Comic Book Guy

'All the shows I do are somewhat parasitical, in that I'm feeding off others. Now I really want to make something of mine.' Jonathan Ross has left the BBC and is now writing a comic book, he tells DECCA AITKENHEAD

THE FIRST TIME I spoke to Jonathan Ross, he was phoning to cancel our interview. It was autumn 2008, his autobiography was about to come out and Ross had agreed to grant his first big newspaper interview in nearly a decade. Only he’d decided to pull out.

How annoying, I thought. How unreasonable. Yet half an hour later, I hung up thinking him quite the wisest, most self-aware celebrity I’d ever nearly met. Charmingly apologetic, Ross explained he just felt grubby about trading himself for a plug; he knew everyone else did it, but he’d made a rule only ever to do things that felt like fun, and never for an ulterior motive. Talking about himself made him nervous and he was worried he might end up showing off – which always ends in tears. “You start to think you’re the most important person, and before you know it you say stupid things that hurt and upset everyone, just because you couldn’t help yourself.” The only publicity he did was a turn on the radio. “Coz I know nothing bad can happen with that.”

As famous last words go, those will take some beating. Post-Sachsgate, post-suspension and soon to be post-BBC, if Ross never risked another word to the media again, it would hardly be surprising. Yet here we are, 18 months later, in a remote house deep in rural North Carolina, home to an artist called Tommy Lee Edwards and his family.

They make an improbable-looking pair – Ross all tight jeans and bouffant hair, Edwards with a touch of the cartoon militia-man look, his kids capering about with blue and green dyed hair, squealing over the armfuls of Doctor Who paraphernalia with which Ross has arrived. Edwards’s studio in the woods is a kind of fantasy palace of boys’ toys – Godzillas and figurines line the shelves, piles of comic books and artwork everywhere, Jedi outfits and toy guns and spaceships all over the place. Ross exclaims over every new delight – “Check this out! Awesome!”

Together the pair have created a comic, Turf, written by Ross and illustrated by Edwards. Set in 1920s prohibition-era New York, it's a high-velocity romp involving gangsters, vampires and aliens; issue one went on sale this week and is already on its second print run, the first 20,000 copies having sold out on pre-orders alone. There will be five further issues, a hardback collection and – if all goes to plan – a Turfmovie made by Matthew Vaughn, the producer of Ross's wife's current hit comic-book film Kick-Ass. For Ross, a comics obsessive ever since falling in love with them as a "shy, geeky, half-blind 11-year-old", it's the fulfilment of a lifelong dream – which is why, he explains, he is breaking his silence to talk about Turf.

“My love affair with comics,” he says cheerfully, “is more important to me than my love of films, or my work in TV, or just about anything outside my family . . . And I think if there’s one good thing I can maybe achieve with – with ‘my celebrity’,” he smiles half-ironically, “it’s to try to broaden the horizons and widen the readership of this particular entertainment which I adore and which is somewhat belittled and denigrated. I just want to see comics getting a fair critical chance.”

Ross certainly applies all his considerable critical faculties to the genre, rattling on about narrative arcs, textual juxtaposition, Proustian connections, cultural zeitgeists. "Just hearing Jonathan talk," grins Edwards, "there's even more of a want to do comics just for the love of comics than even I have – and it's my job." Edwards, 37, has illustrated for X-Men, Batman, Star Warsand Wolverine, and says he's never worked with a more tirelessly enthusiastic writer, or drawn more exhaustively researched characters.

“In a way,” Ross jokes, “this is my midlife crisis. But rather than buy some tighter jeans and a motorcycle, I’ve said to myself, finally do some of the things you’ve always wanted to do. Because even though I’ve done hundreds of hours of TV and radio, most of which – with a couple of minor missteps – have been well-received, what I’m aware of always, and it’s grown to slightly trouble me as I’ve got older, is that all the shows I do are somewhat parasitical, in that I’m feeding off others. If you do a movie review show or an interview show, you’re talking to other people about work they’ve done.

“My talkshow is not an interview show as such, which is why I’m always bemused when critics say the interview wasn’t very good. And I think: ‘But I’m not doing an interview! What I’m trying to do is make a comedy show.’ And that, trust me, is a lot harder. Even though we’re creating something in the moment that doesn’t exist anywhere else, without them [my guests] I haven’t got anything. And so I thought I really want to make something of mine.”

Isn’t that more exposing? He agrees. Then he smiles and shrugs. “You know full well, how could I possibly be any more exposed? Do you know anyone in the media in England whose life and career and personality and faults and foibles have been raked over more in the last two or three years?”

Ross had been adamant beforehand that he was going to talk only about comics, and nothing else. But self-censorship doesn’t come naturally, and by the afternoon he’s telling anecdotes about accidentally waking his wife up in bed in LA by masturbating next to her. She woke up with a start, screaming “Earthquake!” – one of her great fears – presenting Ross with the tricky choice of letting her believe a quake had just struck, or admitting it was him. (He opted for the latter.) The more he talks and jokes and larks about, the closer we inch towards the elephant in the room.

"I'm in the position now," he volunteers presently, "where really I don't have to work any more. I'm very blessed in that respect. Financially, I wouldn't have to work again if I didn't want to." In that case, I wonder, why doesn't he give up making TV shows altogether, and enjoy more projects like Turf? "Coz I'm good at TV," he flashes back, faintly defiant. "And I like doing it. One of the hardest things about leaving the BBC was the fact that a lot of people love the shows, and I feel I owe it to them not to waltz off. And part of the reason is I don't want the people who did come out against me to in any way have a sense of triumph . . . So it's really just to continue being an irritant. They're not people I have ever respected or liked, and if I can continue to be very publicly successful, that is its own reward for me.

“Not revenge,” he clarifies, “because I’m not about revenge. It’s just about saying you’re wrong. Your world view isn’t right. We live in a country where it seems to be very much acceptable to be intensely judgmental about others – but I don’t sit around judging people, and I find it very bizarre and peculiar that people judge me and then find different ways of justifying it.”

When Sachsgate erupted, amid all the hysteria it was hard to work out whether critics were using Ross’s calamitous prank calls to justify attacking the BBC – or using his BBC salary (licence payers’ money!) to justify attacking Ross. He says he “wouldn’t want to waste the amount of brain space I have to try to figure it out”.

“All I know is it’s not an issue to me. But at the same time what I don’t want is for them to think that their opinions have managed to alter anything. Because they haven’t . . . And the majority of people who work at a commissioning level [at the BBC] I know for a fact want me to stay. But it’s better in the short term for me not to be there.”

It was reported last month that an offer from Channel 4 had been withdrawn, but Ross says he has a firm offer from “the two other major networks in the UK so work can continue, and it will.” He made the decision to leave the BBC at Christmas, he says. “And I can’t begin to tell you the relief I feel. I don’t want to speak ill of the people at the BBC,” he adds quickly, “because I’ve loved working there, and I still love working with them. But at the same time, oh man,” he exclaims, “I can’t wait to get out!”

Seriously? “Yes, because the whole place has changed quite dramatically. I think it’s a shame that the people running it are always trying to second-guess what the newspapers will say about them – and whatever the next government we wind up with will say about them . . .”

Ross says his BBC salary has never been reported accurately, but he can’t correct the mistake without saying exactly what he earns, “and I don’t want to. It’s none of anyone’s business. But I am very well rewarded, so I’m not complaining.” I wonder whether, with hindsight, he might wish he’d been paid less. He looks at me as if I’m mad.

“Do you know anyone who wishes they got paid less?” Well, no, I agree. But in his case he might have concluded that the trouble his salary has caused him wasn’t worth the money.

He sighs wearily. “If it hadn’t been that, it would have been something else . . .

“You know what? I’ve never been happier in my life than I am now. Mainly to do with the fact that, as you get older, you realise what matters, who matters. Anyone with any sanity and perspective would have to stop and think, ‘Christ, I’m lucky, I’ve got a great life.’ It wasn’t pleasant having people camp outside my house, and it wasn’t pleasant people using me as a whipping boy. But you know what? You know what? It wasn’t a big deal. So what? So what if a handful of idiots who write for a rightwing newspaper don’t like me? Who cares? I don’t.”

Then he says something quite remarkable: “Can I be quite honest with you? In a way, the whole experience has been quite fun.”

What does he mean? “Because it has been really odd. And interesting. And fun. Life can sometimes potter along in the same direction, and then something comes along over which you have no control. It was literally within about four days of it all kicking off that I just thought, you know what, there’s no way I can control this, there’s no way I can change this. So I’ve just got to not let it bother me. And then it became almost like I was watching it happen to somebody else. And it was quite entertaining . . .”

I get the feeling Ross is more bruised by the past 18 months than he likes to acknowledge. I can't be sure, but there are moments when his impregnable good cheer almost verges on glib. The person I spoke to on the phone 18 months ago was less taut, more self-exploratory, and I notice that only once all day does he offer a moment's self-doubt, when he says he felt he mishandled an interview with Matt Smith, the new star of Doctor Who. He strikes me as far too considered not to entertain more conflict or nuance than he is currently willing to allow.

But his sheer delight in the boundless pleasure of being alive seems fundamentally authentic. The day with Ross is like one big show-and-tell – he gets out his laptop to show us a photograph of a double-headed skeleton his wife gave him, and fishes out his iPhone to show a picture of the pygmy hedgehog he’s about to buy. It’s odd that he’s seen by some as venal and greedy when, if anything, I’d say his joy stems from an almost idealistic attachment to innocence.

When Edwards explains that he used to work in advertising, Ross jumps in: “And you’d have made a lot more money doing that! But that’s what’s fascinating about comics. There’s a compulsion; it’s like there’s a magnet inside some illustrators, pulling them towards comics . . . It’s romantic, in a way . . .”

The pair declined an offer from Marvel, the Disney-owned comic conglomerate, to publish Turf, choosing to work instead with Image, the only major independent comic publisher.

"Marvel would have doubled the first print run," Edwards says, "but with them it's all commercially driven, whereas the guys at Image are just so into it." He looks astonished when I mention Ross's reputation for greed. "Oh god, no," he laughs, pointing out that Ross hasn't taken his share of the money from Turf, and is subsidising Edwards so he can afford to turn down other work.

All comics, Ross says, have a subtext. The classic subtext, and the psychological genesis of all superhero characters, he goes on, is "usually about not fitting in and all that. But what Turfis about – in my head, anyway – is connection. It's about a life not being worth living unless you have people around you and connect . . . One of the characters, Susie, is initially an ambitious young journalist who wants to make a name for herself. And then she comes to realise all of her ambitions mean nothing, because actually, deep down, all the things we achieve or acquire via work are ultimately unimportant."

He has been married to screenwriter Jane Goldman for nearly 22 years, having met when she was 16, 10 years his junior and something of a wild child. He is puppyishly doting, citing her endlessly and casting her as the grown-up half of the couple. Recent Tweets included: “Reasons I am excited. 1-My wife mucho lovely”; and “Just told my wife I intended putting the Jedwards in my comic as vampires. She said: ‘I think you’ll find this is a moment that will pass.’”

Goldman's current success with Kick-Ass certainly doesn't seem to have destabilised the dynamic between them. "We're a very high-profile comic-book couple now – which is great! The dream I've probably always had. One of the reasons I fell in love with Jane is she likes low-brow entertainment – she loves trashy horror films, comic books, all that." When I mention the minor Daily Mailfuss over the film's 11-year-old heroine saying "cunt", he rolls his eyes.

“All kids know these words. And the fuss in the papers, it’s not even genuine.” Would he mind if their three teenage children used the word?

“No. Why would I mind that? Would you mind? But I wouldn’t want to give you an answer that comes out in cold print,” he adds quickly, “without being contextualised by the fact that there’s a time and a place. You know? If they were using it every 30 seconds, then of course that wouldn’t be nice. But I wouldn’t mind it otherwise. I know the loveliest people who swear all the time, and the most awful people who never swear.”

As to the charge that he is sexually crude to guests, he affects bemusement. “People like coming on my show because they know they’ll have fun and they know I’m going to be respectful to them. I’m never, you know, mean-spirited.” What about Gwyneth Paltrow? When he told her on air: “I’d fuck you”, she was reported to be furious.

“Yeah, but she so wasn’t. She’s coming on again in a few weeks! She so wasn’t. But that’s the papers, they exaggerate everything . . . I’ll be honest with you, I preferred it when Parky was still there, coz he was No 1, and being No 2 is a lot more fun than being No 1, coz he got all the flak.”

He still stands by his infamous question to David Cameron – “Did you or did you not have a wank thinking ‘Margaret Thatcher’?” – laughingly insisting it was a “legitimate question” because “it wasn’t intended to receive an answer, but rather to get a laugh – which it did. A big one, if I remember rightly.”

Next year Ross will turn 50, having been on our screens for a quarter of a century. He doubts he'll have a party – "I'd rather watch an episode of Sex And The City" – and says he's usually in bed by 10.30pm, and always up at 7am. He hasn't drunk alcohol for 11 years, but claims he found giving up easy. "Like most things in life, I find that if I decide something, it's quite easy. It's just deciding that's sometimes difficult." He's carrying quite a paunch: "But if I was really genuinely troubled about it, then I'd lose weight. I'm clearly not. Really, I'm very chilled and sorted in my head. I'm very sorted. I'm a very sorted person."

He is one of the most self-aware people you’ll ever meet. But if Ross is bewildered by the animosity towards him, one clue to it may lie in the impromptu theory he volunteers for the secret of his happiness. “Just enjoy yourself. If you can live in the moment, it’s the greatest thing. Because you do kind of do what you want really. Everyone does . . . Even if they think they’re not, or they don’t admit it, I think most people wind up doing what they want.”

I’m about to object: coming from a millionaire who need never work again, the fallacy isn’t just absurd but insulting – which may explain why some take his innocent exuberance for arrogance. But before I can even open my mouth, already Ross is reconsidering. “Umm,” he wobbles doubtfully, “I think that theory stands up. But then, I often have theories that I cling to with great conviction – for about 24 hours.”

He laughs ruefully, then with gleeful abandon. "And they're nonsense. Utter nonsense. I often speak complete and utter nonsense." – Guardian Service