Like a Painting Come to Life

Since most of the comics that have been adapted into films are of the superhero variety, it is refreshing to see a comic adapted which deals with mature themes such as politics and terrorism in a way that is relevant to the world’s current political climate, even though the book was written over twenty years ago. The comic is the excellent V For Vendetta written by the medium’s most acclaimed author, Alan Moore. However, the beauty of comix is the wonderful synthesis of prose and pictures. Without the talented artwork of David Lloyd the story of the anarchist V and his fight against a fascist government would not be as effective. Speaking over the phone from his home in England, Lloyd was kind enough to stay up late to reveal the anarchist origins of V For Vendetta and discuss the film version by the creators of the Matrix trilogy.

Years back, when I first read V for Vendetta I didn’t realize V’s appearance was inspired by Guy Fawkes. How is it that Fawkes became an inspiration for the character?
Originally, when we created the character, the brief from the editor was to create a masked vigilante. He wanted a similar sort of character as one that I had done for him before, this character called Night Raven, a crime fighter in prohibition America. He said “Can you do something like a masked vigilante character and you can write and draw it.” I didn’t really feel up to writing it at the time. I was working with Alan on some other strips, so we got together and came up with the character V. Originally, I had the idea that he might be a member of the police force who was rebelling against this government regime, but Alan wanted something that was more theatrical. So, the idea of this saboteur and connecting it with something theatrical…Guy Fawkes seemed like a natural choice. He was one of the early anarchists. The whole point of the Gunpowder Plot [an assassination plot attempted by Fawkes and others] was that they were going to try to disrupt the regime at the time so that they could create chaos from which to form a new order. That fitted in with what Alan’s idea for this character would be. For the theatricality of it, I thought it would be a great idea if we actually adopted the persona of this historical character. Every November 5th, households used to build a little [Guy Fawkes] dummy that they would put on top of a bonfire. This time of year, as well as selling fireworks in the stores, they sold Guy Fawkes masks. But at the time we created this strip it was the middle of summer and I couldn’t get a Guy Fawkes mask anywhere. But, I remembered enough about the mask to create a kind of duplicate. These masks they had a very wild look, like they were grinning. It comes from the classic moustache, but they look kind of weird. So I thought I would create this mask with a smile on it. Of course, the smile turned out to be a happy accident. It gives the mask a spooky, bizarre look and that’s how Guy Fawkes turned out to be connected to this character.

Given these post 9/11 times and the current war on terror, how do you think the anarchist elements in the movie will be received, especially in America?
Well, that will be very interesting to see. To be honest I never thought that V would ever be made into a movie after 9/11 because it’s about a terrorist who blows up buildings to make a point. The movie is very strong politically. There is relevance to 9/11 in the film. It’s different from the original, it has all the core sequences and all the things that happen in the book, but a lot of characters have been taken out, a lot of characters have been transformed, so the central core has more power. The political message within it is just as strong as the original, but it’s actually tuned in more towards the American sensibility. I was very pleased with it. I must say, I had misgivings before I saw it, because I read the script; it was different but it was still great. But a script is always different from the movie. I was hoping the strengths of the script would transfer to the film and they have. I was very pleased with it. The performances are great. Natalie Portman [Evey] is terrific and Hugo Weaving [V] is very charismatic in the part. All those scenes that I created, seeing them actually come to life on film is just incredible. It’s like seeing a painting come to life. They’ve really done a great job on it. The photography is great. They’ve captured the whole mood and atmosphere of it. So, I’m terrifically pleased with it.

Did you have any direct involvement with the film?
Before they began shooting, they did send me the scripts. When I spoke to Larry and Andy Wachowski, I said “Do you mind if I make some suggestions?” They said that’s fine, and I did make a few suggestions. I basically told them what I thought about it. My observations were very objective. I was just looking at it and seeing what I thought would help the clarity of the scripts, so it was nothing major that I suggested.

When you and Alan Moore were creating V for Vendetta, you suggested abstaining from sound effects and thought balloons, did you have sort of a cinematic idea for the look of the story?
Yeah, it was that and I’ve always been concerned in getting people who don’t usually read comics to read comics. A lot of the traditional language of comics, all the “WHAM,” “POW” and “ZAP” stuff, it just puts people off. It’s a kind of blunt language that really denies any possibility of communicating any ideas in a sophisticated manner. I always thought if you got rid of some of those things that were liable to put people off, then you had more of a chance of capturing an audience and we actually did that. It did work. That’s the reason I wanted to do it all in rectangles, too, and not play with flashy layouts because people, especially people not usually attracted to comics, like a simple language that they’re familiar with. Of course, there is also a connection with TV and movies because they’re all in rectangles and also newspaper strips. A lot of people who would never pick up a comic book read newspaper strips, so I thought let’s do it this way and see if we can avoid all the common clichés of comics. It did work. We ended up getting a lot of people who didn’t normally read comics to read them.

V for Vendetta is probably your most well known work, but of which of your books are you most proud?
I guess it has to be V because it’s a good story, and it means something. I’ve done a lot of things and I’ve worked with a lot of good writers but you rarely get the opportunity to do something that has so many elements in it and is something you have control over. That was the first thing I had done in my career that I had total control over because the magazine that commissioned it gave us very little money, and had no money, so what we had as a bonus was the fact that we had complete control over it. We were completely free to do what we wanted to do and that was important to me. The closest I’ve come to that recently was this police thriller I’ve done called Kickback. I did that under complete creative freedom. I started off with my rough script and a lot of it I made up as I went along. It was like painting a picture for me which was incredibly good.

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