Smash Pages Q&A: Peter Milligan on ‘The New Romancer’

Last week saw the release of the first issue for Peter Milligan’s latest Vertigo project, The New Romancer. Fired from a cushy job in Silicon Valley, Lexy becomes a coder for New Romancer, an Internet-dating app that’s seen better days. To create fake profiles, she plunders characteristics from history’s most notorious lovers. Using little-known writings by Ada Lovelace, the world’s first computer programmer, Lexy pushes the boundaries of coding and accidentally unleashes history’s greatest lover: Lord Byron. Online dating meets courtly love in this paranormal rom-com by Vertigo veteran writer Peter Milligan and rising art-star Brett Parson. Milligan made some time for a Q&A.

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Tim O’Shea: The use of Ada Lovelace seems like such an inspired choice how did you arrive at that character in particular?

Peter Millgan: I’ve always been fascinated by Ada Lovelace: the fact that father (Byron) and daughter (Ada) were so stellar in their fields. On the face of it their disciplines – poetry and mathematics/computer programming – seem poles apart but maybe there is a kind of unexpected connection: Byron used a number of poetic forms, often Spenserian stanzas of 8 lines in iambic pentameter, and one iambic hexameter. In other words numbers and patterns were at the centre of his work. And Ada Lovelace‘s programming breakthroughs surely required a kind of remarkable creative genius. So perhaps, though ostensibly very different, this father and daughter did share some important traits. I was also fascinated by the fact they Byron and Ada never met as adults. That distance – and the longing it occasionally caused in Byron – seemed a telling metaphor for Lexy’s own longing for Byron, who was separated by the greater – or so you would think – distance of time itself. Byron was proud of Ada but never – for a whole series of reasons – conspired to meet her. In NEW ROMANCER we put that right and poet and computer genius, father and daughter DO meet.

Did you ever consider anyone other than Lord Byron for this story?

Byron was always at the heart of this story. A few years back I was working up an idea called BYRON IS DEAD. That never progressed beyond some first pages and ideas but I’ve always been intrigued by him and his story potential. NEW ROMANCER was born out of the memory of that earlier unfinished germ of an idea and several e-meetings with editor Shelly Bond. Of course, the moment I saw Brett Parson’s drawings of Byron I knew our hero could never have been anyone but that complex compelling romantic poet.

How important was it creatively for you that this be a 12 issue maxi series?

It’s a six part series to begin with. I like this. I think some fine Vertigo series and ideas have first expressed themselves in this length. It gives you the room to establish a new and possible outlandish idea and see if it works in the real world.

What makes Lexy such an enriching character to tackle?

She is both an enriching and a difficult character to tackle: I’m neither 23, female, American nor a loveable computer nerd. But that’s what made her so interesting for me. She is also at once an incredibly modern young woman, working on programs for a computer dating site, but also something of an outsidera throwback almost, being such a romantic and obsessing about long dead poets. She had a strange upbringing – which we find out about in the story – which goes a long way to explaining why she is the way she is.

How much did you research Silicon Valley for the story?

Enough so I felt fairly comfortable. I read, and I watched some documentaries and spoke to someone who uses the same hairdresser as I do – Jimmy Memphis! – who has worked there. Luckily I’d already immersed myself in quite a bit of Byron before I started writing this. But I had to ask around about the whole internet dating, Tinder thing. Ashley Madison has been quite in the news and that’s been a useful insight. This is a new world and it’s probably the future.

What elements of Brett Parson’s art has you most enthusiastic.

So much of it. First, his art has that almost indefinable thing: charm. A lot of people who go for charm just get saccharine and self-consciously cute, which I hate. Brett is way beyond that. He can really get across a sense of character and humour, but he can also pull off those moments when the story veers towards the more twisted or dark. You get the idea: I think he’s great.

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