anderswolleck

Its come full circle for illustrator David Lloyd. Back when he and Alan Moore first created V for Vendetta in 1981 they couldnt have expected that 25 years later it would become a big budget action flick. While Moore has dismissed all future film adaptations of his work, Lloyd has embraced director James McTeigue and screenwriters/producers The Wachowski brothers. Lloyd has been traveling with the film and the filmmakers all over the world. I got a chance to talk with Lloyd at the big time movie junket for V for Vendetta in New York City. We spoke of how the politics of V dont need to change, being treated like a megastar and his upcoming books from Dark Horse, The Territory and Kickback.

Check out the official site for V for Vendetta

Daniel Robert Epstein: Did you like the V for Vendetta movie?

David Lloyd: Yeah. The movies great.

DRE: I heard that you didnt even visit the set.

DL: No. They did offer me a chance of being a V in the crowd, but its not my scene. I think they just thought it would be fun for me to do that, but I dont know. I heard that Stan Lee appears in every movie of his.

DRE: Nearly every one. Is that why you didnt want to do it? Now I understand.

You and Alan Moore finished the V for Vendetta comic book back in 1989. Theres this great quote, If youre not a liberal when youre 20, you have no heart. If youre not a conservative when youre 40, you have no brain. Have your politics changed since you finished the book?

DL: No, absolutely not. Ive always been a liberal and Ive always had strong socialist leanings. I understand why people do vote on the conservative side of the ticket because people have a tendency to go for strong governments when really, from an idealistic point of view, its a bad thing. People accept a government that will be strong if they think its looking after them. They will accept all kinds of judgments.

DRE: The governments change things slowly on the people.

DL: Sometimes they do it slowly and sometimes they do it fast. You look at Hitlers Germany. Lets face it. Most of the German people would not have willingly supported that.

DRE: Every week there was a new law.

DL: Thats exactly true. That seduces the population. You get in there and you say, Were only going to send these people away. Its the whole thing of, first they came for them and then they came for me. As I said, Hitlers Germany is a classic example of people needing somebody strong. They were coming out of a terrible hyperinflation and poverty and unemployment and depression and this guy offered them a way out. Most of the German people werent members of the Nazi Party. But they supported them.

DRE: They supported their government the way they thought they were supposed to.

DL: Yeah, exactly. It led them down the wrong road. Thats happened throughout history. Its happened in the past and its going to happen in the future. V is like a mythical situation. Its an allegory for what could happen. V has philosophies within it that actually warn against things like that happening.

DRE: I know you and Alan Moore havent spoken in a long time. When I spoke to him he said to me If its worth reacting to, its worth overreacting to. I realized that informs nearly everything he does. V is certainly a reaction, not only is it an allegory but its not 1984. The government doesnt win. V blows up everything. Were you full of piss and vinegar when you started this book?

DL: When we started the book there was the Margaret Thatcher regime in Britain at that time. Shed only just been in power for a couple of years and she was getting her stride. Then as things progressed, we saw that she was quite ruthless. From a political point of view, we were interested in saying those things that we said in V, but we werent actually politically active. Alan was always interested in politics in a major way. He actually believes that anarchy is a politically viable system, but I dont. I was always interested in putting forward the ideas that represented my viewpoint. I feel the same about anything Im doing. Im in a privileged position as an artist because if Ive got something to say, I can say it. But you dont want to preach. Thats terrible. But if you have a point of view and youre an artist or a writer, its kind of crazy to not take advantage of that, especially if you can do something thats entertaining as well. Ive done a number of things like that over the years.

DRE: You are the first comic book artist Ive ever spoken to at a movie junket. Whats it like being in this position?

DL: You get to stay in some really nice hotels. Also the people involved in the film were very nice. Of course its kind of a completely different world and a rarified atmosphere to me. I just sit at the drawing board most of the time. I am used to talking to people. I love going to conventions, getting feedback and talking to people. Some artists dont. Some artists sit at their drawing board because their personality actually dictates that.. Although its strange to be in this world, Im really happy to be here.

DRE: I like that they are treating you so well.

DL: Yeah. At the end of the day, were all makers. I didnt know how much I might think I might have in common with people like [director] James [McTeigue] then when I was invited to the preview in November, I met a lot of the cast, a lot of the crew, the sound director and some of the lighting guys. Its really interesting that we all have a lot in common. Were all craftsmen of one kind or another.

DRE: The Wachowski wrote their first screenplay for V for Vendetta before they did The Matrix. Were you excited that the first Matrix was so good and now they were doing your movie?

DL: I knew that they were fans when they did the first screenplay. Im kind of sad that they were so successful with the Matrix. I figured if they hadnt been, they might have actually ended up doing the movie. But this version is great.

DRE: I just read The Territory hardcover. Its great.

DL: Thank you. Its a very interesting story but Im afraid people missed it when it came out.

DRE: What is it about?

DL: Its about escapism and what leads people to escapism and why we need to escape and what it is that makes us want to escape. We wrapped it in this story about one person who is a mystery. When we first see this person, we dont know who he is or where hes come from and then we go on this journey with him. Hes got to find something to look for to justify his own existence. The story that wrapped around these other stories was a tribute to the pop magazines of the 40s and 50s. They were one of the key escapist entertainments of that period. We did four issues and each one carried the character through this kind of surreal world of fantasy pop fiction.

DRE: How did you and [writer] Jamie Delano first get together for The Territory?

DL: Around '98, I wanted something to do that had the flavor of Lovecraft so I approached Dark Horse with a vague suggestion of it. Dave Land had an adaptable concept which was of a similar nature revolving around the idea of a Gatekeeper, a doorway into some other place or universe. The company then decided it was a good idea to develop the idea as some kind of intertwined set of stories.

In the middle of all this, I had suggested enlisting Jamie, who I knew well, to help with the story. Jamie brought one of his pet ideas along to the mix, the notion of a future prison system where inmates were stored and stacked for convenience sake like so many used cars, drugged and comatose to reduce management problems. As time progressed in the script and visualization process, the idea changed shape and took on different flavors.

DRE: What keeps bringing you back to these themes?

DL: Our society's need for escapism has always interested me. We spend more time developing means of escaping our troubles than we do solving the troubles we're trying to escape from. I'm interested in how artists and writers do this, using art as therapy. Escaping into the worlds we create. We're all victims and few of us are truly free. How we live in a world where we're all linked to each other through dependence on governing bodies like utility companies, phone companies, social security numbers, interests me. We all have a love/hate relationship with it. We can't do without the big machine around us but we wish we could. We want to be comfortably looked after but we want to be free to make our own choices. We have a desperate need for someone to tell us where to go and what to do in the big frightening world and often we end up being led to Hell like fools.

DRE: You have another book coming out from Dark Horse this summer called Kickback, whats that about?

DL: Kickback is a police thriller which I wrote. Im very proud of it. I did it in two parts for France because when I wrote it, there wasnt the audience demand for crime stuff that there is now. There was just Sin City and publishers werent interested in crime stuff and this was before 100 Bullets. It came out in France last year. Its about a corrupt policeman in a corrupt police force who changes his ways. Im interested in why people compromise when they shouldnt. It comes back to what Vs about in a sense. Weve all got ideals, but given the right circumstances, well forget about them and put them behind us. Im very interested in why people do that.

DRE: Do your interests lie in doing crime stories?

DL: Yeah, I like doing them. As long as the audience is out there for them, Im happy to do them. But I like telling stories about anything. The thing is you dont always get the opportunity to do what you really want to do. I must say its difficult to get your own projects underway. Im lucky. Im quite popular in this business and people know me. Most of the time theres somebody that wants me to do something. In a sense, you have to hope that the phone wont ring so that youve got time to do something of your own because otherwise youll never be able to develop your own project. Its been a long time since I wrote the first draft of Kickback to when I actually got it sold because I just never had the time to sell it.

DRE: Have you ever seen a V for Vendetta tattoo on anybody?

DL: Oh yeah. Theres a guy in England who has one. I think Ive seen one somewhere else too. Somebody showed me one that they had made. They are pretty interesting. I think theyll be more now. Id be interested to see exactly how it pans out when the movie opens because there are a lot of critics and people who arent sure about the film. Theyve underestimated the effect the atmosphere of the film is going to have and the bizarre nature of it. Its not like a regular adventure story.

by Daniel Robert Epstein

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