GKO: MADHOUSE
Here you will find our rambalings on all area's of Batman, interviews and speical features!
CBR News: Frazer, the last time you spoke with CBR we went into your own personal history with Batman and what pieces of the Dark Knight's history had an impact on you. This time out, I'd like to talk a little bit about your history with your Batman collaborator, Grant Morrison. I know you first worked together on Klarion, but how did you initially meet, and how did your knowing each other lead to that first miniseries?
Frazer Irving: The first time I met Grant was at a DC party at my first San Diego Comic-Con back in 2004 or 2005, I think. I'd managed to crash it thanks to Andy Diggle and Jock, and was standing chatting to Duncan Fegredo and Sean Phillips about stuff when Chris Weston butted in and asked if I'd met Grant. I said I hadn't and then Weston whisked me away saying "Well, he wants to meet you," which gave it the air of being summoned into a very exclusive audience at that time. I'd not read much of his work at that point, but I knew his reputation so it was nice to have my work noticed by the dude. When we he started talking it became very apparent that he was in fact as normal as anyone else there, except for the whole talking with gods thing. Luckily, I'm into that as well, so it was all cool, and he said he wanted to work with me on some stuff and I nodded my head. The party split into cliques as it always does, and by the end of it I was on my own again, smoking a cigarette with Brian Azzarello in the sparsely populated smokers corner. After that, I didn't hear anything beyond one e-mail about some Marvel stuff that hadn't happened, and then it was the e-mail about doing "Klarion" that was my next contact. From what I could gather at the time, he had me in mind for that for a while, though pretty much all the contact I had with him during that time was reading notes passed on from the editor.
"Klarion the Witchboy" was a project and character that seemed to fit your specific interests and style extremely well, and a lot of your comics from "Gutsville" through to "Return of Bruce Wayne" have also played with those kinds of Puritanical settler themes and imagery (a rarity for pulp/pop fiction to say the least). What's the draw for those trappings for you as an artist, and what has Grant brought to his scripts that let you draw what you like best?
Well, I should clarify that the Puritan stuff is most definitely not an interest of mine. It's been sheer coincidence that has led me to draw that subject matter all these times. I turned down a Solomon Kane gig at Dark horse specifically because I didn't want to become labelled as "that British dude who draws Puritans," and then up popped "The Return of Bruce Wayne" which was deeply ironic.
In terms of what Grant brings to scripts that I like, basically he brings a good dose of drama, with some excellent pacing, a dash of madness and most importantly the freedom to bend the storytelling to my strengths. My personal favorites have been Professor Pyg and the Joker, mainly because he writes them to be so funny yet so twisted, and that contrast is very easy to get acting in my head.
Of course, Klarion also stopped by "Robin" few years back, letting you bring the character and some of that visual flair on into Gotham – a comic setting built on mood and tone. What was that first experience playing in Batman's world like for you, and what kept you coming back for projects like "Azrael" and the other Bat-covers you've done?
The "Robin" two-parter was less than a pit-stop in Gotham. I didn't really see it as a Gotham story, more a drama about a young dude who has issues with his girlfriend, his butler, and this blue freak that showed up. Adam Beechen's script was light and easy on the art muscle and that's not what I associate with Gotham with all it's madness, horror and dark, dark darkness.
"Azrael" came to me thanks to Mike Marts going insane for a few moments and thinking it'd be easy on his stress levels to hire me, but I was very glad because it did indeed have many elements which i responded to, plus it got me into Gotham a bit better. The covers are also all Mike's fault. As an artist, I find it very hard to cater jobs to my personal tastes; firstly, I don't get to demand the gigs I think I might want, and secondly, it's always how others see my work that's more important. There was a time when I thought I was a "good girl" artist, but clearly no-one else thought so, cos I never get to draw superheroines wearing thongs and microkinis, but I do get to draw freaks and monsters, so I guess that's what everyone likes in my work. I'm assuming it's what Marts likes, because it certainly isn't my punctuality.
Check out the entire interview here.
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