When I think about Paul Chadwick, I think about CONCRETE, a book that I consider one of my “desert island” reads. (Keep your eyes open in this space for a further exploration of that concept within the next few weeks.) CONCRETE is the story of a man whose life takes a dramatic turn, when through horrific circumstance, he finds his brain taken from his body and placed in a one made of stone. From there, an exploration of his humanity truly begins. No matter how many times I go back and read entries in this illustrious series, I find that I get something new out of it, a hidden character gem or small piece of artwork that opens my eyes to a new interpretation of a scene. Now he's been kind enough to sit down with us at the Shoot and talk about his career, his creations, and his future.

MM: Paul, thanks for joining us at the Shoot. Your early career got off to an interesting start. You had the opportunity to work with the legendary Archie Goodwin on a mainstream superhero title: DAZZLER. What was the experience of working with Archie Goodwin like?

PC: It was quite wonderful, occasionally painful (nothing to do with Archie), and I fear I was too young to appreciate my good fortune. Archie worked in his usual way, making small thumbnail sketches of the pages. I chafed; I was hot to do all sorts of outré layouts and establish myself as a sizzling stylist. I should have stuck to his layouts (and understood the storytelling logic they exhibited) and concentrated on refining my drawing, which was weak.

The pain lay in being inked. Jackson Guice (whose solo work is quite fine) buried my pencils, I felt, and Romeo Tanghal phoned it in. When I finally, on my last issue, got the chance to ink my own cover, I produced the best thing I'd done up to that point. But it's still unpublished. They decided they needed guest-star the Beast depicted, and had Bill Sienkiewicz redraw it. Then the book was cancelled, to free up capacity for Shooter's "New Universe" roster of titles.

But I treasure the meals and conversations I shared with Archie, who was as wise, gentle and funny as everybody says. And I think I may have learned a little about story construction from him.

MM: How do you feel now when you look back and realize that you drew a comic that featured Dazzler and The Beyonder fighting super-powered motorcyclists? Are you able to get a good laugh out of it and chalk it up to experience?

PC: Archie hated the Beyonder. "I have difficulty with omnipotent characters," he said. No kidding! How do you build a story around someone who can solve any difficulty with a hand wave? I hated him, too; I wasn't provided with reference, so every one of my Beyonder heads was replaced with one by John Romita, which I felt were on the pretty-boy side. I barely remember those motorcycle mutants, or whatever they were. Guess I have done my share of kitsch, between that and SALIMBA.

MM: You moved on from there and started getting into the black and white arena. At what point did CONCRETE start taking form in your head? You didn’t begin the series right away, but I’m guessing that the character must have been gestating for quite some time, as the story and concept came out unusually fully developed.

PC: I developed my Concrete ideas in a sketchbook. I carried it everywhere. To my horror, I left it in the studio audience seating of the JEOPARDY! quiz show, when my girlfriend was a contestant. I never got it back. She lost. Man, we were depressed.

I tried to sell it in '83, and failed. I kept working on it. I finally sold it in '85, actually being able to choose between eight offers. It really counts if you complete some issues and the concept is fully developed.

MM: So pretty soon, you find yourself at this fledgling indy comic company run by a very tall man. Dark Horse joins the scene, and to this day, your name is still pretty synonymous with the company. How did you wind up affiliated with them?

PC: Believe it or not, a lot of Dark Horse people were in a fan organization (an amateur press alliance, in which we traded our fanzines each month), Apa-5. Mark Verheiden founded it. Chris Warner was a charter member. Frank Miller, Randy Stradley, Mike Richardson and I joined later. It still exists, has a Web site and everything.

But the bottom line was that Mike matched Marvel's offer, and just wanted it more. Being appreciated matters. I almost went with Marvel/Epic (Archie would've been my editor), but I thank my stars I didn't, and not just because the Epic imprint no longer exists. Dark Horse has been wonderful to me.

MM: DARK HORSE PRESENTS is, to this day, one of the finest anthology comics ever produced. In those early days we were getting a lot of work from you, John Arcudi, Anina Bennett and Paul Guinan, Chris Warner, and others. Take us back there. What was it like working with Dark Horse in their early years? What was it like working with some of those creators?

PC: Damn that Chris. Knocked me off the front cover of DHP #1 (I jest; we're pals, and he's editor of the CONCRETE reprint volumes)!

It was a blast. We were young and ambitious and talented, and that's always a great milieu. I remember congregating in a hotel room in San Diego for the con, drawing and gossiping and joking. Crises would hit: a whole issue of BORIS THE BEAR art was stolen. GODZILLA came in from the printer just in time for the con, only the black plate was reversed out, so what should have been black lines on white spaces were white lines on black. Had to be pulped. Later, Frank Miller's SIN CITY: THAT YELLOW BASTARD was printed… only the Bastard was green. Again, pulped.

Mike was, and is, very dynamic. He cracked Hollywood, which ain't easy. A man with a score of enthusiasms and a thousand plans. Randy Stradley, whose phlegmatic, cynical streak is a yard wide, is his perfect compliment: forever rolling his eyes and, miraculously, doing all the things necessary to get projects to press on time. Mike is earnest and upbeat, Randy pessimistic and witty.

I've lost track of Arcudi. He wrote a lot of great, gritty stories. How painful it must've been to have his title HOMICIDE taken by a successful TV series. Paul and Anina, I just saw a couple of months ago, still going strong with their new HEARTBREAKERS MEET BOILERPLATE graphic novel [from IDW Publishing, out now!--ye mother-plugging Ed.].

Randy Emberlin is also a friend. He and his family have stayed with us. He was drawn into what you might call premature success; got longstanding, lucrative inking gigs at Marvel and elsewhere that kept him from developing a rep as a penciler and storyteller. I wish we could've kept him around at Dark Horse just a little longer. He is, as far as I know, the only artist of our generation with a notable Ditko influence.

MM: Was their commitment to creators’ rights a strong factor in drawing you in?

PC: Sure. They were right out in front with that. It's hard to believe, in retrospect, how different a world it was. I remember being startled by seeing that RONIN was copyright "Frank Miller, Inc." and having it explained to me that yes, he got the copyright, but that Frank was still compelled to sign a contract granting DC all rights, basically, in perpetuity. Obviously, things have changed since then.

MM: So, five years in, and Dark Horse adds a couple of new names to the creator roster: Frank Miller and Dave Gibbons. Soon enough, guys like John Byrne and Mike Mignola are launching creator-owned concepts at Dark Horse. Tell us about the “Legend” imprint. Was it a successful brand that simply lost its output? Or was it an idea that never really found its footing?

PC: “Legend” was a bunch of guys who would starve to death before agreeing on what to order at a Chinese restaurant. But I can't say it wasn't successful. It got publicity and the books sold. CONCRETE never sold so well (though there was quite a boom on during that time, generally, so it's impossible to tease out what caused good sales). “Legend” died from bickering and neglect. We were lone eagles, trying to fly in a flock. Doesn't work, not if you're spread across the country. Things like that have to have geographic closeness, and a leader. We were a committee without a chairman.

MM: CONCRETE was, as I mentioned above, quite well-formed when it first came out. Here was the story of a man trapped in this stone body, and he wasn’t a superhero. Instead, he was a tool for you to explore the greater human condition. Yet, he was never as successful in those explorations as he’d have liked to be. Whether it was mountain climbing or bodyguarding for an obnoxious rock star, there was always an emphasis on the emotional vulnerability of the stone man. Can you talk a bit about some of the early stories and where your thought process was as you wrote them?

PC: All I knew was that pain and trouble were what stories were about, not effectiveness and glory. And I have always been strongly attracted to the comedy of social embarrassment. One surefire scene, used over and over in films and television, is the embarrassing meal in a restaurant. Always works.

Naturally, my clumsiness and lack of ease in the world were factors. And I am a sensitive chap.

MM: My personal favorite at the time (and even still) was Concrete and Larry’s summer spent working on a farm to help a family whose patriarch had disappeared. It felt to me like you had really found the characters and the series final direction in that issue. Suddenly, the stories revolved around exploring quieter aspects of humanity. Was that story a conscious shift, or was that a happy accident?

PC: I was learning my craft. Each issue held a great sense of discovery for me. It seemed there was far too much to learn, manage. My farming experience was limited to two days bucking hay, the hardest I've ever worked. I researched a bit, but really, I had no idea of what farming entails. But I was getting more comfortable with my characters. Eventually, you know them well enough that writing them is second nature.

MM: Eventually, you took the series into the mini-series format and began telling longer-form tales. This seemed to allow you to get back to focusing on the greater human condition a bit, along with telling those intimate personal stories. KILLER SMILE was about gun control, but also about Larry’s inability to get his life together. THINK LIKE A MOUNTAIN focused on monkeywrenching, but also got into the minutia of Concrete’s commitment to the environment and his dawning mission to try and do something for the world. THE HUMAN DILEMMA deals with population control, but also focuses on the sex lives of the cast and the consequences they must face for their actions.

You’re obviously someone who has a lot in common with his lead character; the letters pages and essays that appeared in THINK LIKE A MOUNTAIN were staggering. You clearly do a TON of research. And you also put yourself out there for people to take shots at. Were you hesitant to go this direction? Did you wonder at any time if maybe you were going to frighten people away from your work? Or did you just decide to go full speed ahead, damn the consequences?

PC: Oddly, I felt less pressure when I was younger. I haven't sent CONCRETE: THE HUMAN DILEMMA to my Republican friends and family, unlike my earlier work. It would just vex them, which is pointless.

But that's more the result of the times. This President and this war have divided the country like no other. It's staggering the way he's turned it around from the unity and goodwill of the days after 9/11. Had he not used that for partisan electoral advantage, and to start this war for oil-patch hegemony, we'd have a remarkably unified country and world. Because everybody was on board after 9/11. People were ready to sacrifice, compromise, to get the job done. Now, the hatred toward America is white-hot, and the polity riven. What a bumbler. What a tragedy.

MM: On the subject of the latest series, THE HUMAN DILEMMA, I suspect I wasn’t the only longtime fan whose jaw was left on the floor at the “sex scene” between Concrete and the longtime love of his life, Maureen. For Maureen to find a way to create intimacy with Ron, knowing that he’s loved her from afar since she began helping him take care of his body… it was a stunning acknowledgement of his feelings, one she’s never made before. And without spoiling anything, the resulting consequences have opened up some very broad avenues for the future of the character. That leads to multiple questions: new CONCRETE stories tend to appear about as often as a new Peter Gabriel or Nine Inch Nails album. Do you have a scheduled idea for when you’ll pick the story back up?

PC: Scheduled? Are you kidding? Me? What I have are fat files of story outlines, ideas, sketches. No schedule. But I'll definitely be back sooner than the six years this one took. I got in a financial bind, and had to scramble for more lucrative work. Things have improved considerably, and I want very much to do many, many more Concrete stories.

The first will probably be STARS OVER SAND, which I've announced earlier. A lot of preliminary work on it is done. It will need a little revision, though, due to pediatric developments.

MM: In asking that, I’m aware of your current undertaking and it’s toll on your schedule. You’re heavily involved in creating the MATRIX ONLINE game, which could involve a five-year commitment on your part. You were also a contributor to the earliest MATRIX comics efforts. How did you get involved with the Wachowski brothers’ universe? And what made you want to stay?

PC: I learned recently, when the game was sold to Sony, that long-term career planning is an oxymoron in the game biz. They had people doing what much of our team did, so only half of us moved with the game. I made the cut, but the future is a vast unknown. I'm keeping up my contacts in the comics business.

Which was how I got involved in the first place. My friend Geof Darrow, who designed much of the bizarre tech in the MATRIX films, called before the first one was released to ask if I'd like to do a story for the Matrix website. The plan was to keep the fanbase fed between films. I did, and the brothers liked it, and two more I did later, leading them to invite me into the Matrix Online game.

I love the game and want to see it thrive and tell a complicated story over a period of years. It really can absorb as much writing as I care to throw at it, since it runs 24/7. Not everything is acted out -- we do some things off-screen -- but a city full of plots and factions and strange human-shaped programs lends plenty of scope for story.

MM: A few years ago, you put out a second creator-owned series through Dark Horse, THE WORLD BELOW. New characters, new settings, but it didn’t find the audience it deserved. It was a darker, scarier Paul Chadwick than we’d seen before, far away from CONCRETE’S positive and optimistic approach. How did WORLD BELOW’S fate affect you and your feelings about comics? Were you put off by the lack of response to the work? I remember reading the final issue, and it was so relentlessly grim in how it wrapped up the characters' fates that I worried you were going to walk away from comics, period.

PC: Yeah, I sure got all European with that ending, didn't I? I guess I'd built up a lot of expectations that I'd be able to do that series for years and years, in my own mind. Best laid plans.

In all truth, I'm a more melancholy chap than I might appear. I love Thomas Ligotti's neurotic horror tales, and soft-focus, nocturnal Symbolist paintings. Gloom is my default state. But I do love to laugh, too, so I guess CONCRETE is an aspect of my desire to amuse myself.

MM: Now that some time has passed, do you think that the work might find an audience if it was collected and put out there as whole? Is that in the realm of possibility?

PC: Say no more. WORLD BELOW will be released in the next few months in an edition uniform with some CONCRETE reprints we're also bringing out.

MM: You also went in another direction in the late '90s and did some work where you were solely the writer. What was the experience of working with John Bolton like on GIFTS OF THE NIGHT?

PC: Very gratifying, though I'm sad they never collected the series on this side of the pond (there were a couple of European editions). John's a gentleman and a terrific painter. Still haven't seen that odd little film Neil Gaiman made about him.

I wrote the book with printed-sized roughs, just like I do CONCRETE, and John followed my compositions pretty closely, except when he had a better idea (like the visualization of plague upon the land; I'd just stolen Arnold Bocklin's famous painting of same).

MM: You’ve popped up here and there over the last few years doing some fill-in work in mainstream comics again. DEADPOOL. Y THE LAST MAN. Was it interesting to step back into the shoes of a hired gun again for a while?

PC: I needed the dough and was glad for the gigs. DEADPOOL writer Jimmy Palmiotti's a friend, and Brian Vaughan is the only person who's ever told me I was an influence on them, creatively, which is nice because he's well on his way to deserved stardom.

My DEADPOOL run was distinguished by the worst coloring job I've seen, all dark intensities screaming at each other. I tried to meet Pia's (Guerra) pencilling style halfway in YTLM, since it's really her book, and I was just subbing to give her some catch-up time.

MM: The idea of making a CONCRETE film has been around for over a decade now, with various stops and starts. Take us through some of the obstacles you’ve faced along the way and the current status of the property. Do you think there will ever be a film made? Or are you content, knowing that you’ve put the work out there, and that’s enough?

PC: I've worked in film and would like one made very much. It seems increasingly likely, as digital effects become cheaper. But the onus on me is to keep the character alive until somebody with the passion and juice in Hollywood can make it happen. We've come awfully close, with the Peter Jackson/Fran Walsh script, but so far no cigar. It's in turnaround at Disney, and Mike Richardson is pursuing various schemes. I swear, getting a movie made is like planning an Everest expedition. A million different things can kill you, from the grand to the mundane.

MM: On the subject of film, you’ve done some storyboarding work, and it influenced at least one Concrete story, FRAGILE CREATURE. I’m sure your comics stuff influenced the storyboarding plenty, but has the influence moved back the other direction? Have you discovered techniques in storyboarding that now shape your comics?

PC: That's hard to say. The drawing mileage helped. The "held shot" where you see, from a static angle, something change compellingly, is a favorite of mine. I also have a fondness for horizontal panels, and distaste for vertical ones, since I think film screen proportions are natural to our field of vision.

MM: You had some health problems a few years back. Did that alter your vision for your future work? Has it changed the way you choose what to do with your creative energies?

PC: It wasn't me, actually. Someone in my family. It just tore away, a little earlier than is usual in life, the sense of safety and normalcy. Fact is, death or debilitating injury is one car wreck away. If it focused me with burning creative energy, I haven't noticed. It just gave me more real-life matters to cope with (the medical merry-go-round, for one).

MM: As you look back on the last twenty years and the work you’ve done, what sticks out to you the most? Is there a particular triumph that means more to you? A story you’re most proud of? A dark moment you wish you could forget or bury?

PC: Man, you ask the hardballs. THINK LIKE A MOUNTAIN is a high point. So to speak. I deeply regret not continuing CONCRETE more steadily after its initial success, perhaps with help. Jeff (BONE) Smith did it right, and I did it wrong. But you can't change the past.

MM: One of the more amusing things I saw at San Diego a couple of years ago was that you kept a sign on your table that was basically an FAQ about CONCRETE’s future, the status of the film, and when the next series would appear. I imagine that you’ve probably had more than your fair share of odd con experiences with people craving your work. How strange has it gotten? Or do you find that you attract a relatively normal crowd?

PC: My readers are all nice people. It's the ones unfamiliar with me who just want an artist, any artist, to sketch their particular obsession that throws me off. That girl with utterly convincing vampire fangs -- what did she want, a horse, or something? -- can't get her out of my mind. No, comics folk are generally smart, a bit shy, and basically kind. The FAQs are just a convenience, freeing me, mainly, from a pity party about that elusive flick. But Mike Richardson called me yesterday with a plan to shake the trees a little harder, so you never know.

Brand-new reprints of the CONCRETE stories, starting at the beginning, begin arriving in comic shops and bookstores later this month. Do yourself a favor and treat yourself to some of the best that comics have to offer. You’ll be glad you did. Thanks very much to Paul Chadwick for his time and to Dark Horse’s Lee Dawson for his gracious help in getting Paul and I together.

See you in seven.

Review materials may be sent to: Marc Mason, P.O. Box 26732, Tempe, AZ 85285. You can also find me at Happy Nonsense and The Comics Waiting Room

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