Talbot was nice enough to take the time to talk with me about his intensely involved work on Heart of Empire -- the upcoming nine-issue series based on the legacy that became of his work on Luther Arkwright. Fans of Talbot's work won't want to miss the series -- or this revealing interview.
Shawna Ervin-Gore: So how long have you been working on this?
Bryan Talbot: About a year and a half now. That's not counting the time I've spent thinking about it while working on other things, research and stuff. And I've still got most of a year to go.
SE: That's a long time!
BT: Well, it's a big book -- 284 pages altogether. Nearly 100 pages longer than the first one. It's all scripted and pencilled now and I've now inked about 130 pages.
SE: And Dark Horse is first publishing it as a limited series?
BT: Yes. Nine issues. Though, because it's structured as a novel, not a regular ongoing series, each chapter is a different length. They vary between 25 and 41 pages. I had to chose the best places to cut the story up. Mike Richardson is being very brave in allowing me to do this as he intends that each issue will be the same price as a regular size book, even the long installments.
SE: What does the title refer to?
BT: I'm really pleased with Heart of Empire -- it really does sum up the story and also has multiple meanings within the story. It starts in Rome, heart of the ancient Roman empire and of the catholic church. The Pope. The heart of that empire, is dying of a weak heart. He's been visited by God in a vision and sends his chief assassin to London, heart of a worldwide British empire, a real tyranny, with orders to claim the empire or, if she refuses to render it unto Rome, assassinate Queen Anne and her daughter, Victoria . We see the Imperial court, the real heart of the empire, and Anne, the living heart. But we see, during the story, that Heart of Empire has several meanings until we see the REAL one! I also like the resonance with Conrad's Heart of Darkness.
SE: Victoria is also Arkwright's daughter, right?
BT: That's right. She's one of the twins born at the end of the first book. Now she's five days away from her 23rd birthday. Her full name is Mary Victoria Elizabeth Boudicca Cordelia Miranda Arkwright-Stuart!
SE: And her brother...
BT: We find out in the first chapter that he was killed in a Neo-puritan terrorist attack when he was 5. The Queen cut Victoria off after that, blaming her for surviving him. I don't want to give the plot away, I want it to be a surprising read, but I can tell you that Queen Anne, Empress of the World, is really bloody weird.
SE: You mentioned research. How do you research a parallel world?
BT: One of the themes of the story is that history repeats itself. There's lots of things based on real historical events - there's a Crystal Palace and Great Exhibition...
SE: Like in The Adventures of Luther Arkwright?
BT: Yeah, but treated differently. Also there's a huge pro-democracy demonstration that's brutally suppressed in this parallel's equivalent of Trafalgar Square -- "Britannia Square" -- that's a cross between Tiananmen Square and the London poll tax riots. There's lots of real history in there as well as invented history.
But costume, buildings, even the language had to be researched. On this parallel, it's cool to speak in a mishmash of historical English styles - a sort of retro-slang. There's no "thees" and "thous" though. I wanted it to be authentic-sounding, not corny, not like Stan Lee's Thor, for instance! Lots of visual research was needed, and not just from books. I've visited Rome, the Louvre, the British Museum, Windsor Castle, York museum and The Metropolitan in New York, among other places whilst researching this book.
Part of the research involved the city itself; I've designed a fantasy London. a Christopher Wren fever dream, a fantastic gothic Metropolis. The city is a constant presence, the physical embodiment of the wealth of empire. The sci-fi illustrator SMS is terrific with architecture. He's supplied background and partial inks on about 10 pages. A couple of them are real stunners.
SE: A Victorian sci-fi city?
BT: Not really. This isn't strictly speaking a steampunk story. It's as much Elizabethan and Regency-based SF as Victorian. Shakespeare and William Hogarth. The costumes took a lot of time to research. Some of them make superhero costumes look decidedly dull. The first time we see the Queen in the flesh, she's twelve feet high, counting her wig, in a vast hooped skirt covered with diamonds and pearls, with lace wings and a gauze cape and surrounded by her Daughters of Albion guard of honour, Valkyries with machine guns! And showered with rose petals!
SE: You've said she was "a walking nightmare."
BT: Yes, this public persona is a facade. I won't say more than that. One of the threads running through the story is that "things are not what they seem" and this applies to several characters in different ways.
SE: What part does Luther Arkwright play in all this? He became a pacifist at the end of the first book and you've said that he's dead in this one?
BT: Well, the subtitle is "The LEGACY of Luther Arkwright." He really is there all the time in the form of paintings, street names, statues and such, There's an "Arkwright Memorial" and "Arkwright Mausoleum." Legends have sprung up surrounding him. What happened to him?
BT: He was presumed abducted and assassinated by "puritan malcontents." He was a prime target -- a "hero of the revolution" and the Queen's consort.
SE: What were you hoping to accomplish with the first Luther Arkwright collections?
BT: It's hard now to realize how bad most comics were in the late seventies. Of course, this is a generalization, there's always excellent stuff around, but the vast majority of American comic books were really in a rut then. Bland, formulaic superhero stories still uninfluenced by the underground movement or the great adult books coming out in Europe at the time. Stories were vacuous and simpleminded. Nobody swore, had sex or spewed up! Violence was unrealistic. The dominant art style was "comic book shorthand." What I wanted to do was produce a comic that was as rich as a text novel and incorporated these influences - an adventure story for adults that was experimental and dealt with areas that adults were interested in; history, religion, philosophy, sex, politics, etc., executed in an illustration-quality style. I also incorporated cinematic influences; the editing techniques of Nick Roeg and Sam Peckinpah, the vision of Sergio Leone and Ken Russel. Literary influences included Mike Moorcock, Norman Spinrad and the Illuminatus books of Robert Shea and Robert Anton Wilson. In retrospect, I was probably trying to do too much with the first book!
SE: How did he, as a hero, materialize for you?
BT: Arkwright began life in a 7 page strip I did for the British underground comic Brainstorm in 1976. His character there was a direct descendant of Moorcock's Jerry Cornelius. It was only after producing that strip that I began to think more about his possibilities and took him in his own direction, to become his own character.
SE: You mention the research you conducted for Heart of Empire. I take it you're a bit of a history buff and enjoyed doing this work?
BT: I do enjoy the research but I'm not academic about any of this. I look for things and facts I find interesting, enjoyable or fascinating. The story is the important thing to me and I'm always looking for history I can use there.
SE: Do you think a reader will have to possess a working knowledge of English/Victorian history to grasp what's going on here?
BT: Not at all. For one thing, the book is as much Elizabethan and Regency as Victorian. As the story takes place in parallel worlds, lots of the history is made up anyway, just for the sake of the story. These places have evolved differently. Really it's high fantasy.
Be sure to catch the first issue of the new nine-issue Bryan Talbot series, Heart of Empire, when it debuts this April 14.