| Interview mit David Lloyd (OmU) |
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| Geschrieben von Thomas und Björn | ||||
| Freitag, 7. September 2007 | ||||
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TK: Are you in Munich for the first time? DL: Yes, I am. TK: But you’ve been to Germany some months ago, I heard? For a little tour? DL: Yeah. I was here in February. That’s the most recent time, because I wanted to come over to launch Kickback, which is my new graphic novel. I initiated the tour myself. I asked a friend of mine – Eckart Schott – who I had done some signing things with before to help me and give me some names of stores. I was gonna finance it myself. I was gonna organize the stores, tour cities on the rail. Because you know, the German rail system is really great. You get a German rail pass and you can go from city to city very quickly and very easily. So, I was gonna do that. But when I contacted Ehapa and Panini they helped organize it. So it was a tour of Koblenz, Frankfurt, Stuttgart, Berlin and Nuremberg. I did the whole bunch. TK: Very beautiful cities. DL: Yeah. I never had a chance to see them myself. Because it was all just about signing and talking to people and telling them about Kickback. Because Kickback is very important to me, since I own this book and I’ve been selling it from country to country myself. It was originally published in France, then published in America, Spain, et cetera. TK: Are you happy about the reactions? 
DL: Well, here I had some great reviews and I’m very pleased about that. I also had some great reviews in America, when it was published there. But the big problem in America was that I didn’t get enough publicity. Correction: I didn’t get any publicity. Dark Horse, I’m sorry to say, didn’t actually put any publicity behind it. Which was kind of crazy, because last year I had the highest career profile I could have had, because of the V for Vendetta movie. But unfortunately there was no publicity for me on Kickback.So, since realizing that that happened, I’ve been trying to promote it myself. I try to make sure that it’s being promoted in every country where it gets published. Because there are lots of books coming out - especially in America - and if you don’t have a heavy publicity budget behind them, it’s very easy for them not to be noticed. I’m very proud of Kickback, and, as I said: It had some great reviews here in Germany. I really hope that it sells to as many people as possible and to everybody who’s got Vendetta. The quality of art and the quality of story is the same. Because, you know, it comes from the same person. TK: Is this the first comic book you wrote yourself? DL: No. But it’s the first substantial work I’ve done myself. If you’re lucky enough to be employed as an artist in this business and people like what you do in terms of illustrating other writers, they’re always gonna hire you. Since you have to pay the bills, you’re always drawing somebody else's work. I had to make time to create my own project or wait for somebody to actually ask me to write something. I’ve done some short stories and I did an issue of the Alien series for Dark Horse [Aliens: Glass Corridor], but that’s just... [INTERMISSION because Josef Rother is coming by saying Hello...] DL: That’s Josef Rother. TK: You and Josef did something for Heavy Metal. How did you get in touch with him? DL: Oh, I’ve known Josef quite a while. I used to see him in San Diego a lot and... I can’t remember the exact circumstances, but I spoke to him and he said: ‘Would you be interested in me sending you some story ideas?’ And he did send me a couple of ideas which didn’t work out. I didn’t think I could make anything out of them. And then he had this other idea and that was great. City of Ghosts [published in Heavy Metal magazine in 2004]. That’s a really good story. TK: Okay, let's talk a little bit about V for Vendetta. Because it’s still your main work and the work you’re famous for. BW: A thing of interest for us is: There is a coloured and a black and white version of the book out there. Was the coloured one the original version or was it black and white in the Warrior magazine when it first came out? DL: It was originally in black and white. And it was only in black and white because that was all the guy could afford to print. If he’d had a better budget where he could publish in colour, I’m sure it would have been in colour. But since it was in black and white, when I chose the style of art that was needed for it, it was a matter of choosing something that would work in black and white which would reflect the story’s subject. So that was how I ended up with that particular style. BW: There has been an edition in Germany, which is in black and white. And for that I’m kind of grateful. Because the artwork is better to see, it is clearer and it looks really great. Today, what would you say: Do you think it works better in black and white, or do you think it works better in colour or do you think 'these are both my children'? 
DL: Well, they’re both the same. But I think the big problem, the only problem I had with the colour – and I supervised it all along the line, I did some of the early pages myself and then the colour was done by Siobhan Dobbs and Steve Whitaker, who are both friends of mine and great colourists – was in the printing. Basically it seems like a simple requirement: If you envision a light yellow and you want a light yellow - but you don’t want a bright yellow - you should expect the printer to give you a light yellow. Even in the eighties, you know, they had computer control of their printing so they could have knocked down the amount of it. But basically they didn’t give a shit, because the printers that DC used at that time... it’s so completely different now, because of computer colouring. Technically completely different. But at that time the attitude at the printers was: ‘It’s a comic. It doesn’t matter.’ And, you know, nobody cared that much.TK: It’s just cheap pulp entertainment. 
DL: Yeah, that’s exactly right. That is the only problem we had. But I must say this about the latest American hardback edition: That is the definitive colour version. Because they gave me an opportunity to knock it back to what it should have been. So the colouring has always been great. It was just the printing that was not as good.But the whole thing about colour and black and white is very complicated. Black and white will always be pure. It will always be the great, pure, simplistic method. People have favourite colours. And that always obscures the way people look at a colour book. However, the colour that was done in the coloured version of Vendetta, was true to its subject. It was controlled. And in fact: There are no strong reds in it. That was the thing: We never used strong reds. We never used strong, hot colours at all. That way we maintained the coldness that was appropriate. BW: On the work itself, on the textual level: It’s a very political book. One of the most political comic books I’ve ever read. It was a reaction to the Thatcher times, wasn’t it? And when you look at England now... when I was in England some months ago, the first thing I noticed was: There are cameras everywhere. And some of them talk to you. And they use spy drones to check whether people are spraying on trains. Do you think not only that Vendetta still holds up today, but that it’s still as important as it was or maybe even more so? DL: Well, yeah, I mean a lot of the things that we did talk about have come true, effectively. But this is what happens in most speculative fiction. This is what happens in a lot of books. My own attitude towards it is that if there are lots of cameras out there, it’s okay as long as you’re in a democracy. If you’re not in a democracy, that’s when it gets dangerous. That’s why laws of civil liberty have to be guarded: Because once a law is made, it’s very difficult to change it. But if you’re in a democracy it’s fine to have lots of cameras around. Because if you’re an upright citizen... fine. But if you’re in a dictatorship, where the people are being governed and told what to do, that’s always complicated. I would want to make one comment about this thing about Vendetta being a comment about the Thatcher years. In actual fact: When we started it, it wasn’t. Because we started doing it around 1980. And Margaret Thatcher hadn’t even been in power for one year. She came to power in 1979. We had no idea what sort of prime minister she was going to become. But in the collection Alan [Moore] wrote a foreword, where he actually mentions Margaret Thatcher. So people tend to think that when we started it, that was what actually initiated it. But that is not true. As the story progressed, over the years that we were telling the story - especially going through 1984 with the miner’s strike and stuff like that - you could see what a sort of politician Margaret Thatcher was. She had fascistic tendencies. Sadly. And so Alan’s thoughts progressed into moving it towards that. But when we created V, the model was Nazi Germany. That is the model: Germany in the thirties. BW: With the Norsefire panels taken like right out of Riefenstahl. DL: Absolutely. That’s what it’s all about. And unfortunately Margaret Thatcher turned out to be, you know, a bit of a Hitler herself. So that’s it. But the initial idea was to do something that was like Nazi Germany. TK: You did Vendetta together with Alan Moore. And we all heard that Alan Moore was not very happy with the movie, he even took his name off it. Did you talk with him about the movie, actually? DL: Well, I haven’t. I’m sorry to say that for a long time I haven’t been in regular contact with Alan. I mean, I haven’t worked with him since Vendetta, effectively. So I’m not in regular contact with him. But when he did want to do that, when I heard that about him taking his name off the movie, I did phone him and said: ‘Please, don’t do that.’ I did that at the request of [movie producer] Joel Silver. 
Joel Silver was really dismayed about Alan’s attitude. And actually, Joel got himself in real trouble anyway, because he did a press conference in which he implied that Alan was excited by the movie. And I don’t think he knew what he was saying. Because basically he’s just a publicist. He’s got a movie and he is excited. He never thought that a few words out of place would get him this incredible wrath that came from Alan. He was really dismayed at Alan’s attitude to it.When I spoke to Alan, I tried to persuade him not to take his name off, because I thought whatever he thought of the movie, the foundation stone of where it came from was very important. The important thing was that where it came from was noted in the credits. Yet, I couldn’t persuade him to change his mind. So that was it. But you know: My attitude towards it is completely different. I supported it, helped promote it and I thought they did a great job. I mean, I saw the script. They sent me the script and they asked about my attitude towards it and whether I had any suggestions. Of course, it was a different version. But I was used to that. I’d seen all the other screenplays of it. DC always sent me those. The remarkable thing is that as far as I know, Alan hadn’t even read any of the other scripts. He never wanted to read any of them. And there were two written before that one. There was one written by Hilary Henkin, which was really terrible. And then the Wachowskis wrote another one in ’98, which I saw and which was actually closer to the original comic. I read that and then they sent me the script to this one. And even though it was radically changed in key areas, the core of it, the spirit of the story was still there. It was a good script and it made a good movie. As soon as I saw that I thought: Well, that’s okay. And I supported it and I still support it. It did a good job. It made a great movie. I know for a fact that a lot of people saw the movie and then they bought the book. And a lot of them had never bought a graphic novel in their lives. TK: Good for you. Good for the publisher. Good for the comic book world. DL: Absolutely. I think that generally it was great. And I had no problems with the movie at all. But, you know, Alan is entitled to his point of view and I understand that. Because unfortunately a lot of his other stuff has been turned into really bad things. The movie League of Extraordinary Gentlemen is horrible and so is From Hell. But you see, the thing is that Alan sold the rights to these books and he gave up any control. He should have done what Frank [Miller] did. If he wanted to control what it was gonna be like and he owned those books – you know, we didn’t own Vendetta - he should have done what Frank did: ‘If you’re gonna do it, I’m gonna be involved with it. I’m gonna be able to veto things.’ Otherwise: Don’t do it. It’s like Kickback. That could be a movie. And if anybody does make a movie then I’m gonna make sure that I’m involved with it. Which is important. BW: Did you actually have the choice to be involved in the movie project, because the rights still remain with DC, don’t they? 
DL: Yeah, that’s still exactly right. No, I didn’t have any right to be involved, at all. I mean, I get a percentage of anything that comes from it. But no, I didn’t have any rights. And the Wachowski Brothers didn’t even have to phone and contact me. But they called me and they said: ‘Look, we want to send you the script, blablabla.’ And I said to them: ‘Are you interested in critical reaction?’ And they said: ‘Yes. Sure. Of course.’But I didn’t have a right to be involved. And people always ask me if I took part in it or was involved in it, but in real terms they didn’t really need me. Because their whole intention was to stick close to the original look. They had crates filled with the graphic novel and they gave those out to all the cast and crew. Everybody got a copy of the graphic novel. So they knew where they were coming from. That was important. The Wachowskis are fans of Vendetta from way back. They also do their own comics. That’s why it turned out to be a good movie, I think. It was the people involved with it. Them and Joel Silver, because he bought the option for it years and years and years ago. They were fans of the original. That’s why it came out to be a much better movie than it could have actually been. TK: I like it too. I don’t think it has the depth of the graphic novel, but the core and the foundation of the book... you can see that it in the movie. And this is important. BW: I really loved it until the ending. There is the ending when all those people wear V masks. And when I sat in the cinema, I said: ‘Well, this isn’t anarchy, this is fascism.’ I mean, it is okay because V is the, well, sort of good guy in the story. But everybody was wearing these identical masks and they just did the things they’ve done before: They were following a leader. It’s okay, because he’s a good man, but in the cinema I thought: This kind of scares me. 
DL: That’s an interesting point you raise there. In the original the public still need the leader, they need to be spoken to. And you know, this is the thing about anarchy: There are two things that the character of V wanted. He wanted to create chaos from which would come, hopefully, anarchy.In the book itself, in the original, V cannot orchestrate or set any machine in motion that will actually create anarchy. He can create chaos, but he can’t guarantee anarchy. And at the end he brought chaos to the people. When he gets up on that building - and of course it isn’t V, it’s Evey - he becomes a symbolic leader. And the reality of life is: The people don’t actually want to do anything themselves unless they have somebody to follow. But this ending about the masks: I understand what you’re saying there, that it’s fascistic. But it’s very interesting: I think it’s very smart what they did. It’s a very interesting reversal of what is actually commonly thought to be fascism. Fascism is a group of people who have like minds, who bind together in strength, with the same philosophy. But V as a character, with the mask, represents pure individualism. He is the individual. So what you have, when all the crowd get together with those masks is not a band of people with one philosophy, but rather a band of individualists. BW: I didn’t see it that way. TK: That’s an interesting perspective. BW: That’s where I like the movie again, because you can talk about it. It raises a discussion. In Germany we are more conditioned to certain things. In the comic there’s a scene when V holds a speech on television and he tells the people basically: ‘You fucked up! Over and over again!’ And I thought that was also missing from the movie. I thought the people were taken off the hook too easily. Because in Germany one of the things we learn in school about Nazi Germany is that the argument ‘we didn’t know anything’ doesn’t count. And in the movie at some point the people are like: ‘We didn’t know anything.’ But: Where did the gays go? Where did the dissenters go? The people could have known. DL: Yeah, again that’s an interesting point. But I think, the thing that was in the movie... you know, they were not promoting the concept of anarchy in the movie. Especially since it was a Hollywood movie. So what they settled on was the simpler concept of freedom. Freedom for everyone. Which is freedom from tyranny, freedom from people telling you what to do. Which in the end is what anarchy really means. But the anarchists’ philosophy, the political ideal that anarchy is, is something that’s actually a dream. It’s a utopian ideal. I don’t know what Alan’s feelings are now, but he actually believed in that as a politically viable concept. I never believed that. Ever. Because I actually think people are sheep and they always need a leader. There’s this place: Christiania in Denmark. Have you heard about this place? A whole bunch of people got together. They took over these barracks and they set up a commune. It didn’t work out because sooner or later – and this will always happen – a bunch of people came along and said: ‘Ok, we’re gonna run the show.’ And the people couldn’t do anything about it. Eventually some biker gang came along and they started running the show. They started dealing drugs. Up to that point the police had left these people alone, but once somebody took over and started running the show and dealing drugs the police had to get involved. And now this place is basically just an old dream. Despite some people living there, it’s just a dream. But the point is this: Sooner or later people have to be led. Still, it’s not about leadership, it’s about centralization. Centralization has to occur. Because otherwise... Chaos can’t run a society. And a society can’t run effectively without centralization of some kind. Even though Alan didn’t believe in that. But he has no solution at the end of the game. There was no solution at the end of the book. And so the movie has an ending that is more simple. But I think, it is appropriate and it is still a great message. You know, the fact that all these individuals said: ‘No, you’re not gonna do this anymore. We’re not gonna take this anymore. And you can’t tell us what to do anymore.’ And all those individualists, represented by the masks, have their own ideas about what they’re gonna do and where they’re gonna go. And the fact you realize when they take the masks off: Every citizen is from a different class. Everyone is an individual. You know, there’s Stephen Fry and all these people. They are all from different view points. Even the dead are present. So, I think it’s a very smart ending and I think it was very clever how that ended. It’s not anti-anarchistic, and neither is it promoting anarchy. It’s all for one and one for all. Three musketeers. TK: So your cooperation with Alan Moore on V was, as far as I know, a very close one. You were both involved in the story. It was not the kind of cooperation where Alan writes and you just do the pictures. DL: Well, I mean in a basic sense it was. I didn’t do any writing. But basically, the way we did it is this: We brainstormed the character and the setting into existence. And what happened was that Alan wrote a synopsis that spoke about what was gonna happen for the next ten chapters, or something like that. And we would talk about that. You know, things I thought would work and I things I thought wouldn’t work and so on. And then, when the scripts came in, I used to work on them individually: Script by script. When the script came in I would sometimes change the panel breakdowns and then we talked about that. But whatever happened or whatever I thought would work better in a certain way: We always agreed on it. And when it was originally done for the magazine in England, it was done chapter by chapter. It was only done six to eight pages a month. So, Alan would write a script, I would draw it and then I would send in the photo copies of it before he wrote the next script. So, it was a really organic thing. And I think that’s what benefited it. I’d actually say sometimes it was like jamming. And sometimes there’d be really great accidents. Creative accidents. For instance there was Valerie Page. There is a sequence in, I think it was chapter 11, where we’re introduced to Valerie Page for the first time. Because V has a sort of a private theatre and there are these pictures. At that time the readers don’t know who the person on the pictures it. They have no idea who that is he’s looking at. And that came about because in that chapter there’s a lot of exposition. It’s all about the character. In that whole sequence: Alan had no idea what to put in there at all. So he just said: ‘Do whatever you like. Put V anywhere you want.’ 
And I said to him: ‘Look, I tell ya, he’s got a lot of things in the Shadow Gallery. He’s got all kinds of stuff, but let’s give him a little private cinema or a little private viewing theatre or something. Then we’ll put on the screen some character. We don’t know who it is: It could be a lost love, it could be a sister.And the reason I wanted to do that is that up to this point you have no sympathy for the character of V. He’s so symbolic and so unknown that you don’t actually see inside him at all. But I thought, if you actually see him looking at someone and you don’t know her... you have a bit at the end where you really see inside him. That’d be a good idea. At that time I knew an actress who’d send me some of her screenshots. I said to her: ‘Do you mind if I use this? Because this would be a nice idea.’ And she didn’t mind it. So, that’s what we did. And if I hadn’t done that - and it was an accident - that whole Valerie Page sequence would not have existed. That whole section, which actually became the core of the story, wouldn’t have existed. And that is the great benefit of creating it in that way. Y’know, step by step. BW: There’s one short passage in the afterword to the comic where Alan Moore writes that sometimes you had heated arguments about things. So you’re very involved. And I’m wondering: You’ve worked with other authors, some of the greats like Warren Ellis, Garth Ennis, you worked with Grant Morrison, Jamie Delano. Are there any differences or are you always that involved that once you get a script you say: ‘Hey, I’ve got the feeling this would work better.’ And do the authors accept this, or do some just say: ‘C’mon. Please, just draw.’ DL: Well. If I think something is a better idea, I’ll suggest it. But I’m not always in a position of forcing it on them. Vendetta is completely different, because it was my character and it was Alan’s character. It was ours. It wasn’t a license thing. I mean, the only thing I’ve done with Warren Ellis is Global Frequency and that was his series. I was just asked if I wanted to do one. Hellblazer, that’s a licensed character and I was asked: ‘Do you wanna do it?’ So, you’re not as intensely involved. When you’re creating something that you care about as a character, you’re gonna argue more. But I always examine what I’m doing. And if I don’t think it works or I if think the thing could work better: I’ll argue. Or I will suggest. And it’s up to the authors whether they do it my way. You know, their boss is the editor. The War Stories I did with Garth, they were very serious stories and I had to do the reference material and that was great. But it was hard work. It was still great, hard work, which I try to avoid. I mean, Kickback actually is set in a mythical American city. But that doesn’t matter. Because everybody recognizes that, from any movie you’ve ever seen. It’s not important. It doesn’t make any difference to the story. 
BW: It’s nice that you mentioned War Stories, we would have asked that anyway. I was wondering whether you actually went to the Imperial War Museum or something and...DL: Oh God, yeah. Absolutely. BW: Went into a Lancaster Bomber to get it right? DL: Oh God, yeah. I mean, that was a nightmare. And Garth sent me a model book, which was really thick. And it’s got every nut and bolt, inside and outside. And it’s just absolutely a nightmare. Really. But it had to be done, because it was a very serious story. If it was a cartoon story about the war or something, it wouldn’t matter. But that was a serious story about a serious thing and I had to do all that. And I did go to the Imperial War Museum and took lots of photographs. And I went to the photo archives. I did the same for “Nightingale” [Ennis' and Lloyd's first collaboration for War Stories #1] as well. And every nut and bolt of that Lancaster Bomber or that destroyer is exactly the way it was. There’s not a thing out of place on those things, at all. But they weren't fun to do. Y’know, I look back on the stories and I’m very proud of them. They were good stories. But I wouldn’t do that kind of heavy research-laden work intentionally. And it was the same with Warren and Global Frequency. He wanted to use the London Eye and I tried to persuade him not to do that. I said: ‘Look, it’s a fantasy. Why don’t you just call it something else? I mean, like, the Big Wheel or something? That will allow me to draw it in a different way.’ But, no. It had to be the London Eye. So I had to take lots of pictures of it to make sure it was right. 
But the annoying thing is this: He had this scene were the heroine busts into the glass with her feet. You see, she hits it with a car safety hammer and it won’t break open. And then she busts in. You can’t do that on the London Eye. It’s absolutely impossible. The glass is like this thick. And in between is a layer of plastic. There’s a layer like that of plastic! And you cannot go through that with a hammer or your feet.So he wanted the London Eye, he wanted all the nuts and bolts of the London Eye, but he wouldn’t follow it through by actually being true to the actual qualities of the London Eye. So part of it just couldn’t have happened – a fantasy - and the rest of it is real. So why go for reality at all? But anyhow, it still turned into a good story. BW: There’s one last question from me. That’s something that personally interests me. In a Suicide Girls interview you described yourself as being liberal with “strong socialist leanings”. And you worked together on a story [Espers] with James D. Hudnall, who I’d describe as rather conservative. To put it that way. DL: I did get the impression he was Republican-minded when I worked with him, but I’m not sure. BW: He’s got this blog and sometimes I read it and I think it’s a bit scary, but that’s just my personal opinion. Still, how did that cooperation come together and how did you work together? DL: With James, I didn’t know what his politics were. Basically, I think I was in a period where I was waiting for V to find a new publisher after Warrior folded. 1986. And he just contacted me, because he liked my work and he had this story. James sort of bought himself into the comics industry. Because he paid for his own book. He practically paid for the whole publication of it. It was done through Eclipse. He was so dedicated to what he wanted to do that he actually used a lot of his own savings to pay for that book. And he wanted me to do it. Personally, I thought it was great thriller. And it is still. I’d like to see Espers reprinted in black and white. And not because I don’t like the colour. But that was another situation where the colour was never printed properly. And even when it was republished: It never looked as good as it should have. But it’s a very good and a very simple thriller. The basic concept of it is effectively The Magnificent Seven. You know, it’s that sort of thing. About a bunch of people with paranormal powers recruited to a great task. His political leanings at the time weren’t... I didn’t even know what they were. I did get the impression that he wasn’t really a Democrat. But he wasn’t a rabid conservative. And I didn’t know anything about him at that time. But he wrote a good thriller. And his personal politics were not reflected in that book. It was actually quite prophetic: It’s got this crazy Arabian mastermind at the centre of it. And this was before Bin Laden appeared on the scene manipulating events. I needed a job at that time and he just contacted me and that’s how it happened. But it wasn’t a meeting of political minds at all. He had a good story and I needed a job. And that was it, really. TK: Let me ask you about the way you work. Most young artists use the computer a lot for inking, for coloring, et cetera. You’ve been in the business for a long time: Do you work with computers? 
DL: Well, I’m a very recent convert to computers. My first computer was in 2000, I didn’t have one before that. And the only reason I didn’t is because I thought it was an unnecessary burden to carry. If you've got a brush and a pen and a pencil, you shouldn’t be needing anything else. But, e-mails and such was what attracted me as much as anything else. I wasn’t actually looking forward to doing Photoshop coloring or computer artwork, but I thought it was a possibility I needed to explore. So I got my first computer.But I wasn’t actually actively using it, y’know. Mostly I used it for e-mails and stuff, but I wasn’t actually using it for much creative work. But with Kickback I actually did use the computer for a lot of it. That was the first time I used it in a real sense. I did the artwork in black and white as normal, but I did it at just over the size of an A4 scanner bed. Then I printed the pages out to the size it was going to be printed (It was published in France first, so the size of it was according to the French format). I coloured the pages with coloured pencils. Just regular coloured pencils. Then I rescanned it into Photoshop. I copied and pasted the blacks. And then I used filters: smart blur, Gaussian blur and stuff like that, to keep some of the texture of the coloured pencil or to knock it back to pure colour depending on the needs of the page. I also added any other effects that I felt would add to the storytelling and add a little bit of spice to the mix. And I’m very pleased with the results that I got. And the other great thing when you do that is: Your art is on disc. So what you do is put it on DVD and send it to the printer and that’s it. You don’t have these big sheets of artwork to wait for FedEx to pick up. I like using the computer in that way, but I don’t actually like using Photoshop colours straight. I coloured one story with Photoshop colour. That was the story I did with Josef, who just came by here. City of Ghosts. And the colours were too pure. It was okay for that story, because it was set in California. In Los Angeles. So, you know, that transparency of colour was perfect for that setting, but otherwise I wouldn’t use Photoshop like that. People say to me: ‘Well, but you can get textures and blablabla’, but it seems like a lot of work. I mean I like the idea of putting colour on a base and then playing with it on the computer. It seems much more comfortable for me to do - and keeps the art physical somehow. And computer effects are only really great if you use them sparingly. If you depend on them, or use them through a whole book, they can kill the effect they’re supposed to have. You have no variation of tone to give light and shade to storytelling. TK: Are you actually still into comics as a reader, do you regularly read comic books? 
DL: Well, I don't get too much time, that's the big problem. People keep asking me this, and I never get the time. I'd like at some point to give myself a month to see what's around, to just sit and read. But I must say, sometimes books are recommended to me and I just don't think they're any good. And that sort of puts me off a bit, you know. Maybe my critical faculties are flattened, but somebody recommended Ex Machina to me...BW: Oh, that's good! I like it! DL: Well... the story's good, but I hate the art, because it's just photo referenced, and the figures are dead, really. The figures are dead. And the guy [penciller Tony Harris] has got no shame, really: at the end he actually prints the photographs! BW: Maybe he should swap the artists. Take Pia Guerra from Y: The Last Man to Ex Machina and vice versa. DL: So yeah, photo referencing like that just is a problem for me. But still, I know there’s lots of great stuff out there.
RELATED LINKS:
L for Loyd : Official website with lots of information, especially about Kickback
Kickback preview at Dark Horse V for Vendetta preview at DC Comics/Vertigo V for Vendetta b&w preview (German) at Speed Comics War Stories: J for Jenny (German) at Speed Comics
War Stories: Nightingale (German) at Speed Comics Image sources: Frauke Pfeiffer (photographs), vforvendetta.warnerbros.com, dccomics.com, speedcomics.de, ehapa-comic-collection.de Kommentare (0)
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One of his earliest works made him famous: David Lloyd, born in England in 1950, is best known for creating the comic book masterpiece V for Vendetta, together with writer Alan Moore, about an anarchistic revolutionist in a totalitarian regime od the future. At the Munich Comicfestival, held in June 2007, we spoke with David Lloyd about the creative process of making V for Vendetta, about last year's Hollywood movie and about political aspects of both comic book and film, among other things.
