Gary Spencer Millidge is the creator of the cult series Strangehaven, a comics book which combines ordinary life with a disturbing touch of surreal and magic. More info about the author at www.millidge.com. This interview has been realized via email during the time period from June to the first days of September 2002.

Could you introduce yourself to the Italian audience?

Of course. My name is Gary Spencer Millidge and I am a self-publishing comic book writer/artist from the UK. I have been producing an ongoing adult fiction series called Strangehaven for the past seven years and have published fourteen issues and two book collections so far. My core audience is through the US direct market, but I sell copies all over the world. It has achieved recognition with a number of award nominations and a string of positive reviews in the trade press.

I've been a fan of comics all my life and produced several fanzines in my youth. I have also managed my own comic retail business.

What kind of comics and comics artists did influence you in order to try a career in the field?

I grew up with traditional British comics - a strange mixture of American superhero reprints and locally produced adventure and humour strips - and this I think gave me a wider appreciation of comic art in general. It was wild to read Leo Baxendale and Ken Reid alongside Lee/Kirby and Lee/Ditko. Later I discovered colour American comics and was drawn to the soap opera elements of Marvel comics.
At college, I discovered Heavy Metal, which was at that time reprinting the best of European comics; Moebius, Bilal, Zha/Claveaux, Caza and mixing that with Richard Corben (later, HM introduced me to Boucq and Prado). At the same time, Art Spiegelman started publishing Raw and those two publications really opened my eyes to the limitless possibilities of the comic medium.
Later on in the 1980s, fine artists like Bill Sienkiewicz and Dave McKean inspired me, as of course did anything written by Alan Moore. Big Numbers was a dream come true, what a pity that it didn't last. Then of course, the Fantagraphics bandwagon got rolling. Gilbert Hernandez's Heartbreak Soup and subsequently Charles Burns, Peter Bagge, Dan Clowes, Chris Ware and Dave Cooper all leave me in awe.
My decision to self-publish Strangehaven was made much easier by Dave Sim's articles in his superlative Cerebus. He remains my biggest influence (in psychological terms). Martin Wagner's Hepcats, and in the UK, Paul Grist with Kane and Nabiel Kanan's superb Exit proved to me that the self-publishing dream could be achieved.

Hepcats, that was a great comic, it's a shame that few people remember it ... You said that David Sim was the artist that showed you the way to self-publishing. If I remember well the first issue of your Strangehaven came out in 1995. How hard has been self-publishing for you? What are the pros and cons?

Self-publishing is a huge subject. I get asked a lot about it from wannabe self-publishers, and I have just set-up an area on my website to help these people. It seems that since Dave Sim "abdicated" from his role as godfather to self-publishing, there's been nowhere else for these people to go.
Of course the biggest disadvantage of being a self-publisher is that I am not salaried. I have had to work part time jobs out of comics (such as teaching) in order to support myself financially. This has had the unfortunate effect of disrupting my schedule and causing an erratic and tardy rate of production.
But the main advantage is that I'm doing comics without editorial interference or having to pander to market forces (which of course is not necessarily a good thing). You will find that most self-published comics are being produced for the right reasons, they're a labour of love and they give the creator the chance to find their own unique voice rather than being forced to fit into a house style. I think self-published titles are the most diverse and sincere in the US direct market.
Personally, it has been tough, but ultimately extremely creatively rewarding. I become more convinced that self-publishing is the ideal format for my work as time goes on.

Let start talking about Strangehaven. Often I read reviews with compares it to The Prisoner and Twin Peaks. Maybe it's only because of a sort of similar atmosphere ... Can you introduce us to the book and its storyline? I'd like if you can sketch a brief description for each one of the main characters ... I love the "alien" Adam ...
Strangehaven is a deceptively idyllic fictional village which is introduced to the reader through the eyes of a character called Alex Hunter, a schoolteacher separated from his wife on a touring holiday in the remote southwest of England. After an accident, he's initially forced to stay in the village, but later becomes enchanted with it and a young woman, Janey Jones.

The Doctor and the local policeman are very suspicious of the new arrival - it seems that this village does not have many visitors. Alex finds the rest of the locals very friendly - but everyone seems to have a dark secret, or are eccentric in the extreme. Janey's father is head of the school and also head of a Masonic-like Brotherhood, Megaron is a half-Indian from the Amazon jungle and has a strange friendship with Janey's brother Chippy.

Adam claims to be from the planet Nimoi, stranded on Earth, and some believe him. Ethel the flower seller talks to her animals, and they answer back. Doreen is a painter and a psychic and there's the attractive shopkeeper Peter who gambles with money, drinks heavily and is unfaithful, notably with Janey's Chinese friend Suzie.

Oh, and there's the decomposing corpse of a young girl floating naked in a large aquarium to which someone holds the key.

The comparisons to Twin Peaks and The Prisoner are a self-inflicted millstone around my neck. I used those two TV shows as a "high concept" in order to promote the first issue of my comic book and it has stuck. There are of course some deliberate similarities, plot-wise and in atmosphere, but there are many other influences and ideas which I hope gives Strangehaven its own strong flavour.

For Strangehaven do you refer to a real village?
Much of the distinctive landscape is based on a real Devonshire village called Dunsford. But I have taken liberties with the local geography and patched in buildings from other parts of the country to create a fictional canvas on which to paint my characters.

In Strangehaven you use a very regular grid to tell your story, avoiding any kind of splash pages or spectacularism. Why did you choose a so rigorous approach? Do you think it's the best way for comics?

No, but it was the best way for me to concentrate on the storytelling aspects of the comic. My intention was for Strangehaven to appeal to a mainstream audience. In the UK & US, most adults don't read comics. I wanted to produce something accessible to a wider audience than the regular superhero crowd, people who weren't comics-literate. It was also the biggest comics project I had ever undertaken and I deliberately set myself very specific rules - nine-panel grid, no captions, no thought-balloons, no sound effects - to try to avoid the unnecessary use of comicbook clichés. I am gradually relaxing those self-imposed rules (take a look at Strangehaven #13 and #14), but I know why I am doing it, rather than just regurgitating the status quo.

Your art is quite detailed and realistic. Is this a choice you did maybe because it fits well with the surreal atmosphere of your book, or to balance the colour lack, or what else . You use photo references, don't you?

I didn't intend to use such a photo-realistic approach originally. I wanted to draw in a quick, rough style in order to produce a monthly mini-comic type publication. But after I had roughed out the first sequence and I started putting the reference materials together, I naturally fell back into a photo-referenced style that I had been using on a previous aborted project, Insomnia. The art in my first issue of Strangehaven I intentionally left open for colour, as I had no idea where it would end up at that time.
Maybe I was hoping it would be a Vertigo book, or serialised in a European magazine in colour (which is why the early issues are arranged in eight-page chapters), but after I started self-publishing in black and white, I naturally started rendering my artwork more heavily. When I published the trade paperback collection of the first six issues, I had to go back and add lots of grey tones to the early parts in order to balance the look across the whole volume.
Again, I felt that the more representational the art was, the more likely it would be read and understood by a non-comics-literate person. It's something that I'm trying to move away from, I'm adding thicker outlines around my figures and making them very slightly more cartoony. Photo reference is a double-edged sword. I am obsessed with detail, I want to get every little thing right, but it can end up looking too staged and stiff. It's also very time-consuming to collect all the necessary reference.

Being the writer but also the artist, which is your standard approach planning the book? Do you write a full script or just a plot without dialogues, or go directly to thumbnails and then start drawing or what else?

I write visually, I "see" the comic in my head like a movie, so it doesn't make sense to write a script. I do very small stick-figure thumbnails so that I don't put too much text on the page. This gives me the pacing and layout of the piece. Then I do the reference work, take photos and suchlike.
I work up drawings and more detailed layouts, often changing my original thumbnails beyond recognition. I put it all together by tracing, lightbox or projector, depending on the source and my drawing materials (projectors are horrible, as they are awkward to work around, you have to work in the dark, they're noisy and they distort your original drawing).
I like to work with a clean board, so I do as little actual drawing as possible on the final board, some of it I will ink directly, other parts need to be pencilled first. Then I'll add inks, washes or gouache as I feel necessary. Then the page in scanned into the computer where I add panel borders, lettering and balloons, and can re-jig the page if need be.

I read somewhere that you have a strong critical position against the superhero genre, and against artists like Frank Miller, Alan Moore and even Chris Ware who continue creating superhero stories. Can you explain us your opinion?

I was asked to write a column for Tripwire magazine about whatever was on my mind at that time. It turned out to be about my frustration with the domination of superhero comics in the American market. It's not so much that I have a strong critical position against the creators, more a cheeky taunt to encourage them to do more non-superhero work. It would be foolish of me to criticise someone like Alan Moore who has had the biggest influence on modern comics in general and on me personally.

Unlike mainland Europe, in the US superhero books have traditionally swamped all other genres of comics since the early 1960s. Many of the distributors and most of the retailers are exclusively interested in superhero comics and it is a continual struggle to get other types of comics recognised. Quality creators like those you mention have the ability to create wonderful pieces of mainstream fiction, but so often they can't resist falling back on superhero themes, or referring to the comics industry itself (like all the autobiographical comics about cartoonists) which to me seems self-indulgent, self-referential and incestuous. Even Dave Sim, who I respect as a creator more than most constantly falls back on superhero parody.
I'm mainly interested in expanding the market to encompass a readership outside the traditional superhero collector. I have no idea why Ware thinks it is necessary to embark on a narrative about the worst kind of superhero/pop culture fanboy (funny as it is) after the triumph of Jimmy Corrigan. There are many other culprits.
Of course I am in tremendous admiration of Chris Ware, Alan Moore and Frank Miller as creators and I recognise that it is necessary (in the latter two's case) for them to revert to producing superhero comics in order to help subsidise their less "commercial" efforts (and also to help the comics retailer to survive). There's also a case for providing the huge superhero market with a stepping-stone of more sophisticated superhero-style fare to enable them to acquire a taste for the more esoteric material. But I think there are enough stepping-stones and not enough quality mature non-superhero material to discover at the end of it.

Are there any Italian artists you admire?

I will have to show my ignorance and admit that as an Englishman, I find it hard to distinguish between European creators, be they Italian, French, Spanish or whatever. From here creators like Boucq, Manara, Loustal, Prado, Moebius, Liberatore, Dumontheuil, De Crecy, etcetera, all share a sensibility that British and American creators lack. The fact that their work is in a foreign language make it all the more exotic. I'm jealous of the European standard large, colour, hardcover format and the talent that resides in mainland Europe.

If you realistically think to the future of the medium what kind of comics do you imagine? What kind of future you would like to see for comics?

The Internet has been championed by many as the future of comics, but to me web comics are a slightly different medium. They're an important marketing tool, but there needs to be a major change of attitude before they come a viable source of income. Current technology imposes too many compromises, but who knows what the future will bring? TV did not kill the Cinema.
I am sure printed comics will endure as I believe that current generations still value physical artefacts. This may be a reason we are seeing more varied formats from publishers like Top Shelf. I do believe that self-contained graphic novel formats sold through regular bookshops are the future of comics in the US and UK and perhaps this will signal a move towards more mature, mainstream material from top creators. It would not see a surprise to see the traditional superhero specialist comic book store gradually disappear, but if the bookstore market can sustain top creators' new works, this would not be an altogether bad thing.

Which comics are you currently reading or do you want to point out? and why?

I read as wide a range of comics material as possible, although rarely superhero comics these days. I am extremely impressed by the quality of the Fantagraphics stable (despite the publisher's apparent unpleasant arrogance) Dan Clowes, Charles Burns, Chris Ware, Joe Sacco and Dave Cooper in particular. Top Shelf are publishing many of the new wave of cartoonists and have found themselves a niche with their graphic novel line - Craig Thompson, James Kochalka. I follow many self-publishers like Dave Sim (Cerebus), David Lapham (Stray Bullets), Terry Moore (Strangers In Paradise), Paul Grist (Kane) and Eddie Campbell to name a few. I always buy new books by Nabiel Kanan, Robert Crumb, Alan Moore, Dave McKean, translated Trondheim, Prado, Boucq etc.etc.
Posy Simmons' Gemma Bovery collection was wonderful. Graham Annable is very funny.
I also love historical reprints like the Krazy & Ignatz and Little Nemo books and books about the history of comics. I regret not having the time to re-read a lot of the books and comics that I own. There is truly a enormous amount of wonderful comics to enjoy.

I know that you had a parallel career in music. Can you tell us something about this period of your life?

It shares the same creator's curse that doesn't enable me to simply enjoy comics or books without wanting to emulate it. I've always been inspired to create music by listening to music. I played in a number of bands that were mildly successful at a local level throughout the 1980s, played a few festivals and radio spots and released a few tapes and records. I still play the acoustic guitar and write songs and still harbour a desire to release some permanent record of my own music at some point in the future.

What kind of music do you like?

I'm a big fan of Cambridge singer-songwriter Robyn Hitchcock and Australian band Church. The first two Doves CDs have been fantastic. I don't follow the music scene as closely as I used to. I'm also fond of Heather Nova, Supergrass, Ride, all kinds of rock and pop from Sum 41 and Beck right back to the Beatles and the Stones who remain big influences.