Indie Edge December 2014: Mike Carey

This month’s featured creator is…

MIKE CAREY

Mike Carey, please tell us about yourself!

I started writing comics way back in the ’90s, working for Indie publishers both in the UK and in the USA. I got my mainstream breakthrough with the Lucifer miniseries for Vertigo, and I followed that up with many runs on Vertigo titles (Lucifer, Hellblazer, The Unwritten) and on Marvel superhero books (Ultimate Fantastic Four, X-Men), but I’ve always had a foot in both camps, so to speak — writing for Harris, Dynamite, Virgin, and now BOOM! Studios, as well as for the big two.

What are your favorite projects you’ve contributed to in past?

It would be very hard for me to choose! To a certain extent, you always love what you’re doing now, because your mind and your imagination are solidly locked into it. But looking back through my back catalogue, my run on X-Men was really fun and rewarding, and I’m very proud of the work I did there, especially on “Age of X,” the mini “event” I wrote right up against the end of my run. That allowed me to write all my favourite X-verse characters, and to play all kinds of crazy mind-games with their personalities and relationships.

Lucifer (FEB130247) still remains a favourite. That was my first-ever monthly book, and it was where I learned how to do it. I also look back very fondly on the miniseries My Faith in Frankie (AUG040458) and the Minx original graphic novel, Re-Gifters, both of which had Sonny Liew as penciler and took me in very new directions, creatively — teen romance and comedy — which are not usually anywhere near my comfort zone.

What are you currently working on?

I’ve got three books ongoing at the moment, and I’m having a blast with them all, for different reasons. DC/Vertigo’s The Unwritten (APR128238) is my second long collaboration with Peter Gross, and like Lucifer, it’s just been pure pleasure throughout. BOOM! Studios’ Suicide Risk (AUG131149) is the first superhero title I’ve written where I’ve basically created the entire universe myself. That’s been amazingly exciting to do. And again, I’ve been really lucky with my art team. Elena Casagrande is enormously talented and huge fun to work with. And on Houses of the Holy, Dave Kendall and I are working in a semi-animated interface, the Madefire app, which adapts itself really well to horror. It’s different from anything I’ve done before, and I can’t believe what Dave is doing with my scripts.

What fun titles are you reading?

Well, I was reading Locke and Key (JUN090991) and loving it, but Joe Hill inconsiderately went and finished it off! It stayed brilliant right to the end, though, so I shouldn’t complain.

I snapped up Fantagraphics’ reprint of Jim Woodring’s Jim magazine. It’s hilarious and terrifying by turns, and always inspiring.

Bunn and Hurtt’s The Sixth Gun (JUN131225), from Oni, has been an amazing read. I love that kind of genre fusion when it’s done well, and they do it very well indeed.

I’m a big Los Bros. fan (comes with the territory, when you’re my age), so of course I snapped up and devoured Gilbert’s Bumperhead (JUL141182) this year from Drawn & Quarterly. I love what that guy can do with a comics page. And in this case, I was fascinated by his portrayal of youth culture and the groping for identity that fuels it.

And this is a 2013 book, but I want to mention it anyway. Jeremy Bastian’s Cursed Pirate Girl (DEC138230) published by Archaia, was just breathtaking. I’m in awe of the guy’s draughtsmanship, but quite apart from that it’s an astonishing imaginative achievement — completely its own thing.