Batman convention drawing 1992 – David Mazzucchelli

Around about the beginning of the summer of 1992 it was announced that one of the comic creator guests attending that coming September’s United Kingdom Comic Art Convention was going to be David Mazzucchelli. I was, as anyone who followed superhero comics in the 1980s, excited by this. But I also got this crazy notion into my head that I should like to interview him. This was in spite of the fact that I had never interviewed anyone before and that I had/have a slight problem with, ahem, social anxiety. And, most importantly, there was the small issue of whether David Mazzucchelli was amenable to being interviewed. In 1992 I was an occasional contributor to a couple of zines: Caption and Zum! edited by Jenni Scott and Luke Walsh respectively (hi, Jenni; hi, Luke, if you are reading this). The focus of these two zines was self-published small press comics – what DM would later suggest to me might have been known in the US as “mini-comics” although the “mini” does not necessarily refer to the physical dimensions of the comics but more to the aesthetic. As I am sure everyone reading this knows, around about 1987 DM had sensationally quit mainstream superhero comics right at the very top after Daredevil: Born Again and Batman: Year One. By the time of UKCAC ’92 DM had brought out two of the three issues of his alternative comics magazine Rubber Blanket, both issues of which I had enjoyed (although, admittedly, not quite as much as Born Again and Year One). That summer in preparation I reread DM’s back catalogue which amounted to his run on DD, Year One, X-Factor 16, and an Angel short he wrote as well as drew for Marvel Fanfare 40. This was far from being a burdensome task. [Correction: the Angel story was written by Ann Nocenti, Marvel-style, and post-dated Year One. I was better prepared on the day of the interview.]

I was surprised how readily DM agreed to be interviewed by me and although my memory is a bit hazy I think he allowed me to sit next to him on his side of the table while he signed and sketched during his allotted convention slot. They say that you should never meet your heroes, but this was definitely one occasion where the exception tests the rule because I could not have asked for a more approachable, friendly, and open interview subject to break me in. I did, however, discern a momentary reluctance to draw “a Batman” as I requested, which I have always attributed to him being saddened by how quickly fans of his had flipped his drawings and his pondering whether I would do the same, but this reluctance was fleeting and not only did he draw the attached wonderful Batman but the following day, after I cleared it in advance with him before joining the queue again, he was kind enough to draw the other character with whom he was most closely associated. That he agreed to do both of these drawings owes nothing to my silver-tongued powers of persuasion, to which as anyone who knows me can tell you I cannot lay claim, but more to DM’s generosity with his time and talent.

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