AVC: Do you think you're ever likely to return to comics on the scale of Cages?
DM: Yeah, I'd love to. I'd love to do another sort of novel like that. I've had one in mind for a few years that I'd love to do at some point. I can't imagine going back to doing straight-ahead commercial stuff for DC, but another book like Cages, or Pictures That Tick, which is a collection of short stories, that I will definitely do. I can't imagine not having a comics project of some kind on the back burner, or actually doing it. At the moment, it's just finding the time, because I really want to crack this film thing. I really want to do a film that I'm proud of. And trying to get used to the language, because it's so complicated and there are just so many opportunities to screw up and make mistakes, it's so difficult. And I want to try and at least get more comfortable with that.
AVC: Did anything in particular draw you to "straight-ahead commercial stuff" like DC's Black Orchid or Arkham Asylum, apart from the need to break into comics at that point in your life?
DM: Yeah there was, really. I had just met Neil, and we were both trying to break into comics—he was working as a journalist, and I was fresh out of art school. And it had a lot to do with—with Black Orchid, I suppose there were two appeals at the time. I wanted to do something that had an ecological story in the backbone. I'd be happy doing an ecological story somehow—I wasn't planning to dress it up in a superhero costume, but that seemed the thing to do at the time. Initially, I suppose the idea was this general feeling that comics had become sort of homogenous, and all the people were insane, and there is a specific way of drawing comic-book people. They all moved the same, and talked the same, and had the same expression. And I just wanted to scrape all that away and get back to what real people would like. So I decided to make Black Orchid very, very photographic, so you'd concentrate on what real people look like, real expressions. I never intended to do more than one book like that, but that was the idea, to try and get back to human beings again, rather than some strange fighter people.
And Arkham Asylum I thought was good fun. I met Grant Morrison and really liked him—he'd just discovered Jan Svankmajer, and I'd pretty much just discovered him as well. We both just had a lot in common, we both loved Dennis Potter. And Grant had written the script, and it had a lot of elements that I liked, and a lot that I didn't. It had Robin in it. Batman dressed up in his daft costume, and a lot of characters that I didn't understand. A lot of basic superhero stuff, because he had just written it on spec, he certainly hadn't written it for me. So we talked about it, and he was really keen to rewrite it, to make it much more symbolic, much more like some strange Alice In Wonderland story. And that was just perfect timing for where his head was at. So that's what we did, and I think probably on reflection, the Batman story weakened it. But there were a lot of things that I had great fun playing with.
AVC: What drew you to comics in the first place?
DM: I just love the medium. I love telling stories. I love narrative art. I never really got into gallery painting, putting on gallery shows or that sort of thing. I love telling stories. And even in single images, I tend to have stories inside them. I've always loved film, but I was making drawings and paintings and photographs. And you put art and narrative together, and that really is comics. I've always read comics as a kid, and growing up and going through art school. And the comics I've read have always changed. I've sort of jumped around. That's it, really. I love the feeling of a book, and you open the book, and it's full of images. It has this sort of intimacy of a novel, but you open the pages and you have this wonderful visual intimacy as well. At its best, I think it's sort of like a handwritten note, like music or something—it goes straight into you. When it's working really well and really personally, rather than these big superhero things. The small, introverted, voice-in-your-head stories, I think they work brilliantly as comic books. It's a unique medium.
AVC: You've worked as a composer, performer, photographer, fine artist, screenwriter, director, and a comics writer/artist. Are there any media left that you want to explore?
DM: Certainly at the moment, you could easily spend several lifetimes trying to master film. It make very good use of all the things that I love. Narrative, image-making, also sound and music. It's so full that I can't really imagine getting tired of it. Or getting to the point like I feel like I know it. Before doing Mirrormask, I was starting to feel a little comfortable. The books that Neil and I have done have been doing very well, and I was feeling much more comfortable in comics. It was very easy for me to feel okay with doing CD and book covers. So I really love this very difficult feeling of being completely out at sea. I don't know what I'm doing, and I kind of like this feeling. So I think for the moment, I'm going to continue to try and nail film down in some sort of shape where I'm happy with it.
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