This interview malarkey.

The challenge set by Dynamic Forces, do eight interviews, once a week, with industry figures and they'll fly me out to a US convention to do a Lying In The Gutters Live in the bar. I fail, and I have to pie myself in the face and give a wodge of money away to charity.

So, interviews, interviews, interviews. There's been too much respect for interview subjects of late. Reading Comicon Pulse interviews often has me screaming with rage. The "Why was so-and-so such a perfect artist for this comic?" as opposed to "Clearly this guy has trouble doing even stick figures, is he paying you to draw it?"

I loved the more confrontational interviews. Not in comics, but Jeremy Paxman on BBC's Newsnight giving politicians the kind of grilling that a well-done take would tremble at. Or Bernard Levin, who infamously started one TV interview with a bunch of farmers with the phrase "Good evening, peasants."

The interviewee should know their place. But if they're good, they'll give as good as they get.

Right. Mark Millar.

I first read Mark Millar's work in a comic called Saviour, picking it up at a London comic convention. Telling the story of Jesus Christ's second coming and of chat show host and antichrist Jonathan Ross's attempt to thwart his presence on Earth, he seemed not quite the person you'd expect fifteen years later to be writing the X-Men.

Still, Mark did fairly well for himself when he moved to American comics, hanging on Grant Morrison's coat tails before landing a Swamp Thing solo gig that proved he could write better than the big man on occasion. After that, he had Warren Ellis to help him get the Authority gig.

Check Out The Ultimates #1 Here

This was pretty much the point where Mark Millar went from E-List comics creator to B-list. And after sales roared on The Authority, and Mark was grabbed for greater glory on Ultimate X-Men when Brian Bendis dropped out, and then The Ultimates, Mark Millar became A-List. And it looks like he's here to stay for a while. Ladies and gentlemen, the short-arsed Scottish git who got lucky, Mark Millar. Good evening, peasants.

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