Comics Interview — Issue #040

This concluding installment of a three-part interview covers DeMatteis's creative process on Moonshadow, his collaboration with artist Jon J Muth, and the challenges of marketing mature-reader comics within the Marvel/Epic system. He discusses editorial friction over content (the "fuck" ban and a deleted rape scene), his success in obtaining a Ray Bradbury cover quote, and his literary influences (Dickens, Dostoyevsky, Isaac Bashevis Singer, Madeleine L'Engle). A second segment covers his Spider-Man arc "Kraven's Last Hunt" — in which Kraven kills and buries Spider-Man and impersonates him — and his work on a Twilight Zone television script.

Burden discusses the origins of the Flaming Carrot, from a crude 1979 debut in the Atlanta-area anthology Visions to its development as a surrealist superhero unlike any satire before it. He ranges widely over pop culture, film history, censorship, and comics industry trends, arguing that superhero comics have colonized a medium that could encompass far more genres, and expressing admiration for Eisner, Carl Barks, the Hernandez Brothers, Harvey Pekar, and Charles Burns. He reveals he is collaborating with Arthur Adams on a Gumby Special for Comico.

Part two of an on-location Toronto interview continues the discussion of comics vs. film/animation storytelling, with Ross drawing on his experience storyboarding Rock and Rule at Nelvana studios. Ross outlines his plans for Alpha Flight — focusing on underused characters like Puck and Box, adding domestic "slice of life" moments — while Darrigo expresses interest in pitching a historically-set Captain America story to Marvel.

Marks, the 24-year-old Toronto publisher of Vortex Comics, recounts his entrepreneurial path from a profitable paper route to running a comics fanzine, working at the Silver Snail shop, and distributing comics, before launching Vortex. He gives a candid account of the troubled production of Mister X — the creative conflict between Dean Motter and original artist Paul Rivoche, the Hernandez Brothers taking over and later departing — and previews the new Mister X team (artist Seth, inker Bill Diamond). He also discusses Stig's Inferno, Those Annoying Post Brothers, Kelvin Mace, and the appointment of former Heavy Metal editor Lou Stathis to revamp the Vortex anthology.

A personal letter from DAK to Bob Burden praising Flaming Carrot Comics enthusiastically and referencing DAK's own offbeat humor during his Defenders run, setting up the issue's Burden interview.

Reader letters include a defense of Carl Macek's Robotech adaptation against a prior letter's attack, and a critical assessment of Marvel's New Universe launch as a "gigantic dud" compared to Epic-line projects like Moonshadow and the Greenberg graphic novel.