Roots Of The Swamp Thing: Swamp Thing, Hellblazer, The Un-Men And More

Roots of the Swamp Thing: Your Portal to the Universe of Swamp Thing, The Un-Men and John Constantine: Hellblazer

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The Sandman Presents: Marquee Moon
by Peter Hogan

An Interview With Artist Peter Doherty (March 2008)

Full Moon				Interview with Peter Hogan
View the Lettered Artwork				Interview with Peter Doherty

SCRIPT PAGES:					Introductory Essay
p. 1-8	p. 9-16	p 17-24	p. 25-32	p. 33-40	p. 41-48	p. 49-56

Following this site's interview with Peter Hogan accompanying the online release of The Sandman Presents: Marquee Moon, artist Peter Doherty—who penciled the issue and inked pages 46-56 after Matt "D'israeli" Brooker inked the first 45—has agreed to answer some questions about his role as one of the illustrators of Vertigo Comics' limbo-fated one-shot.

Doherty offers candid answers regarding the history and status of Marquee Moon, while also providing fascinating insight into the process a comic-book artist goes through when doing work-for-hire. The following answers, as per Doherty's request, are entirely unedited:

RICH HANDLEY: How did you become involved with The Sandman Presents: Marquee Moon? And how did your background prepare you to illustrate a story about werewolves and punk rockers?

PETER DOHERTY: Alisa asked me to draw it. I'd done some work previously on The Dreaming, which I assume she liked as she kept offering me work. I had no background preparation whatsoever—I was a little too young to be a punk, I didn't live in the cities like London and Manchester where it really blossomed, and I didn't like much of the music either—by the time it reached the provinces I was off discovering Ry Cooder, so my tastes were slightly different. But I actually am a werewolf, so that part of it was easy.

HANDLEY: How closely did you work with Peter Hogan, Neil Gaiman and editor Alisa Kwitney in illustrating this story? Did you receive a lot of feedback from them on your work, and were you asked to change much? Were they happy with the final product from an art standpoint?

DOHERTY: Well I had no contact with Neil which isn't a surprise really as I was only the artist. I may be wrong but if Neil had any input it would usually have been via the editor and Peter. This was back in the days before e-mail was ubiquitous, we had to fax stuff back and forth, so I got less feedback from Peter than I would if we were working today. These days I'd e-mail both the editor and writer and get feedback from both. I did spend a very pleasant November day wandering around London with Peter taking photos of the various sites in the story and blathering about comics and music. After that I don't really recall a massive amount of contact between us, although we did talk to each other, which I'd rather do with a writer as it tends to lead to the final project having as singular an intent as possible and in my opinion is stronger for it. Alisa was very hands on, she made me change quite a lot of panels with the main character as she thought she wasn't quite pretty enough, and she was right, pretty girls aren't really my fort�, if you want old ugly people though, give me a call. As to "Were they happy with the final product", I don't know other than the positive feedback I got from everyone who I was in contact with. With such a large company like DC using a term like "they" covers a lot of individuals within the company and, I'd guess, all with slightly different opinions. Alisa always seemed pleased with the work I turned in, after I did any changes she requested. I suppose some individuals weren't "happy" with enough aspects of the project to consider it worth publishing. Whether that decision had anything to do with the quality of my work, I don't know.

HANDLEY: Peter Hogan's script for Marquee Moon included a great deal of notes regarding the history and stylistic norms of punk rock, including a number of books that he recommended you use for research purposes. How helpful did you find those notes, and did you end up utilizing the books he recommended? Was this a typical collaboration, compared to the type and depth of comments you usually receive from writers?

DOHERTY: Peter sent me a load of books which were very useful in attempting to capture the feel of the particular time. I dug up some of my own to help, old 70's books on DIY I got from charity shops were especially helpful. I wouldn't say Peter's approach was typical or atypical, just what was needed to get over the information to help me do my job of telling the story with an atmosphere and feel in keeping with London in 1977, which was a big point of the story.

HANDLEY: Marquee Moon afforded you an opportunity to draw an iconic character from the DC/Vertigo universe—namely, John Constantine of Swamp Thing and Hellblazer fame. And, obviously, the title was intended as a tie-in to Gaiman's Sandman series. Are you a fan of the Constantine character and/or these titles?

DOHERTY: As a reader I've never been a fan of any particular characters, especially company owned characters like Constantine that have to weather lots of different writer's differing interpretations over years and years of publishing. Not that I haven't read some good stories in which he's the central player—I liked Constantine as a part of Alan Moore's Swamp Thing run, the issues of Hellblazer Grant Morrison wrote that David Lloyd drew, and the one off story by my friend, John Smith, with art by Sean Phillips, come to mind. I'd read most of Sandman too and I liked some of the stories but mostly I didn't get snared by it's charms. Not that I didn't think it was a good comic, just not to my tastes.

HANDLEY: What was your reaction upon being hired to add to the mythos of two such highly regarded titles? Were you intimidated, knowing how rabid fans of existing titles can be?

DOHERTY: My reaction was to be glad not to be unemployed. The fan reaction never enters my head which isn't meant to sound arrogant, but I just try to do the best job I can do with the material at hand. I attempt to make the characters and story come alive as much as I can, so hopefully if they have a life for me as I draw them, they will for a reader. But I can't control who will and won't like the finished work, so I find it's best not to worry about it.

HANDLEY: Given that Peter Hogan had already completed the script, you had completed all of the artwork and the title had already been solicited, it seems unusual that Vertigo ultimately canceled it at the last minute. Were you ever given a reason why they opted not to publish it?

DOHERTY: Although I'd be curious to learn the reasons behind the decision, I was never informed of the reasons behind the decision, it's not really my business in one sense. DC paid for the work I did, and they are the owners, what they chose to do with it is their concern. I know people love believe there's little conspiracies behind these sort of decisions, I suspect it was simply down to the economics of publishing. I know Peter is keen to see it published but then the story was much more personal for him.

HANDLEY: Realistically, do you anticipate Marquee Moon ever being published in an official capacity, outside of this website?

DOHERTY: If I was forced to guess I'd say it would be incredibly unlikely. I suspect publishing any of the work here on your site looks a little like trying to apply outside pressure to DC which I can't imagine goes down very well with them as a company, and is possibly counter-productive if you hope to ever see Marquee Moon actually published on paper. But what do I know.

HANDLEY: Finally, once the artwork to Marquee Moon becomes available online, it's natural that readers unfamiliar with your work will want to see more. Which of your past works would you recommend fans track down, and what upcoming work can they look forward down the line?

DOHERTY: Well I've drawn Judge Dredd stories on and off for about 17 years, but they're a little hard to find. "Young Death" should be republished sometime in 2008—it's the origin story of Judge Death, it's sort of a black comedy, which originally appeared way back in the first twelve issue of the Judge Dredd megaziine. It's a good read, but as it was my very first job I'm a little embarrassed by the quality of my contribution. There's some of my Dreaming work in the Gates of Horn and Ivory collection. A Grendel collection I painted, The Devil May Care, is still available. I also coloured two fantastic series that are worth seeking out: Grant Morrison and Cameron Stewart's Seaguy published under Vertigo's banner; and Geof Darrow's Shaolin Cowboy comic, which you can get directly from Burlyman Entertainment. I'm currently doing the art for a 5 part Judge Dredd story written by Dredd creator John Wagner and the future holds more Dredd and Devlin Waugh stories for the Judge Dredd megazine written by John Smith.

Read the introduction

Thanks to Peter Hogan for providing the script and artwork, Peter Doherty and Hogan for answering my interview questions, and Adrian Brown at the Voices From Beyond forum for helping make it possible. An excerpt of this script originally appeared on John McMahon's Straight to Hell site.

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