Artist David Lloyd on V for Vendetta, the Movie & Disagreeing w/Alan Moore (interview)

[@RickswanProductions]

I transcribed this conversation: "We were telling a story about a very stark, bleak future. So what sort of style do you use? A stark, bleak art style. It was that simple, in one sense... but you need to have experience with those art styles that may be could be transposed to that form. So I was a big fan of an artist called Tony Weare who did a western newspaper strip called Matt Marriott where he used just light and shade. He didn't use any contour lines. And also I was aware of the work of one of the great American comic artists, Jim Steranko, who had done this really great crime noir book called Chandler where he had used, obviously bouncing off that 40's tradition of film noir, you know just shadow and light to tell the story, so with both those influences I thought 'well that's a great, that's the perfect thing to do to apply to Vendetta, and that's how we did that... In the early days of V for Vendetta when myself and Allen were doing it and we owned the copyright of it, we were happy to try and sell it as a movie. Around about '84, in the early days, we recognized the potential of it as a movie or a TV show because what actually inspired our idea of V was basically TV. TV shows and movies had initiated our desire to do something like V for Vendetta. So we thought it was a natural idea to turn it into a TV or film thing. Later on, of course we didn't own V, when we sold it to DC, we sold our copyright - happily - we had good contracts for it, or contracts we imagined were okay at the time. We didn't know how successful it was going to be, but we were very happy with making the deal with DC. Later on of course were the possibility of film projects that came up through Warner Brothers’ connection with DC. There was one screenplay that was written that was terrible - the very first one I saw - that was a disaster. And then there was another one from the Wachowski brothers that was very good and actually closer to the original than the original one turned out to be. I was very happy with the idea of V becoming a movie and I think what happened at the end of the day was that a very good movie was made - a good version of the original. It's not as good as the original, in an ideal world it would have been closer, but what they did with it was great. They added their own creative juices to the mix and produced a great movie and I was very happy with it as a good movie, and supported it all along the way when it came out. It's a wonderful vision of V - a cinematic vision of V - and for any faults it may have in combination with the original, it introduced a lot of people to V that may never have known about it, it introduced it to a massive audience - a worldwide audience - who never would have seen it despite the fact that V was very popular and globally published. Many more people saw it in a movie and went out and bought the book too, so I think it's been very beneficial to the original and maintains the idea of the original, the central core, which is the most important thing. Well I think they did a great job and I think that that's largely due to the fact of the cinematographer, Adrian Biddle. Sadly that was Adrian Biddle's last movie. He was a great photographer. He did Aliens, the second Aliens, he obviously understood what was required and produced a great vision of what was needed for that look, it does look very much like a grim kind of London, the kind of grim London I grew up in. and I was very familiar with and I think he did a great job. The last time I spoke with Allen in connection to the movie Joe Silver and Larry Wachowski asked me if I would phone and ask Allen if he would not take his name off the movie because he got very upset in the early days of the promotion of the movie and wanted to take his name off the movie. I thought that was a bad idea because however close to the original the movie was or not I thought it was important the foundation stone of its original foundation was on the credits. I said to Joel and Larry that I knew Allen well enough to know that when he makes up his mind about something you know, you can't really change it easily. But I wanted to do that favor for them so I called Allen about it and I couldn't change his mind about it which I kind of regret but Allen is his own man and is entitled to his own viewpoint... Everybody's entitled to change their mind. I can only tell you that in 1984 Allen didn't feel that way. Everybody's entitled to change their mind. My viewpoint is that as long as something is treated with respect and not abused then especially the initial, central idea of an idea, then there's no reason why you can't make a movie of it. I mean, David Lean made a movie of Great Expectations where he changed the ending, still a great movie. Blade Runner is absolutely, not much, or little relationship to do androids dream of electric sheep but it's still a great movie. Stanley Kubrick made the Shining which Steven King hated so much that he wanted to make his own TV version of it, but Stanley Kubrick's The Shining is still a great movie. You either have that flexible attitude or you don't and I think that a lot of Allen's work beforehand before V, From Hell and League of Extraordinary Gentlemen were in my opinion terrible, terrible films and had nothing to recommend them at all and in light of that experience perhaps that may have changed Allen's attitude. I don't know, I can only say from my viewpoint, which is as long as what is produced from the original has the core, the key of what was meant I'm happy with it, and of course if I was in control, one of my latest works, kickback a crime thriller in August I will get back the rights to owning that myself as a movie option and I will be in control of that and I will make sure that if there is any production made of that I will make sure that it is in line with what I want, and if you have control of something like that then you should use that control. With Vendetta I wasn't in control of it we didn’t have the copyright of it but I'm very glad that they did a good job with it. In an ideal world of course we want the best control of everything we create and with kickback I will try to do that myself - not only will I try to do that I will do that, because that's my need. I think with Vendetta, bearing in mind all of the things that could have happened in Hollywood, what we had was a great film and a very influential film that not only spread the essential message of V but also introduced people to the book. So for me it was a win-win situation."

[@HeroJournalism]

Was this section not showing up (or showing wrong words)? I've been trying to do my own subtitle submissions rather than relying on the automated one, but perhaps I missed this video.

[@RickswanProductions]

@@HeroJournalism Oh I'm not sure about the subtitles sir, I just transcribed it for the sake of a research paper I'm writing and thought it would be useful to share!

[@HeroJournalism]

@@RickswanProductions - sorry I forgot to reply to this - I remember seeing it and was curious about your research paper. Can you tell me about it? If my video helped in any way, I'm glad you found the video useful and interesting. I've got more on Alan Moore coming in the future and am curious what your work was. Thanks for watching!

[@Isoquant]

Huge fan of this man's artwork over the years. This is actually the first I've seen him speak.

[@HeroJournalism]

Hey, thank you for the comment - this video doesn't get many views, but really glad I could shine a little light on this under appreciated talent for the real fans that know. If you're interested, I have another video with more of that interview (link below). I'll admit, not my strongest work, it was an opportunity of happenstance and I wish I'd known more about his career at the time, but was really grateful to talk to him and share his comments. Thanks for watching, here's the other vid: kzbin.info/www/bejne/p56ppaaCeL-Eaas

[@HeroJournalism]

Re-uploaded at higher quality!

[@HeroJournalism]

Thanks @@Mr_Craftician - I'm jujst trying to keep up with your high standards of quality!

[@AdeBamforth]

One of the big differences between comics and film is that comics, by virtue of being drawn, always exists in its own universe (and the V universe is a lot more fantastical than its 'gritty' reputation suggests), while films basically have to be set in the real world with real physics - and very few films manage to escape this, even with huge budgets. In a comic, it's never questioned how a superhero can leap that far into the air or dodge a bullet. An example of this is how V lives: the 'shadow gallery' of the book, aided by Lloyd's noirish art, suggests an almost infinite space - it seems to reach into the darkness forever, which is a metaphor for the freedom in V's mind. On film, no matter how well V's underground lair is rendered, it always feels like he's in a confined space. And if he lives in tunnels, we have to explain how in the real world he survives and eats, hence the comedic sight of masked V in an apron at the cooker. These seemingly small changes have huge connotations in the story - in the book, V is 'completely free' and his mask is his 'true' face, while in the film it feels like he is the one in hiding, and the static mask is what he's hiding behind. Perhaps a more magical realism approach might have helped pull off the more profound stuff (though there are nods to this, for example the already killed Stephen Fry appearing at the end). But of course with movies you have to get hundreds of artists and investors to agree on a direction, not just a writer, artist, colourist and letterer.

[@kamdan2011]

“Real world and real physics” don’t apply to the Wachowskis.

[@airsir9559]

Well put.

[@MRF1983]

@HeroJournalism, I'm assuming this is the David Lloyd interview you were referencing to me. I absolutely agree with Mr. Lloyd's perspective on adaptations, as long as the core/ soul of the story and characters remain, I'm open to changes in the story. My frustration with modern comic adaptations into other mediums is that often some or all of the changes are made in service to the political ideology of the adaptor(s) and not interesting directions the adaptor(s) decided to take in service of the story. The fairly recent animated adaptation of Superman: Red Son is a good example of this to me. The change made to Bizzaro to make him a social commentary on American capitalism/ greed robbed him of his original poignant and inspiring portrayal. Like many versions of Bizzaro, Red Son's is a flawed clone of Superman, but still heroic. At the apex of their fight, when both Superman and Bizzaro become aware of the incoming nuke, Bizzaro uses his freeze vision to incapacitate Superman and sacrificially deal with the nuke. In the Red Son adaptation, he's just a cartoon American nutjob, which is how I imagine the people who made the change see their perceived ideological opponents. And then there's the whole "bat-cest" addition to the animated Killing Joke, which was just unnecessary.

[@HeroJournalism]

Agreed on Killing Joke! I interviewed Timm when that came out. You def got me curious about Red Son tho. I have some ideas I'm working on about comic adaptation theory, but others just on the film adaptation in general. I love being able to compare two works; read the comic or book, then see the movie and compare!

[@simonkane]

Brilliant

[@williampmcd8548]

1988

[@HeroJournalism]

I wasn't sure what you meant by your comment, but have come to think perhaps you were saying I should've noted 1988 in my thumbnail/title instead of 1984? If so, it's a good point - an adaptation wouldn't likely happen before the comic completed, but I realized I didn't really have a specific year to call out, and so I based the title/thumb off of Lloyd's comment that TV/movies were a part of their thinking since the creation of the idea, as it was in large part inspired by TV and movies that had influenced Lloyd and Moore. Thanks for watching, I've got more exclusive interviews with creators like John Romita, Gene Colan, and my newest is with Tom DeFalco on creating Spidey's most humiliating costume - the Bombastic Bag Man! kzbin.info/www/bejne/b3rYeI17ptaNeqs