Welcome to the 91st instalment of the new Leave Your Spandex @t the Door! It’s a special occasion as we return from a month-long slumber (more on that next week), and kicking off a new series of exclusive Nexus interviews with favourite creators!
There is no better choice to start of this new wave than the Nexus’ favourite writer: Mike Carey!
Mike has been rising in popularity with huge leaps the past 2 years; after wrapping up his epic 75-issue run on Vertigo’s LUCIFER and a 3-year run on Hellblazer, he moved on to Marvel for short stints on their Ultimate properties and limited series. In the past few months he has become one of the industry’s busiest and most prolific writer with his new status as regular writer on Marvel’s flagship X-Men series, Ultimate Fantastic Four, Ultimate Vision, as well as Wildstorm’s Wetworks revival and ‘The Devil You Know’, the first in a series of new prose novels starring Felix Castor.
We got together with Mike to learn about his newest ongoing series for Vertigo, Crossing Midnight which debuts next week!
The solicitation for the first issue reads:
Written by Mike Carey; Art by Jim Fern and Rob Hunter; Cover by J.H. Williams III
Set in contemporary Nagasaki, CROSSING MIDNIGHT taps into Japanese and Korean horror to mix the mythology of The Sandman with the fantasy of films like Hayao’s Miyazaki’s Princess Mononoke and Spirited Away. Together, Mike Carey and Jim Fern come up with flights of fantasy tethered to a reality where children are stolen, innocence corrupted, and where two teenagers will have to stare down bizarre beings capable of very visceral terrors.
But let’s hear it from the lion’s mouth:
Manolis: Can you introduce the readers to the world of Crossing Midnight?
Mike: Sure. This is a series set partly in modern Japan, and partly in a sort of spirit world which echoes Japanese folk beliefs. The “Crossing” of the title is a broad hint that the points of transition between the spirit world and our own world are a central focus of the book. Our two protagonists – the twins, Toshi and Kaikou Hara – are linked to the spirit world in ways that unfold gradually through the first few arcs, and one of them in particular has a strong affinity with that world which shapes her life.
Manolis: How are the twins different from each other?
Mike: Toshi, the female twin, has a number of strange experiences as she’s growing up that mark her out as different from the people around her. One of them is that knives and sharp objects refuse to harm her: they’ll bend or shatter rather than graze her skin. Kai, her brother, seems by contrast completely normal. But if you look closely you’ll see clues to a different sort of strangeness or uniqueness in him. It’s harder to spot, but it’s there.
Manolis: What is the curse they bear?
Mike: To begin with, it’s a promise made on their behalf, unwittingly, by someone very close to them – a bargain with unseen powers that gets called in unexpectedly. But in fact the curse, or the specialness of the Haras, goes back further than that and spreads wider. There are progressive revelations.
Manolis: Is this a new ongoing series or a mini?
Mike: It’s ongoing.
Manolis: What happens in the first issue/storyline?
Mike: The first arc takes the twins from their birth up to a crucial moment in their teens when their weird heritage begins to manifest itself in ways that can’t be ignored – and when they meet the kami of the knives, Aratsu, for the first time. It’s kind of an Eastern take on the classic “bargain with the devil” scenario, with the twins trying to get out of a situation that someone else’s imprudence or naivety has put them in, and coming up against entities and agencies that they didn’t even know existed.
Manolis: The adversary they face in the first issue is Aratsu, the Kami of Knives. Where did you first run into the mythology of the Kamis?
Mike: You know, I can’t even remember now where I heard the term first. It was probably either in a manga book or on a website like Encyclopaedia Mythica. I was already vaguely aware about the strain of animism that runs through Japanese folklore, and I thought it was pretty cool. We have it too, of course. It’s what Wordsworth rambles on about in The Prelude: “You presences of nature, in the sky and on the Earth. You visions of the hills and souls of lonely places.” But the Japanese idea is more democratic than that: an old boot or a chair or a lug wrench can have a spirit inhabiting it just as easily as a waterfall or a mountain can.
Manolis: Why has this Kami taken a specific interest in these twins?
Mike: That would be telling. But there’s a good reason why it all comes down to knives, swords, scalpels, scissors – things with edges or points.
Manolis: You have twins yourself. Any special powers that we should know of?
Mike: Oh, you know, the usual. Telepathy. Clairvoyance. The power to be twice as expensive as one kid”¦
Manolis: You have chosen Nagasaki as the backdrop for this story, describing it as the gate between now and nowhere. How has the important legacy of the city shaped its current ambiance. How does this play into the events that unfold in the series?
Mike: Nagasaki is an amazing place – although I should confess right up front that I say that without ever having been there. It was the first open port in Japan, allowing Dutch ships to dock and trade at a time when the rest of Japan refused any converse with the outside world. Later it became the first city to allow Europeans to live within its limits, and the first to permit the building of a Christian church. That cosmopolitan legacy is something that modern residents are very proud of: it’s an important part of their identity.
But of course it was also the city where Fat Man, the second and larger of the two atomic weapons dropped on Japan, fell. It wasn’t meant to be: the original target was Kokura, but weather conditions weren’t favourable so they fell back on the secondary target, Nagasaki. There’s a sense in which this is all relevant, but not in any direct or plot-related way. It’s psychological background, as Kai Hara explains in the first issue: this is a city where granite was once vapourised into steam. Living there, you feel differently about certain things than most people do. Kai argues that his own and Toshi’s story would have had a different outcome anywhere else in the world – but he’s not exactly an impartial observer. You have to reach your own conclusions.
Manolis: Looking back at your body of work at Vertigo, each story you have written has centered around a different core emotion or idea. What is Crossing Midnight about, at its heart?
Mike: Well, people who’ve read Lucifer won’t be surprised at how important the idea of family is in Crossing Midnight. But if there’s a single informing idea it’s the idea of boundaries and things that straddle them.
Manolis: Do you have a finite ending in your mind, and if so how many issues have you planned for the series?
Mike: It will have a finite ending. I’d love for it to run to about sixty issues: that would allow us to do pretty much everything we want to do with the characters and the concepts. But it will have to find its audience, of course.
Manolis: The solicitations mention Japanese and Korean horror movies, as well as Miyazaki. In what way have these genres influenced the feel of the book compared to your other work?
Mike: This book is a very strange fusion of genres. There are parts that are quite lyrical fantasy, and there are parts that are really nasty, unsettling horror. It’s very Japanese in its willingness to go wherever the hell it likes – and of course, it’s another example of crossing lines.
Manolis: Who are your favourite creators and directors from these genres?
Mike: Well there aren’t going to be any surprises here. In horror manga I love – worship – prostrate myself before – Junji Ito. He’s one of the greatest horror writers practising today, and I’d point to Uzumaki as the proof. I also like some of the Hideshi Hino books very much, particularly The Red Snake. Saki Okuse deals with fascinating issues – sex and suicide and psychic investigation, often all in the same story.
In horror movies, I’d probably say Ji-Woon Kim, Chan-Wook Park, Takeshi Miike, Fruit Chan – people like that. Oh, and Hideo Nakata, of course, although I’m one of the people who enjoyed the US version of The Ring more than the original. Bizarre. I feel exactly the opposite about Ju-On.
Manolis: How did Jim Fern become involved in the title?
Mike: He was the first person we approached as penciller. We were looking for someone with a very vivid, fully rendered style, for reasons that should become apparent after the first few issues, and the work that he’d been doing on his Fables fill-ins was superb. He just seemed absolutely right for the job.
Manolis: From the preview pages, it’s evident he’s using a different, more realistic, style than his previous Vertigo work. Did you work with Jim to develop the specific appearances and feel of the series?
Mike: Up to a point. Obviously we talked about the feel we wanted, and I had a lot of input into the character designs as we fleshed them out. But no, really, Jim came up with this look by himself based on my very vague and probably spectacularly unhelpful description of how I wanted the book to feel when you’re reading it. An extremely realistic style was one of the desiderata, but the way Jim has realised the settings – both real and fantastic – has been really exciting to watch.
Manolis: J.H. Williams III is providing the covers for the series. The three covers released so far are clearly his best work to date. Do you talk with J.H. to decide what goes on each cover and what elements are included/hinted on them?
Mike: They’re stupendous, aren’t they? I was so happy when Karen told me she’d approached him. Yeah, we talk about what’s going to be in each issue and we discuss possible themes. Then he goes away and runs up another masterpiece. Ho hum.
Manolis: Between writing three different superhero comics for Marvel, special events, a Vertigo title, a Hollywood movie, and the Felix Castor novels, I’m impressed with how you always find time to answer your fans and do these interviews. What is your daily schedule like?
Mike: It’s murder. Looking at how many projects I’ve got on, you might assume I was efficient or something, but I faff around and look out of the window, do killer sudokus, make cups of coffee as an excuse not to work. Then I end up still typing away at one in the morning. Gaaah. I’m my own worst enemy.
Manolis: Do you prefer to write chunks of issues for each series at a time, or handle an issue of each series on rotation?
Mike: The second. I need to have the break after each issue, go on to something else and then come back. I’m not sure why. There’s obviously an argument for staying on the same wavelength, so you don’t have to think yourself back in to the story again, but then again that thinking yourself back into the story can be very fruitful. You don’t always end up where you expected to be.
Manolis: How is your life and the way you work different now than it was two years ago?
Mike: Life is a lot fuller now. More projects, overlapping in more complicated ways. It means I have to be a bit more flexible and organised in how I budget my time. Apart from that I’m just slogging away the same as before. It does seem like more people are noticing now, though”¦
Manolis: Thank you for your time and the answers Mike!
CROSSING MIDNIGHT goes on sale Wednesday 29th of November from Vertigo Comics, by Mike Carey and Jim Fern.
I’m waiting your comments and feedback through email to Manolis@gmail.com. You can comment and discuss this article by clicking the link below.
Manolis Vamvounis
a.k.a. Dr. Dooplove
