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Psychedelia, Fury Roads And Dream Gangs: Interviewing Brendan McCarthy

By Olly MacNamee

Brendan McCarthy's new graphic novel, Dream Gang, out now from Dark Horse Comics, is a psychedelic trip through the dreamscape, as we follow the newest Dream Voyager, and the book's hero, through his dreams and in pursuit of the nefarious Zeirio and a psychic plague Dream Bomb that threatens the Dreamworlds; Little Nemo through the psychedelic lens of Dr Hofmann. Here, Brendan takes the time to talk about his new venture, his forthcoming one-off gig on Dr Fate's fateful last issue and, or course, Mad Max: Fury Road.

Olly MacNamee: Brendan, firstly, thanks for taking the time to answer some inane questions from me about your new book, Dream Gang.

You've slowly been returning back into comics ever since your DC Solo comic from a few years ago now. What got you back into comics?

Brendan McCarthy: I produced a limited edition book of my art calledSWIMINI PURPOSE, which circulated around the comics editors at various companies at the time. Out of the blue, Mark Chiarello called me and asked me if I'd like to create 48 pages of new comics, anything I want (within reason), for the final episode of their prestige DC Comics' series SOLO. It was an offer I found it hard to say no to!

I was pleased with how the book came out. I modelled it on British weekly comics, where you get lots of one-page stories and also on a Syd Barratt solo album I liked — fragments of songs that in the end created a kind of overall theme and storyline.

OM: And, is Dream Gang a good indication that you're back for a while? I can't help noticing you're solicited for DC's Dr Fate finale this October.

BM: It depends on what the next phone call brings! I have my own new projects, some of which are graphic novels. Having spent 18 years waiting for Mad Max Fury Road to get made and released, my lifespan isn't long enough to just rely on movie schedules. Dan DiDio at DC asked me if I'd like to try drawing a Dr Fate story. This is Paul Levitz's last script on his run and he wanted to go out with a psychedelic bang… So I'm yer go-to psychedelic man, apparently!

Dr Fate is an interesting character to me. I like him, but he never quite clicks with audiences and I wonder if a different fundamental 'take' is needed again. Dr Fate pre-dates Dr Strange and I can see where Ditko lifted elements of this character (cloaks, amulets, magic) and recombined them in the Sixties with a psychedelic flavour that suited the times. I have developed a whole bunch of new ideas for Dr Fate, and a method of doing a new strip that could be interesting if they gave me some creative autonomy over its direction. We'll see how things play out…

OM: Dream Gang, you say yourself, is the culmination of three decades of gestation and evolution. Is it now the fully formed dream of your youth, or still a lucid, fluid ongoing vision on which to build in the future?

BM: Yes, DREAM GANG is a thought out piece that, as you note, has been brewing in the back of my brain for about 30 years. I had to radically rewrite the whole thing when the movie Inception came out as the properties were very close in concept. I retitled (it used to be called Z-Men… I had pitched it to Karen Berger at Vertigo about 20 years ago) and rethought the characters, made it more 'comic book', and gave it a more psychedelic twist.

Strangely, I had pitched the project to the Warners producer who green-litInception, 10 years before that movie came out. He loved it and was blown away by the ideas. Easily one of my best meetings in Hollywood. Seemed the concepts resonated with him and he waited until Chris Nolan came along.

It's one of those ideas that lends itself to endless stories: The mind and its workings is to me at least, fascinating… I had an amazing dream last night and have written down as much as I could remember. But grasping a dream is like trying to hold a fish. They're slippery and elusive and you have to act quickly if even fragments are to be recalled.

OM: And it's designed to be read in one sitting, right?

BM: It's about the length of a movie in terms of the time that it'd take to read it. Say, two hours. I don't provide the popcorn though.

OM: You seem to be doing something new, something different, with the concept of 'super teams'. Is it fair to say that, while some of the tropes of such stories are present, the narrative, the landscape, the character designs, the very quest our hero, the Dream Voyager, is embarking on are very different? A reflection of your own artistic and philosophical interests?

BM: Absolutely. I'm very keen on not replicating film and TV plot moves. Many creator-owned comics are essentially film pitches. That kind of bores me because I work in that industry a lot and so I look to comics to provide what film and TV doesn't.

I decided to let the DREAM GANG story go wherever it took me, and I wouldn't try and shoehorn things into more familiar film plot situations. I want to be surprised by originality. That's what I love in any art form.

When I was cooking up Fury Road with director George Miller, we went for an open approach to how the story developed, so that we weren't ticking off story points in a proscribed 'hero myth' checklist.

I also like to make the designs of characters a bit different too. I was pleased with character designs in DREAM GANG. I spent a lot of time refining them, It's hard work to get something that stands out. I was happy with the character designs, especially the elegant and sexy Luna. Something that spins the cliche.

As for the lead character Dream Voyager, I have constructed a story that takes us into the dream of a young man who is living unhappily in a depressed grey world. The Dream Gang are hunting a psychic plague Dream Bomb that has been implanted in one of his memories. Turns out the memory is also the key to what happened that locked him into a life-destroying depression. The two stories converge in one resolution which takes place inside this memory.

OM: And, how did you approach the development from script to art? How do you, in particular, tackle this creation process? Do you work from full scripts, or more in a Marvel way, as you are writing for yourself on Dream Gang?

BM: When you're writing for yourself and you're the artist, you don't need to get into long-winded descriptive passages. What was great about writing Dream Gang was I knew I could get Brendan McCarthy to draw it!

OM: What would the manifestation of your own Dream Avatar look like? Or, have we already seen him in the pages of Dream Gang?

BM: Well, all the characters are from my own imagination, so they all represent different aspects of my own character.

OM: Dream Gang, before that Dr Strange and now Dr Fate. Are you drawn to the more supernatural, psychedelic, magic-realism of such characters, or are the characters (via savvy editors) drawn to you?

BM: I think it's a mixture of both. I'm definitely uninterested in the more 'hard sci-fi' gamer type of comic concepts. Akira was obviously great, as was Kirby's Fantastic Four. But generally, my own interests gravitate towards magic, supernatural, folklore, music, conspiracy, fine art, psychedelic surrealism; something like Halo, for example would send me to sleep. I still like Judge Dredd but mainly for its satirical take on things. When it's just a regular 'fascist cop' story, then not so much.

OM: And finally, on the eve of issue 2000 of 2000AD, what would you say was your memories of your time working on Judge Dredd and yours and Peter Milligan's Sooner Or Later.

BM: Pete and I were lucky enough to create a very special working chemistry together and produced a hot-streak of comics in the 1980s as the British Invasion went global. We were somewhat overlooked — Alan Moore, Morrison, Gaiman and the gang hoovered up all the hype in that period (and with some great work it should be said). But it's gratifying to see works like Strange Days, Rogan Gosh and SKIN being looked at again — mainly since Dark Horse produced their wonderful collection of our stuff, The Best Of Milligan & McCarthy. To me, SKIN is probably Pete Milligan's best written piece. It's searing and insane and funny and full of pure emotion and the central character is very affecting.

I don't have many memories of working on Dredd or Sooner or Later. See, the grim reality of drawing comics is sitting in a room and … uh, drawing. Day after day after day after day. After a decade and a half of that, I was glad to get into pop videos and movies, interacting with people ( and girls– there weren't any women in comics when I was doing them. It was the opposite of 'sex 'n drugs 'n rock and roll'… more like 'back issues, tissues and body odour') and start travelling the world to work on different films. I needed some real-life adventures after such a solitary time as a comics artist. And I have achieved some decent work in that field too, culminating in a batch of Fury Road Oscars!

At the moment it suits me to draw and write comics again. Back to a quieter life, for the time being.

Dream Gang is available to buy now from the usual places on the high street or online.

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