MoS
Well-Known Member
In an interview over on SBC, Bryan Hitch talks about what goes in to making the Ultimates what they are and gives a little insight on schedule issues:
"All of these factors, the constant state of relative upheaval, meant I was never settled enough to make any progress, by which point everything's in such chronic decline on the book schedule-wise that it was impossible to recover, and we just limped through to the end." Fortunately, while there have been some minor stumbles, the outlook on Ultimates 2 promises to push this stigma into distant memory. "We took a couple of major hits. I moved offices just as I started issue five and for some reason it took far longer than it should have to finish. I caught up a little on six but then whilst pencilling seven, Paul's mother suffered a series of major strokes from which she wasn't expected to survive. He was constantly travelling back and forth to Wales, where she lives (kind of like Peru to Americans) and so I ended up inking issue six whilst he was away, which wasn't a speedy process. Paul's mother made a full and amazing recovery and he returned to ink the bulk of seven, thereby preventing total baldness setting in from tearing my own hair out; it's hard enough doing an issue of Ultimates once without doing each one twice!"
"I also got married in May, which took the best part of three weeks from the schedule, so I've been running a little to catch up and should do so by the time issue nine is finished. Ten through twelve absolutely have to come out four weeks or less apart, otherwise the whole set of issues will lose their impact; it's important we get them out in that fashion even if we have to ship the previous three a little late to accommodate those final few."
On his working relationship with Millar:
It's obvious that the same groove is there between Hitch and Mark Millar. "It's almost like knowing you've met a woman you're gonna shag and marry, except in Mark's case, I'm neither gonna marry him, nor shag him, ever, while I have strength enough to prevent it.
"Creatively, it's a perfect marriage. It's not like we don't argue at times and don't get pissed off at each other. It's just a perfect creative marriage with Mark."
There are also some interesting insights on his working relationships with Warren Ellis and Mark Waid, along with his views on his own art and style. It's a great interview, and you can actually come away with a pretty good sense of WHO Bryan Hitch really is.
"All of these factors, the constant state of relative upheaval, meant I was never settled enough to make any progress, by which point everything's in such chronic decline on the book schedule-wise that it was impossible to recover, and we just limped through to the end." Fortunately, while there have been some minor stumbles, the outlook on Ultimates 2 promises to push this stigma into distant memory. "We took a couple of major hits. I moved offices just as I started issue five and for some reason it took far longer than it should have to finish. I caught up a little on six but then whilst pencilling seven, Paul's mother suffered a series of major strokes from which she wasn't expected to survive. He was constantly travelling back and forth to Wales, where she lives (kind of like Peru to Americans) and so I ended up inking issue six whilst he was away, which wasn't a speedy process. Paul's mother made a full and amazing recovery and he returned to ink the bulk of seven, thereby preventing total baldness setting in from tearing my own hair out; it's hard enough doing an issue of Ultimates once without doing each one twice!"
"I also got married in May, which took the best part of three weeks from the schedule, so I've been running a little to catch up and should do so by the time issue nine is finished. Ten through twelve absolutely have to come out four weeks or less apart, otherwise the whole set of issues will lose their impact; it's important we get them out in that fashion even if we have to ship the previous three a little late to accommodate those final few."
On his working relationship with Millar:
It's obvious that the same groove is there between Hitch and Mark Millar. "It's almost like knowing you've met a woman you're gonna shag and marry, except in Mark's case, I'm neither gonna marry him, nor shag him, ever, while I have strength enough to prevent it.
"Creatively, it's a perfect marriage. It's not like we don't argue at times and don't get pissed off at each other. It's just a perfect creative marriage with Mark."
There are also some interesting insights on his working relationships with Warren Ellis and Mark Waid, along with his views on his own art and style. It's a great interview, and you can actually come away with a pretty good sense of WHO Bryan Hitch really is.
