Jeff Lemire Reflects on a Year of "Animal Man"

[CBR News]

Looking back on his first year of writing DC Comics' "Animal Man," Jeff Lemire reflects on the road to "Rotworld," crossing over with Scott Snyder's "Swamp Thing" and his initial fears of early cancellation.


Full article here.

[Chronomical]

"You know what? I got to say, this is one project I don't have any regrets on. It's just gone so amazingly well from the very beginning, and DC's given me such freedom to do things and take risks. There really aren't any regrets at this point or things I would have done differently. It's not often in your creation or on a project you can say that. I'm grateful for the fans supporting it and making it last long enough for me to do this story!" - Jeff

That actually put a smile on my face, for some reason. Ha. Any way great read, as far as his initial fears of early cancellation, that would be down right ridiculous.

[LoneNecromancer]

We've already written all of "Rotworld," so I've already moved on to the next thing with the character and the title. We're looking to take it in a new direction to keep it interesting for fans.

[Laughs] Well, I think the danger we have now with both "Animal Man" and "Swamp Thing" coming out of "Rotworld" is to fall into a pattern of the family fighting various incarnations of the Rot again, or Swamp Thing fighting various incarnations of the Rot again, or another big fight where they team-up. We did it once and I think it worked really well, but to do that just to do that again would be boring and predictable and really wouldn't be interesting to us as writers...

But I think we're both going in really different directions in our second year, challenging us and challenging the readers and keeping it fresh.

Hm, good to hear it's going in a different direction after Rotworld, I was starting to get a bit bored of it.

[Rakzo]

This whole storyline has been nothing short of epic, but frankly I can't wait to see it end.

I want Lemire to focus on the family aspects of the series since that's his primary strenght.

[Chronomical]

This whole storyline has been nothing short of epic, but frankly I can't wait to see it end.

I want Lemire to focus on the family aspects of the series since that's his primary strenght.

You're seriously the 5th person I heard say that this week. (or similar)

[SJNeal]

Great interview!

This book remains one of the crown jewels of The New 52; I'm hoping for a long, healthy run from Lemire and Pugh.

[Rakzo]

You're seriously the 5th person I heard say that this week. (or similar)

Not surprising since that's one of the best parts of this run.

So far in Animal Man we have seen how well Lemire can handle family dynamics and his perfect portrayal of each member of it. That's his specialty, in most of his books you can see an strong emphasis on characterization too (Plus, an strong emphasis on horror touches).

[Xarcon]

Hm, good to hear it's going in a different direction after Rotworld, I was starting to get a bit bored of it.

I did get bored with it. I dropped both Animal Man and Swamp Thing after #10, I think. However, if Lemire's taking the book in a new direction, I might give it a second shot. We'll see.

Either way, Lemire's done a great job on the book. I love what he and Snyder have done for the Dark Line in general. I hope year two is as great as this past year.

[Judge-Dredd]

It's nice to see these series sell well.

[Mr. Holmes]

Yeah I dropped this after the 0 issue, but I'll keep my eye open for what comes after RotWorld and perhaps pick it back up.

[MichaelPaytonMZ]

This book, Swamp Thing & Wonder Woman are the crown jewels of mainstream comics today. Hell, they're better than 95% of the indy stuff out there too. Lemire & co deserve all the kudos they've been getting.

I don't get the complaints about being bored by long arcs tho. Is the Godfather boring because it's three hours long? Where is the attention span of today's readers that demand stories wrap up in a single trade paperback's worth of issues? If a story takes 2 issues to tell, then take 2 issues, don't pad it out to fill a trade. If it takes 40 issues to tell the story, then take 40 issues, don't rush a story down to six for the book. It's a good thing Jeff Smith isn't still doing Bone. 55 issues to tell a story and he'd lose half of today's readers before the Great Cow Race ever started. Dave Sim's Cerebus would make heads explode waiting for a 300 issue monthly to end.

[gma2darescue]

This book, Swamp Thing & Wonder Woman are the crown jewels of mainstream comics today. Hell, they're better than 95% of the indy stuff out there too. Lemire & co deserve all the kudos they've been getting.

I don't get the complaints about being bored by long arcs tho. Is the Godfather boring because it's three hours long? Where is the attention span of today's readers that demand stories wrap up in a single trade paperback's worth of issues? If a story takes 2 issues to tell, then take 2 issues, don't pad it out to fill a trade. If it takes 40 issues to tell the story, then take 40 issues, don't rush a story down to six for the book. It's a good thing Jeff Smith isn't still doing Bone. 55 issues to tell a story and he'd lose half of today's readers before the Great Cow Race ever started. Dave Sim's Cerebus would make heads explode waiting for a 300 issue monthly to end.

Godfather takes 3 hours to tell a story. Animal Man takes 18 months. Plus, any long movie is bound to lose some people's interest, no matter how good.

As much as I'm loving Animal Man (and Batman, for instance), I do understand these concerns.

[tomstewdevine]

You're seriously the 5th person I heard say that this week. (or similar)

I couldn't agree more, this has been great, but maybe a little drawn out, I really love animal man but would be fine not seeing anything with the Rot for at least a year.

[Mr. Holmes]

Godfather takes 3 hours to tell a story. Animal Man takes 18 months. Plus, any long movie is bound to lose some people's interest, no matter how good.

As much as I'm loving Animal Man (and Batman, for instance), I do understand these concerns.

The problem I have with the length is that the Rot are just not interesting enough to tell stories for such a long arc. This whole mythology is very generic and cliche "Red/Green = Life, good, Rot = death, evil." The Rot possessed beings feel like alien villain rejects from Men in Black.

[mrterrific9]

I know I might be in the minority here but I think Animal Man is just okay. I think the epic works well for Swamp Thing, but is a hit-miss with Animal Man. Animal Man seems more like a side story than an epic. Its like that chapter in the Iliad, that weird one where the leaders of the Dannans decide to murder people on night patrol. Its small, ut not needed. This whole Rot thing is just dragging Animal Man along until its over.
Hopefully, the "new direction" will create stories where it doesn't have this feel.