CBR: Steve Bissette, Part 1: To "1963" And Beyond

[CBR News]

In the first of an extensive two part interview, Steve Bissette spoke with CBR about "1963," what went wrong and why we'll never see it reprinted, what led to his retirement and return to comics and much more.


Full article here.

[Thad]

I'm the only one with a sole proprietorship of anything, legally unencumbered and free to move as I now am.

Strictly speaking, in cases of co-ownership a partner doesn't need the other's permission to use a character, just to give an equal cut of the profits. As in the McFarlane/Gaiman dispute, DC's continued publication of Superman, and so on.

That said, if Veitch or Valentino were to do anything with their co-owned characters without Moore's blessing, it would certainly piss Moore off, which is clearly something they don't want to do. And even though they have the legal right to do it, he could take them to court to dispute the particulars. Not a situation anyone wants to be in.

Sorry the whole thing's gone so sour; 1963 was a great mini and it's a pity things went the way they did (although I suppose a bitter creative falling-out is an appropriate enough ending for a series that was an homage to the Lee-Kirby-Ditko era). But it's nice to see Steve finally moving forward with something; I'm looking forward to seeing N-Man again.

[Cash Lone]

Glad to see Mr. Bissette has returned. Always thought his art was unique and loved what they (Bissette and Totleben) did on Swampy.

[coy_dog0]

There are tons of copies of '1963' in quarter bins everywhere, so I usually snatch them up and give them away to friends. Rave reviews from every one of them!

I'd kill to see more material from this series. There are some similar comics that have come since then (eg: Age of Sentry), but this one is still the best.

[Marvin Lee]

Well I noticed that he retired and was disappointed but he had his reasons. How much longer than 4 issues was Tyrant supposed to be?

The interview does confirm many of my feelings and suspisions. Image was always a mess which is why I only bought a handful of their comics back then. (Curretly a fine company.) McFarlane and Lee aren't worth dealing with as people or as creators (All-Star B&R RIP). Alan Moore is a brilliant writer and a huge baby. (How is it that someone who claims to believe in the forces of nature and Magick is unable to find balance in his personal or professonal relationships?)

I have Swamp Thing originals on my wall and always thought that Bissette and Totleben towered above most of what surrounded them. If Steve can muster the drive and the steel perhaps he remind the observant what a creative artist can accomplish.

[Super Combat Monkey]

I always wondered what happened to that series. I enjoyed it too. That seems to be the story of Image in the early days.

a) a project is announced and promoted, and
b) either an issue or two is published, or;
c) it's never published

Image now appears to be in better shape with a proper publisher managing it's operations, leaving creators to focus more on what they do best.

I think it's great Bissette is back. He was never a star but his work on "Swamp Thing" was fantastic. I look forward to seeing more of the characters from "1963".

[JayWicky]

I can't read the article. The URL changes immediately into something starting with "www.gateway" and the page is apparently blocked by my browser because of some ad located at http://ads.comic+bookresources.com/adframe.php%3Fn.

Is it just me, or has it happened to someone else ?

[Brandon Hanvey]

I can't read the article. The URL changes immediately into something starting with "www.gateway" and the page is apparently blocked by my browser because of some ad located at http://ads.comic+bookresources.com/adframe.php%3Fn.

Is it just me, or has it happened to someone else ?

Not to me.

It sounds like you may have encountered a malware ad that one of our 3rd party ad networks inserted into one of our banner ads.

[Scavenger]

TO my memory, this is the first "Bad guy" Jim Lee story I've heard. Usually he's, if not the good guy in early Image tales, at least the one who keeps his mouth shut.

[FanboyStranger]

It's great that Steve is back working on comics. I read his blog almost every day, and between his essay on Censorship in the '80s and his memories of Steve Perry, I have to say it's been of interest to pretty much every comic book fan the past two months. I can't say that I loved 1963 aside from the letter pages, but I did love the Hypernaut (as well as Johnny Beyond and Horus, Lord of Light), so it's cool that Steve will be doing something new with the character.

As far as the rift with Moore, it's always been a point of contention what really went down. In Gary Millidge's tribute book to Moore, Steve himself said that even he didn't really understand what happened. (From the hearsay, it's always seemed to be something related to Taboo, but nothing definitive has ever come from Moore's mouth. Moore's personal and professional life was in turmoil then-- the end of his first marriage, Billy Sink walking off Big Numbers and its dissolution, the turn to his "magical system of thinking"-- so he may have taken the failure of Taboo as a personal slight rather than a professional one.)

[NatGertler]

Any retailer planning to carry Bissette's Tales of the Uncanny book should drop me an email at nat@aboutcomics.com , and I'll send you some promo bookmarks for the project.

[MartinRedmond]

Looking forward to this! N-Man was my favourite and Steve's art is grand. :)

While the interview is interesting, I worry airing out so much dirty laundry'll hurt is rep a little. Anyone with half a brain can work out that most of those guys are unreliable publishers anyway.

[Sadyv]

Mr. Bissette seems to be open and honest in his thoughts, unlike his one time collaborator Alan Moore.

It really astounds me how childish Moore seems to be. This is 50-something year old man, acting like a toddler, refusing to speak to people that have "wronged" him.

That is not how a man handles a problem, whether he is in the right or not of the initial problem. That's a spoiled, immature response one would expect from a elementary school age child who had a fight with a friend.

Moore was a talented writer, but as a person he seems to quite unpleasant, hypocritical, and blind to the truth of events happening around him.

[Tobias March]

TO my memory, this is the first "Bad guy" Jim Lee story I've heard. Usually he's, if not the good guy in early Image tales, at least the one who keeps his mouth shut.

It's not that he's a bad guy, as such, more quite competitive.

Which yeah, means screwing people over.

I mean we could perhaps mention selling Wildstorm to DC, which of course published ABC, landing Moore right back with the company he swore he would never work for again...