Silent Interviews: On Language, Race, Sex, Science Fiction, and Some Comics—A Collection of Written Interviews

3. Refractions of Empire:The Comics Journal Interview

Refractions of Empire: The ComicsJournal Interview In 1979, with artist Howard Chaykin, I published a loj-page comic book—or graphic novel—called Empire (Berkeley Books, New York, 79jg). Just before Empire appeared I was interviewed about it by comics writerDennis O'Neil and, shortly after it appeared, by Comics Journal editor Gary Groth. I edited and reworked the transcripts of both interviews , which were published together in a 1980 issue of The Comics Journal. The version here has been rewritten substantially since. Dennis O'Neil: How would you compare Empire to your novels? Are there any essential differences in themes, characters, obsessions . . . ? Samuel R. Delany: Well, obsessions are such that you don't get away from them. They'll probably be all too apparent. Still, I'm more aware of the differences between written and visual media. When you're working in a comics situation, the writer works for the artist, in much the same way a writer in a movie works for the director. That Howie and I like each other's work so much made things go very well: but I saw my job as essentially to inspire Howie to his highest moments—because he likes my stuff, he's more likely to be inspired. He's risen to the challenge wonderfully. I'm knocked out by what he's done. DO'N: Which doesn't quite answer my question. How does Empire differ from your early work? SKD: Again, essentially comics are a visual medium. Something I concentrated on here, in a wayI wouldn't have in a written story, was the variations in landscape. In Empire the action moves very quickly from 3* / 84 Part I place to place. If you're writing a story, you want to stay more or less in one location till things resolve; only then do you move on to the next location. In Empire—in a comic—things work best if you shift from landscape to landscape pretty quickly: What starts against one background should resolve against another, to keep things moving. DO'N: Let me be more specific.Almost allyour novels to date—indeed, I can't think of any exceptions—are heavily influenced by mythology, reworkings of mythology in science fiction terms. Have you continued that particular mode? SRD: I'm not aware of any myths that are directly followed in Empire. Indeed, I'm aware of a lot of mythical patterns that are broken. First of all, Empire's main character is a woman. And she has a woman sidekick. There are very fewpresentations of active female friendships in contemporary western narratives, from top to bottom, whether it be in comics or in "serious" fiction. DO'N: Mainstream? SRD: Mundane fiction, as we call it. To try to deal with female friendships in any sense is to broach new, mythological territory. In Empire the point-of-view character is a young man—the character through whom most of the action is seen and (indeed) on whom the climax more or less hinges—a young man who gets involved with this veryenergetic pair of women. Since, I'd imagine, most of the audience for Empireis likelyto be male, it provides a bridge for that male audience to get used to the idea of friendship between women. Also, because I'm male and the artist is male, it makes it easier for us to work with it. But at the same time I think it provides something for the women in the audience. DO'N: You've used a woman protagonist before, in Eabel-ij. But there was a male sidekick in that. SRD: Yes.A whole crew full of them. In fact, one problem I see, now that Empire is done, is that I don't think we did enough with the woman sidekick. There are times when the point-of-view character almost displaces her. If I had it do over. I'd spend more time working with the friendship. But I still think it's there—it's a step in the right direction. I'm happy with it. DO'N: Why comic books? Refractions of Empire 85 SRD: I've always liked comic books—which is the understatement of the age. I don't believe the various media are replaceable. What you can do in comics you can't do in movies. What you can do on the stage you can't...