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Home ¦ Features ¦ John McCrea interview part 4

11th May 05

Back to part 3

RC: So where you always a big Marvel fan?

JMcC: Yes, every character they created up until about 1980 I love and want to draw. Right up until 'Speedball' or 'Night Thrasher', I mean 'Night Thrasher'! For fuck's sake.

RC: What was that about? Presumably not what I think?

JMcC: You and me both... I think he was one of the New Warriors (why do I know this?). But we're getting off the subject, I think it was Spider-man you mentioned? James and I did it with Garth again, what was it, 'Tales of Spider-man'?

Tangled Web

RC: Tangled Web.

JMcC: We did the first three issues of that, and that was fun too. Beautiful colouring job on it too, it just happened to have Eduardo Risso coming after it as well, which was tough. There's a scene in it in the second issue, where Peter Parker ends up at this fashion gala, I don't think Spider-man has ever been drawn like that before or since. It was fun to get crazy with it, back when Marvel would allow you to do that with a character. I'd love to do him again.

RC: How does working for DC compare to working for Marvel, or are they much the same?

JMcC: All the editors between DC and Marvel have changed over, you get some who are Marvel or DC through and through, most of the editors I've worked with at Marvel are ex-DC guys, who I worked for there. So it was mostly the same, only with characters I loved when I was young! I grew up reading Marvel, what can I say, I'm a Marvel zombie!

It wasn't until I was about eighteen or nineteen that I started to read indies and other comics. Now I read just about anything, because most of the companies are publishing decent comics. You just don't have a couple of decent writers like it was I the eighties, now a lot of them are good. I really didn't think there was much difference. Axel Alonzo was editor on Preacher, and then he moved over to Marvel, he said to me once that the difference between was that DC was sipping champagne in the penthouse, and Marvel was like having a beer in the basement with the boys. And I guess it's a bit like that. You go to the DC offices, and it's very plush, very corporate, and Marvel's a bit of a hole, really!

I remember reading the Marvel comics, seeing these crazy drawings of the bullpen, with all this stuff going on, the FF crashing through the window, and I was thinking, 'God I want to go to the Marvel offices and meet Stan Lee!' And the first time I went there... it wasn't great. But I think they've moved maybe a couple of times since then.

But it depends, the last time I over, a couple of friends of ours where over at the same time, and they've a young kid who's a huge Spider-man fan. Coincidentally, we were both in New York at the same time, and I said I'd show them round the offices. And the kid wandered around and had a great time looking at the toys...

RC: And to bring us up to date, you recently did a Sinister/Dexter for 2000AD?

Sinister Dexter

I did a Wolverine issue not that long ago, Wolverine is in it, but all he does is just stand around. He doesn't get the claws out once.

PJ: Very poor resale value on the pages there.

JMcC: Dear God, I sold none of them! But Sinister/Dexter was a fun, daft diversion. I was looking for work so...

RC: Yeah, a lot of artists who make their name on 2000AD will go off to the States, and we'll never see them again.

JMcC: Steve Pugh came back recently... And I did it too, I fucked off for ages. But the main reason for it is the exchange rate. It's so bad at the moment, that working for 2000AD is a viable proposition again. And most people do want to work for them, but they just couldn't afford it, when they could be doing a story for the States.

PJ: If you were doing a long running series again, is there anything in 2000AD you'd like to do?

JMcC: I never did Dredd properly; I'd love to do Dredd.

PJ: You did that poster...

Placebo vs Judge Death

JMcC: Yeah, Placebo. But that wasn't Dredd. Okay, I got to do the Dark Judges which was fucking great fun.

PJ: It was also the oddest thing to come through the mail.

JMcC: Well they'd done one with another group, Funeral for a Friend. And they sent me that as an example. It was bizarre. Placebo where threatening to buy some of the pages off me, but they never did.

RC: Finally then, what are you up to now and next?

JMcC: Right at the moment I'm drawing a lot of non comics stuff. The teaching takes up a lot of my time, but I am working on a new DC project, which I can't mention. I'm doing The Atheist, which is a Desperado/Image comic written by Phil Hester.

PJ: Is that ongoing?

JMcC: Just four issues. It'd be nice to do some more, I'd like to work with Phil again, he's a good writer and he's a good laugh. He works in an interesting way, he actually draws the layouts for the comic, and then I just trace it!

PJ: You just make it look like John McCrea by putting a few knobbly bits on it here and there...

RC: Then you get Klaus to rub it all out again.

JMcC: Ha! I'm inking all my own stuff these days.

PJ: Would you do a page a day, or are you better or worse than that?

JMcC: Mmmmm, it's so random now that I've got two kids. I work from home and it can be a nightmare, often I don't get anywhere near the drawing board until about 8 o'clock, and then I so knackered. So I'm thinking I may have to get a studio, just to get away from the house, because it's so big a distraction. But my page rate at the moment is... bloody awful frankly. I think it took me about two months to do the first issue of The Atheist.

And I'm doing some stuff for a record company, I'm doing something for a fashion article for a newspaper, which is something I've always wanted to do since I studied fashion at art college. For the two months I was there.

I'm just messing about.

RC: Thank you.

JMcC: Thank you, I appreciate it...

PJ: Cheerio!

You can catch John McCrea's latest work in The Athiest - published by Image. And don't forget to check out johnmcrea.com too!

Back to part 3