comic writer Brian Azzarello unleashes another violent tale of bloodshed, betrayal and America with “Loveless”

Brian Azzarello is not a pessimist, though you’d certainly get that impression from reading his work. Comics like “100 Bullets” and his new Western series “Loveless” (both published by DC Comics/Vertigo) are grittier than sandpaper and full of vicious violence, voluptuous vixens and very, very bad men. Despite this, Azzarello says he’s not a pessimist, and while he certainly sounds cheerful in conversation, he has a taste for the darker aspects of humanity.

“100 Bullets,” a delightfully gritty, seedy series about revenge, murder and a centuries old international conspiracy, made Azzarello, and artist Eduardo Risso, famous. Vertigo debuted the series in 1999 and it’s still going, at 64 issues now. “Loveless,” his latest effort, is a kind of Western-noir, a place where unrelentingly bad outlaws roam dark, shadowy prairies in the aftermath of the Civil War. The protagonist is Wes Cutter, a bad hombre and former Confederate soldier who was believed to have died in a Union prison camp. Wes returns home and finds a gang of Yankee soldiers lounging on his front porch and shows them there’s no such thing as Southern hospitality once guns are drawn.  “Loveless” also reunites Azzarello with artist Marcello Frusin, with whom he worked on “Hellblazer,” one of Vertigo’s flagship series.

The Wire caught up with Azzarello on the phone on a recent Friday afternoon to discuss “Loveless,” “100 Bullets” and the one attitude that persists throughout history.

What are you up to today?
Right now, I’m working on “100 Bullets.”

How’s that going?
It’s a dream, man.

You’re primarily known as a crime writer and you’ve done some superhero stuff, so why a Western?
For the chance to get really violent. (laughs) Oh, it’s a lot more violent than “100 Bullets.” This is “100 Bullets’” nasty little sister

What can you do in a Western that you can’t in “100 Bullets”?
Because it’s historical, it’s a chance to deal with attitudes that really don’t exist any more.

Like what?
Just a lot of religious stuff, also political stuff at the time, issues of race, they’re looked at in different ways these days. It was 100 years ago … 100 years that were really packed full of a lot of change

Do any of those attitudes persist?
Oh, the attitudes, I think attitudes change, but the one thing that persists is we hate each other.

In “Loveless,” Wes Cutter says basically, “F everyone.” Do you think that persists in America?
Well yeah, that’s why we have such an individual streak in us, because under that individual streak is “F everybody else.” (laughs) You caught me at a real pessimistic time today.

Are you pessimistic?
I’m not pessimistic. A lot of times, people ask my wife what I’m so mad at…. She tells them, “He’s not mad, that’s just way he is.”

There’s “Deadwood” on HBO and Kevin Costner’s “Open Range” was released two years back; now you’re coming out with “Loveless.” Why are Westerns making a comeback?
I’m not sure. I think it’s in the zeitgeist and it’s been here for three or four years now. Maybe it came with Bush and maybe it came for the wrong reasons… Maybe I’m reading into peoples’ feelings about things. Westerns at their core, it’s individual empowerment, the individual against long odds who comes out on top. And also a Western is a frontier, the chance to reinvent yourself. I hate to think Westerns are coming back because we see the president like a cowboy.

What are some of your Western influences? Are you Clint Eastwood Guy or a John Wayne Guy?
Clint Eastwood, yeah. John Wayne, no. I really wasn’t hugely into Westerns when I was a kid. “Bonanza” was on TV, but I didn’t like “Bonanza.” I loved “Kung-Fu.” In fact, as a kid, “Kung-Fu” was probably my favorite Western. But then I saw “For A Few Dollars More,” and that just completely spoke to me. I was like “Oh, now I get it!”
I’m a pretty well-read student. I’ve seen a lot of spaghetti westerns. My collection is pretty good, it goes back deeper than Sergio Leone. So does Marcello’s. One of the reasons this project came together is, when we were finishing up “Hellblazer,” we talked and we both wanted to work together again and I was throwing out ideas for series. I said I’d love to do a Western where the main character is an outlaw, completely unrepentant. He jumped at that and we started talking about all these different Italian Western films that we both had liked.

Your work deals a lot with the idea of betrayal and revenge. Why?
I’m not pessimistic, but I know what I like. Bad characters are more compelling, it’s as simple as that.

And what were you doing before comics?
Oh man, I did plenty of other things. I was a janitor, I worked demolition, I restored antique furniture….

Do any of those experiences figure into your writing?
(Laughs) Maybe the demolition job.

You’ve said in previous interviews that a lot of the background from “100 Bullets” comes from your life. What kind of research did you have to do for “Loveless”? 
Yeah, it’s definitely more difficult doing the research. It’s certainly more dry, looking at books, old letters and stuff. The Internet made the research a lot easier though than other research I’ve done for things. The research (for “100 Bullets”) is to go out; for “Loveless,” there was no place to really go.

Loveless has the same coloring/ lettering team (Patricia Mulvhill and Clem Robbins) as “100 Bullets” and the same artist as your “Hellblazer” run. Do you like to keep the same creative team on a lot of projects?
Yes I do. I like to keep everybody working if I can.

You’ve been branching out, doing some superhero work in the last few years (“Batman: Broken City,” “Superman: For Tomorrow”), and you’re pretty notorious for not liking superheroes. Was it a big jump for you?
No, it wasn’t that much of a jump.

How did you keep from swearing in those books?
You know, I wrote it with (the swears) in first and just had to edit.

Did you get kind of a middle-school-kid thrill making Superman say “fuck you” or anything?
Nah, he never went that far.

Your dialogue and storytelling have a certain rhythm that’s identifiable. Where do you get the dialogue from?  Do you go hang out, listen to people?
Yeah, and it’s being very aware, I read a lot of plays and I see a lot of theater too, more than film actually.

And who are your influences as a writer? There’s a lot of old-school crime fiction influence to your work. The “100 Bullets” storyline “The Counterfifth Detective” was a nod to Raymond Chandler and Dashiell Hammet.
I read a lot of true crime as a kid. I got into Jim Thompson probably before anybody else … I bought some old paperbacks at a garage sale, four of the five were his. I used to take the bus to work and would just want some crummy little paperback to throw in my pocket. The first book I read from him was “After Dark, My Sweet,” and then I just couldn’t stop. My favorite Chandler? Probably … God that’s tough. “Trouble Is My Business,” because there’s four stories in it. And Dashiell Hammet, “Red Harvest” is my favorite.

Are “100 Bullets” and “Loveless” going to be similar in any way, apart from their genre influences?
I can’t answer that really, because we decided to go with “100 Bullets” the way we did and also describe it the way we did, because we figured if we tell them it’s this huge expansive, overarching conspiracy story behind all this, no one’s gonna read it. We came at people talking (about) small, revenge-of-the-weak stories and then we got ya. We let you discover it yourself. “Loveless” is not gonna be as involved. It’s gonna be half as long and not as many characters, there’s no way. The story itself and storytelling itself is where the intricacies are going to come into play, what made these characters the way they are.

How do you work with Marcello? How much direction do you give him?
I do full script, but I give him a lot of latitude. Plus the fact that he’s got to get it translated, I’ve got to say what needs to be said in as few words as possible.

Has that been difficult?
Does it look like it’s been difficult? (laughs) The proof’s in the pudding, you know. No, in fact, if you look at this stuff, an editor would recommend a writer and artist never speak the same language. (laughs)

Everyone in “100 Bullets” drinks and smokes. Graves likes vodka, Cole likes tequila. What’s your vice of choice?
What’s my vice?  I have too many. My booze of choice is tequila, of the hard stuff. But nine out of the 10 times you see me, I’ll have beer in my hand.

What kind of beer guy are you?
I’m one of those beer snobs. I’m a big fan of very hoppy American ales.

Any thing else you want to tell people? Any intriguing “100 Bullets” plot points you want to give away?
“100 Bullets,” in the next couple issues, it is probably the most violent it’s ever been. And “Loveless” is even more violent than “100 Bullets.” My wife’s read these and she’s like, “What the hell is going on with you right now?”