ORBzine Garth Ennis Interview October 2000

There'll probably never be a Preacher movie: we got no further with it than a script, some good intentions and a lot of groundless speculation. Probably for the best, when you consider what a balls they'd almost certainly make of it.

• Kevin Dogma Smith's name has been linked to the project. I would suggest Ben Affleck to be cast as Jesse Custer - any comments?

Ben Affleck's a good choice. Also Johnny Depp, Billy Crudup, maybe Jim Cavaziel.

Cassidy's southern because I thought a Dublin vampire would be funny, and I wanted to do the Easter Rising. Tommy's an America, born and bred, but the Free State comes from my own experience of cold, dreary little border towns and my interest in siege mentality/Presbyterian ethics.

My early stuff has the occasional positive Protestant character, Troubled Souls and so on. Cassidy's half-Prod himself, come to think of it.

At the minute it's half + half. I'm doing Punisher and Hulk at the same time as some creator owned/generated stuff - like Pilgrim, another Rifle Brigade miniseries, and four new self-contained WW2 stories.

As far as Punisher goes, it's easy, it's fun, it pays well and I get to work with good people, both creatively and editorially. Nice work if you can get it.

I saw True Faith as more about religion and faith than atheism - all the characters believed in something, even if it was only the other characters + the hold they had over them.

Religion continues to fascinate me, as in the forthcoming Pilgrim.

Prayer.

On the other hand, the success of Brian Azzarello - coming from nowhere to write two ongoing books on his terms - proves it can still be done. Some hints:

• Attend Conventions, get to know Editors, get an idea of what they're after.
• Be succinct: no Editors like sploughing through the submissions pile, so make it easy for them. Submit, say, ten great Batman ideas summed up in 3-4 line paragraphs. Less hassle for you, less for ye Ed too.
• Pick your targets: Brian notwithstanding, you're not going to come out of nowhere and be given J.L.A. to write. But D.C.'s 80-page giants, or Batman Chronicles, or the Vertigo anthologies - all these are good places for a beginner to slip in a nifty little 8-pager and get noticed fast. A helpful tip: Vertigo's next anthology is Weird Western Tales. Ten f*cked-up Western ideas, 3-4 lines each, 8 pages max. Off you go ...