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We’re using Mark Millar’s official photo because in all the pictures we took he looks like he’s spontaneously combusting.

The continuation of our interview with Mark Millar. Transcription by the valiant xiaoarma, the last volunteer standing.

This is the part where we note that his work on The Ultimates was a big influence on The Avengers movie.

Mark Millar (MM): It was very flattering, I mean, they used a lot of that stuff in the movie. But they do that all the time in comics, like the Spider-Man movie. The first Spiderman movie has lots of things from old Spider-Man comics, you know, and uhm, Tim Burton’s Batman had a lot of things from Alan Moore’s Killing Joke, you know. And so, The Avengers movie…

Jessica Zafra (JZ): It’s interesting that the collected Ultimates has an introduction by Joss Whedon.

MM: Totally coincidental, ye, at the time we obviously had no idea.

JZ: And also the casting of Samuel Jackson (as Nick Fury) was totally your idea.

MM: Yeah, that was 2001 when we came up with that, you know.

JZ: In your comics they’re actually sitting around talking about who should play them in the movie. Hilarious.

MM: Hilarious, I know. I couldn’t believe it, but it just kinda came true, you know? But I think when I do something, I tend to take a filmic approach to it. So I think movie producers look at it and they think, “Oh, that would be quite easy to do in a movie” ’cause I’ve done it like a movie in the comic, you know…I think when they read The Ultimates they thought, “Ye, we should lay it out like that.” It just happens that my style is quite filmic.

JZ: Do you prefer the term ‘comics’ or ‘graphic novels’?

MM: Comics. ‘Graphic novel’ sounds like it’s ashamed to be a comic book.

I always think it’s funny, but I sort of get why they made it up, because (the term) was invented in 1986-1987. And that was a time when there was amazing work coming out, you know, like Frank Miller was doing The Dark Knight, Alan Moore was doing Watchmen and they were trying to get them in the bookstores and the bookstores were saying, “We don’t want comics.”

So they said, “Oh no, these are not comics; these are special comics called graphic novels.” It’s a very clever way of selling comics to people who doesn’t like comics.

JZ: I think it’s really good excuse for parents to go and buy comics for themselves, because they’re graphic novels.

MM: Yeah.

When the movie Kick-Ass opened, we all saw Hit Girl packing a balisong. Turns out Millar had never seen one. We just happened to have a spare balisong in the house so we gave it to him. (There’s this store in Batangas that sells a mind-boggling variety.) Enjoy, don’t hurt yourself. Note: It has a safety, and it takes practice before you can get the blade to fan out.

JZ: Of the characters you’ve written, which one has the most amount of you in it?

MM: I would say the most is probably Kick-Ass, because it’s autobiographical. There’s loads of things from my real life in it, you know. I mean, like…

JZ: You once put on a costume and fought crime?

MM: I almost did, ye. When I was 15 I designed a costume. My best friend and I made costumes, and we were like, “Aren’t we too old?” You kinda think you’d do that when you’re 10 not 13. You’re almost a man by 15, you know?

And I designed a costume and we went to the gym for six months and we were doing karate and things like that. And it would’ve been so easy to find out who we were, because we were the only two guys who were into comics probably for a hundred miles around. So thank goodness we didn’t do it.

Kick-Ass is the story of what may have happened if we had tried it. That’s why I dedicated the book to my friend who I was gonna (be superheroes) with. If we had done it, I think we would’ve had our asses kicked—going on the streets, as soon as people saw our costumes, they would’ve beat us up. The costumes would’ve been enough—they were bright blue costumes, people would’ve chased us home. So thank goodness we didn’t do it, but Kick-Ass is a fantasy of what may have happened if we had done it.

JZ: Do you see yourself writing a novel that is all words?

MM: I’ve turned down offers in the past, but I’m gonna do one in January or February, I’m gonna start something like, I had an idea for something, and it’s actually kind of…I hope it won’t fall under Chick Lit! It’s not what I expected to write.

I had this idea last year…it’s the kind of thing that my wife would read or something, and I’m known for doing things where you can get shot in the face and things like that. I don’t know how my fans would react to it, you know. I had this idea for something very emotional, and I thought it would be a stretch. It wouldn’t work as a comic, but it would work very well as a prose thing, you know. It’s so definite that I think my fan base might be like, “What the hell is this?”

JZ: Or you can just publish it under another name, like Stephen King does all the time.

MM: I would like to bring my readers into it, I have a fair number of people guaranteed to buy it. I’ve done a children’s book coming out spring next year. It’s a superhero book aimed at 5-year-olds, it’s got pictures done in storybook style, with one picture per page. It’s a kindergarten-level book. That’s kinda fun to do as well, because I kinda quite like things that are like, you know, objectionable.

I quite like writing stuff that’s kinda violent or objectionable, full of swearing, things like that. I always find it quite fun to do that kind of stuff. So then to suddenly change gears in my head to do something for 5-year-olds is great fun. So I’m gonna do more of that.

To be continued

xiaoarma will receive a copy of Super Crooks issue # 1 for her work. Turmukoy and sunflowii will also get the comic book as recompense for their migraines. Thanks everyone, we’ll alert you when we have the comics.

Shilin Night Market in Taipei. Vast array of food, clothes, accessories. Wear comfortable shoes, you have hours of walking to do.

We zeroed in on the eyeglass frames. Yes we have lots of eyeglasses, but we wear them all the time, never contact lenses, so we have an excuse. These glasses were selling for 250 New Taiwan dollars apiece (Php375); we asked for a discount and got 3 for 200 TWD each (Total: Php900; we didn’t haggle hard).

Voila, our new glasses. We’re taking these frames to our optometrist (Nella Sarabia, UP Shopping Center) to have prescription lenses put in. (Chus, want to have lunch?)

Anyone can buy these glasses, but we’re actually going to wear them. We’re going to wear them, and people will ask if they’re custom-made because “They’re so you.” Hah!

If we ever get a super-villain identity we already have the accessories.

Important: Do not lodge diplomatic protest or stage rally over “negative portrayal of Manila”.

We asked readers to help us transcribe our two-hour interview with Mark Millar. Four signed up for the tag-team transcription service. We sent them 8-minute segments to work on. As of today three of the four have given up. Number 4, we understand if you cannot continue.

So we’ll transcribe the recording ourselves and post it next week.

You need to see more James McAvoy movies.

The Farglory Hotel seen from the cable car at the Farglory Ocean Park.

While trying to fall asleep at the Farglory Hotel (adjacent to the Farglory Ocean Park) in Hualien, Taipei, we found Fierce People playing on the hotel’s movie channel.

Based on a novel by Dirk Wittenborn, Fierce People is one of those Gatsby-esque stories in which an impressionable young man becomes enamored of rich people and is inevitably, unpleasantly divested of his illusions. It’s directed by Griffin Dunne (the star of Scorsese’s After Hours), whose father Dominick Dunne wrote fascinating true crime stories involving rich people for Vanity Fair.

Fierce People stars Anton Yelchin, looking and sounding like an abandoned puppy (If you’ve seen him more recently, in the Fright Night remake and in the achingly real Like Crazy, you’ll notice he’s gotten handsome. He returns as Mr Chekov in the next Star Trek), is a teenager looking forward to summer in South America with the father he’s never met. His father, the “Elvis of anthropologists”, lives among the (fictional) Ishkanani tribe known as “Fierce People”. His vacation plans go kaput thanks to his mother Liz (the always excellent Diane Lane), who has substance abuse problems. She resolves to clean up and start over by accepting a long-standing offer from the billionaire Osborne (Donald Sutherland) to become his personal masseuse.

Chris Evans and Anton Yelchin in Fierce People

So mother and son move to the Osborne estate, where everyone assumes that Liz is the old man’s mistress and Finn is befriended by Osborne’s beautiful golden grandchildren Maya (Kimberly Stewart before she started acting deader than the undead) and Bryce (Chris Evans who is following us around—his telekinesis movie Push was playing on the bus. Chris, we adore you, but this is so wrong. Our 5-year-old niece loves you. Go away. Get back here. Go away. Come here).

The movie’s conceit, which the director hits us over the head with every five minutes, is that the tribe of rich people is as vicious and brutal as the Fierce People of South America. (Seen constantly in Finn’s father’s documentary, lest you forget who the Fierce People are. Those reels are played so often they should’ve burst into flame.) Something horrific happens to Finn—if he’d been Ishkanani, he would have to get payback by ripping out his enemy’s heart and displaying it to the village. Around this point Finn has a dream in which an Ishkanani shaman appears to him…speaking Tagalog (“Manggagaling sa puso mo…”)

Does this mean that the Ishkanani are not in the Amazon but in the much more ferocious jungles of Balic-Balic or Leveriza? And are these the same jungles where the Ewoks of Star Wars: Return of the Jedi live?

The movie is both overworked and undercooked (Wittenborn adapted his own novel for the screen) and it never really comes together, but it’s got such interesting actors—Lane, Sutherland, Stewart and Evans (We have to say we’ve never seen a bad Chris Evans performance, and no we’re not blinded). If you watch Fierce People, bear in mind that Captain America doesn’t really exist, but the evil rich do.

Speaking of Gatsby-esque…

Jeff Daniels and Mia Farrow prepare to enter the movie in Woody Allen’s The Purple Rose of Cairo. Our top 5 Woody Allen movies in no particular order: Love and Death, Annie Hall, Manhattan, Take the Money and Run (sentimental attachment), The Purple Rose of Cairo.

Chosen by our contest judge, screenwriter, producer and our shopping/salon buddy Raymond Lee.

“My winner is jaime’s piece (#7). It’s not the best written—the sophomoric and soporific first sentence, for instance, is entirely unnecessary. But it’s the most convincing, least self conscious, and (therefore) most affecting entry. Naniwala ako—o at least gusto kong maniwala—na nangyari nga ito sa tunay na buhay. Wala rin siyang masyadong borloloy. It’s an effective demonstration that sparse can be expansive.”

Congratulations, jaime! You may pick up your prize—Php2,500 in National Bookstore gift certificates—at the Customer Service counter at National Bookstore in Power Plant Mall, Rockwell, Makati, any day starting Tuesday, 5 June 2012. You need to show them an official ID.

The Weekly LitWit Challenge is brought to you by our friends at National Bookstore.