Mike Carey

NightPunch, Sinister is definitely going to come back again at some point - either in X-Men or elsewhere. Not so sure about the Shadow King, but anything is possible...

Natee sex is clearly a misprint for matee sex - ie, friendly, companionable sex where you chat urbanely about old times as you screw.

Took my eye off the ball again there.

John, I'm really happy that you enjoyed my run on the book. Thanks for the kind words - sincerely. I would *kill* to write an episode of Firefly - or of Doctor Who, although that probably goes without saying.

James, you're right - Sophie Aldred (although she is good at it) is wasted just doing kids' TV.

My favourite Ace line (from Happiness Patrol): "I hate you. I want to make you really, really unhappy."

Mark, good to see you again in Oslo - Red, sorry you didn't make it.

As for those Lucifer questions (Rolls us sleeves):-

1. I've been struggling to try to put this into words, but this is how I think it works - I mean, the way I've thought it out and put it together in Lucifer (I'm not saying this is how the universe really works). Yahweh inscribed his name on every atom of his creation: hos departure caused everything that exists to start to collapse, implode, decay towards nothingness. Elaine now exists in that same relationship towards Creation. Yes, she has enormous power - and as we'll see in #74, she's got some good ideas about what to do with it. But in the broader sense, she's chained to creation in the same way Yahweh was. She's like Leviathan in those medieval woodcuts - a whale with an island on her back. If she moves, there's an earthquake. So she has to get used to not moving.

2. Lucifer has another option open to him, and he takes it in #72. And then in #75 he gets the long-delayed but necessary confrontation with Yahweh which spells everything out. I don't think his trajectory is a circle: or rather, yeah, in one sense it is a circle: out of which he moves in a straight line, like a stone that's been spun around and around in a sling. You won't be left in any doubt at the close of #75 that he's moved on from his initial position.

Well, jokey name for what turned out to be a fun and useful occasion. The main point of the meeting was to let the different creative teams talk about their plans for the year so we all got a sense of what would be happening to characters who were "off-panel" in our own books. Very handy if you want to create a sense that the characters all exist in the same universe.

Bilirubin, you've got some great stories ahead of you - most of Ennis, Ellis and Azzarello still to come. Hope you enjoy my stuff too, when you get to it.

Two things I'd say about Denise Mina: one, she's proved in her novels that she can handle dark material and haunted characters with bravura style. And two (although I hate to play I-know-something-you-don't-know) she's got some ideas for Hellblazer that - while they're entirely in keeping with the mood and ethos of the book - are hugely original and effective. So I think John's in safe hands. Or rather, risk-taking hands, which I think is where we all want him...

I thertainly am.

Testosterohne, you ought to be able to read most of my stories without reference to the other titles, but there's going to be one point in the course of the next year where we kind of share a storyline with one of the other books. It's a little like the X-Men/Black Panther story that Millligan did last year: the most likely format is that two issue of X-Men and two issues of another book will tell a continuous story over two months and eighty-eight pages. A micro-crossover, kind of thing. It was an idea we had at the X-summit in New York, where I got talking to one of the other creative teams and we saw an opportunity to play around with some ideas that seemed to apply to both books.

Umm... I mean... I can't confirm or deny that I'M THE NEW WRITER ON X-MEN. That may or may not be true. I couldn't possibly say. If I were, I'd be taking over in July. With issue 188. And how cool would that be? If it were true? Which it might or might not be?

Ade, these people you're planning to send... do they have webbed fingers and speech impediments? Will one of them loom over me and say "What a revolting development thish ish"?

Christian, the book is about 140,000 words long, which translates as about four hundred pages: somewhere near average length for a novel these days, I'd guess. I can't really be precise about how long it took. I tended to do some Castor work and some comics work every week while I was writing it, but there were some weeks without a comics deadline where I just rolled up my sleeves and typed away at Castor from monday through to friday. Where I was doing both, it tended to be like this: comics at the start of the week, because I needed to get to a certain point by a certain time; then Castor later in the week, because Castor was bigger and longer term, with the external deadline a long way away.

Rogan, I don't have a single painted whatnot thingie on the cards at the moment. There was some talk a while back of me and Dean Ormston doing something along those lines. Have you ever seen Dean's painted art? Mmmmm. But we couldn't find the right vehicle, as they say.

Still, at least he's coming back for Lucifer #73. That's going to be very cool.

Got it? I've signed contracts on the TV miniseries.

I'm thinking "I'm a Duck, Get me Out of Here" would be a tasteful title.

It took six months for the actual writing - about a month before that for planning. The initial inspiration was an idea about death and what comes after death: a sort of mechanism or rationale for all the various supernatural events in the books. The idea for the Castor character himself arose - backwards - out of that. Kind of weird, really, and I can't remember anything else I've written where it's worked like that. Sorry, it's hard to be more specific than that without letting slip major spoilers.

Got it. I loved that Treehouse of Terror episode where Comic Book Guy faced off against Xena. Sorry, I mean Lucy Lawless.

Hellboy, it's not impossible. I discussed it with Shelly Bond, once, in very broad terms. If I did, I'd probably want to do different stories in the comic version, rather than adapt the novels. The dynamic is very different.

Dang. I can't.

But I'll sign anything except a blank cheque. :cool:

Thanks, Christian.

Jae, pretty much all of the books in the current line-up fall into that category of "associated with one writer's sensibility and point of view". I think it would be fun to take a crack at Swamp Thing one day, but I guess I have to give the obvious answer. Out of all of Vertigo's current books, the one I most want to write is Hellblazer. Again.

It's been my pleasure, Lou.

And I'm already missing it.

James, for the sin of setting me up you will burn for a thousand eternities in an unconvincing stage set of hell (like one of those sound-stage-like planets from the original Star Trek) where every other role - demon, sinner and hell-harrowing Constantine alike - is played by Keanu.

Sorry, that was me again. Thought I'd already logged in...

Nah, I hark back to the Kirby stories, mostly. It's hypocritical, I know, because by and large I really relish the re-inventions of Kirby characters you get in the Ultimate books, but I think there *is* a difference. The Ultimate books are playing a sort of mind-game with old-time readers, and they're written alongside the originals rather than over the top of them. I dislike it when a new version of a character or team steps into an established continuity and we have to pretend that the original character or team never existed. That was particularly painful with the Metal Men.

By contrast, I love it when somebody steps into a rich continuity and makes you see it all from a different angle - like Moore on Swamp Thing or Morrison on Doom Patrol. Come to think of it, that's a pleasure that you can only get from comics: there's nothing similar in prose fiction, film or TV.

Also, as I just commented over on the Outgoing Writer thread, Ed is one American writer who I think could do some very interesting things with Hellblazer...

Wolvy, read the latest JOE FRIDAYS column on Newsarama (http://www.newsarama.com/JoeFridays/JoeFridays34.html) for Joe Quesada's take on leaks and spoilers. He's speaking mainly in relation to Deadly Genesis, but it's clearly a point that applies more widely.

I might start doing that too.

Yeah, Ed's got a *lot* of stuff going on right now - having just been announced as writer on Uncanny X-Men as well as Daredevil. I don't know what his long-term plans are, but right now he's putting out some of the best work of his career at Marvel.

DCU characters? Just the usual ones, Rogan. Batman, especially. Sorry, banal and obvious answer. In terms of obscure old characters who I'd like to dust off and re-invent, I always had a soft spot for both the Metal Men and the Challengers of the Unknown - but the Metal Men on their last outing were sort of ret-conned half to death. I like them in their classic forms, and that would be a hard sell for a modern audience.

I'd like to be more of a presence, Rogan. But I'm not going to make rash promises. I'll still be reading the threads, so I expect I'll make the occasional comment at least. Eg, there was a thread under the COMICS heading about Ed Brubaker's Daredevil, and I almost - - almost - - posted a comment to the effect that Ed would be one American writer whose take on Hellblazer I'd be more than curious to see. But it would have derailed the thread, so I didn't.

Heroic restraint, you see: I'm known for it.

Oddboy, it gives me a huge kick to have got you started on the Hellblazer habit. I also have a page from that issue, courtesy of Jock and Ade "the Fixer" Brown.

Mike Perkins and I had a thumbnail plan for a second Carver Hale arc, but I don't think it's likely, sad to say. I had a bit of a row with Rebellion over the handling of the rights to 13, which hasn't been resolved to their satisfaction or mine: it makes it more or less impossible for me to do any more work for them, because there isn't an atmosphere of trust between us.

That was some more heroic restraint. Boy, this stuff is easy once you get the hanfg of it...

I don't think it would be fair to do that, really. Whatever opinions I express can't really help, even if they're overwhelmingly positive. I'll still pop up on general threads, but not to post opinions on specific issues.

Testosterohne - I honestly don't know. If DC don't use it over the next couple of years, I'll ask Jon or whoever's editing at that point if I can post up the script somewhere. They gave Warren the go-ahead to do it with Shoot, presumably.

Balthazar, the Marvel stuff I've got in the pipeline I can't even drop hints about at the moment. Partly that's because it's sort of bad manners to pre-empt their press release: the kind of bad manners that gets you a late-night visit from guys who say "Evening, squire. We're here to edit you out of the continuity..." But also partly because of superstitious dread.

When I can talk about it, I'll probably do so at my blog on Mikecarey.net, where you guys are very welcome to drop by when you're not hanging out here. I've only just started blogging, and I'm still feeling my way into it, but I intend to post there very regularly. Or did I just lay just one of the paving stones on the road to hell?

Mark, the two signings are at the two Outland stores - one on Friday, one on Saturday. I'm not sure about times.

My god! That was so bad it gave me a nosebleed. "Chainsaw! The great communicator!" Yes, indeed. Thanks, Rogan.

Abhimanyu, I'm glad the balance of magic/horror elements in the book worked for you. I know it was too rich for some - or at least, too skewed away from John as con-man and brinkmanship merchant. This *was* a conscious decision, obviously, because I always felt that those elements belonged close to the core of the book - so long as John doesn't become Doctor Strange without a cape. Magic is there as an element in his world, but it's not usually his tool of first choice.

That's the idea I was working to, any way. Thinking about it, magic did play an important part in the climaxes to Red Sepulchre and Staring at the Wall. But in each case it's somebody other than John who's handling that side of the equation...

Christian, thanks for the vote of confidence.

Thinking back, what happened as far as I can remember is that Brian filled me in on where he was going to leave John - the main point being that he was officially dead - and I made my pitch based on that. Since I was taking John back to the UK and largely leaving behind the supporting cast and situations that Brian had created, we didn't have to worry too much about dovetailing.

The point about expansion is harder to answer. I *did* introduce some new characters, of course, but I was very consciously taking John back to a milieu and a period in his life that was established during the Ennis/Ellis runs - so I used those characters and backdrops extensively. That was something of a statement of intent, I think.

Putting the magic at the centre was very definitely what I wanted to do and what I emphasised most in the pitch. I'm glad it worked for you, MojoPin. Of course, John remains a consummate con-man: he's just a a con-man who can actually do the business when it's called for.

Wolvy, I never saw that book. The thought that there might be a book worse than Pantera: Power in the Darkness gives me hope that some day I can be rehabilitated into society, and maybe entrusted with simple tasks...

Yeah, but it's Ultimate Blob. More fat, less fibre... :happy: