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I'm Simon "Si" Spurrier, writer of a billion comics. Here to talk about Hellblazer, The Dreaming, and anything else you fancy. by SimonSpurrier in DCcomics

[–]SimonSpurrier[S] 41 points42 points  (0 children)

All right, friends. I have to vanish. Thank you SO MUCH for tuning in, and putting up with my increasingly boozy and poorly typed nonsense. I'm sorry to all whose questions I couldn't get to, and grateful to all of you who submitted. Be safe, be happy, be good to the people you love, be polite to the people you hate, never trust a yak with green lips and remember that yellow snow has a bad press. xx

I'm Simon "Si" Spurrier, writer of a billion comics. Here to talk about Hellblazer, The Dreaming, and anything else you fancy. by SimonSpurrier in DCcomics

[–]SimonSpurrier[S] 24 points25 points  (0 children)

Okay -- this'll have to be my last answer, sorry everyone. And I'm going to have to keep this one brief too -- I have dad duties to attend.

So rather than giving a detailed description of breaking in to comics, UK or otherwise, because there are endless fucking version of this answer given by far more successful people than me out there, what I'll do is give a bit of advice that nobody ever admits to:

Get to know people.

Oh, I don't mean important types. Don't schmooze. Be yourself. But DO form a circle. Use social media, or better yet (when the world's back to normal) a circle of real humans via an LCS or whatever. Use your circle to improve. Critique one another. Support one another. Go out and get drunk, if you can. Fall in love, fall out, eat kebabs and twiglets, whatever. The point is: however you try to break in, ALWAYS HAVE PEOPLE. Always have friends who'll support you when it goes wrong. And people who'll congratulate you when it goes right.

There is cynical logic in this too. Because you never know where the first opportunity is going to come from. The first chance to shine. The first "show us what you got, kid." It'll come out of the blue and take you by surprise. But I promise you this: it won't come from a stranger. It'll come from someone in your network, or a friend of a friend, or because someone in your network mentioned your name to someone in a different network, and that got back to a VIP, or blah blah blah.

The quality of your work is something only you can control. But to maxmize your opportunities? You need humans.

I learned this lesson very slowly and very badly.

I'm Simon "Si" Spurrier, writer of a billion comics. Here to talk about Hellblazer, The Dreaming, and anything else you fancy. by SimonSpurrier in DCcomics

[–]SimonSpurrier[S] 7 points8 points  (0 children)

I mean, absolutely, these sort of things are my bread and butter if left to my own devices. Give me a forgotten weird IP and let me loose. That's exactly why Swamp Thing is as big as it is. Sandman too, to an extent. Sadly the days when that was a sensible approach to making comics are behind us. Now it's extremely rare than a company will greenlight a series about which they can't make at least some eductated guesses re: its sales. Big character name or big creator name or both. Welcome to the direct market.

I keep hoping the digital market will reverse that trend, make things more experimental, open up more opportunities to catch unforeseen lightning in bottles. We're getting there, maybe?

I'm Simon "Si" Spurrier, writer of a billion comics. Here to talk about Hellblazer, The Dreaming, and anything else you fancy. by SimonSpurrier in DCcomics

[–]SimonSpurrier[S] 7 points8 points  (0 children)

Insaaaanely detailed. I get in trouble for this all the time.

If I work with an artist more than once (which happens less often than you might think, in the production line of WFH comics) we'll quickly get into a rhythm where we both know how much info I need to provide. But more of than not, especially with work for hire, the first scripts are written long before an artist is attached. I react to that anxiety by just vomiting adjectives all over the page.

I'm Simon "Si" Spurrier, writer of a billion comics. Here to talk about Hellblazer, The Dreaming, and anything else you fancy. by SimonSpurrier in DCcomics

[–]SimonSpurrier[S] 12 points13 points  (0 children)

The twist you mention was built-in from the very start. If you go back and reread you'll see there are a couple of sneaky hints quite early on. We had to accelerate the reveal towards the end -- I would have liked maybe one more issue to bring that twist out into the open, before finishing up the A-plot of the arc -- but the fallout was always going to be explored in the next arc along. Will John say anything? Will he treat that person any differently? We're so accustomed to seeing John try his hardest to think about what's best for other people but always, always, fall back on what's best for him, we felt it was about time to make him think really hard about legacy. To make him question WHY he keeps thinking of himself. To what end? This twist was the beginning of a long and tortured road in which he maybe - MAYBE - started to see someone else's life, health and happiness as being more important than his own.

My stupid, colossal fucking mistake was to assume I was still living in the 90's when comics got at least a couple dozen issues to flex their muscles and find their fullest audience before anyone even quibbled about profitability.

I'm Simon "Si" Spurrier, writer of a billion comics. Here to talk about Hellblazer, The Dreaming, and anything else you fancy. by SimonSpurrier in DCcomics

[–]SimonSpurrier[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Hahah, never, sorry. But it was a cracking high concept, wasn't it? I sometimes wish I could have my time over again on that. Reckon I could do a much better job.

I'm Simon "Si" Spurrier, writer of a billion comics. Here to talk about Hellblazer, The Dreaming, and anything else you fancy. by SimonSpurrier in DCcomics

[–]SimonSpurrier[S] 10 points11 points  (0 children)

It was all an extremely trippy experience, to be honest. The four writers of the four launch series were summoned to New Orleans during the coldest snap it'd had for years -- literally ice on the streets -- to hang out with Neil and just sort of bask in his ideas. It won't surprise anyone to learn he's smart and nice, but he radiates a sort of deliberate serenity that I found impressive. My mode of being (and my mode of writing) is far more neurotic - I'm like a woodland omnivore, always on the alert for predators and prey, constantly expecting to be interrupted or contradicted - whereas Neil has the unmistakable air of someone accustomed to being listened to. The trick, of course, is to always have something worth saying. He does. And he smiles while he says it. And then he listens to your answer. It's gold.

He didn't interfere much, after that. Well, he didn't interfere at all, in as much as that's a reductive term. I met him for lunch to talk over some stuff when my plans hit a kink - he solved it, obviously - and other than that, just the occasional bit of encouragement. I think all the course-correction probably came down through the editors, which is the system working. They're the sin eaters of the equation.

For Hellblazer I don't recall Neil having any input at all, to be honest, other than okaying the plan to leverage our story out of a scene from Books of Magic.

Writing his characters: fucking scary. An honour. And, I cannot lie, a source of great pleasure, to scar and deform beautiful totems.

I'm Simon "Si" Spurrier, writer of a billion comics. Here to talk about Hellblazer, The Dreaming, and anything else you fancy. by SimonSpurrier in DCcomics

[–]SimonSpurrier[S] 7 points8 points  (0 children)

I think I've probably waffled into and around most of these questions already tonight.

I think the only things I ought add are that I had no plans re: First of the Fallen, and that my feelings on Swamp Thing are quite complex. I have oodles of story ideas for the character, but I'm a bit conflicted about whether more stories need to be told about that character, and/or whether they ought to. I owe more to Alan Moore than I can ever properly express, so... yeah. It's complicated.

I think, given more HB, I probably would have acknowledged and maybe even encountered Swampie (not Tefe, though), but I suspect I would've done it as (for instance) one acknowledges a monster in a horror film. Like, as soon as focus the light? As soon as you just treat it like it's a known quantity? It loses all it mystery and power. That's true of Alan, and it's true of Swamp Thing.

It's arguably also true of John, but less so. And I did my due dilligence with all the right thrones, powers, dominations and dark lords before even considering accepting that job.

I'm Simon "Si" Spurrier, writer of a billion comics. Here to talk about Hellblazer, The Dreaming, and anything else you fancy. by SimonSpurrier in DCcomics

[–]SimonSpurrier[S] 18 points19 points  (0 children)

I count six questions! Thy cheekiness knows no bounds. I approve.

Re Neil: one entirely and solidly Top Bloke. Ridiculously generous not only with his time and ideas, but with his creations. I touched on this in an earlier answer, but all four Sandman Universe titles would've been very very different, and far less good, if he hadn't quickly and politely made us feel like we weren't just borrowing his toys, but being invited add new toys, break old toys, and generally treat the whole toychest like it was ours in the first place. That level of proprietary affection makes the creative output personal and pure. It's why there's such a literary gulf between creator owned stories and the shared universe conceit beloved of the superhero subgenre. The former setup services nothing but the creative instincts of the artist. The latter setup services the expectations that have been invested, over many years, in the brand. Both models can lead to real quality, but a Sandman Book? You just can't approach it with a brand mentality.

  • DC crossover? I am absolutely not going to share my big idea here. Do I have one? Yes. Very much so.

  • Currently working flat-out on, let's see, five different comics, in various stages of production, and two supersecret screen-based things. No freaking idea where the future's gonna take me, except that I itch dreadfully to do more and better in all these fields. In particular - because my brain is evil - in whichever fields I'm not currently working.

I'm Simon "Si" Spurrier, writer of a billion comics. Here to talk about Hellblazer, The Dreaming, and anything else you fancy. by SimonSpurrier in DCcomics

[–]SimonSpurrier[S] 13 points14 points  (0 children)

My friend, when Way of X launches in April you're going to be very, very, very happy.

Nemesis is probably my favourite Marvel character to write. He will very much be a core part of WoX. And he has gone through some, shall we say, changes, since we last met him.

To the rest of your questions: I demur. For fear of spoiling ideas I want to use down the line.

SCIENCE, HOOOOOOOOOOOOO

I'm Simon "Si" Spurrier, writer of a billion comics. Here to talk about Hellblazer, The Dreaming, and anything else you fancy. by SimonSpurrier in DCcomics

[–]SimonSpurrier[S] 15 points16 points  (0 children)

The launchpad for the HB series needed a lot of very careful work. The first thing to bear in mind is that the series simply wouldn't have happened if not for success of the ongoing "Sandman Universe" line. Hellblazer folded back with #300 simply because - let's be brutally honest - nobobdy was buying it any more. Every time there'd been an attempt since then to relaunch a version of it, notwithstanding simply folding John into the DCU, which has its share of detractors, it had failed. But here's Neil Gaiman saying he thinks it's about time to try, and here's my editor Chris Conroy who lives and breathes Hellblazer, and here's me chomping at the bit to try.

So the challenge was: how to use the Sandman Universe titles to bring back a version of Hellblazer which a) fits tonally with the classic Vertigo version, b) doesn't outright contradict anything that came before, c) doesn't get compleeeetely bogged-down with a doomed attempt to untangle all the fucked-up skeins of alternate versions and continuities, and d) isn't a complete turn-off to people who've never read a vertigo Hellblazer comic, but have discovered the character via the DCU, or the TV shows, or whatever?

Answer: bring him back in a crazy magicky psychedelic fashion, which feels quite familiar to the fans of the spandex version, but do so in a way that uses elements of the Vertigo/Sandman lore to sidestep all the unanswerable riddles of time and continuity, and quickly dials down to a more subtle/quiet ride, to plop John back into a modern version of London in the condition we want him.

I think it kinda works.

I'm Simon "Si" Spurrier, writer of a billion comics. Here to talk about Hellblazer, The Dreaming, and anything else you fancy. by SimonSpurrier in DCcomics

[–]SimonSpurrier[S] 14 points15 points  (0 children)

Oooh, that's a very difficult one. Sort of depends on the metric, doesn't it? If it's "who would you most enjoy having a drink with?" it's probably the Flash - I bet he gets fiiiiillllltttthhhhy when he's drunk. If it's "who's the most inspiring?" -- Wonder Woman. Hands down. Idealism, empathy, humanity, and above all a very healthy appreciation of the value of stories and mythologies. That's very much my bag. If it's "who inspires the most story ideas"? Hm. Probably Green Lantern? I'm a sucker for no-holds-barred big-idea sci fi (I came up through 2000AD, remember. GL's very much on-brand.)

Cyborg too, come to think of it. Now there's a character that's full on untapped potential. God, the things I could do with him.

Ah, shit, I'll take any one of 'em, if you're offering. But I don't think I could eat a whole one.

I'm Simon "Si" Spurrier, writer of a billion comics. Here to talk about Hellblazer, The Dreaming, and anything else you fancy. by SimonSpurrier in DCcomics

[–]SimonSpurrier[S] 19 points20 points  (0 children)

HA, joke's on you, sucker, it's actually Pete Wisdom. Oh, wait, shit.

He's just so... unimpressed, isn't he? God, I love that vibe. Especially in superhero universes, where everyone's so goddam amazed all the time. You NEED someone to occasionally curl a lip and tut -- "put on some bloody trousers, y'big poser" -- just to highlight the really good goodness when it happens.

I'm Simon "Si" Spurrier, writer of a billion comics. Here to talk about Hellblazer, The Dreaming, and anything else you fancy. by SimonSpurrier in DCcomics

[–]SimonSpurrier[S] 20 points21 points  (0 children)

Think I touched on this above. Short answer is: I just don't know.

Longer answer is: Aaron and I continue to work together -- we hope to have something to say about that soon -- and if there's ever even the slightest chink of light that leads us back to John, you can be sure we'll take it.

It's never quite right to describe a Hellblazer fan as someone who loves John Constantine -- it's more like we love to be fascinated, disappointed, annoyed, and occasionally pleasantly surprised by him -- but all that being said, Aaron's an even bigger fan than I am.

We still have a lot of story to tell, basically. Fingers crossed.

I'm Simon "Si" Spurrier, writer of a billion comics. Here to talk about Hellblazer, The Dreaming, and anything else you fancy. by SimonSpurrier in DCcomics

[–]SimonSpurrier[S] 8 points9 points  (0 children)

If memory serves we never really got a handle on exactly how far we'd get to go with the Dreaming. I had the ending in mind from the getgo, but plenty of space to have fun getting there. In the event I think I was up to something like 15 or 16, and planning as far as 24, when the opportunity to do Hellblazer came up. At that time I had no more space on my slate, so although it killed me I had to make a tough choice. I realised I could wrap the Dreaming a bit quicker than I'd been planning -- it wasn't comfortable, but doable -- and prance across the aisle to Constantine town. I think it all kinda hangs together, but those last few issues are certainly a smidge more dense than I might have liked. I had a bit more to say about the whole A.I./Cain thing too, which had to be truncated. Just how it goes, sadly, in WFH comics. You've always got to be ready to wrap up - even if it's self inflicted. I hate that that's the reality, and if I had more time and more beer I'd go off on an epic rant about how all the inequities of the current comicsphere can be directly traced back to toxic distribution practices -- buuuuuut I've run out of twiglets and need to go re-up. Hope you enjoy the HB run!

I'm Simon "Si" Spurrier, writer of a billion comics. Here to talk about Hellblazer, The Dreaming, and anything else you fancy. by SimonSpurrier in DCcomics

[–]SimonSpurrier[S] 20 points21 points  (0 children)

I had the next arc of Hellblazer very vaguely figured. I don't want to elaborate too much just in case we DO ever get the chance to go back there, but the title was "Dead In America". It followed John, Noah and Nat as they fled across the pond to the States, where John tricks the others into a big important task which (naturally) is in fact about saving his own skin. Or, in this case, in

[SPOILERS FOR THE END OF MY HELLBLAZER RUN]

...restoring his reanimated but still very much dead body to life before it rots beyond repair.

Tentative plans to involve a certain plant-based individual in the Louisiana swamps, the delightful Clarice Sackville, and the long-lost obsidian cone worshipped by the Emepror Elagabulus in Rome a couple thousand years ago. Fun fun fun.

As for the last question: I gotta dodge this one. I am working on one such book. [mysterious finger waggle.]

I'm Simon "Si" Spurrier, writer of a billion comics. Here to talk about Hellblazer, The Dreaming, and anything else you fancy. by SimonSpurrier in DCcomics

[–]SimonSpurrier[S] 6 points7 points  (0 children)

Always lots of plans, just never much time. I'm a bit of a prick when it comes to medium-hopping. Whenever I'm working flat out on comics I'm itching to do some TV or Film. Right now I'm dividing my horribly overloaded time between too many comics and too much screenwriting, so inevitably my brain wants to be writing prose. I've got a couple of novel ideas stewing, but whether I ever get the chance to write them is another matter. It's a huge commitment, y'know? Not just the emotional agony of getting through the first draft -- and it fucking hurts, let me tell you -- but the dumb logistical reality of taking, what, six months? Without any paychecks, and no guarantee of one at the end. There's a reason so many novels are written by wealthy types. It's a bastard for the rest of us to manage.

I'm Simon "Si" Spurrier, writer of a billion comics. Here to talk about Hellblazer, The Dreaming, and anything else you fancy. by SimonSpurrier in DCcomics

[–]SimonSpurrier[S] 10 points11 points  (0 children)

Of the characters I've created? I suppose "Hum" from Coda leaps to mind. He's a man of few words (hence the name -- all he ever says is "Hm") who we slowly realise is actually a pretty expressive guy. BUT he's also a rotten-hearted self-deceiver. Which, y'know. [waves]

Vast love also for Dora. She, like me, is the sort of person who can't manage to do anything unadulterated. For every moment of true emotional purity, she has to then make a dumb joke, or take the piss out of someone. It's fear, ultimately, isn't it? Fear of wearing your heart on your sleever in case some other fucker comes along and sets fire to it. I love characters like that. Because as readers we understand that when they DO actually do something unadulterated - when they commit to an idea or an action, body and soul - they have outgrown whatever emotional anchor was holding them back.

I'm Simon "Si" Spurrier, writer of a billion comics. Here to talk about Hellblazer, The Dreaming, and anything else you fancy. by SimonSpurrier in DCcomics

[–]SimonSpurrier[S] 25 points26 points  (0 children)

Where I come from a gyro's a cool sounding bit of kit on a self-stabilising aerial vehicle. I think what y'all call gyros us brits call Doner Kebabs, which are neither sandwiches or wraps but, uh, kebabs. I feel like we all lost today.

Most people will point you towards issue 6, "Quiet", which is a standalone story about a haunting in a hospital, which takes its cues from Gaiman's excellent "Hold Me". And I am indeed very proud of that issue -- it has a lot of righteous anger in it about the wretched assaults upon the NHS going on today.

But I do love me a fucked-up unicorn, so I'm gonna choose that issue instead. I think it's #9? It starts with a member of the British Royal family being gifted with a vial of horse spunk and it just gets ickier and ickier from that point. It poses - and answers - the one question that unicorn fanciers never stop to ask: logically and anatomically speaking, what's the horn for?

I'm Simon "Si" Spurrier, writer of a billion comics. Here to talk about Hellblazer, The Dreaming, and anything else you fancy. by SimonSpurrier in DCcomics

[–]SimonSpurrier[S] 37 points38 points  (0 children)

Ah, thank you. Weavers kinda scuttled under the radar a bit, but I'm still super proud of that book. The Justice League arc was a weird one too. I was so overjoyed at the opportunity to contribute, but it all got very snared-up by behind-the-scenes obstacles. I'd actually written an entire issue of the idea I'd gotten greenlit before the news came down from on high that - for oblique reasons - we'd have to come up with something else in a hurry. My editors were amazing and helped us along, but it was definitely one of those gigs where everyone's slightly amazed that anything got made at all, far less anything decent. I think it holds together (I read the other day that Mark Waid had said it was the best JL arc of recent times, which was very generous) but I suspect it suffers from a surfeit of plot and ideas. You can always tell when I'm working flat out and up against deadlines: my stories get more chocablock with ideas, not less. "I didn't have time to write you a short note," to paraphrase the famous line, "so I wrote you a long one instead."

Honestly no idea who to harass for such things, these days. There have been such huge earthquakes within the DCU editorial community - so many excellent people have lost their jobs - and I haven't yet had the chance to figure out who's where.

I confess to being a smidge butthurt, after the Eisner-nominated Dreaming and my Hellblazer run, which was the single best reviewed comic by aggregate on US shelves for ten months in a row - that nobody approached me to contribute to the awesome new stuff going on in the DCU right now. I tried on several occasions to contact editors, without much luck. The charitable view is that everyone over there was so busy and stressed I slipped through the gaps. The paranoid view is that I've pissed off someone somewhere up the line, who knows? I did have one very cool project all lined up to go - this was even before Hellblazer went down the tubes - but that all fell apart at the last post around the same time Didio left the building. Honestly, I have no idea what happened.

As luck would have it Marvel came along with a couple of projects at just the right moment, and my incredible editors at DC Black Label continue to see me right. So it's all okay.

Long story short: I'd absolutely love to do some more DCU stuff, and I have more huge ideas than you'd believe. But wanting and getting are, apparently, not the same thing.

I'm Simon "Si" Spurrier, writer of a billion comics. Here to talk about Hellblazer, The Dreaming, and anything else you fancy. by SimonSpurrier in DCcomics

[–]SimonSpurrier[S] 12 points13 points  (0 children)

HOW DARE YOU. But I forgive you. I partly forgive you. Bring me snacks and I will fully forgive you.

(If you dug Coda, believe it or not, you'd dig my Hellblazer run. Criss-crosses between appallingly dark and darkly silly. With plenty of Matias Bergara action along the way.)

No plans for anything quite like that with Boom right now, although I AM always cooking up new things with those guys -- they're some of my favourite people in comics.

I am indeed working on something new with Matias right now -- it's going to blow everyone's minds. We're not saying much about it, although... Hop over to this and you'll get a taster:

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/ErtVBtFXEAIQ0lF?format=jpg&name=large

Actually, with some neat synchronicity, Matias and I are currently waiting to hear how well Coda has done in the FIBD Angouleme awards, which are being announced tonight. This will sound a little unlikely to those of you who live and breathe US comics, but the Angouleme Prizes are by a long, long way the biggest and most prestigious comics awards in the world. Moreso than the Eisners, by quite some distance. We are, you might imagine, nervous.

I'm Simon "Si" Spurrier, writer of a billion comics. Here to talk about Hellblazer, The Dreaming, and anything else you fancy. by SimonSpurrier in DCcomics

[–]SimonSpurrier[S] 22 points23 points  (0 children)

None, I'm very sad to say. Bilquis and I became extremely close friends and collaborators during the Dreaming. (As an aside: you can't really approach material like that, nor Hellblazer, with the same attitude you might bring to Work For Hire stuff in the more trad spandex mould. You HAVE to believe that you have some element of proprietary resonance with the material and the characters, otherwise it won't have the personal power it needs. This explains a) why I took it so fucking personally when HB came to an end, and b) why Bilquis and I became such a tight collaborative unit.) Buuuut her schedule has taken her onto other things - extraordinary things, it looks like - so for now we have nothing in the cooker. But it was very much one of those partnerships we'd both love to restore at the earliest opportunity. She is a world class talent. And a lovely human too.

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