”I’m just doing my job, he does his”: a Leah Moore e John Reppion interview

Leggi l'intervista in italiano

Hi Leah and John, not much of your work has appeared in Italy. Do you want to introduce yourself to our Italian readers?
Leah: I’m Leah Moore, and I’ve been writing comics for about four years now. I think if we have been doing it for that long it must mean we are doing okay so far, right?
John: I’m John Reppion; Leah’s husband and co-writer. We’ve been working together since 2003 on series such as Wildgirl and Albion (for Wildstorm) as well as projects for people like Dark Horse and smaller independent companies like Th3rd World and Accent UK.

How did you first become interested in comics? How did you get your professional start?
Leah: I had comics as the background to my whole life. I have seen comics read them, been amazed by them or bored by them for 28 years.. I think the fact that I still remained interested in them after that long is amazing. By all rights I should have been put off long ago. I have always created comics from when I was little, but in 2003 dad asked if I had ever thought of writing a comic. I did an eight pager just to see if I could actually do it and to my surprise it was accepted by Scott Dunbier. I did one more eight pager before me and John began collaborating together on Wild Girl.
John: Like most British kids, I read comics such as the Dandy and the Beano when I was young, but they were (and are still) mainly humour comics. I kind of dabbled in reading “action” comics during my early and mid teens just because things like Dark Knight, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and The Killing Joke were so huge at the time. When Leah and I met up in 2001, I really couldn’t tell you how long it had been since I’d even read a comic book; years maybe. So, it’s fair to say that I really didn’t have any immediate aspirations to be a comic writer or work in the industry.
Leah and I were already living together by the time Scott Dunbier at Wildstorm asked her if she’d like to have a try at coming up with a proposal for a mini series and she started bouncing ideas off of me. Before either of us really knew what had happened, we’d given up our day jobs and were co-writing Wildgirl. It’s been kind of a blur since then.

What are your influences? Are there any influences that people might not spot immediately?
Leah: I think the things I read as a kid influenced me more than I realise, I read Fudge and Speck by Ken Reid and Moonbird by Mike Higgs, I read the Beano, the Beezer, Twinkle and loads of great comics which I enjoyed because I was a kid. It was not until I re-read them as an adult that I realised how much those stories were still affecting the way I thought and the way I wanted my comics to feel. I would say I have been influenced by underground comics too. I was always really impressed with people like Gilbert Shelton and Crumb, even before I really got all the jokes in them. I picked up the Rhyme of the ancient Mariner by S T Coleridge (the Knockabout version drawn by Hunt Emerson) and I was blown away; all the texture and detail Hunt puts in totally astonished me (and still does). I read anything I could get my hands on to be honest, Krazy cat and Ignatz, Matt Groening’s early books (Binky’s guide to love etc) anything I could find around the house.
John: I think everything influences you really, doesn’t it? Not just other comics but novels, films, TV, music, the news, the weather… just everything. Neither of us aspires to emulate any other writer in the industry and, even if we did, I think it would be pretty much impossible for us to do in collaboration. When either of us write on our own there are very obvious and distinct styles that we both use individually but, when we write together there’s this other “voice” that comes out; a third writer made of a composite of both of us. We just pour everything we like and are interested in into our work together and, somehow, it seems to get distilled and concentrated into something that makes sense via our writing process.

How does your working relationship work? Does it lead to domestic fighting?
John: It does lead to arguments yes, but I think everybody gets a bit pissed off with their day jobs from time to time don’t they? We just haven’t got the luxury of going home at the end of the day and complaining to our partner about how annoying our co-workers are. Seriously though, even though we do fight sometimes, it’s all part of the process and nine times out of ten the project comes out all the better for it.
Basically, once we’ve had an idea cleared, we sit and roughly break the story down into issues. Then we flesh out the basic ideas out and break it all down into a page by page progression. We draw rough thumbnails of each page with little dialogue notes next to them and then take it in turns to type the script up from the thumbnails. Once that’s done we go through and sort all the dialogue out, changing things back and forth until we’re both happy with what we’ve got. It’s quite a lengthy process with each of us editing the other’s work and that can lead to a bit of tension if we disagree about something like the way a character speaks but, ultimately, it seems to work very well.

A question for Leah. When you do interviews, do you get asked a lot about your father, Alan Moore? Does it annoy you?
Leah: I expect people to ask some questions, like with the Witchblade/Dorian Gray crossover we’re doing, there’s a parallel there with League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, so I would expect that to appear on a set of questions about that series. To be honest though, unless there’s a reason for the question it just makes it hard to say anything original. It doesn’t annoy me, because I am working in the same industry as him, if I hadn’t wanted to get asked about him I could have chosen a different profession. The only thing I find weird is when people get all nervous about meeting me because I’m my dad’s daughter, as if its almost as exciting as meeting him. I always feel quite uncomfortable when that happens. I’m much smaller, less hairy and less exciting. Calm down everyone.

Leah, your father is universally considered one of the best that ever did it. How much do you feel you have to prove yourself? How do you cope with the pressure?
Leah: That makes it sound like a cheesy coming of age film where I have to beat my dad at writing comics and then I can finally be accepted. There isn’t any real pressure as I don’t have those kinds of expectations of myself. I don’t want to write comics so I can be as good as him, or as successful as him, or have as many fans, because the odds on that happening are really small. I’d be setting myself up to experience constant disappointment. If I just write comics to pay my rent and because I like doing it I will always be happy in what I do and I won’t feel like I’m failing in any way. Also, to me he’s just my dad, so it’s not nearly as daunting as trying to live up to the legacy of someone I am really starstruck by. I don’t mind if I don’t write something as big as Watchmen, or if I’m not considered to be in the same League (excuse the pun) as my dad, I’m just doing my job, he does his.

A question for John. When you do interviews, do you get asked a lot about marrying Alan Moore’s daughter? Does it annoy you?
John: It’s not something I really get asked about a lot to be honest; I have read things online where people have actually suggested that I married Leah to get into comics which is a bit insulting to be honest and absolutely laughable to anyone who knows anything about the money involved in freelancing. I’d actually be earning more money now if I’d stayed in my old job working in an off licence. I didn’t marry Leah because she’s Alan Moore’s daughter, funnily enough, I married her ‘because I love her. In fact, when we met, I barely even knew who Alan Moore was.

Presumably, you have been exposed to all the good and the bad sides of working in comics. What are the things you like more and the things you hate more in the industry?
Leah: I love the mix of people you get working on a project, I love how a different inker can make pencils look totally different, all the infinite combinations of colourists and writers and everyone, it makes every book feel unique. I love getting pages through by email. It’s magic to have the comic appear page by page in your inbox. That’s the buzz for me, it’s totally addictive. If people hate waiting for the next issue imagine having two days between pages! Torture, but so sweet when it does come through.
I hate the people who say the industry is about to die, or that comics are declining because of x or y, that’s pointless, as long as we all keep doing comics people will keep buying them. The only thing that could kill the industry is if we all got depressed about it and got other jobs instead. I hate people who say how much they dislike a comic and never what they like about another comic. If you think something is crap don’t buy it, don’t read it, buy something that makes you happy, then tell everyone how good it is. I hate people who keep tabs on how high or how low everyone is on the scale, who got which project instead of who, or who got dropped. Those kinds of things happen in every industry though; it just carries on from school.

The Albion story was developed by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons. How did your involvement in the Albion miniseries come about, and at what stage?
John: Actually, it was Alan and Shane Oakley (the artist on the project) who came up with the concept and Alan alone who plotted the whole thing. Dave’s involvement was in developing and designing the logo and covers for the series, which he did a fantastic job of. Shane and Alan had intended to collaborate on a project for a while and Shane started asking questions about who owned all these classic UK comics characters like The Spider, The Steel Claw and Robot Archie. Alan asked the guys at Wildstorm if they could find anything out about the rights to the characters and discovered that, by some bizarre coincidence, the UK company IPC were already in talks with DC comics about cross licensing many of them. Alan pitched the idea of using the characters in Albion and Wildstorm gave the green light. This was back in 2004 when Alan was trying to finish up as much of his mainstream comics work as possible so that he could concentrate on his own projects and he didn’t actually want to sign up for a new mini series so he opted to just plot the series and have Leah and myself do the actual writing. It was a very interesting experience; Alan kept his plots pretty loose with basically a start and end point for each issue and a list of key points. Leah and I had lots creative freedom with the project and were really able to have fun with the characters. It ended up being this big four way collaboration between Alan, Shane and ourselves with each of us throwing our own ideas into the mix.

Albion was a good success. How much did working with the Watchmen duo put pressure on you and how much did you feel blessed working with them?
Leah: Well, dad plotted and proof read it, and Dave drew the covers, so their input was relatively minimal really. As I said before, we have a totally different view of dad and Dave to comic fans or other writers, so we don’t feel the pressure that way. I wouldn’t call it a blessing either, the project had its own momentum and we were mainly working with Shane and our guy at IPC Andrew Sumner. Between us and them Albion got written, drawn and came out. It was great to have dad and Dave attached to the project and we love the look and feel it has as a result of their involvement but I’d like to think the book was a success because it was well written and well drawn.

You did a lot of your work with Wildstorm, but now you have started to work with other companies. Did you find any differences?
John: 2007 is only our fourth year working in comics so we’re still relatively new and learning things all the time. Pretty much every project we’ve worked on has been different in one way or another and different companies and different editors all expect different things from a story. Recently, we’ve been doing a lot of work for Dynamite Entertainment and we’ve been working on a crossover for them and Top Cow. Unlike Albion, where many of the characters we were using had been out of print for many years, Witchblade – Shades of Gray has us handling contemporary Top Cow characters who are still very much “alive and well”. That’s been a bit tougher for us because we’ve essentially had to deal with two companies and two sets of editors and we have to make sure that we’re keeping everything in line with Top Cow’s current Witchblade stuff. It’s hard work but, like I said, it all helps us to learn and grow and understand our craft better.

Do you still read comics? Do you follow any comic creator in particular?
Leah: We follow some things, The Goon, Elephantmen, Zombie (Marvel Max), I always grab anything by Los Bros Hernandez whenever I see it, we love Hellboy, we love Jill Thompson, lots of things we don’t follow but we buy whenever we can.

What are your current projects?
John: The US edition of the Albion collection came out in December as well as the Dark Horse Book of Monsters which we have a story in. Witchblade – Shades of Gray comes out in February and is the story of detective Sara Pezzini’s meeting with a man who calls himself Dorian Gray. Our blood and guts zombie series Raise the Dead is out in March as is issue one of the new Dynamite anthology title Savage Tales which we’re doing a series called Battle for Atlantis for. Apart from all that, we’ve got things coming out from independent companies such as Th3rd World and Accent UK as well as working on a creator owned project. We’re very, very busy.

Do you know anything about the European comics scene? What about Italy?
Leah We’ve been to conventions in Portugal and Denmark, so a very north European and south European experience so far. We always end up buying lovely looking books but we have no idea what they are saying. We’re both fans of Manara, and were happy to be given a Danish copy of Borgia at the last con we were at, his watercolour work is stunning. I think more European comics should be translated into English; we miss out on things because they don’t get as far as the normal comic shops. When we went to the comic section in a bookshop in Portugal we were so amazed, it was huge! I’m embarrassed to say we know very little about Italian comics but we’re always happy to learn!

The trademark question we always ask: what would be the three comics a genuine comic fan should have on his shelf?
John: What comics would I expect to see, or what comics would I recommend? I’d expect to see Watchmen, Dark Knight and a big fat Cerebus collection. They’re all very cool but I guess they’re kind of “standard kit” aren’t they? Off the top of my head, I’d recommend Strangehaven by Gary Spencer Millidge, Blacksad by Juan Diaz Canales and Juanjo Guarnido and Blankets by Craig Thompson.
Leah: Any Love and Rockets, Will Eisner’s “A contract with God”, and Art Speigelman’s Maus. Stuff with a real emotional impact.