Interview with Garth Ennis.

STIC 3 (1) pp. 17–24 Intellect Limited 2012 Studies in Comics Volume 3 Number 1 © 2012 Intellect Ltd Interviews. English language. doi: 10.1386/stic.3.1.17_7 William Grady Manchester Metropolitan University Garth Ennis interview Comics and Conflicts Conference, london, 19 august 2011 William Grady: In recent comic scholarship, a number have looked at the intertextual comparisons (for better and for worse) in comics and film. Interestingly your Preacher series is filled with allusion to film, from Romance, Road Movie, Action film and Westerns. I’m just interested in your opinion of the relation between the two media. Garth Ennis: Well my work has always been heavily influenced by film and television, even much more than other comics. Most comics you see refer to other comics; the most obvious example is the superhero genre, where the characters are published year in year out. You effectively get the same thing forever. The books just refer to the character’s previous adventures and they just go on forever. Now that’s American superhero comics; I come from a different tradition – British comics – where you have things like Action, Battle, 2000ad, and they were heavily influenced by film. That, combined with my own love for the movies is probably where I got the idea of looking at film in comics 17 William Grady anyway. Them American comics held no interest for me; I saw nothing in them to inspire me so I naturally looked to other places, and with my own love of film that naturally led into Preacher. W. G.: So you would argue that it is quite a British tradition this relation of comics and film? G. E.: If you look at comics like Action in the 70s, there you have Pat Mills and John Wagner putting this thing together and they look around at what’s popular. Dirty Harry – right, do that call it Dredger, Jaws – do that call it Hook Jaw. And I don’t think I’m saying anything here that Pat would take exception to; I think they’re very much influences on the thing that he has acknowledged over the years. 2000ad again is just Death Race 2000 with a dash of Dirty Harry. Some of the Dan Dare material that was appearing seen influence from Star Wars, which itself had a huge impact on comics. So British comics, certainly after the kind of renaissance in the mid-70s, always looked to film, and I guess that was just something that I naturally picked up on. W. G.: In some respects Preacher can be regarded as a Western, as it has these confined Western narratives seen in Saint of Killers and Salvation, yet it is combined with a number of other narrative threads (e.g. the vampires in New Orleans branch of the story) that when woven together create the broader storyline of the series. I’m just interested if you would regard the series as a purely Western narrative. G. E.: I think while Preacher does have many of the trappings of a Western, it’s an American story, before it’s a Western story. When I was putting together the elements to become Preacher, I realized early on this was going to be a completely American story, the characters would be American, the myths it drew on would be American. Obviously the Western is going to be a big part of that; it’s a young country, and what happens in the West, 1840–1890, is really when the Wild West as we really understand it rose and fell. Obviously it cast a long shadow over the country’s myths and legends, so that was going to be a huge influence on Preacher, but as you’ve noted, it does step outside the Western. It has the New Orleans vampire cult, for example, and that’s another part of American mythology – the kind of gothic voodoo tradition in New Orleans. It’s a much smaller part than the Westerns of course, but it was something I wanted to visit. So yeah, first and foremost an American story, secondly a Western. W. G.: And of course we know of your fandom of the Western, but I was interested how much of it was Steve Dillon’s input? G. E.: Steve is the kind of guy who you can throw anything at him and he just takes it and makes it work. So even though Preacher took place on a larger canvas, than the things he’d done before, with a lot more variety in terms of constantly changing characters, a cast that built and built and built, he 18 Garth Ennis Interview … was just able to take it in his stride. In terms of what he came up with, I would say the ideas were mostly mine, and what Steve brought to the book is his skill as a storyteller; he gave me the confidence to keep branching out and coming up with wilder and wilder stuff. I don’t know if there’s any other artist you can say that of because once you realize the guy can handle anything it frees you up enormously. Other artists I may have had to stop a lot sooner, and not try certain things just because I’m thinking ‘no I’m asking too much of them’. With Steve, he shot himself in the foot a little bit, because you can throw anything at him and he’ll make it work. W. G.: Yeah there’s definitely a few… let’s say interesting characters in there! G. E.: Yeah, believe me, there were a few things that made him pause and think ‘Christ how do I handle this?’ or ‘God what’s he getting me to do now?’ But what he brought to Preacher more than anything else was giving me the freedom to do it in a way that I don’t think anyone else could have. Steve has a tremendous workman approach to what he does. Neither of us go in for the kind of wide-ranging collaboration that you get from a lot of writer/artist teams where you sit down and exchange notes, and do a tonne of pre-production stuff before anything goes on the page. We’re not really like that; we just trust the other to get on with the job. I know that he can handle anything, and he knows I won’t ask the impossible of him – I may give him some bizarre imagery, but at the same time I won’t ask him to fit ten panels on the page, each with three people talking with two word balloons each; that’s asking the impossible from him. W. G: A part of my study is looking at the globalizing of the Western genre, i.e. Westerns produced in other countries. I’m just interested if there are any conscious native Irish cultural influences that you brought to the Preacher series. Or any outsider critiques of the States you were trying to make. G E: Any commentary that there is in Preacher on the Western or on America is almost all affectionate. I mean I grew up with American films in general, and Westerns in particular. I moved to America fairly early on; I’ve just become an American citizen so my love for the place, the people, its culture and its history is deep and abiding. Steve wouldn’t go that far, although he’s spent enough time in America and appreciates American culture enough. So I think he’s coming from a place of appreciation too. You’re not looking at a hatchet job at any depth of the imagination. So I think in terms of what you’re asking about, I don’t think Preacher is meant to be a harsh critique; it’s taking all our favourite elements of the place and throwing it into the pot and seeing what we can cook up. W G: Of course, but then there’s Cassidy right? Was there something embedded in that tale? 19 William Grady G E: Sure, but Cassidy is the American immigrant. The American immigrant experience certainly is for the latter half of the nineteenth, early part of the twentieth century, a big part of the American immigrant experience, and is nicely distilled in the story of the Irish immigrants – the disenfranchised people who leave their own country, forced across the ocean, appalling conditions arise, dirt poor, not a pot to piss in, and yet, in a pretty short space of time have managed to set themselves up as the power base in society, certainly in the East Coast cities, in Chicago and the Northeast. And in terms of the underworld of the cities, the Irish are the ones running the show. Later it gets taken away from them by the Italians and various other organizations. But in the legitimate side of things, in government, the Irish have slowly been put aside for the next wave of immigrants and begin to dominate the social strata. W. G.: If we return to this idea of globalizing the West, there’s one case I want to draw on. Jon Favreau, a few years ago, stated the problem with the American Westerns is the lack of foreign market for the genre, citing Unforgiven as his example of poor success internationally. Now he’s just made a Weird Western, Cowboys & Aliens. I was able to ask him a question (through the Guardian newspaper) if the ‘Weird’ was a way for foreign market success, to which he replied that some viewed the West as old-fashioned, and that this was definitely a way of updating the genre. I’m just interested to see what your reasoning was behind adding ‘Weird’ (i.e. Cassidy being a vampire) aspects to the series? G. E.: Preacher developed into the more modern Western that it is quite late on. It was a jumble of elements first, then it became an American story, then it became this modern-day Western. I really can’t say that I put any of the thought behind that like clearly Jon Favreau has in your example. Ultimately all Steve and I had to do was make a monthly comic work in the American, and by extension British, and as a nice bonus the overseas market, but it really only had to work in America to be frank about it. What Jon Favreau happened to do about it, he wanting to make a particular story, and then the studios come in and are saying, ‘this is all very well but we’re investing this much and we need it to work in the rest of the world’; I never had to consider that. Preacher does well in other parts of the world, but it does well kind of in proportion to its success in America. In other words, it did very well in the States and the UK, and English-speaking countries and quite nicely in the rest of the world. But again, he’s in a completely different ball game than me. W. G.: Of course, but I think it becomes quite interesting the differing creative processes in both industries. G. E.: Also he mentioned Unforgiven; that is my favourite movie! W. G.: Yeah I really love the interrelation between the myth making in your Saint of Killers story arc and Unforgiven; you can really see Eastwood’s character shine through in that side story. But the Saint’s story 20 Garth Ennis Interview … is an interesting one; the narrative voice in this arc deviates from the rest of the series. I’ve argued that it’s narrated like pure dime novel to give mythic credence to the character, but obviously this is purely my own theory; it would be great to hear what you were trying to achieve with the presence of a storyteller in this story arc. G. E.: I think you’ve hit the nail on the head. The point was to have a narrator, which Preacher lacks completely. W. G.: Yeah there is only a narrator present to inform us of time contexts, such as ‘ten days earlier’, ‘six months later’. G. E.: I think Jesse narrates an episode early on, and there is the odd little bit. But the presence of the narrator is there to set the story apart. It’s to define that this is the legend that informs the rest of the story; this is what’s going to lay the foundation for what came next a century later. And it was influenced heavily by some of the stuff I was reading at the time, like McCarthy and Joe Lansdale, both heavily influenced by the Western genre themselves and long-standing writers of it. Having that somewhat old-fashioned, archaic kind of voice, that you can almost imagine grinding out the words in a raspy old gunslinger’s voice. I think it really helped it from what it was. W. G.: Yeah I think it really encapsulates some of the trappings of early frontier myth making; it’s essentially a tale of legend. But your series offers other readings of the West too. Preacher: Salvation sticks out, as an isolated narrative. The structure is pure ‘Classical Western’ (the hero enters the town, saves society from the villain, then sets off into the sunset); I’m just interested why this standout, isolated narrative is placed where it is amidst the rest of the series. G. E.: That was really a desire to take a step aside from the ongoing story. We’d built Preacher up, and up and up. The first year ended with the showdown in Angelville with Jesse’s family, issues come to the fore and it all ends in an explosion of fire and blood. The second year ends with the Grail and an even bigger explosion; we’re upping the ante. The third year ends with the nuclear devastation in Monument Valley, where you have a tank battle and the Saint of Killers. We were upping the ante each time and it felt right to simply step aside. I had a chance to slowly reveal more about Cassidy, more than what people were expecting. I think it had gone on its own tangent with Cassidy and Tulip, when you found out more than you really wanted to. Because of that, it gave me the opportunity to take Jesse and set him aside and put him through a different kind of story. And that was a nice breather then before we got on with the main business of the last year of the book. 21 William Grady W. G.: Sticking with Salvation, as an isolated narrative, I’m currently studying it as a Classic Western. And with it I’m focusing on the three character models that make these Classic Westerns – the hero, society and the villain. Typically we have these strong coded and skilled fighters for villains. Of course other characters in the series, such as the Saint, embody these traits, but looking at Salvation as stand-alone, Classic Western narrative, it’s interesting that the villain, Odin Quincannon, is coded somewhat differently. He’s weedy; he’s not a fighter. I’m just interested why you chose to deviate from this character model. G. E.: It may have been that it was just time to have a weedy little freak. If you look at the other characters in the book, the adversarial characters, there’s Starr who while he isn’t the most physically imposing man he’s at least distinctive, and he waives his power on a level we can’t imagine. There’s the Saint of Killers – huge and imposing physically, can’t be destroyed, but can destroy whole armies. It seemed for me it was time for a disgusting little runt. Especially when I realized what he was getting up to, I really wanted him to be an appalling petty little man. W. G.: I can’t wait to write that in my thesis; it’s a very good description! But it’s interesting how he fits into the structure well despite deviating from the ‘Classic’ coding of strong, and a skilled fighter. G. E.: I mean it’s like with any story, it’s just what feels right at the time, and then later on you just discover if you’ve followed some form of traditional structure without realizing. W. G.: Society is an interesting one for the Classic Western. A number of film scholars say that the Westerns are a reflection of contemporary society. So the Classic Westerns of the 50s are meant to be a representation of the collapse of the market economy in America. Your series, written in the 1990s, obviously isn’t impacted by that context so I was interested if your series has any societal reflections. G. E.: I suppose in the case of Salvation, you have the corporate influence. Odin brings along his meat plant and he ruins the town and he ruins the environment and he owns law and order so no one can do anything about it. The sheriff that brings Jesse in offers him the job so that he can do a runner. You’re basically looking at what in fact turned out to be the foundations, or lack of foundations, of what can happen seven or eight years later when the Bush government really got going. The most obvious example is Hurricane Katrina, when people were simply left to die in the storm and the Federal government’s response was limited and disorganized. Local law enforcement 22 Garth Ennis Interview … coped; while there were many examples of heroism from individual officers, there were some examples of appalling racist brutality (and murder we’ve found out recently by others). So you’re seeing a breakdown of the social safety net that we like to rely on. You hope that if there’s a major disaster your government will come and help you out, not because it’s the right thing, but because they’re there to protect you and also the simple fact you pay your taxes so you have a right to expect it. Well it turned out that that wasn’t there. Now since then we’ve seen that things have progressed; some of the response to the storm damage in the last couple of years has been much more impressive, and the government has moved in. But for a while it did look pretty grim and it looked like people were going to be abandoned to the storm and it left a lasting impression on me. I did a story, Crossed, and broadly speaking it’s a zombie story. But what led me into that is this sense that people in a disastrous situation might have to deal with the fact that no one is coming to save them, that there will be no government response, no effective attempt to aid them, and that they’ll be on their own. Then a twenty-first-century citizen over reliant on technology that’s now not there, no government or law enforcement, what does he do? But anyway, long way around the barn that one. W. G.: The hero of the series, Jesse, is very multifaceted and can be read on a number of levels – as a cowboy in Salvation, to conjuring affiliations of General Custer outside the Alamo, as him punching Cassidy is juxtaposed with text from Evan S. Connell’s non-fiction tale on Custer. While the other character models deviate in Salvation, Jesse remains pretty grounded in the ‘Classical Western’ hero model. But significantly, he breaks this classic coding of the frontier hero as he cries at the end of the series. I was just wondering is there any significance to this? G. E.: I think Jesse had made a promise to himself after his father got shot; he promised he would never cry again. I think it’s more to do with that, and to cry in front of Tulip shows that he’s left the crazy violent part of his life; in fact he’s left Preacher behind and now they’re free to enjoy a normal life, after all the horrors. W. G.: You’re very good at having all these Western characters’ names placed into your plot, for example sheriff Daggett in Unforgiven becomes Deputy Daggett in Salvation. I was just wandering if the population of Salvation, 1626, was a significant number. G. E.: If there was I’ve long since forgotten. W. G.: I guess as one final question, in this unflinching Western-focused interview, has the genre impacted any of your other works? 23 William Grady G. E.: I wrote one straight Western, a traditional one with no modern trappings of any kind called Streets of Glory. Beyond that there’s been a bit here and a bit there, but nothing really since Preacher. William Grady has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work in the format that was submitted to Intellect Ltd. 24 Copyright of Studies in Comics is the property of Intellect Ltd. and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use.