G. WILLOW WILSON ON CAIRO & OUTSIDERS: METAMORPHO/AQUAMAN

[MattBrady]

by Michael Lorah

New Jersey-born, Colorado-raised and Egypt-residing, G. Willow Wilson has been making a name for herself as a journalist, with articles about modern religion and the Middle East in Atlantic Monthly, the New York Times Magazine and the Canada National Post. She’s the first western writer to interview Sheikh Ali Gomaa.

Now she’s writing comics. Her first comic is the upcoming DC/Vertigo graphic novel Cairo, with artist MK Perker. Called a “magical-realism thriller”, it tells of a drug runner, a struggling journalist, an American expatriate, a young activist, and an Israeli soldier all coming together on the streets of modern-day Cairo, a city of magic and legend. Before they’re done, they’ll meet a jinn, a vicious gangster-magician, and the Undernile.

Wilson is also contributing to DC’s Outsiders: Five of a Kind fifth-week event, writing the Metamorpho/Aquaman issue.

We talked with her about both projects, life in Cairo, how a meeting with one comic book creator made it all possible and working with MK Perker and Josh Middleton.

NRAMA: Let’s start with the major project first, Willow. How did you hook up with Vertigo?

G. Willow Wilson: It was a long and complicated process. I started writing the script for Cairo in 2003 and wasn’t quite sure what to do with it. From the very beginning I thought it was a good book for Vertigo, but Vertigo seemed like this hermetic order shrouded in mystery and romance and open only to a worthy few. I’m usually pretty good at figuring out back doors where the publishing industry is concerned, but I hadn’t a clue how to get this script on an editor’s desk at Vertigo. What ended up happening is this: I showed an early draft to Keith Giffen (who has been a mentor of sorts to me, in many ways) at the 2003 San Diego Con, and he liked it, and showed it to an editor at DCU (the articulate and wonderful Joan Hilty, who ended up editing the final product), who opened some august portal and suddenly Karen Berger had read it and there it was in the Vertigo publishing schedule. So really, I still kind of feel like Vertigo is a hermetic order shrouded in mystery and romance. I’m not quite sure how I got here.

NRAMA: Cairo is about five very different characters who are pulled together in a “magical-realism thriller.” You live in Cairo, and your background is in history and Arabic language and literature. How much of Cairo is fantasy, and how much is simply a product of the city’s amazing geographic and social melting pot?

GWW: On some level—whether literal, emotional or spiritual—all the stories in Cairo are perfectly true. More concretely, however, I drew on a lot of different things when writing the script…the experiences of various people I knew who were living in the city, the huge store of mythology surrounding Egypt in general and Cairo in particular. I’m not sure where the idea of the genie in the hookah came from. Probably from sitting around smoking hookah. That just sort of leapt out and took on a life of its own.

NRAMA: Ha. Can you give us a very quick character sketch of the protagonists of Cairo?

GWW: Sure. There’s Ashraf, who is sort of the glue that binds the narrative together, who is this very acerbic, clever drug runner. Then there’s Ali, who is a very straight, do-the-right-thing journalist who really needs a break. Kate is the American tourist, who comes to Egypt with very lofty ideas. Tova is an Israeli soldier whose patriotism is in conflict with her experiences. Shaheed is the tricky character—he starts the story out flirting with jihad, but his plans are thrown out of whack by Shams, the genie in the hookah, who has very different goals for him.

NRAMA: You’re a journalist by trade, and I was reading some of the articles on your website. I noticed a focus on global communications and religions. How do those themes impact the events in Cairo?

GWW: Even when those themes don’t seem overtly present in Cairo, they’re there. The thing I struggled with working as a journalist in Cairo was how limited the vocabulary (not just of words but of symbols, ideas, emotions) I had to work with really was. There is a truly massive amount of information that you almost cannot communicate between two cultures, for the simple reason that the vocabulary does not exist to describe it. That’s why fiction is so important—it’s a kind of emotional journalism. You tell factual untruths to communicate the emotional truths for which there is no common vocabulary.

NRAMA: As a journalist, do you feel motivated to present a fully rounded picture of Egyptian life? I think that sometimes, particularly in wartime, the aspects of middle eastern culture are reduced to caricatures, so I’m curious to see how Cairo reflects your experiences living there.

GWW: I do feel that motivation, especially because the ‘fully rounded picture’ isn’t gory or shocking enough to sell to a consumer-driven news industry. It’s hard to get that picture out there, because it doesn’t make as much money for publishers as do terrorist cells and body counts. It’s not a conspiracy, it’s simply the way the news media is set up. I’m not sure there’s a better system, but then I’m also not sure there really is such a thing as objective news. That is, again, why fiction is so important (though it seems less important) in a time of war. I think people like Jhumpa Lahiri and Hanif Kureishi probably do more to further understanding between ‘East’ and ‘West’ than most diplomats.

NRAMA: I just read Lahiri for the first time recently. She’s absolutely amazing. Did you have any difficulty working in the comic format for the first time?

GWW: No, actually, it was pretty liberating. I loved it. I’ve wanted to write comics since I was about fifteen. I love the format—it’s so relentlessly systematic, yet there is room in comics to play with time and cause and effect that you really don’t get in any other medium.

NRAMA: Cairo’s artist MK Perker has worked with Mad and Dark Horse (Amazing Adventures of the Escapist), but Cairo is the largest project I’ve found his name attached to. Have you had any contact with him? How was it working with him?

GWW: MK is actually pretty well known in Turkey, where he was born and lived until ten or fifteen years ago. He’s so modest that you’d never know it. In the US, he’s mostly done editorial cartoons for pubs like The Wall Street Journal and The New Yorker, so where comics were concerned it was kind of the first time out for both of us. After a year and a half of working together, he’s one of my closest friends. I call him ‘abi’, which is Turkish for ‘older brother’. His talent is kind of terrifying; I feel unqualified to talk about it. The first time I saw the character sketches he did for Cairo I got tears in my eyes.

NRAMA: I was surprised to see that you’re also writing a comic for the Outsiders: Five of a Kind event, handling the Metamorpho/Aquaman issue? How did you get involved in that?

GWW: I’m not one of these writers who hate tights. I like superhero comics. Joan Hilty (who edited Cairo) had some ideas for a fifth week event for Outsiders, and I pitched her some more ideas, and the Metamorpho/Aquaman issue was born.

NRAMA: Are you an Outsiders reader? How did it compare to work on one issue of an over-arching storyline, as compared to working on Cairo, where you’re completely in your own world?

GWW: Outsiders was a crash course for me…I knew a lot of the characters from the team via their other series (Nightwing, most obviously, and some of the former incarnations of Metamorpho), but I hadn’t been following Outsiders itself. There really isn’t a big comics scene in Egypt, as one might imagine. Writing the Aqua/Meta issue was a totally different experience than writing Cairo. I kind of tried to play it straight at first (you know, superhero banter) and Joan was like “…yeah just write like yourself.” So I did, and the result was much cleaner. I can see how a lot of people chafe at having to work with so many restrictions (specific power sets, history, whatever else is going on in the universe, etc) but I tend to respond well to boundaries. I genuinely like the challenge.

NRAMA: Thoughts on working with Josh Middleton?

GWW: He’s incredibly professional. Since I’m a newcomer I do make mistakes, and with Josh my mistake was not including *any* photo references with this script set in lands unknown. He sent me this polite email pointing it out. That was definitely the point at which I felt like the pimply freshman. I was really lucky to be able to work with him.

NRAMA: His work’s terrific. Are you interested in writing more for comics then?

GWW: Definitely.

NRAMA: Cool. Anything else you can announce? I saw an image of a plane against a red sun on your blog!

GWW: Wouldn’t want to spoil the surprise. Stay tuned.

Cairo hits comic shops and bookstores on November 7. Outsiders: Five of a Kind: Week 4: Metamorpho/Aquaman #4 (OF 5) arrives on August 22. G. Willow Wilson’s journalism and blog is at gwillowwilson.com.

[sexyjesus]

She sounds like she's having fun! I did some research on the artist, and his stuff looks top notch. I can't wait to get this.

I also like the Metamorpho/Aquaman team up. A guy who lives underwater in a desert with a guy who can make water? Sign me up!

[nietoperz]

Cairo sounds brilliant - I'm rather looking forward to it now.

[The_Adventurer]

I'm all over Cairo like Glaze on a Ham.

[khuxford]

I ordered the Metamorpho/Aquaman book specifically because of the author. I might have to give Cairo a shot, too.

[TCJohnson]

Really looking forward to Cairo, and for the Aquaman\Metamorpho thing. I am intrested in seeing what a person with more middle eastern sensabilities can bring to super heroes.

[Happyhatter]

Looks like Aquaman is in good hands! can't wait!!!

[Brenticles]

What? No one complaining about non-comic writers getting involved in comics? I'm pleasantly surprised to not see that usual silliness.

It all sounds interesting. I'll at least check it out.

[Drcharles]

Originally Posted by khuxford

I ordered the Metamorpho/Aquaman book specifically because of the author. I might have to give Cairo a shot, too.

I've done the same for the above reason,
but having Aquaman in, only makes it sweeter

[BillReed]

That’s why fiction is so important—it’s a kind of emotional journalism. You tell factual untruths to communicate the emotional truths for which there is no common vocabulary.

Brilliant. I am now intrigued and will check her work out. Woot.

[hondo]

Never heard of either creator here before this article but am genuinely pumped about Cairo. Sounds like it would be a great movie or HBO series.

Meta / Aqua - cool. I've loved Outsiders ever since it's latest incarnation and am tweaked to see what she can bring to the game.

[protege]

You know, it occurs to me, if DC wants to keep Aquaman around, they'll probably slap him on a team-like this one.