THE AUTHORITY: HUMAN ON THE INSIDE'S JOHN RIDLEY

[MattBrady]

by Ryan McLelland

September’s The Authority: Human on the Inside is not only an original graphic novel continuing the adventures of one of the hottest comic book teams but it is also the latest to be written by a famed Hollywood writer. John Ridley, best known for his gripping Desert Storm script Three Kings and the hilariously ‘SOLID!’ Undercover Brother, is the latest screenwriter to join the ranks of the comic book writing elite.

Ridley’s original hardcover graphic novel features the United States government going forward with a plan that will try to destroy the Authority from the inside. Couple that with an unexpected threat from the future that could threaten Earth’s survival and it could be a very bad week for the supergroup. I sat down with John to talk to him about his thoughts on The Authority, how hard it is to write comic books, and his thoughts on his comic book future.

Newsarama: Had you been a fan of the Authority prior to writing this graphic novel?

John RidleyThe Authority but I really liked it. It’s this supergroup but it adds this human element being dysfunctional. It’s really adult with Warren Ellis’s writing and especially where Mark Millar took it then it got incredibly adult. So when I found The Authority it was fun, it was adult, and what it was doing action-wise was a lot of fun

People ask me how I came to do the Authority graphic novel and I can’t really explain how I got it because I had been trying to write comic books for years. Despite other things I had done in films and television it’s really a hard industry to break into. I was really close to doing some other thing, I was going to do a Question mini-series then something happened with that. Then they were going to relaunch a Superman crossover title and I was going to write that, but everything got really convoluted. I was working with this editor Ben Abernathy and he asked, “Do you like the Authority?” I said yeah I liked it and he asked, “You just want to do an Authority graphic novel?” I was stunned because I had never written a comic book before and to end up getting the first thing you do is to get a group you really like in this 96 page hardcover graphic novel. Talk about the mother load, it was great.

NRAMA: You said you’re a comic book fan, what do you still enjoy reading today?

JR: I do read The Authority though with this last iteration I kind of dropped off, I didn’t think it was quite as strong. I really like Planetary. I kind of got lost in the storytelling for awhile, but the concept I really like a lot. I’m reading Top Cow’s Wanted now, which is really great, over the top, and a really interesting perspective. Almost any of the Batman titles are always good for a kick. Daredevil, I especially liked the last Bendis run when he brought back Typhoid Mary, I thought that was good.

I like stuff that is a little heavier, a little more psychological. The Authority is pretty violent, the language is pretty tough and it doesn’t necessarily have to go that far to be interesting to me, but I like something that is in-between ultra-violence and teen angst. I have the Justice League run where all the Justice League found out that Batman had these traps that he set up for all of them. I thought it interesting that a guy you are working with basically plotted for your demise. On the one hand it was betrayal and the other hand it made perfect sense. So I liked that, I like things that take the characters seriously and take their predicaments seriously.

NRAMA: So what are some of the aspects that you like about The Authority and what do you think sets them apart from the rest of the superhero crowd?

JR: I do think that what sets them apart is having that progression from Ellis to Millar. They’re coming out of Stormwatch and what happens when you have this supergroup who are soldiers that go out and put their lives on the line. The people who sit at home, we sort of take freedom and liberty for granted. You know you can go out and smoke crack, it’s illegal to smoke crack, but you are free to do what you want with your life. The people who are fighting have to ask themselves what are we fighting for if people are abusing freedom and democracy? You sort of expound on that with these supergroups who are fighting alien invasions and things like that then all of a sudden they say we are fighting for a better world, we should also have a say in this better world. It’s an interesting progression where they go from just being this guardian supergroup to becoming benevolent dictators.

I thought that was a really interesting concept and then trying to have that balance between you can never really be a benevolent dictator because the minute you become a dictator you are a dictator. Then the government comes in and says we have to take these guys down because we can’t be a sovereign government as long as we have these people who are not protecting us anymore, they are controlling us. There’s a political ideology that is going back and forth there that is really interesting and really complex. For me, when I’m doing this graphic novel, I wanted to take that political balance and weigh that against the Authority to show what it is like for them to lose sight of the fact that despite all of their powers, they are still human.

NRAMA: Does your story just contain the Authority characters or do you have any other characters from the Wildstorm universe crossing over into it?

JR: It is contained with the Authority universe. I do bring back a character from the Stormwatch days. I have a major reference from one of the Millar arcs. You don’t have to be a hardcore Authority fan to get it and enjoy it but if you are a fan of The Authority and Stormwatch, there a couple of nuggets in there that are cool. There’s a little something for everybody.

NRAMA: You were talking about the U.S. Government versus the Authority. The story is about the government trying to implement a plan to destroy the Authority from within. Does this mean we are going to see some new secret government agents or are we going to see some new superhero trying to infiltrate the team?

JR: I don’t want to give too much away but I will say that the government tried a full frontal attack on the Authority and it didn’t work. My thing is I wanted to challenge the characters with more then just a big, giant alien invasion or a crazy bionic hillbilly that goes after them. If you really want to take somebody apart and they can survive a full frontal attack, how do you go after them? What’s a different way to come at them? So for me the story is about being smaller rather then being bigger. Now there are big things that happen, you can’t have 96 pages of a supergroup without some very large things happening, but in terms of attacking them I did want to take a different path.

NRAMA: Now the other part of this story is something from the future that comes in to threaten Earth’s existence once again. Now is this threat that big, giant alien invasion or some mega supervillain?

JR: When it comes to superheroes and comic fans, you have to deliver something big. You have to have some kind of a big threat, but how does that threat tie in with The Authority at the moment? For me a lot of times you have characters who are just servicing the plot and they just show up and do whatever the plot dictates. You don’t really get much out of that and I want a plot that serves the characters. I want what’s going on to really conform to the characters. I think what we are doing, myself and [artist] Ben Oliver, is as much as possible to have that plot conform to the characters. So this threat from the future, it’s not just this big, blind alien invasion, but it really goes to the core.

The title of the graphic novel is “Human On The Inside” and the story really deals with humanity, with The Authority’s humanity but really humanity in general. There are big things that happen, big action, big moments, it all reflects on the humanity of the characters in the story.

NRAMA: How does writing a comic book compare to writing screenplays? Do you find it more of the same or do you find as you writing panel to panel a bit harder or easier?

JR: The writing was incredibly hard and exactly for the reason you are saying about plotting it panel for panel. If you misplot page wise you can’t just go back and change a page number because you have to move these panels around. A lot of times you plan on ending the page with this panel because you want a little bit of a surprise on the next page and if you move one of them out you mess that up. So that was really hard because when I write a screenplay, if I really have the time and I can focus, I can easily do ten to fifteen pages a day in a draft, knowing that I’ll go back and make changes. With this, two pages a day was about the most I could handle. It really wore me out. There’s a lot of thinking that goes on. Ben lives in England and you’re trying to communicate with somebody who to this day I haven’t met him. Some people are ultra-specific in their writing but for me Ben is such a great artist that I didn’t want to try to put him in such a box that he couldn’t go out and do his art. At the same I had to communicate what I was looking for in the frames, in the moment, on the page, so there is a lot of specificity in what I am putting down so that somebody else can understand what I’m trying to communicate. It’s hard. Writing comic books, people look at it as it’s just a comic book and no big deal. But if you look at the people you really like, you realize it is a form of literature. It’s art and literature and that’s what makes it that much harder then writing a screenplay.

NRAMA: At two pages a day did it take you two months to write the graphic novel or were some days of writing longer then others?

JR: Literally, this morning, I sent in some page changes to my editor. It’s been a really long back and forth process because when the art comes in, there might be a few things that you want to change or when you see it laid out on the page with the art, it’s different from just reading it on the printed page. In the writing in the first iteration, it did take the weird thing is this first comic has been a really long, ongoing process.

Right after this I went into Warblade, which is going to be a five-part mini-series [The Razor’s Edge coming in October], and it went much more quickly. I think I was a bit more experienced so it went a little more quickly. I also think that when you are doing a hardcover graphic novel one-shot everyone is paying much more attention to it because it has a much higher profile so it really took awhile. On Warblade it’s going to be longer in the page count because it is five books, twenty-two pages but I have been able to go at it a little faster.

NRAMA: What can you say about the Warblade story – this is the same one from Wildcats, right?

JR: Yeah. It’s part of a new Wildstorm anthology series and I’m doing the first five issues, bringing back Warblade who has been sort of MIA for awhile. The people at Wildstorm have been great with letting me play with some of these established characters that people really like and take them to some very interesting places. I’m surprised and gratified about how open-minded these guys are about what they let me do with their characters.

NRAMA: What do you think of Ben Oliver’s artwork?

JR: I’m sure you and so many people have picked up a comic book, you like the writer, and you think ‘Hey let me get this’. You get it home, you look at the art, and it doesn’t really grab you. It doesn’t really communicate and you aren’t that excited about reading the book. You can be a terrific writer but this is a big part of the visual medium; this is art communication through pictures. What Ben does, he is just a terrific artist. I like the level of realism he brings to it and also his creativity of how he puts it down on the page. Some artists are just panel-panel-panel and Ben really breaks that mold. I couldn’t have been luckier getting Ben the first time out because I think the script is really good but Ben has really put it over the top. The reason I think the book will do really well is because of Ben’s art. He’s a new guy on the scene and people are going to snap this up because he’s a really interesting artist. I couldn’t have been luckier or more fortunate. Everything about him is going to make people read this book.

NRAMA: Overall how was your experience writing the Authority graphic novel and are you going to be interested in writing more comic books after this and Warblade?

JR: It’s been weird because I’ve only done two things with the same company and the same editor and it has been great. There’s a little trepidation about going somewhere else. I’ve talked to other companies like Marvel, DC, and Top Cow, and honestly it didn’t feel quite as creative, it felt more corporate. It’s really nice for me, when I’m able to do other forms of writing, to come and have some discussions with people and they trust you enough to go off and deliver. You also trust them enough when they have notes and thoughts that they aren’t just this corporate mindset but they know what they are doing and they know how to really focus on the books. I defiantly want to do more books. We’ve talked a little about what I might do next. I think it also depends on how the buyers react to them. If the buyers really love them then I’ll definitely be doing more. If the buyers can’t stand them then I think they’ll decide for me how much more I’ll be doing.

[Riliss]

Hmm. I think I'll actually pick up this Authority OGN.

[Flameswordsman]

Sounds good, looks like he's doing things that vol.2 of the Authority were very lacking in. Art looks sweet aswell, got a good degree between too realistic and too cartoony, Midnighter looks great, Apollo does look like a bit of a girl though....

Nice to see Warblade aswell, im a little miffed by all the Wildstorm/Image character changes, but he was awesome when he appeared in Deathmate: Black, im sure his retrun will be too

Anyone know which company Ripclaw and Maul reside in these days?

[Big Bag of Hate]

Ripclaw's Top Cow's property, though like the rest of Cyberforce and many of the early Image characters, he's been left to languish in limbo.

Maul is still in Wildstorm's Universe, last seen enjoying retirement from the spandex scene and shacked up in a posh beachhouse with Voodoo (as seen at the end of Wildcats Vol. 2).

[Flameswordsman]

Ah, thanks for that, im reading Darkness vol.1 from TopCow now, Ripclaw and Turok showing up would have made it even better. I know the books should only be about their core characters, but i feel that theres a lack of continuity over in Wildstorm. Maybe if the Authority and WildCATS were in a seperate universe, like Marvel has different universes in different lines, i just dont understand how the WildCATS and others like WarBlade and Maul could just not appear in any Authority books, surely they'd take someones side, the story of the Authority has leaned towards dictatorship and world domination before in vol.1, how could other super-heroes not take a side? I did see Mr. Majestic in one issue of Millars run, there wasnt any interaction though, i think he was trying to commit suicide in the background on the carrier

Not to get even more off topic, but whats up with the characters swapping companies? I know Jim Lee and others inc. Mcfarlane started up Image, with the other names underneath it [Wildstorm, TopCow etc...] and then Jim Lee left Image and sold his company to DC, how did the Lee get the WildCATS and all the others, did he claim ownership and win them in a law-suit or something?

[kingofcities]

I cannot wait for this book! The creative team looks and sounds great all around. I wish September would hurry up already.....

[CrazyFool]

Jim Lee always owned the WildStorm characters. Remember that Image is creator owned. Image Central owns nothing. That's why Liefeld's able to continue doing Youngblood and Supreme on his own. He, not Image, owns the properties.

[Big Bag of Hate]

Which is why it always kinda bugged me how '90s Image was supposed to be a cohesive superhero universe (and in the beginning, it really succeeded at tying everything together), yet any studio or creator could jump ship and take his or her characters with them.

I think the deathknell of the old Imageverse began when Marc Silvestri was the first to try publishing without Image. Then when Liefeld took Extreme and left, Silvestri and Top Cow returned. A few years later, Jim Lee sold Wildstorm to DC.

[FIG]

The art simply looks awesome

[Richard Werder]

Sounds good. I may have to pick this up.

Man, Three Kings was a great movie.

[Flameswordsman]

Thanks, didnt know that the creators had all rights over the charcaters. Shame about what happened to Image, i never really saw it as a cohesive universe in the 1st place, but it had so much potential

Imagine Spawn, Savage Dragon, Darkness, WildCATS and all the others in the same Universe, that would have been pretty good, something that may have rivaled Marvel or DC on a permanent basis

Is Brubaker on Authority from September aswell? Heard his run is going to focus primarily on the Midnighter, hopefully him and Nguyen wont play into the gayness factor as much as Morrison did, seeing Apollo and Midnighter in bed together was just too much

[Gordon McAlpin]

Originally posted by Richard Werder
Sounds good. I may have to pick this up.

Man, Three Kings was a great movie.

Actually, John Ridley didn't exactly write Three Kings, David O. Russell (the director) did. John Ridley gets a "story" credit, but David Russell gets the sole "screenplay" credit; I read an article once (in Rolling Stone, I think) where John Ridley was complaining about how Russell had basically jettisonned nearly everything and just kept the basic plot.

I remember thinking, "Gosh: some guys cross enemy lines to steal some money during the confusion of war? What a great, original concept — when I saw it first in Kelly's Heroes."

But yes, Three Kings was a great movie.

[Ryall]

Ridley's also a really solid novelist -- that's where I first read any of his work. His book Straw Dogs eventually became the Oliver Stone flick U-Turn (although the book, a really quick read, was much more effective than the movie). Everybody Smokes in Hell is a really good, Elmore Leonard-like story. Ridley specializes in small-time hoods and punks whose luck seems to go south on them. For a guy who used to be a stand-up comic and got his real break working on "The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air," he writes a good, seedy crime story.

I haven't read his latest yet but I'm looking forward to that and seeing what he does in comics.

[TTROY]

Originally posted by Flameswordsman
Thanks, didnt know that the creators had all rights over the charcaters. Shame about what happened to Image, i never really saw it as a cohesive universe in the 1st place, but it had so much potential

Imagine Spawn, Savage Dragon, Darkness, WildCATS and all the others in the same Universe, that would have been pretty good, something that may have rivaled Marvel or DC on a permanent basis

Is Brubaker on Authority from September aswell? Heard his run is going to focus primarily on the Midnighter, hopefully him and Nguyen wont play into the gayness factor as much as Morrison did, seeing Apollo and Midnighter in bed together was just too much

ummm after all the comics where gratuetous T & A were displayed for no apparant purpose

...no---i think it was fine.
I think it displayed it tastefully and in keeping with his character....... he is gay....so why would showing him in bed with his long term partner be too much.???

"gayness factor".... wouldn't that be called characterisation?


why don't you complain about straight comic book couples when they are shown in bed together....

[BurgundyTears]

This seems really promising. I like when Ii get the feeling that the creators involved are dead-serious in their work. I got that impression from Identity Crisis and I get it again now. I'll definitely check it out.

That said, what doesn't really click with me concerning the Authority is the fact that they have problems with anyone considering that The Doctor and Jenny Quantum are virtually omnipotent, being able to collapse the universe at will. The aforementioned hillbilly was one of these instances and this may be another unless the Erinyes are at their Sandman level (that is, on a level with Destiny, Death and the Archangels).

[Flameswordsman]

im not complaining about the 'gayness factor' i just think it was too much. I didnt like all that crap about Shen getting a boob job and the Engineer being raped as a kid by that fat Doctor either

The Authority does break all the comic rules, so including the homosexual taboo does make a little sense. I dont mind them kissing or showing their affection for eachother like they did in vol.1, making jokes about something 'hard' while they're in bed together wasnt my cup of tea

[TTROY]

but it addeed a sense of realism to their pillow talk...

i guess you just have to get over it.

it wasn't a problem with the writing but a problem with the way you handled it.

[Flameswordsman]

Get over yourself, there was no problem with the way i handled it, nearly everyone at the DC Authority boards didnt like the idea of Apollo and Midnighter cracking jokes about their erections

I suppose you liked the idea of the Engineer sleeping around in the group aswell. What about the super-strong bad-ass Apollo telling Midnighter off for using bad language

[gOgIver]

Is this the same Ridley who is posing as an "undecided" voter on NPR?