Posted in: Comics | Tagged: Comics

Joe Harris On A Pacific Adventure

Published Thu, 25 Oct 2012 13:00:45 -0500

Alex Wilson writes for Bleeding Cool. HE talked to Joe Harris at NEw York Comic Con;

Joe Harris the writer of the new continuing Image series, Great Pacific. He has written for Marvel and DC along with books for ONI Press. His upcoming project, Wars in Toyland, was announced at New York Comic Con and will be premiering through ONI Press. Wars in Toyland will feature the art of Adam Pollina.

His most recent work, Great Pacific, features the art of Martin Morazzo had a special New York Comic Con edition out this year of issue 1.

How did you enjoy New York Comic Con? Any crazy Con stories? Too in your face fans?

I had a great time. It's my "home town" convention, and it was incredibly cool to debut GREAT PACIFIC there, as well as announce WARS IN TOYLAND. The fans were awesome, as almost always.

Great Pacific is your latest work. The book seems to be eco-themed. What made you want to add environmental elements into a continuing series? Will this story be more eco-focused or is it about the corporate child, Chas?

Well, I'm keenly interested in environmental issues… as well as intrigued by industry and politics, policy and priorities. I'm not so interested in preaching, even though my own politics and values are very progressive. I'd rather portray a character like Chas as complex and complicated in his own values and let the message of the work filter down rather than shout it from the mountaintop. So, GREAT PACIFIC has an obvious environmental message… I just wouldn't expect Chas to be the great, "green" standard-bearer. He's an industrialist. And his solutions are going to be as much about furthering his own agenda as they are about doing the right thing from an objective point of view.

Without spoiling it, the ending to the first issue of Great Pacific is really clever. You seem to have set up a descent amount of story in this first issue. How much of the series do you have planned out?

Well, I'm just finishing the script for Issue #6 and have plotted out the rest of the first year in decent and, what I think anyway, is pretty startling detail. From there, I've got ideas to really carry this forward and track Chas Worthington's growth as a leader and problem-solver, along with the advancement of his new, Garbage Patch nation and society as it grows from a settlement, to a city, and into the country he dreams of. I have an ending in mind, but it's a long ways away…

You have done a lot of work with Oni Press in the past. What made you want to take your latest work to Image instead of presenting it to Oni?

Well, I love working with Oni Press and have a bunch of new projects, both serials and graphic novels, in the works with them. I'm also keenly interested in diversifying and working with new publishers who might reach different audiences, and Image Comics has been having this thrilling, creative and creator-driven renaissance that I'm thrilled to be even the smallest part of.

I saw your run of "The Legend of the Dark Knight" began. Is "Haunted Arkham" a just in time for Halloween story? Are there any other books you hope to work in the future? Do you have a dream book?

They definitely slotted "Haunted Arkham" into the October schedule for the obvious Halloween connection, sure. But it wasn't pitched or written with that, specifically, in mind. I believe horror is for always, not just Halloween.

So far as the books I'd like to work on in the future, aside from the pile of creator-owned stuff I'm going to be debuting in 2013 and beyond… I guess more Batman, and Superman. And I'd love to work with Marvel Comics again, at some point.

Is working with DC New 52 different than pre-Flashpoint? What are the goods and bads?

I didn't do all that much work with the company, pre-New 52. At least not in a "monthly" sense, so it's all good to me. I'm not so slavishly enamored of the old continuity that it causes me much in the way of problems. The New-52 re-launch has been an exciting, reinvigorated time at DC Comics with a lot of great talent doing a lot of very cool work. The good part has, absolutely, been the ability to be a part of it.

What advice do you have for writers who are trying to break into the industry? Advice for writing for DC or Marvel? Advice for having original work published?

I can answer all of those points by suggesting that new writers actually publish something original. There has never been a better and easier time to do so. When I first started doing this, making "creator-owned" comics wasn't as easy to do. I had the stunningly unbelievable luck to be very young, fairly stupid but nicely afforded work at Marvel Comics due to a perfect storm of proximity, introductions to editors by friends in high places, and just being born at the right time and showing up when opportunity called. But that was all serendipitous. I had ambition, and friends, and a knack for creating opportunities out of doors that were cracked open for me to the slightest degree. But not everyone sniffs those fortuitous moments. And, I can tell you, they don't last forever, and they're often fleeting and don't come around again.

So make your original comics. Find a collaborator on that great equalizer known as the internet and publish on the web, create some samples to send to publishers, and promote yourselves on social media. There's no greater advice I can give than to tell you that you have to keep trying, keep pushing. You have to finish your intended work and always think about what you want to do next, regardless of who says so or where you think it will be seen. Most writers who actually write for a living and career will tell you, the day they resolved to actually writing and enjoying the struggle… not just savoring having actually written and completed something or, worse, just contemplating their drawer or documents folder filled with half-baked ideas and unfinished stories… is the day they made this real for themselves.

And just read. A lot. And not just comics, please. Watch movies and understand how stories get told, visually. Appreciate the editing… what filmmakers call, in French, the "montage." Storytelling is an art, a discipline and an aspiration and you need to work at it all the time.

How is working in film with writing screenplays and writing comic books? What are the major differences and what is the same? Which do you prefer?

Writing for film is a different experience in many ways, and similar in others, to writing comics. In the one sense, there's lots of solitary time locked away in front of your computer figuring out how characters move and how plot evolves through action and visual realization rather than spoken exposition. But I've written screenplays that never got made, screenplays that got made without me involved beyond the last draft I turned in, as well as movies that I've directed and helped to produce and was responsible for on a daily basis through production. Making movies is collaborative and exhilarating and, once you actually get into production, quite maddening when you consider a day only has so many hours of daylight and the optimal way to shoot the scene, the moment, the exchange, what have you might take longer than the time and/or resources you've got.

But, with comics, you also get the collaboration with artists. When you're not staring at the screen and doing the heavy, solitary lifting of breaking the story open, I mean. Plus you get the immediacy of your work reaching an audience far sooner than the year, or years, that go into making films before release.

I love it all, and I miss the other very much when I do the one for too long.

Do you prefer working on original comics of your own creation or working on established characters? Is your writing approach different depending on which you are working on, if so, how?

Now that I've been juggling the creator-owned projects for a while, I have to give it up to making original comics first and foremost. I love working with company characters and count myself as a fan of most of the same characters and stories you likely enjoy, and have enjoyed, from Marvel and DC Comics over the years. And I want to continue writing super-heroes where those opportunities are found. But I own my creator-owned work. It represents me in a way company-owned comics, as well as most of the stuff I've ever gotten to sniff, Hollywood-wise, do not.

I don't know how different the writing approach really is. I mean, breaking down an idea into a story outline and figuring out the best way to tell that story in the space and time you've got to do so is pretty much the same discipline, or lack thereof, regardless of what I'm going to work on. I think writing the company-owned stuff takes me a little less time, on average. But there also tends to be more revising and problem-solving for reasons that aren't necessarily organic to my own creative process and struggle. But that's nothing compared to the level of interference that creative process endures when working on a film.

Do you have the intention to ever do a creator owned superhero book? Or to you prefer to tell non-hero stories when it's your own creation?

Potentially. I mean, I've had a few ideas in that vein but nothing I've pulled the trigger on. It's an intriguing genre, the independent, likely-deconstructed super-hero story. On the one hand, it feels so mined to me and hard to find new takes and angles. On the other, it's the genre the overwhelming majority of fandom of this medium we call comics gravitates toward… so it's hard not to be interested, and to want to accept the challenge of finding a fresh take. I'll get back to you on this one as my view is evolving and shifting, even as I write this answer.

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