Broken Frontier

After over three decades of writing popular comics like Justice League International and Spider-man, J.M. DeMatteis created created a new series of children's books called  Abadazad. J.M. met with Neil Figuracion to tell the tale of how this book came to be.

Part One: Somewhere, over the Expressway

BROKEN FRONTIER: What is it about Brooklyn that makes it so special to you?

J.M. DEMATTEIS: [Chuckles] I don't know if it's so much that Brooklyn is special, but I think that with anyone the place where you grow up is sort of what defines you. You know what I mean? I wouldn't in a million years want to live there again, but it's where all these fundamental, formative things happened. As I said during the panel, with Abadazad, I wanted to see a story, a fairy tale with a kid from Brooklyn. We never saw that with Alice in Wonderland... nowadays it's Harry Potter. [To] have some sort of urban reality in there.

So I don't know whether, while Brooklyn was an amazing place to grow up, I don't think it's any more amazing and wonderful than any place where someone else grew up.

BF: How did you discover the work of Arthur N. Pierson?

JMD: I have to say that the writing of those sequences, writing those sequences from the “original” books is one of my favorite parts of working on Abadazad.

BF: You write them in a sort of vintage (classic children's book) style...

JMD: Exactly! So I get to put my brain back a hundred years and sit down and write this book as if I was this guy writing the book back in 1898 or 1900. I would love to write one of the original Abadazad books – The entire thing! It would be an amazing thing!

BF: Do you think that's something we'll get to see?

JMD: I think for that to happen, Abadazad would have to really take off.

BF: How's it doing right now?

JMD: Pretty well. I think it's doing especially well in the comic book market and it has gotten a warm reception in the bookstores. I can't believe... We have to greatly plan this book through for the next stage of Abadazad and I'm very excited about it, but I can't get into it.
BF: Okay, so let's get into the beginning of Abadazad. Where and when did the idea come about?

JMD: It had a double genesis. The original idea came many, many years ago – maybe twenty years ago. I was working on a, basically a short story idea about a little girl living in a situation with an abusive parent, and who [meets] a little old lady living across the hall. But in this version, the little old lady was actually Dorothy from Oz. Dorothy gives her the silver shoes and that's how the girl saves her family puts on the silver shows and goes on to Oz.

I never really developed it, though. It was just like a three page outline. I put it aside. Years and years later I started working on the Abadazad idea. I loved the Oz books. I loved the Narnia books. I loved these magical worlds so much.  I don't think it was even conscious. Like “Oh yeah! I wrote that idea years ago!” So that little germ from back then came together with this idea and that became Abadazad. At some point I became obsessed with the idea of doing comics for kids.

BF: What period was that?

JMD: Probably we're talking mid '90s. Actually, The Stardust Kid, which Mike and I are doing with Boom, it was originally something I had sold to DC back in the '80s. I realized then in the market, the way it was in the post-Dark Knight world, no one was going to buy it and I actually bought it back and put it away all these years. And then in the mid '90s I was like “There need to be kids comics out there!”

BF: Where did the inspiration for the citizens of Abadazad come from? What kind of work did you do with Mike Ploog to design the characters?

JMD: The inspiration came from Oz, Wonderland, Neverland, Narnia... all the wonderful worlds in children's literature that have touched and amazed me (and my kids) for so many years. Of course inspiration is one thing, realization is another. As the characters developed, they truly came alive, becoming very singular, unique beings—not knockoffs of previously-existing creations. The single most amazing thing to me about writing Abadazad has been the
complete independence, and willfulness, of these characters. THEY'RE telling ME what to do.

As for Mike... in the very beginning I sent him detailed descriptions of the characters and he sent me sketches based on those descriptions. Sometimes he'd nail it on the first try, giving me exactly what I'd envisioned; sometimes he'd come back with something very different than what I saw and I'd love it; and sometimes I'd drive the poor guy crazy, having him redraw and redesign till the characters were just right. In all cases, the characters became as much Mike's as mine. I can't imagine Abadazad without him.

BF: What would you say some of the problems with kids comics have been in the last twenty or thirty years?

JMD: [Sighs] I think one of the problems is that most comics them and were kids comics, once upon a time. When I say kids comics, I mean it in the best sense. When you sit down and read a Narnia book or an Oz book or a Harry Potter book, they're written in a way that an adult can read them and enjoy them and a kid can read them and enjoy them. Say we go back to the classic Marvel comics of the '60s – a ten year old can pick these things up and a twenty-five year old can pick these things up and they could both really enjoy it on different levels.

I think that's what got lost in comics: kids comics became “oh, let's license Bugs Bunny from the Cartoon Network.”

BF: Simplifying everything...

JMD: To me, that's one of the reasons I wanted to do... Kids comics doesn't mean dumb comics. Not that Bugs Bunny is dumb – I love Bugs Bunny, but you know what I mean. The idea was to do a comic of literary value, a literary quality to it. That's what I think they really didn't get when I pitched it. There were people that read it and they [thought] “I don't know what to do with this. It's not commercial. It's not this. It's not that.”

BF: Well, Abadazad seems like a really layered experience.

JMD: One major company that shall remain nameless basically said “maybe we'll do it. Maybe we won't. Why don't you write a bible for it and if we like that, then we'll do it.” If you're that wishy-washy about it, I'm not writing anything. Then CrossGen – I'd never seen a CrossGen book, but I'd heard about them. They seemed like a really new, young forward-thinking company.

BF: They must have seemed like it at the time.

JMD: So I sent off the proposal. Ian Feller got it on a Wednesday and he called me on Friday and said “Okay, we're doing this.” In my head it was a four part series and they wanted to do like sixteen issues – a year, or a year and a half's worth of stories. And I said, “really? Is it that big a story?” and they [said] “I guess it will be now!” Mark Alessi totally got Abadazad. Ian Feller really got Abadazad. I'm forever grateful to those guys, because they're the ones that got it. Whatever problems CrossGen had after that or that I had with CrossGen – the bottom line is that they're the guys that got it and I will always appreciate them for that.

BF: So how did it get from CrossGen to Hyperion?

JMD: When CrossGen went under – the CrossGen deal was: we own a percentage of the book and they own a percentage of the book. So here, we're thinking the guys who did First Comics back in the '80s... it took them twenty, twenty-five years to get their books back. I've never had to get a lawyer like that for anything. So I called Mike and said “we gotta get a lawyer.” We got a lawyer and we sued them. Again, it was nothing personal. We wanted to protect the book.

While this was going on, there were all these potential buyers percolating and at the very end we heard the first glimmer of the name Disney. What I didn't know, and this is what had happened, is that Brenda Bowen, who's the Vice President of Hyperion Books for Children, someone had sent her a copy of Abadazad. I think [it was] someone in their movie divisions who had been thinking of...

BF: Animating it?

JMD: She looked at it and said “Wow! This would be a fantastic children's book! Let's see if we can get the rights to it.” Then they found out when they investigated that this company was going into bankruptcy. Then they had a meeting and someone said “let's just buy the company.” 

BF: They bought CrossGen.

JMD: [Laughter] They bought CrossGen, essentially to get Abadazad.

BF: It's like a Cinderella story!

JMD: It really was. There we were with lawyer's bills mounting up every month and suddenly along comes Disney to do this thing. Brenda sent me an email and I could tell that this was a person that really understood this book. It was a lot to work out. By buying CrossGen, they  bought a percentage of Abadazad.

So we had to work out a deal, and my representative worked out a very good deal for us, and we're very happy with it. We could move on to a whole new world! It's very exciting.

To be concluded on Thursday...