Interview with Madman creator Michael Allred
The new comics, the upcoming movie and more!
Michael Allred is the reason i still read comics to this day. I had all but given up on the superhero of the '90's when I discovered his first Madman miniseries. It was quirky and funny and touching all in one. To do this day the initial thre issue mini-series is my favorite comic of all time. Now after a few years of hiatus, Madman is back with a new series in April called Madman Atomic Comics, and Robert Rodriguez (Sin City, El Mariachi) will be producing a major motion picture adaptation of that first story! To get everyone up to speed on the character, Image Comics is releasing the Madman Gargantua, a 852-page, full color hardcover collection of almost every story the character's ever appeared in. I spoke with Michael recently so he could tell our readers about his career and his soon-to-be-famous character. I'm a huge comic fan, and it was a complete honor and pleasure to speak with him. Comic fans and movie buffs alike will find this an interesting read, and even if you've never heard of madman before...you will when the movie comes out...so you might as well get hip to it now so you can impress your friends later.
Anarchy Music: Since This is a music site, most of the people who see this will be new to your work. So, tell us about how you came to be involved in the comic book industry.
Michael: I had them growing up, comics were always around. My dad always bought them whenever we’d go on trips. My older brother was more aggressive than that. He had a pretty amazing collection. He was a couple of years older than me and I was always more casual in anything I ever did. It would always take a trip that would bring me to pick up some comics. My older brother had great taste and had all the best so, so it was kind of there in me. My brother and I would also come up with our own stories. We’d take regular paper or whatever we could and make our own comics. So, it just seemed natural. It was a part of life. Then as I got older and by the time I hit puberty I got much more interested in music and rock n roll and spent my allowance on a record collection. I got a paper route and most of that went to a record collection. Then there was the third in the trifecta which was going to the movies. We were always being dropped off at the Saturday matinees where we’d watch a science fiction marathon or even on television when Hammer horror marathons were on. So, I was inundated with pop culture. Comic books sort of faded away. It was really much more about music and movies until I was much older and was interested in film-making and was working in television production at the Air Force academy and was a TV reporter for the Air Force in Europe. With my interest in film-making I wrote a screenplay called Dead Air and met a guy on a security detail. We talked about some of the movies that were out at the time and struck up a friendship. He had a comic book habit and wanted to show me all this stuff that he thought I’d be interested in, especially since he knew I was an artist. I had shown him some of my paintings. We’d had his family over for dinner and our families had become really close so it was just a logical next step for him to say “hey, you’d really be interested in this stuff”. This was after Watchmen had hit really big had The Dark Knight Returns. One of the books he lent me was Mr. X which then introduced me to Love And Rockets as both were done by the Hernandez brothers. There was this rock n roll sensibility to their cartooning, and the production design was very slick. There was full color throughout, even the inside covers. Also, there was this independent spirit where you could do whatever you wanted. I was drawing storyboards for Dead Air and he suggested that I turn it into a comic book. And I did it. I was getting real excited about it and tapped into books and rediscovered books and bought collections and reread books I had as a kid. So, I was reintroduced to people like Jack Kirby and Alex Toth and then went even further back finding the EC collections and all the masters that work on that; Johnny Craig, Bernie Krigstein, Harvey Kurtzman, just really went on a crash course and became a comic book historian. So I really got the ambition to at least try this and I completely drew up the screenplay for a 100+ page graphic novel and started sending it out. Slave Labor Graphics contacted me and asked if I would be willing to let them publish it and I did. By this time I had started this series Graphique Musique when I was in Europe. The title was inspired by two stores in Paris, a graphics shop and a music shop. What really excited me was that it had this rock n roll graphic sensibility. To this day it still plays an influence on me. Often story titles will be inspired by music lyrics. I really want to capture that feeling that music gives me, but on paper and the graphic language, and then at the same time the storytelling that cinema offers, breaking the story into shots like a movie. That’s continued to be my approach . I’ve experimented here and there with various formats, but that’s where it started off. While I was trying to get paying jobs through other companies and did do a graphic novel through Marvel called The Everyman, ultimately I had to stand on my own and do my own stuff because I couldn’t sit around and wait for somebody to offer me money to do some mainstream title. It really strengthened my resolve to do my creator-owned work. That eventually rolled around to Madman and I created some mutants for an X-Men title for Marvel and now I’ve come full circle to re-launch a new Madman series. That’s pretty much my career in a nutshell.
Anarchy: Madman is your signature character. He started out as a character in another series and then exploded into his own series. Tell us about who Madman is.
Michael: First of all, I was doing Graphique Musique. After moving back to the states I renamed the title to phonetically spell Grafik Musik and that’s about the time I did a one-shot with Bernie Mirault and Jeffrey Lang called Creatures Of The Id. I wrote a short story about what if Frankenstein existed today. He would be rejected because he would be ugly with all of his scars. It was kind of a parable about people judging people on their appearance. Just a short, simple 8 page story, but it was pretty much my version of Frankenstein. I don’t think he was named in that, but in Grafik Musik he was one of the regular characters. One of the serials I was doing in Grafik Musik was called Ghoulash where I just experimented with a mix of every kind of genre there was. That’s where the G-Men From Hell appeared. So there was a hard-boiled story, there was science fiction and horror and romance. Everything else was kind of mixed together. These stereotypes and clichés kind of twisted and turned upside down. So it was very experimental. Towards the end of the run of that, I wanted to do something more focused and something struck a chord with as many people as possible. I boiled down a list of things I really liked and wanted to focus on doing something. I realized I couldn’t do something strictly commercial so I said “lets try it“. Not having a natural commercial sensibility, I knew that in the effort something interesting might happen, at least for me to try. What that really resulted in was me taking my favorite characters at the time which was Frank Einstein and putting a costume on him. Then I called him The Spook. One of my favorite creators Will Eisner created The Spirit so it was an homage to him. The costume kind of looked like a skeleton, black sunken eyes, crack in the skull, stitches that resembled teeth, black stripes on the side that resembled ribs. I came up with the exclamation bolt, and exclamation point lightning bolt and stuck it on his chest for the superhero factor. It was picked up by Kevin Eastman, co-creator of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles company Tundra, which was very generous. At the time they were called the Apple Records of comic books. The way The Beatles after their success created Apple Records for a perfect place for creative freedom and a commercial opportunity for less commercial artists. Kevin Eastman has this sensibility for cartoonists. I was one of the lucky people who got very lucky and got a very generous contract, page rate and advance. It was the sky’s the limit, do whatever you want. So, I took this Frank Einstein character and created this series called Madman. It had flip-action corners, it was black and white with an extra color on it to give it this odd, moody quality to it, top quality paper. It did really well. As I’ve made attempts to be something other than “the Madman guy” I must admit that it’s always been my favorite creation. In the process of creating this series around him developed this entire history of who he was before. He’s this former agent, trained with martial arts skills, the whole black ops background. He was killed through his profession and being brought back to life by these two scientists. He was a John Doe when he was reanimated, so big fans of Frank Sinatra and Albert Einstein were these two men so they named their creation Frank Einstein. A former lab assistant Josephine Lombard, “Joe”, becomes the love interest. Snap City is the locale, with a rural town called Buzztown where one of the two scientists, Doctor Flem has his reclusive headquarters. There’s a villain named Mr Monstadt. There’s a supporting cast throughout. These street beatniks who become mutated by alien spores and then they become superheroes. That became the spin-off series The Atomics which was our first endeavor into self publishing. It just became this big world where I can do anything I want.
Anarchy: I love a lot about Madman, it’s my favorite comic ever. What really hit me though is that it’s so funny, but a page later you almost want to cry for the guy. Even though it’s humorous, it’s a sad story about this guy who doesn’t fit in. He’s ashamed of the way he looks because of the process of the reanimation and the scarring. Obviously not the Frankenstein part, but how much of that feeling, the emotion that goes into Madman comes from your own life?
Michael: I would say probably almost all of it. He’s the character I identify with the most, I’ve said that before and some people think I’m kidding. There have been a lot of moments in my life…and also very happy one. And example of that would be that I had a perfect childhood, at least I remember it that way. Maybe that’s the way I choose to remember it. It was very much that Beaver Cleaver, suburban family. Dinner at the same time around the dinner table at the same time every day and everything was perfect. Then my parents got divorced, adolescence struck at the same time. It was very explosive and painful. There was a lot of rebellion and anger and experimentation and ugliness and acne, bullying at school, being tormented, success in athletics. It just seemed to be this intense consolidated crash course of contrasts. Being hated, being loved, being considered attractive, being considered ugly, being weak and being strong. All of those feelings and confusions have been a major defining element in my life and who I am. Being able to understand pleasure because you’ve experienced pain. Being able to experienced hatred because you know the calming, glowing effect of love. Being a pessimist and being an optimist, just really getting the complete spectrum and experiences of life and then making conscious choices of how much of each of those elements you want in your life. Making conscious efforts to keep hate out of your life and recognizing what a destructive force it is. Ultimately, becoming philosophical about almost everything and then trying to apply these things to a comic book about a costumed action character. I think because it is a comic book and there are silly elements, robots, aliens and just the beginning elements of the costume, it’s easy to recognize the humor at first. The humor comes out as a dominant element initially but over time I think people recognize that all of the other elements of life that are injected into this genre medium and this genre title. It kind of sneaks up, it has a subversive effect, I think. I’m really happy with that. I like putting this cover on things that attracts people and they pick it up and find other things subconsciously. A lot of these philosophies sneak up on people and I like it that way, rather than shoving it down people’s throats. They think they are going to be reading this action adventure comic book with a great deal of joy and humor in it and it also has these other elements that sneak up. The success of that reaction is probably why I keep going back to it, because I haven’t found anything else that has that constant ability to entertain me, which has to be the first priority any artist. The artist really has to look inwards first, and then it’s other people on the outside who are exposed to the art. If their support is there then it’s a blessing. Take somebody like Vincent Van Gogh, who never had that success when he lived. That’s one of the exciting things about pop culture that is a ready made audience that you can put your creations through this pipeline that already exists and pioneers before you have done all the hard work. I hope that everyone who’s enjoyed success in comic books recognizes that those who came before who suffered and were treated poorly and struggled to get decent page rates and creator rights. We live in the age where we benefit from that. I recognize that and celebrate that and take advantage of that. I laugh when I continue to see just how shallow perceptions are when people are introduced to this medium. They don’t see the full potential of it. They always have to have Maus shoved in front of them or something of great significance that’s one a Pulitzer to recognize that this medium has as much potential as any novel or film or piece of art. It’s understood, this whole industry is built around people in circus costumes. I understand in a lot of circumstances where its perceived as silly or without significance but that potential of the art form is so largely untapped that I’ll never get bored with it.
Anarchy: Madman is the most human comic book character, he seems like a real person. I hate to say it but I’ve thought a lot of the same things that he has and felt the same way about myself. I think a lot of people share those feelings. He’s just an amazing character. Now, Image is releasing the Madman Gargantua, which I believe is just about every Madman story ever, right?
Michael: It’s got everything except the three cross-overs. There was Nexus Meets Madman, Madman/Jam and the Superman/Madman Hullabaloo, those aren’t in there, but everything else is.
Anarchy: There’s also new issues coming out as well?
Michael: Oh yeah! The first issue is completely done and the series starts in April.
Anarchy: I’m excited!
Michael: I’m exited too, it’s the best thing I’ve ever done. I’m so happy with where Laura and I are with our art and it’s the scariest thing I’ve ever written. I think it’s also the most exciting and challenging thing I’ve ever written so I can’t wait for people to see it.
Anarchy: The big news is the Madman movie. We’ve heard rumblings about it for years, but it’s been kind of on the back burner. Now it looks like it’s happening! What kind of update can you give us.
Michael: I always hesitate to talk about it because we’ve come so close so many times and all the way back when Universal pictures picked it up and we produced a screenplay and everything. In this case what makes it special is that my champion in this cause is Robert Rodriguez. He has complete autonomy. He has his own studio facilities out in Austin, Texas. He’s got the largest green screen outside of Hollywood. He’s the most independent film maker in that he doesn’t have to rely on anybody else to give him a green light. But in this case we have a green light! We have to put the finishing touches on the screenplay and that seems to be the last hurdle. At this point today, that to me would be reason to be optimistic. George Huang, Robert Rodriguez and Bob Weinstein, the head of Dimension films, if everybody thinks the screenplay is good to go then we start casting and schedule the shoot. With Robert, the shooting is really easy and relaxed and the sky’s the limit. There’s nothing that I can think of that we can’t do, and that’s exciting. So yeah, I’m optimistic and there doesn’t seem to be too much that can slow us down. Robert and I have been together on this for years now and it’s largely been just getting that right chemistry and the right schedule.
Anarchy: Obviously it’s early, but do you have any dream casting choices.
Michael: I do, we’ve actually talked to some people who have expressed great enthusiasm to be involved. Nothing’s signed yet so I don’t want to throw anything out there, but so far I seem that kid on Christmas morning that’s getting everything he wanted.
Anarchy: You’ve done some indie film directing, how involved will you be in this film?
Michael: It’s exactly the same working relationship that Frank Miller, Quentin Tarantino and Robert had on Sin City. it’s exactly that. Just complete participation, and in the case of Robert and George, what they want most is for me to be happy. That’s what rare about this world that Robert has created. This creative empire of his is all about how do we make the best movie possible and how we we take the vision of the creator, whether it’s Frank or him or me, how do we bring that across? Robert is the kind of guy that says something and you know he’s being honest with you. He’s the most decent, creative, most enthusiastic individual I’ve met in the film industry. The great thing about George Huang is that he’s Robert’s oldest friend in the business. When Robert first came to Hollywood after the success of El Mariachi, George was kind of a desk jockey at a studio. Id you’ve seen Swimming With Sharks, the Frank Whaley character is very much George Huang. Robert slept on George’s floor in those early days. George has that same spirit and was inspired to become a film maker himself. Swimming With Sharks is a masterpiece, it’s just terrific. It’s right there. We’ve got the formula, the code has been broke, I’ve never had a clearer vision of how this should happen. All the major participants are very excited, Bob Weinstein is very excited. That’s why it’s all I can do to keep my teeth together and not go crazy with celebration. For me I’m just waiting for that day when I see it in the theater. By then I will have seen every scene that we’ve shot thousands of times, so I’ll know what we have, but to be in a theater and get that reaction and to know that we did something special…if that happens, then you won’t be able to hold me down.
Anarchy: I’m jumping for joy already! Your books have such a defined look, due to your art and Laura’s coloring. Will there be an attempt to translate that to the screen? They did a great job with that with Sin City.
Michael: Yeah! What’s strange about Madman is that it’s kind of had this really organic mutation from it’s initial inception to what it is now. Look at the new issue , which I’m thrilled with and you look at the first issue from Tundra and they’re almost unrecognizable from each other. So, there is a concern of mine that what it has become and what I have the most affection for right now, which is what is right in front of me isn’t what fans of those first books would expect. As opposed to Sin City, which came fully formed. It won’t be that kind of adaptation. It won’t be that literal page to screen adaptation, that faithful translation. That’s one of things we were having a problem with at Universal and then when Robert and I first got together. What is the first movie? Does it have Mott, The Hoople in it for instance? That’s the problem with the Fantastic Four movie. I think that first film failed to capture what’s great about what Jack Kirby and Stan Lee did with that series.
Anarchy: So do I
Michael: There have been so many interpretations and so many artists and writers since then that what came out in that first film was ultimately lacking. Now, I’m optimistic and hopeful about the second film, which is taken almost entirely from the Galactus Trilogy, the introduction of the Silver Surfer. That’s where Kirby and Lee were on fire. They were just unbridled and doing the most amazing comics ever made. I probably felt about the Fantastic four movie the way you’re feeling about the Madman movie. I thought this could be the greatest film ever made and the first film came out and it wasn’t the greatest film ever made.
Anarchy: (laughs) No, it sure wasn’t
Michael: That’s always a concern with everybody from the studio executive to the screen writers to the people serving soft drinks on the set. Is this movie any good? How do you make it that movie that’s going to make everybody happy. You look at a film like Star Wars. About the greatest film going experience of my life was when I was a kid and was just dropped off in a movie theater. I think I had just caught a glimpse of a commercial on tv, I didn’t know what Star Wars was. My little brother and I were late, walked into movie theater and as were walking down the aisle I became instantly hypnotized because I’m seeing this gold robot walk across a dune in some alien desert with this gigantic skeletal snake of some kind on the horizon. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. I’d never seen something so authentic. Being a fan of science fiction I’d never seen anything so real. I sat down and had no expectation and the story spilled right over me. I didn’t see who the main characters were. As far as I was concerned the movie began with this gold robot. Then you meet Han Solo, Luke Skywalker, and I didn’t know who they were. I wasn’t introduced to them the way the film maker wanted me to be introduced to them. I was stunned, in shock because I couldn’t what I had just seen. My dad was waiting in the lobby and we begged to see the next showing and he let us. We went in and watched it from the beginning all over again. It was magical. This is where I benefit from that. This isn’t Spider-Man, this isn’t the Fantastic Four, this isn’t X-Men. Most people in the world have never even heard of this, so if it does get a major release and people pick up on it for the very first time as a film, and then some of them will hopefully go back and check out the comic books. What’s important to me is to have that spirit, that element that has been consistent from the first issue throughout. I think the character and spirit of Frank Einstein has been very consistent. The look has changed, the style has changed. The most important thing that Robert has ever said to me in regards making the movie is “if you were to sit down and make the first Madman comic book today, knowing everything you know, what would it be?”. Not only did that break it open for me and my first run through with George but it also inspired the new series, which has that spirit. It challenges frank Einstein entire reality. What went on before? What is real? What wasn’t real? What was imagined? Who is he really? It kind of creates a ground zero all over again. In doing so, I started storyboarding the film. If I had my script from that first issue, what would it look like, what would it feel like? What dominates? What’s most important to you? That’s how I approached the storyboards. I just started running with it. I literally drew hundreds of storyboards. This is what’s great about Robert: he never gave up on me. He was one of the people we approached when we were at Universal but he didn’t want to do it with Universal. He just politely passed and said “if you ever break from Universal, bring it to me and I’ll do it”. I thought “well, that’s a weird thing to say”. he wasn’t the Robert Rodriguez who the world knows now, who is fully funded, fully independent. He knew he would be. He knew what his goals were. He knew what he would be capable of doing. That really impressed me. Sure enough, I got the rights back to me, rather than option it to Universal again or have somebody else pick it up I immediately went to Robert who’d become a really good friend at that point and said “did you mean that?” “Do you really think you can do this?”. And he said “yeah”. he snatched it up and he’s been optioning it ever since. In the meantime I was just burned out and said, “lets see what Robert can do with it”. He had his Spy Kids trilogy and wanted to finish his Mexico trilogy with the El Mariachi films. He wasn’t about to stop everything he was doing to switch gears, take a detour and do a Madman film but with Spy Kids he was going to do the Madman film immediately following. What happened was that Spy Kids was a phenomenal hit and became this huge franchise for Dimension and the major concern there was that the kids were getting older. His priorities switched back to “if we’re going to make a trilogy out of this we need to do them one right after another and that put Madman on the backburner. It was understandable but at the same time, I didn’t have the motivation. I had gone through all this with Universal. I had co-wrote a screenplay and when doing that I was guessing what the studio wanted. What they do is they give you notes, and they’re very vague. It’s like playing darts in the dark. You don’t know what you’re going for. I wasn’t all that interested in shooting in the dark again trying to figure out what Robert wanted from a Madman film. So I said, “when you get the time, you tell me what you want a Madman movie to be”. I was kind of waiting for him to write the screenplay and then maybe pitching in. That’s why it took so long. But again, this is what’s so amazing about Robert: every year he re-optioned it and there was no one else who had the kind of faith or enthusiasm that he has had so I wasn’t about to take it anywhere else. If this is going to be done right it’s going to be with him. This is the best chance that this will be made into a movie that I will be happy with and will be able to point at for the rest of my life as something that I was really pleased with. Finally, it was really simple for Robert to say “if you were to start all over again, what would it be?”. So I boiled it down to what I really love about Frank Einstein and Snap City and Joe and chucked out some of the later elements which may have looked commercial and flashy for a film for Universal Pictures , but really muddied the story and made it not as pure as something like that first Star Wars film, which took for granted that there was this world that existed.
Anarchy: I’ve always thought that the movie can capture the Edward Scissorhands type crowd, but at the same time it’ll be funny and have action and everything else. You mentioned your love of music earlier, do you have a soundtrack in mind?
Michael: Oh yeah! Actually, the first time George came out to our place on the coast, I picked him up at the airport and he got a rental car. I had made a cd for him and said “this is your soundtrack as you ride out to our house”. As he followed me out to the coast he was listening to the music that I wanted him to be thinking about while watching the Madman movie. The only thing I’d be willing to share, because chances are it won’t be in the movie is that I got a feeling from this song called “It Was A Very Good Year” by Frank Sinatra. There’s something about that song that captures the melancholy dimension of the Frank Einstein world. This progression through life. How that song captures what it was like to be 17 or 35 and then looking at “have I experienced the best of times, or are they still in front of me”. That was the first song on the cd that I gave to George, then the other songs ran the gamut from the British Invasion music of the 60’s to Punk and there’d be a tone that I would want in the film that each song would represent. When we got to our lake house he goes “I get it”. There’s a language in music. I think you can capture a mood that would not exist in a movie without it. It’s hugely important.
Anarchy: Okay, leading up to the big movie, what else do you have lined up?
Michael: Really, I’ve been able to trim a lot stuff away. Over the last few years I’ve been jumping around trying to do as much work as possible as far as what I want to do. So, I have worked a lot for different companies. I’ve been able to figure out exactly what’s most important to me. One series is called Fables, that I’m a big fan of. The writer, Bill Willingham has created this world where he can take any fable, from any myth or any story, everybody from Snow White, Red Riding Hood, to Santa Claus and Mogley from The Jungle Book and put them in this fable world that coincides with our real world. For years the editor has been trying to get me to do something with it and finally I worked out the time and did a two-issue story. That’s probably going to be my last project that’s not creator owned for the next long while. There’s a ten page Fantastic Four story that Stan Lee wrote. I’m really excited about that. Doing the Fantastic Four with Stan Lee, if I was going to build a resume’ that would be on there for sure! It’s for the 45th anniversary issue of Fantastic Four. After that, it’s really going to be about Madman Atomic Comics and the Golden Plates.
Anarchy: The Golden Plates, for those who don’t know is your interpretation of the Book of Mormon. How has the reaction been to your publication of it both in the comic community and in the Mormon faith?
Michael: It’s the entire spectrum. There are people who don’t even know what Mormon is that think it’s interesting and exciting and there’s people who flat out hate it. In the faith itself there are people who think it’s really exciting to see the scriptures made more accessible this way by having them illustrated. There’s others who think it’s next to sacrilege. So, it runs the gamut but I know what my motivation is and why it’s important to me and I feel really good about it and fully intend to finish it. It may take ten more years but I really enjoy it. There’s no other way I can express my spiritual side in this art form. If I do get a volume out a year I do want to drag it out because I’ll be sad when it’s done. As excited as I’ll be to collect it all in one volume and the achievement of it will be very exciting and fulfilling, but it’ll also be some melancholy there. Like when you graduate, you say goodbye to friends. You know you’re not going to see most of them ever again. As excited as you are for the achievement and the accomplishment of that milestone in your life, there’s a little bit of sadness towards saying goodbye. I want to enjoy it as much as possible while I can.
With Madman and Atomic Comics, I want a series to be coming out by the original creator when the movie comes out and afterwards, which I can’t think of that happening. For instance, The Rocketeer, Dave Stevens is one of my biggest influences. The Walt Disney movie was a big adaptation of his comic book and there was no new stuff to coincide with it. I’d like to see more new Sin City. When you’re talking about the original creator of the books, when The Crow movie came out James O’Barr was pretty much done with making comic books. If you can think of an example where I’m wrong…certainly the X-Men books are still coming out but not by the original creators. Certainly not the stories that inspired the movies. Those are decades ago. Same with the Spider-Man films. The stories that inspired the first few films were inspired by comics in the 60’s and the third one looks like it’s going to take a huge jump in the decades with the Venom story.
Anarchy: I’m thinking maybe Ghost World.
Michael: Oh, there you go! Actually, no. Eightball is still coming out, but Ghost World is done, it was a story that was collected into a graphic novel. But at least that book was there. That’s a great example actually in that someone seeing the film could go to a store and say “A-HA!” and then be introduced to one of the greatest cartoonists that’s ever been Dan Clowes is amazing. He’s so pure and so original. Of course, Ghost Worldwasn’t a big mainstream blockbuster, but it certainly brought a lot of people to the art form and what a great example to pick up this very pure collected book and say “this is what inspired the film”. I think the book is way better than the movie. I do regard that as a successful adaptation also because it had the original creator involved in the film. That’s very important.
Anarchy: You have this book that will be teaching people a hundred years from now and inspiring people, and on top of that you have a character in Madman that is about to become a major pop culture figure. that must be an incredible feeling!
Michael: Yeah, you said it all. Look at somebody like CS Lewis, who was a writer of philosophy, religion, theology, but at the same time he created this series of fantasy books which do have this message to them. There are people who have this switch, whether it’s violence or spirituality or politics, they’re watching something and they turn it off. That’s really frustrating for me. What’s most exciting about pop culture is that you can introduce people to new ideas through art. That’s what it’s all about. It’s not about shoving people into categories of politics and faith. The idea is for everybody to be interested in what drives other people. I want to know why somebody has “X“ faith or politics. I want to know why it’s important to them. I may not agree with it, but I want to know. Everybody should have that curiosity. That’s why the world is so exciting. Every single one of us is unique. We’re all different in our heads and our hearts and souls. We should be interested and respect what’s unique about each other. That’s my pet peeve when people don’t open themselves to why people are different. Not that they are and you don’t like it, but why? Then maybe you can have a deeper understanding about the people you’re sharing the planet with. Maybe I missed my calling, but one way or the other comic books are my medium. I’ve tried films, I’ve tried music and nothing is more exciting to me than the comic book medium. Unfortunately, it’s a medium that I isn’t taken very seriously or doesn’t have the same commercial impact as film or music. That’s not going to stop me from trying to infiltrate at least what I have a hand in. Even if it’s little tiny pieces here and there. Hopefully it’ll have a cumulative effect and sneak up in a subversive way and inspire people to look beyond themselves. That’s what it’s all about as far as I’m concerned.
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I would like to sincerely thank my favorite comic book creator, Michael Allred for thsi interview. those of you who know me are well aware a=of what a HUGE fan I am of his work. Hopefully many of you will go and check out some of his work, and I'm sure we'll all be at the theaters on opening weekend to see the Madman movie!