Here’s an interesting wee follow-up to yesterday’s fine review/interview Tom Crosshill did with Watchmen: Portraits photographer Clay Enos; at the MoCCA Art of Watchmen event where he met Clay he also bumped into a well known figure from the comics world, DC’s Paul Levitz, and managed to speak to him for a few moments:
While at MoCCA I had a chance to chat with Paul Levitz, the president of DC Comics. A courteous, respectable-looking gentleman in a tweed jacket, he seemed to pass largely unrecognized among a crowd of comics fans who would have surely been excited to know he was there. The brief conversation that follows is not really an interview but just a few questions and answers offered as an extra to fans of the Watchmen graphic novel and film.
Tom: How long have you worked for DC Comics?
Paul: 36 years. I’ve never had a real job. I started as a freelancer and worked up.
Tom: What series have you worked on in that time?
Paul: Oh, I’ve worked on most of the characters. I wrote a lot of the Legion of Superheroes in the eighties, and I did the Superman newspaper strip for several years. But over time I’ve worked on most of the DC characters in one way or another.
Tom: The reason I ask is that the movie rights to Watchmen were sold in 1986 – so the film’s been a long time coming. It must feel satisfying to finally have it out there!
Paul: Satisfying, yes, and also a little weird to have it done. It has been a long time, but, in a sense, this was the right time for it. You couldn’t have done it before. There were a lot of really great people attached to the project along the way, including such heavyweights as Terry Gilliam and Darren Aronofsky. But certain things had to happen before you could feasibly make the film. It’s a film about superheroes, and it’s 2.5 hours long. You couldn’t have done that 20 years ago – there was no market for it. I don’t think you could have done it even 10 years ago.
Tom: With all this great talent attached to the project over the years, are there ideas that were ultimately discarded that you wish made it into the film? For instance, a Terry Gilliam idea that ultimately didn’t make it?
Paul: No, I think with any film project of this complexity you just have to go with your director’s vision.
Tom: So you saw Zack Snyder’s vision as the primary driver? There wasn’t a lot of creative input from the DC side?
Paul: Well, with a series like Batman, for instance, where you’ve got a thousand different stories in the background, nobody can know it all. So you can go to the director and say, hey, I bet you didn’t know about this – wouldn’t this help? But Watchmen is a self-contained story. It’s all there in the graphic novel. And nobody knows that novel better than Zack Snyder. He was absolutely dedicated. And I think you can see that in the film – there’s an amazing visual resonance.
Tom: Thank you.
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