THE VIRGIN DAYS OF MIKE CAREY - TALKING THE STRANDED AND VOODOO CHILD

[MattBrady]

by Steve Ekstrom

Having made his mark in mainstream comics on DC’s Vertigo line and a multiverse of Marvel characters, Mike Carey added Virgin Comics to his repertoire with the launch of Voodoo Child earlier this year, a concept created by actor Nic Cage and his son Weston. Now, Virgin Comics, in a joint venture with The Sci-Fi Channel, is releasing The Stranded, an original concept from the mind of Carey. The Stranded is a science-fiction ongoing about four aliens who are unaware that they are embedded among the denizens of Earth and the revelation that they aren’t who they think they are.

Mike spoke with Newsarama over the weekend about his projects involving Virgin Comics and the exploration of science fiction in the comic book industry.

Newsarama: To start with Mike, how did you get hooked up with Virgin Comics in the first place?

Mike Carey: The short answer to that is MacKenzie Cadenhead—she was my editor on Spellbinders and the assistant editor on Ultimate Elektra. Then she left Marvel and became the main commissioning editor at Virgin. We already had a really, really good working relationship—Mac is great. When she approached me and asked if I’d like to do something for the Virgin line, I was immediately very interested. Contractually, it was a little bit complicated because I had other obligations to take care of— but basically, I was just really keen to make this happen. So we kept talking until the right project came along, and you know the rest.

NRAMA: Who do you think is the primary audience for Virgin Comics?

MC: They have a number of different target markets. Obviously the books are selling to the direct market, but as you know they have distribution deals elsewhere in the world as well. Virgin Comics is doing a lot of fascinating co-productions or collaborations of one sort or another with other media outlets. I think, ultimately, the demographic they are targeting is everybody. A lot of what they are doing is unconventional and exciting – pairing comics with other media new and old in very bold and innovative ways. The Voices line, Coalition Comics, the deal with the Sci-Fi Channel—it’s all exciting and it’s a new way of coming at the problem of “how do you get more people to read comic books?”

NRAMA: Is working for Virgin Comics similar to working for Vertigo or Marvel? Is there anything different about their creative process?

MC: There really isn’t that much of a difference in terms of the actual process. I don’t tend to think in terms of imprints; I tend to think in terms of editors. My creative process with Mac is very enjoyable and she keeps me at the top of my game—sort of the same way that Shelly Bond does at Vertigo or Ralph Macchio at Marvel.

NRAMA: On Voodoo Child, do you communicate with Nic and Weston Cage or were you picked by Virgin to handle their concept?

MC: It’s more of the second. They obviously have vetting rights over what happens in the book and they are sent all of the material for the book as it’s produced—for approval. Basically, I took the initial concept which was worked out by Nicholas and Weston and I put flesh on the bones; turning the concept into a series breakdown; and then once the outline was approved I went on to script.

I did get to meet Nicholas and Weston in San Diego but we’re not in regular communication. We don’t really need to be, so long as they’re happy with what I’m doing.

NRAMA: You were actually in New Orleans at the beginning of the year—was it a trip for researching Voodoo Child? Did the immersion in the culture help with the establishment of the tone for the project?

MC: Yeah, that trip was entirely for research. What happened was—something very serendipitous occurred—I had been invited out to Florida for MegaCon and my initial plan was to stay around for maybe a fortnight. You know—do MegaCon and then head to New York for the NYC convention which is a week or so later. But then I thought, since I’d been given the green light on Voodoo Child that I could maybe use that time to go to Louisiana instead. It was too good an opportunity to miss!

I had already done a fair amount of secondary research, with books and stuff online, but I’d definitely come to the conclusion that I needed to see it; I needed to go to the city and a) scout out locations and b) just get a feel for the atmosphere of the place and the way people talk. I also thought it was important to capture how things looked in the wake of Katrina—how much of the damage from Katrina was visible on the ground.

I don’t always do this sort of thing. I’ve worked on a book for Vertigo that is set in Nagasaki and I’ve done that without ever actually visiting Japan—but that’s a fantasy book. Although Voodoo Child is a horror story, it has a sort of political edge to it as well: I wanted the real world scenes to feel authentic as far as possible.

So I took advantage of my time and scooted over to New Orleans—as it turns out—in the middle of Mardi Gras and that was…really good timing again. Initially, I thought, “Oh my God, how am I going to get a feel for this city if the streets are full of people the whole time? What if there’s just this ridiculously wild party going on?” But, in a way, Mardi Gras is like the ultimate expression of the spirit of the city, of New Orleans. You can’t visit the city during that time of the year and not come away with some very vivid impressions of what New Orleans and its people are like.

NRAMA: How familiar are you with voodoo and hoodoo culture and mysticism surrounding that area of the United States? How did you trip impact that portion of Voodoo Child?

MC: I’d done some previous research into voodoo for Lucifer – for an issue that had a voodoo bokor as a character. I was really struck by how Louisiana voodoo borrows the “furniture” of the Catholic religion and uses it as a sort of running metaphor for African polytheism—so Baron Samedi, for example, borrows from the iconography surrounding Saint Peter; he’s the keeper of the keys to the gates of the afterlife. It’s that kind of fusion of Christianity and polytheistic elements that really struck me.

What I tried to do with the voodoo elements in the book was to make them seem authentic—I’ve used actual voodoo hymns but I haven’t used actual voodoo ceremonial stuff because, you know, it’s a religion. I wanted to treat the material respectfully; I wasn’t trying to “tear away the veil” and show a lot of the actual ritual. I really just wanted to give the content a more authentic flavor and to have things happen that were in keeping with voodoo magic.

While I was in New Orleans, I visited a number of voodoo museums and churches and I actually spoke to a voodoo priest. That was a real revelation in fact—it turned out to be a really useful interview. It was especially good because it gave me a lot of insight into how the voodoo religion looks at death and the relics of the dead and why they are so important in voodoo ceremonial.

NRAMA: What is Gabriel Moore’s primary conflict in Voodoo Child?

MC: In a way, it’s a version of the age old problem of “power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely”—he’s been brought back from the dead and there is an enormous amount of power invested in him by virtue of the fact that he no longer has a physical body except when he wants one. He can be solid when he wants; or he can be just a living shadow when he wants. He also has some pretty potent voodoo magics in his armory.

And he’s been given this power to carry out a specific mission. In the story, there is clearly something very bad happening in the wake of Katrina. Someone is taking advantage of the chaos and breakdown of civil order to do something really terrible which involves kidnapping and possibly murdering literally dozens of young women. It’s up to Gabriel to find out who is doing all of this and to stop them; to shut them down. But inextricably entangled in this is a secondary mission of personal vengeance—because one of the people implicated in all the evildoings is the descendant of the man who killed Gabriel and killed his father.

So the dilemma arises—is it possible to do evil things with a good heart and good intentions? If he uses his powers to kill these men to satisfy his desire for vengeance, then can he avoid being corrupted? Can he do all this bad stuff and come away clean? It’s a true moral dilemma—it’s about the line where justice becomes vengeance and what happens to you if you enact a justice which is partly vengeance.

NRAMA: Let’s change gears and talk about The Stranded—this is the first co-production of Virgin Comics and the Sci-Fi Channel. Is this your concept or was this pitched to you with the intention that you would write it? How has this collaboration worked so far?

MC: This is my concept—a bunch of writers were invited to pitch to Virgin Comics and The Stranded was one of two concepts that were picked to be carried forward at this stage—I can’t talk about the other project but from what I’ve heard of it it’s very cool. So yeah, the initial impetus came from me—but it has been developed jointly by Virgin and the Sci-Fi Channel. It is pure science fiction; some of the elements of it may seem familiar at first. There is a plot that concerns alien children being relocated to Earth and given false identities for their own protection but as the story develops I think it goes down some very unexpected and unfamiliar avenues. I’m really pleased with it—I think I’m at the top of my game with this book.

NRAMA: There are four primary characters, correct? You also have a villain who is hunting these four hidden aliens and another character that is set to rescue the imperiled aliens—care to elaborate more?

MC: That’s pretty much the bare bones of the story—that’s the set-up. All of these people have extraordinary abilities and they have been embedded with ordinary human families and they have been made to forget who they once were and what they are capable of – for their own protection, because the best kind of a hole is the one you can pull in after you so no one can see your hiding place at all.

But, someone has managed to follow them from their home world to Earth and is killing them off. Since they aren’t aware of their true identities or what they can do, they are essentially sitting ducks. But there is one character in the story who knows what is at stake, Tamree, and her dilemma is: does she pull the plug on the program and help these people or does she stand by and watch them die?

I think the character concepts we have going here are really original. They work really well—very unique and out of left field.

NRAMA: Do you think that science fiction is a genre that the comic book industry should reconsider with the re-emergence of horror comics and the Western over the past several years?

MC: I do feel that—yeah. Traditionally, sci-fi has been a hard sell. A lot of science fiction based comics have really struggled to find that audience or the market to sustain them. But look at horror/ fantasy on television—for a long time, at least in England, it was virtually impossible to get a producer to consider a horror project for television—completely anathema. Then along comes Buffy the Vampire Slayer and now we can’t get enough of it; for the first time in decades, there are British television companies commissioning horror/ fantasy material. I think the same thing can happen with comics and sci-fi—I mean, there are the Star Trek and Star Wars franchises obviously and they have a guaranteed core audience there.

NRAMA: Right, but not all science fiction has to have a Klingon or a Jedi in it…

MC: Yeah, Transmetropolitan comes to my mind. At rock bottom that was a solid science fiction concept. It was the only book to survive DC’s Helix line, the short lived science fiction line and it survived because it was such a damn good book! It just worked on so many levels. I think, again, that shows it can be done—that a science fiction book can succeed with the right material presented in the right way. In that same line of thinking, it doesn’t matter what genre it is. People will go for the way the material is presented, you know? If the material works on its own terms.

NRAMA: Maybe The Stranded will be able to pull that off.

MC: Let’s hope, yeah. (laughs)

[PhilipAMoore]

I love careys work he keeps comming up with one great book after another I would love to be that preductive an cansistant writing wise. What I would like to know is. is Voodoo child going to be ongoing or limited ? Iwas already gonig to buy stranded this just made look for ward to it more .hey I posted first

good day

[RedSquirrel]

Stranded sounds good. I'm enjoying Carey's Faker from Vertigo. I tried Voodoo Child, but the artwork was a little too dark and muddy for me.

Carey is underrated for sure.