S.O.L. 

A Keith Giffen Resource Page Exclusive

Keith Giffen: What’s up?

Mike Jozic: Well, I’ve just caught wind of the cancellation of VEXT...

KG: Yeah, aint that a hoot?

MJ: ...and I thought I’d give you a call and see if you had any comment on that?

KG: Ummm...Odd.

MJ: [laughs]

KG: On the HECKLER book, I was the one who went in and asked them to cancel it rather than watch it writhe to death. And the last HECKLER to be cancelled, the sales were twice as good as VEXT at it’s best.

I don’t want, nor do I expect, D.C. to continue publishing a book that’s not making them money. Let’s face it, that’s business. But it’s a little distressing to me to think that books like VEXT, and to a certain extent MAJOR BUMMER, they’re not really given a chance in the marketplace. We seem to have locked ourselves in a rather rigid definition of genre for comic books and I’m going to miss the book. I wrote twelve issues.

MJ: [laughs] You have twelve scripts completed?

KG: Yeah, whole scripts are completed.

MJ: How far ahead is Mike with the art?

KG: Seven issues. He was crackin’ along like a pro.

I should have known that the book would have a rough time - if it did get any time at all - simply by the fact that we were having too much fun. We were loving it to pieces and I just look at this and think, “What do you put out there? Was it given a fair shot?”.

You order fifteen copies of the first issue, seven copies of the second issue, five copies of the third issue...“Wait a minute, now that my first issue’s sold out so maybe I should I up my orders? No, I’ll just be grateful to get rid of them.”

I don’t know if that played into it, maybe it was just something that people couldn’t embrace. The response of people who’ve been able to lay their hands on it has been wonderful.

MJ: That’s what I’ve been hearing as well. I was pretty surprised when I first heard about the cancellation. I called D.C. to confirm it and they told me that it was true, and that D.C. doesn’t give out reasons for cancellations.

MJ: Well, I’m sure that the primary reason is sales figures.

Look, let me put it this way. When LOBO first came out, it was not the most popular book up at D.C.. As a matter of fact, it was a book that I’m quite sure a lot of people up at D.C. wished would go away. But it sold, and it sold well, and D.C. is in the business of making money. Editors - at least the editors that I worked with back then who I considered to be editors - they didn’t think it was there job to like the book, it was their job to recognise the potential for a book. In other words, if you were editing TEEN TITANS, [and] you hated the TEEN TITANS, but it was selling, it was not for you to say. You know, if you run a 7-11 and you’re lactose intolerant, that doesn’t mean that you stop selling milk.

So I doubt very much that it was some kind of a behind-the-scenes manoeuvre - “Let’s screw up this book because we don’t like it”. That does not happen up there. It’s certainly a nice thing to fantasise about though, because it shifts the onus from the product.

MJ: Do you think that D.C. backed it with enough...

KG: I got a house-ad. [laughs] But then, that’s pretty much par for the course unless it’s a great, big event.

Let’s fact it, money’s not flooding into comic book companies coffers, so they’ve got to pick and choose. I’m not familiar with the process, but we got a house-ad, the book was pretty much released like an orphan, but then so many books are. I don’t think the companies can afford to put out that great, big blitz anymore.

VEXT was always looked upon as a quirky, odd...once you get a taste for tequila, you’ll like these kinds of books.

MJ: [laughs]

KG: It’s just that first swallow.

I like to think that maybe there’ll be a groundswell of support, but I’ve actually given up hope for the comic book market as it exists right now.

MJ: So, are you finding it pretty disheartening that practically everything you’ve put pen to paper to for the last bunch of years has failed commercially?

KG: I see other books out there that I consider to be wonderful books that are dying, and I look out there at books that I wouldn’t line my daughter’s guinea pig cage with that are doing well, and I don’t understand it. I no longer know what kind of market we’re working towards. We’re kind of back to rolling bones and looking for omens.

I have to give D.C. a lot of credit for putting VEXT out in the first place. I don’t think there’s any other publisher that would have. And I’ve got to give D.C. a lot of credit for staying the course and still be willing to back odd little wonky books.

Had VEXT been just a mini-series, then it would have been, “Oh, it came out, it did well”, you know? It survived. But VEXT was meant to be an ongoing book and I think that, maybe in hindsight, wasn’t such a great idea. Not with what we’re dealing with out there.

Yeah, I’m disappointed. I’ll admit that, yeah, I am very disappointed. There’s a little bit of...the kind of books that I love to do, are no longer books that are feasible. Yet I find it real hard to just hand in a book that’s nothing but gritted teeth, half-naked women, and large panels of mindless fight-scenes. I can’t do that. Maybe as a last resort - a foreclosure or that story - then I think you have to go for that story. If comic books keep going in the direction they’re going in, I don’t have that much hope for them.

And I love this forum. You don’t spend years in this business with the kind of bulk work that you’ve got to do without loving it. So, in a way, you could say that for the past year I’ve been kind of mourning. I just watch things not even being given a chance.

And earlier, I didn’t mean to sound like I was dumping on the retailers because since the institution of the direct market - I’ve always got to wonder if that was meant to be a temporary fix - retailers have been shooting craps every time they order. I think we may have outgrown non-returnable comics.

I know D.C. is implementing a program of limited returns. In other words, if you order five copies, we’ll send you ten, and the other five we’ll just give you. Now, they can’t do that forever, but it’s a step in the right direction. It shows that their heads are in the right place.

MJ: So, now with VEXT gone in a few months, and WEBSPINNERS being a limited engagement...

KG: I’m effectively unemployed.

MJ: [laughs]

KG: I did a GREEN LANTERN Annual, I wrote the GREEN LANTERN Annual this year, but other than that, nope. I’ve got a couple of proposals through, [and] I’m doing something for Penthouse magazine, but that’s it. I’ve got a little thing for Penthouse magazine, but at this point, I don’t think I could get arrested up at D.C..

The comic business goes in cycles. Who knows, two months from now, everyone might be clamouring for wonky little humour books, or something other than a sound-bite a month. Just a small part of a bigger story that never ends.

It’s weird. It’s unfortunate, you know? Look at the books that have died, and there are a couple more that I’m not at liberty to say will die. These are usually the books that have a unique voice behind them or it’s got a neat little attitude, and it’s books that are missed by people who like them. It’s just that there aren’t enough people who like them.

The average comic book doesn’t sell enough copies to place one issue on every seat in Madison Square Garden. The fact that doesn’t send up red flags all over the place astonishes me. But, you move on.

And I believe I will be drawing FIGHTING AMERICAN for Rob Liefeld.

MJ: Is there any progress with the TRENCHER and MARCH HARE films?

KG: Forward momentum on both, I’m not at liberty to say more.

MJ: Okay.

KG: I really can’t say anymore except to say they’re going a hell of a lot better than the comic books. I’ll tell you that much.

It’s funny, because stuff that I’ve talked to people out there in film about ideas I’ve thrown at them, the ideas that they tend to love the most are the ones I couldn’t shoehorn into a comic book company. We’re in a weird place.

MJ: And is FIGHTING AMERICAN on the schedule, or is that still up in the air?

KG: I’m still waiting on it to be finalised. Rob wants me to do it, I want to do it, (Eric) Stephenson wants me to do it, we’re going to do it.

MJ: Okay.

KG: It’s just when are we going to do it.

We’re talking about trying something a little radical, a little different - we never learn, do we. [laughs]

MJ: You’ve gotta keep trying.

KG: Perhaps you gotta.

That there are people out there who can still buy and appreciate the stuff - and I’m not just talking about VEXT, I’m also talking about a lot of other books - and mourn the fact that they’re gone, that’s encouraging. I just wish there were more of them, you know? I’m one of the people who really miss MAJOR BUMMER. And when MAJOR BUMMER went under, Kevin Dooley and I were like, “This does not bode well for VEXT.”

And yet, the X-Men - which are an indecipherable mish-mosh - continue to fly.

MJ: It’s inertia. I think it’s inertia.

KG: You think so?

MJ: I think so.

KG: Well then that’s even sadder. because that means that you’ve got guys buying it to keep their oh-so-precious collection complete, which means your vote with your dollar has gone right out the window.

MJ: I knew someone who was pleased that DAREDEVIL was being relaunched through the Marvel Knights line with a new number one because that meant that he can stop collecting the book and still have a complete run.

KG: If that’s where we’re at, we may as well be sold through the Franklin Mint along with the Civil War chess set.

It’s like, I look at comics now [and] I think we’re doing a fanzine. JUSTICE LEAGUE is the perfect example. JLA, right? What does that mean to the impulse buyer, the kid walking by the comic book rack if he can find one. I’m in the business, and if you put a gun to my head and said, “Go buy a comic book,” I’d just have to say, “Shoot” because I don’t know where to buy a comic book within fifty miles of my house.

But you walk past JLA. What the fuck does that mean? Does it mean anything? To the average person? It’s Justice League of America, right? Spell it out for the kid. You know what JLA is, it’s the name of the fanzine or the APA. What we are doing is closing out casual buyers, we’re shrinking our own marketplace, we’re becoming inbred, and do you know what inbreeding gives you? Mongoloid kids. Look at half of the comic books out there, there they are. Our pride and joy.

MJ: Wonderful imagery. [laughs]

KG: Out of all the Image books I would say that, to my way of thinking, SAVAGE DRAGON was probably the most consistently entertaining, and yet it was one of the books that was always consistently lagging behind.

I don’t know. Maybe it’s me, but it’ll be interesting to see what happens to the comic book industry over the next year or two. Whether there are attempts to recapture some of that audience, or whether comic books become a very limited print run and most of the money is made off of licensing ventures like Topps has been doing with XENA and THE X-FILES, and the D.C. Cartoon Network stuff.

I wouldn’t be surprised if SCOOBY-DOO outsold SUPERMAN.

MJ: Actually, didn’t Topps just cease publication on their line of comics?

KG: I think so, yeah. Another on bites the dust.

We’re almost back to the “Big Two” again. We’re almost back to those days when it was just D.C. and Marvel and that’s it.

MJ: Bob Schreck just went over to D.C..

KG: And Heidi Macdonald and Matt Idelson. I don’t know what to make of that.

MJ: It’s a weird time, I think.

KG: I think so. It’s a surreal time.

It’s like with VEXT. Mike Mckone and I were having a ball. We knew damn well that we were working into a vacuum. We knew that not enough people would see this. It could’ve been the next Spider-Man or Superman, it didn’t need to be VEXT. It could have been the character that, given the right exposure, would next be the next big over-the-top success, but the exposure’s just not there anymore. You cannot get the books to the average person’s hands, to the point of purchase...

It’s in-sane. It’s absolutely insane.

When you have to get in the car and drive just to buy a comic book...You know, I don’t think so. “Mom, I want to buy a comic. Get the car out of the garage.” [laughs] That’s what it’s come down to.

MJ: Get the books back into the grocery stores and confectioneries where the kids can see them.

KG: Not only do the kids not know where to buy comic books, but they don’t read comic books and they’ve grown to the point where they no longer miss them. They have found something else to fill that gap, and we’re not getting them back because as soon as they get laid, we lose them forever.

MJ: [laughs]

KG: I’ve always maintained you get laid, we lose them, and then maybe they’ll come back after they realise it’s not all it’s cooked up to be. [laughs] “See, I got laid I can drop comic books.”

“Oh no, she’s not going away, I better pick them up again.”

MJ: [laughs] Get back to the fantasy.

KG: That’s the way I’ve always looked at it.

It’s just too bad. You now, I miss getting my once or twice a year jolt of Howard Chaykin. I miss John Byrne. I don’t know who the fuck this guy is now signing John’s name, but I miss John a lot. There’s a lot of people out there that I just miss seeing their stuff every so often.

When I heard that Dan Jurgens was removed from TEEN TITANS, I couldn’t believe it. When I heard that he was removed from SUPEMAN, I figured, “Okay, that’s the third seal of the apocalypse.” Half of the creators that I follow are scrambling for work. It’s just really strange.