Centrum van her Beeldverhaal (BCB), 1993.
• McCloud, Scott. Understanding Comics. Northampton: Kitchen Sink Press Inc., 1993.
• Miles, Barry. El Hombre Invisible: William Burroughs.Virgin Books. London, 1992.
• The Mindscape of Alan Moore. Dir. DeZ Vylenz. Shadowsnake Films, 2003, 2006
• Moore, Alan & Dave Gibbons. Watchmen. DC Comics Inc. New York, 1986.
• Moore, Alan. Voice of the Fire. Marietta: Top Shelf, 2003.
• Rimmon-Kenan, Shlomith. Narrative Fiction: Contemporary Poetics. London: Routledge, 1994.
• Sabin, Roger. Adult Comics: An Introduction. London: Routledge, 1993.
• Takuan Soho. The Unfettered Mind: Writings of the Zen master to the Sword Master. Translated by William Scott Wilson. Kodansha International Ltd. Tokyo, New York, London.
• Lao Winti. The Chronicles of a Mental Tidal Wave. Chapter IV, The Pavilion of the Forking Paths.
• Wiater, Stanley & Stephen R. Bissette. Comic Book Rebels: Conversations with the Creators of the New Comics. New York: Donald I. Fine Inc., 1993.
• Wales, Katie. A Dictionary of Stylistics. New York: Longman Group Limited, 1989.

LADRÖNN interview [2]

Interview by smoky man & Antonio Solinas. Conducted in May 2008.
Originally printed in Italy on Scuola di Fumetto magazine (N. 61, July 2008, Coniglio Editore).
Presented here in English for the first time.
Above: Cover for The Atom N. 25.

The Atom published by DC Comics.
LADRÖNN interview [1]

11. In a interview, talking about his style, John Romita Jr. said: “I still don’t believe I have a style as such. If anything, I call it a deadline style; whatever comes out on time, that’s me. You’re given a plot and told you have approximately three weeks to finish it or you don’t get paid. […] I’d be interested to see what my work would look like if I had plenty of time and plenty of money. I’d love to have the amount of time that some European artists seem to have, which is maybe a year, or year and half to do one piece of work. I suppose then it would have a very different look, and maybe I’d develop a style of my own. But then again, maybe it wouldn’t be as good, because I would be overthinking and overworking the pages. As it is, it’s rapid fire and immediate and it works out just fine.” [from Artists on Comic Art by Mark Salisbury, Titan Books] I am curious to know what your opinion about this. Also, what do you think of deadlines and was you ever conditioned by them?
Ladrönn: The deadline is definitely something you need to learn to deal with. Romita said something that is true, and that is the sad reality of the USA comics books industry. Romita - and many other artists - have the same problem: the big publishers like Marvel and DC Comics need to produce a lot of books and the artist must draw on a page-a-day basis. This is a very complicated task because the quality of the work is not always is the best at the end of the day. When I started to work at Marvel I saw the deadlines as a big issue… you feel that there is no time to work out the details. For that reason I prefer to stay on the side, not drawing comics books for the mainstream, not only because I don't want to compromise my style again but… my health.

12. When you work on a story do you prefer working on a full script or do you like more working with the Marvel approach of a simple plot to be developed by the penciler?
The best way is the full script, because you know what the characters are talking about, if they are happy or sad, otherwise you can't add feelings to the story. On the contrary if the penciler develops the plot I think it will work better, because he knows what is going on in the story, unfortunately the writer is the one who creates plots the most of the time and artist never know what the writer is thinking between the lines.

13. Any desire to write and draw your own created comics?
Absolutely, I like to write but you need time to create a great story so, maybe some day, when I have the time I will prepare something.

14. What does it mean for you - as a professional comics artist - “experimenting” with your Art?
I experiment with my art all the time. I like to improve my work everyday, there is always a way to do your artwork even better.

15. From your privileged point of observation, what’s your perception of USA comics market status? Is it too much super-heroes based – even if in this period we can see some diversity?
The comics are a mirror of the society in every country. In the USA the hero culture is very strong. They have a very particular vision of the world: sometimes for US people is difficult to see beyond their borders but I hope it changes some day and the horizons will open even more for the comic readers because there are wonderful books outside the United States domestic market. At the moment I think publishers like Image Comics, DC Comics and some others have been bringing great European and Asiatic works to the States. I also think that a line of comic books like Vertigo is very good and healthy for the USA readers.

16. On the other side, what about the French comics market?
I don't know very much about the business side of French market: this is the first time I have a book done specifically for the European mainstream… ask me the same question in ten years and I will let you know, but I know the quality of the French books, and how much care the French and other European publishers put in their products. As I said before my biggest artistic influences come not only from French but European graphic novels and now that I'm involved I can see how professional they are.

17. What’s your opinion about the “graphic novel” tendency?
I think the US comic book mainstream publishers need to take some time to think about the future of the industry, starting with a big filtering of their products, because there are many books and editions published every month with very bad quality. This happens because there is no time to do something better, it is a endless race without sense. I think the graphic novel is the best way to start producing less but better books because, if you start taking more care of your comics books then the readers will learn that they can be something which deserves a special place in their home library.

18. And about the strong connection of comics and Hollywood? Any pros and cons?
Comics and Hollywood: I think that formula is working pretty well in the USA now. Hollywood has discovered a new market, I only hope the movie industry opens more to characters from other cultures. I would love to see a live action movie of Ranxerox. The only big con I see here in the USA is the media censorship at any level: in the United States everybody is frightened of being sued by some stupid association or people.

19. Your dream project?
The Incal.

20. Which comics do you regularly read?
I don't read many books nowadays. I don't have much time to read but, I like European comics, I always buy the Spanish editions and I also like to read manga.

21. Let’s close with a big one. Comics: industry or art?
Both but I think the industry is leading the race.

LADRÖNN interview [1]

Interview by smoky man & Antonio Solinas. Conducted in May 2008.
Originally printed in Italy on Scuola di Fumetto magazine (N. 61, July 2008, Coniglio Editore).
Presented here in English for the first time.
Above: Cover for the Final Incal T. 1 deluxe edition.
Final Incal published by Les humanoïdes associés.

1. Let’s start talking about your last project. It’s recent news that you are currently at work on Last Incal, the sequel of the famous saga created by Alexandro Jodorowsky and Moebius, written by Jodorowsky himself. How did it happen? What can you reveal about the story in itself and about your collaboration with the great visionary writer? If I remember well you two already collaborated in the past on a short story printed on the last version of Metal Hurlant magazine.
Ladrönn: It is not easy to explain sometimes how things happen in life, I always say. I met Alexandro Jodorowsky three times: first when I used to read his books, the second time in 1997 at the San Diego Comic Con, but it was only in 2000, in the headquarters of the Humanoids Publishing, in Los Angeles California, that I was officially introduced to Alexandro in a more formal way by the Humanoids owner, Fabrice Giger. It was during that meeting that Alexandro thought that I could do a short story for the Metal Hurlant magazine. One month later I got a sadistic script written by Alexandro, "Tears of Gold". I think that was the work that allowed me to show Alexandro my artistic skills. After that short story was published, Alexandro talked with Moebius and they both agreed that I could be a good candidate to continue with the final part of the Incal saga. Then, some time later, Alexandro contacted me and in a few weeks I had the first script: this time the story was real and not a dream like in the Moebius' Incal. Now I only know the Final Incal book is done and John Difool is back again with a fantastic story. 2. Were you a bit intimidated by this work? I mean, it’s Jodorowsky, you have on you Moebius’ shadow, it’s one of the most acclaimed saga in comics…
You feel intimidated by the unknown but for me the Incal has been part of my life for many years. I was very young when I saw Incal Noir, that beautiful book that Jodorowsky and Moebius did many years ago. I can say that in that moment I thought for the first time that I should become a comic book artist. Many years later I started to work for USA mainstream publishers and after some years in the business I had the opportunity to meet some people from the Humanoids Publishing in Los Angeles. They invited me to do some covers for the USA edition of the Incal: I think those cover works were very important, because I was able to show Alexandro and the Humanoids my personal vision of the Incal.
3. Previously you focused you activity on making covers for DC (The Atom series), Marvel (The Incredible Hulk) and Image Comics (Elephantmen). What’s your approach in creating a cover? Do you usually read a preview of the story or any sequential art samples? What about your interaction with the editor?
I love to do covers. I usually ask for a small synopsis of the story so I can have an idea of what the story is about or I ask the editor to tell me a couple of ideas about what he think could be great. At the end of the day I start doing a couple of sketches, and after the design is approved I start drawing. All kinds of references are always welcome so I can have a neat idea of the characters. At the very beginning I prefer to work quite traditionally but I always end up doing the important retouches and adjustments by using the computer.
4. What does it mean for you to be a cover artist?
Being a cover artist is a great thing. Your art becomes the face of a book, and because it's always a single image you can do - if you want - not one but two or three covers every month. The best thing is that you don't get stressed as much as when you are painting a comic book page which is a really hard job.
5. Let’s take a step back. The first time I saw your art was on an Amalgam book starring Spiderboy, a funny mix of Marvel’s Spiderman and DC’s Superboy. It was 1997, wasn’t it? Long time ago… I was delighted by your style so fresh and at the same time an instant classic. It was your first work for the USA market, wasn’t it? In the same period, I also remember a short black and white story in Marvel’s Shadows and Light. At a first look your art revealed - especially in your past Cable’s run - a deep influence, maybe a legacy, from Jack Kirby. How much Kirby is in your style? Which is the most important lesson, the big secret, you learned from The King?
Spiderboy was definitely a very funny work, quite silly though. It was a strange mixture of the DC and the Marvel Universe, what a mess!... My very first work was a short story featuring "Blade", the vampire hunter for the "Marvel Shadows and Light" book. I remember very well: it was a book only with black and white art. I think that was very nice to me because I love comics in black and white only. My style has always been more European but when I started to work for Marvel I had to adapt it to something more commercial. It had to be in a language which could be easier to understand for US readers and I thought immediately about the books that I used to read when I was just a child: Kamandi, The Demon, Mister Miracle, The Fantastic Four, all works by Jack Kirby. When the time allowed me, I put a lot of details on my pages but a monthly book is an insane way of working. I think Jack Kirby is one of the greatest artists, not only because he drew a lot of comic books but because he fought with the big companies in order to get very important rights for USA artists; his legacy is extremely important. I think I have learned from him a lot of things: he was a master of the sequential art and the dynamics of the characters but there are many others things. One of the most important things I learned is the way he used to add such great energy to every page and how to place elements in order to achieve an efficient artistic composition.
6. Apart from Kirby, I see in your art a certain passion for details (such as in Geof Darrow’s works), a touch of manga and ligne claire (especially Moebius). What are your influences and artistic references, not only in comics medium?
My biggest influences are from the European artists, but I grew up reading books by Jack Kirby, John Romita… I also saw books by Will Eisner and Buscema… but my style always pointed to a more sophisticated direction. I think the works of Moebius, Druillet, Boucq, Bilal, Manara inspired me a lot. I love manga, artists like Otomo, Masamune Shirow and Naoki Urasawa are so brilliant. I also love movies. My favorite movie director is Ridley Scott and in recent times Guillermo Del Toro.
7. Your style then moved into painting more than just pencils. I think this approach started on the wonderful and powerful Inhumans miniseries and on a brief Thor story. Absolutely stunning with its Gimenez’s Metabarons and Bilal look! And this continues today even if I suppose now you are also using a bit of pc coloring programs such as Photoshop. Was this just a creative change that you wanted to go toward? Is this “painted Ladronn stuff” the “real” Ladronn?
I'm not an artist married to only one technique or media. It is the work, which always demands what kind of tools you need to use. When I was working on Cable, I was only using a pencil; for The Inhumans book I started to ink my pages but when you move to the color stage things change a lot because you always draw keeping in mind the way you are going to color it later. Sometimes you don't need to draw many things if you are going to paint those specific areas. My covers and my pages use all kind of media. I employ what I think will work better. I think you can see the real Ladrönn in all the Hip Flask books, but especially in the Final Incal.
8. What kind of tools or techniques do you use? What about your standard work day and your average daily page production? Do you work in a studio or at home?
I work at home, that is great for me because I have all my tools and books always with me. I think it helps me to feel comfortable. About my work: it is very difficult to say how long it takes to do this and that. It changes all the time. I have done two pages in a day but there are pages which take 4 or 5 days, the same thing happens when I paint a cover or a single page. I work with many traditional tools: my drawing tools are the same used by manga artists, the paper and all my pen line markers are Japanese. I prefer them for their quality. I love to paint with watercolors, acrylics and gouache but the deadlines are more and more tight every time so I work a lot with an Apple computer and a Cintiq tablet, that is the only way I can meet my deadlines.
9. I know you come from Mexico. When and where did you start your career in comics?
I started drawing comics books in the United States for Marvel. Before that I worked in a design agency in México City, in a newspaper and in a broadcast company doing all kind of promos and TV commercials for the station.
10. Did you attend any art school? Which was your artistic training?
I studied graphic and technical design but I learned to draw and paint by my own. Schools don't teach many things so you need to have some skills and a lot of patience to learn to do the things in the way you want.
LADRÖNN interview [2]

Article: Mike Carey on Watchmen

At the end of 2006 - in the occasion of its 20th anniversary - I edited an Italian Watchmen tribute book which was basically a collection of 12 brand new essays by well known comics experts analyzing Alan Moore & Dave Gibbons masterpiece. The volume was published by Lavieri, a small Italian publisher, with all net profits donated to AIMA, the Italian Alzheimer organization.

Popular comics writer and novelist Mike Carey wrote the afterword and now, for the first time, he gives his permission to show here the original English version. Enjoy! And thanks to Mr. Carey of course!

Meanwhile, Up on a Huge Hill
by Mike Carey

Sometime around the Easter of 1987, I was coming back down to London from Liverpool in a National Express coach, and I stopped into that comic shop just off Lime Street, a few doors up from the Legs of Man pub – you know the one, yeah? – to buy something to read for the journey. A lot of people had been talking to me about Watchmen, so that’s what I bought – the first six issues, all at once. It was, in some ways, an irrevocable step.

Two decades on, the central metaphors of Watchmen continue to ricochet around inside my head, hitting the other objects that are piled up in there and setting them off in turn in a sort of perpetual chain of Brownian motion. There’s no help for it: that’s what great art in any medium does. You just have to learn to live with the constant feeling of slight vertigo that it brings about, and not drive or operate heavy machinery while under the influence.

Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? Who will watch the watchmen? Well that’s what we all want to know right now, perhaps even more urgently in the age of Bush and Blair than in the days of Thatcher and Reagan. It’s a question that never goes out of fashion, more’s the bloody pity.

But I said metaphor, not allegory. Watchmen isn’t the sort of book that opens with a key, and turns out to have been talking about one particular thing all along, under the light disguises of fantasy. It resonates on every level, from the psychological to the mythic by way of the political. It has meanings but no morals. It refuses consolation both to the new frontiersman Rorschach and the utopian dreamer Ozymandias.

Perhaps that’s why it’s aged so well. It’s a trite truth that nothing dates faster than the topical, and nothing is more topical than the timeless. By cutting itself loose from any real world context, and yet at the same time tying itself so precisely to an era that could have/couldn’t have/could have happened, Watchmen has the best of both worlds: the acerbic accuracy of social commentary, and the endless, effortless now of fairy stories and myth cycles.

In trying to sort out my feelings about the book after all this time, I find Terry Gilliam’s response to it a useful index to my own. Gilliam loved Watchmen – famously calling it “the War and Peace of comic books” – and for many years fully intended to make a movie version of it. It’s listed in Bob McCabe’s “Dark Knights and Holy Fools” as one of the “great unmade”. But in retrospect, Gilliam has no regrets about not making the film: he ended up feeling that the process of translation would strip out most of what made the book so valuable, and leave you with “just straight comic book heroes again.”

In the same way, earnest commentary runs the risk of strip-mining the dense intra-textuality of Watchmen – the way it comments on and modifies and inverts and undercuts its own narrative – and taking out of it a single, narrative thread with a single paraphraseable meaning. I think, as academic endeavours go, that would be the sort of project that King Canute would endorse.

Sometimes you just have the good fortune to set up your tent in the right place. It can be a complete accident – choosing a theme or a setting that turns out to be right in ways you couldn’t anticipate – or it can be the result of long and meticulous planning. Watchmen, I think, is an example of both. Some of the most haunting and successful aspects of its rich tapestry, like the playing on Einstein’s famous “watchmaker” quote and the agonising ironies of having a well-meaning psychiatrist trying to read meaning into Rorschach, were clearly always part of Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons’s many-dimensional game plan. Others, like the blood-stained smiley badge which became so resonant an icon, happened along the way and were incorporated and added their own unexpected richnesses to the whole.

And history, in its different way, does the same thing – adds layers of meaning to the text, and changes the way you respond to it. I don’t want to draw a comparison between Adrian Veidt’s grand design and the events of 9/11: there are good reasons for not going there. But I can’t help, now, when I’m re-reading the book, comparing the real and the fictional disasters, and measuring Veidt’s ambitions and his qualified success by the standards of a world which now has some vivid, recent examples of the public and official responses to immeasurable tragedy.

As we go through life, we look for guides and interpreters to help us turn its noise into signals – not because we believe that life has to make sense but because we can only bear so much ambiguity and pointlessness before we get sick. If you’re smart, you’ll avoid the snake-oil salesmen who’ll offer to explain the whole thing for you, sell you a map or give you precise directions. Trust the guys who look puzzled and worried themselves, and who don’t pretend to have all the answers: just some different routes through the questions that you can take for yourself and chew over at your leisure afterwards.

With Watchmen the more you keep coming back, the more those routes keep opening up and taking you away from the conclusions you expected to reach. As Donne said,

“On a huge hill,
Cragged and steep, Truth stands, and he that will
Reach her, about must and about must go.”

Yeah. I couldn’t have put it better myself. But Moore and Gibbons could, and did.

Mike Carey
April 2006

[this article is copyright Mike Carey. All rights reserved. Published here with the author's permission.]

Read the book introduction by legendary writer Michael Moorcock here.