Ask the Author: Mark Millar
Answered Questions (6)
Mark Millar
The book I’m writing at the moment is called Huck and it’s about a guy with learning difficulties having a super-ability. It’s always billionaires or Thunder Gods or super-soldiers in these stories and I thought it would be interesting to do something like Forrest Gump, a kind of Frank Capra superhero story, instead. I got the idea from a man I met at a place where I volunteer who does one good deed every day and is the basis of this character too. He’s the purest, most decent character I’ve ever created and quite different from something like Hit-Girl or Eggsy in Kingsman.
Mark Millar
I can’t imagine not writing. As far back as I can remember I created my own little stories. They all come from real life. Even the big ones starring Superman or Wolverine or whatever, they all reflect some aspect of what’s happened to me. Kick-Ass was especially biographical, as was Kingsman: The Secret Service. People I know often recognise themselves or little moments from their lives in my work, which can be embarrassing at premieres.
Mark Millar
I mainly work in comics, which means I write a number of things at once. Chrononauts is about man sending a satellite through the time-stream and beaming back pictures from the American Civil War. This leads to NASA’s first MANNED-MISSION through time and two scientists do a televised jump to 1492, the mission naturally going all wrong. The other book I have out right now is called Jupiter’s Circle and it’s kind of the Justice League meets Mad-Men, a very sexual, emotional book set in 1959 focusing on the private lives of a group of glamorous New York superheroes and what they do between the comic-book adventures we’re used to seeing. It’s a bit more like a Fellini film than a Marvel movie, just very grown-up tales about marriages falling apart and wandering eyes and the disappointment that comes sometimes with your thirties and forties. It’s not the usual teenage fare, emphasising instead what’s going on behind the masks and the funny suits. The first story is about a closeted superhero in the 50s hanging out with Kathryn Hepburn and keeping his secret gay life from even his team-mates, his story based on a combination of Rock Hudson and Cary Grant with a very powerfully heterosexual image being pushed to the public while his private life has him being blackmailed by the FBI. The Avengers this ain’t!
Mark Millar
Make sure you get to write THE END when you stop typing. A lot of people have started a story they’ve had in their heads, but very few finish as it’s hard work and people often get hit by a lack confidence along the way. I would say if you’re worried your work might not be good enough you need to switch on the television or go to a bookshop or visit the cinema and see that nobody’s written the perfect stories. We’re all just people with our fingers on keyboards trying to unlock that perfect idea. If it’s good people will find it.
Mark Millar
Lying around all day making up stories for people? Come on. That’s up there with being an astronaut or a cowboy. It was my ideal job when I was a kid and I never stop appreciating I get to do it every day and get paid at the same time. Also, Twitter. What other career would allow you to waste so much time Twitter every day?
Mark Millar
I keep writing. I don’t leave the desk and I still sit here from 8am till 6pm Monday to Thursday. The misconception about writer’s block is that you can’t think of anything to write, but the real manifestation is that the words just come much more slowly. I often find it’s a sign that you’re actually writing the wrong story. My best stuff has always come incredibly fast and, ironically, the stuff that looks rushed is the material I laboured over. But we can’t get too precious about writer’s block. It’s often an excuse. I’ve never met a surgeon of an accountant to has Doctor’s Block or Counter’s Block. It’s a little self-indulgent when you think about it.
About Goodreads Q&A
Ask and answer questions about books!
You can pose questions to the Goodreads community with Reader Q&A, or ask your favorite author a question with Ask the Author.
See Featured Authors Answering Questions
Learn more