TONY LEE ON HOPE FALLS

[MattBrady]

by Benjamin Ong Pang Kean

Twenty years ago they killed her - but some things just can't stay dead. And the peaceful town of Hope Falls is about to be torn apart when Helen Gane returns for vengeance, looking no older than the day she died... And some debts can only be paid in blood…

Hope Falls, a five-issue supernatural thriller by writer Tony Lee and artist Dan Boultwood debuts in November and we sat down with Lee on the genesis of the project and his own religious beliefs (or lack, thereof)…

Newsarama: In an interview from June 2005, you told us that …Of Vengeance was a “revenge story, kinda like Pale Rider but in a Twin Peaks town” and that you’re doing it with Mark Evans.

Tony Lee: Well first off, this just goes to show that this book has been out there for a hell of a long time. In fact, if you look at that list, not one of those has been moved along. Such is the way of comics.

NRAMA: However, back in April, you first told us about Hope Falls, which you said started out as …Of Vengeance with artist Rantz Hoseley, who had dropped out of the project due to other commitments…

TL: And such is the way of creator-owned comics. When you're working on something with no pay at the beginning and a long journey ahead, it can be a nightmare to keep a team together. Mark was the first artist I had contacted about this and we started to discuss what to do, but he's a family man, family commitments took priority and he had to drop out before he even started, which was a pity because he's an incredible artist and very underrated as far as I'm concerned.

Rantz was a totally different situation, as he came on board when I was halfway through the book and we were on the project for close to a year. Rantz worked out character designs, did pages of art and even worked on the cover. We pitched it (at the time as ...Of Vengeance) to Eric Stephenson at Image in March 06, but the problem was timing. Rantz had already agreed to do Derek McCulloch's next book (after Stagger Lee) and the deadline to do that was approaching. And then about a year back, still not having had a yay or nay by Image, Rantz had to drop the project. It wasn't a bad split, we're still very good friends and I wish him the best with Displaced Persons. Which looks brilliant, by the way.

To be honest, Hope Falls (or …Of Vengeance ) would have been a totally different book with Rantz at the helm, as I've shown here with two pages by Rantz, and two pages of the same scene by Dan. Some of the dialogue is different, but the page layout was the same.

I'll be honest, I hit a low at that point. I was talking to Larry Young about another project, my 2008 Dodge & Twist GN and he mentioned that it should be called Hope Falls, and I realized that my focus had been on the wrong parts of the story. So in March of this year I decided to write it as a novel. To hell with comics.

NRAMA: How did current artist Dan Boultwood, your collaborator on The Gloom and the G.P Taylor Illustronovella The Tizzle Sisters come into the creative picture then?

TL: I'd tried twice and been blown out - but then I had a meeting with Dan Boultwood and Harry Markos about something totally different, and in the conversation with Dan (who'd just finished The Gloom for a collected trade at some point) he told me that he believed that he could do it. I'll be honest, I didn't believe him. The comic needed to be HBO, and Dan was incredibly Cartoon Network. Harry made a deal there and then - if Dan could pull it off, he'd make space for us in the schedules. I'll be the first to state that Markosia might not be the same league as Image, but is a good publisher, and the only reason I hadn't pitched it to Harry was because at the time, I'd had Midnight Kiss, Starship Troopers and Shadowmancer with them. I was on too many of their books, I felt.

NRAMA: Well, the first issue of Hope Falls is scheduled to debut in November. From Markosia. How did things change from then till now?

TL: Now? I'd quit Starship Troopers, Midnight Kiss was finished and Shadowmancer was done and waiting for a trade. I was happy to give it to Markosia, dependent on Dan's work. I actually didn’t believe that Dan could pull it off - his work on The Gloom and Tizzle Sisters was great, but incredibly cartoony - but I couldn't have been more wrong if I had tried. Dan (after a miss-start or two while he got his head around it) knocked it out of the park with the third swing. And every page has just gotten better.

Dan and I are good friends, so we're honest. There are no 'egos' involved - well, apart from mine, of course. And if I think something looks wrong, I tell him. He did some concepts to get himself into it, but he's really gotten into it more by just burning through the pages. He inks and colors them, so in the early stages there were a lot of to and fros between us, but now, we're into the third issue and I totally trust him.

NRAMA: So, Hope Falls is about “a small Steel Mill town where, twenty years ago a young part time waitress called Helen was raped and killed by a teenager called Pete McClusky when a prank seemingly went wrong.”

Now, it’s easy to recognize the similarities between Twin Peaks’ fictional town in northeastern Washington state and Hope Falls’ small Steel Mill town, and Laura Palmer and Helen. No disrespect to you and your work, but with only X-Men Unlimited, Starship Troopers, The Gloom and Doctor Who, just how confident are you in engaging the readers with your supernatural five-parter?

TL: No disrespect taken. I'm very much aware that I'm only recognizable to a small percentage of the comic reading community. I've not written a Vertigo book, not been on a bestseller list. Why should people trust me with a non-mainstream spandex book?

But just because that's what I've had out, that's not what I have written. I have books coming out over the next year with AiT/PlanetLar, Walker Books, Antarctic, Moonstone, Titan - and that's just the beginning. I cut my comic teeth with Starship Troopers and Midnight Kiss, but now? I've been writing in TV and radio for two decades. I've been writing comics for five years. I've been Eagle Award nominated twice. I know that I can write a story.

But this is a different arena for me, and it's something I have had my concerns about, especially when I never heard back from Eric. Was it any good? When it was in script stage, I gave it out to a lot of test readers, including Lee 'Budgie' Barnett to critique/edit it. I needed another competent voice to tell me if it was good or not. There were points where he ripped it apart. And I re-wrote. And there were parts he said were spot on. Some of the changes created new twists that added to the story. Others killed off plot lines that were cliche or dull. The book was honed to it's sleekest limit.

And since then? Once Hope Falls #1 was finished, we made it into a PDF and sent it out to a batch of test readers again. We had a couple of small changes, but in the main it was overwhelmingly positive. It's a shame that many self creators don't do this, instead believing that their final words are the best. If movies and TV shows use test audiences, why shouldn't comics?

So I'm incredibly confident that my comic will entertain and engage the audience. I know I have the skill to write such a story, and I have a lot of people out there to thank for shaping it after I finished it.

NRAMA: Hope Falls is about revenge and one couldn’t help but to compare it to James O’Barr’s The Crow. How are you expressing Helen’s state of mind and her quest for vengeance in your script?

TL: The first thing we wanted to do was not have her in face paint making quips as she killed her killers. This wasn't a Crow rip off. It was as much Pale Rider as that. As much The Wraith as that. People coming back from the dead for revenge is a common topic for movies and books, and we had to make sure that it wasn't a carbon copy.

Because of this, we decided that we needed a focus for her thoughts and feelings. And that's where Michael comes in. Unlike everyone else in the book, he totally understands her - to the point of feeling incredibly sorry for her. And she can spill out her feelings to him, express her doubts.

And it's not just a revenge flick, at the end of the day yes, she was raped and killed by one of the four - and she wants all of them dead. But, as they begin, you realize (as does she) that this isn't her favorite thing. She doesn't want to do this, she is compelled to. The first death is wrath, it's the release of twenty years of anger - but the second is sadness and regret. She's on a path of self redemption that she has to follow, a path than sends her free falling to Hell, but it's still not clear if she's now choosing it willingly. The easiest way to see her state of mind is to look back to the diner scene - she's hurting and confused. She's here to see her mother in the week before she dies - yet she doesn't remember where her mother actually is. There are holes in her memory, and it (as the issues go on) starts to make her wonder just how in control of this she actually is.

But it's a slow build. The first issue is setting the scene, building the characters and the questions, because we wanted to really get the readers intrigued as to what and who she is. Even though it's blatantly obvious, you don't really see her wings until issue #2, and there's a difference between when she shows them to one of the four, and when she shows them to her mother.

I was never a fan of the cute and fluffy Cherub angels. I want Christopher Walken with a flaming sword, thank you.

NRAMA: What is your own beliefs when it comes to God? Are you a Born Again Christian or do you follow the doctrine of Judas and the ideas behind The Da Vinci Code?

TL: And here I lose pretty much every store in the Bible Belt...

I'm not a Christian. I'm what you would call esoteric, or agnostic. In my time I've been a Methodist, a Baptist, a Spiritualist Medium, a Witch, Wiccan (Gardinarian, Alexandrian and Hereditary), Druid, Shaman, Chaos Magician, Buddhist - I spent years trying everything, trying to work out where I was. I was a Pagan Psychic and lecturer for several years.

But now? I'm my own thing. I'm a Bard. I believe that everything is created from energy - call it God, Yahweh, the Goddess, whatever - and when we pray, perform rituals, go mad in a clap happy church, we build up this energy. Some people call it sparking. Some call it buzzing. Think how you feel when you've had a great night out.

And I believe that people can use this energy to create archetypes of who they worship - so, if you believe in God, the energy is shaped as God. If it's Shiva, it's Shiva. And so on. Therefore with this belief, it's rational to say that all religions are as valid as each other. I used to hate closed minded Fundamentalists who claimed that when I was using Spiritualism and Healing it was the Devil's Work, yet did the same when laying on hands.

So love me or hate me for it, that's my belief. I follow all beliefs and traditions. Even the made up ones. If they can create energy, then they're a belief.

But because of this, and because of the above mentioned fundamentalist churches - I had a friend once who, when I was nineteen and a public Spiritualist Medium, and my Mother was a public Spiritualist Healer and Medium, showed me a folder that his church had on us - the meetings we had attended, the times we had performed Clairvoyance, etc - there's a lot of 'know thine enemy'. So, in defense I learned everything about Pauline Christianity before I was out of my teens. I read copies of the Nag Hammandi scrolls, I buried myself in the British Library so that when someone said 'ah, but the Bible said this', I could reply with a counter argument.

And in those years I became fascinated with the books like Holy Blood and Holy Grail, The Messianic Legacy, Bloodline of the Holy Grail and suchlike. There were (in my opinion) too many dangling plotlines in the crucifixion - and whether or not we would ever know what happened without a time machine, I found myself almost obsessed.

As for the Da Vinci Code and the Doctrine of Judas? Well, Dan Brown has done a lot of research to create a wonderful work of fiction. Fiction. Not fact. And to be honest, I enjoyed Angels and Demons more.

The Doctrine, or the Gospel of Judas is another of the coptic texts that appeared in the 40's when the Nag Hammandi scrolls were found. Judas has always been the traitor, the person who ratted Christ out - but as we show in Hope Falls, nobody ever has a free ride. From the start he was brought in to be the betrayer. It was his job, his duty. Many scholars believe that Christ himself told Judas to do it - how else could he die for the sins? He had to be the sacrifice - and Judas had to betray him. In many ways Judas was his most loyal of disciples if this is true - for it means he was happy to damn his soul to fulfill Christ’s mission.

That said, how he could have written this when he killed himself shortly afterwards - disputes the validity of him having a cult following.

NRAMA: What is your concept of Heaven and Hell then?

TL: I believe they're what you make of them. I believe in life after death, I've seen spirits, so I kind of have to - but I don't think they're set in the ground. You get what you believe you deserve.

Wow. That was a bit intense!

NRAMA: How are you bringing these… beliefs into Hope Falls?

TL: Well, one of the things I'm bringing in is the Bloodline of Christ. There's a belief out there that Christ may have died on the cross, but that before this, he was married secretly to Mary Bethany. And the clues are all around - in the Wedding at Canaan, his mother tells him that the guests need wine, so he does the big water into wine thing. However, in accordance with tradition, only the groom would have to do that. And in addition, at this 'random' wedding he's at, why is his mother there, and telling him that he needs to please the guests?

So the belief is that after Christ's death, Joseph of Aramathea takes Mary Bethany away into Europe, and that she is pregnant. And then loads of people all believe that she married into their royal houses and they all claim that they're descendants of Christ.

But I look a little further into this - but I can't say how as it's not shown until around issue #3. But it becomes a major plot of the book. Instead of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, I look at the Mother, Daughter and Holy Blood.

As for Heaven, I try not to mention it much - think of the cold war days of the CIA, when spies were out in the world on their own, and Langley was a mythical remembrance. That's similar to how this is - Mike and Helen are on their own, and in the entire five issues there’s only one scene, a page flashback in heaven.

But I know this is going to stick in some readers throats - I had a breakfast meeting at San Diego with an agency looking to option Hope Falls as a movie, and they were very much 'Does it have to be the line of Christ - can it not be Lucifer's child?' because they didn't think that it would sell. I disagree. I think my story works exactly as it is, and if it doesn't get made into a movie, then so be it. I'd rather stand by my work than have it turned into the next Constantine.

NRAMA: In your honest opinion, what distinguishes Hope Falls from Todd McFarlane’s Spawn, O’Barr’s The Crow, and other interpretations of Heaven and Hell in various works of literature?

TL: I think that many pieces of literature compliment my view of Heaven and Hell. As for comics, I'm probably closer to The Crow than Spawn, as it's primarily a revenge tale. Spawn is very much steeped in Hellfire and Brimstone, with infernal armies and demon kings - To be honest, we pretty much avoid going into the afterlife in Hope Falls. Helen wants revenge, which then turns into a quest for understanding why, while Michael discovers secrets about the killing that shifts his entire belief about what's going on. There's way more than has been mentioned on the surface, and the book is way more than a revenge flick, an angel flick or a Da Vinci Code flick. It takes from several genres and styles and mashes them together.

More info can be found at www.hope-falls.com

[mpartyka]

There's a belief out there that Christ...was married secretly to Mary Bethany. And the clues are all around - in the Wedding at Canaan, his mother tells him that the guests need wine, so he does the big water into wine thing. However, in accordance with tradition, only the groom would have to do that. And in addition, at this 'random' wedding he's at, why is his mother there, and telling him that he needs to please the guests?

What's funny is that with this little bit of historical knowledge (i.e., the groom is responsible for providing the wine), it actually does make the biblical story make more sense, though not in the way that Mr. Lee suggests.

When Mary tells Jesus, "They have no wine," he replies, "Woman, what have I to do with thee? My time has not yet come," and then Mary tells the servants to do whatever Jesus says. This passage always confused me before, but now it makes sense. Jesus replies to Mary in that fashion because he was not the groom -- it isn't his responsibility to provide the wine, so why is she asking him? "My time has not yet come" = "Hey, I'm not the one getting married today!" Then, she tells the servants to do whatever Jesus says because they normally wouldn't have looked to him for direction -- they would have looked to the groom.

As for why he and his mother are there in the first place...uh, because they were invited? That's why most people go. I myself have never attended a wedding to which I wasn't invited, informally if not formally.

[RayRieck]

Originally Posted by mpartyka

What's funny is that with this little bit of historical knowledge (i.e., the groom is responsible for providing the wine), it actually does make the biblical story make more sense, though not in the way that Mr. Lee suggests.

When Mary tells Jesus, "They have no wine," he replies, "Woman, what have I to do with thee? My time has not yet come," and then Mary tells the servants to do whatever Jesus says. This passage always confused me before, but now it makes sense. Jesus replies to Mary in that fashion because he was not the groom -- it isn't his responsibility to provide the wine, so why is she asking him? "My time has not yet come" = "Hey, I'm not the one getting married today!" Then, she tells the servants to do whatever Jesus says because they normally wouldn't have looked to him for direction -- they would have looked to the groom.

As for why he and his mother are there in the first place...uh, because they were invited? That's why most people go. I myself have never attended a wedding to which I wasn't invited, informally if not formally.

I think you make a great point. I find a great many of these alternate theories about Christ being married and the like merely recycled ideas that are great on speculation and slim on evidence. While from a religious and historical perspective I have problems with them, from a creative perspective, there's no reason one has to hold to history to write fiction. Lots of fiction starts with the premise of "what if...."

[Logan181]

Really looking forward to Hope Falls. Can't wait till Novemeber, I haven't got my Birmingham copy yet

If you're looking to win a page of original artwork from Hope Falls #1, then the brilliant podcast Quiet! Panelologists At Work are running a competition for people photographed reading a copy. Details in episode 28.

[stvnhthr]

Originally Posted by mpartyka

What's funny is that with this little bit of historical knowledge (i.e., the groom is responsible for providing the wine), it actually does make the biblical story make more sense, though not in the way that Mr. Lee suggests.

When Mary tells Jesus, "They have no wine," he replies, "Woman, what have I to do with thee? My time has not yet come," and then Mary tells the servants to do whatever Jesus says. This passage always confused me before, but now it makes sense. Jesus replies to Mary in that fashion because he was not the groom -- it isn't his responsibility to provide the wine, so why is she asking him? "My time has not yet come" = "Hey, I'm not the one getting married today!" Then, she tells the servants to do whatever Jesus says because they normally wouldn't have looked to him for direction -- they would have looked to the groom.

As for why he and his mother are there in the first place...uh, because they were invited? That's why most people go. I myself have never attended a wedding to which I wasn't invited, informally if not formally.

That is a really great point. Jesus is the groom to come and his wedding day to his bride the Church is a future event. Excellent insight on a well known Bible story.

It sounds like Tony Lee is on an exciting Spiritual journey to discover truth, though his "sparking" idea falls apart under any scrutiny hopefully he'll use it as a springboard to dig deeper into what reality actually is.