Shut Up and Listen 25 Sunday September 2, 2001 Last Night Of Freedom That’s what I’m living. Go back to school on Tuesday so tomorrow night doesn’t count towards crap. This is my last night to stay up real late (until Friday) and wake up the next day real late. These are the End Times, my friends. Monday September 3, 2001 *Sigh* I go back tomorrow. I can’t believe it’s here already. It seems like just yesterday that I was getting my diploma. I’m not too concerned about school too much, I just consider it an annoyance as it’s disrupting my summer. I’ve been living the good life and now it’s over. My schedule for tomorrow is as such: spare (WAH-HOO!), writer’s craft (double WAH-HOO!), lunch, law and physics. I like it for the most part. It’s kind of cool that I go there tomorrow and then do nothing for an hour and twenty minutes. Well, Space has finally taken my idea and gone with it. Starting at 2 every afternoon they show an episode of each Star Trek series. Also, each night this week at 8 they are showing one of the Star Trek movies (the first five). The first one sucked. I watched an hour and then stopped. Tomorrow should be good. Star Trek 2: The Wrath of Khan! Well, at least tomorrow won’t entirely suck. Tuesday September 4, 2001 Doomsday Here are a few tidbits from my first day back: Spare was boring as hell after ten minutes. Nice to know that some things haven’t changed. Guess who has my spare? If you said Lunchbox, you are so wrong. That’s right. The Girl. Out of all my classes I was looking forward to writer’s craft the most and now have the feeling that I will enjoy it the least. Me, Lunchbox, Little Man Rump and Grizzly Adams all piled into Tubby Bitch’s car and went to McDonald’s. That had to have been the best part of the school day. Got the same speech about us being adults and wanting to be in school and doing this for ourselves in all three classes. Some were better than others though. I fucking hate the cocksucking bus driver. Goddamn motherfucker drives like a fucking grandma. He takes his sweetass time and then takes the longer route to the stop. One that goes right by my fucking house. But did he let me and my sister off? NO. I hate the fucking jackass. And I was home about twenty minutes later than ever. Goddamn bus driver. And it took Grizzly Adam until 11:01 to mention this goddamn tic-tac-toe program he made last year and was obsessed with. The it took twelve more minutes for him to suggest we go on a hike. Funny kid. Wednesday September 5, 2001 Interview With . . . Mark Millar! Anybody remember back when the comic community considered Mark Millar, for the most part, to be Grant Morrison’s “sidekick?” I do. See, I was just coming into full comic awareness while reading JLA, you know, entered high school, growing up a bit, mocking Rob Liefeld. Morrison was one of the big names in comics and occasionally you’d see the name Mark Millar attached to it, so one could only infer that Millar was Morrison’s friend, but possibly not a strong enough writer to stand on his own (and I know you all might be getting mad at me, but I’m going somewhere with this). Then I read JLA #27 and I threw away that image. The story was un-fucking-believable! It had witty dialogue, a great plot, kick ass characterization and the best way to defeat a villain I had seen in a long time. To this day it’s my favourite issue of JLA and one of my top five comics. Millar then went on to prove himself to everyone else with The Authority and Ultimate X-Men. Then I saw pictures of him with his thin moustache and wearing women’s underwear . . . but I still enjoy the writing. Me: Tell us a little about yourself. Millar: Born young, educated poorly and married at twenty-three. Dropped out of university and desperately needed to find some kind of job. Couldn't believe my luck when this materialized as a comics career and people were actually buying my little black and white indie comics. Worked in newspapers and TV too, but comics are the only thing which give me the full, three-inch hard-on. Me: How did you get involved in comics? Millar: Black and white Indo stuff here in the UK. I did a book called Saviour about a superhero secretly being the Antichrist and it won me a couple of awards. This led to work for 2000AD; which has long been established as the direct route to DC Comics as we saw with Grant, Alan Moore, etc. It's basically DC's boot camp. Me: What have you written? Millar: Judge Dredd, Big Dave, Sonic The Hedgehog (to pay for my wedding which I hadn't saved up for), Swamp Thing for Vertigo, Superman Adventures and JLA for DC, The Authority for Wildstorm, the Ultimate [Ultimate X-Men and The Ultimates] stuff for Marvel . . . Me: What are you currently working on? Millar: I'm writing a TV show called Sikeside and keeping busy with my two monthlies, Ultimate X-Men and The Ultimates. However, at some point in the near future, I'm going to get my two adult creator-owned things up and running. Expect an announcement around the end of the year, if not before. Me: Was Warren Ellis’ description of you at the beginning of his interview with you for his Come In Alone column accurate? Millar: Precisely accurate. Me: What do you friends and family think of some of the content you include in your comics? Any problems with some people's reactions? Millar: Absolutely none of my friends or family read comics. Sure, I've got my pals in the industry, but nobody I grew up with or generally socialize with read comics. Not even my wife. They're all too grown-up. Me: Boxers or briefs? Millar: Definitely briefs. If you have any kind of testicles or dick whatsoever, boxers are literally impossible to wear without dangling like a pound of grapes. Me: Summer or winter? Millar: Both. Me: Cats or dogs? Millar: Both. Me: Do you have any cool stories involving a chick? Millar: I saw a girl partially naked once. Does that count? Me: I just gave you a case full of 100 untraceable bullets, who do you use them on? Millar: I'd shoot country star Garth Brooks in the head for starters . . . and then shoot him another ninety nine times to make sure he was definitely dead. Me: Who are your favourite writers? Millar: Warren Ellis, Grant Morrison and Kevin Smith are doing the best work in the business at the moment. I also check out Mark Waid, Garth Ennis, Joe Casey, Tom Peyer and, of course, (insert your own name here so I'm not embarrassed when I bump into you at a convention). Me: Who is your hero? Millar: Me. Me: If you could write any comic, what would it be? Millar: I'm pretty much writing all the ones I've ever wanted to write so I suppose creator-owned would be my side-stepped answer. In terms of company characters, I've always liked Batman. It would be interesting to do something like that for a year at some point. Me: What artists do you really want to work with that you haven't already? Millar: Again, I'm really lucky. The guys I've been working with recently have been Bryan Hitch, Frank Quitely and Los Bros Kubert. It really doesn't get much better than that, but my hit-list definitely includes Steve Dillon, Dean Ormston (who's ridiculously underrated), Marcelo Frusin, Richard Corben, Terry and Rachel Dodson, Bill Sienkiewicz and the brilliant Johnny Jr. [John Romita Jr.]. Me: You were involved with that Superman pitch a couple years back, right? We know that Morrison and Waid were really hurt by DC's rejection, but what was your take on it? Millar: We were all pretty devastated because it was such a weird, messy, political situation. There was a real communication problem and everyone kind of came out of that damaged. That said, it's all water under the bridge now and I know that there's no enmity on either side. Eddie's editing the books now and doing a really good job. The Superman titles haven't been this good in fifteen years. Me: In your first Authority arc you pretty much had them kick the shit out of the Avengers and X-Men and here you are writing the same characters for Marvel. Does this mean that the Authority are going to show up in some form to get wasted by them? Millar: Hmm. Never thought of that. Might do now, of course, but I'll never give you the credit. Me: Describe your visions of comics in the future as I know you have a pretty upbeat one. Millar: I think it's impossible to work in the business and not assume things will get better. Basically, regardless of what field you're in, if you have an enthusiasm for your craft and do the best possible job success is virtually inevitable at some point. Naturally, you're always going to get shit at some point, but it's worth it. This is a really, really hard job, but it's a great one. The numbers are getting better every month and, I think, the overall quality is improving too. I've always maintained that we'll be bigger than we've ever been around 2006-2010 and I still say. What we're going through right now is just the beginning of an incredible upswing. Me: Who do you love? Millar: Wife, daughter, friends, family, humanity, etc . . . Me: Any final words? Millar: Final words come at the END of your career, baby. Thursday September 6, 2001 Free Will Shit, the past couple of days have been good for discussions. It’s all because of law class. We had to read a theological paper on morals and religion. Lunchbox, Tubby Bitch and I got into a nice discussion about freedom of choice and whether it exists. Lunchbox maintains the theory that everything is genetics. It goes back to the first life on earth’s genetics. Since what we did at that point was all instinct and that determined over time where we are (that’s a simplified way of saying). I say we have partial free will. We decide what we do out of the choices given. We get to choose our choice, but not our options. And I realize that I once again used too concise of statements to express myself. Oh well. Spare Me Your Pity I am liking spare a lot. It is quite enjoyable. Fuck Talking to Dream Conception and he tells me that word on the street is that The Girl is close to getting back together with the ex. I don’t know that many details, but this sucks. It makes me doubt my wanting to make a move a lot. The possibilities of my being screwed over (and not in the way I’d like) just went up in my mind. Fuck. Friday September 7, 2001 The Whole World’s Against Me Maybe not the whole world, but definitely, our western society. It is out to fuck me over. You ever get the feeling you’re not welcome in your own home? I’ve been getting that a lot lately. The put it simply, my sisters are bitches. My dad is a dick. My mom . . . I’m loath to call my mom a bad name; I’ll just say she’s unpleasant, sort of, at times. You wouldn’t believe how many “you’re 18, so move out” comments I get. Yeah, I’m 18, so what? That doesn’t mean I should move out. I’m still in high school, for fuck’s sake! Our society gives the image that once you’re 18, you’re an adult and you have to leave. That’s shit. That is pure and utter shit. For a society that seems to be geared towards the individual, we seem damn well set on making broad social statements. I’m not ready to live on my own. Most people my age are the same. It’s not like you hit 18 and get this divine knowledge on how to make it on your own. It’s very disconcerting to feel unwelcome in your own home. I mean . . . fuck. Saturday September 8, 2001 Ugh Not in a good mood. If only killing a sibling was legal . . .