Interview
Detail from the cover of The Boys volume 1. Artwork by series co-creator Darick Robertson. (Published by Dynamite Entertainment. Used with permission.)
GARTH ENNIS ON GENRE & CENSORSHIP Garth Ennis has a long history of boundary-pushing work in comics. He’s never been one to stifle his creative output, producing some of the most entertaining and subversively complex work in the medium. He’s the co-creator of the acclaimed and enduring Preacher series, and known for his groundbreaking run on Punisher, his irreverent look at superheroes in Hitman and The Boys, and his detailed exploration of war in the Battlefields series. Earlier this year, Ennis took a moment to talk to CBLDF about genre comics, controversy, and censorship. You’ve written comics in several genres—sci-fi, horror, war, superhero. Which genre do you like best and why? War, by far. Because of its basis in reality—which, I think, has a power that renders fantasy almost irrelevant. There’s more drama than in any other genre to begin with, but knowing that the stories are based on things that actually happened, which people actually did and that had an actual effect on our world, is something I find endlessly fascinating. What are some ways in which some of your characters would respond to the current political climate around the world? Tommy Monaghan would have another beer. Jesse Custer would curse losing the Word of God at the end of his story. Kev Hawkins would pat his tiger and hope none of it would impact on him in any way whatsoever. Rover, Red, and Charlie would claim to be dogs. Billy Butcher would laugh quietly to himself as he watched the international cauldron bubble—and start planning.
Interview by Betsy Gomez 6 | CBLDF Defender | Winter 2016 | cbldf.org