Brendan McCarthy. If you didn’t know any better you might think that it was a man’s name. It’s not, of course. It’s an invitation. The worlds conjured up in McCarthy’s comics tease the phantasmagorical from the mundane and mix them back together in new and outlandish fashion. It’s an invigorating experience, and opening the pages of a McCarthy comic is always a journey into the world made fresh and strange and overwhelming. You know, like art is supposed to be, like life is supposed to be.

Through his electrifying 2000AD work on the likes of ABC Warriors and Judge Dredd, to his more personal work with Peter Milligan such as Paradax, Skin and Rogan Gosh, McCarthy has consistently set the bar so far above his peers that it may as well be on another planet. This tendency has happily returned with the release of two of his best works to date over the last two dates. Both Solo #12 from DC Comics, with its radical reinterpretations of the DC pantheon of super-heroes, and the artist’s own visual autobiography Swimini Purpose have reinforced his reputation as one of the greatest powerhouses of innovation to ever wok in comics. And most importantly, he’s never boring. That’s his comics though… I caught up with him for a very brief chat about other things.

So, seen any good films lately?

Recently I enjoyed Rattatoullie, the animated character of Grendel in Beowulf, the sauna fight scene in Eastern Promises and the great B&W cinematography in Control.

What books do you have on the go at the moment?

LOEG Black Dossier (some good stuff in there), Remake/Remodel: about the origins of Roxy Music in the early 1970′s, Silence Of The Heart: the advaita influenced talks of Robert Adams, 9/11 Synthetic Terror: a deep analysis of 911 by Webster Tarpley.

I also read a lot off the internet sites like: Reality Carnival, Daily Grail and AntiWar.com.

What about music? Heard anything good lately?

Not really… Classic FM gets a lot of airplay.

What’re you having for tea tonight?

Oh, I already had it. Sorry. But chimp-free Earl Grey was involved.

Oh, go on then – what comics are you working on?

I’ve got about seven new pitches out with various comics companies at the moment, but I’m not working on an actual comic at the moment… apart from finishing a SHAKARA cover for dear old 2000 AD.

The official Swimini Purpose site can be found here, and it contains a useful selection of links to other sites of interest. You’ll want to check out The Strangeness of Brendan McCarthy to see more of that glorious artwork, by the way. Plus, buy his books.