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For some reason I got terriby lost and fended having 1 and a half hours to chat with friends, talk with Phil and actually shop. The small press turnout was less than enthustiastic so my hopes were quite low on the good time meter.
Phil was very down to Earth, easy to talk to, and a snazzy dresser. I brought out my copy of the 'Atom Splitting' Invisibles issue saying it held a special meaning to me and would he sign the page before the titles.
We talked about Grant, how nice of a bloke he is, terribly clever and easy to talk to as well. Phil admitted to not reading volume three and I admitted to throwing issue 6 of vol three across the room, shrugging and adding it wasn't my cup of tea. He very frankly asked if I ever talked to Grant about this and I stared back, blinking that I hadn't. He has had several conversations with Grant about Invisibles, what he thought worked and didn't, etc and he added that Grant's vision changed greatly throughout the series' run.
We shared our favorite Grant scripts (the final issue of Animal Man and he mentioned the Dolphin issue which I couldn't place) and admitted to crying like girls.
We talked about how Invisibles was in many ways a failure but so innovative and explosive that it catipulted the medium into a new age... where we are now, in a lot of ways. This got mussy as we couldn't actually praise any comics being done now and we decided to talk about the Invisibles page.
His take on King Mob was fascinating. He saw KM as a murderer and couldn't really connect to the character, Phil has no desires to exact vengeance on anyone. He preferred Boy. He flipped through the issue and seemed to be engrosssed one moment, confused as to how he did a panel and then disappointed on other pages. He'd love to be able to redraw Arcadia, his favorite Invisibles story. I told him it coincided with my study of DeSade (reprinted on the old Bomb) and we both smiled. Grant's work has a way of serendipity.
We then talked about DC Editorial and the past two years of DC Comics as being concerted and focused due in large part to Dan Didio. He admitted 8C is a very commercial product and didn't seem interested in the praise I gave it. We talked a little about Other World which I confess I have not read and discussed ambitious projects in general. I'd taken up loads of his time and asked for just a couple of autos which he signed 'Be Invisible' which I was quite touched by. I gave him a Zebra card and he might bother to read my story but it's no matter. It was a pleasure talking to him.
Hope these answer some questions. |
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