Michael Gilman: What's the story with your new series Body Bags?
Jason Pearson: It's a fairly simple story about contrasts and the generation gap. A 14-year-old girl by the name of Panda decides to run away from her home in Los Angeles to live with her dad, Mack, in Georgia. Mack is a bodybagger -- a mercenary bounty hunter -- and she wants to be like him. So imagine this 41-year-old guy -- and in his business it's hard to get to be that age -- all of a sudden having to take care of a 14-year-old girl he hasn't seen since her mother took off with her ten years before. To complicate things, Mack's already in the midst of tracking down this fugitive who almost killed him and his partner.
Gilman: He's seeking revenge?
Pearson: Kind of, but this guy, Janus, does have a bounty on his head.
Gilman: How did this get to be so personal?
Pearson: Janus was a fellow bodybagger who tried to ace Mack -- whose professional name is Clownface -- and his partner Pops out of the deal for a high-paying bounty. He blew up their office, killing Pops' girlfriend and almost killing them. That caused a bounty to be put on his head.
Gilman: What is the setting of the story? Is it contemporary?
Pearson: No, it's set in the future -- past the century mark. I'm making it a point of not giving an exact date. That way I get to toy with things that are slightly futuristic and whoever reads the book isn't sitting there going "What is that?" or "There's no way that would happen!" I wouldn't classify it as pure science fiction, but I like to throw in some high-tech gadgets. The best way to describe it is futuristic without being sci-fi.
Gilman: Kind of a Blade Runner-style phenomenon?
Pearson: Not really. It may look that post-apocalyptic, but it's not that evolved science-fiction-wise.
Gilman: You mentioned it was set in Georgia. Where in Georgia?
Pearson: Geographically, Atlanta. However, it takes place in an alternate reality, so the city goes by the name Atlanta was originally supposed to have: Terminus.
Gilman: Nice twist. Where did you get the idea for Body Bags?
Pearson: It kind of came off the cuff. I always have these ideas I just jot down. In one of these, I had a guy wearing a smiley-face mask holding knives. I never had a name for him, he was just this guy with Dockers-type pants, Converse shoes, and a smiley-face mask.
Gilman: Almost like a movie serial killer.
Pearson: Almost. But he's costumed so you can tell he's the anti-hero. I developed a counterpart to him -- a small Japanese girl by the name of No. In Japanese, No is the title of a play that symbolizes the five aspects of life and death. She was an assassin, so the name just fit. She runs into this guy, who I had named Clownface -- he was going to be an assassin at that time as well. But there was nothing that would hold them together, so I put it away.
Gilman: But you obviously went back to it...
Pearson: Yeah, and I reconfigured it a little. I still wanted to focus on a little girl and a big guy, so Clownface remained -- although I had bulked him up quite a bit. But I changed the girl into his daughter, and to keep the idea that they just met, she was taken into custody by her mother at an early age and Mack was refused any visitation rights. I changed her name to Panda and gave her this cheerleading-style outfit that's made out of latex and matches Clownface's outfit. Like her namesake, she's a troublemaker -- she's curious about everything, tenacious, and stubborn... but very loyal.
Gilman: Does she follow him around when he's on the hunt?
Pearson: He doesn't want her to, of course, but she does anyway. That's where the story builds tension -- she pretty much came at the wrong time. And Mack, never having experienced being a father, has to learn how to deal with her real quick.
Gilman: You've been working on this for quite some time.
Pearson: Yeah. I came up with Body Bags in 1992 and only now, in 1996, is it coming to fruition.
Gilman: Was it always called Body Bags?
Pearson: Yeah, once I did name it. I'd had a list of names down for titles and none of them seemed to click. Then Adam Hughes mentioned that since I was calling the bounty hunters bodybaggers, why don't I just call the book Body Bags? So there it was... and it was right under my nose the whole time.
Gilman: It is a catchy title. Why bodybaggers?
Pearson: It just sounds better than calling them bounty hunters... it's been used so much it's kind of cliché to make the anti-hero a bounty hunter or a mercenary. Also, with a title like Body Bags, it makes no pretense about this being a kids' book. It crosses all the genres -- it has a little superhero flavor, it has a little noir flavor, and it has a little hard-boiled flavor, and then there's an ethnic side to it as well.
Mack and Panda are Hispanic. I'm growing tired of the urban-territory story where the main character is a white guy -- white people just aren't typically found in deep urban areas. But then I didn't want to make the characters black, simply because I didn't want to fall into the other stereotype of, "Well if it's not white, then it's gotta be a black character." There really are no books on the market with Hispanic characters, except for Love & Rockets, which inspired me because even though the stories featured Hispanic characters, they were about people. Anyone could relate. That's what I'm trying to do here.
Gilman: How did Body Bags get to be the first book in the new Dark Horse imprint, Blanc Noir?
Pearson: Back when Image first came out, they had shown interest in publishing something from Gaijin Studios. Originally, we were going to do an anthology with each one of us contributing a short story. It was going to be called Ground Zero and the books were going to count backwards from 10 to 0.
Image turned it down, and Dark Horse ended up giving us an offer. Then we found that anthologies rarely ever do well, so Dark Horse suggested that we form a new imprint line. This was when Legend had just come out and was greeted with much enthusiasm.
We set it up with Editor Barbara Kesel that the miniseries would run how Hellboy and Monkeyman & O'Brien had run: a four-issue miniseries with a main feature and a back-up feature. That was beneficial for us because some of the guys at Gaijin are fairly slow.
Gilman: So this Blanc Noir is a Gaijin Studios imprint?
Pearson: Yes, and we called it Blanc Noir -- which is French for black-and-white -- instead of Gaijin for legal reasons.
Gilman: Then Body Bags, like all Blanc Noir books, is a four-issue miniseries?
Pearson: Right.
Gilman: And you're doing all the writing and the art?
Pearson: Right. I'm even coloring the whole thing. But I'm not doing the covers, which will be done by Michael Golden, or the lettering, which will be done by Ken Bruzinak.
Gilman: You mentioned back-up stories before. Who's doing the back-up feature in Body Bags?
Pearson: No one. Body Bags is the only Blanc Noir series that doesn't have a back-up feature. Cully Hamner's Brave will have an Adam Hughes' No One as a back-up story and Joe Phillips' Heretic will have Brian Stelfreeze's Maximum Velocity backing him up.
Gilman: What else do you gents at Gaijin have for Blanc Noir?
Pearson: Body Bags will be the first book out and will run its four issues before we release anything else.
Gilman: So you don't compete with yourself...
Pearson: And so the fans get a consistent flow of Blanc Noir stuff. The title may be different but the quality will be the same. At the end of Body Bags, either Joe Phillips or Cully Hamner will follow with their book.
Gilman: Will the back-up features always be back-ups?
Pearson: No. They'll lead into their own miniseries, switching places with one of the main features. But that's pretty far in the future so we'll see what happens after this first run.
Gilman: Do you personally have anything else in the works for Blanc Noir?
Pearson: If Body Bags does well, I will continue with it -- even if the numbers aren't that great. If people respond to it, I'll keep it going. Creators give up too soon on good ideas if the idea doesn't break through right away. Persistence is the key to a good product. Just because a lot of people didn't get it doesn't mean it's not good.