BRYAN TALBOT: I've always read comics, and used to make 'em for my own amusement when I was a kid, though it never occurred to me that I could make a living at it.
After finishing college, I was unemployed. Fortunately I'd met Lee Harris, a London headshop owner who'd offered to publish me, so I produced my first underground comic, BRAINSTORM for him. We were big fans of the american undergrounds of the time. We did 6 issues altogether and I worked in
British U/Gs for about 5 years.
THE PODIUM: What kind of formal training did you have that prepared you for this?
BRYAN TALBOT: I actually trained as a graphic designer. Had I known I was going to end up as a comic artist, I would have taken an illustration course.
THE PODIUM: Was there any particular comic or writer inspire you to get into this business?
BRYAN TALBOT: Jack Kirby was a great inspiration for me. Also the experimental Kirby-influenced artists, Steranko and Barry Smith. I also loved Robert Crumb's work and underground comics in general - they made me want to produce my own.
THE PODIUM: Probably the first work those of us in the States saw of yours was LUTHER ARKRIGHT. How did that book come about? And, for anyone who might have come in late, what is the book about? Where did you get the concept from?
BRYAN TALBOT: You'll be talking about the Dark Horse 9-issue series. That was actually the 3rd or 4th edition, but the first one in America.
I began THE ADVENTURES OF LUTHER ARKWRIGHT for the Britsh "Ground level" SF anthology comic, NEAR MYTHS in 1978. Two years earlier, I'd done a short Arkwright strip fo BRAINSTORM that was very much influenced by Michael Moorcock's JERRY CORNELIUS stories. With the new story, Arkwright became his own character instead of a hommage to Moorcock's.
The book, which, along with WHEN THE WIND BLOWS, became the first British graphic novel, is a story of parallel worlds and the man who becomes the saviour of the multiverse. Arkwright, a powerful psychic, a genetic warrior, is pitted against the shadowy Disruptors - agents or a hidden power that have been manipulating history since the dawn of time. I wanted to write an intelligent adventure story for adults - basically, something that I'd like to read myself - that was as rich as a text novel and involved themes and areas that adults are interested in that were missing from the comics of the time, such as philosophy, politics, mysticism, erotica and history. It was also very experimental for the time. I alternated "present time" and flashback scene and used a Nic Roeg influenced jump-cut tecnique with one-panel flashbacks and flashforwards woven into the narrative to make it non-linear. An assassination sequence spread six seconds over seventytwo panels. A long sequence inside Arkwright's head during his torture and death was all told in metapanels of collaged imagery on solid black. Stuff like that.
THE PODIUM: Where do you find you get most of your story ideas from?
BRYAN TALBOT: Everywhere. The idea for the story arc I wrote for THE DREAMING, "WEIRD ROMANCE", came from me looking at a display of commercial wedding photographs I happened to see while I was shopping. THE TALE OF ONE BAD RAT evolved gradually from a notion to do a comic set in the English Lake District.
THE PODIUM: What do you read in your spare time? What comics are you into?
BRYAN TALBOT: I don't get as much time to read as would like and seem to do most of it on trains and planes. I enjoy a good novel by...oh, Iain Banks, Ramsey Campbell, Peter Acroyd for example. Also non-fiction; I'm reading THE MYTHOLOGY OF THE BRITISH ISLES at the moment, which compares myth to history. I also like to read french language books to practise my French.
I don't read a great deal of comics, but I enjoy European albums. Moebius, Bilal, Vittorio Giardino, Francoise Bourgeon, Schuiten etc. Anything by Crumb. Frank Miller, Neil Gaiman. Jamie Delano's pretty good too. I'm sad FROM HELL has finished and was enjoying LOST GIRLS before it stopped. I'd like to work with Alan again. The only manga I read is the brilliant GON, GUNSMITH CATS and LEGEND OF MOTHER SARAH. CONCRETE is good, also PREACHER, INVISIBLES etc.
THE PODIUM: THE NAZZ was your first recognized work, I believe, for a major US comic company. What's the story about and how did the deal with DC come about?
BRYAN TALBOT: I believe Tom Veitch had already sold it to DC when he asked me to draw it. It was about what would happen if there WAS a real superhero. In this case if power corrupts, then super-power corrupts superlatively. I still think Tom's story was one of the best post-WATCHMEN superhero stories, without stealing anything from Alan Moore's.
Before NAZZ though, I'd done the HELLBLAZER SPECIAL, "THE BLOODY SAINT" with Jamie. That was my first DC work.
THE PODIUM: Probably one of your more critcally acclaimed works was TALE OF ONE BAD RAT. What is it about? What prompted you to create that story?
BRYAN TALBOT: The themes of the story are rats and the British children's story writer and artist Beatrix Potter who died in 1943. The story is about the psychological after-effects of child sexual abuse.
An abused girl, Helen Potter, who is obsessed by the work of Beatrix Potter, runs away from her disfunctional family. At first she lives rough on the streets of London before following Beatrix's footsteps to the Lake District where her link to her heroine and the land itself aid her in coming to terms with herself. That sounds a bit dull, but it's not! I tried to write a simple story, simply told, that had real depth, but was mainly a cracking good read, which I'm told it is.
I never intended to write a story dealing with child abuse. When I was originally plotting it, I introduced her abuse as a reason for Helen leaving home. After thoroughly researching the subject and talking to some abuse survivors, I realised that this was a far too important subject to marginalize and that it had to be completely central to the story.
THE PODIUM: What is your average work day like? How long, on average, does it take you to write an issue?
BRYAN TALBOT: This varies considerably, depending on what else is happening. For example, because I live right in the centre of Preston, I often get friends dropping in for a chat and a coffee because they happen to be in town. This is a real pain in the ass as it stops me working! I usually get up around 9.30 -11.00 am, do some email, have lunch, and start work about 1.00 - 2.00pm. Every second or third day I go to the gym for a couple of hours before working. I then work till 9.00 or 10.00 pm on average and have dinner, though, if I feel like it, I can carry on till 2.00 or 3.00 pm. I enjoy eating out 2 or 3 times a week, but I'm a pretty good cook! I do this routine seven days a week.
An issue can also vary - depending on whether i'm just writing it, pencilling or pencilling and inking. It also matters whether I consider it commercial or personal work. Two extremes are the pencils I did on TEKNOPHAGE or SANDMAN, with one issue's pencil taking two or three weeks, and HEART OF EMPIRE that, when taking into account research, writing, pencilling, inking, full colour guides for Angus McKie, the colourist, guides for the letterer Ellie de Ville and god knows what else, probably takes three or four months for each issue! Another complication here is that, because the book is structured as a novel, all the chapters of HEART OF EMPIRE are different lengths, varying between 25 and 41 pages.
THE PODIUM: How do you go, specifically, about creating an issue? The steps involved. Plot, script, pencils, etc.
BRYAN TALBOT: I usually spend a great deal of time on the plot structure. I design this on large sheets of paper taped together, so I can get a good overview. It has to be unshakable. it's also the fun part, making up a really good story and playing around with alternative ways of telling it. I love going forwards and backwards through the plot stucture, adding and subtracting things, foreshadowing events, tieing up all the story threads, cutting off all the fat and making it tight as a drum. I'm especially pleased with the plot of HEART OF EMPIRE - it's a little like a switchback ride, with the tense, slow climb at the beginning, dropping into hell and getting faster and faster as we approach the climax.
The scripts are pretty basic, and really are just so the editor, Randy Stradley, can OK them before I go off to draw it. When I'm writing for other people though, I'm of the Neil Gaiman or Alan Moore school - I describe everything and they're twice as long. I then go through to implement any improvements, to polish evrything up when I do the final lettering draft.
I wrote the whole HEART OF EMPIRE script (in nine chapters) over four months. Then I sat down and pencilled it all (all 284 pages), and am currently inking the whole lot. I prefer working like this - it gives me plenty time to spot mistakes before they're carved in stone. This means some of the pages I'm inking involve re-pencilling first to correct things that have been bugging me.
THE PODIUM: What do you enjoy more: writing or illustrating? Or do both sort of hinge on one another?
BRYAN TALBOT: I think the creation's the fun part - especially before the typing stage when you are in the realm of ideas and atmospheres, when anything's possible and sometimes you really surprise yourself with what you come up with. After that, it all hard work!
THE PODIUM: Did you find it difficult breaking into the business of comics?
BRYAN TALBOT: While working in underground comics, I was asked more and more to do commercial jobs, so it happened gradually but it still took five years to break in.
THE PODIUM: What was you first comic work published?
BRYAN TALBOT: An apallingly rude and silly strip called SUPERHARRIS for the weekly newspaper published by the journalist students at the Harris College where I was studying grahic design. It was shocking. I co-wrote and co-drew it with a fellow student and friend Alecks Waszynko, or "BONK" to use his pen name. He later did some work for BRAINSTORM and other undergrounds.
THE PODIUM: How long do you think it will be before a polictican stands up and declares "Guns don't kill people...comics do?"
BRYAN TALBOT: Why, are they likely to do that? I would have thought it would have been more likely in the days of Frederick Wertham.
THE PODIUM: Doing shows? How do you like that? Has your work been well received?
Seems to have been. I know a lot of pros are very blase about cons, but I really like them - I enjoy meeting people and have lots of friends in the business. I especially enjoy foreign comic festivals, going to exotic places, enjoying the different food, wine, culture and people. I've just come back from Brazil where I taught a week-long comics course as part of the winter festival of Ouro Preto - the beautiful former capital of the country. I think I left my heart there. I love the comic festivals of Angouleme in France and Lucca in Italy. Wonderful places. Next week I'm at the San Diego con. Sometimes at these things I get a definite sense of being part of an international community of comic creators, which is a great feeling when, for 90% of the time, I'm on my own in my studio at a drawing board all day.
THE PODIUM: If you were stuck on a desert island, with plenty of food and water, what two things would you need to survive and why?
BRYAN TALBOT: French red wine. Sun-block cream.
THE PODIUM: In a similar vein: somehow you manage to have a VCR and electric power on this island. What movies do you have to have with you to keep your sanity?
BRYAN TALBOT: THE CITY OF LOST CHILDREN, ARSENIC AND OLD LACE, APOCALYPSE NOW, all Nic Roeg's "good period" movies from PERFORMANCE to BAD TIMING, THE GOOD, THE BAD AND THE UGLY, Alister Sim's SCROOGE, all the classic Marx Brothers films, BLADERUNNER, THE BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN, EXCALIBER, THE GODFATHER, ALIEN, THE EXORCIST, THE LIFE OF BRIAN, THE MEANING OF LIFE, MANHATTAN, CLOCKWORK ORANGE...Oh, lots of them, I could go on forever.
THE PODIUM: Based on the changes which have occured in recent years, how do you feel about the comics industry in general?
BRYAN TALBOT: It's sad and ironic that the industry is in the doldrums sales-wise at a time when there's such a richness and diversity of material for sale.
THE PODIUM: Do you see a continued rise in self-publishing and a decrease in the mainstream? Or has the self publishing boom died out?
BRYAN TALBOT: Don't know. There's some brilliant self-published comics around, BONE, KANE, STRANGERS IN PARADISE, STRAY BULLETS etc but most of the others seem like vanity press. Don't know which way they'll go...
THE PODIUM: In regards to your life and your craft, where do you see yourself 10 years from now?
BRYAN TALBOT: No idea. Ideally just writing and drawing my own work (as I'm mainly doing now).
THE PODIUM: What do your friends and family think of you "making a living" in comics? And how supportive have they been?
BRYAN TALBOT: Reaction is mixed, but very supportive on the whole.
THE PODIUM: What words of advice would you give to someone who wants to make a living out of this business?
BRYAN TALBOT: Practise, practice, practice to improve. And cultivate divine endurance. Persistance pays off.
THE PODIUM: Any last words of wisdom...or anything I might have left out?
BRYAN TALBOT: Who am I, Solomon already?