Although Conrad, the character synonymous with the Black Cross name, has only appeared in about ten short stories since
DHP #1, he has developed a loyal fan following in the comics industry and has recently caught the eye of Hollywood. In fact, a Black Cross film (with a screenplay from Chris Warner and novelist Steve Perry) is scheduled to begin filming later this year.Both in anticipation of this film and in working out a desire to enter the realm of creator-owned comics, Warner is releasing the first full-length, Black Cross story, "Dirty Work" this April. Tom Fassbender got down and dirty with Warner about his long relationship with the fan-favorite character and what the future holds for both of them.
Tom Fassbender: Black Cross returns at long last in April. What can you tell us about the "Dirty Work" one-shot?
Chris Warner: It's a little tale about trust, betrayal, and trying to find a gig -- it's a tough job market even in the future.
Fassbender: Isn't this an expansion from an older Black Cross story?
Warner: Yes. This gives me the opportunity to complete a piece of unfinished business with Conrad before I get into something a little more substantial.
Fassbender: It's not too often that happens. How did that come about?
Warner: A few years back when the Dark Horse Insider [Dark Horse's comic-sized promotional comic] started up, Dark Horse wanted to have some original comics material in it. Mike [Richardson] asked me if I wanted to do a Black Cross serial, which I did for about a year. Then, because of some scheduling conflicts, I had to stop. And although I stopped the story in a logical place, I never really felt that I'd finished it.
Fassbender: How is this version different from the original?
Warner: I've expanded the story from 13 pages to 28 pages. Also, it's going to be done in color, where the original was in black and white.
Fassbender: Is this the first full-length Black Cross story?
Warner: Some of the short stories have been somewhat connected, but this is by far the longest continuous piece.
Fassbender: Isn't it also the first full-color Black Cross book?
Warner: Yeah, it's the first opportunity I've had to do Black Cross in color. I don't have a bias against color books and I don't see Black Cross being a black-and-white-only book, that's just been the way that I've done it until now.
Fassbender: You obviously like this character... you've been telling his tales on and off for 11 years. What took so long for you to do a full-length story?
Warner: Even though I've been working with Black Cross for about 11 years, I haven't spent that much time with the character. Looking back, I had originally planned to do a miniseries with this character called "My War" when Dark Horse first started up, but some projects -- like Predator and Terminator -- came my way that I truly felt I couldn't afford to turn down. About the time I would have gone back to work on Black Cross, the black-and-white crash hit. And after that it never seemed like the right time for me to get back to doing creator-owned stuff.
Fassbender: Do you regret this?
Warner: In retrospect, I wish I had gone ahead with it because I could have established Black Cross as a credible presence in the comics market and myself as a creative voice. But, you make your bed, you lay in it.
Fassbender: So why did you choose to finally make the jump to creator-owned material?
Warner: I was finally getting burned-out doing work-for-hire and felt it was time to put up or shut up. Plus, once the movie deal started to happen, it became apparent that here was another opportunity -- if the movie does indeed come off -- to bring some heat back to the character and reintroduce readers to him. So now seemed like the right time.
Fassbender: Since "Dirty Work" is based on previously printed material, did you have to redraw any of the pages?
Warner: Several years have passed since the initial material was completed, and I considered going back and redrawing some of it and having it relettered -- the serialized pages had two different letterers, and another letterer for the new material makes three -- but I decided to let the material stand as it was originally presented. If it was acceptable to me five years ago there's no reason it shouldn't be acceptable to me now. I did, however, keep the same format to the story. The serialized pages were done in a very specific format, three panel tiers, with nine or ten panels per page -- you have to tell a lot of story quickly when you're only doing one page a month -- and I'm keeping the story in that format, with the exception of one splash page.
Fassbender: Did you create Black Cross specifically for Dark Horse or was he around before he showed up on the cover of DHP #1?
Warner: Black Cross appeared in comics at Mike Richardson's behest. In the early '80s I put this character on covers of a 'zine of mine called Black Cross, which was my contribution to APA-5 (a comics-fan collective that spawned many topflight comics professionals over the years, including Mark Verheiden, Paul Chadwick, and Frank Miller). When Mike, who had also been a member of APA-5, was getting ready to launch DHP #1, he told me that he'd like me to do a Black Cross story for it.
Fassbender: So Black Cross existed before DHP #1...
Warner: Yeah, I'd created him a few years prior to his first Dark Horse appearance, probably 1980. Since then he has changed substantially.
Fassbender: How so?
Warner: When I first put him in print, he was a pretty grim character. He still has that edge, but he has a more developed sense of humor. If anything has changed about me as a writer, it's that I try to find a way to balance the grim elements with something funny. Although the humor is often pretty grim as well.
Fassbender: What's next for Black Cross?
Warner: As soon as I'm finished with this one-shot, I've got a four-issue series planned that will probably be out by the end of the year.
Fassbender: What's that going to be called?
Warner: It's the series I originally planned to do years ago, "My War."
Fassbender: Has the character changed further now that you are writing an entire series instead of the occasional short story?
Warner: Absolutely. So many of the Black Cross stories have been just vignettes, giving me the freedom to take further stories anywhere I wanted -- very little was ever defined. Now I have to take the stories deeper, forcing me to nail Conrad down a bit. I have to make some decisions as to who he's going to be.
Fassbender: What about the setting of Black Cross? Has the theme of a dystopian future been a favorite of yours?
Warner: In the beginning, that was more of an interest than it is now. I'm not really interested in trying to blueprint some kind of plausible future. I'm trying to hang a modern facade over a stark Western format -- sort of a 21st Century Spaghetti Western. The only way to do that is to conjure up a scenario where it will work. And the best thing about a dystopia is that you can make it up as you go along -- it's perfect for a lazy freelancer!
Fassbender: What appeals to you about the Western theme?
Warner: What I find interesting about the Western in general is that it's exclusively American -- there's something about the expansion in the American West that embodies everything good and bad about America. It's all the positives and all the negatives and they're so closely entwined that you can never escape either of them. Every conceivable giant theme is present within that Western context. I've always found those elements fascinating, and they lend themselves to the creation of very big characters.
Fassbender: Do you find yourself going back and looking at previous Black Cross stories for possible plot twists to tie certain story lines together?
Warner: Not really -- not for "Dirty Work" or "My War" anyway. But I am looking over the old stories to make sure that I'm not walking the same ground -- or using the same jokes.
Fassbender: What about for future series -- will there be any old foes popping up?
Warner: Depending on how much more Black Cross material I produce, I might reintroduce some characters and situations and see how they play out, but in a way I prefer that Conrad be the only character that you ever see more than once. I've always used Black Cross as more of a delivery system for thematic and stylistic exploration rather than as a continuing set piece.
Fassbender: So there will be more Black Cross stories to come?
Warner: The way things are going, it looks like the film will be on screens in Spring of '98. Hopefully, I can get "My War" out and then produce another series to come out in conjunction with the film. Beyond that, I have no firm plans. Sort of like Conrad himself: no prospects, no plans, keep moving!
Fassbender: What does the future hold for Chris Warner?
Warner: I have other characters I want to create and other stories I want to tell. I'm pretty realistic -- if the audience is there for Black Cross, I'll happily produce more. But if it's not, I'll move on to flex my creative muscles in different areas. Plus, even though I haven't done much with Black Cross over the years, I've been working with him on and off for the past 14 years, and I imagine Conrad's pretty tired of my face!