RKMBs Forums .::Robegories::. Comic Books Alan Grant, interview of the comics writer

Alan Grant, 10-page interview

Initially, I was thinking this would be of more interest to Nowhereman, since Alan Grant is a British writer, and a lot of his work is exclusively in 2000 A.D. and other British publications.

But as I think of it, he's quietly done a huge body of work on this side of the Atlantic too, including a lengthy run on the BATMAN titles, L.E.G.I.O.N. '89, LOBO, THE LAST AMERICAN, BATMAN:SHADOW OF THE BAT, and other titles.

Grant also helped a lot of British Creators break into the field.

He's quietly been one of the workhorse writers in the field, producing a large body of work, and is one of the representative talents of the late-80's/early-90's era.

I recently just read his "Legend of the Dark Mite" in BATMAN: LEGENDS OF THE DARK KNIGHT 38, featuring his and Kevin O'Neil's hilarious version of Bat-Mite.

he's actually Scottish. nice find, though. there's quite a few fans of Grant's Detective run here.

his Batman work was ok. I think his best work was on Shadow.

Thanks for the correction.

Being Scottish explains his connection to Morrison and Quitely, who are Scottish as well.



The material I'm most familiar with is in the last 2 or 3 pages of the interview, his DC work mostly.
A few shorter stories of his I liked include his BATMAN/JUDGE DREDD, and BATMAN/DEMON: A TRAGEDY Elseworlds stories he did, certainly enhanced by some really nice artwork.

I haven't ventured much into his BATMAN and DETECTIVE series work, just sampled a few issues.

His departure from the Batman line was one of several rather lively parts of the interview:

• Q: How did your association with Batman, which lasted over ten years, come to an end?
  
  ALAN GRANT: At midnight on a Friday, I was sent a 2-page fax by Scott Peterson, who wasn't my editor but who hated me. Basically it said, Cataclysm is selling through the roof, retailers love it (lie), readers love it (lie), everybody loves it (ditto). Halfway down page 2, after the eulogies, it suddenly switched to: "What does this mean for your
  ongoing association with Batman? Well, as from next issue, you will no longer be writing the character..."
  
  A great way to get fired after 13 years. When I finally got hold of Denny, he explained that my stories hadn't been so good for the past year or two. I asked why he, as my editor, hadn't pointed this out a year or two earlier and saved me a lot of grief? He had no reply.
  
  I prefer the debatable explanation that it was a conspiracy between Scott Peterson, Darren Vicenzo and Jordan Gorfinkel, Denny's assistants, who disliked Doug Moench and myself, possibly for pointing out they were a bunch of lying, cheating, incompetent assholes.

Well, y'know, it's nice to see there's no hard feelings...

DC editors are well-known as being a bunch of wankers.

Grant wrote some excellent stories set during Cataclysm and Aftershocks. He was obviously playing ball with the storyline and turning out good crossover-based tales.

The likely answer is that O'Neil wasn't actually editing the book in the first place. From what I've heard over the years, Denny basically let his assistants do all his work for him.

Whassis now? Can someone point me here?















Re: Shit the Dog, collab with the Biz. I gotta find that.









Again, gotta have it.

Man, that was cool to read. Thanks for posting it! I wish he woulda talked more about working with Biz, mostly I'm curious about Batman: Lobo. Since, y'know, it's my favorite comic of all time and all.

Great interview. He sounds like a cool guy to go drinking with. And I liked his SOTB stuff - that's where I first read his stuff.

Glad you liked the interview, Uschi.

The BATMAN: LOBO book has art by Simon Bisley. Even mycomicshop.com and milehighcomics.com don't seem to keep it in stock. But I did see several of them available at varying prices on e-bay.


I also enjoyed this portion a lot:

• Q: I believe you turned down an offer of a job as the chief sub-editor on Tornado within a month of starting work for 2000AD. What were your reasons for remaining with 2000AD?
  
  ALAN GRANT: I did, and it caused considerable consternation at IPC. Nobody had ever turned down a promotion before, especially when it involved a large percentage hike in wages. I was called before the managing director to explain myself. For me, 2000AD was the comic of the future...what I'd seen of Tornado marked it as a comic of the past.
  
  (Tornado's original title was 'Heroes'. It was changed about a week before publication of issue *1, after one of the directors' grandsons said he didn't like Heroes.)
  
  I felt that any sensible publisher would be focusing all of their assets and abilities onto their strongest title; at that time, 2000AD had immense potential. IPC could have taken over the world if they'd played it correctly. Instead, IPC was intent on the short-sighted policy of creating a sub-standard clone. I told the MD outright that
  Tornado would fold within 6 months; he bet me £5 it wouldn't. When it did, he paid up, and asked how I could possibly have known it would fail. The answer was simple:
  
  2000AD was conceived, created, written and drawn by a gang of relatively young creators who were passionate about what they wanted to do, who loved doing sci-fi satire, who'd have done it for nothing if IPC had only asked. Tornado, in contrast, was created for no other reason than that 2000AD had been a success. It was a shame--I hate to see any comic being closed down--but nobody loved it enough to make it a success.

It's funny that Grant, as the new kid, was able to see what the old pros couldn't.

And his boldness, in turning down a promotion, that he accurately predicted was a dead-end job.