May
5 Spotlight on: Joe Casey, Part 1

Joe Casey is one of the few writers who has managed to break into the business with a major presence the past few years. He started out taking over the forgotten "X-Men" spinoff "Cable" and turning it into a fun romp with great Jack Kirby-style art from artist Jose Ladronn. He since has written comics for both big publishers and small, from the miniseries "X-Men: Children of the Atom" to the indie "Codeflesh."

His most visible assignment came when he took over "Uncanny X-Men" the same month Grant Morrison started his stint on "New X-Men." His run was inconsistent and only lasted about a dozen issues. His run on "Adventures of Superman" was more satisfying. But his most fascinating work has been done at Wildstorm, where he took over Jim Lee's flagship book "Wildcats" during its second series. He relaunched the book two years ago with artist Dustin Nguyen as "Wildcats Version 3.0," a comic book that took superheroes into the boardrooms of America with fascinating results. His other Wildstorm book, "Automatic Kafka," done with painter Ashley Wood, was a dark and surreal take on a robotic superhero that was as interesting as it was unusual. Issue #4's encounter with a grown up Charles Brown was a highlight of the year, for those who read it. And low readership killed off "Kafka" after nine issues and just recently claimed "Wildcats," whose planned 40-issue story now ends with #24.

Casey continues to have faith in comics, planning more work at Marvel, Dark Horse and AiT/PlanetLar. This is the first of two parts to this interview, conducted via email; the conclusion will run later this week.

Variety: What got you interested in comics and how did you break into the biz?

Joe Casey: I’ve read them since I was a young kid, and I’ve never stopped. After a few no-money, black & white comicbook gigs, I broke in at Marvel on the "Cable" monthly series thanks to the recommendation of writer James Robinson. Haven’t looked back since.

Variety: You kind of did the opposite of how most people break into the biz the past few years, going from established superhero characters to more alternative projects. Do you approach writing "Superman" or "X-Men" the same way you do "Automatic Kafka" or "Wildcats Version 3.0"? In what ways do each of those types of assignments appeal to you?

Casey: Writing for the big franchises has its obvious benefits, namely money and recognition. Money’s always good, but the recognition part of it can be tricky. Sometimes, it’s the wrong kind of recognition. I took the "(Uncanny) X-Men" gig purely as a career move, and I paid the price. I didn’t have much to say about the X-Men that I hadn’t already said in the "Children of the Atom" miniseries and that lack of vision was unfortunately reflected in the work. Fortunately, it taught me that I have to be passionate about the gigs I take, especially the higher-profile ones, for the fans’ sake as much as for my own. The "Avengers" miniseries I’m doing now, "Earth's Mightiest Heroes," is probably the most “mainstream” thing I’ve done in a few years, but I’m a ridiculously huge fan of the "Avengers" since before I could walk, so it’s much more than just a franchise job for me.

Variety: "Wildcats Version 3.0" is a really modern take on superheroes. How did you develop this approach and why did you do it with this group of characters?

Casey: Basically, I just like writing characters with as much depth as I can squeeze into them. "Wildcats" was rich with diverse characters, both old and new, that I really enjoyed exploring. They were unpredictable in their actions, as well as unpredictable in their relationships with each other. That was what I really got off on as a writer and I think a lot of our readers did, too. More than once, someone would comment on how they could never predict what was going to happen next. How many superhero titles can you really say that about? It was also a series where I could subvert a lot of the inherent clichés of superhero comicbooks. Why else would I put the prototypical gun-toting badass of the cast in a wheelchair for two years or put the “Superman” character in a business suit in a corporate high-rise office and make him more of a visionary speech-maker rather than an action star?

Variety: The outlook of the book is generally optimistic, that someone smart enough and with the right intentions could use the corporate structure to the benefit of the world. Does that reflect your own opinion or do you think people are generally too greedy to look beyond their own needs and do what’s right for the world?

Casey: Well, there was obviously a utopian outlook to "Wildcats," but isn’t that the kind of optimism that superheroes are supposed to represent? We just presented the methods in a different milieu than most books. I do think greed is a prime motivator for both good and evil in the world but I wanted to write a book that transcended the idea of greed and explored areas of true altruism. The other side of that approach was, as I said before, how the various cast members react to that altruism.

Variety: The design of the book is a really nice match to the commercial and corporate themes of the book. How involved in the design do you get?

Casey: As much as I can. Cover designer and logo genius Rian Hughes was one of the first people I pushed to have involved in the series, even before Dustin came onboard. Luckily those two clicked immediately so it was always a blast to see what they’d come up with. I’ve just always been a firm believer that comicbooks -- being such an obviously visual medium -- have to actually look good. They have to look modern. They have to appear relevant if they’re going to overcome the stigma that they’ve been saddled in the wider consumer culture for the past fifty years or so.

Variety: Did you have any overall plan for the series and where it was going to go? In retrsopect, was there anything you think could have been done differently that might have given it a better chance?

Casey: I’d had things plotted out to around issue #40. In retrospect, I wouldn’t change anything because, despite some people feeling one way or another about the pacing, the characters, etc., I feel much more indebted to the readers that “got it,” that understood exactly what kind of series this is. As far as what could have been done differently to give it a better chance … I suppose if this book had come out in 1986 or 1992 maybe sales would’ve been stronger. Who can say, though?

Variety: How much research do you do for something like "Wildcats"? Are there any particular resources (websites or publications) you find especially useful?

Casey: "Wildcats" was the most research-intensive project I’ve ever done. Luckily I already had an interest in corporate culture so it wasn’t like doing research was a pain in the ass. I actually like reading about this stuff and finding out how the world works. I’d hit the Net for certain, random information but I much prefer reading books, where authors can get more in-depth on the subject and I’m not forced to spend even more time sitting in front of a computer screen.

Variety: Kafka seems to be a meditation on the comics biz itself as much as anything else and it seemed to intentionally defy any pretense of being commercial (aside from its excellent uncomicbooklike design and great covers). Are you pleased with how the book turned out? Are you disappointed it didn’t last longer or did it work better than you expected?

Casey: Again, the experience of "Automatic Kafka" is not one I would change in any way, shape or form. Had it been a huge commercial success, I doubt we’d have been able to get away with some of the stuff we did. The attention would’ve been too much. To be perfectly honest, I have no problem being a “cult writer” (if that is, in fact, my lot in life) because it means that the sales figures accurately reflect the readership (as opposed to something like "X-Men," where you can pretty much count on most people buying it out of habit), and that means that the people who are reading it are really into it. They’re actually reading the book. That’s incredible to me, especially on a book like "Kafka" … the fact that, by the end of it, there were still roughly 10,000 people that were clued in on our mass hallucinogenic trip is still so gratifying to me.

Variety: "Kafka" is pretty dark and much less optimistic than "Wildcats," are they connected in your mind, like two sides of the same coin?

Casey: Well, if I’m the coin, then yes. "Kafka" was meant to read as a hangover, while "Wildcats" is the day after the hangover, when you realize your body has recovered and you feel like a million bucks again, ready to take on the world.

Variety: Is Kafka owned by you and Ash Wood or is it owned by Wildstorm/DC? And if you don’t own it, why did you give up so experimental and unusual an idea as that to them?

Casey: Ash and I have what’s called “creator participation” in "Automatic Kafka." Much like Warren Ellis and John Cassaday own a piece of "Planetary," we get a chunk of money if the property is ever sold into other media. Frankly, "Kafka" couldn’t exist as anything but a comicbook so the likelihood of that ever happening is pretty much nil. But that’s absolutely fine with me. I’m pretty proud of the fact that it was designed to be a comicbook and only a comicbook. Doesn’t happen all that often these days. And, if you recall, the final issue of "Kafka" pretty much insured that the character and the concept wouldn’t be exploited in any other manner. For his own good, I wrote him out of existence.

To be continued ...