RICHARD: Astonishing X-Men looks like it will be the flagship, best-selling Marvel comic book. Similar sales are expected to Jim Lee's Batman... and his upcoming Superman. You'll be at the very top of the tree as far as anglophonic comics go. Where do you see your career progressing after you've reached the top? Europe?
JOHN: My plan in comics is to alternate between working with established characters and creating my own original body of work. I've got projects of my own waiting for me to clear time to shock them into life. Part of the plan is to make more of a name for myself in European markets. PLANETARY, DESPERADOES and even CAPTAIN AMERICA have been published there, but this summer, Humanoids Publishing will release "I AM LEGION." It's the first of three 54-page hardcover books I'm doing with a fantastic French screenwriter named Fabien Nury. It's a supernatural story of espionage and horror that takes place all over Europe during WW2. It'll be subsequently released here in the states through Humanoids/DC. After Astonishing X-Men, Planetary and I Am Legion are done, I'm cleaning my slate. I want to start over in a way. I'll be a drooling old man by then, but it'll be nice, won't it? Cue laugh track.

 

PLANETARY: THE FOURTH MAN TPB

RICHARD: The European model is very attractive to a US/UK tourist like myself. Is it too late for us to adopt a similar publishing model - and make it as much a mainstream success? Has our moment passed us by?
JOHN: I think it's still heading that way. But in the meantime, things work well as is. The pamphlets come out on their respective schedules, then it's collected six months later. And personally, I like the pamphlets. Reminds me comics are fun. There's a youthful sentimentality attached, I suppose.

RICHARD: There's a lot of it about it seems. Mark Millar recently wrote that as a writer, he's tries not to "f*ck outside the circle" - the circle being a group of artists, yourself included, who act as peers. If he keeps doing work with some of you, then all of you will also want to "f*ck" him. Engaging imagery aside, do you think that's true? Would you be more willing, nay, keen to work with a writer who's associated with doing work with Hitch, Charest, Ross, Quitely and Hughes?
JOHN: Well, I suppose that says something to the quality of comic he's wanting to put out, but I wouldn't work with him because he works with someone else. I know many talented writers, Mark included, who've been involved with some lousy looking books, but it doesn't mean anything... Mark and I plan to work together because we simply like what the other does. We can see our work fitting together nicely and from the conversations we've had I believe we have frighteningly similar interests and tastes. Notice, not once did I say, "f*ck?"

F*ck.

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