Steve Dillon Quotes

I haven't re-read [Preacher] yet. [...] Occasionally I see pages from it, and probably like most comic artists, the moment you see a drawing you did – no matter how many years ago – you can remember exactly how you did it, what the situation was when you were doing it, what time of night it was, whether you were drinking coffee or whether you were half-pissed! It all comes flooding back, just like smells or music bring back memories.

Superheroes, the best superheroes, tend to be more soap opera-ish -- like the X-Men, and the old Spiderman stuff. But, that's for a continuing-forever sort of series. We've got a definite [Preacher] story that's got a definite finish, so soap opera is a bit of a disjointed term. But we do have the character subplot stuff going on.

I've changed my technique a few times in my career. [...] Sometimes you just change to challenge yourself. But also over the six years of Preacher, [my] style [changed] a bit. It's unusual to have a run that's so long that you can actually notice how the characters change. If I'd only done it for a year it wouldn't have changed that much. The characters just evolved naturally.

I think a lot of mainstream comics don't appeal to women, because that's the male fantasy of superheroes. [...] Preacher's more character-driven than it is action-driven.

The acting side of comics is quite important to me. The facial expressions, how they interact and all that sort of thing. [...] I can [draw big fight scenes] if I need to, but not as good as some, because some people have a love for it, so that love shows through. I have a love for drawing people sitting in the pub talking. My specialised subject!

I was more than happy to do [Hellblazer] as I ended up not being that happy on Animal Man, as it wasn't the book for me. Because I hate drawing animals, so it was rather silly of me in the first place to say yes. But it was the first offer of a regular (ongoing) comic book, which, for me, was a big thing.

[Preacher is] funny, dirty, a little bit frightening, but, ultimately, very satisfying—a bit like losing your virginity.

When I start work with a new writer, they often ask "What do you like to draw?" and my pat answer is always, "A good story". I'm not one of these artists into drawing giant robots or soldiers or big-titted women. Because for me, it's all about the story.

I always end up working with writers with a twisted sense of humour and a fine sense of warped violence. And that's right up my strasse.

I did a long series that I did on my own, Cry of The Werewolf. [...] I spent a whole summer drawing werewolves and there was my girlfriend and her mate sunbathing topless in the back garden, but I was there drawing werewolves. And there was nothing I could do about it because I had to do six pages a week. (laughs)

Paul was a great help to me. He saved me a lot of time because one of the problems I had was that I used to draw comics when I fancied it, and suddenly now I had to draw comics when I had to. So I had to do three pages a week whether I wanted to or not. That'd be a luxury now, just doing three pages a week. But at the time it was a bit much for me to handle and Paul helped me make a quantum leap which would have taken me months longer if I'd been doing it myself.

It's not like watching a car crash. It's like watching people setting fire to their own cars and ramming into school buses at high speed.

I aim to find time in my schedule for a decent night's sleep without cutting into my drinking time.

It's hard when you've done [something] yourself to step back and look at it but hopefully [Preacher] does have some sort of timeless quality because of the universal themes that are tackled, so that many years later people can still connect with it.

It's been ironic, really, because I got into comics wanting to draw superheroes. I used to draw superheroes for fun when I was a kid but in my career, from the earliest days, I wasn't drawing superheroes. Nick Fury: Agent of SHIELD wasn't really a superhero. The first thing that I did, the Hulk, wasn't really a superhero either. If you look at the Doctor Who stuff, what I did for Warrior, then if you look at the work I did on Hellblazer and Preacher as well, that's not superheroes either. The closest I ever got to doing a superhero comic was Wolverine: Origins.