Garth Ennis: All-Out War

Hard Agree – Garth Ennis Interview

 

[00:00:00] Sumner: Yeah. That’s that’s that gun right there. And what he’s done is he’s walked throughout the land. Brilliantly coming, crosses the, the affable side of the rule in class, getting everybody to call him by his first name, embracing that and acting the lovable buffoon. But actually he is truly, truly fucking dangerous to me.

Garth Ennis: He’s a nasty piece of work. I remember after the coalition ended, one of the two liberal members of Cameron’s cabinet, not the leader of the liberals, but the other one said that when he was, he was asked was asked about the Tories and what it was like to serve alongside of this particular generation of stories.

And he said, you, he said, you could take David Cameron as an example, but really it doesn’t matter which one. He said that individually they’re quite charming, but collectively they’re appalling

when those people [00:01:00] get together and those nice polite smiles and the debonair and mannerisms and so on go by the wayside and you see what they’re really like, they’re monsters.

Sumner: Yeah. And that’s fucking right. All those Bullington club cuts. All of them. , they’ve all been that they’ve all had this worldview inculcated in, but they’re better than everybody else.

And they believe that they absolutely believe it to the core. Yeah. They’re genuinely unpleasant. It’s like these people here go, wow, that was more mostly once. Actually we had quite a nice chat, you know, you know what I mean? You can always take any of these people out of that environment because that’s the human way is that when you meet people, one-on-one very few people, even if they’re truly a monster are going to call you a conceive face or slap you or something, it’s just a lie that you have an instinct as you want a positive response.

Who was

Garth Ennis: the guy who used to do letter from America? Was it Allister, Allister cook, good cider from America. He had an anecdote about being at a party at the American [00:02:00] embassy in Berlin, in the thirties, and somebody knocking into him and spilling his drink and apologizing my dear chop. But let me get you another drink.

I quit. And it was Hitler.

What’d you say? Oh, I’m so sorry. So sorry, please. Where do I get this smile?

 

 

 

Sumner: Okay. Let’s just get straight into it, mate.

Yeah. So go ahead. Pretty good. Andre. How about you? I am very well. Thank you, mate. Very well. Indeed. Braving the cold to have this conversation and and just being highly amused by the the conversation about the global political catastrophe. Fuck that we’ve just been having before we started.

Garth Ennis: Yes, yes.

Love what you’ve done with the place.

Sumner: Yeah, that’s fine. You know, thank you very much. So yeah, kudos. Kudos. Not to me, but to some of my fellow country persons who I won’t get into resuscitating all that again. So, so, you’re working on a whole flotilla of new books at the moment. What can you tell me about some of them [00:03:00] I’m thinking that could we start with talking about some of the aftershock books?

Garth Ennis: Sure. I’ve got two new. Books for aftershock that I’m working on. One is SQL Jimmy’s bastards. Yeah. Which it’s called Jimmy’s little bastards. Yeah. More GM’s bone type shenanigans. And the other one is a worse story called the lion on the Eagle. And that’s one of the tendons in Burma in 1944 which is one of on, at the tackle for awhile.

So those will be I’ve only just started them. I might to they’ll they’ll both be out sometime next year.

Sumner: Oh, amazing. So, so, obviously I’m, I I’m like a big fan of what you do with your wall books and that’s part what we’re going to talk about in a sec Jimmy’s bastards. Of course, had that. I really enjoyed the first series of that, which had that, that I don’t want to give it away for when he hasn’t re read it, but it has that brilliant sort of narrative flip part of the way through.

Yeah. How did, without spoiling too much, how did that world come to you? What was the jumping off point for, for [00:04:00] creating that in the first place?

Garth Ennis: I, I think it all revolves around exactly the turn that the story takes it you’re talking about. Right. Because when you think of James Bond I wouldn’t say I’m a huge fan of the character.

Every couple of years, I go and see the movies and then I kind of forgot them. And then I carry on. It’s fun to see it’s nonsense. It’s highly enjoyable nonsense really, but there is something interesting in the idea somewhere. And of course, with, with the idea I had for the first series, which is that all his legitimate offspring, all of Jimmy’s bastards come together at once and they have that particularly unpleasant plan to get them to the thing revolves around that.

I won’t, I won’t actually mention for anyone who hasn’t read the book, that was really the starting point. You know, what, if all of blondes. Kids who is, you know, abandoned. He probably was like the window the next morning. What if they all grew up [00:05:00] and came to get him? And if they did hardwood, they get them, you know, and it was very much a let the punishment fits the crime kind of thing.

Yeah. And apart from that, you know, it’s a, it’s a chance to sort of take all the GM’s bond troops and

Sumner: have fun with them. Yeah. I mean, that’s, I think the thing that works about it it’s it starts off very much like what you’d kind of expect your take on the, on the bond genre. It’s a B, and then of course it’s it’s And those are well versed in reading your work.

I think the great thing about what happens in that book is that was not, that’s not a term that I would have guessed, you know, and and actually it can be a bit of a rough read in some respects, you know what I mean? And and I say this to somebody you know, it, wasn’t approved, approved and is not easily shocked, but I did very much enjoy it.

Can you, can you give us a flavor of what Jimmy’s little bastards is, is, is gonna, is going to do what’s that going to explore it for? Well, you

Garth Ennis: you’ll see if in fact, you look at the end of the first series, you get a hint about what happens [00:06:00] in the new series, but essentially someone else has decides to have a pop.

Jimmy of course, Jimmy is not in great shape anyway, because you know, the first series left a bit of a diminished character and his his partner, Nancy, she had the kind of tick over well that’s, that’s where we see them at the start of the new series as a new threat looms for Jimmy. More than that I’d say in the same way, as I can’t say too much about the first series.

Because it, it blows the big reveal. It it’s the same as that really. I can’t tell you too much about the new one or the twist that the whole thing revolves around we’ll we’ll be given away.

Sumner: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, that makes, that makes complete sense. And then and then of course, you’ve got your, your other kind of a big new series, I guess, is Marjorie Finnegan, temporal criminal that’s right.

Which is a wonderful title. So, w w w

Garth Ennis: well, that, one’s what it sounds [00:07:00] like. It’s a bio of this girl, Marjorie Finnegan, who is a temporal criminal, who just races up on that, on the timelines, stealing stuff. And it’s, it’s a comedy it’s, it’s pretty action packed. The artist is Garonne Suzuka. Yeah, it was a terrific artist.

I worked with them on a very different book called a walkthrough hail, which was a very bleak horror book, but gran’s one of those artists that can really turn his hand through anything. And he’s done a terrific job on this. So plenty of action. Plenty of laughs. Marjorie herself is quite a character.

She’s maybe a little bit touched Marge. Really she’s out for fun. She likes to treasure Lamees as she calls them, but, but really she’s out for fun. You know, having, having access to time, travel technology and being able to go anywhere and do anything. I was maybe going through her head a little bit.

Yeah. And she certain fines the temporal police departments, number one agent on her tail and of course, high jenkson [00:08:00] shoe. And there’s there’s a an evil plot and evil scheme underway by unimaginably appalling villains to which two of them

Sumner: stumble across. So it’s, it’s, it’s all the classic Ennis ingredients with some time travel.

Garth Ennis: Yeah. I remember, I think actually what provoked it more than anything else was I was watching let’s show Vikings. Have you seen that? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Good stuff. And I was watching a scene where, you know, it was a long ship show was up in the fuel word on everyone’s shirts themselves. Oh, no Viking. And I find myself thinking one shot.

One shot from a decent sized gun, and you could blow that thing out of the water in seconds, which is a completely irrational thing to think when you’re watching a story about Vikings, but sometimes when I’m watching historical dramas, I think that, I think, you know, if you could just hurry up and invent the machine gun, the airplane, [00:09:00] the heavy artillery, all your problems would be solved.

And the scene that then played out in my head kind of formed the basis for Marjorie Finnegan. Yeah.

Sumner: I get that. And of course it will be such a satisfying thing to be able to do in that moment to pull out the Gatling gun, to pull out the rocket launch.

Garth Ennis: Yes, of course. And, and, you know, B people have done that.

I I’m, I’m aware that, you know, stories like that have appeared before. I just wanted to do my ITA call it. And I also wanted to explore the notion of how do you fix it if. If there’s a nutcase, like Marjorie running around stealing things and you know, blasting anyone who tries to kill her well, while she’s, she’s up to her her fun and games.

What if you’re the one that has to come along afterwards and kind of put time back together? So that say, if she shoots somebody in the fourth century, their entire bloodline isn’t wiped died, and our present day is, you know, you know, the old [00:10:00] saying like, yeah, you go back to the time of the dinosaurs stamp on a baby Brontosaurus and IEPs never develop in demand.

You know, what, if you have to, what if you’re the one who has to fix that, you know, to clean up the maths behind the temporal criminal. And I got quite a bit of fun out of that, but you’ll see when

Sumner: it comes out. So who’s, who’s publishing the book of

Garth Ennis: it’s upshot, which is I believe the The actual company name for the arteries, artists, writers, writers, and artisans.

Yeah. They’ve gotten quite a few books. It’s axle Alonzo.

Sumner: Yeah. Okay. It was an old part of you as a coach.

Garth Ennis: Yeah. Is in fights, you know, myself and Rob Williams and a couple of others who Health titles with it. Just tend to think of it as oxygen’s thing. Yeah. Like it takes a minute or a few seconds.

Oh yes. That’s right. Artists writers are designs upshot. Yeah. But really you’re just thinking it’s Axel’s thing.

Sumner: Yeah. Yeah. Got it. I spoke to Rob the other day, [00:11:00] actually. Funnily enough, it was the first time I’d met him. You know, I’d never run into him before, you know, we now and again, you have those people knocking around the industry and you know them, but you’d never actually, it was just one of those things, but you know, he’s a good bloke.

He does either.

Garth Ennis: Yeah. And a good writer.

Sumner: I know. Yes he is. For sure. So, Marjorie Finnegan. So the guys that did it, when is it coming out? Do you know?

Garth Ennis: It starts in may. Right on grounds drawn about half of the run. That’ll be it issues. Yeah. And he’s working on an issue five now, so we should have planned the, on the bank by the time, the thing actually, ships,

Sumner: is it going to be one and done or is it designed so that it can be

Garth Ennis: it could go on, you know, it could at the minute I’m kind of happy with it, but with it as it is, but not impossible that it could continue.

Sumner: Yeah. And, and to go back to the line and the Eagle. Right. So, so that’s your after shock a Burma book. So [00:12:00] interestingly that you mentioned that my, my oldest friend who’s the The now retired like five boss and Liverpool who I grew up with. His dad was in Burma and was actually in a, in a, in a Burmese prison camp and really went through the ringer before we like came back home.

And I’ve heard some of those stories on as a kid and it’s pretty harrowing shit, to be honest. So, so, how did, what, what, why, why, what, what was it about the conflict in Burma that spoke to you about that series? Why was that something you wanted to, to look at?

Garth Ennis: I think it’s, it’s been on my mind for quite a while.

Most of my war stories world war II stories have involved the the European war. You have touched on it before I wrote one called dear Billy. I wrote another one called the Tokyo club, but this is this one, which is directly about the war in Burma between the British and the Japanese. This is one that I think I wanted to do, because I want, I want [00:13:00] to cover as many of the kind of disparate elements of that war aspects of that war as I possibly can.

Not just the kind of almost multi-national elements that made up the British army, but also the Indians on the GRCA. And there was a Nigerian unit, I believe the Americans and the Chinese who under Stillwell who who are getting involved as well. So there’s that, there’s the sheer savagery of it.

But at this point, Yeah, the Japanese had behaved with a kind of a brutality and that was rarely seen elsewhere in the war. You mentioned the prisoner of war camps. It’s interesting. When you read the memoirs where the guys who went through those comms, inevitably you get to the bit where, where the guy will say something like as bad as we had it, as bad as the Japanese treated us, it was nothing to the way they treated the locals.

Yeah. The Burmese or the Chinese or whoever. It was unfortunate enough to have been invaded by the, by [00:14:00] the Japanese. I mean, they, they treated them worse than animals. And what the, what they got up to in China in particular, which is one of the things that story touches on is horror beyond imagination.

Yeah, really. So these are all the things that went into this story and briefly the chin that’s. We’re a British unit recruited from the regular British army to be a long range, penetration force sort of embryonic special forces unit who would go behind the Japanese lines cause havoc.

And there’s always been a good deal of controversy over exactly how much they achieved. There, there have been questions about the notion of special forces from the very beginning, essentially re revolving around the idea or the question. If you go to all the other units in your army and you take the very best troops for your special forces, a check, what does that do to those other units [00:15:00] at the end of the day, make up the vast majority of the army on halftone instead of the.

Cool black ops and secret missions at the special forces guys do. They’re the ones that have to do the unglamorous, but frankly, more important work of meeting the enemy army on the battlefields and smashing it. What are you really doing with the special forces thing? And it’s not balancing out that the very notion of SF has, has kind of revolved around ever since its inception.

Sumner: That’s very interesting. And that’s something I want to

Garth Ennis: look out in the story as well. Yeah.

Sumner: That’s, that’s very interesting. Now, now, now war quite rightly is, is one of the one of the genres and one of the, you know, kind of, narrative sources that you’re, you’re, you’re very well known for in an era when there aren’t that many people within the comics business, certainly writing about, you know, brighten up by the war anymore.

You and I grew up in an era where, and in the UK, there was a shitload of war comics. [00:16:00] And and what, what’s the Genesis of you identifying so much with that Shauna and, and, you know, being so interested in writing about it. What was your kind of first exposure to world war two? And where did your interest in it come from?

 

Garth Ennis: I think that just as. Almost everyone else in the industry read their superhero. Comics, loved them were up. And then when they got into the industry wanted to write the word, draw them. I didn’t read superhero comics as a kid. I mostly work home. It’s also 2008 D but it was mostly war comics. So it’s just that same notion of wanting to do the things you read as a kid.

But as an adult, the difference being that with war comics, of course you find out that these stories are based on reality. It’s not like Superman and Batman and Spider-Man, which are fantasy and always will be. You’ll never meet anyone like that. They will never, [00:17:00] you find out that the stories and things like battle commando and war, picture library, and so on, actually.

Alive for the massive hyperbole that was applied to those stories were based on things that happened. You, you come to understand that you see the movies, you see the documentaries, you read the books for me, it, it sparked an interest in military history that sort of. I, I think we a bit in my teenage years, but reappeared in my late twenties.

Yeah. So that when I’d enjoyed a bit of commercial success with preacher and Punisher and so on, and people were saying whatever you want to do next, we will take, it was more stories. I’ll do war stories. That was my thing from childhood. It’s just that it had been more of a roundabout route than it is for a lot of people

Sumner: in the business.

Another that’s very interesting. Of course, since then, since having that opportunity and doing like the war stories, books for vertigo, and then [00:18:00] you’ve managed with various publishers too, you know, it’s the analogy for me would be dude to like create blockbusters and then take some time out to do the personal projects.

That’s essentially your relationship with a war zone right now. Isn’t it?

Garth Ennis: Yeah. That’s that’s right. I mean, a lot of it is opportunism. If a new publisher comes to me or any publisher comes to me Independent usually and says we would love to get a project from you. Well, I’ll, I’ll typically say to them, okay, if you want to wait for the next, what would you say sort of broadly speaking, preacher, ask at adventure, you know, the stuff I’m known for the kind of crazy over the top action packed stuff, or the grim is hail horror material you can wit because those come along rather infrequently, you know, I, I have to wait for the thing to percolate in my head.

Like Marjorie, like a walk through hell. Yeah. Or I have a blood [00:19:00] half, a dozen worst stories that I could start tomorrow. Yeah. Generally. Yeah. What they’ll do is they’ll take a war story, knowing that if we can establish a good working relationship on that, I can I can then bring them something else later on.

That’s the way it was with aftershock. They began with dreaming Eagles, which is my Tuskegee airman book with Simon Colby. And from that we established the relationship that that gut Jimmy’s bastards going on, the walks through hell going and so on.

Sumner: Yeah, no, I mean, I think, I think, I think that’s a great way to, it’s a great way to do it.

And with the success you’ve had, you’re, you’re in that lucky position of being able to, to use that chip, which gives you what you want. And, you know, in fact thinking about it, that we first met working on a, on a war book, which was the battle of Britain series that I did with WildStorm when I was at IPC.

Right. Which I love the way that turned out. I remember you saying at the time that you had a second story in you, it, it didn’t [00:20:00] come to pass. Well, I would have loved to have

Garth Ennis: seen them. Yeah. I mean, I suppose. Rebellion must have it now. Right?

Sumner: Definitely got it. Now mates have definitely got it.

Garth Ennis: So I mean, I could, I could do another bottler.

I could do more jobs

Sumner: know. Yeah. I would love to see more Johnny red. I thought the I thought the Johnny read that you did, which she did for my current place of work tighter. That turned out really well. Actually, if you, if you know the character, you must have been pleased with, with what you did there, because I know he was always a favorite year.

Garth Ennis: I was delighted. I really was. I mean, I couldn’t have worked out better largely because of Keith Burns name on it. He made it because if you’re going to do Joanie red, I think you’re going to need an artist who lives and breathes that stuff. The CMY I do. And who’s going to be able to produce our work.

On the same level as Joe Cahone and John Cooper, you’re going to have to have something that lives up to them and Keith, through that, you know what I mean? He aims, as I’ve said before, he’s the artist I was [00:21:00] waiting for all those years. Really. You know, the guy who, who thinks about that stuff the same way I do the, he has this stuff living in his head the way I,

Sumner: yeah, I, I, what I loved about that book and I, this isn’t really a spoiler because of the nature of what that book is.

I love the way you kind of, gave Johnny a happy ending of sorts, which is, which is basically similar, Kyle’s assumed would delude him. You know what I mean? As, as a reader and as a, as a, as a big fan also, also I think the thing about burns is he gave he gave Johnny arc brutishness in his appearance, which was absolutely spot on the minute I saw it.

I thought, yeah, that’s right. You know, that feels right to me. Yes, I think so.

Garth Ennis: I mean, Kowloon always drew him as a sort of little box street scrapper, which is what it was, you know, he was a scholar, he went into the air force with a chip on his shoulder and Cooper made him more of a, kind of a tough guy, traditional hero, like a bigger blow.

I think he found a [00:22:00] nice halfway. Between the two. You might see some more journey read soon, as much as I can say on that.

That,

Sumner: that, that makes me, that makes me very happy. Mommy. That that’s awesome. Well, now that we’re talking about war on comics, how much did you ever do much of a, of a retrospective dive into the DC war books?

And the reason I’m mentioning those is, is that, is it clearly that the Marvel war books are nonsense? They’re essentially as are the Marvel westerns. They are basically superhero books that just happened to be set with Alan command. I love subject pure and it’s Alec commandos, but it’s not really a, it seems to me that the DC war books are much more of a, kind of a legitimate attempt at telling serious war stories than the Marvel books were.

Did you ever get into those very much? Do you familiar with any of them?

Garth Ennis: I didn’t know them as a kid. [00:23:00] For the same reason. I didn’t know that the other DC titles, I wrote a couple of things towards the end of the nineties. I wrote enemy and I wrote unknown soldier. Yeah. And I’ve done a couple of Marvel characters as well.

There was the fandom Eagle.

Sumner: I remember that really

Garth Ennis: once I was able to do my own war stories. Yeah. There didn’t seem to be as much need I mean the DC titles are interesting. The art is fantastic. Canada. Yeah. Cuba.

Sumner: Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

Garth Ennis: But the books themselves, because they were done under the code counter is sort of.

He’s constantly constrained by not being able to show really the reality of what’s going on in a way that they were able to do on bottle and Armando. Not saying that those were, you know, X-rated Gore fests or anything, but were able to, you know, [00:24:00] push the boundaries a bit more. Once I got into doing my own more stuff, I was, I really kind of left out behind the acception.

Funnily enough would be with the Punisher who I was able to do Vietnam stories with and Nick fury, who I did a kind of a cold war book with with them, with those two, I was able to write war stories that I think were. Every bit as near the knuckle as anything I’ve done in independent comics.

Sumner: Yeah. May as a reader and you know, a fan. I, I agree. I mean, I, I love those series. I thought I really I’d see more of those fury books. You did any time, you know, they, they worked out really well.

Garth Ennis: You might just be seeing something. So, I mean, I’ve, I’ve mentioned this before, so Marvel won’t be too upset if either there will be another Vietnam Punisher book, which Nick fury will feature in.

And it will kind of pick up after the events of the fury [00:25:00] series from a few years ago.

Sumner: That’s fucking brilliant, mate. What my hope is that every time I mentioned someone, I want to say that you are then going to go. Yes, that’s the, that’s the that’s the talisman you go. Yes. I’m actually doing it. Yes.

I’d love to see it. Did you, by the way, did you given how close you were to Steve Dylan, someone I’ve always been amazed. Hasn’t been reprinted by Marvel us in some way, shape or form. Is that Nick fury strip? He did for the whole comic when he was 16. And he did like, it’s like, it’s like, I think it’s about 20 weeks worth of two page stories I presume.

Garth Ennis: Oh yeah. I’ve, I’ve seen it because every, everyone points to that and goes, Christ, look what he could do when he was 16. It’s amazing. Right. You know, I, I do not know. I don’t know, maybe because it’s Nick fury and there’s only ever limited interest in that character anyway. And maybe because he’s the old Nick fury, rather than the sun.

And one, a little, to be honest with you, I have no [00:26:00] idea where Marvel is at with that stuff anymore. Anyway. I do

Sumner: not know. Yeah, no, I mean, it’s, it’s interesting because that is a series. That’s a series. If you haven’t speak to a, you know, a hardcore Marvel fan of a certain age, who’s American, they’re nearly, always shocked by his existence and they don’t know an exit, you know, it’s generally really unknown outside of like people.

I like my age, your age, you might have actually read that book when they’re a kid over here in the UK. Nobody else knows it. You know what I mean? But the story’s not brilliant. Yeah. Peaceful. Yeah.

Garth Ennis: Yeah. That’d be worth rebranding just on that basis alone.

Sumner: I think just for this, you know, significance of, of Steve’s career and to, to, to flip into the I would, I don’t know, like DC Warbuck I was just going to ask you about is if you’d ever read it was so there’s famously there’s the the can Kanagawa and Cuba slash John Severen series, the losers, the original iteration of the losers itself was a [00:27:00] conglomerate of three different war books that had sort of come to an end.

And they put the lead characters of each of those, if not books, they’ve series into, into a disparate unit together. So you’ve got like a, so you’ve got captain storm and Johnny cloud, the Navajo erased gunner and Sarge permanent series together. And there was quite a lot of incidents in that book.

Right. And there’s beautiful artwork by several. But then I want to ask you about is there was an app the time unpopular, 12 months of that strip, where can I go? And all the regular world guys came off it and and it was actually written and drawn by Kirby. Okay. Have you ever seen that series?

Garth Ennis: That’s that’s the kind of thing that.

I’d have been unlikely to see, you know, the more secure you get in American comics, the further

Sumner: you, you it’s.

Garth Ennis: Yeah. Generally I tend to know the stuff best that, that I’ll learn more. And people [00:28:00] like that we’re working on back in the nineties. That’s where my variances of American comics begins. The war stuff.

You know, I, I looked at a few old ones when I was doing the IES and, and unknown soldier. Yeah, but and while, you know, I admired what I saw in terms of the artwork, at least I haven’t really gone into it in any great

Sumner: depth. Okay. Yeah. Okay. That, that, that, that makes a lot of sense. I think what’s, what’s interesting about the reason I mentioned that series is because it’s really unlike anything else.

Kirby did. Because Kirby of course said like some follow Wars was a frontline from trauma during the war. And, and it’s him trying to accurately document that experience via writing a drawing, the losers. He can’t take the Jack Kirby bombast out of it. So it’s not exactly realistic and it’s not even hyper-realistic, you know, it is, it’s still essentially, you know, at owes a lot to [00:29:00] his CPO work and that, that would wild framing, you know, book there’s.

You can tell there’s a level of authenticity in the witches. Not necessarily it, the stuff about the category work that I found fascinating years later is I always assumed reading Carnegie’s work, that he fought in world war II and he didn’t, you know, he, he was in the coast guard, right. Cuba and uh, Joel under the editor, they fought.

But but I always assumed you were T you were seeing the they’re kind of they’re exaggerated, like memoirs of somebody who’s there, you know, that’s the kind of voice it had to me, but I guess it was their influence, but it’s just interesting watching Kirby.

Garth Ennis: Paul, was it bald Hani painted? Yeah, for sure.

He he wrote a piece I read and once he, he talked briefly about his own war experience, I think he was an officer on a us destroyer. In the Pacific, but he talks about coming to DC after the war and getting a job there. And he says something [00:30:00] like I’m paraphrasing here, but he says something like I met the man in charge of their war comics department, who I saw a half and seen little man who I soon realized for war service.

He had come up with a formula for war comics that had nothing to do with the reality of war, but it was a formula that worked guess he’s talking about which I thought sung the whole thing up quite nicely. I mean, reading kind of your stuff, reading all those comics your, your description is.

Is one that rings true for me. I mean, it’s, it’s full of bombast and hyperbole and unlikeliness on. I just can’t really get into it for that reason. I think because of work home anxiety, I read as a kid, my idea of what a war story should be.

Sumner: And of course those UK books, particularly ones, a bottled water, they’re much more humble, you know, they’re exaggerated, but you know, and come [00:31:00] with the commando stories, they’re much more humble and reserved and like British in their depiction and still rooted in the reality of everything.

Right? Yeah. They’re a lot more

Garth Ennis: brutal to generalists. Absolutely. Yeah. I protect with the commander and the picture library books, because those are self-contained stories. You cannot be sure at all that our hero is going to make it I’m quite a few times. He doesn’t It’s not to say that these are verite.

It’s not to say that these are the true face of war. They’re just a little bit closer to it. I think that in the American stuff which we must remember was constrained by the code. That’s why counting come up with this formula and the first split what he might’ve done otherwise it, well, that’s an interesting speculation.

But the British, the British books of the seventies and eighties, I think were a little bit, they were closer enough to reality. I think to make them not bit more interesting for someone like me.

Sumner: Yeah. Yeah. I think, I think that’s well said before moving on, I actually you’ve made me [00:32:00] think of something which is Bob Haney is actually responsible for probably the wildest Sargent rock story ever, which I don’t, if you’ve ever seen this, but there’s a, there’s a, there’s a famous issue of brave and the bold, the Batman team up title that was always written by Haney and has amazing artwork by Jim

Who could, you know, he is, captain is always super masculine and he could draw any hero and make him look good. Right. And there’s a, there’s a Batman and Sergeant rock Teamup, which basically has a bunch of terrorists realizing that Haney and a Paro are creating the book. So they actually get involved with Haney and Apollo in real time during the story and and basically take a pyro hostage and, you know, Haney’s got to figure out how to like, stop them, taking the pirate hostage so he can finish it, finish the art on the book.

And it’s, it’s, it’s it’s, it’s genuinely enjoyable. [00:33:00] 22 pages of nonsense.

Garth Ennis: I think grant Morrison, let her read that at some

Sumner: point. Well, yeah, I think you’re right. I think you’re right. I think you might have based 30 years of writing history on reading that story. So, so, you know, given, given your interest in the genre do you have any particular favorites or

Garth Ennis: I mean, just thinking back. So the first war movies I would have seen as a kid there were always the, on the one hand you have the larger than life ones. The ones that Tarantino referred to as guys on a mission movies that everyone knew exactly what he meant. Yeah. But in this context it would be word Eagles there Kelly’s heroes I’m saying, and then you have the ones that they make a decent stab at trying to capture the campaign or the bottle there.

That they’re concerned with like the longest day. Yeah. Like a bridge too far, like a battle of Britain, [00:34:00] like the battle of Britain. These of course were where the cast of thousands. One is where they get every movie star who’s who’s around at the time to do five minutes and then they cut up a movie together out of it.

You know, so John, when Richard Burton, you know, those would be the ones I started with. It was two sort of veins of war movies. And you know, I love those to this day. And then in, in more recent times, I suppose, things like discovering some old classics, like, ice cold and Alex.

Sumner: Yeah. It’s such a great film.

Garth Ennis: It is. But also some of them, the movies that were made in more recent times, long, long after, you know, the events, concern like a midnight clear, which came out in 92 or 93, or when trumpets feared these, these movies are much smaller in scale, but they’re they’re good movies, you know, they’re I would love to see someone try to do a decent, a British war movie of this kind, [00:35:00] because that’s something that that’s something that it seems to have been lost.

That idea. The British will complain constantly about American war movies and the portrayal of the Americans as the only vectors. But, but the British film industry does absolutely nothing about this. It’ll turn out stuff like darkest or, or the MTA, which, which are just costume dramas set in, you know, nicely appointed Oak panel, dining rooms and so on.

They’re also not exactly accurate, but that’s another story, but I would love to see the British, have a crack at a decent or movie, you know, the way they used to in

Sumner: the fifties. I completely agree with you because I think there are some story I’ve thought for a long time. There are some key stories.

Yeah. Which is brilliant. I know I’ve only ever been told as either part of one of those big old cast world or all star cast, world war two movies, which I also love. And I, I think I wanted to explore was the [00:36:00] demarcation between those two, all singing, all dancing, big cast movies, and then the flights of fancy men and men on a mission film, which I also loved both of those things.

And I think the interesting thing is that. Within some of the scenes within say a bridge too far within the longest day, particularly there is a complete movie in though, which if you made it now in the present day, you could adapt properly something like Pegasus bridge, that’s crying out for a movie to be made of it, but you can make such a great movie with contemporary, British actors about Pegasus bridge.

You know,

I

Garth Ennis: mean, if you, if you go to Pegasus bridge and I was in Normandy about three or four years ago and spent a week in the, in that area, you know, looking at the various different battlefields and beaches. And so, Pegasus bridge is amazing because you see how close together they managed to put the three delighters done on her, close to the bridge and the comparatively small.

But a [00:37:00] space in which the, the bot alternate players with the British running out of ammo, you know, praying for the tanks to arrive you know, fortunately they do in the Nick of time. Yeah. That would, that would be a terrific. So, I mean the the scenes in a longest day with Richard, Todd. Yeah.

Who, interestingly enough, was a British paratrooper on the day. And I think. You know, plays a senior officer in his unit, in the movie, in the actual unit, the servant you see, you know, you see the enormous pressure on him as he’s exhorting his man to hang on a bit longer. And he’s thinking hold until relieved hold until relief, because that was, there was one of the orders he was given.

I mean, that’s, that’s just such a fantastic set up. Like you could

Sumner: hang a whole movie off. Yeah. I, I, I couldn’t agree more. I, I, I really couldn’t do, are you, are you a fan of the the recent space of Russian war movies?

Garth Ennis: I have not, I think I know you’re talking about things like the white, white target.

Sumner: Yeah, yeah. The battle for what is it [00:38:00] like the battle for Sevastopol, all those kinds of things.

Garth Ennis: I, I mean, I’m aware of them and I’ve seen bits of them, but I haven’t really gotten into them properly to

Sumner: be honest with you. So I think, I think you’d enjoy those of you check them out because what the Russians are able to do, but some extent coded in their relatively bleak nature.

I think, you know, is, is that is that their war movies are genuinely anti war in a way that there are in a way that even the best anti war movies that have come out of. The UK out of Hollywood, it seemed to me I never truly untoward because they’re still exhilarating. And quite often people you identify with are still alive at the end of the movie, and then seem to meet the trick to making some extraordinary antiwar is you’ve got to see the people you identify with go through a pooling times and not survive because you need to feel that sense of devastation and loss, but [00:39:00] the, the Russians XL in what in Indiana.

And so when you watch these movies, they are truly antiwar in a way that thing, other Mo and movies about world war two, I’ve never experienced that sensation where I’ve switched the film off at the end, and pretty much say the same frame of mind that I might’ve had watching like Requiem for a dream or something where he’d gone well, That was brilliant.

And I never want to watch it again. You know what I mean? Yeah. Which I think there’s a whole genre of movies in itself, which are, you know, great films that you can only watch once because they’re just too emotionally bleak.

Garth Ennis: I mean, one Russian film that I did see, although it’s, it’s from quite a while back is common.

See if you’re familiar with that. It’s it’s about a young boy who joined the Russian partisans behind the lines in world war II. And it’s very grim, very bleak. There’s a lot of frankly, dead space in it, but there are a couple of sequences you see [00:40:00] that exhibit a kind of brutality I’ve, I’ve never experienced NFL before or since vicious, vicious stuff and handled very matter of factly to which somehow adds to the horror.

So, yeah, come and see. That’s that’s one that I think it fits the idea of what you’re talking about, because I don’t really want to set strict that one again.

Sumner: Yeah, no, it was actually come and see you. Is that at the forefront of the ones I was thinking of in terms of, I don’t think, I think that is a great film.

You can’t watch more than once really, you know, unless you’ve got some, it’s not quite connecting in your brain, you know, because it’s just too horrible to fucking watch. And again, I think the dispassionate, the thing you’ve touched upon the dispassionate almost matter of fact way in which it is put together is precisely why it’s so powerful.

Yeah.

Garth Ennis: Yeah. I mean, no one thinks of the scene. I won’t say what, what happens exactly where the boy and the girl are running, like hail out of their village. Terrified because of the, yeah, I think the Germans had just shown up w the boy looks over his shoulder [00:41:00] and sees a site and what we see, which is a site he’s going to take to his grave.

And then he, that it’s face from that. He’s got to keep running. He has no time to process that he has no time to stop and stare. So the director doesn’t let us do it either, but it’s in your head just as it’s in his head. And you can just imagine that churning away really for the, you know, from that home for him,

Sumner: for the rest of his life.

Yeah, for sure. I think, I think that particularly is one of those things that once you what’s that Sr, it’s always that you’re never going to leave that alone. I think, I think that’s very true. Were there, did you see Dunkirk. Yeah. So w what did you think? You

Garth Ennis: know, I liked it I realized straight away, or almost straight away that it was not going to be kind of a factual representation of what happened at Don Kurt, because to do that really, you would have needed CGI, which I believe he was determined not to use.

Yeah. You would have needed to fill the air with smoke, the beaches with [00:42:00] smashed vehicles, the sea with ships, many of them singing on the sky with aircraft. You know, there was never something not happening at Dunkirk. What he did and said was he emitted something that there was very much a, kind of a representation of what happened there.

You had the courage, you have the card issue, you had the betrayal, you had the dates and see you have the salvation. It caught the spirit of Dunkirk. With necessarily being a definite, proper representation of everything that happened. I liked it quite a bit. Plus, you know, the Spitfires.

Sumner: Yeah. Well, of course the splits are brilliant. I agree with you. I think it was really quite accomplished and definitely my eye. Cause I, I alternate between being very impressed by Christopher Nolan and then thinking, ah man. Yeah, that’s us. That’s the emperor’s new clothes really? You know, I particularly don’t like interstellar, which essentially is, is hooked around the [00:43:00] MacGuffin that he’s too lazy to explain because he can’t.

So, you know, the whole thing hinges upon, you know, this mythical like faster than light way of going around the universe, but which they never explained. Cause you can’t explain that because you know, it’s pretty much impossible to come up with and, you know, th th th the mystical elements of it, of, you know, of Matthew McConaughey hiding out in a bookcase and all that kind of stuff.

At that point, I was like I’m not really feeling this. And I wasn’t really feeling. A tenant, because even though it was so ambitious, I think, I think normally he’s so assiduous about the rules of the universities he puts together. But I thought there was quite a lot of holes in his representation of funnily enough time travel, something that you’re you’re working on at the moment.

Whereas there are films of his that I sit and watch them golf. Like that was really, I mean, I really enjoyed inception personally. I really liked the way he put the rules of that universe together. And I thought Dunkirk was just a masterclass in how you ratchet up tension and [00:44:00] interest by simultaneously portraying three timelines without it becoming confusing.

I mean, that was such a lot to do to go first that someone had took two weeks to submit two days, two hours and have them play against each other in real time. I think

Garth Ennis: it helped that he had, he had a good cast there for sure. You know, obviously The two young lads. I think one of them, I might’ve touched because I’d been out of the UK for so long, but one of them was applied star.

Sumner: That’s absolutely right. Harry, whatever his name is. Yeah. From one direction, but

Garth Ennis: then you had know the child, the Spitfire pilot was you know, and even though he wears the oxygen mask and the goggles and the helmet for the whole thing, you know, he just, he just brought a cross that he channeled that kind of calm, well, trians RAF pilot thing, you know, like not professional at work you know, constantly having to recalculate his fuel, a lot kind of stuff.

I thought, I thought all that really helped, you know, getting the right personalities in there to help [00:45:00] move this.

Sumner: Yeah. Yeah. Funnily enough, you absolutely took the words out of my mouth. About my next point would have been about that Tom RD performance, which I think it’s, it’s that highly accomplished and, and everything you’ve just said it’s true the way, the way no one put that together, because you would think that essentially a very sort of compelling art to like him who has his complete face covered for the whole thing.

So all the usual box had Trixie, although he has done it before, when he played bane, I guess, but all that box of tricks, he radiates exactly what you’ve just said, that high level RF training and your heart’s in your mouth. I think at the end of that movie, when it ultimately resolves with the sequence that involves him thinking, Holy fuck, you know, you’re going to crash.

Are you going to, are you going to get the plane down? Are they going to kill? You know, you’re really in it by that point. And when,

Garth Ennis: When he, he does take the mask off and we do see his face and he’s watching the Spitfire burn. [00:46:00] And you see that when he’s captured, he doesn’t even din to notice them because they’re not worth his time, drag him away and he’s a prisoner, but they’re beneath them.

I thought he, I thought he accomplished something pretty special in that little moment there. And that

Sumner: was good. Yeah. I, I agree completely. I mean, he, for years, he, he was one of those actors and thought, well, you know, is, is all this stuff about Tom hall? Art is kind of hyperbole, but then each performance of his, I would watch, I would think.

And I have this framing about Leonardo DiCaprio by, by the way, can be a different actor. You aren’t, I would always set a couple of years ago. I’m not really a big fan of his, but every time I watch him in something I’m like completely absorbed with what he does. You know? And even though I wouldn’t describe myself as a fan, I think, I think those two guys, two very different actors I’ve put together kind of a breadth of performances that are.

So accomplished you can’t help, but respect them. Do you notice? I

Garth Ennis: agree. Once upon a [00:47:00] time in Hollywood.

Sumner: Yeah. I fucking love that film

Garth Ennis: now. That’s my favorite movie of the last couple of years. I’ve enjoyed last few movies anyway, but that one that was icing on the cake. I, I can’t think of anyone else making movies today, who so expertly communicates the absolute joy he has yes. In filmmaking and being able to do these things, you know, in in getting actors to do stuff and getting, getting these lines of dialogue out there are putting them on people.

It’s Mazi. Putting these scenes together, these highly unlikely, ridiculous over the top scenes. There’s no one else who seems to be thinking in those terms except

Sumner: him. I know he, he he’s, he’s an army of one. I couldn’t agree more about that film that is far and away. My favorite film of 2019, actually nothing comes close and I think it was the first time I saw it.

[00:48:00] I’m actually in a second. I’ll tell you about the second time I saw it. It was just kind of a similar deal, but the first time I saw it was. One of those times where you, you experienced genuine euphoria in the cinema. You know what I mean? And I was like, I would love to be there in that moment. Like with one of my mates driving that car around LA in 1969, I would fucking love to experience that.

And I so completely enjoyed it. The S such a, I mean, I’m sure we could do an hour of one of these things, just talking about that film, because it is so rich and there are so many beats and there are so many moments for me. The chemistry, every it’s so beautifully cast alpha, but their chemistry is so spot on.

And that to me is a complete distillation of, you know, when you have those, those friends, when you’re, you know, I’m a bloke. So I can only talk about it from a male perspective. But when you have those, those male friendships that does yours have shorthand [00:49:00] encoded in it, and you genuinely like each other’s company and you’re different, but there’s a mutual respect there it’s there’s a lot of joy to be had in those moments.

Right. And you can see them just savoring each other’s company, whether it’s good times or whether it’s bad times or whether it’s moments of extremity. And I think one of the things he does really well because it touches upon things. I’m very interested in like the old Western era at Warner brothers and whatnot in the fifties and all those movies.

He does the recreation’s so well. And if they’re not exact recreations that they’re re they’re created in a way that you just really want to save it and enjoy it. Yeah,

Garth Ennis: because he, because he lives and breathes up, he wants to bring it alive

Sumner: in that way. Well, one of the things he does is the way he puts a tanty, you know, stamp on everything.

So the scenes from banty law are completely authentic. When you look at any of those old Warner brothers Westerners, at one point, I think one of us had seven westerns on the go at the same time, including [00:50:00] things like Sugarfoot and Maverick of course, and all that, literally seven westerns on there.

And it looks a lot like wanted dead or alive the Steve McQueen show, but he puts that Tarantino twist on things. So there’s actually a lot more death in those clips than you would ever see on network television in the fifties.

Garth Ennis: It’s just exaggerated to the point that it makes you laugh. But. But in the sense that all he’s done is taken something very familiar, a little bit further, you know, four guys fall off the horse, the horses he, he nailed that perfectly.

Sumner: Yeah, absolutely. Right, mate. And what I love about when you say it the first time, because you know, you, you don’t know what he’s going to do, but you know what it’s based on, you know, the Manson killings so that it like he always does. He is an expert in mixing tones on screen and, and is, is, is proficient at it in a way I’ve never seen anybody be able to do it.

Like he can do it and the way he can rock it back and forth with all these emotions. But you’re watching that [00:51:00] amazing extended scene where Brad Pitt goes out to spawn ranch and everything takes a very sinister w tone of foreshadowing, you know, Suddenly, you don’t know if he’s going to get out of there alive.

Yeah. And as you’re watching it in real time, it’s like, Oh, Holy fuck. What’s going to happen. Things have taken a doctor and then it becomes, and that starts out. Amusing becomes very dark suspenseful. It ends on an amusing note, but that sets you up for the, for the final scene where you’re thinking things again, stop feeling darker and darker and darker, which he then resolves with this incredibly violent humor and, and acts of violence that outside of that are heightened world is created.

You begin, Oh, Holy fuck. That’s too much. You can’t watch Brad Pitt briefly beating a woman to death. But, and yet I was sat in a cinema full of full of young women, you know, full of a mixed audience who are, who are laughing their asses off at that [00:52:00] scene. As it went down, you know,

Garth Ennis: it’s a brilliantly made saying, you know, we’re left in no, Doug about the incredible sinister evil of those characters, you know, they may come, they may come off like bungling idiots in the car.

And I do like it when one girl gets out and just runs and likes

Sumner: it. Yeah.

Garth Ennis: These are very bad people who deserve what they get, you know, you just with Charlie had been with some

Sumner: nice. Yeah, yeah. Right. I know you do for sure. It’s supremely cathartic when you see that happen. Because up until that very moment, you’ve got this fear gnawing away at you that you’re going to see something Pauling on screen and you know, and it washes over you would that, cause it’s funny when he did the same trick in in Inglorious bastards, which is up for me, a movie that I half, like, I really wants it.

I really, I really wanted to see Tom and Tino’s men on a mission movie. And if it had been that I would have just been jerking off in the cinema, I [00:53:00] would have loved it, you know? And, and I, I w if, for me, it always kind of ground, so halt with the Paris scenes and the, and the cinema scenes and all that as proficiency as they are.

It wasn’t really what I wanted to see. Right.

Garth Ennis: Yeah. I had the, I was, I was almost the opposite. I, I liked the movies too long as the Inglorious bastards weren’t in it. Right.

I like the stuff with the, you know, evil SS officer that he was brilliant. I liked I particularly like the scene in the basement, you know, with, Oh yeah. Ordering Meghan and McKesson.

Sumner: He was phenomenal. Right.

Garth Ennis: He was the best thing. It watching that movie, it made me feel like. If you were enjoying a particularly good issue of hell blazer or something, and you flip the page and fuck the, put the justice league. Yeah.

[00:54:00] That’s what it was like. That, of course that is an experience that you could not enjoy. Yeah. Thank you. Or at least what, you know, you were able to around that time. But it was, that was the last movie he made that. I didn’t enjoy. After that, John go on, then the hateful lid. It’s amazing there, you know, those, those three in a row are

Sumner: excellent.

Yeah. I, I completely agree. They’re supremely accomplished, I guess, to close out and Inglorious bastards. My issue with that was among the ones I’ve just mentioned is that the thing about him changing history, and once upon a time in Hollywood, I found super cathartic and a relief and I was like washed over with, Oh, thank Christ.

We’re not going to seal up fucking horrible shit. Oh yeah. Brilliant. Great. So everybody is like, why I remember watching everybody get fired at the cinema and everybody who was on a high at the end of that movie at [00:55:00] the end of what’s wrong with Inglorious bastards. Once he went into Terentino’s verse history, my issue with that was every other war movie I’ve ever seen.

Even if it’s insanely over the top and cartoonish, like where are your stuff? Which I love unlike Kelly, Sarah, which I love, I love like the dirty dozen, which they still don’t change the basic fucking facts of the war. Right? So I, it felt like such a narrative cheat to me because I was aware of the fact that the movie had to be ending in the next 10 minutes.

We’re in that fucking theater under there with Hitler. And I’m like, this film’s going to finish any minute now, how the fuck are they going to get out of this? How are they going to do? I, I don’t, I just don’t get it. And then when they, when they, when they waste Hitler, which is enjoyable to watch some machine got in his face, I was like, okay, that’s a nice beat, but it’s like, Oh, I see.

The way you resolve this is just by changing fucking history. Okay. So [00:56:00] everything I’ve been expecting, it was just a much less clever resolution than I would have previously expected from him. I thought he was going to do something, you know, where I’ll be like, Holly cuts off, man. That was very clever. It was just like, Oh, I see.

So you’re just going to kill Hitler. That was a massive disappointment to me.

Garth Ennis: There’s Christoph waltz, whose character is, you know, evil incarnate, who they could’ve legitimately killed instead. Okay. They brutalized them. I bet they kind of swore. So again, there’s that, that’s no fun that I wouldn’t like it to happen.

But at the end of the day that guy’s made a deal with U S intelligence to go and live in, in the States presumably enjoying the life of Riley. And I said, well, plastic surgery sort data. And that’s that to me is this weird. Sort of pointless twist that the film takes where I’m thinking that you have set this character up as unimaginably appalling he’s tortured and terrorized all these poor [00:57:00] people, you know, he’s responsible for so many murders and so on, but.

Ultimately, he gets away with it. Yeah. When you’re going on there,

Sumner: I couldn’t agree more because I really thought that what they were, what he was setting up is that, you know, you have a character called the G wanta. Yeah. And you have a character, the Eli Roth character. Who’s the bird you, who is, who is who you’ve shown.

His thing is physically beating Germans to a pulp. I thought, I thought that the conclusion was going to be watching Christoph waltz in gruesome detail, get beaten to death. And then liquidized on camera by Eli rock. And that would feel amazing. And you’d be like, that fucker got everything he deserved, you know, you’d feel good.

Right. You don’t need skill hit, but you know, so I, I completely agree. And yet that never happened. Nope. Yeah. So it’s, it’s very disappointed just to flip back to once upon a time in Hollywood. So, I’ve got this the [00:58:00] second time I saw it, I got this friend who works for the studios in in LA. He he works in licensing.

He’s a dude called Chris Lou, Sarah, like really, really good really good Italian American bike and days worked in the movie business for quite a long time. And he he he’s one of these guys he’s really into cinema. And I say, he’s gone to the tailors in London where he’s got, he’s got a replicated version of like, Sean, Connery’s three piece suit, Goldfinger, all that kind of stuff.

Right. You know, it’s a level of movie fandom. I would never personally that’s too much for me, but, but that’s his thing. Right. But I said, after a story, he’s LA born and raised. And in fact, he’s, he’s like born and raised in in Toluca Lake in Burbank. And I was like, man, you’ve got to go and see this.

And he was like, you know what, I’m not going to bother because. I’ve kind of gone off Tarantino. I don’t really like Brad Pitt that much. And don’t really like Leonardo DiCaprio that much. I was like, mate, I’m telling you you of all people, this is like a love letter to Burbank, [00:59:00] like a love letter to Hollywood.

You just got to trust me and you’ve got to go. And he’s like, okay, I’ll do it. And then like, literally three months later in the middle of the night, it’s about four in the morning, London, I get a phone call from man. And he’s like, Holy fuck. I’ve just been, see once upon a time in Hollywood, it is amazing.

It’s the film of the year. You’re dead. Right. It’s fucking brilliant. And he was just Ray or me on the phone for about half an hour. The next time I went to LA for work purposes, he was like, I want to take you out and do something. And he took me to see the movie for a second time at the new Beverly, which is like Tarantino cinema in Los Angeles.

Yeah. So we go see that. And then he takes me for dinner at one of the Mexican restaurants that features in the movie, you know, not booth where they sit when they get shit faced before they, before they have the, yeah. So that was my second time seeing it, which was, you know, for different reasons as you fork is the first time.

But I really think it is one of those films that [01:00:00] really like lights that fire of, of absolute devotion, a certain brand of genre fan, you know, I mean the

Garth Ennis: kind of thing that honestly because it is. Much as I enjoyed them, it is better than as last two as well. Like it takes things to another level, the kind of thing that I didn’t think I was going to see again, anytime soon that is used to lights the fire that way.

Yeah. I wasn’t expecting, I wasn’t expecting to see something like that again

Sumner: at all. No, mate, I couldn’t agree more. And I think on that note, that’s a, that’s a, that’s a good place to wrap up this time around. And yeah. Thanks for, thanks for joining me. Thanks for joining me for high degree GAF and thanks for getting into your new projects and the subject close to both of our hearts, which is a world war two world war two, entertainment, war movies.

It’s been great chatting to you, mate. All right. Thank you. Take care of yourself, brother. I’ll see you soon. Cheers. And [01:01:00] that wraps us up for that. Thanks mate. That was great. That was awesome. I mean, you know, if you enjoyed that chat, I’d love to do another one and get some of the, I mean, I realized that I think there’s a lot of this movie stuff and a lot of those other genres that we could talk about.

I actually, I wanted to get into some fuller, which I don’t know if you’ve seen any of his so

Garth Ennis: the big red one years ago. Yeah.

Sumner: So I mean, Brigid, one’s great. I would recommend if you ever get a chance to check it out, you should check out the two Korean war movies he made, like back to back. In roundabout 1950 under the first one is the steel helmet, which is often referenced by Tarantino.

Well, yeah, and the second one is fixed beignets and the fixed beignets happens in winter. And and they both started a guy called Jean Evans who was a well-known like utility player, like character actor, but that the steel helmet, the shot are minuscule budgets. I think somewhere out in California.

[01:02:00] But the, there, the thing about followers like a Kirby, he was a frontline infantry man. And and, and, you know, famously he never shouted action. He used to fire a pistol at the start of every single way, and all this films are at high, extreme melodrama, but they’re also rooted in a kind of realism of his like GI experience and the both about white fucking, I don’t know, 70, 80 minutes, long

Garth Ennis: steel helmet and fixed

Sumner: bayonets.

Yes. Check them out, make, cause I’m sure you’d enjoy them. And in fixed painters, Evan’s character is his lead characters, Sergeant rock, funnily enough. And and, and it’s got a similar name, not dissimilar name in the first one. They’re very much of a piece, but they have a kind of bleak emotional reality that you know, given the fact that it was shot within the Hollywood system in 1950, you know what I mean?

Yeah. So if we, if you’re up for doing another one of these or another couple of these in the future, we will. Yeah, of course. Yeah. Great mate. I’ll I’ll, I’ll be in touch about doing some forbidden planet TVs to line up the knee [01:03:00] books. All right, mate. You enjoyed the rest of your Sunday. Thanks for joining me.

I appreciate cheers. Take care, brother. All the best. So yeah. Yeah. Cheers mate.