By - Christopher Lawrence

"I've never eaten human flesh," writer Garth Ennis reveals, taking a sip from a piping hot cup of coffee in his Northern Ireland home. "People expect me to be a full-on raving lunatic, a real wild man. I'm not. I'm just a quiet f---er from Belfast who likes a pint."

But how many "quiet" barflies would dismember (and devour) characters like Ennis has in Preacher? Or depict death by zombie penguins or exploding asses as Ennis has in Hitman? Brace yourself for more of Ennis' ultra-realistic, ultra-violent style as he collides head on with Marvel's vigilante extraordinaire, Frank Castle, for a 12-issue Punisher mini-series for Marvel Knights.

As he plops down into a black leather swivel chair, Ennis looks nothing like the anti-Christ some make him out to be. In fact, he more closely resembles his most famous Preacher character, wearing Jesse Custer-style faded blue jeans and a black, button-down shirt--sans the white preacher's collar, of course.

The room, however, is conspicuously devoid of any hint of its owner's occupation. The closest thing to a comic reference--a large stuffed Wile E. Coyote--sits pensively on a chair, either staring at Ennis' impressive home entertainment system or gazing out the large bay windows onto the quiet street outside.

What decorations there are evoke the images and ideals of "the Old West," a notion that plays as vital a role in the Preacher saga as the characters themselves. On one wall hangs "Prairie Girl," an original piece of art Ennis likens to an exploding Western sunset. On the opposite wall, a print of a Native American on horseback by Remington shares space with Andrew Wyeth's "Christina's World," an image used extensively in Preacher #43.

Stretching out on the chair, Ennis willingly discusses two of his biggest fascinations--faith and violence--and hints at a subtle bond linking the two. Ennis openly admits he doesn't believe in God, and says he tackles religion in his stories for the same reason he includes violence--"because it entertains and fascinates me, not because it's part of my life." And while such an admission may seem controversial to some, it's merely a matter of fact for Ennis. 

"The kind of people who would protest Preacher don't seem to notice it, which suits me fine," he says in an unmistakable Irish brogue, his deep voice exuding confidence in his ability to tackle a mainstream title like Punisher. "I don't want trouble."

How did you get involved with PUNISHER?

Let's see. Really it came down to Joe Quesada and Jimmy Palmiotti. They're good friends of mine and we've been wanting to work together for a long time. When they were first putting Marvel Knights together, they asked me if I wanted to do anything for them. At the time, I was exclusive to DC, but it became more and more obvious to me that I'd better work for Marvel. You know, have a bit of fun, make a bit of money.

It was just a case of waiting for my exclusivity contract to run out with DC and the became available. Of course, in the meantime,they'd commissioned those two mini-series with the sort-of magic. It was really just a case of waiting for the character to become available. And, of course, Joe and Jimmy knew the Punisher was really the one Marvel character I could write for any length of time, you know, without going insane. Well, it all just came together quite nicely, I'd say.

Did you approach them about the project?

They came to me and said, "Look, we've got the Punisher, do you want it?" I said, "Give me some time, but I'm your man.

Are you a big fan of the character?

I wouldn't say I'm a big fan of the, per se. I think it's that he's the kind of character who appeals to me. He reminds me a little bit of some of the characters I grew up reading in comics. 2000AD, where you have characters like Judge Dredd, Strontium Dog, RoboHunter.

They're guys with guns basically. They don't have that silly superhero thing. They're more sort of gunfighter, gunslinger-type characters and that's something I can relate to a lot better. And so the, being that kind of a guy, is someone I could relate to as well as the fact that the, by virtue of the fact that he kills people, is a harder-edged character and therefore, one that appeals to me a lot more. You know, I can have all that good sick s--t, the people dying in gruesome ways, that I like to fill my work with.

(smiles.)

How did The Punisher Kills the Marvel Universe come about?

That was a little bit different. I remember a guy called Mark McClaren (SP?) phoned me up. He used to work for Marvel. He wanted me to do some work for Marvel, which was fine, and he suggested that I write an alternative universe story of an X-Men book. So he sent me this X-Men treatment to write and said, "Why don't you do an alternative version of this story?" I tried to read this X-Men thing and I just couldn't make head nor tails of it. It was the weirdest damn experience. If you didn't grow up on it, you have no affection for it, no nostalgia for it and therefore, you just won't be able to get into it. But I read these ridiculously dressed characters doing unlikely things and talking and talking and talking while they did it. Like Wolverine, he's having to snake his arm through these huge word balloons filled with verbiage. He seemed to be having the massive conversation with these people he was gutting, you know? I read more and more of these bombastic villains and this real sort of over the top stuff and I thought, "My God, I'm never going to be able to write this." I phoned the guy back and said I have one idea for Marvel and one only-and it's the kills them all. He kills all the superheroes. Not exactly high concept stuff, but as a one joke story, it worked.

My experience on Marvel is really some stories, Frank Miller's Daredevil stuff, Frank Miller's Elektra stuff and apart from that, I know who most of the main characters are, but that's it. 

This series, I pretty much filled it with my own characters. Daredevil's in it, but that's just because I sort of figured Daredevil always has to show up and fight the at some point. Apart from that, it's like the versus villains I've come up with. 

What kind of guy is the Punisher?

He's a big thug with a skull on his shirt who machine guns people. He kills criminals because he hates them. He probably does it because he likes it, quite frankly. I mean, let's face it, he's been doing it for 25 years now. I'm pretty sure he's killed the actual guys who killed his family, and the guys who ordered it done. So he's taken his revenge. let's face it, he's settled his count there and he's still doing it? He's doing it because he likes it. Because he's sort of, for all intents and purposes, a serial killer. It just so happens that the people this serial killer kills are, you know, criminal scum.

Does he deserve to be put in jail?

Well, yeah. Or put down like a mad dog. The fact is, he's a lot of fun to write because there is a hint of dark gallows humor in the character. And as well as that, you know, a guy like that who goes around conducting his war on crime is going to get himself into a number of ridiculous situations.

And then there's the fact it's just a really action packed book. And that's a lot of fun. You know, like "Die Hard", "Lethal Weapon"-once the bullets start flying, you're gonna have a lot of fun.

The other aspect of it, of course, is the whole Dirty Harry thing. He may be a monster, but the people he's up against are a thousand times worse. You're glad he's out there within the strange context of the Marvel Universe.

Punisher is 12 issues. Why not an ongoing series?

Well, maybe it will be. All I know is I'm doing 12, and after that, we'll see. 

Who are the villains in the series?

Basically, I've created new ones. The sort of criminal mob family that goes up against are the Gnuccis. In the first issue, he wipes out the three sons of the family, earning him the eternal enmity of Ma Gnucci, this sort of 50-year-old hatchet-faced harridan, Cruella DeVille type of character.

In the third or fourth issue, Ma Gnucci becomes a terrible cropper herself because something dreadful happens to her. So if she was pissed off at the before, she's a lot more pissed off after that. And then beyond that, you've got your standard sort of armies of mob soldiers for the to mow down. And then later on in the series, we'll meet The Russian. He's just known as "The Russian." He's this huge f--ker, this terrifying guy, this sort of man-mountain who Ma brings in to f--k Frank up with.

You've also got a couple of cops assigned to track the down. There's Martin Soap and Molly Von Richthofen and they're the NYPD's Task Force. My take on it is most cops would probably kind of like the because he cuts down a lot of their workload and he does it, in the strange rules of the Marvel Universe, without ever killing an innocent bystander. Just as Batman never breaks the arm of the wrong guy, Frank has never killed anyone with any of the stray bullets that he must spread round all over the place. So the cops would probably pretty much like him. So when the cops are told they have to take the down, they assign their two biggest f--k-ups to the case.

And as well as that, these guys aren't strictly villains, but at the same time as the sort of reappears in the New York scene, he sort of inspires a number of other guys to come along and be vigilantes too. You've got the Holy, who's a priest who goes a little bit far and starts hacking people up in the confessional. You've got Elite, who's this guy who lives in this lovely upper east side apartment who thinks his neighborhood's going down hill, so he goes around killing drug dealers and stuff. And you've got Mr. Payback, who's sort of the exact opposite of Elite. He goes around basically fighting corporate crime. He's a bit like a slimmer version of Michael Moore, only with a gun. 

The three of them are running around doing their vigilante thing and they're all inspired by the Punisher and they're hoping Frank will join them and they'll form a sort of vigilante team. Needless to say, they're in for a big surprise.

Really Frank's just alone against this collection of freaks.

The only people he has kind of on his side-and they're not even on his side-are the three people who live in the same apartment block as him. I have Frank living a kind of lonely, Leon-like existence. Leon, like from "The Professional." He's living in this apartment and he's got a room crammed with guns and bullets and bombs and stuff. He's got Joan the Mouse who lives across the corridor from him, she's this tiny little girl who's terrified of her own shadow. There's Spacker Dave, who's this eternally optimistic arsehole with about a million face piercings. And there's Mr. Bumpo, who's a lock in, this fat guy who lives across the hall and can't even get out his apartment door. He has regular heart attacks and they have to dismantle the wall of the apartment to get him out, that kind of thing. They're Frank's neighbors.

All the greats. You'll have the uzi, shotguns, the m-60 (always a good one), 45s, fun with claymore mines-always good, grenades, bombs, knives, all the good stuff Frank uses to f--k people up with is in there. 

Where does your knowledge of guns come from?

Oh, from watching movies and reading books. I am intrigued by military history, I'm intrigued to read about what people do in incredibly unusual situations, in situations of life and death. And yeah, military history-particularly second World War History-does fascinate me. Also the American Civil War, World War I. 

In terms of actual first-hand knowledge, I don't have much. I learned to shoot as a kid, I fired British army rifles-like old ones. I was in Texas last year and I had an enjoyable afternoon, when some guys I was with took me shooting in the woods. Just nailed a couple of targets to trees and popped away with handguns. That was interesting really.

Over here, while the police may be armed, and various other people are armed too, it's not possible to buy guns with the same ease as it is in the states.

Do you hunt?

Nope. Never fired at anything other than bits of paper. And you're talking literally, about two or three occasions in my life.

Do you think it's easy to shoot a gun?

No, I don't. One thing I learned pretty quickly is that the recoil is massive. Yeah, I mean, I would say it's a fairly unsettling experience. You pull the trigger, the thing goes bang and the air fills with smoke. There's this sort of muzzle blast and POP-it hits the target. So I would imagine doing that in a combat situation would be incredibly unsettling, where you've got some guy flying at you and you've got to drop him. I can't even begin to imagine how I would react in circumstances like that. 

I must say, I really did enjoy the target shooting. It was a lot of fun, but that's as close as I want to get to the real thing.

In terms of, how are you going to get around the demon-killing angel...

Basically, just throw it out the window. There's about two captions in the first issue and that's it. Just forget it.

With Vertigo, you get much freer reign with the violence and the sex. How will you handle such things on?

Well, Punisher's actually the first time I've ever written a comics-code approved book. My line on this is, you always have to have your eyes open going in. I can hardly start writing the book and then start to complain if they start to cut stuff out. I've basically written it in such a way that there's next to no swearing and that the violence, while extreme in a lot of cases, can be portrayed in such a way that you get the effect without portraying the ghastly horror or the wounds or decapitation or anything like that. Of course, that's where Steve Dillon will come in. As an absolute master storyteller, he can give you the maximum effect without necessarily being too explicit.

You just get yourself into the mindset for doing a Marvel book, where you know people are going to shot on the blindside, they're not going to be big fountains of gore or exploding eyeballs and stuff like that. I'll write the story, and I'll have the usual run of crazy things happening, it just won't look quite as violent. And that's okay. For 12 issues, I can put up with that.

Do you think the fact you don't use the foul language or excessive violence makes it less realistic?

I think if you're writing a book about a guy who kills criminals and never gets captured by the police and pulls off this kind of superhuman gunplay and lives in a world full of superheroes, it's like up to a point, you throw realism out the window anyway. So long as each scene makes sense within its own context, it doesn't really matter.

With Preacher, I try and be a wee bit more realistic. The violence in that book is very explicit, but then I think that's probably a good thing. I mean, let's be honest about what we're portraying. Let's show the effects of bullet wounds and a smack in the mouth, an iron bar on the back of the head. There's no point in trying to be nice about it.

What would you do with the Word of God?

I suppose I'd go fixing up the world and stuff. With Jesse, he lives in a world where God exists. Personally, I don't believe God does exist, but in Preacher, you have a God character and Jesse sees that as his job to do. I suppose, given as I don't believe that there's a God, I suppose I'd go around doing earthly stuff.

But I'm sure at the same time, I would do incredibly f--ked up things as well.

Preacher ends at issue #66? Did you have that limit set from the beginning?

I knew it was going to last like 65, 70 issues. The last couple of years I thought, I'm going to have to end it pretty soon, let's say at 66. 66 is a good number. It was going to be 69, but Steve thought that would be a bit cheesy. And he was right.

Are you going to be sad to see it end?

Yeah, but there will be satisfaction, too. The story's told. 

Would you ever go back and do a one-shot or a graphic novel?

If I ever do, you'll know that something's gone horribly wrong. No, I have no plans to go back. Except there was going to a Preacher special about the Sex Detectives which they turned down because it was just too extreme. And I guess I would do that, but in terms of the lead characters, no. Once you see 66 coming out, their story's finished.

How is Preacher going to end?

Last issue will be double sized, 40 pages, same as the first issue. Everyone basically gets what's coming to them. Jesse, Cassidy, Tulip, the Saint, Arseface, Starr and God-everyone's tied up quite nicely. There's a lot of f--king carnage and killing. Some of them are going to walk away from it, some of them aren't. Some of them are going to die.

Thus far, are you happy with the entire run of Preacher?

Yeah, pretty damn happy. Working with a guy as good as Steve Dillon, and every issue, he's turning out that great artwork, telling the stories so well, issue in and issue out. I've been really lucky with the specials as well, Steve Pugh, Carlos Ezquerra, Rich Case, Pete ???? did a great job on the Starr book. Glenn Fabry-beautiful covers. I've been really lucky.

Is Preacher a story you've wanted to tell for a long time?

It was more the themes. I've always been fascinated by faith and religion and the idea of a god. I love westerns and I love war stories and basically, I've just piled it all into the mix. You have a tank battle in Monument Valley, nukes flying about, voodoo, lots of drinking, Irish revolutionaries, all that good s--t. Just pile it in and stir it up.

Are the main characters in Preacher based on people you know?

No, not really. They're kind of archetypes of the characters you always put into a classic story. I always think of Preacher as a western, so it's filled full of the characters you'd see in a western. You've got the proud, stalwart hero who stands for what's right and just, the beautiful girl, the roguish sidekick, the complete s--t of a villain, the comic relief who's an annoying little bastard. And then on top of the five of them, you have the Saint, who's like a direct spirit of the west. He's walked out of those times to bring the horror and bloodshed of the Wild West to the modern times.

What about your other villains, are they based on anyone? 

No. When I have villains, I want them to be totally irredeemable s--ts. I don't want any of that, "Oh, he's not even worth a bullet." Yes, yes they are f--king worth a bullet, I want them to be worth a bullet. I want them to be irredeemable scum the audience can't wait to see die. Because then it's ten times more satisfying when our hero finally gets his hands around the throat of the villain and squeezes until his f--king eyes bug out. None of that letting them away with a caution or "let's take them off to Arkham Asylum because they have a chance at redemption and rehabilitation."

Is Jesse similar at all to the Punisher?

Not very. They're both kind of obsessive individuals, but Jesse's actually a lot more laid back. I mean, yes, he has a job to do and he takes it very seriously, and to him it is his task, but he doesn't go on about it and he doesn't let it actually affect the way he behaves on a daily basis. And big Frank, he just wanders around lookin' pissed off all the time because he knows that there are criminals out there that he isn't killing at that moment in time.

Who'd win in a fight-Castle or Custer?

Geez. I'd say Jesse's probably a better fighter, but big Frank's probably got more stamina. Plus, he's like a f--kin' tank. You could hit him all day long and he'd keep coming at you. That's a hard one to say. We'd have to assume Frank wouldn't pull a gun and Jesse wouldn't use the Word.

That's the thing about Frank, though. I don't think Frank would have any major problems with honor. If it came to it and he was up against a villain who was beating him, Frank'd pull a knife or a gun and do whatever he would have to do. At the end of the day, Frank fights to kill. His purpose is to kill.

I think I have a bit in the book at one point where he's talking about martial arts and stuff and he says he knows a few tricks himself, but basically, if you're too close to shoot, you're too close.

Which is not a bad ethos, actually.

Has DC rejected anything you wanted to do for Preacher?

Yeah. There have been a few things, but mostly the give and take has worked out pretty well for me. There's never been a bit I've had to change where I burned with f--king indignation about it. Because that's the kind of thing where there would be a certain level where if they said, "You can't do that", I would be like, "Well then, I quit."

There are things where they'll ask me to make a change and it won't matter so much. It's not what is said, it's the effect of what is said. I'll let them win one and that way, when the next time one of these comes up, I was like, "You know I was a good guy on that one, how about you guys let this one go." That works pretty well.

In the Starr book, they really didn't want Starr saying, "Mrs. Thatcher, how much does it cost to piss in your mouth?" They changed it to "Prime Minister," but who cares? It's obviously Margaret Thatcher. It's set in 1983. We know he's meeting all the heads of state...it's bloody obvious.

In that same issue, there's a bit where he's screwing this prostitute in a public toilet and he says, "Stick your head down the toilet, I'm coming." They wanted me to take that out and I said, "No, look. I changed this. That stays in." They were like, "All right."

For the most part, it's pretty much been give and take. There have even been a couple of bits where they made me take stuff out and what we put in to replace it was ten times funnier.

Are you a religious man?

Not at all. I'm fascinated by religion, faith, the abuse of it, the history of religion and the idea of God, but no.

Was that tough, growing up in an area known for conflicts centered around the idea of religion?

No, not really. It was a bit odd growing up and going to school and running into the idea of religion. it was always annoying, but never a big problem.

Are your parents religious?

No.

Do you ever get people telling you you're going to hell for what you've written?

Usually in a joking kind of way. The kind of people who would genuinely be convinced I was going to hell and who would protest about Preacher and stuff don't seem to notice it. Which suits me fine. I don't want trouble, I want to finish the f--king book. 

If someone told you you're going to hell, would it bother you?

Come on, hell? You gotta be kidding me. As far as I'm concerned, if there is a God, I can't imagine him being petty enough to send people to hell for not believing in him. I would imagine that if one goes through life, tries to do the right thing by one's fellow man, doesn't f--k people over, you don't do terrible things, take advantage of people. If you're a reasonably good person and it does turn out there's a God, I'd imagine you'd be all right. If he's petty enough to send you to hell for not going to church on Sundays and going through the voodoo, he's not much of a god to begin with. I would imagine, you know, that Preacher, which is-in terms of the religious aspect-a big parody, poking fun at religion, I don't think that would be a major stumbling block at the pearly gates, either. 

Did DC ever catch flack over Preacher?

The occasional letter from some irate parson or padre somewhere in buttf--k Idaho.

What are the worst complaints you've ever received?

As a matter of fact, there was one guy who kicked up the most fuss who I'm convinced did us an enormous amount of good. It was round about issue 10 or 11, and a series of events kind of came together that really helped us out. The first trade paperback was due out, the book had been going about a year, there was a buzz about and yet the sales were in the high 30s and it kicked up to 56,000. All of a sudden we got 15,000 new readers overnight, between one issue and the next. It was a combination of the publicity, the book coming out and this guy, who posted this outraged message on the net. He'd bought a copy of Preacher that was filled with all sorts of terrible things and he'd been appalled. After a few issues, he'd gone back to try it again and he was appalled again. He thought we would have cleaned up our act, which is a bit like going into a porno theater, being appalled, then coming back three months later and being appalled they're not showing a f--king Mickey Mouse movie.

He posted this on the net and there was a big Internet debate. Which mostly passed me by. That gave us a s--tload of free publicity. I'm sure it was one of the things that helped us, gave us this massive jump in sales. It was just about then that Preacher really became a phenomenon, the little phenomenon it is today.

When you do conventions, do you get irate people who lay into you?

It's never happened. There's been a couple of sort of nervous types who've crept up to me and voiced their heartfelt concerns while staring at the floor and I just say to them, "Look the answer's not to read it."

But I've never had someone come up and take a shot at me or anything like that.

What do you read in terms of comics?

I read Hellblazer, Transmetropolitan, Invisibles, The Legacy of Luther Arkwright (SP?), Sin City, some of Alan Moore's stuff, I love League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, it's great. I like Tom Strong. I like Top Ten.

Probably my favorite comic that comes out these days, not as often as I'd like, is Concrete. I love Concrete, it's brilliant stuff.

Where does all the violence come from?

It certainly doesn't come from my background. I've had a quiet life. The last of act of violence I committed at another human being happened when I was 17 at a party and these two guys beat the f--k out of me. So I staggered upstairs, intending to get my friend, because then it would be two on two, only to find him demolished in an upstairs bedroom. They'd got him first. Quite smart, tactically. I think I managed to land a couple on them, but that's the last time I ever hit anyone. I've no desire to hurt people. 

The violence basically comes from all the movies I've watched, the books I've read, the comics I've read. I put it in there because it's either entertaining or it has a certain effect and I think I was talking earlier about there's a certain responsibility to portray violence with a certain realism, I think, so you don't give people the idea you can walk away from a punch in the face. You can't. It just comes from the kind of stories I've seen, the stories, I've read.

There is a certain humorous aspect to a lot of it. When you have movie like "The Killer" with Chow Yun Fat, where they soak up lead. They get shot again and again and again and they keep going. That's part of the fun of the over the top quality of those Hong Kong films.

How do you get into the frame of mind to write Preacher and Hitman?

I don't have any kind of aids to writing. I know there are people who like to play music, who like to psyche themselves up. Basically, all I need to write any particular scene is a bit of peace and quiet. So long as I'm left alone, I can just wander around the house, drink cups of coffee, occasionally write something, even play a hand of Patience or Solitaire, you'd say.

Just something to occupy myself with while my mind works the stories out, but I don't need or use any music or films. And I certainly don't get myself all angry and then write something.

I did do one thing recently. I was writing the 50th issue of Hitman, which is kind of a sentimental look back at the series up to that point. It's quite sad, because one of the main characters has been killed. I drank two or three very generous glasses of whiskey. Not to get drunk, just to get in that slightly maudlin frame of mind for that kind of sentimentality, when you're looking back on something that happened a long time ago and you're remembering all the great times you had. I wrote it, then in the morning I went back and I took out all the really sort of toe-curlingly awful maudlin s--t and then I typed it up.

I didn't really need the whiskey to do that, but I guess it helped a little to get into that frame of mind. But that's one of the very few times I've ever done anything like that at all.

What's the worst, most violent thing you've seen in your life?

F--k all. I am brilliant at avoiding trouble. Not through any effort on my part, I'm saying this, I'll probably get run over by a f--king truck tomorrow. (Raps on the table three times)

The worst thing I've ever seen is probably a guy getting punched in the face. I've been in New York and the most violent thing I've ever seen is a guy getting knocked, sort of pushed against a wall, and I just saw this in a taxi, a guy talking to him like this. (Pointing an accusing finger in the face)

Do your parents read Preacher, Hitman?

My mum reads everything I write because it's her wee boy doing it. So she wades through blood soaked pages and just like it because it's me. My dad reads the occasional thing but he's a bit more laid back about it and I don't mind that. I'm not necessarily writing stuff he'd always be into, anyway. 

He likes the occasional thing. I did a book called Heartland a few years ago, basically a kitchen sink drama kind of thing, almost a soap opera of people living in Belfast. he read that and enjoyed that.

There are bits of Preacher. He likes reading about Arseface and he loves seeing Glenn's covers.

You have Cassidy in Preacher, and had vampires in both Hellblazer and Hitman. Where does the fascination with vampires come from?

I suppose I've written quite a few vampire stories, and I suppose that's because the vampire's a pretty cool idea although there has been acres of pretentious bulls--t written about what is effectively just a scary monster. In most of my stories, the vampires are the bad guys and they're quickly put to death. John Constantine f--ked up a vampire pretty badly, and Tommy and Natt recently slaughtered an entire nest of the f--kers, so to me they're pretty much the vampires.

Cassidy, I suppose, would be the exception to that, but recently, he's turning out not to be such a good guy after all. Although a lot of that is maybe not so much because he's a vampire, it's just that he's like that.

You've also had people eating human flesh, I take it you've never done that?

No, I have never eaten human flesh.

I think people do expect me to be a full on, raving, rabid lunatic, a real wildman. And when they meet me, I'm not. I'm just a quiet f--ker from Belfast who likes a pint.

If you think about it, if my life was anything like the kind of things that go on in or involved any of the things that go on in Preacher or Hitman, I'd have been dead a long time ago.

I make it up. Because it entertains and intrigues me, not because it's part of my life.

Do you find it difficult to write Americans?

No. I like America. I like Americans. Growing up in an English speaking country outside America, you are bombarded with American culture from an early age on the television, in the goods in the shops, even McDonalds. It's filth, it's pig s--t, but as a kid, you lap it up. 

And you hear about America as this wonderful exotic place, you see it in the movies, you see it on TV all the time. It's wonderland across the ocean. So you eventually have to go to it and it comes true, and it's even better.

Writing Americans hasn't been much of a problem, not as much, I'd imagine, as it would be for an American writer to get an Irish character right, simply because they don't have much experience with it.

What is America to you?

To me, and I keep coming back to this in my work, it's like the idea of a second chance. Especially in the last century. You've had such a strong immigrant population as more and more people come to America and they're escaping from all the awful, f--ked-up s--t that happened to them in the old world. They go to America and it's like a fresh start, a second chance. And that's what Cassidy's all about. It's his second chance.

For Cassidy, I suppose it's a question of redemption.

For me, it's a place to go to and start afresh, really.

Where does your grip of American dialogue come from?

I have traveled in America quite a bit and I'm pretty good at reproducing speech patterns. I'm sure it's a bit rough around the edges, but I think I've got a fairly good grasp of it.

What do you think about Texas? It's obviously important to Jesse and you mentioned you've been there.

I liked it. Liked it a lot. Been there a few times, actually. Liked the people, the places, the food. I was just amazed at the sheer size of it. I had a great time.

You deal with race quite a bit in your books. Why have you made that such an important topic?

I think it's just my basic hatred of racism-of the stupidity of it, as much as anything else. It makes no sense. It's real lowest common denominator s--t. It's so far from what people are capable of. Again, it's not something directly from my own experience. Here in Ireland, we do not have much of what you'd call an ethnic population. I guess it's something that intrigues me, something that I'm interested in, something I'm interested in writing about.

Would you ever move to America?

I'd love to. I like Belfast, I like living here. It's a good wee town and the people are good and I figure Belfast deserves better.

So what about the infamous leprechaun stomping scene in Witchblade/Spawn?

I f--king hate all that fake Irish, get a green ribbon, tie it around a black hawthorn stick, leprechaun f--king bulls--t. That whole Spawn/ Witchblade thing was just a big laugh. I had a lot of fun doing that.

So you don't eat Lucky Charms?

"Ah," rolls his eyes back. "Jesus."
(Pauses, runs hands along sides of his head)

That's another thing that interests me, Irish-America's fascination with Ireland. To me, another part of America is by all means remember where you're from, by all means celebrate your culture for what good it did you, but really, leave it in the old world. It's crap. That's where it belongs. You know, all the Irish problems-if you're in America, leave it be. There's a line in a Pogues song, "where'er we go we celebrate the land that makes us refugees." That to me, sums it up - all this endless, teary eyed, maudlin celebration of the old country.

Basically, you tend to avoid including typical, costumed superheroes in your stories. Yet characters like Batman, Superman and Green Lantern still make occasional appearances in Hitman. Why?

Batman was in the first few issues because of a brutally cynical marketing ploy. It's Gotham and he's bound to show up sooner or later. Batman's not a character I have any great affection for. I loved the dark knight but I don't really like any of the others.
Green Lantern was in because Dan Raspler, who was then the editor, suggested we put a superhero in just to keep the readers up with the idea that this was set in the DC universe and they could expect characters like that to show up. So I chose Green Lantern because he's the goofiest stupidest one. To me, he's the epitome of everything that's stupid, f--ked up, pointless and silly about superheroes.

And Superman was in because he is the one superhero that I really like. Because then I could do my whole sort of take on America, maybe the immigrant son coming from afar to the Promised Land and so on.

Those are the reasons they're in there. It's fun to pop them in like that, but I wouldn't want them to be in every issue. As for the big crossovers, I avoid them when I can, but sometimes you've gotta do them.

I must say the two stories I did, the Final Night and 1,000,000, I was pleased with them. One million was a lot of fun and Final Night worked out quite well because it was a dark and gloomy kind of a story and we'd reached a point in Hitman where things had taken a turn for the nasty side of things.

Do you have something against the idea of masked men?

No, not really. But in a book like Hitman, why would we bother to conceal his identity? We've got to figure the cops basically have an open warrant out on him. It's just that in the Cauldron, the cops are either corrupt anyway, have better things to do, or are friends with Tommy.

The average cop would probably think, "Tommy only kills bad guys and he's not making my life any harder, so f--k it."

They're both killers, but how are Tommy Monaghan and Frank Castle different? 
Tommy does it for money. Tommy's a criminal, a hired killer, a murderer, an assassin. But he does it because it's basically the only thing he's good at and he's a lazy slob and he's too lazy to go out and learn how to do a proper job. I mean, he was in the Marines which he left probably because he didn't like being told what to do, which I can relate to completely.

Frank, on the other hand, is a man with a mission. He's obsessed with what he does. He does it because he hates these bastards and because he likes killing them. So Frank's into it. For Tommy, it's just a job.

Is there any of yourself in Tommy?

Yes. I often think Jesse's sort of an ideal. I wish I was as honorable, as moral and as stalwart as someone like that. Cassidy, on the other hand, is like, "Oh, my God. I hope I never get that bad."

Tommy's in the middle. I would find it easiest to be him, to make the choices he does. Obviously the gunplay and all that kind of stuff, f--k that, I'd be hiding under a table. But I could see myself fitting into the life Tommy has at the end of a day's work.

Not that Tommy's ever put in a day's work in his life. You know, you just bumble up to the bar, you play cards with your buddies, shoot the s--t, drink till all hours and laugh and joke and carry on. The next morning you sleep in and you start again. I could see myself fitting into that reasonably well.

With Jesse, it's "What should I do here?", and with Tommy, it's "What would I do?"
You've hinted there's something special in Tommy's future- what's in store for him?
Whenever we get around to doing the last Hitman story, or at least my last Hitman story, he will come through. But at the same time, you've got to remember the guy's a hired killer and there is a price to be paid for that kind of behavior.

Do you have any problems making a hired killer the lead? Do you worry kids will emulate Tommy?

No, I don't worry about people emulating him. I don't believe in that monkey-see, monkey-do thing. I once asked my girlfriend, "Do you like Tommy and Natt?" She said yes. I asked her if she liked them as characters. She said yes, then she kind of laughed and said, "It's disgraceful you make them as likable as you do."

And I guess, yes, I do feel a wee bit bad about having guys like that as the heroes, meaning protagonists, but as I said, there's a price to be paid. I think people reading the book will kind of see that coming through. Tommy's friends are being knocked off one at a time and Tommy has said himself, people are just going to keep on dying on him. And I think the readers are smart enough to realize this is a lot of fun, he's a funny guy, an amiable guy who cracks a lot of jokes when he's in these hilarious situations, but at the end of the day, a series of wake-up calls are kind of running through the book.
Who would win in a gunfight, Tommy or the Punisher?
(Quietly thinks for a second, lets out a deep breath.)

That's a good one. Probably big Frank, although Tommy's got those superpowers he keeps forgetting to use because they give him a headache. Obviously Frank would start that one, Tommy would have no interest in Frank at all.

I don't know. Would Tommy take a contract on the? Probably not. He's probably be like, "Look, it's f--king death to go up against the and I don't need the money that badly, so I'll just stay in the pub if that's all right with you." So Frank would come after Tommy.
I don't f--king know. Who's stronger, the Thing or the Hulk? Who f--king cares?

How long will Hitman go on for?

Oh, at least another year. At least till the end of 2000.

The next three issues are a story I've been looking forward to writing for a long time called "Fresh Meat." That's about a gruesome accident with a time machine and a pack of tyrannosaurs go on a rampage through Gotham. I had a f--king blast doing that. Tyrannosaurus Rexes chewing people up.

After that is Sean's story. I've been wanting to go into that for a while, that's called "The Old Dog" and that's four issues.

After that, you've got a Six-Pack story, a two-parter called "Super Guy."
Then I maybe want to go into Tommy and Natt's background a bit.

Did DC ever reject anything in Hitman?

That's one of those ones where there's no comics code label, but there's also no mature readers label. You're in a strange kind of no man's land in between. Yes, there have been times when they've changed stuff, they've whited a lot of blood out of the artwork, they've had to change words. The good thing, I get to do the changes.

In the Kills the Marvel Universe book, there are bits where the dialogue goes f--king dreadful...not me. 
(Laughs.)

You won't have that problem with Joe and Jimmy?

No. They're great guys.

Do you have a preference in terms of Hitman and Preacher?

I enjoy writing them almost as kind of a relief from the other. When I'm writing Preacher, I'm thinking about so many things at once, I've got all this stuff to tie up, all this stuff to get right, there's some fairly complicated theological stuff in there from time to time. Got to be careful with all the accents, the dialogue. Got to think about where the plot's going, and what it's all building towards and things people will say now that will be important later.

With Hitman, it's like just more of a blast to write. So by the time I finish Preacher, I'm like I want to write something a bit easier, but by the time I finish Hitman, I'm looking to get my teeth into something with a bit more meat on it.

I like each of those books as much as the other.

For a guy that doesn't like superheroes, I've been bloody lucky to be able to write two books, to make my basic living off two books that don't involve superheroes.

Would you ever write a book like Spider-Man?

That would be like X-Men, like "Oh f--k, do I have to do this?" Again, touch wood (raps the table top) I've never started writing a story thinking "Oh God, I'm not going to enjoy this." That would be hacking it out.

I don't know, s--t, maybe Spider-Man, I've watched the TV show, so I've at least got that. But something like X-Men, I'd be like "Oh, f--k."

Do you want to write comic books for the rest of your life?

I'd be happy to. I certainly want to write other things. I'd like to get into screenplays, I'd like to write for television, but I certainly never intend to give up on comics. I might not being doing them quite as regularly.

Ideally, once Preacher and Hitman are over, I won't have to be doing monthly comics. I don't think I'd like to take on another monthly. I'd prefer to do one shots, mini-series, a quick run on something.

But, if on the other hand, a year or so from now, you're interviewing me and I'm lying through gritted teeth about how I can't wait to get started on this new Green Lantern monthly for DC and how there are so many aspects of that character I've always found so exciting and worth exploring. Well, if you're doing that, then you'll know something's gone horribly wrong. To me, Green Lantern's the archetypal daft superhero. At least with the other main characters, like Superman, Okay he's the first one, the archetype. Batman, well he dresses up like a bat. Wonder Woman, she's a woman. Even the Flash. he runs fast. Right, that's great. But this guy just gets this f--king magic power ring so all of a sudden he can do whatever he wants. Come on. He makes big hammers and things.

So if we're looking back on your career 20 years from now, we really shouldn't see much straight superhero work?

That's the plan.

You and Steve Dillon have worked together for quite a while now, why do you click so well?

I think we just have the same ideas about stories. We find the same things interesting. When I first started working with Steve, I said "What kind of things do you want to draw?" and he said, "Oh, just give me a good story."
And that's brilliant. Usually from artists you get stuff like "giant robots, plenty of women or superheroes or big monsters," all of which are fine things to put into stories, but for Steve, it's the story itself.

So it doesn't really matter what he's drawing because he knows he's gonna get good stuff to draw and there'll be a good story in there. I figure as long as I can keep him entertained, hell tell these stories for me and he'll do it brilliantly.

Johnny McCrea's kind of the same, although with Johnny, it's more like we keep each other amused. It's more the fact we find the same stuff funny, we laugh at the same sick s--t.

You and Steve, you and John, are you good friends?

Yeah. We don't really collaborate that much. As I say, I think they both just rely on me to keep them entertained and amused. There are no plotting sessions. I'll tell them what's coming up in the book, because they're curious, but there's very little of that back and forth stuff. I certainly don't have anyone I really bounce ideas off.

What would be your dream comic?

Preacher and Hitman aren't far off it. Because with both those books, I've been able to pile in all the stuff I'm into. What I really really want to do, I want to do some war comics and I really want to do a story about the battle of Britain.

It's a fascination of mine. Like I said, I like military history, World War II in particular, but what I'm really fascinated by is aerial combat, fighter planes and stuff. Probably because I wanted to be a fighter pilot as a kid. Then I found out we weren't at war with Germany any more and the whole thing just fell apart for me.

That is a period of history that fascinates me in particular when it was the Royal Air Force versus the Luftwaffe over Southern England. Absolutely incredibly period of history and an absolutely amazing undertaking. The RAF were outnumbered something like 4-1 and they still beat them, this invincible German air force that had bombed the f--k out of most of Europe until the RAF stopped them at great cost.

That's something I really want to do. I'd really like to do a comic about it. I've got it all planned out in my head.

I think for me, whether its comics or not, the future lies in coming up with my own stuff. That's how I work best. Playing with the toys is all very well, but ultimately it's best to come up with your own characters, I think.

Apart from the war comics, is there anything you'd like to accomplish in this field in the years to come?

I want to be able to do what I've always thought this industry should be working towards, which is tell any story, deal with any issue, any subject, without restriction, in any format.

What I really want to be able to do is I want to be able to write a 200-page story and have it come out as a 200-page story and not chopped up monthly.

As Warren Ellis said to me recently, "There is no future in pamphlets." Anyone who doubts that just has to look at the ways sales figures are dropping across the board. I want us to get into book shops more, record stores. I want people to be able to buy a big, thick comic and take it home and not expect them to read at the rate of 24 pages a month.

There's no future with that.

There's a whole 'nother audience out there who do not go into comic stores and cannot be bothered reading a story in little monthly chunks, but will read it in a format they're more comfortable with, more used to.

Is there anything you'd rather be doing than writing?

Fighter pilot. [Laughs} 
It's hard to think of a better job than being paid to use your imagination, to have fun, to come up with stuff, to spin yarns, to do what you love doing.
Not a lot of people can say that. 

Wizard Staff Writer Christopher Lawrence has been to Garth Ennis' house...and lived to tell about it. 

If Luc (The Professional) Besson and Quentin (Pulp Fiction) Tarantino had a love child that wrote comic books, it would be Garth Ennis writing The Punisher for Marvel Knights. 

When he and his Preacher pal Steve Dillon take the reins on Marvel Knights' new Punisher series in February, look out. Bullets and bodies will be flying. 

While Ennis has made several impassioned statements about his love of writing his own, creator-owned work and tendency to shy away from corporate comics, he still sticks to his story that he's writing The Punisher for the Marvel Knights line due to his friendship with line editors/founders Joe Quesada and Jimmy Palmiotti, nothing else. No pictures of farm animals were involved - he thinks. 

"Although God knows with those two," Ennis laughs. "I'm sure that's the very least of what they've got hidden around the place. But really, that was it. The Punisher has always been just about the only character that I could write for Marvel for any length of time, really. He's the only Marvel character that I'm really interested in. At the same time, that doesn't mean that I was going to start working for Marvel at the drop of a hat. I wanted to wait for the right conditions, and Joe and Jimmy provided that. I wanted to be working with people that I knew and trusted, people who would have a certain amount of respect for my work as well as respect for the way I like to work. So once they got in with Marvel Knights, and the character was freed up and I was freed up from my DC commitments, it really all just worked out quite nicely." 

While it's not hard to believe that of all the denizens of the Marvel Universe, the Punisher is the one that Ennis likes the best, it's still fun to hear him describe his affection for the character. 

"I like the Punisher basically because he's a big thug with a machine gun killing criminals," Ennis says. "That means you don't have to involve superheroes very much, which I can neither write nor read very much of before I have to stop. I just lose interest. You just can't take that kind of thing seriously. 

"The Punisher is not unlike a lot of the characters in the comics I grew up on. There's slightly less humor involved, but certainly when you look at British comic characters like Judge Dredd, Rogue Trooper, and Robo Hunter, you're talking about heavily armed guys going around slaughtering people with a very strong vein of dark humor running through it. A lot of Punisher stories are not particularly humorous, but there is a kind of wry irony with the character, which is something that I, of course, am bringing out. But largely, it's just a character that I feel comfortable with, killing and nasty jokes." 

Back To Basics 

While Ennis' love of the Punisher as well as his friendship with Jimmy and Joe got him on the title, he knew what had to be done as soon as he settled in. 

"They wanted to get rid of the previous Punisher incarnation where he was an agent of heaven and he was almost an angel fighting demons and supernatural creatures, and there were magic guns and things like that," Ennis says. "They want to totally do away with that, and get back to the basics, so [I] was able to do pretty much what I wanted. 

"When you do go back to basics, you can pretty much take the things you like best and concentrate on them. Given the fact that I am kind of fond of the Punisher characters and his stories, I certainly didn't find any kind of restriction in terms of the actual direction of the story and the character. I don't think I'm going to be doing anything particularly radical with the character, so I don't worry about running into trouble with any new elements I may want to add. I'm not really producing any. I'm just writing classic Punisher stories." 

As Ennis describes it, the integrity of the character must remain while the world around him figuratively goes to hell. "I've tried to keep the character constant," Ennis says. "The Punisher is a fairly simple character, and I've tried to keep that as straight as possible. The first issue is written in quite a mainstream way, the weirdness and the screwed up stuff that Steve and I are known for doesn't start to creep in until issue #2. When it does, it manifests itself much more in the kind of characters Frank runs into, the situations he runs into and the humor that will run through the story much more than in the treatment of the character himself, who I'm trying to keep as constant as possible." 

So Why Does He ... Punish? 

Ennis doesn't even attempt to play coy when it comes to the Punisher's motivations. Although Frank Castle's initial motivation to kill criminals came from the fact that his family was killed in a gangland hit, those memories don't fuel his fire anymore. 

"We have to be honest about it at this point," Ennis explains. "After God knows how many years of slaughtering criminals and having, as far as I know, killed the actual people who ordered and carried out his family's death, I think we have to acknowledge that he has taken his revenge. He keeps doing this because he enjoys it." 

"He doesn't enjoy it in the sense that it makes him happy or that it excites him," Ennis is quick to point out. "Although I do think there is an aspect of an adrenalin junkie about the character, he does it because he gets satisfaction out of it. Killing criminals fits his view of the world - or how the world should be, that is, without these people in it. He's more than happy to help them out of it, I can assure you." 

And yes, this does put the Punisher into a select group of unsavory individuals in our society. 

"For all intents and purposes, the Punisher is a serial killer," Ennis says. "It just happens that the particular type of person he likes to kill are criminals. Frank Castle understands morality. He knows the difference between good and evil. He would probably sacrifice his own life to save someone he considered good or innocent, but ultimately he does what he does because he likes it. He's like one of these soldiers or Special Forces guys you read about who just become addicted to getting in the action. Eventually, it overwhelms them and destroys them, but that's not going to happen to Frank. He has to go on in perpetuity." 

While the end of the century has been a time of increased social awareness of violence, and media pundits jumping when certain buzzwords are uttered, describing a character who stars in his own series from a major comic book publisher as a 'serial killer' would seem like it could get you into trouble. Don't tell Ennis this, though. His view of the 'sensitive '90s' is somewhat different than the cozy feelings you can get if you listen to those who preach about the return to family values, the need to reject violence in society and embrace those who differ from us. 

"I'm not too sure that the '90s are a particularly sensitive time," Ennis says. "Every time a big action movie comes out and does spectacularly well, all our apparently sensitive '90s feelings seem to go on hold. The problem with trying to nail down a particular sensitivity, a particular feeling for a decade or an era is that there will always be exceptions to the rule. Look at the '60s - the era of 'peace and love,' and then look at the movies that were doing big at the box office. You might have had things like Easy Rider, but you also had things like Where Eagles Dare, Dirty Harry and the Dollar trilogy, some of the most fabulously violent films ever made. These were all incredibly popular films and incredibly popular characters. 

"People respond to that kind of very basic character who cuts through the bullshit, who will not put up with any crap, and will just go out there and kill. It's the old Dirty Harry thing. You're aware of the fact that the guy is a monster, but you're glad he's out there because the enemy is worse." 

But don't start thinking that Ennis needs a little quiet time in a hospital in the Irish countryside just yet. He fully realizes the difference between fantasy and reality, and how the Punisher comes in on the 'fantasy' side. 

"Dirty Harry, Fistful of Dollars, The Punisher - it's a vicarious thrill," Ennis says. "People respond to it in that sense. There's a big difference between the millions of people who enjoy watching Dirty Harry and the far lesser number of people who actually genuinely want him out there. 

"Rather than seeing the Punisher as being anachronistic, it's just a good action story with a good action character whose motivation people can understand. They might not sympathize with it, but I think they can understand it. I think they can sit back and enjoy a good rip-roaring yarn too, albeit rather violent and with quite a lot of dark humor running through it as well." 

Getting Inside the Punisher's Head 

While Ennis' take on the Punisher will utilize caption-based narration to get inside Castle's head, he's doing it for story purposes alone. 

"In using words like 'serial killer' or saying that he enjoys it, I don't want people to think that I'm attempting a serious psychological analysis of The Punisher or anything like that," Ennis says. "I'm certainly dropping hints and making occasional observations about why I think the guy does what he does, and you'll see that in certain responses he has to situations, but really, I enjoy caption-driven first person narration, because it can be used to first of all drive the story, and also there's a certain amount of humor to be gotten out of it. Frank's in these absolutely terrible situations, and he's thinking one step ahead, and you see him enjoy it a little bit as he manages to crush someone under a subway train or something like that. I made a conscious decision to use the captions and I've had a lot of fun doing that, actually." 

The Punisher Vs?.? 

So once you've got the Punisher back to his killing machine basics, who do you set him up against? Easy: someone nastier than he is. 

"The trick with characters like Dirty Harry and the Punisher then, is that the bad guys have to be a thousand times worse, because that way you're glad that these human killing machines are out there to deal with them," Ennis explains. "For that role, the main villainess of the story is Ma Gnucci, a 50-year old, Cruella DeVille-style matriarch in charge of the family. She's an absolute monster to begin with, but she has a rather nasty accident in issue #4 at Central Park Zoo when she's unfortunate enough to run into an unarmed Frank Castle. Frank has to defend himself of course, and his lack of weapons means a lack of clean wounds. Frank has to improvise with whatever comes to hand, and of course you can imagine what comes to hand at the zoo?so Ma has a rather nasty encounter with one of the denizens of the zoo, and after that, and certain alterations are made to her, she basically becomes the creature from hell." 

Intent on some extremely violent payback, Ma Gnucci enlists the aid of a man known only as 'The Russian.' 

"He fills the archetype of the last man you'd ever want to meet in prison," Ennis says. "She brings him in to deal with Frank, and it's one of the nastiest fights of our heroes' career, actually. As well as that, you have a variety of hitmen and henchmen who last varying lengths of time when they get up against Frank." 

"Really though, Frank's battle is twofold - it's against the villains, and its against being discovered, and his neighbors finding out who he is," Ennis says. "Of course they have no idea he's the Punisher, he's just the mysterious Mr. Smith in apartment 4K. You'll see his neighbors respond to him in their different ways and wondering about him. It goes back to what I was saying - I'm not trying to overanalyze the character, and I'm not going to have these people go away and brood about him, but it was interesting to have Frank wandering around this building, and his neighbors seeing him come and go and wondering about him. In that sense, he's not unlike the character of Leon in The Professional, where the little girl just saw the guy come and go and wondered what he got up to. That was something that I felt rang quite true with Frank as well." 

Voracious Vigilantes 

If fighting the Gnuccis and hiding out from his neighbors wasn't bad enough, he'll also have to deal with a fan club of sorts who adopt Frank's mission in their own way, each becoming vigilantes. 

"First we've got The Holy, a priest who believes that God is speaking to him and telling him to chop criminals up with an axe," Ennis says. "Then we've got Elite who's this incredible arrogant snob who lives on the Upper East Side and starts shooting people for lowering the 'tone' of his neighborhood. He begins with drug dealers but pretty soon he's so keen on cleaning up the streets, he starts going for hot dog vendors and people playing sports in the street - basically anyone who disrupts the quiet ambiance of his nice tidy neighborhood. 

"The third vigilante is Mr. Payback, a direct opposite to the Elite. He's sort of a socialist anarchist rebel hero who starts taking on the banks, Wall Street and corporate criminals. He's sort of Michael (TV Nation) Moore with an agenda and an Uzi." 

The three vigilantes eventually find one another and form The Vigilante Squad, hoping that the Punisher will come and lead them. "Of course they may be in for a nasty shock there," Ennis says. "Frank might have his own ideas about this." 

You'll notice that a few names sometimes associated with the Punisher haven't shown up yet. There will be no guest appearances by Spider-Man, Captain America, or nearly any other Marvel Universe hero. For one, Ennis doesn't really like too many Marvel heroes, and add to that is his larger dislike of writing superheroes. With a 'no-costumes' rule in effect, though, Ennis confesses that he did give in to temptation in one instance. 

"Daredevil is the one exception to the no costumed heroes rule I'm sticking to with the Punisher," Ennis says. "I'm putting him in issue #3 because it's become traditional that he should show up, and he and Frank should have their little debate followed by their showdown with sickening, mind-wrenching violence. I basically wanted to do my particular twist on the Daredevil/Punisher relationship. While he's no less a superhero and a costumed crimefighter than any of the others, he is one that I know a little more about simply by virtue that I've read the Frank Miller issues. Most comics readers who don't care for superheroes but read the greats like Frank Miller will probably have read those Daredevil issues - his original run and the Kingpin/Nuke storyline. I just had to put my two pence worth in on that. Apart from Daredevil, no super-heroes." 

If anything, it's quite clear that he and Dillon are on the Punisher to have a good time, and spin a good story for the fans. "We want to take him back to basics and really put him through his paces," Ennis says. "Hopefully, the old Punisher audience will come back for the story, and we'll see some new faces show up - people who are looking for a ripping good story about a man and his guns." 

by Matt Brady
December 13, 1999