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Alan, could you bring our readers up-to-date on your comics work during the past couple of years? You've recently returned full-tilt to 2000 AD, correct?
Not quite. I do write "Samantha Slade, RoboHunter" for 2000 AD, and I write "Anderson, Psi" and "Middenface McNulty" for the Judge Dredd Megazine. But for the past few years the majority of my work has been away from comics: I'm the only Brit scriptwriter on the hit Alliance Atlantis kids' TV show "Ace Lightning". I did the backstory for LEGO's "Bionicle: Mask of Light" animated movie. I wrote the Action Man (G.I. Joe in the U.S.) CGI movie "Robot Attak". My own creator-owned Britmanga character "Dominator" has been released on DVD and attracted serious investment offers.
My company Bad Press is gearing up to launch a new adult humour comic later this year.
I wrote the Brodie's Law series from Pulp Theatre, which has become an indie smash-hit.
Just remembered—I've done a couple of Lobo/Authority team-ups for Wildstorm, and am waiting the go-ahead on a new Lobo stand alone, with top Brit artist Greg Staples. And I've just finished writing a 75,000-word Lobo novel, "Last Sons", set for release in the Fall.
You've written some of the most hardcore badasses and anti-heroes in comics - Judge Dredd, Etrigan the Demon, Lobo, not to mention your 13-year association with a certain Dark Knight Detective. After all the broken bones, mayhem and murder you've already inflicted on the world over the years, what's the creative appeal of a character like Evil Ernie?
I can sum it up in editor Mark Powers' words when he offered me the job: "The story's about a serial killer...but we think you can make it funny."
That's the kind of challenge I like.
To be honest, since DC canceled the "Lobo" monthly I feel I haven't had a real hardcore outlet for my type of story and character. I've really enjoyed writing Middenface McNulty, who's a 15-year-old mutant Scottish hooligan, raised on whisky and mayhem. And I love doing "Tales of the Buddha" for my new comic; it's set before the chubby one gains enlightenment, so his motto is: He Meditates! He Drinks! He Fights! But Ernie has opened up a whole new world of bad-ass humour for me.
Did you have any familiarity with the Chaos! characters or their universe before you were approached to write Ernie?
I knew them by name, but I have to confess that was all. I've since watched the Youth Gone Wild series on CD and thoroughly enjoyed it. Beautiful artwork.
Smiley, Ernie's sentient/psychotic button, can be a difficult character to get a bead on. Then again, you're the guy who turned Jason Blood's friend Harry Matthews into a talking pillow during your run on THE DEMON. Do you plan to bring some of that same absurd sensibility to Smiley, or do you have something else up your sleeve?
Oh yeah. He gets an arrow through his puss in part 2. I'm playing Smiley a little enigmatically, though: I mean, how does a button know anything about religion, magic and babes? He's always on at Ernie not to trust anybody—except the faithful Smiley—for fear of betrayal. Without giving anything away regarding future storylines, I wonder if Smiley has his own agenda..? I'll tell you one thing: he's a really funny character.
Tell us a little about the supporting cast you're developing for this story. Are you using any other characters from the previous Ernie comics?
Well, some of them are related. Doc Price's daughter Layna is on Ernie's trail. Convinced that it was largely her dad's fault that Ernie became a mass killer, she's determined to put him out of action forever. But it's possible that Doc Price tested his prototype Dream Machine on his own daughter, establishing some kind of mental link between Layna and Ernie. Anyhoo, Layna's a nice girl. I'm not surprised Ernie's fallen in love with her. He needed a substitute for Lady Death, and Layna's just as sexy. Layna has hired a PE to help with the hunt; if they catch Ernie, Rig gets the million-dollar reward. But Rig is another character operating to his own agenda.
Bad guys include Norman, a lawyer, whose disembowelling should cheer all those who've ever fallen foul of the legal fraternity; Kaval, an Indian skinwalker or shaman; and Forge, billionaire owner of a FastFood franchise.
Why did you choose Sante Fe as the setting for this story?
A few years back artist Kevin O'Neill and I hired a Cadillac and took our wives on a month-long tour of Arizona and New Mexico. After two weeks in various deserts, with no alcohol, we arrived in Santa Fe. Our wives tell us it's a beautiful city, with the most gorgeous Indian artefacts for sale.
Unfortunately Kevin and I got so drunk, all we saw of Santa Fe was the sidewalk, as we negotiated it on our hands and knees, occasionally vomiting on people's feet. I've always wanted to make it up to the city for my terrible behaviour, so now I've sent them Evil Ernie.
You seem to be adding a dash of existentialism to Ernie's psyche with this series. What's your impetus for this, and where do you see it heading?
I figure most folk are like me: I live my life day to day, year to year...and every now and again I wake up and say "Who am I? How did I get into this mess?" I figure Ernie's the same. He may be a killer, but he really, really wants to know why. Does he do it of his own volition, or is he a slave to his past, his emotions, or darker forces? I think it's making him a more interesting character. My wife, who reads all of my scripts, said after she finished Part 2: "I never believed I'd say this, but I'm starting to quite like Ernie. I mean, I hate him, but I quite like him, too!"
If it doesn't sound too grand an objective, I'd like to turn Ernie from being a fairly two-dimensional character who kills lots of people into a more three-dimensional character (who still kills lots of people).
A large measure of Ernie's motivation in the previous Chaos! Universe was tied up in his relationship to Lady Death, a character which Chaos! no longer owns. In your estimation, what now drives Ernie to do the horrific things he does?
That's what Ernie wants to discover in this series. Is it the severe violence he suffered in childhood? Is it because Satan—or God—is driving him? Or is it because he wants to do it...which would truly make him evil, instead of just a pawn in someone else's game.
Ernie still has a love interest—he's fallen for the voluptuous Layna, indeed he even presents her with a severed head as a token of his esteem.
And in potential future series, we'll delve back into the world of demonry.
Your take on Ernie finds him with an aversion to violence directed at children. What led you to develop this facet of the character?
It's a subject which has threaded through my entire career—I've written several stories about violence to kids featuring Judge Dredd and Judge Anderson (herself a violently abused child). I guess I had a fairly rough childhood myself, during which I learned that violence only makes things worse, it never solves anything. Specifically, my grandmother taught me to read (using comics, natch) at age 3. I could already write when I started school. But I was left-handed, which was a Sin of Sins in Scottish schools back then. Consequently, from the age of 4 I was belted on the left hand with a leather strap until I could no longer hold the pencil, and forced to write with my other hand. The fact that everything came out backwards, like Da Vinci's mirror writing, only earned me further punishment.
I've never set out to campaign against violence against children, but I hate adults who practise it with a vengeance.
Finally, Ernie had a pretty rabid following of devoted fans back in his heyday. What is it about your story that's going to bring these readers back to the comics stores to follow his new "adventures"?
It's gruesome, it's funny, and it's macabre. I've stayed true to the character of Ernie as previously defined so I'm not expecting any death-threats for messing him around.
Hey, it happens! When Doug Moench was writing Batman #500--when Bane broke Batman's spine--he got a latenight phone call. The voice said "If the Batman dies, so do you." Before Doug could say "It's only a comic, pal" or even "Do you really think a mega-wealthy company like Warners is going to allow one of its biggest-producing money-machine franchises to get killed?" the caller hung up.
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