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Interview:
Denise Mina
Empathy is our Friend
By Adam White
Published: 2006-03-16
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Upon reading and thoroughly enjoying Hellblazer
#216, I found myself compelled to look up writer Denise Mina
simply because hers’ wasn’t a name with which I was
familiar. Imagine my delight when I find her to be an accomplished
novelist, one with several books in print to provide me with plenty of
new reading material. Since I make it my business to be a repository
of literary and comic knowledge and knew little about her, I contacted
Ms. Mina and she graciously granted me the following interview…
ADAM: Were you ever or are you currently a comic book
reader? Or is it a new genre for you?
DENISE MINA: No, I read Hellblazer intermittently,
and I’m a great fan of Ennis’s Preacher series. I
didn’t read comics as a kid. The first thing I ever read was
Art Spiegelman’s Maus. The second installment took about
three years [to come out], I think, but it felt like eight.
ADAM: Was there anything in particular about the area you
grew up in that fostered your interests in writing and/or reading?
DENISE MINA: I grew up everywhere. We moved house twenty
one times in eighteen years and lived variously in Paris, Glasgow,
London, Bergen (in Norway), Amsterdam (in Holland). I learned to read
very late, when I was about eight or nine, and remember finding a box
of Archie comics in the attic as we were moving and realizing that I
could read the words now and didn’t have to make up the stories
myself.
ADAM: What initially drew you to writing, and novels in particular?
DENISE MINA: Like most writers I started as an avid,
delighted reader. I love that point where you are totally immersed in
a novel, about two hundred pages in, when you want to eat what
they’re eating and smell what they’re smelling.
There’s a loss of self in reading a really good novel, a
complete shift of reality. I read a lot of Zola and Balzac and spent
ten years looking for marron glace, a sweet treat they all eat at the
opera. They’re disgusting, by the way.
ADAM: What writers and/or artists inspire you as a creator?
Do you have any particular favorites you would recommend to others?
DENISE MINA: I always recommend Bulgakov, a Russian writer
who could have been a comic writer, I’m sure. The Master and
Margerita is a story about the devil coming to Moscow and putting
on a variety show. I’d also recommend Fallen Angel, the
basis of the Mickey Rourke film Angel Heart. The book’s
much, much better and starts off as a jokey Chandler-esque detective
story and turns in to a terrifying Gothic story about satanism. I was
eleven at the time, though. Maybe it’s not that scary. I’d
also recommend The Lives of the Saints which is as silly and
fantastical as anything in comics today.
People on the Hellblazer boards
warned me that I’d meet with a lot of prejudice from non-comic
fans and I didn’t believe them… It turns out they were
right.
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ADAM: As an established novelist, what interested you in the
comics medium? Did you actively seek out comics work, or was it
something that just came together for you?
DENISE MINA: I was offered Hellblazer and jumped at
the chance. People on the Hellblazer boards warned me that
I’d meet with a lot of prejudice from non-comic fans and I
didn’t believe them, to be honest. We’re the generation
who grew up loving and valuing comics after all. It turns out they
were right. In status terms it’s probably been a disaster, but
I’ve always been a seedy underbelly kind of gal anyway. You
have to do what you love and I didn’t want to play with those
Oxbridge wanks anyway.
ADAM: What interested you in John Constantine and
Hellblazer?
DENISE MINA: John’s a great character. I love a
protagonist who’s a bit of a bastard and faces moral choices
that are really believable — you never really know for sure
whether he’s going to do the right thing. Also, I love the
whole magic realist ideal: anything can happen. Chandler said that
when he got stuck when writing a book, he’d have a guy walk in
with a gun. In Hellblazer you can have a guy pull a
reality-shift trick and twist the story about that way. It’s a
joy to write.
ADAM: Did anything in particular inspire “Empathy is
the Enemy?”
DENISE MINA: Yeah: there’s a myth about St. Oran,
who’s a real saint. He was buried alive to ensure the
foundations of an abbey when it was being built and when they dug him
up after three days he told them “things are not what they seem.
I have been to Heaven and Hell and it is not as we are told.”
That and the whole near-death experience intrigued me.
Comic books are much more immediate than a
novel… the
best bit is doing the visuals as well. It feels like a very complete
way to tell a story.
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ADAM: How difficult did you find making the transition from
novels to comics? What do you think the fundamental differences are
in plotting and scripting a novel versus a comic book?
DENISE MINA: Comic books are much more immediate; a novel
takes a year of solid graft. But the best bit about it is doing the
visuals as well. I can actually feel synapses zinging into life while
I’m doing it. It feels like a very complete way to tell a
story. For plotting, because it’s a series, each comic needs to
work for 22 pages and have an ending, and then also work as a
collection, so it’s like writing a series for a magazine or
newspaper. I think the hardest thing is not hiding behind prose;
in novels you can hide a bad link or clue in a big description. Comic
plots are like skeletons: there’s no flesh to hide mistakes in.
ADAM: Many writers from other mediums are currently trying
their hands at comic books — Why do you think that is? Is there
something that comics books offer that other mediums do not?
DENISE MINA: Yeah, it is unique, but I think this generation
of writers grew up appreciating comics and regarding them as
important. That’s never really happened before.
ADAM: How much or little did you collaborate with Leonardo
Manco on Hellblazer, as far as the look, characters, or
direction of the story? Did you enjoy the finished product of your
first issue?
DENISE MINA: Seeing a comic that you’ve written drawn
by someone like Manco feels like winning an Oscar or something.
It’s such a buzz! Because a lot of the story is set in real
locations in Glasgow, where I live, it needed to be right. I made a
DVD of locations and a folder of materials and sent them to him so
that we got it right. He’s done a magnificent job. Even the
Isle of Iona, a tiny place far off to the west of Scotland, is
perfectly drawn. I hope he didn’t mind me doing that.
Seeing a comic that you’ve written drawn
by someone like Manco feels like winning an Oscar or something.
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ADAM: Have you thought much about where you plan to take
Hellblazer after your first story arc?
DENISE MINA: I’m probably working on it for a set
period of time and have a good idea of the second half of the story
arc.
ADAM: Do you plan to do any comics work beyond
Hellblazer? Anything else currently lined up or in
development?
DENISE MINA: I’m probably doing a graphic novel for DC
called A Sickness in the Family. It’s about property and a
serial killer who sticks to his own.
ADAM: Are there any particular creators you would like to
work with?
DENISE MINA: I don’t really work well with other
writers, to be honest. I pretend to collaborate but really I’m
thinking “Oh f--k, why did I agree to this?”. I love
Frank Quitely, but he’s probably too grand to work with me.
…Quite frankly, Frank Quitely would do well to get the
opportunity.
So now that I (and, more importantly, you) have gotten a glimpse of
the intelligent and witty writer behind Hellblazer in
2006 (as well as her previous novels), you have no excuse to skip it
just because you “haven’t heard of her.” I went the
extra mile to do your homework for you; Ms. Mina went the ten extra
miles to provide you with well-conceived insights (not to mention a
fantastic comic); so now it’s up to you to go the extra reach of
an arm’s length away the next time you’re in your comic
store and pick up Hellblazer, because if you don’t
you’ll be missing out on not only one great story but also the
new standard of excellence for John Constantine.
—CCdC— Images are often used without explicit permission in accordance with the "Fair Use" provision of US copyright law.
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