Meeting Mike Carey...

[fajrdrako]

Mike Carey was speaking at the Ottawa Writers Festival today. My thanks to auriaephiala for letting me know; she wasn't familiar with his work, but she knew I would be. He's a comic book writer whose work I have enjoyed - particularly on Hellblazer, Lucifer, and X-Men.

I am so glad I went. The venue was delightful: Saint Brigid's Centre for the Arts and Humanities - an old church, nicely refurbished, in a hall with old grey stone walls. The interviewer asked intelligent questions and was clearly very familiar with Carey's work. And Carey spoke well on various aspects of his own career and the process of writing for comics.

I hadn't known, but he has a series of prose novels out as well, starting with The Devil You Know - urban fantasy. I bought one on faith and got it autographed.

Highlights:

1. The first comic book script Carey examined to learn the craft was by Alan Moore. (There's nothing like learning from the greats.) But as it happens, Alan Moore writers comic books scripts as long as novels: unusual, possibly unique, in the field. Carey said that the first panel of The Watchmen, the tight view of the smiley pin with the drop of blood on it, took 1500 words to describe in the script. This is not necessarily a good thing. Carey has learned to get his scripts down to a reasonable length, but he doesn't work Marvel style; that means giving up too much control. He likes being able to plan the pacing and panels in advance. His scripts are now under 7,000 words. He said that Brian Michael Bendis writes scripts of 2,000 words - spare, but with everything that is necessary.
   
   
2. Each artist he has worked with has individual strengths, and after a while he learns to write to their talents. He explained that comics are have two narrative lines, not just one; the words and the pictures. Often they dovetail, but don't necessarily, depending on the effect the writer wants to create. Comics are unusual in the way they handle time, in a way he described as "four dimensional". The last panel on a page is always important to him, the pause as the reader turns the page.
   
   
3. He explained Alan Moore's antipathy to movies, and the reasons he doesn't want to be associated with the movies based on his works; that the medium is so different. Movies "come at you" while comics immmerse the reader in them.
   
   
4. He talked about the experience of writing shared world, like the Marvel Mutant Universe, or the world of The Sandman and Lucifer When he first wrote X-Men, there were forty years of continuity, and he picked the characters he felt were most dysfunctional together - characters like Sabretooth, Mutant X, and Mystique. He said that there are so many X-Men comics and creators that you can have different "flavours" of the X-Men depending on who you write and how you write them. Once he was an X-Men completist, or tried to be; and then discovered how many X-Men series, or miniseries, or graphic novels he had never heard of. He cited the dictum that if you take any two characters in the X-Men universe, they have probably killed each other at one point, and/or have been lovers.
   
   
5. He described the adventure of working at Marvel at a period of upheaval - just as the House of M storyling was changing the situation. He talked about the process of writing Professor X, centering his storyline on him to explore Professor X's role in the mutant world by having him re-encounter characters he had known after his memory was reassembled by Exodus. ("All in a day in the X-Men universe.") He described, as quickly and simply as possible, the things that make X-Men unique in superhero comics (that they are born with their powers), and changes in the Marvel Mutant universe at that period.
   
   
6. He talked about his Felix Castor novels, a series of six novels (four of them out already) about an exorcist, in which there are many ghosts who can possess the living. If they possess humans, they are zombies or vampires; if animals, they become werewolves. He said that he had loosely modelled Castor's background on his own, and the writing grew into a cathartic exercise. He had mot wanted to write a hero who was just another John Constantine.
   
   
7. He said the process of writing a novel was more personal than writing comics, because with comics you are always collaborating with editors, artists, inkers, colorists, and so on.
   
   
8. He talked about how he came to write the Lucifer comic, based on Neil Gaiman's character. He referred to "Season of Mists" as Neil Gaiman's masterpiece, the greatest of the Sandman stories - and I agree. When he was asked to write his first Lucifer story, it was to fill in on a writer who'd bailed - he had 3 days to pitch his story. He went without sleep, and had the script done in ten days. (His premise: "Let's pretend Lucifer is James Bond." I'm not sure it came across quite that way!)
   
   
9. He said that he originally had considerable trouble persuading DC to feature Lucifer in a comic because the editors said he was "too powerful" - which seems like an ironic response from the company that sells Superman. Carey's contention is that Lucifer is a catalyst for the stories of others. The plot was very tightly ("obsessively") plotted for the first two years when he started out. It never occurred to him that it might be cancelled, though on at least two occasions, that almost happened.
   
   
10. He particularly enjoyed writing about a fallen Cheruyb ("who became a little gremlin with a foul mouth") and the Centaur whom Peter Gross drew so well.
    
    
11. He talked about his good working relationship with Peter Gross, whom he has been working with off and on for twelve years now. He said that the artist needs to know what is important in each scene or panel to know what to include - a telephone that will ring later, or the necessary atmosphere - then they should be left to do it their own way.
    
    
    
    
12. He said that he writes until he finds the 'voice' of his character - and it always comes. Gaiman's Lucifer had a different voice from his - he described his as a 'an arrogant son of a bitch, he's superior to you and lets you know it'.
    
    
13. He talked about the difficulty of marketing comics, when Diamond Distributors became the only distributors, and only sold to comics shops. He said that the comics companies have learned their mistake and comics are now beginning to appear in other venues like bookstores and supermarkets, but that there is a 'lost generation' of people who were not exposed to comics.
    
    
14. A gentleman in the audience asked about getting into the writing business, which Carey briefly described, including the advice that the comics companies have submission guidelines and sample scripts online. He talked about good resources and advice on Warren Ellis' webpage Whitechapel.
    
    
15. I asked whether there was a work he had found particularly satisfying to write. He said there was: Confessions of a Blabbermouth, which he co-wrote with his fifteen year old daughter Louise. He talked about his wife, also a writer, A.J. Lake. He said that they often discuss story ideas and problems, and read bits to each other.
    
    
16. Mike Carey has a new project coming out next week: The Unwritten. He described its theme: it sounded fascinating, I thought. It's the story of a man whose father featured him as the protagonist of novels, and he has made a sort of career on the fame of his father's books - until it is discovered that he has no past. Is he a fictional character come to life? The story is about why stories are so important to us.
    
    
17. When I asked Mike Carey to autograph a comic and one of his novels for me, he recognized my name - "Why does it sound familiar?" he asked, and I explained that I'd been a letterhack in Marvel comics (especially X-Men) for a long time. We talked about writing, and I said (rashly) that I wrote, and he asked about what I'd written - rather embarrassing, when I have published so little. As so often, I resolved to do something about that.
    
    
    

Comments

Off Topic

[duncanmac.livejournal.com]

The invitation to the "Ottawa Spring House-filk" is now up in the 'ottawa_sf' community (http://community.livejournal.com/ottawa_sf/19175.html). I hope you will be coming.

Re: Off Topic

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

I don't know if I can come - we'll see.

[dewline.livejournal.com]

You were there too? I saw bunsen_h at the LeGuin Q&A and another mutual acquaintance as well...

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

I was there too. Scribbling notes. I didn't get to go to the LeGuin talk - it was sort of heartbreaking that it was scheduled at the same time as the concert I had tickets for. I hope someone will post an account of what she said.