It may (or may not) surprise the reader to know that some of the inspiration for M came from comics. Here are some examples:
The X-Men have long been my favourite super-heroes, partly because they have such a complex relationship with their own identities. On one hand they have super powers that grant them great power, but on the other hand they are shunned by the very humanity that they are sworn to defend. One of the most interesting of the bunch was Jean Grey (aka Marvel Girl, aka Phoenix), an intelligent, somewhat reserved young woman whose powers were, at times, beyond her ability to control. She was cool, but Kurt Wagner (aka Nightcrawler) was always my favourite X-Man. He’s strange looking but has a good heart.
I still have this issue of Peter Parker, the Spectacular Spider-Man featuring The Schizoid Man. From infancy, the Schizoid Man used the power of his own mind to create three dimensional objects such as those dorky looking demons in the picture. His powers drove him mad in the end. Don’t they always? Schizoid Man is sort of name-checked in M.
Blotto isn’t just a word to describe someone who’s falling-down drunk, it’s also a villain from the old 1960’s Spider-Man cartoon, which was my favourite TV show for much of my childhood. Blotto was a big, black amorphous blob with eyes. Everything it enveloped disappeared, even whole buildings. Sure it’s lame but it scared me when I was little. What if someone came along and disintegrated all my cool junk? Blotto also gets an indirect mention.
I always thought Spider-Woman was sexy. This issue (again, I still own my copy) features Gypsy Moth, a villainess who uses telekinesis to give herself wings. I like the shape of her wings and their proportion to her body. Dig those pig tails too.
One of my all-time favourite authors in ANY medium is Alan Moore. He created the complex character of Rorschach for his classic Watchmen. A Rorschach test appears in M.
I wasn’t really reading comics when Generation X came out (I was too busy being a starving student and half-assed musician) but I like the idea of M, a character with just a letter for a name. Off topic, have you seen Fritz Lang’s classic film M starring Peter Lorre? For that matter, have you heard the song Peter Lorre by Pat Fish AKA The Jazz Butcher? And wait, what about Fritz Lang’s Metropolis? See that too!
Lynda Barry’s One! Hundred! Demons! describes her experiences with a Zen painting exercise where you ‘exorcise’ personal demons by painting them. I like the idea of there being these nasty, weird little things inside of you, just waiting to come out. And if they come from within you, aren’t they really a part of who you are? Whoa, heavy man.
Daniel Clowes’ brilliant Ghost World captures with uncanny accuracy the kind of life I was living at the time the comics came out: vague, intense and punctuated by moments of surreality – sort of like a new wave film. For a long time I empathized more with Enid but then I realized I was really more like Rebecca.
Adrian Tomine (toh-mee-nay) makes some heartbreakingly beautiful comics. “Bomb Scare” is one story in the collection Summer Blonde. It’s pretty freaking tragic. It has a character called Cammie who has nothing to do with Cammie in M.
Love and Rockets is a wonderful, epic comic by Los Bros Hernandez. (A pretty awesome band took their name from the comic, too.) At the core of one set of stories are two friends/occasional lovers Maggie and Hopey. That’s Hopey on the left. Their back and forth exchanges are beautiful and believable, in the same vein as Enid and Rebecca from Ghost World.