2003 Comic Book News Archives

May 20, 2003: Alan Davis Talks “JLA: Another Nail”

The Pulse caught up with artist Alan Davis to talk to him about his new 3-issue mini-series which continues on where the "JLA: The Nail" Elseworlds series left off. Here's an excerpt from the interview...

"For want of a nail, a shoe was lost," begins the old nursery rhyme. Inspired by his mother's use of the trope to get him to do his chores, acclaimed artist Alan Davis created JLA: THE NAIL. The critically acclaimed 1998 Elseworlds mini series explored a simple but devastating idea: suppose that on one fateful day, Jonathan and Martha Kent had run over a nail, causing a flat tire. Running late, they might never have been in the right place at the right time to rescue a certain baby and thus a very different world without Superman is created.

Now, Davis and ace inker Mark Farmer are reuniting for JLA: ANOTHER NAIL, a 3 issue follow-up due from DC early next year. "It's carrying on from many of the loose ends at the conclusion of the first three books," Davis says, explaining that this story is very much a continuation. "In my mind I think of these as the concluding three books. When I did the first three it was quite a long negotiation because DC had no experience with me as a writer and didn't really trust me. I'd written for Marvel for a few years but I hadn't gotten any writing credit at DC so when I sent the proposal in, it was shelved and then when it was brought back out again, there were all sorts of reasons why it couldn't be done, and so I just kept going back to Marvel." By his reckoning, THE NAIL was in the works for five years, of which only 18 months were spent in actually producing the book. The remainder was spent in negotiating over format.

Spinning off of ideas he couldn't fit into the first mini-series, ANTHER NAIL picks up from where the last story left off: Lex Luthor has been defeated, and Kal-El has been discovered, but as a very different person. "You've got a Superman who was raised by an Amish community so he's a completely different Superman from the one that we're used to." Davis explains that the story isn't so much about the shock of what has changed, as the interconnection of changes. "It's the complexity which is the fun part. Everyone in the DC Universe is involved in some way. Their importance depends on how close they are to the center of the action. But the story in itself is almost secondary to the fact that you have all this other stuff that is going on."

Read the complete article at The Pulse website.



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