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| Image from DHP #10 |
I was asked to do an interview some time back for a UK publisher- but on supplying the material-I never heard anything back (maybe I was bumped for the Batman teams with Teletubbies news- who knows;)
As I'm not one to let anything go to waste; I thought I would share it with you :
What would be the high concept pitch?
A Clockwork Orange meets Black Adder.
What was the genesis of the concept?
Well,
they always say write what you know- and I really just wanted a vehicle
to let me ramble on about movies and my distain for what passes today
as popular entertainment. So I created a world were the three main
characters were the only ones who could still access and view various
media such as video games , music and movies and it was their suits that
afforded them this “luxury”
-Sort of post-apocalyptic movie critics….
So
it grew and developed out of that basic concept—however I soon
realized I just couldn’t have them sit around watching movies all day
and had to find them other things to do.
The movie theme as it
progressed became less important as I got into the meat of the story.
Although the rambling about various pop culture will still be quite
prevalent throughout.
The design of the suits stemmed
from the fact that I wanted to avoid the typical superhero type costume
clichés where everyone is seemingly trying to come up with the coolest
looking design. I decided to negate that and take it in a completely
different direction; making the characters look somewhat absurd. Yeah,
they have a suit that makes them incredibly powerful but there is
nothing aesthetically pleasing about it. It just makes them look
ridiculous.
I also have a great love of old British science
fiction/horror and UXB is somewhat of homage to the works of HG Wells,
John Wyndham and Nigel Kneale. Wyndam’s The Midwich Cuckoos is a huge
influence.
UXB = unexploded bomb or something else? What’s the significance of the title?
No
that’s exactly it. Quite simply these guys are the most powerful
beings on the planet and they have the capabilities (yet unbeknownst to
them) to destroy what’s left of the world. It also could be taken quite
simply as a metaphor for their volatile angst-ridden nature.
Dark
Horse has described UXB as following in the dark footsteps of dystopian
visions such as The Adventures of Luther Arkwright, DMZ, and Give Me
Liberty, What are your thoughts on those comparisons?
Flattered! That certainly set’s the bar pretty high…I’ll have to work very hard to achieve anything even near that level.
Who are those three brothers?
Das
Bombast (Real name: Wilfred Brian Atherton) has a penchant for movies,
everything from Kurosawa to Kubrick. Das is the leader of the group.
Pragmatic, austere and highly intelligent.
Muc Olla
(Real name: Donnchadh Flaherty Atherton) has a thing for soap operas and
spaghetti westerns. Muc was adopted by the Athertons at birth. He’s the
sensitive one.
Rifter (Real name: George Galton
Atherton) enjoys porn and gaming, he also likes to burn and occasionally
kill things. Rifter is slightly psychotic and dangerously unbalanced.
Of the three he is the most damaged.
What are their motivations?
They
just want to continue where they left off before the war came. They are
so immersed in their comfort zone that even when faced with the end of
the world they still cannot break free from their petty addictions.
Is there a main antagonist? If not, what drives the story forward?
They
have quite a few interactions with the other “survivors” and there are
some interesting scenarios that develop from that, however, there will
be a big reveal at the end of book one, which will answer a few
questions.
What is the main theme of UXB?
Basically
it’s an excuse for me to rant about the state of the world, especially
the entertainment industry; I’ll not tell you what Rifter does with the
corpse of Simon Cowell….
What's the back story?
Here's the blab: When
their mother is apparently killed in one of the many terrorist bombings
of London in the build up to the great war, their father, a self made
billionaire (A Richard Branson type), decides to protect his children
from the same fate. His company develops state of the art anti-terrorist
skin suits; a combination of nano-tech means military. When the highly
experimental suits are finally placed on the three young brothers, they
malfunction, fusing into the muscle and bone of the boys so completely
that they can never again be removed.
When the war
finally arrives, the genetically modified bio-strains are anti-biotic
resistant and immunosuppressive. Within two weeks all of Britain is
infected and in four most are dead or dying. The viruses corrode and
degrade plastics, fuels and metals rendering computers,
telecommunications, travel, hospitals and the military powerless to act.
Britain is thrown back into the Dark Ages.
However,
Das, Rifter and Muc survive, impervious and self-sufficient in suits
that could sustain them for up to sixty years. The world is theirs for
the taking -- but their suits while being state of the art protective
devices, capable of emitting force fields, repairing injuries and
recycling bodily waste also have the most advanced multi-media
entertainment units built into them for playing movies, video games and
music… so in a world so inherently poisoned and laid to waste and with
their only company being the diseased and dying they decide to take
residence in Buckingham Palace, kick back and continue right where they
left off.
Also, what type of mood are you trying for? What style of story are you looking to tell? What audience are you aiming for?
It’s
quite a dark story with black as night humor peppered throughout. I
think anyone that enjoys a good end of the world horror tale will get
something out of it.
I should also mention that this is not a
superhero book. It’s more kitchen-sink drama than X-men. Imagine The
Road as written by Mike Leigh and directed by Wes Anderson.
What sort of challenges did the project pose for you as a writer?
The
characters once created -- wrote themselves. One pitfall of being an
artist/writer is that it is very easy to get so enamored with the art
that you forget about the need to keep driving the story forward.
Instead, drawing a bunch of splash pages just because you can. As the
story progressed(web-comic)I was much more cognizant of that and the
story and layout became a lot tighter.
How
does the Dark Horse Presents story tie in with the UXB web comic? Will
newcomers be up to speed from the very beginning? Will fans of your web
comic be familiar with the story you’re presenting?
Yes.
The Dark Horse stories interlock into the web-comic. I’m also in the
process of re-editing certain sections of the web-comic making it a
little more reader friendly.
What was the attraction of producing UXB for print?
I
self-published UXB (a preview issue) some time back- but found that the
work involved marketing and promoting the comic left me little time for
anything else. The web site actually came after that as I felt it was a
more immediate and direct way to communicate with your audience. Still
haven’t figured how to make money out of it though…;) Personally
speaking I like to have a hard-copy of a book and even though I respect
and see the value of going digital I always wanted to see UXB in print.
