Mark Schultz: Yah -- I've had a relationship with Phil for years now, going back to Kitchen Sink, so I'm very comfortable with, and looked forward to, working with him. We tried to get something going a couple of times and my schedule just wouldn't allow it.
Then it was July or August of last year -- not longer after the San Diego Convention where we got a little bit of time to catch up with each other -- he called me and said that he had an idea for an Aliens story in which every page would be done by a different artist. It would be a way to get a bunch of fan favorites and at the same time introduce a lot of up-and-coming stars. (Ideally he wanted to have this out in time for San Diego this year, so that it would be a bonus for people that have these issues to go around and get them signed by all of the various artists.) I said, "Yeah, sure I'd be interested in doing this!"
But you know, I never know when to keep my mouth shut. Rather than just let things go at that I said to him, "But I don't want this to just be a jam issue in which, for no other apparent reason than commercialism, there's a different artist on every page. Do you mind if I try to come up with a story-based reason as to why the perspective, the look, of every page changes?" I came up with the concept for this, then we batted it back and forth. It evolved; it didn't come out in one clear burst. It took a while.
It was fun working with Phil. He's really into the give-and-take of helping to develop the creative end of it. I like that in an editor. It helps me bring things into clarity and improve the story.
I had the same fears that you've expressed -- that he'd go nuts wrangling all the people together for this, just riding herd to get all the pages together. There's also got to be some sort of continuity with the visuals: the way the people look, the equipment they're using. That's a lot of coordination. And then, on top of that, it's difficult to get all these people to understand and work within the framework of the story, which is that it's a point-of-view story, it's like a documentary where every page is done from a perspective of someone who is there on the ship, almost like a walking camera. A lot of storytelling tricks had to be thrown away that we comic book artists usually have available to employ. It was limiting in that way but, experimentally, I like to think that it opened up new venues to the artists for presenting things visually than they might have thought of otherwise.
Bruce Costa: Just as the accommodation of rhyming and meter parameters in poetry forces the writer to a higher level of creativity.
Schultz: Or sometimes, when a painter limits himself to a palette of only X number of colors, he can do a much stronger work than he would have, had he a million colors to play with.
Costa: I'm sure you'll admit, though, that this is a somewhat unique structure for the artists to work in.
Schultz: I don't think it's ever been done before, although there are a lot of comics I've never seen. But it's certainly rare enough that it's a special occasion.
Costa: So tell me what Aliens: Havoc is all about. And please discuss your excellent justification of artistic changes each page.
Schultz: I still haven't figured out how to do this succinctly! A space liner -- the space--going equivalent of an Earthbound ocean liner -- mysteriously lost power and collided with an asteroid field. A salvage crew was sent in by the owners to take stock of the situation. The entire story is told from the perspective . . . [hesitant laughter] . . . of a disembodied consciousness! [unrestrained laughter] (Try to follow me here folks!) . . . a disembodied consciousness that exists on this space liner and watches the salvage crew arrive. There's a great secret on board the ship that, as one might figure out sooner or later, involves Aliens being transported on board the space liner. The only way that this consciousness can communicate this to the salvage crew is to throw itself into the body of a given crew member. In this way he somewhat controls the crew member's body and thoughts, but he's limited in that he can only stay in a body for X amount of time. ( . . . with X being equal to one page of storytelling. Therefore, since each page parallels an equal block of time, the story seems to happen in real time.) Anyway, he has this knowledge that he must communicate to the salvage team. And, of course, they're confused as hell; they think the liner is a haunted ship. They don't understand why members of the crew suddenly act crazy, talking of things they should know nothing about.
Costa: I liked the way the character specifically referred to the liner as a haunted ship.
Schultz: Well, there's a great tradition of sea stories about ghost ships. And, of course, we're all haunted by the images of the Titanic. It's an incredibly moving and horrifying story itself, and it really happened. I wanted to transplant [those concepts] into outer space in the context of the Aliens universe. I wanted the feel of it to be reflective of the original Alien movie.
This may be an oversimplification, but I think that most of the Aliens comics have been reflective of the second movie -- which makes sense, because comics are a very visual, action-oriented medium. There was certainly a lot more action and conflict in the second movie. But the first movie captured the sheer feeling of being lost in the vast emptiness of space amazingly well. I tried to use it as the atmospheric setting for this story.
Costa: So, the salvage crew is called on board . . .
Schultz: . . . and this disembodied consciousness manages, through the course of this entire two-issue miniseries, to gain the trust of the salvage crew. He does more than just inform them of the danger of the Aliens; it's a ghost story in a science fiction setting. Like a lot of ghost stories, it's about redemption, about having a chance to right a wrong. [Laughter] I just realized that I'm not talking at all about the Aliens! But I think there's plenty of Aliens action, and everything revolves around the salvage crew having to beat the Aliens in order to save itself and solve the mystery of what happened to this space liner.
Costa: The presence of the Aliens is absolutely palpable throughout your story. Perhaps this was because I had the benefit of my advance photocopy being limited to "chilling black and white."
Schultz: Oh, I agree. I love black and white myself. It's been fun getting these pages faxed to me. Just to see my story ideas being expanded upon and resolved and fleshed out -- and done right, when they could be easily misinterpreted.
Costa: So you feel that this amazingly complex project is actually working out.
Schultz: I think so. You know, nothing like this is ever 100% because there are just so many people involved. But I'm just amazed at how well it's working. It has far exceeded my expectations.
Costa: The breadth of the talent represented in this book is mind boggling.
Schultz: Isn't it great?
Costa: Oh, man! To see a page by Jon Muth in the same book as a page by Peter Bagge.
Schultz: [Laughing] I know! I'm a fan of all of these diverse talents. As long as it's good, visual storytelling with integrity, I admire a lot of different styles.
Costa: Yes. I've spent a lot of my comic-book fandom enjoying realistic styles -- like yours! -- and like that of Jon Muth and Kent Williams and so forth.
Schultz: Aren't those guys amazing?!
Costa: Oh, yeah! But in the last decade or so I've come to appreciate more cartoony styles. Peter Bagge is an obvious gem -- I'll bet quite a few folks flip through to find his page before reading the book -- but also guys in the book like John Pound, Kellie Strom . . .
Schultz: I know what you mean . . .
Costa: . . . Jay Stevens, and even Art Adams' page . . .
Schultz: Isn' that fantastic?
Costa: And then Kevin Nowlan's page . . .
Schultz: That's just a masterpiece.
Costa: What a slam-bang, book-ending page. Your script brings the first issue to a great climax -- you can feel that these guys are in deep trouble. I found myself asking, "What the hell are they gonna do?" Nowlan's superlative art had me lingering in that frame of mind.
Schultz: That last page is one of many that could have been done in a very straightforward way, very pedantically. But Kevin took it upon himself to take that extra step with what I had put down. He creates a feeling of nobility, that [the salvors] are still trying to hold up, but that they're also lost with that horror waiting there for them. He added layers and depths of emotion to that scene. He did a wonderful job.
Costa: Indeed he did, but for what it's worth, I'm amazed that you were able to craft the story so that it ended precisely on such a gripping note of despair. I'll bet that the sell-through on the second issue will be very high, because when readers hit that first issue's last page, they'll be chomping at the bit waiting for the next issue. I'd have gone nuts if I had to wait a month!
Schultz: [Laughter] Another artist on the project whose work I love is Lief Jones. He uses a combination of a cartoony style with a naturalistic style in the first three pages. He's also concluding the book, and did the character model sheets and designed the suits. Great attention to detail; I just love his stuff.
Costa: Yes, he was one of the artists who made it such great fun to explore the Victorian architecture of the vessel -- and through the design of the story we really do get to explore this elegant star liner. It was neat.
Schultz: That's great. I wanted to have areas where the artists could play, and it worked out to be the areas where the actual passengers would be. They're very elegantly appointed, very Victorian -- larger than life and rich. And then you also have the service passageways where the crew would work, like the ship from the first movie, the Nostromo. Very dark, tight, and laden with pipes, providing all sorts of creepy places for the Aliens to hide. I wanted to have both types of scenarios available for the artists to play with.
Costa: Speaking of great artists, the Predator: Hell & Hot Water series that you did with Gene Colan is currently being released. How did handling the Aliens differ from handling a creature like the Predator? The "audience familiarity" problem was there again . . .
Schultz: Mm hmm. You know, there were some similarities between the two. I didn't want to repeat what I'd seen done already. I tried to add something. With any property that's owned by somebody else there's a delicate balance between trying to introduce something new and exciting without significantly adding something new. That's a problem I guess, but just as we were talking earlier about limitations sometimes making you focus and come up with better work because of them, I think sometimes working within the limitations of the licensed property make me look at more creative ways of solving this problem.
I really enjoyed the Aliens movies, especially that first one. It's still one of my all-time favorite movies. It's been quite a challenge to try to capture the atmosphere of it, and the feeling that these people are meeting something completely outside of their own existence -- something completely "alien" -- that they are not prepared to deal with. These are not colonial marines that have been trained to deal with Aliens. These are people who have to fight panic every minute that they're on the ship.
Costa: Right, and some of them fail. I liked it when the pulse rifles were handed out and two of the salvors held them like they were just handed a pair of snakes!
Schultz: Again, the artist, Brian Horton, did a great job on that page. He more than came through on what I had asked for.
I guess I've made it clear how pleased I am that all the artists have pulled together. Teamwork was paramount on this to make this work. To see it happen beyond my expectations has just been very gratifying and really pleasurable.
* * *
Aliens: Havoc #1 is the first of two 32-page, full-color issues. It is written by the Eisner Award-winning Mark Schultz, and drawn by (deep breath) Leif Jones, John Stokes, Duncan Fegredo, D'Israeli, John Totleben, Arthur Adams, Gary Gianni, George Pratt, Igor Kordey, Paul Lee, John K. Snyder III, Mark A. Nelson, Pete Bagge, Brian Horton, Dave Taylor, Kelley Jones, Guy Davis, Kellie Strom, Jay Stephens, Jerry Bingham, and Kevin Nowlan. Cover by Kent Williams. On sale June 25th, 1997.