JIM MURRAY INTERVIEW
copied from www.subhuman.net

When did you first get in to Judge Dredd?

I first saw Dredd ages and ages ago, at school I think, but I never really got into them until I saw Judgement on Gotham. I never read 2000ad as a kid, I used to be into Spiderman, all the Marvel stuff. Fantastic Four, X-Men and stuff. Then I sort of had a break from comics until my late-teens. And when Judgement on Gotham came out, I thought "Wow, this is what you can do with comics these days!" And then I saw Slaine and stuff, and obviously then I got into Bisley.

It’s often been said that you’re just a Bisley clone.

Well, yeah, it’s a fair comment, because he has been a big influence. But…I think in my defense, I don’t actually copy anything he’s done at all. It’s basically… If you look at it like this, Bisley and Frezzeta taught me how to paint. But I mean, it’s just a style thing really. I learnt how to draw by looking at Will Eisner, Bernie Wrightson and other artists like that.

I think the problem is that Bisley was the first person who used fully painted artwork.

Exactly, so any other artist who’s going to come along and do fully painted artwork is going to get labelled as such. So it’s not something you can get away from, really. But I have utmost respect for his stuff though, I think he’s absolutely brilliant.

There are a lot of other influences in your work – Manga in particular.

Absolutely, yeah. Katsuhiro Otomo [Akira], Masarmune Shiro [Ghost in the Shell], I think they’re great. And things like Patlabor, some of this mecha stuff, Macross Plus, that’s worth checking out. But other than that, I’m influenced by loads of stuff. Warner Bros. cartoons, Bugs Bunny and stuff like that.

Any particular British Comics?

Erm… I don’t know really. British artists, maybe. I really like artists like Trevor Hairsine and Frank Quitely, they’re great, they can really draw. And obviously Jason Brashill… I mean, Jason’s another one who paints stuff who could be called a Bisley clone, but his stuff’s so unique…

He has been called a Bisley clone.

Yeah, well I just think that’s rubbish, his stuff’s totally, totally different.

You worked with him on Die Laughing, of course, painting Glenn Fabry’s stuff. What did you think of Glenn’s stuff?

Well, he can certainly paint, that’s for sure. He’s a very good artist. Again, his work’s totally different. It’s all nicely referenced stuff, all quite realistic, and to my mind, not really suited to comics. More to covers, and stuff like that. So, erm… Yeah, I really like it though.

What did he actually send you to paint over?

He gave us rough biro sketches. Very rough. He just biroed out panel layouts, and we just painted them up from that. Which I think he’d forgive me for saying was quite a job at the time, to decipher what he’d done!

So from page 36 onwards, it was pretty much all you and Jason.

Well, no, I mean we tried to keep it true to how he drew it, because he’s definitely got a style of drawing that’s all his own. But there’s no way we could spend the time that he takes, the effort he takes to paint each panel.

The 2000ad editors must have got pissed off with him taking about a year to paint each page.

[laughs] Well yeah, it took… I don’t know, I think he took about 5 years to finish it.

They said that he started it immediately after Judgement on Gotham, as the follow-up. So Glenn took the entire span of your career to do 36 pages, and you illustrated the second half of the follow-up to the comic that got you into comics in the first place!

Yeah, it’s bizzare if you think about it! I’ve never actually looked at it like that before!

So if Judgement on Gotham got you into Dredd, what was the first issue of 2000ad that you bought?

I never really bought 2000ad that much, because I came to it really late. I used to buy the Megazine a lot, when it first started especially. The story I remember really enjoying was Shimura, this cybernetic-style story by Robbie Morrison, that was fantastic. I also really liked Missionary Man, and Trevor Hairsine was doing Harmony at that point, so I used to buy all that. Yeah, I got into it all quite late. A friend of mine gave me his entire 2000ad collection, so I went back through it, and I remember reading some really nice stories, some of the Brian Bolland stuff like the Cursed Earth, and I got into Mike McMahon and stuff. There’s some great history there. But yeah, I really like Shimura, and I like the Inaba character, who’s this sort of female protégé. I’d like to illustrate a story with her in it.

I remember you did Holocaust 12 - that was the first story where I really noticed you.

That was the first painted story I did, but looking back on it, there’s only a couple of pages that I actually liked in it. But you know, it was a learning process. It’s difficult to say really, but I think I got the Batman/Dredd book on the back of that, so that was a result, definitely, but I don’t really think it was that impressive. But I was very pleased with the way Die Laughing came out.

If it came down to it, would Dredd kick Batman’s arse?

I think he would, yeah! I mean, personally, I prefer Dredd. He’s just that bit more hardcore. Batman’s kind of a goody-goody. I don’t know, I think some people would disagree, but I think Dredd’s hardcore enough to go the distance. He’s just a total fascist.

What materials do you use?

It varies. Acrylics, coloured pencils, a bit of gouache, lots of ink… I work on Bristol board, canvas paper… Anything really. Different things give different results. With Die Laughing, the first ten pages were done on Daler board, HP, all the paints were acrylics. A few pages were done on Bristol board, a couple on canvas paper, but most of the rest was done on HP watercolour paper. Archers, I think. Maybe Archers should give me a sponsorship deal. [laughs] That’d be nice!

Have you used oils?

No, no I haven’t. It’s something I’d like to get into at some point in my life, but they take two days to dry… I wouldn’t know where to start, really. It’s a totally different technique. What I do with acrylics is that I do a load of washes first to get the rough shapes and colours right, and then I build up areas tonally, starting off with a base colour. It’s all quite thick paint. And then build it up, layer upon layer, so you get to a highlight. If I did that with oils, it would just pick up the layers underneath, I’m sure. I’m not sure how you’d go about doing it - I think you’ve got to lay colours next to each other, and then blend them into each other.

How fast are you?

Varies, again. Depending on how into the page I am. I can do a page in about two days, but that’s pushing it. But usually… I mean, the Die Laughing pages took anything up to five days each. So not that fast, really. Faster than Glenn though, let’s put it that way.

What are you working on now?

Another Batman graphic novel. It’s an Elseworlds story, a Batman/Demon team-up.

Are you allowed to give away details? I hear DC are trying to gag their creators these days.

Well, I won’t spoil the story, but I could say that it’s actually a hybrid character, Batman and Demon, and the Elseworlds bit is the fact that it’s set in a medival Gotham City, which is a sort of mile high… Kind of like Mega-City One, but with lots of spires and things. It’s a good story. Written by Alan Grant.

Who would you most like to work with?

Difficult question. Erm… I have no idea! If you’d asked me a couple of years ago, I would have said John Wagner and Alan Grant. That’s kind of an ultimate, really. Now I’ve done that… I’d like to do some Manga stuff, but fully painted. I don’t know.

So who writes the best scripts?

Depends what your after! I really like the way John Wagner puts a script together. It’s quite snappy, good humoured. But I think Alan writes a good…story, shall we say. And I like the Robbie Morrison scripts I’ve worked on. I did a Lawman of the Future thing for him, ages and ages ago. That was kind of my training ground.

The first thing of yours I saw was Harmony in the Megazine.

Oh yeah, Chris Stanley, he wrote some really nice scripts. Yeah, they were really good stories. We got some letters saying she was a really good female role model and stuff. I enjoyed that. I was disappointed when Chris didn’t get any more work from them.

Looking back on those early stories, your artwork has totally changed.

That’s the learning curve. I started doing comics about five years ago, and at that point I’d never really done any sequential art of any kind, so it was a really steep learning curve. I got chucked in at the deep end, really. So Harmony was definitely good practice. All that black and white stuff.

What did you do before comics?

I was at film school. Before that, I did My A-Level art at GCSE, and I did O-Level art when I was thirteen as well. It was the year GCSEs were coming in, and O-Level suited me better than GCSE, because I couldn’t really do any projects because my attention span was too short. So they thought, well, we’ll make him do his O-Level. But I got pushed into art by my parents, and by my art teacher, which looking back in retrospect, I have to thank them for that. But at the time I was livid.

What did you think of the Judge Dredd film?

I thought the first minute and a half was fantastic, I though the effects and the look of it was really good, the design work was really good, but… What happened to the story? What went wrong? I mean I agree with the people who say they should have got Stallone to play Rico and Dredd, then he wouldn’t have had to take his helmet off. The fact that he took his helmet off a minute after he’s introduced is just ridiculous. He was paid nine million dollars to be himself, when he should have been playing a role. And he hated the film after it was made, apparently.

Yeah, everybody did.

Well it shouldn’t have been made. They should have held out and made it the right way.

I think it should have been made, just not by those people.

Yeah, they should have got us to make it! They should have gone for the Alan Grant/John Wagner script, I don’t think Stallone was the right choice for Dredd. It could have been if he didn’t take his helmet off. If they got an unknown to play him it might have been better. And that script, what the hell was that about? What else did he write, Commando or something? Basically lots of films with snappy one-liners in them, generally cheesy as hell. And that Fergie character, the comedy sidekick, I don’t think that was entirely necessary. But respect to Chris Halls though, his designs were fantastic. Mean Machine, and the ABC robot. Look through the Making of Judge Dredd book, he’s a great artist.

So what does Dredd really look like under his helmet?

Er. I think you’re asking the wrong man, because I don’t really care! I just draw him as he is. I think his helmet is probably part of his head as far as I’m concerned! Maybe people wonder about it, but you know, I don’t give a toss.

What’s your favourite kind of story to illustrate?

I think, one without much story! Too much dialogue is my problem. I like to read a good story, I mean I like Vertigo stuff, Grant Morrison and so on, but to Illustrate, I enjoyed doing the Die Laughing book, and the story of that is just two guys go and beat up four zombies, and it’s action page after action page, which is just fantastic.

What about the ethics of comics violence? The stories you illustrate tend to be very violent stories, do you feel this may be having any adverse affects on readers?

Warping young kids minds? Yeah, I’ve been accused of that, many many times. All my friends think I’m totally warped, when I make the mistake of showing them my sketchbook! I haven’t been lobbied yet, but that’s probably the next thing. And then I’ll be locked up. No, I think everyone has a dark side. But I think what I do isn’t vicious, it more black humour. That’s the way I look at it. It’s slapstick taken to an extreme. Like Tom and Jerry, but with blood.

What do you think of the current situation in British comics?

Well, I really like the comics being produced, it’s just a pity that more people aren’t buying them. But then again, it sort of comes and goes in waves, doesn’t it? I just latched onto it at the end of the 80’s, when it was huge, and then it sort of waned since, maybe since I got into it.

[laughs] It’s all your fault!

Might be! But who knows? It may be in a resurgence. But maybe kids are being too distracted by computer games and stuff. But then again, buying a comic is a hell of a lot cheaper than buying a computer game. Yeah, I’d like to see more people buying them. Maybe they need a different approach to it, like more weekly comics instead of these monthly things, so you get a faster turnover of stories.

I personally think the problem is that there’s no newsstand presence in comics anymore.

Yeah, exactly, you don’t see them in the newsagents, you have to buy them in specialist comics shops. Yeah, so something has to be done, then.

So what are you going to do?

Me?!? Well I don’t know, it’s not up to me!

Have you ever been censored?

I haven’t actually been censored, but recently DC sent a few pages back, when I’d gone slightly too gory. And I’d also shown too much of Bruce Wayne, so to speak. But my argument was that I was trying to redress the balance, because I’ve drawn a few semi-naked women, so I thought maybe I should draw a semi-naked man. But DC are a bit prudish about that kind of thing. I don’t know, I might have gone over the top.

Are you sexually aroused by the women you paint?

No! [laughs] I think they’re all slightly too muscly for me! But then again, it’s mainly been Catwoman in this recent one, and the way I’ve drawn her, she is kind of butch.

What about Anderson? You had some nice pictures of her in Die Laughing.

That’s true. They did censor that though! If you notice, I think the page before last, there’s a bizarre word bubble where she’s sitting up in bed, and the bubble is covering her arse. I showed a tiny piece of her bare cheek, and they covered it up with a bizarre word bubble! But yeah, she’s nice! Actually she is one of the only bits of reference I used in the book. She’s the model that Steve Sampson uses for Anderson. If you look at his Anderson, you’ll see it’s the same girl.

So who is she?

Well, if you cut this bit out of the interview…

[snip]

…so it’s a bit of a sensitive topic.

Any advice for budding artists?

I would say send stuff off, and if you get knocked back, don’t worry about it, just send more stuff off. Because a lot of artist will wait and wait, and think "aah, that’s not good enough, I’ll work on that a bit more", but unless you send it off, you’ll never get the results you want. So you need to get out there, get your stuff seen by people. Try getting some work with some small press people as well. Oh, and keep a sketchbook as well, that’s very important.

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