Former speechwriter Ron Lithgow returns as the title character in Paul Chadwick's critically acclaimed and award-winning miniseries Concrete: The Human Dilemma. Winner of seven Eisner and three Harvey awards for Concrete, Chadwick pulled out all the stops for his first Concrete miniseries in six years! We had a chance to speak with Paul about Concrete, world population, having children, and much more. Enjoy!
We haven't seen Concrete for a while. Had you gone as far as you wanted with the character, or did other reasons cause the gap?
Paul: Not at all. I put aside an already-started Concrete series to do this one, I have a Concrete novel in progress, and files full of story ideas I still want to do.
In all honesty, I got in a financial jam. I turned my energies to making quicker money. It slowed progress on Concrete: The Human Dilemma. The crisis passed, thankfully, and I've completed the series
Concrete has always addressed political and social issues. Do you chose themes important to you personally or are there other reasons for addressing them?
Having a child gives you new perspective. But I've long thought the population explosion was our most dire problem. It's a unique event in history: a vast experiment in how much stress the closed system of the biosphere can take. In places like Easter Island we can see how it might play out.
Human nature is the series' broader theme - our drives for sex, for symbolic immortality, for family, for acquisition of wealth, for collecting. Combine those with our inability to deal with threats that aren't sudden or dramatic, and you have the Human Dilemma in a nutshell.
Both Concrete and his friend Larry face what might be considered many a male's worst nightmare. Was it a conscious choice to play with common fears of the male psyche?
Art's great for letting off steam. "Turning pain into beauty" is the ten-dollar way to put it. As a young man you're never ready for kids, the responsibility, the loss of freedom. But a retired old man, satisfied with his career achievements and financial success, just can't do the father-child things a younger man can (and wives, biologically, can't wait until their mates are "ready"). I've felt the strain, so I can put my characters through it convincingly, I think.
I've never found myself in quite the pickle Larry faces. Not to my knowledge, at least. But it's just the kind of mess Larry might slide into, and echoes my themes well.
I confess I enjoyed writing and drawing the sex scenes, too. Always in service of story and character! But nice.
Concrete has excelled at addressing social issues while telling a great adventure story. Is it a challenge to balance the message and the adventure?
Never preach, is the key. Make it an argument. That's drama, and that's interesting. A lot of humor helps, too.
Shocking moments in this series radically alter Concrete's world. Will we see repercussions of these down the line with another series?
Yes. Continuity is one great pleasure of series fiction. The ambiguous ending to the story is an intentional open question.
How much of Paul Chadwick do we see in Concrete the character?
Absolutely, positively none! What the hell are you talking about? Get out of here! Interview over!