Having previously worked together on “Batman ’66,” Jeff Parker and Sandy Jarrell have a new original graphic novel coming out this October. Entitled “Meteor Men,” the book stars young Alden Baylor, who finds himself at the center of a meeting between Earth and some alien invaders. Described as more of a coming of age story than a traditional sci-fi romp as the aliens seek to destroy our planet and Alden finds himself in a different than normal situation with them.
It’s a big, lovely read with colors by Kevin Volo, one that comes highly recommended (having seen an advance PDF of the book myself). Alden is an interesting character, a bit atypical to your usual leading teen, and a lot of the traditional aspects of this genre are subverted in favor of some rather interesting twists and turns. It’s definitely a book not to miss, and today we talk a bit with Parker and Jarrell about the book, its origins and more.
So lets talk about “Meteor Men.” What is it, and how did the project come about?
Jeff Parker: “Meteor Men” is about the end of humanity, and a teenager who becomes a central figure in the colonization of Earth, Alden Baylor. I don’t want to spoil the mechanics of how it’s happening, but it’s essentially following the logic of how a real extra-terrestrial invasion might play out.
Project-wise, Charlie Chu and James Lucas Jones at ONI had been following me around town and slipping me notes about whether I might want to do something YA friendly with them. The first person I thought of who would nail such a thing to the wall was Sandy, so I asked him while I was visiting Raleigh, NC.
Sandy Jarrell: That was the best day! I was at work minding my own business, and Parker stopped in to say hi and ask if I wanted to make a book with him.
It was a few months before we knew what we were doing. Parker called me (at work again!) with the story synopsis, and it was way braver than I am. I was all, “Are you sure? Can we maybe soften that a little?”
JP: Yeah, Sandy worked at the best record shop in the area, probably the state, for those who seek out vinyl. I think he was playing some 60s garage band like The Squires or something, I could be wrong about that. It’s the kind of thing you would hear in there though.
SJ: Back then there was a comic shop across the street- I could draw at work, there was music and comics, my basic needs were covered. Good times!
That was 4 years ago, and it was a year before work on “Meteor Men” was underway.
JP: Then everybody had to wait on me to finally pitch James and Charlie, which took a while because I was poking around with a few vague concepts. Like you do. And then finally one of them started growing more real. I was really surprised they went for it because I think they were expecting something more peppy from me. But one of the things I wanted, and there was no point bringing in Sandy if we weren’t going to try it, was to create a character who was believable as a teenager, because I don’t think we see that many in fiction.
All the big stuff that happens can take place because Alden is this very grounded figure you can accept as real. He’s not precocious and he doesn’t even really say that much. Most of his character development is pure visual storytelling, you don’t get an inner narrative telling the readers what they’re supposed to think.
SJ: In the months after the story started to come together, I drew Alden, and aside from looking too angry in my first couple of drawings, his design was set from the git-go. Our alien, however, took some back and forth. He’s mostly Parker’s design, and he got more and more simplified as almost everything useful does.
Before everything was all set with ONI, I had finished 11 pages, and by then it was September 2011. And then we got down to business!
Continued belowI think that’s an interesting contention to make, since YA is a pretty big market. You’d think at least one of those books could sort of “get” what being a young adult is, right? Whether it’s a John Green book or Holden Caulfield or something out there.
So what do you think it is that helps make Alden a “believable teen?” And, even more so, with fiction books and sci-fi invasions on topic, why go believable at all?
JP: It’s a contentious contention, huh? Probably says more about how much of it I actually see! I’m not saying it doesn’t exist, but I do think adult creators tend to really misremember those years, even as pivotal as they were.
Maybe I’ll see how Sandy answers this question so it isn’t me setting up my own ball and hitting it.
SJ: I think one thing Alden has going for him here is understatement, and the fact that we don’t spend any time in his head, like Parker said. We see reactions and interactions, a pretty subtle portrait of this kid is painted over the course of 123 pages. I think he feels more real because we don’t know everything about him.
JP: The alien owes a lot to a story I think we both really like, Daddy and the Pi, drawn by Toth. It’s also notable that thanks to Sandy the working title for this for most of the time was UFBRO. I think Charlie still wishes we had called it that.
SJ: UFBRO would have been the best teen/alien buddy comic of them all!
We still call the alien “Bro”, that’ll never end.
UFBRO also would’ve had to come with an alien on the cover with a popped collar, and his alien spaceship would DROP THE BASS instead of dropping bombs on us. And probably be filled with foam?
But, not to get too far off track — 2011! Wow! When you guys mentioned that there was some time in development here I had assume we were talking, like, a year or two — but 2011, that’s very interesting. If you can look back at the original pitch and ideas, how did time and events change the book from its original intentions (if at all)?
SJ: I don’t think time changed the book at all, except I gradually got a little better at drawing.
It was the Monday after Free Comic Book Day 2010 when Parker visited me at work! Bro took some TIME. There were breaks- I did an issue of “Wasteland” before we were halfway done, and my two “Batman ’66” chapters were done before the final 20 page stretch.
JP: Yeah, like most creator owned work, you have to sneak the time in here and there and when you wake up in the middle of the night. It’s a much richer book because of that- much of what the original outline called for is still there, but I had a lot more time to consider scenes, way more than I usually do in monthly comics. And as you should always hope for, the characters asserted themselves and pushed the plot around so many plans changed along the way. Alden got more real to me with every page of art, and he handled things differently than I foresaw back in ’10.
What I’m happiest with is that the book doesn’t tell you how to think or feel about what happens, we let readers draw their own conclusions. Alden lost his parents at an early age, and as a result is used to taking on way more responsibility than his peers, and that comes through time and again. I also really like that Sandy’s cover works as a prologue panel before the story gets rolling.
SJ: So time DID change the book, but the original idea, the beginning and the end, never did.
And “Sandy’s cover” isn’t entirely accurate! Alden was going to be on the car, looking at the sky, from the start. But it never would have turned out it did without Parker, Chu and then Jason Storey’s input. And Kevin’s cover colors brought it to LIFE.
JP: Yeah, I suckered you by constantly saying “now as I clearly laid out from the beginning,” before every new page. Sandy only got script pages a few at a time, which is the way I worked with Steve Lieber on “Underground.” I think that gives a real page-turner quality to it, because we make every individual page do a lot of heavy lifting, there’s always more going on than it looks.
Continued belowI do want to delve more into aspects of the book, but before we do, I want to pose a question: Jeff, you touch on this a bit, do you find that this process is more conducive to the storytelling process overall? Because a lot of the times when talking to people about their work, it’s “we got the idea and went straight for the races.” But this is an idea from 2010 that started in 2011 and was only wrapped up recently, which is a whole other ballgame, and allows you to do much more.
JP: No, but I think it works better for something of this scale. I’ll probably backpedal on this analogy later, but it might be like considering a 20 page monthly comic a song, and a graphic novel an album. But an album from the days of concept albums rather than a string of singles.
And Sandy, how about for you? Especially given the sort of working restrictions and time constraints that go into illustration over writing?
SJ: It’s not every project that lets you live with pages for 3 years before they’re set in stone! I was turning them in as I went along, though, some of them have been colored for a really long time, too. I did more forging ahead than revising.
I did know that if a sequence wasn’t clicking for me that I’d be able to go back to it later, that was nice. Even though that didn’t happen much.
And working the way we did, in small chunks, sometimes I’d have to go back and rework the final page in the last chunk after the new pages further clarified what had come before. Picking up a character and moving them 20 more feet away, that sort of thing.
Anyway, I think you asked if it was more conducive to the storytelling process art-wise, and yeah, maybe, no? I’m sure everything got more thought and consideration than it would have on tight monthly deadlines.
So, ok, we’ve talked a lot around the book — I’d like to get into a bit more. I know why it appeals to me, but what do you guys find works about science-fiction for you? Sci-fi has always come with the opportunity for lots of wonderful metaphors and comments about the human condition, but when paired with young adult fiction — which, often times, very much seeks to do the same thing albeit on a smaller and more specific scale — how do you guys find you can work these ideas to your advantage?
Or, in other words: why sci-fi?
JP: I looove sci-fi, and especially connected to end-of-the-world stories, which is why I love John Wyndham’s work so much (“Day of the Triffids,” “The Midwich Cuckoos,” “The Chrysalids”). I especially love when a sense of humor exists in a sci-fi work. Though really, my humor is pulled way back in “Meteor Men” from what readers may expect from me.
I do find it interesting that when people like sci-fi the influences there are almost always different things, so Sandy, how about for you? Where does sci-fi fit into your life?
And also — not to jump over Sandy here, but as a follow-up to that answer, Jeff, why pull back the humor? Surely you’ve written serious things when it has called for it, but given that this is a graphic novel you guys built up together why do you find no humor was called for?
SJ: There is humor! Just not as much as folks expect.
Those people may also be accepting a straight-up adaptation of the classic Robert Townsend film.
JP: Every time I plug the book online, some wag thinks he’s the first to make a joke about the Townsend movie. The name refers to the way the aliens arrive, but it’s also chosen because it does sound like an over the top B movie thriller, to suggest the kind of thing we’re diverging from.
Back to the humor. Every story has to have its own tone that makes the developments work and be believable in context, and the tone here just doesn’t support any wisecracking. But the kinds of funny moments that do emerge are very natural and earned. So Sandy’s right that I shouldn’t say it isn’t there.
Continued belowSJ: Sci-fi barely fits into my life at all! I’m not a hater but it’s not a thing I’m drawn to.
Fortunately for me, “Meteor Men” is a coming-of-age story. With aliens.
Interesting! Does that in some way color your approach to the book in a different way? Like, “a sci-fi book for non sci-fi fans”?
SJ: My thinking was so not sci-fi while doing it that I was surprised when I first heard it referred to that way! I think it’ll be different things to different people.
Also, it just occurred to me that one of my favorite things ever, Kirby’s “Kamandi,” is sci-fi!
JP: “Kamandi” sure is sci-fi! Our book is sci-fi in concept, not in terms of sets, props and so on- there’s no high tech beyond cell phones for example.
Finally, lets talk a bit about the UFBro. Jeff, coming as someone who loves sci-fi what were the things you wanted to make sure were present in the book with the alien, and Sandy, as someone who isn’t a big sci-fi fan, how did that influence your creation of the less grounded, more out of this world characters?
JP: Maybe the hardest thing was thinking and communicating like the alien. He’s all mental, so communicating is pure telepathy for the most part, and that would be not in language. He puts experiences in Alden’s head to get across what he’s trying to impart. Again, it required compositional gymnastics on Sandy’s part.
A lot of the approach relies on simply looking at various animals in regular nature, and extrapolating from that. Again, it’s not transporter/phaser sci-fi, it’s a very grounded form of it.
SJ: Parker had a huge hand in designing the alien, and everything else was sci-fi free. I knew things about the alien that influenced my portions of the design, form had to follow function to a degree.
There is one panel that’s over-the-top sci-fi landscape, and I loved drawing it. Maybe I like the genre more than I think.
