Here we are again. A little blast from the past…
So, okay… the original version of the text that follows ran in the good ol’ “Dirty Talk” letter column, located in the back of issue #7 of an ongoing series from Image Comics from back in the day, called SEX. That would date this piece August 2013. Keep that in mind when I refer to things and events as “recent”. At this point, they’re clearly not.
Not much editing and/or tweaking on this one. But still mildly interesting.
Check it out…
... one of the best things about the Internet is that certain historical artifacts -- things that you've always wanted to see -- often show up online when you least expect it.
Case in point: a recent Kevin Smith/Grant Morrison podcast interview suddenly got people talking about the classic Alan Moore/Brian Bolland Batman graphic novel, The Killing Joke. Definitely a touchstone work for my generation of comicbook reader, Grant had brought up a certain take on the book's ending that, while sometimes speculated among fans of the book for years, gave the argument of "Did Batman Kill The Joker?" a new life. Certainly fun to talk about (as these things usually are), and the often obsessive nature of Internet "journalism" seemed to attack this subject matter with a vengeance. The cool thing that came out of the back-and-forth was a Tumblr that displayed the entire original manuscript of Alan Moore's Killing Joke script. This was no transcribed facsimile... these were scans of the actual script pages, right out of Moore’s goddamn typewriter. Possibly the same typewriter he wrote Watchmen, those early Swamp Thing issues and most of Marvelman/Miracleman on. For a process junkie like me, it was amazing to see this document in its "natural" state (for all intents and purposes, it also seemed to settle the "Did he or didn't Batman kill the Joker?" argument. He didn't. But, y'know, he should've).
It fed right into a certain fascination I have with an area of comicbook collecting fandom that's probably (and understandably) under-serviced. There's not really a market for this type of comicbook-related item, but for me... finding these things are like finding the Holy Grail.
I'm talking about original comicbook scripts. And while “transcripts” are okay (I've got an early Garth Ennis Hitman script -- transcribed, no doubt -- that I found online way back in 1997 that's pretty cool and incredibly instructive), the actual pieces of paper that came out of the pen/typewriter/fax of the writers who wrote them has a certain magical quality to them. The pre-computer era of comicbook writing was, in its own way, a more physical act than the Mircosoft Word/Final Draft-world most of us live in now. To actually have to load each blank sheet of paper into a typewriter... or to actually hand write these things... I dunno, there's a romantic aspect to the whole thing. These documents are relics of a bygone era. I've talked about this before, but I'm feeling pretty happy that, after all this time, I still haven't gotten over just how into this shit I am.
I'm extremely lucky that I have a few of these documents in my personal collection of comicbook-related shit. I'd even go so far to say they are some of my most prized possessions. A few Mike Baron Flash scripts (hand-drawn thumbnails on yellow legal pad paper that Baron generously sent to me before I turned pro. In other words, true manuscripts!).
Even more cool shit: I was gifted the entire Thriller file by Robert Loren Fleming himself -- who I was thrilled (no pun intended) to meet in person at San Diego Comic-Con a few years ago -- including all the various pitches, early promo material and every script he ever wrote for the series (those of you who know what I'm talking about when I reference anything Thriller-related... you're my people and always will be). A couple of Grant's JLA scripts and their first year's worth of New X-Men scripts (not exactly relics of a bygone era, but still cool enough to qualify... truth be told, part of the reason I took the Uncanny X-Men writing gig was to get one of the first looks at Grant's scripts, before they were even drawn). I've got a few others that are probably too top secret to even mention here... but you get the idea. I love this stuff.
At the CBLDF auction at this year's SDCC, there were two more Alan Moore documents, apparently printed straight out his (then) brand new computer and printer: a Swamp Thing script from near the end of his run, and the infamous Twilight of the Superheroes document. The pages were slightly yellowed with age, but I still got a weird feeling holding these things in my hands. It seemed like the end of an era... I mean, when Alan Moore abandoned his trusty typewriter, I'd say that's a clear line of demarcation for me. But it also makes the original documents that do exist that much more special to me.
Now don't get me wrong... photocopied reproductions of these original documents can be cool, too. The Don McGregor plot for Jungle Action #7 in the back of the Marvel Masterworks: Black Panther hardcover (a book that was not so easy to get my hands on, I might add). Paul Levitz' plot for Legion of Super-Heroes #290, found in the back of the "Deluxe Edition" hardcover of The Great Darkness Saga. Pages from Frank Miller's script for Batman: Year One found in the back of the most recent collection of that seminal work. And there's a lot more of this kind of stuff out there, for all of you fellow comicbook archeologists to track down and catalog. Weirdly, I'm kinda done with collecting actual comicbooks from the past... there's not much left out there that I want... but these things seem like hidden treasures I can happily chase down for the rest of my life.
Of course, when I ask myself why I'm so enamored of these... well, let's just call them "creative artifacts", I'm not sure I have a concrete answer. I know I like seeing the original formatting that these various writers employed. Maybe it's still -- after all these years of being a professional myself -- a way to stay connected to the magical essence of inspiration that pushed me to seek out this way of life for myself. Maybe it's just part of my process junkie side... to get to reverse-engineer the comicbooks I'm already so familiar with. It's academic, y'see...
Or maybe it's just the simple idea that these documents are only one step removed from the blank page. That blank... f**king... page. That thing that exists before the Big Bang of creation. In other words, first there was nothing... then there were these scripts... and after many more steps beyond that, an actual comicbook existed that hundreds of thousands of readers got to experience (including me). But these original documents are the closest thing to that "nothing" that you can get. It's seeing creative minds conquer the blank page, which has to be acknowledged as the huge f**king victory that it is. I mean, that's a goddamn glorious plant-your-flag-at-the-summit moment, muthaf**kkas!
Ah shit. I think I've slipped back into some self-indulgent territory here... gotten into a real "I'm a writer and proud of it"-mode and maybe things spun a little out of control. Let's move on, shall we...?
(Those Mike Baron scripts are still the greatest thing ever, though...)
Joe Casey
USA
I hope Sex Vol. 7 is still in the cards and comes out soon! It felt like it was amping up to an ending!!!
We are all hoping for that Vol. 7 🙏🙏