BETTER, BETTER, BETTER, BETTER
12:49 PM PDT, September 8, 2009, updated at 11:24 AM PDT, September 10, 2009
With The Beatles: Rock Band and the much-hyped stereo/mono remasters coming out this week, the Beatles are getting more press than they have since 1964. I haven’t heard the remasters yet, so I can’t comment on them, but I thought this would be a good opportunity (perhaps excuse is a better word) to indulge my Beatle-obsession and run down my list of top twenty Beatles tracks. Yes, everybody else at every newspaper, magazine, website and blog on the planet is doing something similar, but, hey, it’s the Beatles.
A word of warning: these are my top twenty selections today. The Beatles treasure chest is so deep, and filled with so many musical jewels, that I could probably compile another list, with twenty different songs, tomorrow. 20. “Please Please Me” Their first number one single. As fresh, as exciting, as filled with humor and energy, as anything that followed. Right out of the gate John Lennon proved he had one of the greatest voices in rock and roll. And he kept getting better. 19. “Don’t Let Me Down” As honest, and emotionally naked, a song as the Beatles ever recorded. No surprise that the wounded, desperate voice at the center of the song is Lennon’s. “Don’t Let Me Down” provides the blueprint for much of John’s solo career: autobiography, straight from the heart. 18. “Help” A cheery, irresistible pop song about alienation and despair. Only Lennon could pull it off. 17. “If I Fell” According to myth, John was the acerbic rocker and Paul was the melodic, tender-hearted balladeer. In reality, McCartney was one of rock’s great screamers and Lennon’s hard shell masked an incredibly soft center. Here John offers up one of his most beautiful, and honest, love songs—with Paul'’s harmony offering perfect support. 16. “We Can Work It Out” I still remember hearing this come over the radio in 1965. It didn’t sound like any other Beatles song I’d ever heard—especially the middle section, with that funereal harmonium pumping away and Lennon and McCartney—sounding more desperate and anxious than two rich, happy rock stars should—telling us all that life was very short and there was no time for fussing and fighting. The Beatles were clearly changing and that fact was as thrilling as it was disturbing. 15. “Tomorrow Never Knows” Psychedelia went into labor with “Rain,” but it was born with this extraordinary track: Lennon channeling Timothy Leary channeling The Tibetan Book of the Dead. “Lay down all thought, surrender to the void...it is shining, it is shining...” Still great advice, if you ask me. 14. “A Hard Day’s Night” The essence of Beatlemania—all the joy and wit, euphoria and lunacy—boiled down to two minutes and thirty-three seconds. Once again Lennon and McCartney are in perfect balance—you could write an entire book about the blending of those two incredible voices—and George Harrison offers up a glorious opening chord that musicologists are still dissecting. 13. “All You Need Is Love” There are some who dismiss this song as so much hippie claptrap. Me, I’m of the opinion that it’s one of the wisest, truest songs ever written. The message is so clear a three year old could understand it, but listen to the lyrics and they open up a whole universe of meaning. Not a hint of claptrap to be found. 12. “Here, There and Everywhere” As perfect a love song as has ever been written. If McCartney had retired immediately after recording this, his place in the songwriter’s hall of fame would still be secure. 11. “Happiness Is A Warm Gun” John Lennon saw this strange, tortuous collision of imagery, angst and varying musical styles as a mini-history of rock and roll—and it certainly is that. It’s also one of the oddest, most disturbing and exhilarating songs in the Beatles catalogue. A journey down the rabbit hole that was the Mind of Lennon, “Happiness Is A Warm Gun” is, even after forty years, a continual revelation. 10. “Let It Be” (single version) McCartney at his most soulful and introspective. The album version, produced by Phil Spector, is a bad mix, with the drums clomping all over the place, the lead guitar noisily intruding and poor Paul stranded in the middle. The single version, produced by the impeccable and brilliant George Martin, is in perfect balance. 9. “Blackbird” A gorgeous melody, a flawless lyric, and a performance as honest as any McCartney—who sometimes hides his art behind artifice—has ever given. This is the song “Yesterday” wishes it could be. 8. “In My Life” For years McCartney claimed that Lennon wrote all the lyrics while he supplied the melody. Then Paul changed his story, claiming that he actually co-wrote the lyrics with Lennon. Lennon insisted that he wrote all the lyrics and most of the music, with Paul helping out with the melody. I tend to believe Lennon, who spoke about this song with great passion, and in great detail, during his last interviews; but, however “In My Life” was composed, this Rubber Soul track remains one of the Beatles’ greatest achievements. It’s not surprising that a Mojo magazine panel of professional songwriters selected it as the greatest pop song of the twentieth century. 7. “Across The Universe” (Let It Be...Naked version) One of the (many) wonderful thing about the Beatles is the fact that their songs evolve in the listening, the tracks continually revealing new layers and levels, and, because of that, “Across The Universe”—a cosmic cry from John Lennon’s heart—grows closer to my heart every year. There have been several different versions released, but the version on the otherwise unnecessary Let It Be...Naked brings out all the song’s magic and transcendence. No wonder NASA beamed it into space. 6. “I Am The Walrus” A surreal, psychedelic masterpiece—with a fierce Lennon vocal (there’s some raw anger beneath the druggy haze) and insanely brilliant George Martin orchestration that perfectly matches John’s equally insane, and equally brilliant, lyrics. 5. “Golden Slumbers/Carry That Weight/The End” Paul McCartney at the peak of his powers, leading his band-mates through a memorable finale that manages to wrap up not just one of the Beatles finest albums—Abbey Road—but their entire astonishing career. 4. “Here Comes The Sun” Optimism, cosmic consciousness, shimmering guitars and gorgeous harmonies entwine in George Harrison’s greatest Beatles-era composition: the best Lennon-McCartney song that John and Paul never wrote. 3. “Strawberry Fields Forever” The first song recorded during the Sgt. Pepper sessions, this is Lennon at his most dreamy and introspective and the Beatles at their most brilliantly experimental. “Strawberry Fields” was yanked from Pepper—along with the wonderful “Penny Lane”—to be the Beatles first single of 1967. Had both those songs been included on Pepper, the album might have lived up to its hype. 2. “A Day In The Life” Lennon’s vocal is one of the most magnificent in the history of popular music—so cold, it’s hot; so emotionally removed that it becomes extraordinarily intimate—and the collision of John’s cosmic alienation with Paul’s down-to-earth everyman persona detonates an ending that Lennon, accurately, described to producer George Martin as “a tremendous build-up from nothing up to something absolutely like the end of the world.” Yes, Sgt. Pepper is brilliant, a work of genius and blahblahblah—but it’s also the most over-rated album in the Beatles catalogue. (For my money, Rubber Soul, A Hard Day’s Night, Abbey Road and The White Album are all superior efforts.) “A Day In The Life” is the place where 60’s mythology and musical reality meet. 1. “Hey Jude” Is this the Beatles’ best song? Who knows? Is it my favorite? Absolutely. When I was a teenager, lost in adolescent angst and misery, I’d sit for hours feeding my dour mood, listening to the most depressing music in my collection. Then, when I was ready to get over myself, I’d put on “Hey Jude” and, instantly, hope was back. The song is honest, heartfelt and, by the end, downright majestic. A brilliant, moving—and utterly unpretentious—work of art. © copyright 2009 J.M. DeMatteis THE MARK OF KANE
12:15 PM PDT, August 10, 2009
I can't believe it's been three months since my last posting. Well, okay, I can believe it: I've been up to my neck in work, doing final revisions on my novel, finishing up The Life and Times of Savior 28, working on that Top Secret Project With Keith Giffen That I Still Can't Talk About (among other things)...and, basically, having no time for blogging. The truth is I still don't have the time.
I should be through the bulk of this work in another few weeks, when I hope to return to some semblance of regular posting (which, for me, seems to mean once a month, at best); but, until then, I thought I'd share this piece I wrote for a recent Dark Horse Conan collection. A tribute to one of the greatest comic book artists to ever pick up a pencil, Gil Kane. *** I have warm memories of summers when I was six, seven, eight years old. After dinner I’d take a walk with my father, strolling up Foster Avenue to the local candy store—that’s what we called them in Brooklyn, anyway—where you could buy anything from a vanilla egg cream to a Pensy Pinky, a stick pretzel to a paddle ball. My father would pick up the evening paper and he’d buy me a comic book. (Which, till I was eight, cost one measly dime. That leap to twelve cents, in 1962, was shocking.). That’s right. A new comic book every night. Is it any wonder that, at a very young age, I became addicted to comics with a fierce desperation that would have made even the most strung-out junkie uneasy? (Perhaps I exaggerate; but that’s the fun of childhood memories, isn’t it? Everything is bigger, more exciting and far more melodramatic— because that’s how kids see the world. Come to think of it, that’s how I still see the world. Which, I guess, is why I make my living writing fantasy and not working for an accounting firm or an insurance company.) I don’t recall who first introduced me to comics (it might have been pop-cultural osmosis. In those days kids read comic books and that’s all there was to it), but I began reading them as soon as I learned how to read. Westerns, war stories, Casper, Sad Sack, Bob Hope, Jerry Lewis, Superman, Batman, Archie: I had no shame, I devoured them all. (But not romance comics: they were just too, y’know, girly.) With rare exceptions, I had no clue who actually wrote or drew the stories I so loved. Interestingly, the two major exceptions were both named Kane: Bob Kane, whose name—and distinctive, boxed signature—appeared on every Batman story; and Gil Kane who— Well, I’m not sure how I knew who Gil Kane was. Credits didn’t become a regular part of the comics landscape till Stan Lee popularized them at Marvel and I didn’t discover Marvel till I was in junior high school. I assume Kane’s name was mentioned on the letters pages of the books he contributed to. Whatever the case, I not only knew who Gil Kane was, I thought he was the greatest artist to ever put pencil to paper. Super-hero comics weren’t as dominant then as they are today, but there were still plenty to be found; and, in those pre-Marvel days, my two favorites were Justice League (all the DC heroes in a single comic book? What pre-pubescent lover of fantasy-adventure could resist that?)—and Green Lantern. There were three reasons I adored GL: 1) the brilliant premise (magic ring + will +imagination = unlimited abilities) 2) John Broome’s universe-spanning stories and 3) Kane’s extraordinary art. Kane was the clincher. As a kid, I was almost as obsessed with drawing as I was with reading comics, and, to my young eyes, you just couldn’t beat Kane’s Green Lantern, soaring through the air, ring hand thrust toward the reader, one leg tucked back behind the knee. I spent many a happy hour with a Green Lantern comic open in front of me, trying, in my clumsy way, to replicate it, line for line. Unlike Jack Kirby—whose genius I wouldn’t discover for a few more years—Kane’s figures weren’t about bulk and mass. They were lithe and fluid. There was Kirbyesque power in those figures, sure—when Kane took on the Hulk strip in the late sixties, he gave Kirby a real run for his money–but the hallmark of Kane’s work was a grace. When I started my professional career at DC Comics in the late 70’s, I was lucky enough to have Kane illustrate a story I wrote for a short-lived science fiction anthology called Time Warp. The story–“The Saviors”—was nothing special, but the art? Perfection. And, hey, my name was in the credit box with Gil Kane! It didn’t get much better than that. Actually, it did—because a few years later I found myself teamed with Kane again, on my last four issues of Marvel's Conan, The Barbarian. Kane had come on board to replace John Buscema who left—well, because of me. Some months into my run on the book, editor Louise Jones let me know that John had been rumbling and grumbling about Conan’s direction. (I don’t recall any specifics beyond the fact that he had absolutely no patience for Dukenrik and Jonnwalli, the two young wanderers I’d introduced into the series. John felt, very strongly, that kids had no place in a Conan story.) I was still relatively new to the comic book business—Conan was my first, full-length monthly assignment—and the last thing I wanted to do was displease a man whose work I profoundly respected and admired. I called John up, we had a short and, as I recall, somewhat uncomfortable talk—I was completely intimidated—during which he outlined all the elements he thought were essential to a great Conan story. I was grateful for his input and told him I’d fold all those elements into the next issue, which I did. “The Blood Red Eye of Truth” ran in Conan #126. John did his usual brilliant job with it. And then he quit the book. I wasn’t happy about it—would you want to be known as The Guy Who Drove John Buscema Off Conan?—but the truth is I couldn’t remain depressed about John’s departure for very long, because, as mentioned, Louise had lined Gil Kane up as his replacement. The first story I wrote for Gil was called “The Snow-Haired Woman of the Wastes” and it was my spin on the Robert E. Howard classic, “The Frost Giant’s Daughter.” Whether the story holds up I can't say. The art is another matter. From the opening sequence, as Conan struggles desperately to save the mysterious Xean from a massive white-furred bear, Kane nailed it. There was so much power and clarity, such raw emotion and excitement in the battle that I had no choice but to stand back and shut my big mouth, putting as much text on an entire page as I would have normally stuffed into a single panel. (Looking back, I think the sequence would have worked even better if I’d left the words out entirely.) The rest of the issue was just as amazing. It had been twenty years since I first discovered Gil Kane’s artwork—and the man was better than ever. I only stayed with Conan for another three issues—I finally realized that, as much as I loved the character, the kinds of stories I wanted to tell were best suited to other venues—but what an honor to have those final issues illustrated by a man whose work illuminated my childhood and brought me such joy. I don’t recall any conversations with Kane—we might have spoken briefly once at the Marvel office, but I can’t swear to it—but seeing those stories come alive on the page, in the way that only Gil Kane could, remains one of the highlights of my career in comics. © copyright 2009 J.M. DeMatteis STARS AND STRIPES
8:24 AM PDT, May 21, 2009, updated at 10:43 AM PDT, May 30, 2009
Well, it’s been quite a while. I've been working like a madman finishing up my novel—should have it in to the publisher next week—and then I have to write the final issue of The Life and Times of Savior 28 and then there’s a Metal Men story to dialogue, the next draft of a TV project to write and...well, you get the picture. Since I haven’t had time to think, let alone blog, I thought I’d offer up an edited version of an afterword I wrote for the recently-released book Captain America and the Struggle of the Superhero. I’ll be back here—probably to talk about the novel in more detail—when this mass of work is out of the way and my french-friend brain cells have returned to full health. Till then, enjoy the Cap essay and don’t forget to watch my next Batman: The Brave and the Bold episode on the Cartoon Network, June 5th at 8:30 pm!
*** The first time I ever laid eyes on Captain America was on the cover of Sgt. Fury and his Howling Commandos #13. It’s a tribute to the character, and the man who co-created him, Jack Kirby, that it’s an image that has remained lodged in my memory and imagination ever since. The Marvel covers of the era were—in contrast to their streamlined and sedate DC counterparts—gaudy and garish, crammed full of copy: simultaneously cheap, raw and incredibly vital. Cap’s costume—the stars and stripes, the fat A on his forehead—was equally garish, even by super hero standards; and the look in his eyes...well, the guy seemed a little crazy. I had no idea who Captain America was. Despite the fact that the cover copy proclaimed Cap and his young partner, Bucky, “the overwhelming stars of the Golden Age of Comics,” I’d never heard of them. Even the phrase “Golden Age” was new to me. To my ten year old mind, any comics that existed before I was born were as ancient and unfathomable as an Egyptian tomb. Which, of course, made the character seem bizarre and appealing. Add in that dynamic Kirby artwork, with Cap—in an impossible, but somehow believable, pose—dominating the scene, and I just had to read that story. Read it? I devoured it. Flash forward fifteen or so years. I’m brand new to the comic book business, having written a number of stories for the DC anthology titles and just getting my foot in the door at Marvel Comics—where editor-in-chief Jim Shooter hands me an assignment. “There’s a new Captain America TV movie coming out,” he says, “and we want to do a tie in. Come up with a story.” I’d seen the first Cap TV movie—let’s just say it was disappointing and leave it at that—but I dutifully set to work, weaving Cap, his long-time enemy, the Red Skull, and real life actor Reb Brown into a story that, I hoped, was more than just a cheesy TV cash-in. By the time I’d finished the plot outline, someone at Marvel came to his senses and Reb Brown was removed from the story, along with all references to the movie. I was told to rework the story as a three-parter for the monthly Cap comic, which I did: it finally saw print in Captain America #s 261—263. The story wasn’t a classic by any stretch of the imagination—in fact, the opening sequence, which featured Steve Rogers getting a little drunk with his buddies, was a major blunder—but it did get me a regular gig writing Cap’s adventures. Working primarily with Mike Zeck—the starting point of a fruitful collaboration that would reach its peak seven years later with our Spider-Man saga Kraven’s Last Hunt—and British superstar Paul Neary (with some terrific fill-in work from the amazing Sal Buscema), I got to spend the next three years exploring the life, times and psyche of one of the great American icons. I’d been a loyal Captain America reader, of course—with a special fondness for the Lee-Kirby, Englehart, Gerber and Stern-Byrne eras—but I can’t say that Cap was a major god in my comic book pantheon: I enjoyed the stories immensely, but, to my mind, Cap was no Silver Surfer, Superman or Doctor Strange. Of course reading about a character and writing that character are two very different experiences—and the deeper I submerged myself in Steve Rogers’ world, the more I appreciated Captain America: not so much the icon as the man. In costume, Rogers was larger-than-life: “the whole country—squeezed into one pair of pants.” (That line, spoken about theater legend George M. Cohan, is from Yankee Doodle Dandy—one of the great movie musicals—and it describes Cap The Icon better than I ever could.) I was more intrigued by the person behind the mask. Rogers—to dip into movie lore once more—was the George Bailey of super heroes: a simple, honest man of inherent decency, who always struggled to do the right thing—no matter how difficult it was. He wasn’t concerned with ideologies or the politics of the moment. He was concerned with the American Dream. He believed, to the core of his being, in what America could be. Rogers was certainly well aware of the many times the United States had failed to live up to its own ideals—and those failures disheartened him—but he never gave up believing because his faith and hope weren’t invested in any elected official or political party. They were invested in the spiritual core of America: something deep and true and unchanging that lay beneath world affairs and shifting political currents. To my mind, Captain America’s greatest power wasn’t the strength he gained from the super-soldier formula: it was the depth of his compassion, his caring. His belief in the revolutionary power of simple human decency. The nature of the character dictated that the stories I wrote explored issues larger than the latest hero-villain slugfest. The canvas had to be huge—encompassing action, psychology and broader political, spiritual and philosophical issues. Some of my attempts failed spectacularly, some succeeded—but, all in all, writing Captain America, getting to know Steve Rogers, adding to his already-considerable legend, was a wonderful experience. Captain America remains as fascinating as he seemed when I first glimpsed him on that Sgt. Fury cover more than forty years ago. Some people view Cap as an anachronism, a throwback to another era. Worse, some see him as a symbol of American Imperialism. They miss the point. Captain America, the costumed hero, is the embodiment of all that’s best and brightest in the concept of America: a concept that transcends the nation that birthed it. Steve Rogers, the man, represents everyone who seeks a better world for himself and his neighbors; who strives to live a decent, compassionate life. That makes him one of us—all of us, no matter our country of origin—and insures that that character will still be with us, in all his gaudy, vibrant glory, for decades to come. © copyright 2009 J.M. DeMatteis ODDS, ENDS AND OTHER THINGS
9:57 AM PDT, March 17, 2009, updated at 8:16 AM PDT, March 19, 2009
Here’s a wonderful article about the life and times of Savior 28 artist Mike Cavallaro.
*** The first volume of Seekers Into The Mystery (featuring extraordinary art by Glenn Barr and Jon J Muth) is in comics shops now, thanks to those lovely and talented folks at Boom! Studios. Seekers—the story of burned-out screenwriter Lucas Hart, whose life becomes a desperate quest for a legendary magician—began life at DC Comics’ Vertigo imprint, back in the 90’s. It’s a project that’s very dear to my heart and Boom! head honcho Ross Richie and I have been talking about reprinting the series for years now. If the first volume does well, we’ll be doing two more. If it doesn’t do well...I’ll be extremely depressed. *** Also in comics shops from Boom! is another 90’s Vertigo series of mine, The Last One—beautifully illustrated by Dan Sweetman (of Beautiful Stories For Ugly Childrenfame). It’s a story, set in New York City’s East Village, about the limits of compassion and the burdens of immortality. I'm very fond of the entire series, but I think the second piece in the collection, “A Memorable Fancy,” is one of the single best stories I’ve ever written. *** Speaking of Boom!, the second issue of Hero Squared: Love and Death is in comics shops next week. It’s twenty-two pages of character, comedy, action and group therapy. (Yes, I said group therapy.) *** Yesterday the UPS man dropped a big box off on my front porch. Inside were four action figures based on characters from the Giffen-DeMatteis era Justice League: Batman, Ice, Black Canary...and G’nort. G’nort! First he makes an appearance on Batman: the Brave and the Bold, now this. Can that hundred million dollar G’nort feature film be far behind? (It can't? Oh, well.) *** If you’re interested in listening to me ramble on even more about Savior 28, Hero Squared and many other things, listen to this week's edition of John Siuntres’ Word Balloon podcast. It’s always fun talking to John—he’s smart, enthusiastic and a total pro—and I’m very happy with the way the interview turned out. *** Remember that John Lennon post I keep promising? The one about meeting him, twice, back in the mid-1970’s? The one I think about writing every week? Well, I still haven’t written it—and I feel rotten about it—so the least I can do is point you to this classic video of Lennon performing “Stand By Me” at the legendary Record Plant recording studio in New York. Now here’s the teaser: That’s my old friend, Jon Cobert, at the piano and I was sitting on the other side of the glass, in the mixing booth, watching the whole thing from just a few feet away. Now you really want to hear that story, don’t you? Especially the part where, overwhelmed by meeting my Rock and Roll Hero, I completely humiliated myself. Maybe next post. Or the post after that. Or... © copyright 2009 J.M. DeMatteis SAVING THE WORLD
8:18 AM PDT, March 11, 2009, updated at 12:50 PM PDT, March 11, 2009
 Back in those ancient days of the early 1980s—I think it was ‘83—I was writing Captain America and finishing up a year-long story-line that culminated in the death of the Red Skull. I began to question where Cap would go from there. What would this man, who’d been waging war, punching faces, for (at that time) forty years, do once his primary opponent, a guy he’d been battling since l940, was gone. Knowing Cap—well, my interpretation of Cap—it seemed logical to me that he would have reached a point where he said, “Enough! I’ve been doing this for four decades and it hasn’t made the world a better place or me a better man. Violence is a dead end and I have to chart a new course.” This would also allow me, as a writer, to deal with my ambivalence about the role of violence in super-hero comics, something I’ve always been extremely uncomfortable with. Don’t get me wrong, I love these characters—they resonate on so many wonderful, mythic levels—but most super-hero stories come down to two guys in costumes beating each other senseless. Not exactly the most enlightened point-of-view there is. In fact, it’s a fairly stupid and destructive one. I worked up a proposal for a massive arc that found Captain America becoming a global peace activist and culminated in Cap’s assassination at the hands of his “kid sidekick,” Jack Monroe. Now this was a fairly radical idea for its day—but my editor, the late, great Mark Gruenwald, liked it and was willing to go out on a limb with me. Jim Shooter, on the other hand, was totally against it. (As editor-in-chief of the Marvel Universe, and custodian of those characters, he had every right to feel that way. And, looking back, I can understand why a story that questions every super-hero’s reason for being wouldn’t work within the context of that shared universe.) The idea went down in flames, but I knew there was something of value there. A story that needed to be told. So I tucked the concept away, determined to find just the right vehicle to bring it out into the world. And, somehow— Twenty-five years went by. In those intervening decades, I freed the story from the confines of the Marvel Universe and slowly developed it into a saga, spanning seventy years of American pop culture and politics, called The Life and Times of Savior 28: I think it’s far more relevant now, at the end of the Age of Bush, and the dawn of the Age of Obama, than it would have been had it come out in the Reagan Era. Comic books (and pop culture in general) have become far more violent. The spandex mindset that, however much we struggle to disguise it, says “All problems are ultimately solved by dropping a building on a so-called bad guy’s head” has become even more dangerous—especially in a post-9/11 world where terrible damage has been done by global leaders who simplistically divide humanity into “true believers” and “infidels,” “good guys” and “evil-doers.” In the story’s new incarnation, our main character, Savior 28, is a hero from the Golden Age, the same era that gave us the original versions of Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman and, yes, Captain America. (As the book's artist, Mike Cavallaro, has said, 28’s not based on one particular super hero, he’s based on all of them.) We follow his evolution through the decades—reaching the crisis point where a series of traumatic events conspire to push S-28 over the edge: He finally sees that the way he’s been doing things all these years isn’t just wrong, it’s insane. He realizes he has to find a New Way to live, to work for change in the world. Problem is—after seven decades of solving problems with his fists—he has no clue what that Way is. And when he finally does find The Way, he discovers that most of the world isn’t ready to go along with him. Bringing Savior 28 to spectacular visual life is aforementioned artist Mike Cavallaro. I’ve known Mike, and admired his work, for a few years now. One day he showed me some samples of a new web-comic he was developing, Loviathan: one look at those pages and I knew Mike would be perfect for Savior 28. (Lucky for me that Mike felt the same way.) I immediately sent the proposal, along with Mike’s samples, to Chris Ryall at IDW Publishing: the project was approved the same day. After more than two decades, all the stars aligned...and we were off. The Life and Times of Savior 28 is both a tribute to a genre I love and a condemnation of it. It's rooted in tradition and completely explodes the tradition at the same time. No wonder working on this project has been an incredible challenge for me. The story, and what it has to say, means so much to me that it’s sometimes intimidating to sit down and write. Each issue has forced me to stretch and grow as a writer, pushing the boundaries of both my craft and my art. The first issue of Savior 28 hits comic shops today, with a main cover by Mike C and an alternate cover from two old masters: Sal Buscema and Joe Sinnott. (We've got some amazing alternate covers in the works. Along with Sal and Joe, we've got Kevin Maguire, Mike Ploog, Shawn McManus and Don Perlin in the wings. And they're all knocking it out of the park.) It's taken twenty-five years for this day to come: For me, at least, it was worth the wait. Let me know what you think. © copyright 2009 J.M. DeMatteis BROOKLYN DREAMING
1:52 PM PST, February 19, 2009, updated at 2:36 PM PST, February 19, 2009
The following piece was written for an upcoming French edition of Brooklyn Dreams.
*** In the mid-1980’s, I was writing a very strange, and deeply personal, space saga called Moonshadow for Marvel Comics’ groundbreaking Epic imprint. Moonshadow was the project that cracked me open as a writer, allowing me to step outside the confines of the Marvel and DC universes and be myself. For the first time I wasn’t “writing comic books,” I was just writing, exactly the way I wanted to, telling exactly the story I wanted to. Moonshadow was, in many ways, an autobiographical work, but the autobiography was filtered through the phantasmagoria of Moon’s adventures. It was my life, shoved into the deepest waters of my unconscious and then yanked up from the depths: flapping like a fish, dripping with imagination and allegory. One of the reasons I re-cast my life as a work of fantasy was because I always viewed existence itself as a work of fantasy. I believed then—and believe even more now—that the best way to truly capture this fathomless, hallucinatory, profound, absurd and joyfully sacred thing we call Life is through stories of the fantastic. So-called “realistic fiction” often spends so much time dwelling on the details of the “real world” (something I maintain doesn’t even exist), studying that ashtray in the corner of the room or that childhood trauma in the corner of the mind, that it misses the infinite layers and levels of psychic and spiritual wonder we walk through, and interact with, every day. Put simply: If life is a dream—and I believe it is—you’d better write a dream. If life is a fairy tale—and, again, I believe it is—then you’d better write a fairy tale. So why, then, did I write Brooklyn Dreams? It, after all, presents itself as the true-life adventures of a thinly-veiled version of myself, struggling through adolescence amidst the chaos and euphoria of an extraordinarily dysfunctional Brooklyn family: not a spaceship, ghost, magic book or super-hero in sight. Despite my belief that tales of the fantastic are often the best doorways into the truth of our lives, I’m a great admirer of authors who can create stories about the allegedly real and then push so deep into the soil of that world that they come out the other end in Wonderland. Henry Miller could do that. My literary hero, Dostoyevsky. J.D. Salinger. Isaac Bashevis Singer. And, of course, my other literary hero, Ray Bradbury. What? You say Bradbury is a science-fiction writer? Well, yes, he’s been justifiably celebrated for his extraordinary, and extraordinarily poetic, tales of outer and inner space; but my favorite Bradbury book, one of my favorite books of all time, is Dandelion Wine: a simple novel that tells the simple tale of a single summer in the life of a twelve year old boy named Douglas Spaulding. Only it’s not simple: Bradbury fixes his X-ray eyes on the mundane aspects of Doug’s life, sees right through them and exposes the magic and wonder, the cosmic terror and cosmic joy, hiding beneath the surface. As I finished work on the final issue of Moonshadow, I wondered if I could do the same with a coming-of-age saga of my own. Of course I didn’t grow up in the well-scrubbed, All American Green Town of Bradbury’s youth. I grew up in the far noisier, messier and wildly unstable terrain of Brooklyn, New York, in an era—the late 1960’s and early 1970’s—when questioning the nature of reality was the order of the day. As much as I adore Dandelion Wine—it’s forever imprinted on my consciousness, swimming in my bloodstream—I saw my gestating story as a fusion of Woody Allen’s Radio Days and Hermann Hesse’s Siddhartha. Mel Brooks meets Be Here Now. I’d already attempted something like it, albeit on a small scale, with Moonshadow. Every issue included sequences that I referred to as “Brooklyn Interludes”: stories—some fabricated, some pulled directly from my own experiences, most of them a collision of the two—that detailed the life of Moon’s mother, Sheila Fay “Sunflower” Bernbaum. I loved writing those sequences, loved exploring the world of Sheila’s Brooklyn childhood, conjuring the spirits of her lunatic relatives. With Brooklyn Dreams I wanted to bring my own childhood, my own lunatic relatives, directly onto the stage, turning those interludes into the main act. Using the eyes of youth to expose the miracles hidden beneath the Brooklyn streets. Whether I succeeded or failed is up to the reader to decide. One thing I think is beyond dispute, though, is the brilliance of Glenn Barr’s illustrations. I remember the book’s original editor, Mark Nevelow (who later turned the project over to Andy Helfer and Margaret Clark) showing me Glenn’s samples and my astonishment as I realized that this was the style I’d been envisioning for Brooklyn Dreams all along. I’d been seeing pictures in my head and there they were, in front of me: I knew immediately that I’d found my artist. No matter what I asked of Glenn—and I asked plenty—he always rose to the challenge and, more often than not, not only met it but transcended it. His work was a breathtaking mixture of realism and cartoon, New York apartment buildings and surreal inner landscapes. Somehow—and in the end, it’s the will of the gods, we really had nothing to do with it—Glenn and I fused our visions seamlessly and the result was one of the most satisfying collaborations of my career. (Eight or ten years ago, a fellow writer told me that he’d always believed that the best graphic novels were birthed by a single creator, that a writer-artist team could never approach that kind of unified vision. Brooklyn Dreams changed his mind. And that’s a compliment I still treasure.) Writing the original four-volume series was both exhilarating and terrifying: I’d never exposed myself so nakedly in my work and I often felt like I was tottering on a high-wire, one trembling step away from falling. But, with a little luck and grace—and the safety net of Glenn’s illustrations—I made it across to the other side. Every writer has favorite literary children. Looking back over a thirty year career, I can think of two or three other works that mean as much to me as Brooklyn Dreams. I can’t think of any that mean more. © copyright 2009 J.M. DeMatteis RANDOM PLUGS
2:04 PM PST, January 31, 2009, updated at 4:30 PM PST, January 31, 2009
My next episode of Batman: The Brave and the Bold airs on Friday, February 6th, at 8 pm on the Cartoon Network. Fans of the Giffen-DeMatteis Justice League might be pleased to know that the story features both Guy Gardner and G'nort. It's a big space adventure that pits Batman and the Lanterns against Sinestro.
*** Speaking of February 6th—that's when the massive 2009New York Comic Con launches: three days of comic book madness at Manhattan's Jacob Javits Center. I'll be there Friday and Saturday, hanging around the Ardden Entertainment booth. I'll be signing at the booth—and promoting lots of great new Ardden projects, including my upcoming series, The Merlin Prophecies—on Friday afternoon from three to four and Saturday afternoon from two to three. If you're coming to the convention, feel free to swing by and say hello. There's a good chance I'll be signing at the Boom! Studios booth as well, although I don't know when just yet. *** Speaking of Boom!: They've just released the final Hero Squared mini-series, Hero Squared: Love and Death. Yes, I said final. It's the
end of the series. For real. No kidding. Once this
story is over...you won't have Captain Valor to kick around any more. *** I've mentioned my forthcoming IDW series, The Life and Times of Savior 28 a few times here. The first issue launches in March so I thought it was time to tease you all with the first cover image by my brilliant collaborator, Mike Cavallaro. (Need I add that Savior 28 is © copyright 2009 by DeMatteis & Cavallaro? Well, I just did!)  This is one of the most exciting projects I've worked on in years and I'll have lots more to say about S-28 as we get closer to the release. ***
Okay, I've run out of projects to plug. I promise a hype-less posting next time. Maybe I'll finally get around to my Meeting John Lennon story. © copyright 2009 J.M. DeMatteis A KINDER, GENTLER DARK KNIGHT
8:27 AM PST, December 30, 2008
The first of my Batman: The Brave and the Bold episodes airs this Friday night, January 2nd, at eight p.m., on the Cartoon Network. It's called "Day of the Dark Knight" and features Batman, Green Arrow, the Demon, Merlin—and a cameo by my old friend Guy Gardner. Be forewarned: B & B is a lighthearted take on the Batman mythos that has more in common with the Giffen-DeMatteis Justice League than with the Christopher Nolan films. If you don't require Sturm und Drang with your capes and cowls, I suspect you'll enjoy it.
A very Happy New Year to you all: May the year ahead be filled with magic, miracles, joy, abundance, peace, health, joy, creativity...and love above all. © copyright 2008 J.M. DeMatteis EVERY TIME A BELL RINGS, AN ANGEL GETS HIS WINGS
8:00 AM PST, December 24, 2008, updated at 10:46 AM PST, December 24, 2008
Last night I snuggled up with my wife and daughter to watch Alastair Sim in Scrooge, the transcendent 1951 version of Dickens’ A Christmas Carol. ACC is, for my money, one of the greatest stories ever created. (But you knew that already, didn't you?) It permeated my soul at a very young age and has continued to echo down through the years, never failing to move me, uplift me, make me think and, yes, weep with joy. Tonight we pop in the DVD of It’s A Wonderful Life. Frank Capra’s classic owes quite a bit to Christmas Carol; in fact you could say—and I'm sure someone has—that Mr. Potter is Ebenezer Scrooge unrepentant and George Bailey is Bob Cratchit recast as the story’s hero. Wonderful Life is perhaps my favorite movie of all time (but you knew that, too, didn't you?) and, like ACC, it never fails to delight and profoundly move me. Does that make me a sentimentalist, a cornball, a sap? Absolutely! (And I’m proud of it.) But to dismiss these stories as mere sentimentalism is to miss the terrifying darkness...and extraordinary spiritual light...that they both contain: they speak to the fullness of our humanity and to our potential to rise above our worst impulses and embrace Something Bigger. It wouldn’t be Christmas without them.
And it wouldn’t be Christmas if I didn’t send heartfelt good wishes to all of my readers—especially those of you who have been following this somewhat erratic blog and leaving your comments. I've said it before and I’ll say it again: I spend most of my time alone in a room, playing with my imaginary friends. To interact with those of you who have been reading, and appreciating, my work means the world to me. My gratitude runs miles deep. Happiest of holidays to one and all. Here’s to a magical, miraculous 2009. Things may look a little bleak right now, but like George Bailey, saved by love on Christmas Eve, like Ebenezer Scrooge, redeemed by joy on Christmas morning, I believe that there are great things waiting for us in the months, and years, ahead. It truly is a wonderful life. © copyright 2008 J.M. DeMatteis BRAZIL, PART TWO
1:00 PM PST, December 10, 2008, updated at 5:40 AM PST, December 17, 2008
And now, for your listening and dancing pleasure, the conclusion of my interview with the Brazilian website, HQManiacs.com. Enjoy!
*** Both Abadazad and Stardust Kid, with legendary artist Mike Ploog, are fantasy tales, directed at an all ages readership. Why did you you decide to write for a younger audience? I've been saying for years and years that the contemporary comic book business has pretty much turned its back on young readers. You'll find an occasional exception to that rule, but, for the most part, the audience keeps getting narrower and narrower as the companies strive ever harder to be "edgy" and "adult." Please note: I'm not knocking the quality of the books or their creators; just talking about the general direction. Nor do I think there's anything wrong with adult comics: I am, after all, the guy who did Moonshadow, Seekers, Brooklyn Dreams and many other comics geared toward an adult audience. But when the majority of mainstream super hero comics aren't suitable for an eight or nine year old, I think we've really gone off the rails. I think it's an incredible disservice to our children not to have comics for them that transcend the usual cartoon adaptations that are thrown out into the market. We need challenging, literate, beautifully-illustrated material in the tradition of the best children's literature. I’m incredibly proud of both Abadazad and The Stardust Kid and look forward to doing more stories for young readers (and their parents), both in comic book and novel form. In December, Boom! relaunches Seekers Into the Mystery and The Last One, both of which were first published by DC’s Vertigo imprint. What was it like to work at Vertigo? One of the things I’ve enjoyed most about my career is the fact that I’ve always gone back and forth between mainstream super hero material and material that’s far more personal and idiosyncratic. That really started at Epic Comics with Moonshadow and Blood: A Tale. I was there for the launch of that ground-breaking line of books. Unfortunately, Epic changed directions over the years and was never quite the same as it was at the beginning when Archie Goodwin was in charge. Vertigo came along a few years later to fill that void. Karen Berger is an old friend of mine—we knew each other before either one of us worked in comics—and it was very exciting being in on the Vertigo launch. My graphic novel, Mercy—which Boom! will be reprinting in 2009—was one of the first titles Vertigo published. And that was shortly followed by The Last One, Seekers Into The Mystery and the Moonshadow sequel, Farewell, Moonshadow. Vertigo, like Epic, was—and is—a line that respects a creator’s unique individual vision and encourages writers and artists to burrow deep and tell the stories that matter most to them. Working with Karen and Shelly Bond was a wonderful experience. I was also lucky enough to be part of the launch of DC’S Paradox Press line, when Glenn Barr and I did Brooklyn Dreams. Andy Helfer was editing that line and, both in format and content, he was way ahead of the curve. On all these projects, we were allowed to tell the story in exactly the way we wanted to, without editorial interference. It doesn’t get any better than that. There’s a thread of mysticism that runs through many of your stories, including the more overtly spiritual journeys like the ones seen in, among many others, Dr. Fate. Where does that come from? I’ve always been obsessed with stories that get into people’s heads and hearts...because I discovered, at an early age, that it’s the inner world that really defines our perception of the outer world. It’s been my experience that everything in life, no matter what it appears to be on the surface, is really a search for meaning, for answers. For God. In one form or another we’re trying to figure out Who We Really Are. Why our lives matter. What the Bigger Picture is. When I was seventeen, I had an experience of the Divine (an experience I wrote about in Brooklyn Dreams) that totally changed me and my perception of my place in the universe. That set me off on a spiritual journey that continues to this day. And will, I suspect, continue for many lifetimes to come. Being a veteran of the comics industry, and also having written for movies and television, what do you see as the similarities and differences between those two mediums? Lots of people have drawn parallels between film and comics, some going so far as to call comics “movies on paper.” I strongly disagree. A film or TV script has a very different structure, a very different flow, a very different use of language. It’s a very specific beast. It’s driven by visuals and dialogue and a compressed storytelling style. What I love about the comic book medium is that it is, first and foremost, a literary genre. Yes, it’s incredibly visual—and that’s where the comparison with film is apt—but we’re allowed so much more room for interior exploration, for description, for creating mood and texture with language. I think there’s a much closer affinity between comics and novels than between comics and film. I also think there’s a parallel between writing poetry and writing comics: each page of a comic book is broken into captions that play off each other, that follow a rhythm and flow very close to poetry. At least the way I write them. And that’s the beauty of it: the comic book is a unique beast and the comparisons all peter out after a while. The best way to look at it is that comics can be anything: any combination of words and pictures, in any form you choose. So whatever your definition of a comic book is...you’re right! You already work with publishing houses like IDW and Boom! Studios, and today you’re the editor-in-chief of Ardden Entertainment. How do you see the importance of smaller publishers in the comics industry? Marvel and DC are putting out terrific material; but, first and foremost, they are invested in their super hero universes. Vertigo is an important part of DC, sure; but, in terms of the money those books bring in, it can’t compare with Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman. So it’s only natural that the main focus of those companies is on their super heroes. And they do a fantastic job of it. On the other hand, just because something comes out of an independent company, it doesn’t, in any way, guarantee that it’s going to be wildly different or of higher quality than the material coming out of Marvel and DC; but, at their best, the indies do what lines like Vertigo do...only better. They encourage fresh, original voices; they give creators a place to go where they can express themselves, follow their visions, in a way they couldn’t do elsewhere. And that’s a great thing. Of course there are economic realities that have to be faced. Which is why you see so many indies—Ardden included—doing licensed material, putting out titles with names the readers are familiar with. Titles that have built-in fan bases. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that...as long as the licensed books are of top quality. Just putting out a familiar title to cash in is a waste of the publisher’s money and the reader’s time. I think one of the reasons Ardden’s Flash Gordon series has been successful is because the book’s writer, Brendan Deneen, really had a fresh take on the franchise. And he’s passionate about it. He’s thrilled to be writing Flash Gordon. And his passion is translated onto the page. Speaking about Ardden, what are your ambitions and goals, as editor? If you had the chance to change the industry, publishers and market, what would you do? For me it always comes down to one thing: tell wonderful stories. Tell them in every genre. Aim them at every age group. If one thing has straitjacketed American comics since the 60’s, it’s the obsession with super heroes. We’ve made great strides in terms of letting in a broader range of material, but I think we have a long way to go. Especially with material for kids. The only way we’re going to grow a new audience is by aiming material a young readers and then bringing them along with us as they grow older. And, of course, the best children’s books appeal to adults, as well...so you’re not limiting yourself by aiming at that market, you’re actually expanding your market. The other wave we have to ride is the digital wave. There’s no stopping it. We have to learn to take advantage of the new technologies and adapt with them. If that means that, one day, all comics are viewed digitally, then so be it. My feeling is that the medium doesn’t matter, it’s the stories. Entertain people, provoke them, make them think. That’s what really matters. All of this goes through my head as we build Ardden Entertainment. All of this needs to be reflected in the company as it grows. That said, we’re taking it slow. We’ve launched our new Flash Gordon to wonderful reviews and great sales, we’ve just announced Jim Kreuger’s The Stand-In, which will hit early in ’09, and we’ve got a number of new projects—including a mini-series, The Merlin Prophecies, that I’ll be co-writing with my friend Derek Webster—in development. But we’re not trying to flood the market or challenge Marvel or DC. We just want to put out a line of quality books that we can be proud of. Now, speaking of personal tastes, what was your best collaboration? What artist was your favorite to work with? Is there someone you haven’t collaborated with that you’d like to? I’ve been lucky enough to work with so many extraordinarily gifted artists, and fellow writers, that it’s really impossible to single out just one, or even a small group. But in terms of a collaboration clicking in a truly magical way, the names that spring immediately to mind are Keith Giffen, Mike Ploog, Mark Badger, Jon J Muth, Glenn Barr and Sal Buscema. But then I remember Shawn McManus and Liam Sharp and Mike Zeck and Kevin Maguire and Kent Williams and... Well, I could do this all day. I’ve really been blessed with an extraordinary group of collaborators and I’m sure I’ve left out at least a dozen people worthy of mention! As for artists I’d like to work with: again, there are so many; but, off the top of my head, I’d say Barry Smith, J.H. Williams III and Dean Haspiel. In your opinion, what’s your best work? My favorites tend to be the more personal work, like Moonshadow, Brooklyn Dreams, Seekers Into The Mystery and Abadazad. Of my super hero stories, my work on Spider-Man—especially Spectacular Spider-Man #200 and Amazing Spider-Man #400—are at the top of the list; although my all-time favorite among the super hero stories I’ve written is Batman: Going Sane. And I’ve loved just about everything I’ve done working with Giffen...with Hero Squared at the top of that list. Do you have any new projects you’d like to talk about? Comics-wise, I’ve got a passion project of mine called The Life and Times of Savior 28 coming out in the spring from IDW. The art is by Mike Cavallaro, a wonderful artist I’ve wanted to work with for a few years now. Savior 28 is a six issue mini-series dealing with violence in superhero comics, in pop culture in general and, ultimately, in our world—all set against a backdrop that spans seventy years of American history, from FDR to Obama. I’m also working away on a novel—tentatively titled Imaginalis—that I’m writing for a new imprint at HarperCollins called The Bowen Press. It’s a young adult fantasy and I think folks who were fans of Abadazad and The Stardust Kid will enjoy the world of Imaginalis, as well. Look for it in 2010. I’m also continuing to do TV animation; and I’m working on a Top Secret TV Movie that I’d really like to talk about...but I can’t just yet. *** Thanks again to Andrea Pereira and the HQ Maniacs for letting me run this here. © copyright 2008 J.M. DeMatteis
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Bio
Born and raised in Brooklyn, New York, J. M. DeMatteis was a professional musician and rock music journalist before entering the comic book field.
Although he's written almost all of the major DC and Marvel icons--including memorable runs on Spider-Man and Justice League--DeMatteis's greatest greatest acclaim has come for sophisticated original graphic novels like Seekers Into The Mystery, Blood: A Tale, The Last One, and Mercy. The autobiographical Brooklyn Dreams was picked by the ALA as one of the Ten Best Graphic Novels and Booklist, in a starred review, called it "as graphically distinguished and creatively novelistic a graphic novel as has ever been...a classic of the form." The groundbreaking Moonshadow was chosen (along with Brooklyn Dreams, Blood and other DeMatteis works) for inclusion in Gene Kanenberg, Jr's 2008 book 500 Essential Graphic Novels. "While Sandman may be the best known fantasy comic," he wrote, "Moonshadow is arguably the finest." More recently DeMatteis has had great success with the acclaimed children's fantasy Abadazad --which Entertainment Weekly, giving the series an A grade, hailed as "...one of those very rare fantasy works that can enchant preteen kids and 40-year old fanboys..." and Publisher's Weekly, in a starred review, called "an appealing blend of Spirited Away and The Wizard of Oz." Abadazad began life as a CrossGen comic book before morphing into a three-book series, a unique blend of prose, illustration and sequential art, published by Disney's Hyperion Books For Children. His success in the comic book medium has led DeMatteis to work in both television (writing live action and animation) and movies (creating screenplays for Fox, Disney Feature Animation, directors Carlo Carlei and Chris Columbus and producer Dean Devlin, among others). Currently editor-in-chief of Ardden Entertainment, overseeing their line of comic books and graphic novels, DeMatteis's latest projects include the fantasy novel Imaginalis, to be published in July, 2010 by HarperCollins; reuniting with frequent collaborator Keith Giffen on a top-secret television project; multiple episodes of the new animated series Batman: The Brave and the Bold; and two comic book mini-series: Ardden Entertainment's The Merlin Prophesies (co-written with Derek Ivan Webster) and IDW's The Life and Times of Savior 28. DeMatteis and his family live in upstate New York. His blogs can be found here at Amazon.com and at www.jmdematteis.blogspot.com.
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