|
|
|
|
Radiation Interrogation: Jonathan Hickman
|
|
|
Location: Blogs Atomic Fallout |
 |
| Posted by: Atomic Online |
Tuesday, August 25, 2009 7:51 PM |
Atomic Comics - With your Secret Warriors run doing so well you scored a chance to tackle the First Family of the Marvel U. in FF #570 … any butterflies in the stomach?
 Jonathan Hickman - Sure. A little. Mostly from the fact that Brevoort took a flier on me and I had heard round-abouts that he was a pretty big FF guy – I certainly don’t want to disappoint the man that gave me my break. Saying that, from the start, I felt pretty good about my initial plan – my instincts for the family seemed to get a good external response and I knew it was resonating with me personally, so I dove in.
As I got more and more detailed in my planning, and as I dug deeper into what I wanted to do thematically, most of the jitters disappeared. Creatively, we’re in good shape. Now it’s just down to the market – can we move the reader… can we connect?
I will say that one thing I’ve figured out from Secret Warriors is that readers really appreciate a real ‘plan’ for a book. By that I mean short, intermediate and long-term storytelling goals. We have very sophisticated readers and they have reasonable expectations: Entertain me. Excite me. Move me.
They know when someone is phoning it in. I like that about our readers… I like the responsibility. I sure as hell share the sentimentality.
Do your damn job, and then we’ll get along just fine.
AC - The Fantastic Four, and Reed in particular, are in a weird spot at the moment. There are things that he has done that many would not consider “Heroic” as of late. Is this new arc of yours a tale of redemption for Reed, or a spiral further downward into questionable moral judgments’?
JH - It’s called Solve Everything, it’s a three-issue arc – read it. It’ll answer your questions.
AC - The FF has a HUGE rogue’s gallery. Are we going to see some of the classic villains of that gallery or do you have some new baddies cooked up for us? How about Paste Pot Pete? He’s sick awesome!
JH - Well, I would argue that the FF almost has too good of a rouges gallery – everyone else wants to use them. A lot.
Doom and Namor are currently in the Cabal. The Inhumans are in the middle of a war in outer space. Annihilus had a pretty big go of it last year. And actually, Mark [Millar] and Bryan [Hitch] just got finished putting Galactus and Doom (again) through the ringer… it goes on and on.
I think I’m left free and clear with only Mole Man and the aforementioned Pete, so people have that to look forward to.
All semi-kidding aside, we actually have an excellent plan for addressing this problem and, in doing so, introducing some pretty cool new characters that ties everything back together with the old.
I turned in an outline that goes through issue #600, so, again, there’s a plan.
AC - Now your website is www.pronea.com. What the heck is a “pronea”?
JH - It means ‘forethought’ in a foreign language. If I would have truly had some forethought I would have registered my name as an url when it was available for a decade.
Now some idiot that blogs about diuretics, cooking waterfowl and collecting frog statues has it.
Was I on top of that or what?
AC - We came across this photo by googling your name – how long did it take to grow that handlebar?
 |
| The "real" Jonathan Hickman |
JH - One, that’s not me it’s the stupid blog Jonathan. Two, I bet he’s smiling because he’s just procured an oh-so-rare, sculpted-to-scale, European Fire-bellied toad statue. And Three, ahhhh… I could grow that fancy moustache-y thing in about a week.
AC - Not only are you a writer of great comics like Pax Romana, Secret Warriors and Red Mass for Mars but you also dabble in the “art”. You did some covers for Virgin Comics as well as covers and interiors for you own books like Nightly News. Do you have a preference to either write or draw?
JH - I probably get more pure joy out of drawing, but I kind of suck at it… which takes all that joy right back out.
Art comes more naturally because it’s what I’ve done my entire life. But like most muscle memory, the more you do something, the easier it gets – so because I’m writing more and drawing less, that’s changing.
But, man, I do miss doing that everyday.
AC - By the way I want you to know that I voted for you on the Pilot Season book “Core”. Any chance we will see any more of that book?
JH - Thanks. And that’s a Top Cow thing… they either will or will not want to do more of that down the line. I’m certainly up for it.
AC - Dale Eaglesham is the slated artist for you FF run. This’ll be his first big run at Marvel following a long run on JSA with Geoff Johns. What’s it been like working with him?
JH - Dale’s great. First off, he’s doing the work of his career. He really, really gets what we’re going for. In fact, my initial instincts and his were right in line with each other.
Visually, this should be a modern take on Kirby and Lee’s FF.
Not just regarding character design, but in how we tell the story. Primarily vertical, not horizontal/widescreen, panels. One-and-done adventure stories (but building on a larger long-format narrative), i.e. They DO THINGS. And it should be the first family, not Reed and his merry band…
In short, Dale’s amazing.
AC - One last question… Have you & Bendis had any massive arguments over story content? If it came to blows, who would win the brawl?
JH - No arguments, so no fights. As for who would win if we did throw down – I have no idea. I don’t fight girls. |
|
| Permalink |
Trackback |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|