Mj And Peter Comics

[Luisa Rodocker]

WellI think the high concept is a very Peter Milligan story, because quite a lot of my work has been about identity. And I think the story of Pilgrim was completely about identity. Even the name "Pilgrim" suggests someone who is on a road to some kind of discovery - either a religious kind of discovery or a self-discovery. So I think that was the deal with that. In its big ideas the story was very much me. But I think some of the ways in which the ideas were realized were perhaps changed and perhaps normalized a bit. They took out some of the slightly more idiosyncratic touches of the original screenplay.

Well, not Mike Marts [editor-in-chief for AfterShock at the time of the interview], because he was at DC. I think I may have done a Batman story with Mike, but I certainly knew him at DC, so we had a kind of relationship.

You mentioned the irritating tendency to see comics as a feeder club for the supposedly bigger league of movies and television. In your experience, is this something comics creators are pushing for themselves, or is there pressure from publishers to regard any potential comics projects in that light?

But you did collaborate with Leonardo Manco and John Paul Leon and Kelley Jones on your early Marvel projects - all artists who could have worked, and later did work, for Vertigo. So how--

Well, I wanted to bring that kind of British-- not Elephant Man, but that dark side of the Victorian world, and also the whole idea of the Enlightenment was going on. Stuff about burials, and dead bodies, body-snatchers, you know. So you try to bring this other stuff to these characters. And also, I think I was exploring the American idea of Manifest Destiny, because it was interesting to me at the time.

You told Nick Hasted in 1997 that you had a destructive side, that there was a need for you to go and do something self-destructive at times, and you felt like chaos was always just around the corner.

Milligan took over Detective Comics with issue #629 and from there would put out eight more issues including two issues of Batman in a short crossover story. Most of the stories were one or two-part tales that saw the Dark Knight face off against new and bizarre enemies. Ignoring the usual rouges gallery the writer had the Caped Crusader face off against threats such as a human bomb and a homicidal librarian. The stories had a nice mix of darkness and humor that made for a unique take.

Peter Milligan was one of several UK based writers that came to DC in the late 80s as part of the British Invasion of comics. These creators had a huge impact on DC at the time and Batman, in particular, seemed to benefit. Alan Moore and Grant Morrison both had classics with The Killing Joke and Arkham Asylum respectfully, while Alan Grant and American artist Norm Breyfogle produced a fan-favorite run on Detective Comics. As Grant and Breyfogle were set to move to the main book it probably made sense for another Brit to take over the title.

Before coming over to Detective, Milligan had already proven his ability to write the character with the three-part Dark Knight, Dark City over in the pages of Batman. Often regarded as one of the best stories of the 90s, the tale was a nice mix of crime and horror that explored the dark roots of Gotham and its connection to the Dark Knight. Milligan would bring a lot of what worked in that story over to his run on Detective and for the most part it worked.

As weird as these stories can get, two things help keep them from getting too out there. One is that the stories themselves are short and often done in one or two issues. Another is the fact that the main artist for most of the run was Jim Aparo. Aparo is easily one of the most prolific creators ever to work on the Caped Crusader and his style invokes the standard, but classic version of Batman. These elements help retain the action-oriented formula that Batman stories should have, while also allowing the writer to explore other ideas within it.

While attending this past Big Apple Comiccon I had a lengthy chat with Peter David (super nice guy). Among other things, we chatted about his past relationship with Todd, which he covered in a very respectful manner

It's strange but the last time I talked with Peter, I laughingly told him he had become the dickster he always warned people of becoming. I was talking to him about something and a little kid came along and asked him a rather silly question. He was in the middle of a convoluted answer when someone walked by. Mr David stopped his answer to call the guy over and started a private conversation. Several minutes went by and the kid started to feel more and more ignored. Finally he walked away without a word. I did too, but made it a point to come back later and tell him how hurt the kid looked. He gave me a look like he had no idea what I was talking about.

I have been disappointed to note these types of interactions myself. One of the rare times I wondered why someone came to a show as a guest if they were going to act in such a manner towards their fans. I think PD has written some great works (I enjoyed the Hulk novel with The Maestro and Hulk's son very much) but not nearly as great as he apparently believes himself to be.

Wow that is totally not what I took from conversing with him. In fact while we were chatting it up, Jim (Salicrup) stopped by with a sandwich he got him and peter kept on talking to me about his take on the whole Mcafarlane fiasco for at least another 15 min

He came across as a super chatty and charming fella. At times I was a bit confused bcs he kept on bringing up topics I wasn't aware of (the famous $3 mil baseball Todd purchased back in the day) and other things. All in all I ended up learning a lot and plan on seeing him again at 4th World (in Long Island)

He always was a nice guy, which made his behavior the last time unusual. Lots of people I know at shows I think are dicksters but wouldn't say anything to. As I said, I hope its not our last conversation.

David is more prepared, a better 'arguer', but uses multi logical fallacies- ad hominums, red herrings, incredulity=truth, emotional/loaded words. For me, he comes off as unsympathetic and time ultimately made his arguments moot... insomuchas the question is What happens when you give young comic creators a check for $300,000 (and they are still deciding what they want to be when they grow up)?

I've met him twice. He was kind of a both times. I tried a second time because I thought maybe I'd just run into him on a bad day the first time. Everyone has a bad day, we're all just people, etc. But twice was enough for me.

That's sad, because he was quite a talented writer. But he has made some incredibly bad decisions, and utterly refused to take any responsibility for doing so. Taking responsibility for your actions is a hallmark of being an adult...and that is not what Peter David is. I immensely enjoyed his work from the 80's and 90's, so much so that I sought out anything and everything he wrote. But he has became the very personification of the spoiled, greedy, selfish villains he used to write.

The following excerpt is from an interview with an ill-mannered journalist who invited me to coffee on the pretense of asking me a few questions about my comics. I present them to you, reader, not because I presume that you wish to know the sordid details of my life or the gruesome mechanics behind the gleaming faн_ade of a finished comic, but because I would like to show you how admirably I acquitted myself in the face of this man's boorish interrogation. May my rectitude serve as an example to the denizens of this World Wide Web.

PM: I came to cartooning after a boyhood at sea. At the tender age of eleven, while visiting San Francisco for the National Youth Spelling Bee, I was shanghaied by a buxom chaperone with a chloroform-laced kerchief. I awoke hours later aboard a packet on the Pacific with the business end of harpoon poking at my boot heel. My whaling apprenticeship had begun. But, as I realized years later, after I had been thoroughly brined with ocean water, caked with spermaceti, and perfumed with ambergris, my schooling in cartooning had also just commenced. In those empty hours after a catch, after the decks had been swabbed, the baleen stacked, and the blubber casked, I would nestle down in my coil of ropes with a rusty knife nicked from the galley and scratch the content of my mind's eye into the ivory tooth of whale.

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