Retirement plans?

[DungeonmasterJim]

I hope this isn't too personal of a question. I was just wondering if you have an idea of when you'd stop working on comics, mainly monthlies I'm thinking.

Maybe I shouldn't try coming up with questions when it's gray, dreary and drizzling outside.

[Alan Davis]

Yoikes, Jim. D’you think it’s time I was put out to pasture? Does my preference for the traditions of romanticised escapism, glamorous stereotypes and solid, fast paced, storytelling make me appear outmoded in this era of decompressed nihilistic conceits and murky digital ‘illustration’?
Seriously though, my ‘career’ has already been significantly longer than I expected, in part, because I assumed my dislike for trends that chase fashion and success in other media, rather than sticking to the principles that made comics great, would make me unemployable. I also had serious doubts about how long the industry might survive since those distant days when I contemplated giving up a regular job to become a full time freelancer. I was ridiculed, then and since, for my belief that comics were in an inevitable decline due to the aforementioned abandonment of core principles and, more crucially, by competition from technological innovation and ‘new’ gadgets certain to steal much of the limited ‘entertainment’ budget of ordinary folk.
There are many other things I’d like to do but I love creating comics and would like to believe I might continue to produce them is some form for as long as I can prop myself against a drawing board. All obviously far outside my control.
As for working on mainstream monthlies, I’ll carry on for as long as I’m physically able or until I’m no longer offered work.

Alan

[DungeonmasterJim]

Thank you again, for answering my question. And I'm extremely happy to hear that you have no plans to willingly retire from comics.

[Paulo Pereira]

Does my preference for the traditions of romanticised escapism, glamorous stereotypes and solid, fast paced, storytelling make me appear outmoded in this era of decompressed nihilistic conceits and murky digital ‘illustration’?

One might think so but, happily, that's not the case.

[XIII]

Just beyond the channel there's a country where "the traditions of romanticised escapism, glamorous stereotypes and solid, fast paced, storytelling" not only never gotten anyone outmoded, but remain the backbone of a healthy and huge selling comic industry.

However, I know Alan will never leave the relative security of the US market, although one wonders why such loyalty for an industry devoured by "decompressed nihilistic conceits and murky digital ‘illustration’" when there are worthy enough alternatives nearer home.

[Alan Davis]

XIII
Since you claim to know my thinking it seems unlikely you’d be interested in my true opinion.
Alan

[bignige]

[XIII]

XIII
Since you claim to know my thinking it seems unlikely you’d be interested in my true opinion.
Alan

I…er…what now?

[XIII]

At the risk of causing you further irritation… I noticed you recently heaped praise upon John Byrne on this very board (“He is obviously also a great designer in his own right”).

Do you know what Byrne has been doing lately? Creator owned stuff for a non Big Two publisher, IDW: first, resuming and concluding his long interrupted superhero epic NEXT MEN (his Clandestine, one could say), then launching a totally different project, a brand new book set in the sixties, COLD WAR, which he describes as a revisitation of “Ian Fleming and John Le Carre, with maybe a little John Steed”.

Now, I won’t claim to know Byrne’s thinking, so I’ll just say that I merely suspect he is forced to do this because he has burnt all his bridges with Marvel and DC, but he'd still be chomping at the bit to get an assignment as penciler of the Captain America monthly comic-book, gladly abandoning his current projects to “return home”, like the proverbial lost sheep being restored to the fold.

Nevertheless, whatever his reasons are, as a selfish fan, concerned only about my own enjoyment, I’m glad he is where he is, his (hypothetical) loss is my gain (even probably his), and honestly, you don't know what I would give to see you, Alan Davis, in Byrne’s “predicament”: shunned by Marvel and DC, unable to get a gig in the umpteenth revamp of 50 to 75 year old corporate franchises, and having to reinvent yourself in a non-duopoly publisher, left to your own devices.

Of course, that wouldn’t still be as satisfying for me as seeing you hired by the French comic industry, even momentarily, like other US market stalwarts such as John Cassaday, Sean Phillips, Ladrönn, Trevor Hairsine,or Humberto Ramos have been recently or even currently. Now that would be a challenge that lives up to your talent, where you would have to deal with very demanding editors that would exact you to ink and finish your own pencils, to draw extensive and detailed backgrounds and in general to pull your camera back like you’ve never pulled it back before.

But I would settle for a little bit of the adventurousness, within the US market, shown by artists in your league. I put the name Alan Davis up there in the same pantheon with the likes of Byrne, Walt Simonson, Richard Corben, Frank Quitely, Howard Chaykin, Chris Moeller, Jason Pearson… above all of them actually, but career-wise, you have to be the most conservative and pliable to the needs of the Big Two. Almost every other artist of what I consider similar stature alternates between corporate work and creator owned ventures. For instance, Walt Simonson, after years of meager output, just announced a six-issue stint on Avengers, but he seized the pertinent interview about the subject to declare:

”So once the "Avengers" is over from my end of it I may go back and look a little more deeply into creator-owned material and try and head in that direction for a little while.”

Again, you don't know what I would give to hear the same statement, just changing “Avengers” for “Captain America”, coming from Alan Davis’ mouth.

Still, things could be far worse. You could be Brian Bolland, having spent the last 20 years doing nothing but covers, or much worse, you could be one of the accomplices in the Watchmen rapequels.

[Alan Davis]

Not irritated. I’m always happy to answer a sensible question but have no interest in debating an assumption of my thinking or of a conjecture based on simplistic characterisation, selective quotes and individual preference—As evinced by the clutter of cover images that add neither authority nor credibility to your theorising.