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Dive Into Cyberpunk World The Empty Zone With Jason Shawn Alexander, Plus Preview

Published Mon, 18 May 2015 16:00:00 -0500

I followed Jason Shawn Alexander's Kickstarter for The Empty Zone with some interest awhile back. Like many people, just a glimpse of his artwork on the proposed series caught my imagination pretty intensely. What I didn't know, however, is that is represented a 20 year saga of development for the successful comic book and medium artist. Hearing that, I feel quite unequivocally that this series represents many things, but among them a great deal of bravery. Confronting a work you originally started as a 19 year old and saw through various incarnations and losses, and then hauling back from the abyss into the cyberpunk light of day? That is something worthy of applause. And Alexander is getting a chance at even bigger applause after the success of his Kickstarter. The series has been picked up by Image Comics, and arrives June 17th.

Empty Zone features a seriously "flawed" central female character in Corinne White. In this hybrid of sci-fi, suspense, and horror, Corinne meets a nightmare world in a "dystopian cityscape", but is equally burdened by her own past. Jason Shawn Alexander joins us today to talk about the series:

Hannah Means-Shannon: Jason, you have a great deal of experience working in comics but also in gallery exhibits of your work. Do you consider yourself a storyteller in both mediums? How does telling a story in a single image differ for you from telling a story sequentially?

Jason Shawn Alexander: Specificity is the biggest difference. The work I do that exhibits in galleries allows me to explore, experiment, abstract elements, and be as vague as I want. Allowing me to explore a feeling or a concept. Comics work is storytelling on a much more specific level. You have to establish characters, settings, mood, actions, in a much more literal way. There's a momentum you have to maintain in the storytelling. Over the years, I've enjoyed seeing how they both inform one another.

HMS: Why did you feel that Empty Zone in particular really needed to be a fully independent project funded initially on Kickstarter? What do you think this brings to your experience of actually producing Empty Zone?

JSA: I've been in the "work for hire" game for the last 15 years or more. I needed a full break from anyone (writer, editor, etc.) that might disagree with a character design, a page layout…anything like that. I've illustrated other people's stories for so many years, I needed total freedom once it was time to tell my own.

HMS: Was this your first Kickstarter experience? Do you have some observations about the process that you can share with readers who might be Kickstarter backers or considering launching a Kickstarter of their own?

JSA: It was. Mine was also unique, I believe, when compared to the standard Kickstarter experience. There were a good amount of personal troubles that got in the way, but inevitably I persevered and had a successful campaign. Kickstarter is definitely a great vehicle for independent project funding. My observation is that even though you think you might be able to work an hour a day on it and maintain doing…anything else, think again. It's a great way to fund your project but becomes a full time job for the month you're doing it.

HMS: Where does Empty Zone come from, for you, creatively? Has it been gestating awhile? At what point did the story really come into focus for you?

JSA: Empty Zone was created and first published in 1995. This is the 20 year anniversary. I was 19 when I created it and truthfully, I wanted to draw a mash up of Neuromancer and Sin City, but with a hot girl as the lead. It was later picked up by Sirius Entertainment for a 4 issue mini-series. I was more interested in telling cyberpunk stories and killed off my main character at the end of the story. Sirius suggested that might be a bad idea. So then I did an 8 issue mini-series that was sort of a prequel to the first one. In that, I continued to grow as an illustrator and a storyteller. The subject matter changed, the depth of Corinne White, the lead character, grew. I was growing with it. Much like a child actor, you can see my evolution as an illustrator in these stories…zits and all. By the end of the 8 issue series, I decided that I finally knew what the story, what the character, was all about.

After working on it for a while, I had started learning entirely new approaches and processes in my art from my friend, Kent Williams, and I was ready for a relaunch of the series with a clear vision. Unfortunately, after 2 issues I had a falling out with the publisher. I was then offered a run on Queen and Country, which garnered 2 Eisner nominations, and thus began a new turn in my career. Cut to 10 or so years later, I got a little burned out. Then, a year ago I found some of the old original art from the series and my wife flipped out over them, seeing them for the first time. She really pushed me to take another look at the series. I did and saw that I had a good direction going in my last attempt. So I dusted off the story and reintroduced myself to the characters, and they to me. It's been crazy nostalgic and a whole new challenge, revamping and relaunching my own title.

HMS: Are the themes of Empty Zone things that are on your mind about modern life, like the role of technology, the downside of how the world might be changing industrially, the role of militaristic societies?

JSA: There are definitely those staples of the dystopian cyberpunk genre in this story. It's a world I fell in love with drawing. The difference is how the story evolves. Readers who stay with it will see the focus of the book become very non-technological. It becomes a supernatural, horror, suspense series, set in a cyberpunk world. So I get to do everything I love to do, and I think that love shows in work.

HMS: Empty Zone seems like it's going to be a very strongly character-driven story as we encounter a complex figure in Corinne and her past and her mysteries become something the reader assembles over time. What about her makes Corinne a compelling personality that you want to explore so fully?

JSA: There are strong female characters, in comics, that fight adversity and conquer great strife. I wanted to show one just as flawed as male characters are portrayed. Corinne smokes, drinks, does drugs…She's flawed. She's self-destructive. Much like my paintings allowing for some level of therapeutic qualities, Corinne also allows me to exorcise my own demons. And I think seeing someone who's all but given up, being given a chance at redemption, to care about something, to DO something again, is the kind of story I like to read and hope others do as well.

HMS: Can you tell us a little bit about your art composition process on Empty Zone? What kind of media will you be using and why have you chosen those tools?

JSA: Empty Zone will evolve in story and in art. It's become so popular to work digitally, but I will always work traditionally. I work on 18×24 paper with pen, quill, and ink. The story starts off with fairly traditional artwork (my inked line with digital color by LuisNCT) by issue 2 some of the pages are painted and some are a mix of digital and painted color. I get bored easily with repetition. I need constant change and growth in my work and that will happen in Empty Zone. I hope by the end of the first arc that the art will employ tons of different mediums and methods of creation.

HMS: What are your hopes for the series once it launches with Image? Would you like to see it becoming an ongoing book?

JSA: I would love to see it continue. The first issue sets the mood for the series: bizarre spiritual encounters, horrifying dream sequences, and almost humorous action. There are so many stories that I have planned that will really show what this character and world are capable of. They will confuse, shock, entertain and show people why I believe comics are still the most expressive, intimate, and close to perfect visual medium.

The Empty Zone #1 arrives on June 17th from Image Comics, and is currently listed in Previews World with item code: APR150504.

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