Interviews 

Multiversity Comics Presents: Jason Aaron (Part Two)

By | February 23rd, 2010
Posted in Interviews | % Comments

Today in Multiversity Comics Presents, we have the second part of our Jason Aaron interview. In case you missed part one, it’s located here. Today we talk with Jason about his critically beloved Vertigo title Scalped, PunisherMAX, and the prospect of a beard off with our EIC. Whatever exactly that is.

Check it all out after the jump. Thanks once again to Jason for doing this interview with us, and if you aren’t already reading his work, you’re missing out on some of the best in the industry.

Note: if you have not read Scalped or PunisherMAX, there may be some spoilers in here. Considered yourself notified.

Do you mind if we move on to Scalped?

JA: Sure.

This was my pick for favorite title of 2009. I’ve been reading since the beginning and I think it’s gotten better and better throughout. Also, the success…it seems that more and more readers are talking about it. Has the success been surprising at all?

JA: I don’t know if it’s a surprise. I never really know what to expect…I try not to have expectations in terms of how people will respond to anything. I was just thinking the other day, looking at all of the stuff I’ve done some stuff has sold well and some stuff has sold not so well. There is no correlation between like “I worked really hard on this one and I kind of half assed this one”…you can’t really tell what people are going to respond to more than others.

Scalped has been really gratifying because I was completely unknown when it started and Guera was unknown in the States. The deck was kind of stacked against us, but we’ve been able to find an audience. It’s not a 150,000 strong audience, but we’ve found a solid audience who don’t just seem to like the book but a lot of people who really seem to love the book and get into it. They talk about it online and spread the word and hand their trades out to friends and all that kind of stuff. That’s been incredibly gratifying and what’s kept us alive. It keeps our audience growing…trades continue to sell really well. It’s been really gratifying.

When you first started you had written The Other Side with Cameron Stewart and had the relationship with Will Dennis, but like you said you were still unknown and Guera was virtually unknown in America. Was it a difficult sell when you originally pitched it to Vertigo?

JA: No, actually it was the easiest sell of all of the things I pitched at that time. I was doing The Other Side and I’d done a few issues of that, and they asked me to pitch something else. I sent in probably four or five other pitches, and Scalped was the one Will Dennis instantly seized on. He and I are huge fans of the crime drama, and we’d been talking about our favorite crime novelists and TV shows and movies and such. He really liked the idea of doing…initially we were talking more of doing something like the TV show Crime Story, Michael Mann’s Crime Story, which was very much about a crime figure, the rise of this crime boss and the cop who is trying to bring him down. The relationship between these two guys. The crime boss goes up and the cop is always trying to chase after him.

That was initially what Scalped was going to be but it evolved a little bit from there. That was the easiest sell I had…it was something that was easily recognizable, it was a straight crime book. It had this twist, but it seemed like a Vertigo book.

This title is such a character driven book, and with the finale of The Gnawing, we find almost all of the leads in the same situation they were in before but massively different contexts to those situations. For example, Dashiell still hasn’t been found out as undercover FBI by Red Crow nor did Nitz find out about his drug use, but now Shunka is on to him and he has the personal turmoil that comes with brutally killing Diesel and then being okay with that. In terms of plot, not a lot changed, but everything changed for the character. Is that indicative of what you’re trying to accomplish with this title?

Continued below

JA: It’s always been a character driven book. It’s never been a plot driven book. I’m not a good plot writer. I just gravitate more towards character driven work.

I think The Gnawing was probably our biggest arc in terms of moving things forward. I think we did move the plot forward. But yeah, it was a very big moment for Dash. Going forward after the events of this arc, nothing will be the same for Dash. He took a big leap…the events of this arc will haunt him and hound him for the rest of this series. He’ll never escape from what he did in that arc.

His relationship with Nitz going forward will be much different…obviously his relationship with Red Crow has taken a big change.

Yeah, you could make the argument that he was even impressed with Dash. At first he was concerned Dash was undercover FBI, but now it seems like he believes him. As opposed to Shunka who seems to be on to him.

JA: Right. Or at least suspects. He doesn’t have any real reason to believe what he believes, but he suspects him.

I love that scene in the last issue where Shunka is running up the mountain yelling “I’m onto you Bad Horse! I know that’s you!” Are we going to see more of that character going forward?

JA: The next issue that comes out is a completely standalone story, but after that is a two part Shunka story. We find out he’s got some secrets of his own. I’ve been waiting for a while to write a story focusing on him…originally I was going to do it as part of the High Lonesome arc a couple issues back, but I waited until later. And I’m glad I did because the story ended up changing over the last year, changing from one issue to two issues. I had this fundamental revelation about Shunka, something I’d never realized about him until I’d done the story.

That story was a lot of fun. Going forward things obviously have to come to a head between he and Dash, so we’ll be continuously working towards that. Especially if Shunka has to sit and watch Dash and Red Crow become tighter and tighter. That was always kind of the plan…that Dash and Red Crow become something of a father/son relationship.

Especially with Red Crow’s relationship with Gina Bad Horse (Dash’s mother).

JA: Inititally, that was the plan…how those two characters would start out. With those two characters having that relationship and instead it took 34 issues to get there. Going forward I’m excited to explore seeing how that relationship has changed. With the revelation we got about Carol at the end of The Gnawing, it’s going to be exciting to see how that is going to fit in. It’s going to affect her relationship with her Dad and obviously Dash.

That’s the next big arc starts with issue 39 I think. It picks up where Carol was left off in The Gnawing, I won’t spoil it in case you haven’t read it but she has a big revelation and the question is “what does she do now?” For her first time she kind of gets her own story. The story will obviously involve Dash and Red Crow and other key elements, but it’s really Carol’s story. She kind of gets to stand on her own for the first time in a story that’s not…for a while I let her be too defined by her relationship with Dash and Red Crow, so this is the first time she gets to stand up and define herself.

I did read it. It’ll give her a lot more of an opportunity to become more three-dimensional. It was definitely surprising and gives you a lot more story opportunities.

JA: That’ll be the whole story. What does she do now? We’ve seen in flashbacks that she was pregnant before and lost the baby, which is what triggered her downward spiral. She’s got a drug problem…what does she do in this situation?

Continued below

It changes every facet of her life.

JA: Well, I’m excited to write that. I think we’ll be entering into some controversial ground maybe for some folks over the course of the next year in Scalped. I hope that’s not a problem.

You probably won’t get Tim Tebow to do any ads for your arc. (laughter)

JA: I’m not saying that’s going to happen, but those are the issues…that’s the question we’ll be addressing.

I have to admit, when I first started reading this title I didn’t love R.M. Guera’s art, but I think over the span of this series he’s progressed to the point where he’s putting out some of the best work in the business. How has it been to work with him? How did you get paired up with him?

JA: It was all through Will Dennis. I don’t know exactly how he found Guera…he works with a lot of European artists and he has some sort of pipeline over there. Guera is not a young gun by any means, he’s been doing work for years in France, Spain…he’s got a huge body of work over there and he’s pretty well known in Europe. This is just his first big American gig.

As soon as I saw his art I knew well, 1) he can draw anything. He’s just one of those guys who can just flat out draw. He’s done some really beautiful stuff…he’s done samurai dramas, he’s done pirate stories, westerns, gorgeous painted covers, and all sorts of great stuff. We kind of knew right off that he was the guy. He even did a couple test pages that were really gorgeous.

He’s always been a great artist, I just think he’s gotten more comfortable with this book as we went along. He’s really happy with Julia (Scalped colorist), they seem to get along great. Guera’s work on the book has gotten better and better and better, especially his work on the last arc. It’s just been beautiful, heartbreaking work.

That last page of issue 34 was particularly gorgeous and intensely emotional.

JA: It makes me look good, which I like (laughter). A page like that with not a single word of dialogue was just packed with emotion, so I can just sit back and not do anything and I still get paid for that page! (laughter) I still have to do a small amount of work, but you get a page like that…that brings a tremendous wallop. That’s a huge punch.

Guera just brings a ton of life and emotion to Scalped. I don’t know where he gets it or how he does it, but I think he’s done some really magical work on Scalped especially over the last year. Going forward he’s not slowing down any. The issue he’s drawing right now is issue 38, which is a Vietnam War flashback issue. The very first page we get a shot from the 1890’s and from World War I and World War II and Vietnam…so he’s getting to draw a ton of great stuff. It makes me really excited to do a straight war book with Guera…I’d love to do that.

I really hope at some point we get to do a straight Western in the pages of Scalped. We’ve talked about it from time to time and I have ideas, it’s just a matter of time of when we can get to it. But I’d love to do a straight Western with Guera.

He’s a master of atmosphere and he seems the type who can really handle any genre.

JA: And he’s already done most of them, which is the crazy thing.

This is a good time to go over to PunisherMAX. You were saying you’re a big fan of Garth Ennis’ Punisher run, and with Rick Remender’s run in the mainstream universe, did you find it difficult to not overlap on either of those?

JA: Rick and I have talked a lot, so I knew the crazy direction he was going.

Continued below

Frankencastle.

JA: Right. So I was excited that we were going to be going in two very different directions with our books.

In terms of following the footsteps of Garth, obviously that’s incredibly daunting because I’m a huge Garth fan and his Punisher run was one of my favorite comics of the past few years. That’s one of the things about doing this for a living…that was one of the first jobs I talked to Axel about after coming to Marvel. I said “I don’t know what your Punisher plans are after Garth but I’d love to be a part of it.” So yeah, it’s daunting to follow a legendary run like that but at the same time, how exciting is that to get to throw your hat in the ring and take a stab at that and do your own thing.

Nothing I ever do will be the same as Garth. I’m not Garth and I don’t want to try and follow exactly in his footsteps. I didn’t want to do the same type of story because it’d be a recipe for failure for me. I loved being able to do something different. Doing a long form story, while obviously Garth’s stories were pretty much arc by arc, this is pretty much one big story.

Bringing in Kingpin and Bullseye gives me a twist and something I can sink my teeth into. I think the tone of my stuff is somewhere between Garth’s Marvel Knights stuff and his MAX stuff. It’s not a straight, gritty black ops like Garth was doing but not completely over the top like his Marvel Knights stuff. I didn’t sit down before I started writing and said “well, this is exactly what I’m going for.” It’s kind of just how it happened. Especially after Steve Dillon came on board…it just became a story that felt natural.

The tone of the book will change at times. It will be darker, and a lot of times there will be a lot of black humor. The opening of the next arc, the Bullseye arc, the opening scene of that has to be the crudest thing I’ve ever written (laughter). I wasn’t even sure if I could get away with some of the panel descriptions as I was typing them out. “I can’t believe I’m typing this! (laughter) No way are they going to let me do this.”

That’s so funny because one of my wrap up questions was have you ever written something and thought “no way I can do this” and then went an entirely different direction?

JA: No, I never try to censor myself. That’s somebody else’s job. Whatever it is I’ll put it down and make them tell me no. I’ll never tell myself no.

Actually, the thing that I was most worried about was I did two issues of Hellblazer a couple of years ago. I wrote a scene where this guy was hallucinating and he fucks a dead dog. This rotting dog carcass that’s full of maggots.

Ugh.

JA: There’s this page of him spooning and humping this dead dog.

Wow.

JA: My wife happened to be home from work that day and I remember typing those two pages. I put my computer down and I went to go tell her “I can’t believe I just wrote two pages of a guy fucking a dead dog.” She was of course horrified, which made me think I was on the right track. Normally when she is horrified I know I’m on the right track.

So I sent it into my editor, and of course the thing he liked the most was the guy fucking the dead dog. That was one of the things that people mentioned most about that issue. You never know…it’s never good to censor yourself. I’ve been told no plenty of times. I’ve tried to do things, especially in Wolverine, that I couldn’t get away with. I always figured it’s for the best to throw it up there and make somebody shoot it down.

I think people appreciate risk taking in storytelling. It feels more organic storytelling and readers definitely buy into it easier.

JA: It’s not just about trying to be outrageous or to gross people out. I don’t like “gore porn” movies or really graphic horror movies, that’s not why I like them. I don’t mind that stuff if it serves a purpose or has a real impact, I never try to feel like I’m doing gross crazy shit unless it serves a purpose.

Continued below

Some people seem to be disturbed by some of the stuff I’ve done in PunisherMAX, like the loud, abrasive naked hundred year old woman in issue three. I think some people didn’t quite take to her, but I loved that character. I loved writing that character. She served a very specific purpose plot wise. Initially that was all she was supposed to be but the more I wrote her the more I loved her. It was refreshing to write someone who would talk to Wilson Fisk like that. Nobody else we’ve seen over the course of that story would say anything to a man like that, but she was a character that would say absolutely anything she wanted to say to anybody. She didn’t give a damn, she was 100 years old and if she was going to check out today then so be it. She didn’t give a shit and she was always going to say what was on her mind.

In terms of language, I never keep count of how many times I say fuck or whatever in a script. If it’s right it’s right. There’s no quota, there’s no minimum or maximum of language to me.

Deadwood is one of the most beautiful and poetic languages of any TV show in recent memory. That show was as rife with profanity as anything you’ll see in your life, but there is some beautiful language in that show. To me, they’re all just words. I don’t sweat the small stuff. As long as it is in service to telling the story.

I think one of the coolest thing as far as PunisherMAX is concerned is that they are more about The Punisher’s villains than they are about him. Why did you take the book that way?

JA: I think that’s sort of what Garth established. Punisher is very much this sort of Rock of Gibraltar at the center of the book. The story is really about the craziness that is swirling around him. Garth introduced a lot of very memorable villains over the course of his run, so I definitely stuck with that. We get glimpses of the Punisher; I’ve done a little bit of Frank Castle narration here and there. The second part will be about the same…we won’t dive into Bullseye’s history as much as we did Fisk, but it’s still very much focused n Bullseye.

The third arc of the series is just called Frank, so we get Kingpin, Bullseye and Frank. The third part of the story is almost completely focused on Frank Castle. I can’t say where he’s going to be or what his status quo will be in that arc, but after that second arc the ramifications will be huge on him. That third arc we really dive into his head in a huge way. It’s really about…it looks at his history and his origins and his relationship with his wife and his kids. It looks back at the day when they were murdered… the origin story of the Punisher. We find something out about that…that we’ve never seen or her of before.

There’s plenty of good Frank time coming, but I really wanted to set up these two pretty big adversaries and give them their due. Everybody knows The Punisher; you don’t really need to talk about who he is or why he does what he does. He’s The Punisher…you can sum him up in a line or two. I like being able to use these two villains to take Frank to a very, very dark place. From there, we’ll definitely cut open his head and take a peek inside before we zoom off to the big finale.

I hope you don’t mean literally cut open his head.

JA: You never know. Once you see what Bullseye is capable of, I’m not sure what type of state Frank will be in by the end of the second arc.

I’ve loved the first arc, but Bullseye is a character that can be unexpected at any time.

Continued below

JA: Another thing that will be a big thing of the second arc will be the crazy punishment he’s under taking. Frank is supposed to be in his early 60’s at his youngest. Obviously he’s a guy who stayed in peak physical shape and he’s as focused as any man alive on what he wants and what he does for a living. Has been for 30 years now, but obviously that kind of stuff has to take its toll. The life he’s lived for those 30 years at his age, that has to be a factor. It very much becomes a point in this next arc…the injuries he sustained in issue four and presumably in issue five…these aren’t things he’s going to shake off and reset come to the next arc. Those are going to be an ongoing issue, the punishment he’s inflicting on himself.

I actually just have one more question, and it isn’t related to comics at all. Our Editor In Chief wanted to basically lay down a challenge…he’s a rather bearded individual himself (laughter). He wanted to know if you’d like to have a beard off and that if you’d like to challenge him he’d be entirely down (laughter).

JA: (laughter) What exactly happens in a beard off?

I don’t know. I don’t know how much he thought it out. I assumed he wanted to shave or something and see who could grow the most in a month or so.

JA: Well in that case I’m out already because no way am I shaving.

He’ll be so disappointed.

JA: I don’t plan on shaving until, well, probably never. This is about as long as my beard has been, and I realized I don’t give a shit anymore. I’m not going for a job interview anytime soon, so fuck it, I’m going to grow my beard down to my belly button if I want. I’ll concede. He can win.

He’s going to be very disappointed (laughter).


David Harper

EMAIL | ARTICLES