Bruce Costa: I'll tell you, I really enjoyed your story. I've got a black-and-white photocopy here, and the surprises were wonderful. Every turn to the story was unexpected. Unfortunately I'm tasked with talking to you about it! So, giving away as little as possible, can you describe the events that take place?
John Wagner: Why don't you go, Cam.
Cam Kennedy: What story are you talking about, Bruce?
Wagner: Ha ha ha ha ha ha! 'Scuse me.
Costa: Oh, I don't know! Whichever one's on your mind at the moment.
Kennedy: Are you talking about the most recent Boba Fett?
Costa: [hysterical] Yes, Boba Fett: Murder Most Foul.
Kennedy: Okay 'Cause I was thinking it's a shame -- he's only got a black-and-white copy. Can't we get someone to give him a comic book?
Bal-Kooda was killed off in the second book. Somebody in his family comes looking for Boba Fett, and it just happens to be his big brother, who's called Ry-Kooda. That's it. It's another adventure romp with Boba Fett always being eaten alive, killed, et cetera, et cetera.
Wagner: It's also the culmination of a trilogy of stories about life and death among the Hutt, who are really fascinating creatures -- so slobbish and lazy and greedy and avaricious. It was a real treat to examine what it was like for them to fall in love. The three Boba Fett stories that Cam and I have done were, by and large, a hot love affair with a vicious assassin or two thrown in.
Kennedy: Kinda like Hutt on a Hot Tin Roof.
Costa: Who was it that decided the specific reproductive requirements of the Hutt species?
Kennedy: That would be John, I think.
Wagner: Actually I did do it, but then I got corrected, as often happens, by Lucasfilm. The Hutts actually have an already agreed way of going about it.
Costa: No kidding.
Wagner: [laughing] Yeah.
Costa: Who took the time to think of this before it was needed in a story?
Wagner: I don't know -- I never asked. But can you imagine two Hutts mating?
Costa: I -- I can't. I can't. In fact, if there has ever been a creature more worthy of asexual reproduction, I hesitate to imagine it.
Wagner: I imagine the Earth would truly move.
Costa: I imagine it would. How do you draw a regular Hutt versus a pregnant one, Cam?
Kennedy: Well, you don't, because they're just so big and fat and ugly and slobbish that they could have any kind of disease, these things. It's useless to give it a human-type pregnant bump. No, no, it's indicated in the storyline, the drawing, the text, the physician in attendance, and a fluttering of the eyes . Eventually you do see the little Hutt. I don't know if John was told what size it was to be, but . . .
Wagner: Yah, that's how they corrected me. It emerged as a little kangaroo-sized fetus. Is that how you've drawn it, or . . . ?
Kennedy: Oh, yeah. Don't you get a copy of these things? We'll have to get Bruce to send you his black-and- white copy.
Wagner: So it's about an inch long when it comes out.
Kennedy: It's just tiny.
Costa: It's a great idea -- she can be so fat that she's in a late enough term to deliver within the course of the story, and nobody can tell she's pregnant!
Kennedy: I think teenage pregnancy amongst Hutts are the best kept of secrets!
Wagner: They're all standing around in their bobby socks and their short skirts . . .
Costa: . . .with nary a bulge showing . . .
Wagner: "Johnny looked at me really nice today!"
Costa: Both your names have become rather attached to the Star Wars mythos. Would each of you compare this project with the others you've worked on?
Kennedy: This is a bit of a different kind of story we're doing. We're actually trying to bring a bit of humor into it.
Costa: That's for sure.
Kennedy: Yeah -- and if you think about it, that was one of the dangers about the whole Star Wars thing when the comics started coming out, that they could get too serious at times. Even Lucas put a little bit of humor in the movies. We were going down the road of forgetting the humor. Fortunately John happened along.
Wagner: The comics did tend to be a bit deadpan and serious. Cam and I thought, well, let's have a laugh! I mean, these are some great characters. Let's have some fun!
Costa: Yes, I loved the little Huttling clothes!
Kennedy: Yeah, those little clothes will be available for Barbie . . .
Costa: Barbie the Hutt!
Wagner: Oh, I love that! That's beautiful!
Kennedy: Don't be surprised . . .
Wagner: With hair that really grows!
Costa: You know, I'll bet you could get a Barbie head and put it on a Jabba model, paint some slobber coming out of her mouth, put a little bug or a frog in one hand -- you'd really have a strong seller there, I think.
Wagner: Oh, yeah. It would look beautiful. That may be our next story, Bruce!
Kennedy: See, if we were in America, we could make a fortune, John.
Costa: I'm tellin' ya, we'll buy anything!
Wagner & Kennedy: [laughter]
Costa: You know, it's obvious that you two don't get along at all . . . I'd really like you to tell me what it's like for each of you to work with the other.
Kennedy: Precarious. It's life on a knife's edge, Bruce. Every time the phone rings I jump -- Will that be John?
Wagner: [laughing hard] Yah -- we share the same sense of humor.
Kennedy: Basically sick and cynical.
Costa: Do you guys collaborate at plot time, or. . . ?
Kennedy: Not a great deal. John just goes of into his little world, then he gives me a call at some ungodly hour and does all these voices over the phone and things, then says, "Whattaya think?"
Wagner: I don't pay a lot of attention to what Cam says . . . [laughter] I mean, I glean a lot from what he doesn't say. If he's not particularly enthusiastic about an idea I can tell that.
Kennedy: That's 'cause I've put the phone down!
Wagner: [laughing] So, I think, "Well, he didn't like it. I'm going to write it anyway!" Actually, the pauses between words are more important than the actual words themselves. Your artist is your first audience. If I sense that Cam doesn't like something it certainly makes me rethink it.
Kennedy: Then you can just use that idea for the next story.
Wagner: With a good artist!
Costa: [hysterical] I'd better end the interview here -- it can't get any better than this!
Kennedy: Just wait 'til we get drunk.
Wagner: Oh, I already am.
Costa: Thank God! Tell us your tactics for making readers sympathetic with such a bad guy.
Kennedy: You mean Ry-Kooda or Bar-Kooda?
Wagner: Mike Richardson?
Costa: No, Boba Fett!
Kennedy: You think Boba Fett's a bad guy? One thing I always felt was that showing a day in the life of Boba Fett was, well . . . he's a cold killer. He's completely emotionless and he just kills for money, but I think that when you throw in an adversary who's kind of wacky, and really mean, it puts Boba Fett in a good light. A lot of the readers will probably sympathize with Ry-Kooda or Bar-Kooda, but that's what you want. Already you've created interest. You're drawing them into the whole story. Maybe the first time they read it they'll like Ry-Kooda, then the second time they read it they'll sympathize with Boba Fett.
Wagner: I think the thing also is that, although Boba Fett's pretty nasty, he never kills anyone who's nicer than himself.
Costa: He walks around with a little Nice-O-Meter to make that determination?
Kennedy: He's kind of an Edgar J. Hoover of the space age.
Wagner: Yes -- "Are you now or have you ever been a worse person than I am?" Pkow! Pkow! Pkow!
But anyone who's actually a likeable character always comes out alive. Boba Fett can be rather unpleasant to him, but he won't end up killing him or being an inadvertent cause of that person's death. It's something you have to have a fairly fine antenna for, to decide at what point a likeably unpleasant person becomes a villain. We try to steer clear of that mark. I mean, you've got to be fairly nasty to Boba Fett and, well, he's a dog. The people that he kills in our books have it coming.
Costa: The characters are a pretty despicable lot, aren't they? Where did these guys come from, anyone you know?
Kennedy: You don't live in New York, do you?
Costa: No, thank God.
Wagner: I think Anachro is a nice girl, really. I mean, she's big [laughing] -- a big girl. But she's quite nice.
Costa: She has a nice personality.
Wagner: She's well motivated. I don't think I'd like to spend a lot of time with her.
Kennedy: She's only wanting happiness and kids, really.
Costa: Then there's your little froggy guy, what's his name. . .
Kennedy: I can't remember his name . . .
Wagner: Boz.
Kennedy: Boz!
Wagner: There's a man who's really involved in his work.
Kennedy: [laughing sheepishly] I just couldn't remember . . .
Costa: It was very gratifying to see Boba Fett do to him what I'm sure every reader wants to do to him by that point . . .
Kennedy: Just kick his ass!
Costa: Orkana is a particularly nasty place, isn't it?
Kennedy: Oh yeah, yeah. We're taking bookings! It's a place I'd like to go back to in some other stories, but we probably won't be able to because we're kind of moving on from there.
Costa: Cam, what was it like to depict such a vile place?
Kennedy: Well, I'm from Glasgow, so . . .
Wagner: I'd certainly like to return to the Hutt, because I think they're just fascinating creatures. I could imagine their whole social history.
Costa: What would it be to you?
Wagner: Well, if you commission me . . . I could write whole series about the Hutt because I just find them so interesting. I think that's because we share certain of the same qualities. I like to sit around, stuff myself, and give orders.
Star Wars: Boba Fett -- Murder Most Foul, by John Wagner and Cam Kennedy, with cover by Mathieu Lauffray, is a full-color, 48-page one-shot on sale August 13 for $3.95.