Collected into an 88-page full color hard cover edition, Scarlet Traces builds upon H.G. Wells' classic War of the Worlds. At the crux of the story is the search for a missing girl in this futuristic world and the lives of the men in pursuit of her. Set against a backdrop of a society perhaps more technically advanced than it should be, Edginton and D'Israeli explore what happened after the Martian invaders were defeated, how the world changed and how humanity reacts to those changes.
Dark Horse: First off, Scarlet Traces takes place roughly a decade after the conclusion of H.G. Wells' War of the Worlds. Did you need to get special permission from his estate to set your tale in his universe?
Ian Edginton: We didn't really have too. With the sole exception of the Thunderchild incident, artist extraordinaire Matt Brooker/D'Israeli and I haven't used any of the original novel's characters or scenarios. The novel provides background colour at best and it's functioned as a springboard for our own story. It's been more of an influence than actual reference.
I also think there's a lot of precedent already been set for using the book as a basis for associated works, the current League of Extraordinary Gentlemen series for example.
DH: Why did you choose to build upon the War of the Worlds story rather than construct an entirely new "universe"? Familiarity to the reader? A love of War of the Worlds?
IE: War of the Worlds was the first science fiction novel I ever read and it's stuck with me to this day. That and John Wyndham's Day of the Triffids (the second science fiction novel I ever read!) have a great resonance for me. I think it's because they're set in the UK, with a very British sensibility. They're not hairy-chested, gung-ho action-adventure but have more of a considered and informed tone, the characters are never overwhelmed by the spectacle. They're very human stories which is what I was aiming at in Scarlet Traces.
I first read War of the Worlds 27 years ago (showing my age now) and I remember thinking 'Whatever happened to all the Martian War-machines that were left behind?' The idea got duly filed away in my subconscious until the early '90s when I was looking for a new project I could work on with Matt and up it popped. However I didn't think it would take ten years for it to finally see print!
DH: According to my notes, Scarlet Traces was originally conceived back in 1993 and finally saw the light of day on a U.K.-based website in serial format in 2000. Why did it take 7 years from creation to finally releasing it to the public?
IE: I pitched the story to several companies over the years, most of them liked the idea but quailed at investing in series that didn't have any superheroes in it and that would probably prove difficult to market. This was before the days of Alan Moore's LOEG. Ironically there has been some criticism that we're jumping on the LOEG bandwagon. Well, when Matt and I were trying to find a home for Scarlet there wasn't a bandwagon to jump on!
When I submitted it to publishers with imprints who I thought would be a perfect home for Scarlet, we were overwhelmed by their disinterest. Not enough faeries and angst I guess? So Scarlet was put on a back-burner until Matt and I were contacted by a U.K. on-line publishing company called Cool Beans who commissioned the series in 2000. It was part comic strip, part CGI animation, proper animation at that. We had actual walking war-machines, music, sound effects, dissolves, zooms the works. It was like a mini-movie.
Then Cool Beans went bust.
Fortunately we managed to negotiate the return of the rights and all the art for Scarlet, except now we didn't have a publisher. Once again I went on the campaign trail and once again people loved the idea and were knocked out by Matt's art but at then end of the day shied away from putting their money were their mouth was.
Luckily Matt and I had a good relationship with games producer Rebellion who also happened to publish the weekly UK comic 2000AD and the monthly Judge Dredd: The Megazine. Alan Barnes at the Megazine elected to run Scarlet over three issues and Matt, to his undying credit, went into overdrive, burning the midnight oil re-formatting the story to fit, baring in mind it was meant to run on computer screens and encompass various filmic techniques.
All things considered, it worked. There was a very positive response from the readership but I wasn't completely happy. It was the pan and scan version compared to the wide screen directors-cut. At this time I was writing Batman/Aliens 2 for DC/Dark Horse. I've always had a really good working relationship with Dark Horse, they gave me my first break in the biz writing Terminator and so on the off-chance I offered it to them and low and behold, here we are talking about it!
I'm very happy with the version that's going to see print. It's as close to being what Matt and I had envisioned without it being run on-line. It's just a crying shame that no-one got to see those animations but don't rule them out just yet! This hardcover edition also features, sketches and background material that give a insight in the realisation of the book and the (literally) years of work that went into it before any of it saw print. A cautionary tale for anyone wanting to break in and become an overnight success!
DH: What was the response to Scarlet Traces when it debuted?
IE: See the above. To be honest, I knew it would be pretty well received, not because of the story - God forbid - but because of Matt's art. He is a national treasure. Underexposed and seriously underrated, he is a formidable talent.
DH: How did you hook up with D'Israeli to do the art for this project?
IE: Back in the mid-80's Matt and I were paired up on a free, newspaper style broad-sheet comic called BLAMM. It was on a twee little tale I wrote about, an astronaut, God and a can of baked beans. BLAMM only ran for a few issues but we were in good company, they had early stories and art by a pre-Sandman Neil Gaiman and a prepubescent John McRae (either that or he's older than he looks!).
Matt and I discovered we had a very similar, quirky sensibility and wanted to work together again. A while later we did just that on the mini-series Kingdom of the Wicked. A dark Terry Gilliam meets Alan Bennett via Dennis Potter type fantasy. Kingdom, like Scarlet, has had a troubled publishing history but it didn't put us off working together. If anything we seem to work better in adversity!
DH: Scarlet Traces is really an intriguing read. I went into it thinking that we'd see a lot of science fiction elements and while those elements are present, this seems to be much more of a mystery/conspiracy theory type of story. How would you categorize it?
IE: Basically I wanted it to be sort of ripping yarn. A very British boy's own thrilling adventure story along the lines of John Buchan's Richard Hannay novels, Sappers Bulldog Drummond stories and Anthony Hope's character Rudolf Rassendyll in The Prisoner of Zenda and Rupert of Hentazu.
They were tales of daring-do set in a world then dominated by the British Empire. However, while I wanted to keep that almost pantomime sense of bravado, I also wanted the British Empire to be more of the real world, replete with repression, poverty and gross inequality.
DH: We see most, if not all of the characters, go through substantive changes in the course of this story. By the time I got the the last page, I think everyone in the story was changed in some respect. This is a pretty uncommon occurrence in the mainstream comic book industry nowadays (since most characters tend to go through some ordeal but everything is back to normal at the end of the story). Was this a conscious decision on your part to mess with the "status quo" or did the story take on a life of its own?
IE: I just had a story to tell and wanted to tell it. There was never any plan to take the characters further than this. I don't want to go into details because I don't want to reveal too much but I'd only ever envisioned Scarlet as being a self-contained story. A large part of the drama is how the characters are altered and shaped by the circumstances they find themselves in. I hate it when you read something where the characters have been through a serious, life-altering episode only to remain exactly the same at the end for fear of changing the status quo and upsetting the reader. I want to upset people, I want to jab them with a sharp stick and elicit a response. You have to keep moving, keep changing because that's what life's about. Nostalgia is fine, it's a great comfort blanket but it can also lead to stagnation and complacency.
DH: So I've gotta ask. You set the end of this story up perfectly for a sequel. Will we see a Scarlet Traces II?
IE: If you'd asked me a few months ago, I would've said no. Then a little while ago I had one of those light-bulb over the head moments. I've got an idea for a sequel of sorts that I'm working through with Matt. Hopefully it won't take as long to see print as Scarlet has!
DH: And to wrap up this interview, what does the title, Scarlet Traces, mean?
IE: To me Scarlet Traces are blood stains. The grisly evidence that something nasty has taken place, it's up to you to imagine what. It's also a nod to the excellent novel by Iain Sinclair about the Whitechapel murders. A recommended read.
Scarlet Traces, written by Ian Edginton with art by D'Isreali, is available August 20th, 2003.