Anderson is, in his own words, a "maniac author" and has written, in addition to his Star Wars work, numerous original science-fiction and fantasy novels, high-tech thrillers co-authored with Doug Beason (one of which, Ignition, was just sold to Universal Studios), two best-selling X-Files novels, several Star Wars comics, and some upcoming X-Files comics. He is one of the busiest authors in the business; this year alone he will release 13 different novels and one six-issue comic-book series, Tales of the Jedi: Golden Age of the Sith, which is due out in October. Michael Gilman got the opportunity to speak with him about what it's like being one of the official LucasFilm comic-book chroniclers.
Michael Gilman: Before you exploded onto the comic-book scene, you were known primarily as a writer of Star Wars novels. How did you come to be a Star Wars scribe?
Kevin J. Anderson: On the basis of other science-fiction novels I had published, LucasFilm gave me the opportunity to write for them. They like my work, I turn it in on time, and they kept offering me more and more projects.
Gilman: How, then, did you make the transition to comics?
Anderson: I got to working with Tom Veitch in order to make his Dark Empire comics series and my Star Wars novels tie together. My Jedi Academy Trilogy has a character, Exar Kun, who is a spirit from 4,000 years in the past and Tom was writing his Tales of the Jedi series set
4,000 years in the past. I asked him if I could write a guest issue telling the origin of Exar Kun, but Tom was thinking much bigger. He said, "Let's do this grand epic where we pit your guy against my characters in a big war that wrecks half the galaxy." That certainly sounded more fun than a guest issue. So I worked with him on Dark Lords of the Sith. We plotted the whole 12 issues together, even though I wrote the last six of them solo.
Gilman: How is writing comics different than writing novels?
Anderson: Writing comics has been very instructive for me. There are different parameters in comics that you don't have in writing fiction; scripting comics sort of stretches a different muscle in your brain. You have to tell the story in little discreet snapshots. In a novel I can have two guys sitting around talking to each other to explain things, but in a comic that gets real dull after a couple of pages so you have to come up with something dynamic, exotic, and visually interesting all the time. This makes the situation more interesting because you see other things going on in the background. In fact, learning how to do that in comics -- Tom Veitch and Bob Cooper, the series editor, really helped me with that -- has improved my written fiction.
Gilman: The Sith are a major topic of your comic work. Where did the Sith come from, creatively?
Anderson: George Lucas. When I sent in the proposal for Exar Kun in my Jedi Academy Trilogy, I proposed that he'd either be the spirit of a Dark Jedi or a Dark Lord of the Sith... whichever was preferable -- Darth Vader is referred to as a Dark Lord of the Sith in Star Wars.
Lucas said to make him a Dark Lord of the Sith; so then I had to ask what a Dark Lord of the Sith is. Tom Veitch and I gave him a two-page questionnaire about what Dark Lords of the Sith can or can't do and Lucas defined all the parameters for us.
Gilman: I understand that Lucas, understandably, keeps a pretty tight rein on his properties. How does this impact on what you do?
Anderson: He seems to be a fairly flexible with the Tales of the Jedi series, because it's 4,000 to 5,000 years before the movies. Tom Veitch and I have some incredible latitude on what we can do. As long as we remained true to the spirit of the Force and Jedi Knights and other established themes of the Star Wars universe, we could do mostly what we wanted.
Gilman: Let's go back to the Sith -- they return this year in your next series, Golden Age of the Sith. What's happening here?
Anderson: It is set 5,000 years before the first movie in the early days of The Old Republic and much of hyperspace is still unmapped. The two main characters, Gav and Jori Daragon, are young hyperspace explorers. They've got Jedi talent, but they couldn't hack the training so they decided to be freelance explorers. They get into their ship, spin the dial on the navicomputer and hope they land someplace interesting so they can sell the route to galactic traders. In the opening of the story they're in deep trouble with their creditors and they need to either make a score or get very far away. So they pick a course at random, go farther than they've ever gone before -- and land right smack in the middle of the evil Sith Empire that's ruling over a major part of the galaxy that doesn't know the Republic is out there. They accidentally set in motion a giant conflict between the evil Sith Empire and the Republic.
Gilman: You've managed to put all that into just six issues...
Anderson: Well, sort of. There's a prequel, issue #0, which will appear in July. This is then followed by five regular issues beginning in October and concludes with five issues of Fall of the Sith Empire.
And of course I had some help; the series will be illustrated by Dario Carrasco, Jr., who did the entire Sith War storyline, and the #0 will be illustrated by Chris Gossett, artist of the first five issues of Tales of the Jedi: Dark Lords of the Sith.
Gilman: Why did you choose to do an issue #0 so far in advance of the regular series?
Anderson: The Sith War concluded in January 1996 and the new series, Golden Age of the Sith, wasn't scheduled until October. I was concerned about the long gap between the series, so I asked Bob Cooper if there was a way we could do a teaser or a prequel. I was hoping we could just squeeze it in Dark Horse Presents just to let people know that we were working on something. That was about the same time that Bob thought a 99-cent, 12-page issue featuring an original story would be a great way to get a lot of interest in the new series.
Gilman: And this is the format of the #0 that will be out in July.
Anderson: Right. I had already written issue #1; I then had to write a prequel that was also an adventure of its own which introduced the characters and the conflicts. But because it was so many months away and it was an issue #0, it had to stand alone. The reader must be able to pick up #1 without having read #0 and not miss anything. It was a peculiar challenge to make this preview significant and important but not absolutely necessary.
Gilman: Do you have any other plans for Dark Horse Star Wars comics?
Anderson: Yes, the follow-up series to Golden Age of the Sith, Fall of the Sith Empire -- which I'm just about to start writing -- will conclude the great galactic war storyline.
Gilman: Anything beyond that?
Anderson: I have a couple of ideas on where to go, but since it's literally six months until I finish the Fall of the Sith Empire and already I have all kinds of other projects in the works, I'm not yet
ready to get excited about what's next.
Gilman: Any chance of Jacen and Jaina, your characters from the Young Jedi Knights series of books, appearing in their own comics series?
Anderson: That probably would make a good comic book, but, because my wife and I are already doing eleven novels in this series, by the time we finish them I'll probably have used up my creativity in that arena. As much as I adore these characters, eleven novels with them is about
as much as I want to spend.
Gilman: Well, it certainly sounds as if you have enough stories to keep you busy for a while...
Anderson: I love to tell stories; and I tell them in various media -- whether it's novels or comics -- and I tell them in various genres -- whether it's horror, science-fiction, fantasy, or mystery. My co-author Doug Beason has this great little phrase he often says, "Kevin, if you ever stop writing your head will explode." He's probably right.