In this episode Chris Burnham talks crazy cosmic horror.

Topics include how much of an idiot Wolverine is, writing vs drawing, blowing past deadlines, next level art, that last issue of Batman Inc, “simple solutions” hahahaha, making it weird, subliminal messaging, watching your comic get turned into a movie by the drummer of Slipknot, and also what he’s reading.

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Transcript:


Matt: Kara, welcome back.

Kara: Thank you.

Matt: We’re here in the podcast lounge pit, and we have artist turned writer, Chris Burnham. Welcome to the show.

Chris Burnham: Hello, thank you for having me, listeners.

Matt: Dear listeners. You’re setting the world on fire right now. Can I say that?

Kara: You can, and you did.

Matt: You and Grant [Morrison], I’m assuming you and Grant are BFFs at this point. You’ve worked together for so long.

Chris: We share a bed most of the time.

Matt: You are working together on NAMELESS for Image, which is gorgeous, and you did a Secret Wars book, E is For Extinction, that just came out which cracks the heck out of me up.


Chris: Thanks.

Matt: It’s funny, because Grant obviously didn’t do X-Men, and you are doing the return to that in Battleworld. Ramon [Villalobos] is doing horror in that book, which his art is so good. Gorgeous.

Chris: It looks amazing.

Matt: It’s like a perfect fit for the vibe, but for you, what’s it like going back to that world, and putting your own spin on things, and having some ribs against some of the classic characters in that series too?

Chris: It’s the weirdest challenge. Like, “Hey, do you want to riff on Grant Morrison’s X-Men?” Which as far as I’m concerned, is the definitive X-Men run of the last, it’s like the post-Byrne/Claremont era of the last 35 years.

That’s crazy. How do you top off your 60 issues Grant Morrison X-Men comics with a four issue-weird crossover, or else world’s thing, or whatever it is? It was a really weird challenge. I foolishly re-read all his comics.

Which just totally stressed me out.

Matt: You’d just like collapse onto the floor.

Kara: Oh no. Did you psyche yourself out?

Chris: Why did I do it?

Matt: I think most doctors just say don’t read all of Grant’s work just in one day.

Chris: …Just don’t do it. I should have just made up some nonsense without even trying to be so respectful to it. I like busting balls a lot, but I like telling stupid jokes, so I thought it’d be fun.

In the same way like a Star Trek movie gets to be a lot funnier and weirder than a normal Star Trek episode. Like the episodes always play it straight, and then the movies would kind of make fun of the last five years’ worth of episodes.

Matt: Have some in-jokes.

Chris: I thought it’d be fun to do that sort of thing, so I really busted Cyclops’ balls.

Matt: Wolverine too. Poor Wolverine.

Chris: Like that Wolverine, he’s always getting into fights at bars for no reason.

When you’re a kid, it seems cool, but as a grown up, it doesn’t. “What the hell is your problem, man?”

Kara: “You need some impulse control here.”

Chris: I’ve never gotten into a fight at the bar before. I used to have long hippie Jesus hair when I was in college, and I remember one time, some dude tried to pick a fight with me. He was making fun of my hair, and I was just like, “I don’t need to get into a fight over this.”

“Even if I win, he’s going to get a couple of punches in. I don’t need it.”

Matt: You still lose.

Chris: Yeah. I would rather walk away, you know, with my nose intact.

Kara: Oh, I guess if you have a healing factor, and that adamantium skeleton.

Chris: Right. He’s just a jerk then.

Matt: He is.

Chris: He knows he’s going to win every fight. He probably has that stupid hair on purpose, just like to trick people into egging him on, so he could beat them up. What a jerk.

Matt: That hair is going to come back in like 15 years. It’s going to be huge.

Kara: Well, that’s what you’re working on right now.

Matt: Oh yeah. This is my Krusty the Clown hair, sticking out. It’s funny, it reminded me, you’re writing that book – I’m not sure if you ever read it, but I think Garth Ennis did a Punisher/Wolverine two-parter, way back in Marvel Knights.

Chris: Is that when he leaves the bulldozer on Wolverine?

Matt: Yeah. He writes Wolverine like a total idiot in that whole series, and I was a Wolverine fan at the time. That’s like the worst thing that ever happened to me. It was funny, because we interviewed him later, and he’s like, “I think Wolverine is the dumbest character ever, so I just wrote him like an idiot.” It was hilarious.

That was probably my favorite part. Now, for writing for you, what comfort level is that like for you to start writing scripts, and sending that to an artist?

Chris: Discomfort.

It was a total, you turn your brain upside down, the situation. I wouldn’t say I’m totally comfortable with it yet. That was overall pretty fun. The book turned out great, but it’s definitely a real challenge to go from drawing NAMELESS all day long, to take a pause on that, to write X-Men for a while, was weird to turn your brain off, and re-launch it. Some people do that every day, and for me, it was definitely a challenge.

Kara: Did you have to restrain yourself from providing extensive art direction?

Chris: No. I’ve learned that that only creates frustration. I’ve written a number of other things, and when I write overly descriptive things, it’s basically I’m just talking to myself, and all odds of being very referential, and impossible to follow, because I’m just talking about stuff that I know. It’s like, “You know that one panel of ‘Fist of the North Star’? No, Ramon’s not going to f*ing know that.”

For the most part, I’m leaving it open. He’s a really good artist, so I’m leaving him lots of rope to hang himself with, I guess.

Matt: It’s funny, because me, as a total outsider, I feel like, and it’s obviously not true, but as an artist, you work all day drawing, but then as you do a writing gig and then feel like, “Man, if I could write like 15 pages today, I’m done for the like rest of the week – gonna take like a vacation.” What is that process like, as changing gears for that? How do you plot the day out?

Chris: Poorly…?

I’m basically not able to do both in one day, so I would take the weekend for writing, and then five days of drawing, and then next weekend for writing. Something like that.

Matt: It’s not a true break for like NAMELESS.

Chris: I have a hard time shifting gears in the middle of the day, so I would have to try and go to bed, and then wake up, and just have that be writing day.

Matt: It sounds terrible.

Chris: It’s a nightmare.

Matt: I wouldn’t be able to do it.

Kara: You’ve done a lot of work on big titles like Batman, Inc. and then your creator owned work. What’s one of the challenges you had working on a book that was as high level as Batman, Inc. in terms of visibility?

Chris: It was rough. It was really stressful at first. I eventually settled into it, but the first month, or so when I was drawing my first full issue, honestly, it was one of the worst months in my life, so stressful, and I felt like such a jerk for getting the ultimate comic dream job, and just being super miserable about it. I was drawing Issue 4 at the same time as Yanick Paquette was drawing Issue 3, and we were all on the same email thread turning our pages in. Just like, “Good god.”

Matt: His stuff is next level.

Chris: Yeah, which is super stressful. How am I supposed to compare to these pages? He was turning his in a little bit faster than I was turning mine in which is like, “Ahh! Everybody’s going to know that they made the wrong decision. I’m a fraud.” It was awful.

Right before that, I was drawing a book called The Amory Wars, which is the Coheed and Cambria’s comic book. I’d got my buddy, Aaron Kuder to the job to basically take over from me. This was his first big comic gig, and he was just going for it. He was swinging for the fences on every page. I’m getting those pages, and I’m just like,“Ahh! They’re going to fire me, and hire him instead.” It was awful.

People liked it, which was nice to hear. It’s just like, “Apparently, they didn’t make the wrong decision hiring me, but it’s going to be all right.” Then the deadlines just get so overwhelming that you don’t have the mental energy to worry about the fact that people are going to see it, and that you’re, “Am I living up to Neil Adams?” There’s basically no time.

Matt: There’s such a long history of people that you instinctually compare yourself with. I wouldn’t want that. Never.

Chris: No. Then the other weird thing is like Batman, Inc. was a lot about tying up 75 years of Batman history, and putting a bow on it.

Matt: Easy job.

Chris: There was a lot of looking at that Ra’s al Ghul/Batman sword fight, and doing my own spin on it, “Oh god, why are you making me do this? This is really mean!”

Matt: Well, how did the deadlines of a huge DC book compare to you on your own Image book? I feel like it has to be less stressful. Maybe.

Chris: It’s differently stressful because at DC, there were deadlines, and they weren’t screwing around with it. Image, I’ve got deadlines, and I’ve blown the deadline for this issue in NAMELESS. No one’s going to fire me, but our orders will probably go down, and store owners are going to bust my balls about it. Our fans are going to say, "What the hell’s wrong with you?” In a way, that’s worse than having an editor.

Matt: It’s like your parents saying they’re disappointed in you. They’re not upset, but just disappointed.

Chris: Can’t you just yell at me. I’d feel way better if you could yell at me, and be the enemy. Rather than people just, “Sniff, sniff, sniff. Why isn’t it out yet, man?” Then you’ve got to work really hard. That’s why it’s not out yet.

Matt: What was the moment like for you when you finally wrapped Batman, Inc., and that’s like a huge chapter, and then you move on to your own deal?

Chris: It was crazy. It was a really weird feeling to be wrapping up to whatever it was like two, three years of work, and just, “There it is.” It was also the end of seven years of Grant’s Batman run. It was weird to be drawing the last three years of that, and then drawing the last page.

Matt: Yeah, you are the book end.

Chris: The weirdest thing, because the deadlines were really getting pretty crazy in the last couple of issues. Literally in the last page, I learned how to draw in a completely different way, because I had to draw a super involved laboratory with 100 Damien fetuses, and there just wasn’t going to be time for me to draw it like the way that I would normally draw it, which actually draw all those stupid things.

I had to draw it in an Eduardo Risso kind of silhouette style in order to have any hope of getting it done. I think I pulled it off, and it was just like, “The second I figure out how to do this, the gig is over.”

It felt so weird. It’s like, “Why couldn’t this have been the first page, and I could have figured this out then?”

Matt: The beginning.

Chris: It really would have helped make the deadlines all a bit easy to bear, realizing that I could work like this. What are you going to do?

Matt: That’s how you build for NAMELESS and beyond.

Chris: Well, NAMELESS has just gotten more and more complicated. Every time we’re just like, “This page, I’m going to come up with a simple solution for it.” Never.

Matt: Well, there’s a lot of crazy layouts that you pull off in that series, and Kara and I were talking about how earlier working with Grant for so long, and we are wondering has your process with Grant evolved over time? How do you two work together from…? Is it different from the beginning than it is now?

Chris: It’s basically the same I would say, but now, I would say his scripts are even less detailed than they were before just because he knows that I can pull it off. And that…I’m trying not to sound like a dick here…

If he gives me a fairly bare bones script, I’ll really torture myself, and turn my brain upside down trying to think of a way to really make it weird, and how to really sell the crazy cosmic horror that he’s trying to get at in the script.

Rather than him going on and on about how strange I should make the panel borders, he’ll just write it normal, and let me worry about making it look really weird. There’s a lot less description. He’s just counting on me to continue doing the weird shit that we’re already doing.

Kara: Do you ever call him up, and just like, “I don’t know what to do with this one. Help!”?

Chris: Yeah. Like once or twice an issue, I was like, “Dude, what is this you’re thinking?”

Matt: “I need some help here.” The book does have a very, reminding me reading–of like, Alien. You have a team in space dealing with some shady thing happening, and that’s the most vague description of the series I can give.

It is frightening, because there are certain panels where you get a character talking, and then it shifts into what’s actually happening, and it’s the most R-rated horror scene happening. Then the series just continues on. Like, “Yeah, don’t worry about what you just saw. We’re still trying to tell a story here,” and it’s super creepy.

Chris: Well, thanks. It’s constantly looping back on itself in a way that feels really nightmarish to me. It’s really unsettling, and I feel describing it is really hard, but when you read it like it feels, you know, perfectly wrong – if that makes any sense.

Kara: Like subliminal messaging, in the old horror movies.

Matt: Subliminal horror messaging.

Chris: Yeah. I’m really happy with how it’s turning out. It’s been just an absolute buttload of work…but I’m pretty happy with it which is nice.

Matt: A good buttload. You’ve left Batman, and you’re doing your own thing at Image. Do you have checks on the board that you want to check off, post NAMELESS?

Chris: I don’t know. I feel like my career is just starting, but it really feels, like, I did three years of Grant Morrison Batman. I feel like, and just about any other superhero gig is really going to be a letdown after that.

I don’t feel like a burning desire, and I get the question all the time, “What Marvel character do you really want work with?” It’s just like, “I don’t really give a shit.”


Matt: What if Grant came back to X-Men, and did another run…?

Chris: No.

Matt: All Wolverine and Cyclops. That’s it. Your dream.

Kara: The odd couple.

Chris: I’m sure I’ll do more DC and Marvel work at some point, but right now, I don’t think…I don’t know. I think I want to make more weird stuff that I get to own, and stuff. With this, the Officer Downe movie based on the Officer Downe comic that Joe Casey, and I did, they made a movie, and it did wraps two months ago.

Watching that whole process is just totally bonkers, knowing that people spend millions and millions of dollars on a comic that was basically a stupid joke. It’s crazy, so yeah, that was a really crazy experience, and that’s the sort of thing that is just not going to happen if you’re working on a Fantastic Four comic.

Matt: There’s no time.

Kara: Did you have input on that film process, or?

Chris: Not too much, but it was based really strongly on the comic. The scripts started off as the actual comic scripts, and the artwork is pasted all over the production office.

When the director would come out…Shawn Crahan, who is the drummer from Slipknot, is the director of the movie. Every day at the start of the shoot, he would pull the graphic novel out, and flip through that scene in order to key his brain into what was really happening that day. He was, “Direct the ninjas appropriately.”

It was really weird to see. It was totally surreal.

Kara: That’s awesome.

Chris: It’s crazy.

Kara: Are you going to go see that movie in theaters, and you’re going to be that guy who’s like yelling at the back of the theater, “I drew that.”

Chris: God damn right.

Kara: What comics are you reading?

Chris: What am I reading? Honestly, just about the only thing I’ve been reading for the last couple of months is Vagabond, which is a manga that’s been coming out for the last 15 years. It’s about Miyamoto Musashi, the Japanese sword saint. I think there are 37 volumes that have come out so far, and right now, I’m up through volume 24.

It is so good that everything else seems…

Matt: Crap?

Chris: …totally juvenile, and meaningless. It’s basically completely ruined me for comic books.

Kara: Oh my goodness.

Chris: Vagabond – highest possible recommendation.

Kara: Fantastic.

Matt: Finally, we got Dark Horse trades on comiXology. So, it’s like…

Chris: I’m hugely excited that I can read Lone Wolf and Cub

Matt: Lone Wolf, exactly what I was going to say. Reading the first trade of that was just, “Where have I been my entire life? What have I been doing? What’s the point of anything anymore? Just give me more, please.” It’s crazy. Their catalog is so deep with that, so we’re stoked that our community can just discover that stuff, just like you or I read that stuff, and it’s just like in awe.

I appreciate you taking the time out.

Chris: Oh yeah. My pleasure.

Matt: We love NAMELESS. Obviously, your Batman stuff, and E is For Extinction is hilarious.

Chris: Thanks a lot.

Matt: I’d be anxious to read the rest of it, and we appreciate it.

Chris: Thanks. My pleasure. Thanks.


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