SE: What got you interested in working on the new Terminator project for Dark Horse?
AG: I was talking with editor Phil Amara last year, and he mentioned that Dark Horse might be planning a new Terminator series. I'm not a real big Arnie fan, but Terminator was one of my favorite movies of the past decade (along with Robocop and The Blues Brothers), so I asked Phil to bear me in mind if they needed a writer on the project. He called me back a couple of months later to say "let's go!"
SE: The common challenge offered by such a successful movie-related title always seems to be developing a creative approach to the story. Did you find this to be the case with Terminator? And how did you get around it? Similarly, is this how you approach much of your work?
AG: I first saw the Terminator movie in Bishop, Arizona, when I was touring the western states. A day or so later, I was in Death Valley. I remember standing on Zabriskie Point and thinking "this would make a great setting for a sequel to the movie!" So I had the scene nearly ten years before I got the job.
SE: Then again, it seems the situation could be seen as quite fun and promising, since you're given a cool, inherently interesting premise to work from, and your job is to make it more interesting and more cool. Was this a fun project for you? What generally constitutes a project you would consider fun?
AG: Yes, Terminator was a very enjoyable project to work on. One of the good things about working with virtually indestructible villains is that you can find a lot of fun ways to destroy them. So, in Death Valley, artist Steve Pugh and I have the Terminators blown up in a mine explosion, in a tug-of-war with a police chopper, splattered by a runaway 10-ton wagon, and battling on a runaway train.
Another fun aspect was Scotty, the grizzled old prospector, who's spent so long in the desert he holds his best conversations with Jezebel, his mule. I often find it desirable to lighten a grim storyline with a little fun.
As for what constitutes a fun project for me -- well, it's anything I find myself interested in writing. I guess that takes in most of the books I've ever worked on, though certain stories do stand out: the Lobo Paramilitary Christmas Special (with Keith Giffen and Simon Bisley), for instance, and The Scottish Connection, a Batman special I've just finished with artist Frank Quitely, or my new Anarky series with Norm Breyfogle.
SE: Can you explain the basic premise of the story you've come up with? What elements are in your Terminator story that aren't in all the others?
AG: I guess it could be summed as: What if a Terminator started to question its machine programming, and in fact made the quantum jump to human-like consciousness? The various sub-premises include: What if the Terminators made a mistake and went after the wrong victim? What if a man was forced to commit murder because of Terminator interference? And what if the Terminators came after your family?
Most other Terminator stories have taken place in cities, where there's an audience of innocent people to use as "collateral damage." Out in the desert, there just aren't that many folk, so the Terminators have the luxury of time to consider just what it is they've been sent to do. Also, all of the locations used in Death Valley are taken from real life, rather than having anonymous people dying on anonymous streets.
SE: It seems you've kind of settled on making this a sort of American white trash Terminator series (bikers, Satanists, money-grubbing bounty-hunters, etc.). This is my impression just from the first script, anyway. Are you going for the underbelly view of America on purpose? It certainly seems like an area of fair game.
AG: Yeah, I can see how you'd think that from the first script. The Satanist bikers are white trash of the worst kind. However, things aren't quite so simple: Killerman, the bikers' evil leader, will actually redeem himself later in the series. The other characters are quite different -- Ken Norden is an ecologist doing a year-long project in the Valley; Van Dirk is a bounty hunter, sure, but he used to be a cop, and he's a decent guy. We'll also get to see the real Sarah Connor and her son John, and pick up a little on her story.
SE: And are your Terminators any different than those we've seen before? How?
AG: One of them is. As I mentioned earlier, one of the foundations of the story is "what would a Terminator do if he was able to overcome his machine programming and make the jump to fully-functioning consciousness?" So we'll be following the Terminator's observations, analysis and reaction as he encounters life for the first time. He'll end up asking questions like "Why does all life feed on other life?" Why does a mother protect her babies?" "Why do humans mark death with a gravestone?" And when that quantum leap occurs, it'll be pivotal to the resolution of the story.
SE: What sorts of things are you able to do in a comic book version of the Terminator story that a film maker might not be able to so readily accomplish on camera?
AG: That's a hard one to call! With breakneck advances in SFX technology, there isn't much you can do in any comic these days that can't be duplicated on screen. One of the first things which attracted me to superhero comics as kid was the amazing feats the heroes and villains could accomplish. At the time, film was a long way behind -- the cosmic space soap opera of Captain Marvel, for instance, could never have been shown on the big screen.
I guess Star Wars was the turning point, because after that the special effects technology just kept getting better and better -- until now. You can have movies like Independence Day and Men In Black where the destruction of Washington and the portrayal of alien creatures is every bit as convincing as it is when it appears in a comic. Same with computer games: the first one (like Donkey Kong) were fun but crude, and the visuals came nowhere near what could be accomplished in a comic book. But the latest 3-D games like Duke Nukem are an incredible advance; it's almost like starring in your own comic.
SE: And how would you compare this Terminator series to some of your other work?
AG: Well, in many ways, the Terminators are similar to other characters I'm noted for writing: Lobo is another well-known mass murderer, as is Judge Dredd (although he murders in the name of the law). There are also parallels with some of the other robotic characters I've handled -- Robocop, for example, and Manix, the world's first robot secret agent, which I used to write for the British comic Eagle.
But to my mind, Terminator compares best with some of my Judge Anderson stories, which I do for 2000 AD. Anderson tales are often grim and gritty, based on real life, and I think that's the same feel that comes over in Death Valley.
SE: What sorts of titles are you hoping to work on in the future? Do you think your style is particularly conducive to a certain genre of comics? Which comics have you enjoyed working on the best?
AG: I'm not at all sure what "my" style is. Way I see it, I use a different style for almost every character that I write. Batman is grim, obsessed, and always on a quest for social justice. Lobo is a wisecracking killer, always on a quest for more booze or women. Anarky is a serious-beyond-his-years teenager who wants to set the world to rights. Judge Dredd is a fascist bully, though he's softening a bit with old age.
Since I was around four years old, Batman has been my all-time favorite comic character. I've been writing the character for ten years now, and would like to think I'll do another ten. As far as I'm concerned, he's the perfect comic hero -- he's not superpowered (although his enemies often are), so he's forced to rely on himself rather than on his powers to resolve his problems.
But I have a strong humorous side to my personality, and I always need an outlet for that aspect of myself; Lobo's the perfect example, although over the years I've written dozens of other humorous strips. In the future, I hope to be able to continue to keep the two sides balanced.
As for what I've enjoyed working on best: Judge Dredd, mainly because my co-writer John Wagner is just about the funniest guy I know; Batman, because I've followed his adventures for 40 years now; Lobo, because Simon Bisley and Keith Giffen both tread the fine line between genius and insanity; Anarky, because he reflects my own personal philosophies (and also because Norm Breyfogle is my favorite superhero artist); Judge Anderson, because I can tell stories that would be hard for me to tell elsewhere; and now Terminator, because it was a favorite movie -- but also because I've trying to work with Steve Pugh (the artist on the mini-series) for years now, and it never came off. . . `til now.