WAITING
FOR TOMMY: ED BRUBAKER
By
Richard Johnston
RICH:
Looks like I'll have to resort to shoplifting then. You've
written a fair few crime comics in your time. Does crime pay?
ED:
That depends on your definition of crime, I guess. Corporate
crime sure seems to, as does sleazy government cronyism. The
kind of crime I prefer just seems to keep everyone barely
afloat and awash with guilt and regret at the same time.
RICH:
Crime is like sex?
ED:
Well, anal sex, certainly. At least in Texas.
RICH:
Any desire to write porn comics? I hear Avatar are putting
together a very interesting line...
ED:
I thought this was supposed to be a funny interview?
RICH:
That's very debatable. From small press writer/artist of books
like Lowlife to Vertigo slice-of-nasty-life to superhero writer...
what advice would you give your former selves? And how do
you think you'd have taken it?
ED:
I'd tell myself in my early to mid-twenties to stop caring
what the Comics Journal says and just enjoy whatever you enjoy,
regardless of genre or artistic goals. Raymond Chandler said
it best -- "There is no high art or low art, there's just
art, and precious little of that."
I'd tell
the eager Vertigo break-in me to stick to the stuff I knew
best and not worry about trying to please everyone. Not to
second-guess what felt like the right thing to do for what
they tell you they want you to do.
I think
both of my former selves would've told me to shut up. As Lewis
Carroll said, "I give myself such good advice but I rarely
seldom follow it."
Jesus.
What's with all my quoting famous writers all of a sudden?
I swear I don't have a Bartlett's Familiar Quotations in my
house at all.
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