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Stuart Moore: SBC Q&A

Posted: Monday, July 21
By: Tim O'Shea

Stuart Moore is gaining a new reputation in the industry…as a writer, that is. Many already know him because of his editorial career where he “co-founded DC's Vertigo imprint, founded their Helix imprint, [and] edited the Marvel Knights line for a couple of years.” (as detailed here). Recently, Moore has written Zendra for Penny Farthing Press. Dark Horse’s new line, Rocket Comics, is just one of the latest companies to tap Moore for his writing skills-hiring him to write Lone (a Rocket series set to take off September 17, 2003). SBC recently interviewed Moore about his myriad projects on the horizon.

Tim O’Shea: The Western genre is greatly unappreciated, despite the great recent works by the likes of John Ostrander and Jeff Mariotte. By setting Lone in a post-apocalyptic Western setting do you hope to put a new spin (and provide greater appeal) for the genre? That being said, do you fear people dismissing the story as when written by lesser creators the whole post-apocalyptic subgenre in and of itself can come across as hackneyed?

Stuart Moore: Personally, I like science fiction and I like westerns, so Lone is a good combo for me. What's nice about it is that I can combine very modern fears -- threats to civilization and our way of life -- with the lone-gunman, existential western world, where law is what a man (or woman) makes of it with his mind and his hands. Oh, and there's zombies! ZOMBIES!

I'm a big fan of genre work; people can dismiss a project or not on that basis, but if it's good, I think they'll enjoy it.

TO: How long has Lone been bouncing in your head and how'd finally end up on paper?

SM: Actually, Dark Horse approached me with Lone, which was pretty much just a title and a vague premise. I fleshed it out and filled in a lot of the stuff I was just babbling about up above. Once I got going on the book, it came together very naturally.

TO: As a former editor (with long and respected reputation), did Rocket defer to your judgment in gathering the talent for Lone. Namely were you involved in getting Jerome Opeña on art?

SM: Jerome's a Dark Horse discovery -- he's done some Star Wars work for them. I'm not sure about this, but I think they were talking to Jerome before I entered the picture. I'm overjoyed to have him on the book.

TO: Opeña is one of those talents that not many folks have heard of, but he's on the cusp, given that he's been nominated for The Russ Manning Most Promising Newcomer (soon after this interview was completed, Opeña did win this award). What qualities and values do you find he adds to the book?

SM: Jerome is one of those artists you can ask to draw anything -- an intense closeup, an action sequence, an entire dilapidated old mansion -- and it'll come back exactly like you pictured it, only more so. I'm very fortunate in the artists I'm working with.

TO: In your days as an editor, folks came to appreciate the quality you added to the books you edited. In that vein, I was curious how does Lone editor Dave Land make the stories being told (and the quality of the creator's work in general) that much better?

SM: Dave's always bugging me for more action -- which is important; it's an action book. I focus a lot on the world-building and the backstory of the characters, which are also crucial. It's a great combination.

TO: In a time when many view the industry as constricting, how enthused are you to be part of a company (Dark Horse) that is trying to in fact grow?

SM: Dark Horse has done a lot of things right recently, including jumping on manga before the other major U.S. comics publishers did. I've always liked the people I've known there, and I'm glad they're doing well.

TO: Where do things stand with PARA for Penny Farthing Press ("a paranormal thriller set in an abandoned superconducting cyclotron -- at heart, it's about one woman's quest to find out what happened to her father, who died there twenty years before." as you told me in this ORCA interview)? What can you tell us about the other members of the creative team?

SM: Penny-Farthing will be giving away a preview of PARA at San Diego; the book itself will be out right around the end of the year. It's probably the most ambitious thing I've written, an epic about the beginning and end of the universe and how we deal with our own pasts, the legacies our parents leave us. No zombies in this one, but there are monsters, and a freaky UFO expert called Doctor Z.

The artist is a Penny-Farthing discovery named Pablo Villalobos. He's another phenomenal new artist; he caught the mood of the abandoned, creepy particle accelerator right away, and his character designs were dead on.

TO: You've got two issues of Justice League Adventures coming out in the near term. The superhero genre is a shift for you, considering your other recent work (PFP's Zendra; Lone, and the upcoming Giant Robot Warriors, graphic novel from AIT/PlanetLar). Does it take a conscious shift to write superhero genre? And would you say you have a greater freedom writing Justice League Adventures, given that it is not tied to DC Universe continuity, but rather is tied to the show's continuity (or did such a distinction enter your mind when writing the issues)?

SM: I was nervous about writing Justice League Adventures, but once we nailed the plot down, it came very easily. Continuity didn't matter too much on the first story (issue #22, out August 6th); the second one uses an old DC character in a way that might have been problematic if the book were set in the main DC universe. I do like the animated versions of the characters a lot, particularly Hawkgirl and Green Lantern, with his history in space and his past as a marine. I also really liked writing Superman, a character I'd never thought much about before.

Giant Robot Warriors, by the way, is coming together beautifully. That one I did pick the artist for: Ryan Kelly, co-artist of DC/Vertigo's Lucifer. He's really cut loose on this book, which is actually more about politics and romance than giant robots. (Though there are a few robot scenes in there that I'll stack up against anything in the genre. The robot genre, that is. (Is that a genre?))