Alan Grant Interview: Famous Comic Book Writer & Zon
"Holy Penis Collapsor Batman! DC Publishes The First Zonpower Comic Book!?!?!"
Interview By UCI Club President & Zon
Gary S. (Super-Inflated Gravity Unit) Kraft
April 8th 1997
GK: Lets talk about Anarky #1 by DC Comics, publishers of Batman & Superman! Youve managed to write the first Neo-Tech comic book, which is quite an accomplishment. Its the first time to my knowledge that Neo-Tech has made it to any mainstream media form of entertainment.
AG: Its actually quite hard to do Neo-Tech in a comic book story because almost all comic book heroes are founded on some form of irrationality, that is the system of logic which drives the comic, which lies behind it, is actually.. I guess up to a point a platonic kind of closed system of logic
For instance, to read a Superman comic you have to accept that a superior being can come from another planet, you then have to further accept all the limitations which have been placed on Superman and, because one would think, all the world really needs is one super being to show everybody else..to show an example to everybody else," but it doesnt really work that way or Superman would run out of adventures pretty quickly.
GK: When I started to get into Neo-Tech, because Im in the comic business too, the same idea came to me, but you would think, in a rational world, all Superman would have to do . I mean, hes actually to me stupid because he has the great powers, physically and mentally, I mean he can type a novel in 20 minutes you would think hed figure out a way to clone humans instead of chasing one bad guy at a time.
AG: I would have to agree with that, and thats one of the limitations of the rationality, which you do get in comic books. And having written Batman for the last 10 years and having believed for most of my life that Batman is actually the ultimate comic hero, because hes human, because he requires no superhuman powers, he doesnt require anything from beyond He is a human being whos made himself into his version of the optimum human being, despite that there are still serious irrationalities involved in the whole Batman mythos. And, anyone who picks up the comic has got to overcome which is one the things that was so hard about trying to inject Neo-Tech into the Anarky story.
In order to have an entertaining comic book story Anarky has to fight both mentally and physically against certain villain, and the villains I have him fighting against in part one is actually a demon, the demon Etrigan.
Demons of course are an irrational product of mans mind, and right therefore Im face with a severe problem right from the start. Heres this guy Anarky who espouses Neo-Tech, and possible purity of mans consciousness, and hes fighting against a superior demonic being from an irrational universe. So I had to take that into account and still try to provide an entertaining comic book story for those people who dont know anything about Neo-Tech. Neo-Techs gonna be new to them when its mentioned this way.
Im hoping for quite a good reaction from the Anarky comic book when I first created Anarky, he was as his name suggests .. an anarchist which is where I was heading to at the time I guess that was about 10 years ago.. and I had, I guess, like a lot of people, skipped over a lot of philosophies from all over the world, .. philosophies, religions, spiritualism, various other irrationalities.. looking for what might be lying at the kernel of all human experience, and I was dissatisfied completely with everything, and by default, more than anything else I sort of fell into an anarchists mindset.
And in fact, when I got my very first Neo-Tech book I cant remember which one it was five or six years ago, the first 50 pages or so I thought I could have actually been reading an anarchists text and it wasnt until the book went on to point out the supremacy of marketing, or the importance of marketing, for instance, I realized this is diametrically opposed from what I know as anarchy.
GK: Because it moves into business?
AG: Yeah. And it was that crossover at first, I guess yknow like they say in some of the Neo-Tech literature when you discover these things they knock you flat. In an instant youre just totally bamboozled because your world view has turned around and I was so excited by the thought that anything could do that to me after all these years of looking everywhere
GK: Getting jaded right?
AG: Yeah, exactly. But this was something new and fresh. And not only was it new and fresh, it seemed to be entirely logical. It made complete sense there was no
GK: So you didnt fight it?
AG: Yeah, yeah. However I know from the reaction Ive had from many other people with whom Ive discussed Neo-Tech principles, and I know from battles Ive had with both the editor and the artist on Anarky .
AG: Most if not all editors, are wittingly or unwittingly part of a larger parasitic system, and particularly since the boom in comic books has ended it has been remarkably easy to spot when editors are either acting in what you would call mystical ways . That is they create problems .
GK: where none exist!
AG: Yeah. Where no problems need exist, and they create them specifically to make themselves look more important by solving those problems that they create.
GK: Like a politician.
AG: Yeah. Just like a politician.
(Laughter.)
GK: Im there man. I hear you! Its the same way in the distributor scenario as far as retail goes.
AG: Yeah, and its a real wall, that I guess you just have to bulldoze through. Because you cant go over it, and you cant go around it youve just got to get these guys out of your way.
GK: Was that a big struggle? To get Anarky, as is, into a mini-series?
AG: Yeah, well see they were taking the point of view that Anarky was created.. well ysee hes a teenager character, I think hes 15 or 16 and they were taking the viewpoint that previously the toughest guy I ever had him up against was Batman and suddenly here we have him confronting a demon from hell in issue #1, and in issue #2 he confronts Darkseid whos the most evil character in the DC universe.
GK: Thats a Superman bad guy?
AG: Yeah, and when I put that in my proposal for issue two the editor actually complained .. not about my handling of the character of Darkseid, but about the fact that Anarky was able to stand up to a Darkseid and was able to argue with him.
I tried to make the point to them that if Darkseid was the evil being they claimed he is, then he must have chosen to be. You cant be evil if youre not consciously choosing to be evil. You might do evil things but in yourself you cant be evil.
GK: Like an animal?
AG: Yeah. Like an animal, thats it exactly. And they took great exception to this. Their line on it was that Darkseid is evil because he is evil. And I said, that cant be right. Hes evil because he wants to be evil. It sounds like such a minor sticking point when were discussing it like this, but at the time it caused me endless headaches trying to figure out how I was gonna get these editors to accept exactly what it was I was trying to tell them.
GK: Didnt Anarky confront Etrigan, asking him why he was evil in issue one?
AG: Yes. He did indeed. And this in Anarkys uh
GK: Hes curious?
AG: His superficial reason for meeting Etrigan and Darkseid is to find out why anyone would make the decision to be evil.
GK: So then I guess, even though hes espousing a lot of Neo-Tech ideas in the dialog.. like when he talks to his dog etc . that whole scene when youre really getting out a chunk of information at once.. but at the same time someone with Neo-Tech knowledge would really know exactly why someone is evil. So is that more of a foil?
AG: Well it was more for the sake of the reader who havent had access to any Neo-Tech literature whatsoever, and what Im saying, for them is actually radically different than what theyre used to believing because as you know in comic books people are either heroes or villains and often, although the motivation might be, oh my parents were killed when I was five years old therefore I will become a superhero so that nobody else needs to suffer this pain," that kind of thing doesnt stand up to any kind of rational analysis, which brings us back to what I was saying at the beginning that comic books are set in an irrational world and when you apply the tools of irrationality, certain tools of Neo-Tech to them, it all tends to sort of fall to pieces.
GK: Well I guess you make me think its just an anti-civilization the comic books.
AG: Yeah (laughter). However, what you mention, the page in the first issue of Anarky, where he spent the time talking to his dog, I did a page like that in every issue of the miniseries, and in my original script, it was actually called the history of consciousness part 1 through 4," and all four pages built up. They were designed by the artist, Norman Breyfogle so that they would build up into a four piece poster.
GK: Cool!
AG: However I think that the editorial people have scratched that idea. Theyre leaving the pages out.
GK: Did they even know what theyre publishing?
AG: Well no, to be honest I dont think they do. Since discovering Neo-Tech I find it harder and harder to get along with many of the editors and the people that Im working for because I feel that I can see precisely through the machinations which they come up with.
They create a flurry, or a storm around so that you never get to see the core reasons why theyre doing anything at all. And these Neo-Tech ideas, they did not agree with them in any way whatsoever.
I guess Id forgotten myself my own initial resistance to Neo-Tech, or my own difficulty in accepting what they were saying, even though it was exciting to discover it. It was something that I had certainly never heard before. And to spring that cold on these editorial guys (pause than a fair deal of laughter.)
Even though it was fun cause I quite like a good argument every now and then, and anyway so Ive enjoyed myself. But at the same time from the point of view of putting out a comic book it probably took twice as long to do Anarky as I would have on any other equivalent story, just because they raised so many problems at every step.
GK: How many Anarky stories have there been?
AG: There must be at least half a dozen up to this point. Although I havent read them in chronological order I would think it would be quite easy to see the parallel between Anarkys thought processes and my own thought processes.
GK: The one story I had originally read took place in an orphanage and um
AG: I think that was maybe the third story.
GK: I wasnt quite sure. I had a pretty good idea what you were doing with it but at that time the character did seem.. well anarchistic..
AG: Yeah well like I say that was how he started off and it was only after I discovered Neo-Tech or.. Neo-Tech discovered me that I figured well Anarky would actually be the perfect character for me to uh..
GK: So he predates you getting into Neo-Tech?
AG: Yeah, yeah.
GK: Oh, okay. I was under the opposite assumption.
AG: No, no-no. Anarky came first and then Neo-Tech.
GK: Ahhhh, I understand now.
AG: Yah. I felt he was the perfect character because hes human, he has no special powers, the only power hes got is the power of his own rational consciousness.
GK: And why did you choose if I might ask, that Anarky made his fortune in commodities? Heh-heh
AG: Heh-heh
GK: Cuz I actually follow commodities myself Do you?
AG: I had intended to do that myself but its something about which I know nothing. I figured well.. if.. I mean Ive done pretty well with the comics over the years but Ive never approached the position that I would like to be in which is where I want my own publishing company publishing my own material.
GK: Your empire.
AG: Yeah. My own little empire. Ive never been able to approach that and hopefully thats what Neo-Tech is doing its given me the kick in the pants to get things together and integrating all the stuff which previously Ive left up to the specialists, or the experts.. so when youre doing a comic book if youre trying to do it on your own you have to deal with everybody yourself instead of having all those experts.. lawyers, marketing people, advertising experts, and all those other departments between you and the people youre selling your product to.
GK: Its like the hot dog stand.
AG: Yeah, just like the hot dog stand. I mean yeah well that impressed me mightily because over the past eleven years Ive watched my wife build her own business.
GK: What does she do?
AG: Shes a graphic designer.
GK: With the computers and everything?
AG: Yeah. Mostly.. well because she chose this herself and decided that she would like to use her skills and her talents in the service of charity. So most of the work which she does is for charity. Like the red cross or medicine sans frontiers.
GK: Thats a french organization?
AG: Yeah. Although in principle I dont have a lot of time for charity, I think that often, if not always, there are misconceptions .
GK: Altruism.
AG: Yeah. At the same time when someone makes the decision that thats what they want to do .. yknow its-
GK: Out of selfish reasons?
AG: Its not often easy to try and change it. So anyway shes built up a business over the last 11 years, she has one employee, um, and she has faced a nightmare of bureaucracy at every step. Its like, well you know it yourself if you run your own business every step you take uncovers a whole new sheath of parasites who are just sitting there waiting to suck on whatever it is youre producing.
GK: I guess working with Red Cross, or charities you would really run into that but yknow I really havent run into that, I mean I havent been audited by the IRS, I havent I think the comic book industry is kind of very self contained and no ones every really gotten to it, except I guess when they had that stuff in the 50s .
AG: Yeah, I guess thats very true. It is self contained in that it doesnt make that many concessions to the world outside and much of the real world outside isnt aware of the world of comic books.
GK: Except that one comic book shop Planet Comics that got busted in Oklahoma on obscenity charges.
AG: Yeah
GK: But thats a whole other can of worms .. But uh, I hear where youre coming from. Starting your own business is you have to integrate every single detail .
AG: Yep. Yeah.. fr somebody I mean I made a living as a writer for around 25 years now doing different material and but almost always what Ive been required to write has been based on irrationality. And so one of the biggest skills in doing it was being able to trick people into accepting the suspension of disbelief.. And often to be entertaining you have to accept that comics do have an element of irrationality. Its time there was more to them than that .. the world in my opinion.. I mean Im fairly pessimistic.. uhhh or at least I was fairly pessimistic in that viewpoint until I discovered Neo-Tech but I used to be what you might call a student of Apocalypse theory, I dont know if thats the right word but I had great interest in deciphering things like Mayan prophecies, biblical prophecies and the book of revelation and the prophecies of Nostradamus, etc.
GK: And you though there were kernels of truth therein?
AG: Well, yeah, I guess you could call it kernels of truth. Um, well I thought.. and Im sure Neo-Tech would agree with this, the same what the people with what you might call unconscious or preconscious were programmed to act as for instance the oracle at Delphi and the other various oracles in the ancient world. I believe that its quite possible for the right brain to see a pattern to things, not necessarily seeing the future. But when I applied Neo-Tech to things like my interpretation of the biblical prophecies and revelation I can see that Neo-Tech in some ways satisfies whats being told there in an allegorical or metaphorical scale, rather than just taking it and just to give an example at the end of the world it states that Satan who is the prince of deceit will have sway over the entire world enmeshing him in his deceit. Now for any one versed in Neo-Tech you can see that the world is enmeshed in a web of deceit, and now whether or not Satan is real being or whether or not he is the personification of the principle of deceit-
GK: The dishonesty disease or mysticism.
AG: Yeah, you can see that that there are points where these things come together and, dont take this wrong but Im not projecting in this any sort of religious sense, but instead of as revelations said, Christ coming back to save the world with an army of angels its almost as if Neo-Tech has stepped in instead and said you dont need all these gods, you dont need all these messiahs, and to me thats the biggest revelation of all time!
GK: Very true. And I dont know if youre aware of it but a lot of the literature as of late, that Ive noticed on there web site anyway has to do with I guess reinterpretations of the bible They have something I noticed.. The Gospel According to John, but in this case its John Flint whos really Frank Wallace
AG: Well I havent connected up to the web yet
GK: What I also want to do is send you some stuff Ive printed out off their web site..
AG: Oh thatd be great! Id really appreciate that! I know from the pamphlet that they had been operating the web site.
GK: Its there whole strategy now.
AG: Well its one of our priorities to get up on the web once weve got the new house in some sort of livable order. Im quite looking forward to do that but I would deeply appreciate and of the more recent literature taken from the web site.
GK: Well lets pick up again with what you were saying about the revelations, etc.
AG: Quite a lot of these prophecies, and not just from the bible, that was just one I took as an example, but many of the other prophecies, most of them are grouped together and supposed to happen between the years 1997, 1998 and 2014 which gives us a very short window of opportunity, I mean to me its just so exciting and amazing and come along with the explanation for everything that ever was, is and is to be. We dont need anything other than our own rational minds .
GK: I see it as the war of two worlds. But more so the way I look at it is as a foregone conclusion because uh, when I read the long wave whats basically said is that humans created the universe, I mean literally.
AG: Yep.
GK: I mean you get to a certain point in every civilizations economy where its profitable to start a new universe, and you explode your super inflated gravity unit, or whatever it is and then when you create that universe over, however long it takes and then human beings will go from unconscious/bicameral to mystical and then after a couple of thousand years of anti-civilization someone discovers Neo-Tech and it starts all over again in an endless cycle; literally.
AG: Yeah and its so exciting to think that because everything else has been an irrational explanation which has involved, whatever scheme it is, has involved that, well its okay that were the license parasites, and do whatever we say and youll receive salvation in the afterlife, and here comes Frank Wallace saying, do what you know to be right, discover it for yourself, dont look to these other people. I mean some mornings I wake up and I feel so incredibly optimistic, and youd say, if youd known me for the past 25 years, wow, whats happened to this guy?
GK: Its kind of like born again without being religious about it. You just finally wake up.
They on the tapes once went into a discussion where it was brought out that for example, the pope has to be atheist, to do the integrations, even though its neo-cheating, to do the integrations on that level he cant be mystical in the sense that hes really believing gods gonna come down and punish the wicked, cause hes really running an empire with millions and millions of dollars, and everything else associated with the Vatican, and Bill Clinton, he really knows that hes full of shit.
AG: This is one of the examples I use when Im arguing with people. I mean even if you think hes a good guy, the amount of smear and innuendo, and you know actual accusations which have appeared in the press against him, its obvious that the guy is a liar. All it would take is for one guy in that position, Clinton, or Yeltsin, or John Major, although hes a lesser player. All it would take is for one of them to stand up and say all my life Ive been a shit, Ive acted like a shit, but now I know whats right and whats wrong and I want to share it with you. But none of them would ever do it. Its like a wild pipe dream to ever imagine Bill Clinton doing that.
GK: Frank Wallace actually wrote something to the effect that Bill Clinton never had any real connection to the anti-civilization, where hed be uniquely suited to be the person to do that, just because he doesnt believe any of his own bullshit.
AG: Yeah, he doesnt believe in anything that he says, hell say anything just as long as he thinks it that its gonna keep people conned, and give him the good lifestyle while the noose tightens and our society marches on towards totalitarianism.
GK: Thats true cause it is.
AG: Well I dont know.. Im sure that in America, well my only experiences of America are like vacations and dealing with Americans. And so Im not really qualified to speak about how its going in America, but in Great Britain the powers that be are getting desperate in their efforts to blind us and what can I use as an example here?
In Great Britain if you have a television set you have to buy a television license from the government before you can operate it. And this money goes to the BBC which is our public broadcast channel, like even if you have a TV but dont want to watch the BBC, if you refuse to pay the money youre fined, youre jailed, your assets are seized. But when I got my TV license reminder form not very long ago I read the small print on it, because I object to being forced to pay money for something that I dont necessarily want. You know I would much rather do it on a commercial basis, then they would say, well its fifteen bucks a month if you want the service. Well thats okay. I got no problem with that. But when Im told I must pay this money just because I own a television set it really rubs me the wrong way. So anyway, Im checking through the fine print and all of the, there used to be what you what youd call State Bureaus to handle these things, so like for vehicles, it would be the department of vehicles, and for TV licensing the department of television licensing, but now theyve privatized, or theyve claimed to have privatized these companies which they havent. Theyve just changed them into incorporated companies which now have no downside risk because theyre limited companies. And they have no need to act in any business like method or way at all to get new customer, because the law says that any new customer has to pay the money anyway.
If you apply that to the Neo-Tech literature, it would be like everyone would have to pay for the Neo-Tech literature whether they ever read it or not. And its totally insane, and yet what the British government has done has turned all these bureaus into limited companies. So now when I get a letter from these companies they refer to me as "Dear Customer." And I write back to them, "Im not your customer! Im a forced customer." A customer of choice is like between, if a guy wants TV from satellite he pays the satellite guy, and if he wants it from cable he pays the cable guy.
But I say "you," whatever source I want TV from I have to pay you a tax, Im not your customer, Im your slave. But they pay little attention to that sort of stuff and Im sure my name just goes on a computerized list somewhere and on the morning that they decide to round people up Ill be one of the people who gets rounded up.
GK: Yeah. I hope not.
AG: Well I, again
GK: The TV police strike again.
AG: The people here whove had power have had it for much longer than the establishment in America. The abuse of our system goes back two thousand years instead of two hundred years. And its entrenched into these people. The greatest cheats, or the greatest neo-cheats in Britain are people like Princess Diana for instance who lead a completely parasitical existence which is acceptable to the masses because at least superficially, she appears to be doing work for charity. But its the same enforced money which support her as support the charities. So for instance she is given government money to keep her alive. She got I think $15 million of taxpayers money when she divorced Prince Charles. And that money was given to her, and she doesnt have to be accountable but what shes done is affiliated herself with certain charities like Save The Children, so wherever she goes in the world at the taxpayers expense she can say, "Im doing it cause Im trying to save the children."
And of course, if she really wanted to save the children she would turn round and say to the media who follow her everywhere, "Well look, Im a cheat, Im a parasite, Im a leech, but, Im gonna change," but she wont do it, shes far too steeped in the mythos weve had for the last two thousand years that British Kings & Queens are sacrosanct. Basically they have blue blood, theyre different from other people, theyre better than other people . Its total insanity.
But they use their armed enforcers to take the taxes off the taxpayers to finance these leeches .
GK: Which is what it always boils down to force I mean.
AG: Yep. Weve got the power! Give us your money.
GK: The bottom line is they might think theyre living well now, but say for example, a janitor in New York City lives much better than any king did a few hundred years ago. He has running water and indoor plumbing, fresh food, heat, etc ..
So once the civilization of the universe is here, and business really booms, and all the problems are solved, Princess Diana would live way better than 15 million dollars could ever let her live now. So theyre also trapped in it in one sense.
AG: I agree, they are trapped. But the fact that they have that capacity for leeching gigantic sums of money, it puts an onus on them to waken up. Obviously theyre not going to do that. But I enjoy baiting You know like using the Neo-Tech Protection Kit as part of my defense. I tend to, I mean I try to do what Neo-Tech did to their main detractors, which is really simple logic, and then let them take it from there and its quite amusing because as Neo-Tech found out, once you challenge these people a lot of them just clam up and you never ever hear from them again
GK: They just shrink away.
AG: Yeah, its incredible
GK: Yeah, because like bullies they always go onto the easier pickings.
AG: Yep.
GK: And Neo-Tech does it for sport in a sense. And thats an interesting way to look at it, I mean even from the perspective of the Anarky book, I mean, this is what its almost all about, I mean its a foregone conclusion but you still cant get their without the effort. Each business mind goes against it and fulfills their own essence.
I mean my essence is to be happy, and part of that is having the means to be productive on a larger and larger scale, without stagnating, because you have to get bigger, because youre either growing or you are dying. So you dont get a "nice" business and make "X" amounts of dollars and just run it at the same level year after year; its stupidity.
AG: But thats almost exactly why my wife Sue and I have moved to this big house. We had settled into what you might call a rut. You know like a very wealthy rut. We were able to vacation maybe 5 or 6 times a year, maybe going to Europe or America, our house paid for, nice cars. Like I had my writing business, she had her design business . But when we thought, "Well we still got thirty years of our lives to go together, and hopefully a lot longer than that, it became less and less attractive because that rut could be seen for what it was; a dead end. And like you say, youve got to grow or you die.
So weve taken this somewhat drastic step .
GK: I noticed in Anarky you start with the words, "Think back to when you were a kid," and thats really what it is. Because when you were a kid before you got corrupted, I mean youd wake up and you got the energy, and you were bouncing
AG: Thats something that really effected me personally when I read a Neo-Tech piece about kids being sort of the genuine Neo-Tech people, till they are warped, and they have the natural honesty squeezed out of them, and they have to bit by bit join the anti-civilization. That really struck a chord with me cause I had a quite turbulent childhood and I could actually see what you might want to call "phase points," where I had to give up my own individuality to join in to the consensus reality. Even though I knew it was wrong, that I was being cheated, I had to do it anyway .
Because, its like kids cant stand on their own, kids want to be part of it, and if the prevailing consensus is an evil one that is based on parasites and cheats then the kid doesnt really have an option. When youre a kid if you dont join in then you really are alone, theres nobody for you to talk to.
GK: Very true.
AG: There are no organizations that can really help with something like that. So the Neo-Tech literature which did touch on childhood really did have a remarkable effect on me, it was quite profound.
GK: It did on me too.. What they referred to it with was the word comprachicos I believe. I dont know quite how it went, whether it was gypsies or whatever, but for the amusement of royalty, they would put kids in strange containers to create physical deformities, much like Chinese foot blocking. They would create freaks out of kids, and thats what theyre saying. Even though its not being done overtly, its just as dramatic an end result. Giving your kids Captain Crunch with sugar, and then Jesus Christ in their heads .
AG: When we were in the states last year, and there was a case going on about some 8 year old beauty queen in the Midwest who had been murdered by her parents. And they showed footage of her in a beauty pageant, and it was like, she wasnt a real human being. She had been forced into a mold which may or may not be suitable for a 30 or 40 year old woman like Dolly Parton, or a country and western star. But this poor child was forced to wear the same outfits, and makeup to make her look older and more attractive, and its horrifying; not only was her whole childhood stolen from her, but when she started to grow up they killed her.
And that basically, though its an extreme form of it, thats basically whats done to children all over the world.
GK: Yeah, its the insanity cycle. Generation to generation. But I guess Neo-Tech is the only thing that stops the cycle because it calls it by name. And nothing else ever did. Because thats the whole process of taking control. You name things, identify them, so you can understand them and analyze them to see just what is going on. And thats where you get that power, and like you were saying you go after the neo-cheaters, whether its in business or whatever; you take control and that produces genuine feelings of happiness.
Its not easy, so you get that boost, because youre breaking through that mystical wall, yknow once I owed money to Heroes World Distribution, going back to when the market crashed a few years ago. So when Marvel corporate people took over after that acquisition, I had ended up signing a promissory note and I would pay them every week against the debt until it was gone.
So, well the reason Marvel went back to distribution through Diamond was it is THE WHITE COLLAR HOAX. And, in fact at Heroes World nobody knew what was going on.
So towards the end of the Heroes World story, they hired someone knew to take over accounts receivables there.
So for all last summer, half my Marvel shipment would be missing from my delivery each week. And when I would call up to rectify the situation, to get my shortages and damages replaced they would tell me things like, "they cant call the warehouse because they werent allowed to.."
And Id be like, "Well do they have a phone? Do you have a phone? Then were gonna call the f%*&^ing warehouse right now!"
Yknow and that sort of Neo-Tech action, getting right to the essence of it
So anyway this guy from Heroes World Distribution calls me up and I wanted them to credit me for all the screwups and he says, "Well I thought, and Im not from the comic book business, Im from the record business, but I thought you would want to give us money since you owe us money ."
And I said to him, "Are you an altruist?"
And he was like, "Excuse me?"
I said, "Do you believe in sacrifice?"
And he thought about it and said, "Yes I do."
And I said, "Well I dont and if you want to open up your wallet and sacrifice your paycheck to me feel free, but dont f#$%$ing dig in my pocket cause Ill come down there and well have a problem "
And that was it, yknow and youre able no matter who it is .. its the most powerful knowledge
AG: It certainly is. At the end, this is I guess, it would have been a disappointment for me, but at the end of the Anarky miniseries, Batman manages to thwart Anarkys scheme
GK: They go into a ghetto, all the neo-cheaters?
AG: Sorry?
GK: I was reading the coming attractions and it says something about theres a ghetto in Gotham City, and I gathered that all the neo-cheaters end up in Gotham City somehow.
AG: Well what happens is Anarky and in part 2, or at the end of part 2 he captures Batman, and in part 3, well hes got a lot of regard for Batman, because he figures that Batmans at least trying to do good, even if hes doing it in a wrongminded way. So anyway, he captures Batman and he sets his scheme into motion, which is like a wave generator, with which he intends to fuse the left and right brains of everyone together. And it turns out in the end it was all a hallucination, but anyway we get to see what the world would be like in the year 2000 if Anarky had his way and
They did in the Neo-Tech literature, it was like a personalized confession by Bob Dole Kennedy, the archetypal neocheater, and then the ghetto theyre all cannibalized
GK: I thought I recognized the concept..
AG: Yeah, basically I just adapted it to Gotham City neocheats. Those who refuse to accept the principles of rationality are put into the ghetto and left to fend for themselves. No violence is used against them but theyre just left to fend for themselves.
GK: Theyre ostracized?
AG: Yeah, thats it exactly.
GK: Theyre exposed as.. he always uses the word, "penis collapsors.."
AG: Yeah, thats it.
GK: Impotent!
AG: Yeah, theyre exposed as impotent and theyre ostracized.
GK: Do you have any good scenes where he tries to expose Batman to Neo-Tech reason?
AG: Well, I would like to think that theyre good. I havent seen the edited version and I have to say that some editorial changes were made to the comic without my blessing. Again, thats one of the limitations your forced up against when your forced to deal with a company, whether or not that companys parasitic many members of it are. When they own the actual copyrights to the characters, even though theyre characters you created, you have to do it their way or you are looking for a job somewhere else.
So I wasnt able to take it quite as far as I would have liked it. I was also very angry with them about the advertising for the comic. The whole point of this four issue miniseries is to make the point that the end doesnt justify the means. However, the only slogan for the ad campaign is that the ends justify the means.
GK: His name is his goal.
AG: Yeah. And I called them up and I said, "This isnt right. Youve taken this the wrong way 180 degrees. Dont you understand what this book is about?"
And instead of getting a confession, "okay, were sorry, we made a mistake," and seeing what they can do to rectify it What I got was well uh, "no we dont really understand what were reading." So what were dealing with here is that they brushed up against Neo-Tech, but then just went on their way back into the oblivion, where they dont need to think for themselves
GK: Its strange because the comic industry could use Neo-Tech in a big way to jumpstart the economy of it.
AG: Yep.
GK: Of course there is very little competition, and very little capital coming in, and people instead of using their minds to think of solutions, I think theyre mostly freaking out
AG: Well thats my experience of it too. You hear many people complaining about it but all theyre doing is sitting back and waiting for the next boom. They know that previous experience shows these booms are cyclical.
GK: They are.
AG: Yeah, that may be so but my limited research shows that when there is a recession in the economy in general, comic books tend to sell on really well for another 3 or 4 years. So its almost as if when times get tight in the economy comic books boom, but when things get better comic book sales sink back.
Its almost as if theres a time lag between the comics economy and the economy at large.
And the comics appear to be running 3 to 4 years behind it.
GK: That could be the "Superman Economic Indicator."
AG: Traditionally in times of recession or depression the entertainment media have done better because people have less money to spend on the big things in life they spend on the little things in life.
GK: I also think its because comics have a great escape quality.
AG: Yeah, a great escape quality, but it wont have if I can keep bringing Neo-Tech to them. Then theyll find themselves caught in my trap.
GK: Absolutely. I think thats where all the real excitement will come because I think that media is the best way to disseminate the knowledge. Theres a whole emotional, well its actually the essence of it, is the emotional impact, and what better way I mean when people watch a good movie, they may get emotional, they laugh, they cry, you know the movie Braveheart with Mel Gibson..
AG: I know the movie though I havent seen it..
GK: Well it was almost a Neo-Tech movie in the sense that well it took place in Scotland I think, hundreds of years ago where theyre fighting for their freedom from the British and Braveheart just refused to be a subject, he wanted his freedom to the very end. And he was very honest, brutally honest, without.. I mean it just seemed so natural for the character, but you can draw the parallel that um, the modern day parallel, because thats what they really showed, that the masses are sheep, and they believe that this king is descended from god himself, I think its called divine mandate, and I mean hes a real shit the king. They show it
And through the live arts, comic books, you can actually make people get it. What you might want to do is get the neo tech web site in the last issue if you still have time My own web site has had over 8,000 hits since the end of November
AG: Wow.
GK: It seems that for some strange reason more comic collectors have computers then youd find in the general population. Maybe half my customers whereas its only 30% in the general population.
I think that would be huge since this interview will be on the web, and Neo-Tech is linking to my site from their site, so even any comic people seeing the link in the comic to Neo-Tech might find their way to my site, which is more leverage for me which is apropos to a Neo-Tech situation
AG: Well Ill do my best to get address onto the last issue. Im actually expecting a call this week and just to jump ahead to the end of issue four, well like I told you, for political reasons, Batman had to, well being the hero, had to beat Anarky who is looked on by the DC people as being a villain. So Anarky was wrong and confessed
GK: Oooooh
AG: Well his mistake I had to take as being believing that he has the right to fuse other peoples brains where he didnt have that right at all obviously.
GK: Oh I got ya. That was his plan. To just physically fix everyone.
AG: Yeah. So anyway the book ended with Anarky cleverly escaping from Batman and disappearing into the city. And over his disappearance were the lyrics to the John Lennon song, I dont know if you know that song..
GK: Aaaah! I was just listening to the Plastic Ono Band.
AG: Its basically, "Just imagine theres no heaven, its easy cuz its true," yknow theres no god, just me and you.
And stuff like that and it made a very nice ending for the story, its a very rounded ending. Because you wouldnt have thought of John Lennons work in that Neo-Tech context.
GK: I was actually. Believe it or not I was thinking of John Lennon, because I like him a lot, and I was thinking that he would have been one of the people, who if they had gotten, well I think about a lot of people who if they got Neo-Tech knowledge theyre in position to affect things, where a- I think theyd understand it and b- I think theyre in leveraged positions to disseminate it.
Of course its gonna happen, my belief is as its spreading and it picks up speed geometrically, I think there will be people who are looked up to as external authorities, cause thats coming from the bicameral thing, like movie stars, yknow thats still coming from those vestiges of the bicameral mind, and one or two, or whoever is the first to do that, thats a great thing to do even like writing this comic book.
AG: Well I think, like you say John Lennon would have understood Neo-Tech and he would have seized it. Because it would have been the answer to everything that he agonized about for his entire life.
However, DC comics went to the owner of the songs and they said we couldnt use the lyrics unless paid some sort of massive fee
GK: How much?
AG: I dont know what it was cause its editorial that usually handles that. So all I knew was I got a phone call saying, "We spoke to Northern Songs, they want too much money, youre gonna have to rewrite the end of the book." Which I hadnt been expecting at all.
GK: So you have to rewrite the very end of the book. Thats a bummer.
AG: Yeah, but Im not gonna yet cause in typical editorial parasite fashion nobody has called me to tell me what theyd like me to rewrite, or how much theyd like me to rewrite, or whatever, um and I know exactly what will happen. Its like one day before its due Im gonna get a call from some editor wholl say this stuff should have been in already. And Ill say, "Yeah, well you didnt give me the brief for what the changes were meant to be."
And they dont accept the responsibility for anything. They drop that on the freelancers. So it doesnt matter what goes wrong, it is always the freelancers fault. Um, I have to tell you that I am in close contact with a lot of other writers and artists and I spend quite a lot of my time talking to them and discussing with them the principles of Neo-Tech. I cant say that Ive gotten anyone at all to um, throw their hat in the air and say, "Wow! Its all become clear to me "
GK: Its a tough proposition.
AG: Yeah, but having said that they are all now being introduced to that so they know what Im talking about as soon as I start talking
GK: Yeah, you go by the belief, well the Aristotelian philosophy that man is good and rational, that hes essentially noble, he wants to work hard and be happy, and thats true uncorrupted human nature. And I feel its true. I see most people as being good, but theres just one really cool thing Neo-Tech went into, the illuminati, have you ever read that?
AG: Yeah, I read that and Im actually reading a book on the Illuminati, its not Neo-Tech, but another book because I thought it might throw more light on them.
GK: What theyre really doing, its subversion, its like a cat and mouse game And the way the Zon protocols end up superior is that its all accomplished without violence or bloodshed. Theyre just coming right out, honestly, saying, "Heres the solution, its available right now. Lets do it." And it could be done in a couple of years..
AG: It could, well not quite overnight, but virtually overnight. Cause as soon as you show people something thats good for them, something they like that has real value to them theyre gonna flock to it. 95% of the population of the world have been cheated out of their birthright. Its been squeezed out of them, they go off to their dying day not knowing how this happened, how their beautiful life turned into a pile of shit.
GK: Yeah and I could relate to that. Im about to turn 30 and for the first time I can remember the last decade as an adult. And its a blink. And I start to remember things from when I was 19 or 20 and I realize its 10, 11 years ago and as you get older youre remembering 20 and 30 years, and its a f%#$$ing BLINK. And thats the ultimate cheat that 70 or 80 years is a blink to live. And besides once youre 30 your back starts to hurt and yknow thats the other thing youre getting cheated out of . Feeling good.
AG: Yeah, it extends to everything once you get trapped in that system, theres just more and more tendrils wrapping around you and before you know where you are youve got a hundred different shoots pumped into you, into your pocketbook, your bloodstream, your happiness quotient. And its all being sucked off so that by the end of your life your left dry.
Both my parents are in their late 70s and Ive watched them over the last 10 or 20 years get older, and get more bitter. And my father was always a very productive person, he loved working hard. And he went off and he fought in a world war and he came home and the houses that they promised the soldiers werent there. Its like they were lied to their whole lives, so many times, and now getting to the end of his life hes left in such a state of confusion, so he curses god, he curses the government, he curses everything. But he doesnt see the trick, how they swept the carpet out from under his feet.
GK: I tried to show my father Neo-Tech, he was a hippie in the late sixties yknow but he just doesnt want to, well yknow when it gets to, its easy for him to say, "everythings bullshit." And thats easy for him to say, he got cheated, he was in a profession where his union fell apart and he lost work and most of his livelihood, etc. etc. And hell always talk about that but when I bring up the fact, yeah, but YOU have to take control, I mean once you give someone the knowledge and say, "Hey this is why everything is crummy, this is the neo-cheater, this is the enemy," but the REAL ENEMY is your own mysticism.
AG: Yep, thats it. Thats what it all comes down to that were all responsible for ourselves. Its a shame that its so hard to cut through your own personal stuff. Cause its much easier to see it in operation all about you. But you have to apply that to yourself. But it is very difficult to slay off your own personal mysticism.
GK: And thats where all the leverage comes from because when you can burn out your own mysticism thats when you become a Zon.
AG: Yep, thats when you can negate all the rest of the bloody parasites.
GK: And then in a sense thats when they become unreal. Although in an other sense they are very real, and you have to juggle that. They have to be beat.
AG: Well its funny. I sometimes feel that as an ongoing process. Yknow like when Im thinking about something and its from a Neo-Tech point of view I feel such a surge of power, but its not power over anything, just the sense that I can control my own destiny, it just fills me with such a surge of power.
GK: Yeah, and with NeoTech Publishing themselves, they call them bantam companies, and they have the realization that each Neo-Tech company needs to be able to single-handedly collapse mysticism, if say Frank Wallace is hit by a car, yknow they cant depend on him, not even them, he cant be the external authority, hes essentially no different than you or I, he was just there first.
AG: Hes an incredibly astute guy well one day his name will be in quite a place in the hall of fame.
GK: If he gets biological immortality hell always be looked at on Planet Earth as THE guy. I mean the leverage, if you think about it from a selfish perspective hes setting himself up to get free meals for the rest of eternity . Its amazing, and Im sure hes thought of that, and they all do, because nothing escapes that matrix .
AG: Yeah, everything gets pinned into it.
GK: And I guess it works when youre writing and you get a lot of power that way, and I guess when you start your own company
A lot of people had emailed me personally, yknow normally its just posted to the group, but it did strike a chord with several on the Neo-Tech Usenet group list. Actually several people ran to the comic store, and their certainly not comic collectors per se, but people liked the book a tremendous amount, and someone even wrote if you write other Neo-Tech comic books hed buy them all.
I think theres a tremendous market for it in all mediums but comic books, theyre cheap-
AG: Thats the beauty of them. Theyre cheap to make.
GK: You actually have a highly leverage position cause youre the only comic writer with a name who has explicit Neo-Tech knowledge. That I know of anyway.
AG: Well certainly the ones Ive spoken to have been receptive to it but at the end of the day personal mysticism tends to overwhelm all.
GK: Have they ever read the stuff?
AG: I hold my Neo-Tech literature dearly and I dont like to part with it, but Ive sent out some of the pamphlets, the zonpower communique pamphlets, the "Will cyberspace Zap the parasites pamphlet," you know several of the things that Ive already got a good take on or thats mentioned elsewhere in the literature.
Because I keep going back to the literature and reading though it, and I quite often miss little nuggets that I had missed the first time around, or the second.
GK: I listen to the tapes constantly for the past two years. And I always hear new things when theyre having conversations.
I had sent Mike Allred Cassandras Secret, I did a promotion for Madman, cause I like that book, and he didnt get it. He sent it back though, I was glad but, and it wasnt like he was offended by it or anything, I forget how I even ended up talking to him about it Oh, it was from Nexus, I was talking to Steve Rude about Neo-Tech, and you know, you talk to people about Neo-Tech and you think the first thing theyll think is, "this guys a crackpot."
AG: Yep.
GK: But even if you manage to get it out, and they manage to listen to it, they say, "Oh, thats really interesting, but uh "
GK: But my partner took to it which I was glad cause Neo-Tech is business. I had three other partners, but theyre all long since gone, so its just us running it Neo-Tech style. Its the wedge they talk about. It just wedges its hard, I mean Ive kept my friends and everything, but theres that wedge
AG: Well I remember at the start of one of the books, I cant remember which one it was cause Ive got so many now but there was a warning saying, almost on a par with the alcoholics anonymous warning, like "buy immersing yourself in this literature you may find that you lose your friends, your family, all those that are dear to you but you will gain something worth immeasurably more."
GK: Its lonely.
AG: Yeah. It is.
GK: Thats the word for it.
AG: After you called last week my daughter and her boyfriend arrived to spend some time with us so I spent and hour or so delivering the principles of Neo-Tech to them. Because they are both in their early twenties, they are the people who really need this so that they can get started, rather than like me, Im 48 years old, so I had to wait like another 20 plus years on top of their age to get to this knowledge, so I thought I was doing them a real favor
GK: You really are.
AG: Yeah but it sort of knocks them down and they say, "Well thats interesting, thats weird, but now well take the dog out shall we?"
GK: Yeah, now whats for lunch?
AG: You know who I always think would be good, Frank Miller, though I dont know him.
GK: As far as Im concerned he and Alan Moore are the two top comic writers, certainly over the past 10 to twenty years and I would think that either of them would be able to get a firm grasp on this. I used to be quite friendly with Alan Moore but we sort of drifted apart, and the latest Ive heard, I dont know if this is true or not, Im repeating gossip and its hearsay, but hes become more and more involved in what you might call magical activities.
. Well its the wrong way for that guy to go. It may even be I probably I feel so strongly about this that even though Alan and I havent been in contact for years now I may well, like his number or address is not listed anymore, he sort of withdrew into himself, but Ill make an effort to seek him out and send him one of the Neo-Tech pamphlets, I know that like me hes a voracious reader, so that he wouldnt not read something which came to him .
GK: When I went to bed last night I picked up Steve Ditkos Strange Avenging Tales, cause I like Steve Ditko and I had met him once at Defiant, I was an advertiser in their books, and he was doing work for them and anyway, hes an Ayn Rand, um, hes an objectivist and they were writing about the fact that he doesnt like to be interviewed and hes not very he doesnt run in any comic book social circles and he never did, he was always very strong that if he didnt like what was wanted of him he wouldnt do it, hed just walk out .. and I was thinking that hed be another person whod eat it up if given the chance. I mean anyone coming out of the objectivist school or thinking along those lines, cause its all individualism its all out there, its just like waiting for the first domino, if it hasnt already fallen.
AG: When I first read Neo-Tech, saying it could even happen by the year 2000 or shortly thereafter I was thinking that was an impossibly small time scale. But anytime I look around now I can see that the pace at which were hurtling towards oblivion is speeding up. As the hare comes to the top of the cliff no ones slowing down saying, "theres a big cliff coming up." Theyre all just running faster. Maybe theres a big cliff ahead but if I could grab another bag of cash Ill be okay.
GK: The final feeding frenzy.
AG: Yeah! Thats it. I love that, "the final feedin frenzy!"
GK: Me too. This is it. Specifically because of the computer revolution and the internet I just know how fast its all going to go down, merging with television, and the fact that no one government can control it. I do a lot of bulk emailing, and its an amazing thing Ive ran all kinds of advertisements in the past 5 years and its always very expensive, but bulk emailing allows anyone, even the littlest guy to make a lot of money if theyre shrewd, and you dont have to be a computer programmer, and I think thats whats going to happen, that commerce, its going to be finally free, just because I cant see them stopping it and regulating it the way theyd want to. Its too big and its too fast and the neo-cheaters are too slow.
AG: Yep, they are. Theyre too slow. They are the dinosaurs on their way to becoming extinct.
GK: Yeah, and the comets coming Thats it! So I believe thats about it .. Ive got this on tape so Ill just get it on to the web site verbatim.
AG: Yeah, I cant wait to get connected to the web. I feel like theres so much going on up there that I just gotta get on it.
GK: When I first got connected I dont think I slept more than an hour the whole week. Now Im more or less desensitized to it, though every now and then you kind of pause and say, "Wow! Look at what Im doing. Just a few years I couldnt have even imagined it " And then it instantly makes you extrapolate, "wow, in two years mysticism could be over." Its gonna happen so fast people wont even know whats happening. Its already happening and things will get cheaper. I read a lot of business news and I see, for example, that Dupont has created synthetic cheap materials that will replace concrete and steel. Genetic breakthroughs are happening very quickly now, computer breakthroughs are happening very quickly with telecommunications, but at the same time the governments passing more and more regulations and less and less freedom is left, and the war is coming down to the finish line, and I dont think its gonna be a nuclear war, I think itll just be a peaceful itll just happen, period.
AG: Yeah. Itll just happen. I agree with you, when people in general see what can be done, once they see that you dont have to lie and cheat, once they see that you can have an amazing life by just being yourself, by just being yourself, and by just using the brain youve got, the brain youve always wanted to use and youve never known how.
GK: Its the other 90% of the brain that they always talk about. You only use 5 or 10% of your brain, and well, I used to always think when I was younger, "How do I get to other 90% and get those super powers?" And then you realize that youre there, you just stop being bicameral or mystical.
AG: You just take responsibility for yourself.
GK: And I always feel, well, I have personal mysticisms that Im aware of acutely, and its like an exorcism in a sense. And in some ways you feel so superior, but then you think where people will be in the future, but I think even the mysticism in myself, I think that once everyone is going in that Neo-Tech direction it just disappears. It just disappears, like they say the tailbone on your body, youve still got the vestigial bump from when you had a tail and you were a monkey, its the same thing. Itll be nothing because thats what it really is.
AG: Itll pass away and just leave a few bumps behind.
GK: I dont think itll history will matter the way it does now. I think itll just be like, "Yeah, we were monkeys once, yeah we were mystical once." Now its back to work.
AG: Yeah. Im gonna get back to work myself.
Well thats it comic fans! Alan Grant, famed comic book writer of such hits as Batman, Judge Dredd, Lobo and countless others has gone Neo-Tech and is currently planting the seeds for his comic publishing empire which will incorporate Neo-Tech business concepts.