There ’s been a bit of a running vogue of comics getting picked up for movie adaptation even before they liberate an issue — and Heavy Metal ’s next big creator - have series , Interceptor , is joining that trend . We sat down with author Donny Cates to discourse the crazy new series , and what it ’s like hold your comic turned into a movie while you ’re still compose it .
io9 : recite us a little flake about the readiness up of Interceptor .
Donny Cates : The canonical , super uncanny premise is that a long time ago , there was a fairly horrible state of war on Earth between Vampires and humans . Vampires came out in droves , we tried to fight back , and we lose — we lost very , very badly . The full Human raceway — or a blue-ribbon few , as we ’ll fare to come up out — produce out on ships , and as they left , they nuked the entire planet , in promise that they could crystallise the Earth of infestation and eventually come back . What they did alternatively was blanket the Earth in wickedness , and in the hundreds of years of iniquity that followed , the remaining Vampires have develop . What we ’re see [ in Interceptor ] is an Earth where the Vampires are a dominant species , evolving to the peak of full - scale outer space locomotion — and they ’ve observe our new home .
There ’s something gleeful in mixing up sci - fi , post - apocalypse , and then Vampires on top . What brought you to the initial mashed - up mind in the first place ?
Cates : Man , that ’s a swell question ! It all came reasonably of course , in a really eldritch way , it ’s almost like I place myself a note from the past . That sound bizarre , but I was travel through the greenback that I keep — every writer on the planet has notebook just filled with weird ideas!—and I found something that I wrote , believably from 2008 , and it was written in a security deposit . essentially , all it said was “ After a nuclear war , the sun is blotted out and Vampires come out in droves ” . That ’s all it say ! I do n’t commemorate pen that , I do n’t remember where it came from , but I sit down down and started thinking it over . Then one spell associate to the other , into this chain , and this book is what came out of it !
I ’m a huge Vampire sports fan . Vampires , to me at least , are the most interesting of the Hellenic monsters . They ’re the only one of the Hellenic monsters that have personal magnetism , and can be sexy — they have a background to them , all those societies and rules , and that kind of thing is attractive to me . With this Good Book and what I wish about it is that it ’s something we ’ve never really seen in Vampire floor . lamia for the most part have been in the shadows , on the fringe , and Interceptor envisages a world where they have basically pull ahead . To me , it looks like a atomic number 10 - drenched rave ! [ laugh ] They ’re pop off crazy and having sex , and doing drug — essentially being immortal adolescent .
The first issue expend a lot of time setting up on Palus , the major planet Humanity has colonise after leaving Earth , and we meet its President and his staff . Will the series pass more metre there , or will the focus be on Earth ?
Cates : We ’ll be checking in on Palus every now and then . Without giving too much away , there ’s some decisiveness that President O’Conner has to make that will at once touch [ main theatrical role ] Poli ’s time on Earth . As readers will see reading the first government issue , the politics of Palus are not the most plainspoken in the earth . The deduction is that Humanity , for having hit the stars , really is n’t that unlike when it comes to things like keeping thing from its public . The ramifications of that will be rather great . That ’s all I can really say !
You have to prominent distaff characters in the first issue — Poli , a supersoldier charge back to Earth , and Weep , a trivial girl left behind on Earth . Was it important for the book to explore the relationship between those two women , at the sum of a unhinged “ atomic blank space lamia ” taradiddle ?
Cates : Having it be two cleaning woman really hail from classic Vampire tale . Almost every big Vampire story has a woman at its center , plump back to things like Dracula or , apparently [ Buffy ] the Vampire Slayer herself . [ Poli and Weep ] are really interesting because it ’s about the difference between grooming and real - existence practice . Poli has an almost mathematical approach to doing things , but Weep , for being all of 12 years old , has mode more experience doing these things . Them play off each other is kind of nifty because Weep sees Poli , to put it bluffly , as a Jesus . [ In the first issue ] she ’s fallen out of the sky , and is gon na help her . Whereas Poli — again , without ease up too much away , this is the first consultation I ’ve done about this book!—and the more we research about her , the more we learn , she is not wild about the fact that there are essentially child soldier [ on Earth ] , due to her own background .
Poli ’s background could be mirrored to [ Buffy’s]—she ’s trained to do one specific thing for her intact life , but in a much more science - fiction - y means . Those two character reference are really fun to save , and as the series goes on , their personality start out to mix with each other , and Weep gets to see how much her universe effects others , while Poli gets to see how her orders [ from Palus ] effect things in real sentence .
A big job for Poli is that she was n’t needfully severalize the integral truth about what ’s happening on Earth , and to what level does she follow her orders . [ Interceptor ] is probably the most political I ’ll ever get in writing , because there are a heap parallels between , you screw , go into a foreign place , orders that are not entirely truthful , and to what degree as a soldier do you puff the personal credit line between doing what is right and doing what you ’re told . We ’ll see the ramifications of that play out on an almost cosmic kind of scurf .
You ’ve got some really dynamic artistic production from Dylan Burnett on this serial publication . What ’s it been like process with him on Interceptor ?
Cates : [ Dylan ’s ] been here from the very beginning . It all goes back to a dissimilar Word of God that I was working on , that will be announced next twelvemonth , that I was form on with an artist named Adam Gorham . He got this other great chance and had to bow out , and when did , he e-mail me and said “ But hey , I have this buddy who is fantastic and is quick for the big show , ” and I open up that e-mail and it was Dylan . I looked at his stuff and I loved it , and I eff he was perfect for this crazy story .
When I look for artists , I do n’t really look for tone , or what they like to draw — I look for personality . Artists can figure out how to quarter a blank ship , but it ’s how [ their work ] emote that really pull in me . Dylan is a military force of nature — that guy cranks out fully emblazon , amply design varlet every Clarence Shepard Day Jr. . The course credit for the Bible is as much him as it is me at this point , because he will just run something and go “ Can we fit this in somewhere ? ” and I ’ll be like “ Hell yeah , let ’s do it ! ” and that was capital . He ’s do up with as many ideas as I am — the book would n’t exist without him .
Interceptor has come to represent a big pushing at Heavy Metal for Maker - have strip . What was it that brought you to them in the first spot , and what ’s it like being part of that legacy ?
Cates : It ’s awesome , and unearthly ! I think it was at New York Comic Con last twelvemonth , and Jeremy Atkins , our marketing guy wire that I know through his work for [ Comics publisher ] Dark Horse — he invited me to come to this panel and said “ You guy cable are gon na want to learn what we have to say ” , and it was there that Jeff [ Krelitz , Heavy Metal ’s Co - CEO ] denote this creator - owned thing . Right after that , I started getting the book together , and getting the art — I air it to Jeremy , and he sent it to Jeff , and it was really amazing . They sanction it pretty much based on the art alone . When I require if they wanted to know what it ’s about , they pronounce something that you never hear in comics these days , which is “ No , we believe you ” [ laugh ] . They had scan my previous work , and they said “ We dig this , this looks cracking , we trust you ” . evidently they bonk what it ’s about fore , and they care it a lot — we’re making a moving-picture show out of it — but since then , we reasonably much get to do whatever we want .
We do n’t have anyone look over our shoulder secernate us what to do , or suggesting thing . We ’re pretty much on our own , which is large . They ’re there to help with marketing , but as far as the floor goes , it ’s an environment of consummate trust . With the desktop of [ Heavy Metal magazine ] , the estimate is to get weird , to get out there . I ca n’t think of a better company to put this really weird , quasi - vampire - sci - fi - politics Word of God than these hombre .
You cite being optioned for a movie — you’re unite comics like Descender or Chrononauts which get optioned for film well before the books are actually out . What was it like getting that process pop out , and hearing Interceptor would be a movie ?
It was something I never even considered , but I agree with them now . It can totally be a great film ! apparently there ’s thing I know about that I ca n’t talk about yet , but it ’s really exciting . Some of the conversations that we ’ve had , some of the names that are involved with it right now , are really awesome , and really surreal . If I were to go back in clip and order my 18 - year - old ego , I do n’t think he ’d ever believe me !
If there ’s one thing you could distill Interceptor down to , to convert people to pick up the first outlet , what would it be ?
Cates : Man … what a mad question ! [ Laughs ] I ’m much better typewriting than I am speak out loud , but I think if you ’re a fan of vampires , or sci - fi , or even something as small as a distaff agonist who ’s just a total badass , then I think you ’ll be pleasantly storm by this , and how it ’ll explore Vampires and their relationship with human beings .
At the core of vampires , they ’re not that dissimilar from us . They hold out off of stemma , but so do we , in a way — it ’s what ’s so sexy about lamia as an idea , because they are a translation of us . The parallels between how the human race do by other humans , and how the Vampires treat the man in Interceptor , is not all that unlike . At the core of this book , it ’s really about two very powerful ruling classes warring against each other , and the mass who are bewitch in the crossfire , the soldiers and the civilian used as pawns in a big game . If you could distill that and write that and make that sound better , I ’d appreciate it ! [ Laughs ]
Interceptor # 1 is out December 30th .
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