The Rick Veitch exit interview

Supreme: The Return #6 was Rick Veitch's swan song on Supreme, but what a way to go! In the Ivory Icon online fanzine, he gave this interview from 1999:

Ivory Icon: What are your fondest thoughts of your work on Supreme?
Rick Veitch: Probably working with Alan. He and I have done a lot of stuff together over the years, but somehow the Silver Age SUPREME was the most fun of all. Doing comics is a lot of hard work, but there was something delightful going on when we did SUPREME.

Part of it was dredging up our personal memories of the real Silver Age of comics. We're both in our mid forties and grew up on Mort Weisinger SUPERMAN, so there was something in the creative process of SUPREME that transcended nostalgia and plugged us into the sense of wonder and worlds of imagination that we possessed as young children.

Another part of it was turning the dark gritty 90's version of the superhero on its head. Everyone was dead sick of the over-muscled violent vigilantes who were worse than the bad guys, and the pure morality, nobility and sense of justice that we caught with SUPREME stood out in marked contrast, I think.

Yet another thing that made it fun, was that we knew we were doing what SHOULD have been done with the current SUPERMAN. From my point of view, DC had lost the essence of the SUPERMAN character in all their various attempts to make the NEW SUPERMAN, which probably came to a head when they staged his 'death' and the public believed them!

II: What was your favorite scene in Supreme?
RV: I think the SUPREMELVIN sequence was my favorite. I've always loved doing Will Elder MAD style stuff and thought Alan's adding it to the SUPREME book was a stroke of genius. I'd love to give SUPREMELVIN his own title!

II: Will you be back to work on the pages of Supreme?
RV: I'm not sure at this point. I have been paid for all outstanding invoices and they have a bunch of my SUPREME stuff in the can, so I think it is safe to say they will be reprinting that. There are a couple of 8 page sequences, one a flashback and one a flash forward and I almost completed all of issue #61, where SUPREME meets up with the disembodied singularity of Jack Kirby's pure
creative spirit. I think as a whole, that issue is one of the best things Alan and I ever did together.

I doubt it will be possible to put the original creative team back together, since Alan is writing 5 books a month for WILDSTORM, and Chris Sprouse is doing one of them. I know Alan had worked out a wonderful new direction for a possible third year of SUPREME, but whether or not he can do it, I don't know. If Alan does come back as writer, then I'd love to continue if I can fit it into my schedule.

II: Have you seen Alex Ross redesigns, and what is your opinion of them?
RV: No, I haven't seen them, but can't imagine a better artist to rework SUPREME than Alex. Here's a dream team SUPREME book for you: Alan and Alex doing a SUPREME graphic novel!!!