Jeff Parker Discusses His Work on FLASH GORDON with Ron Marz
Ron Marz, writer of John Carter: Warlord of Mars #2, talks with Jeff Parker about Flash Gordon #7, both on sale December 10th
RON MARZ: How great is Doc Shaner? No, seriously, HOW GREAT?
JEFF PARKER: Now I know how you felt when those awesome pages from Adventures of Superman rolled in. It’s Doc’s world, we just run around and add sound effects to it! There are plenty of people who can draw excellently now, maybe more than have ever worked in comics. But Shaner just soaks the panels in personality, and that’s not something everyone can do. You get invested in his stories, and the characters are real for you. I just wish I could send the books back in time for me to read in those years I desperately wanted something like this.
RM: That Jordie Bellaire ain't too bad either, huh?
JP: Honestly, I think a lot of colorists would fumble Doc’s art or be intimidated, and Jordie is never intimidated, once she’s on a project she gets possessive and the art essentially becomes hers at that stage. She’ll do whatever it takes to make it good storytelling color. His stuff needs a combination of a light touch and bold choices, and that’s what she does -- it truly is a dream team. I think a lot of it is because she’s a good cartoonist, though no one ever sees her drawings. She knows the point of a story page, and how to set mood and push emotion.
RM: I know for me, when I get to collaborate with the right art team, on the right project, it's not even work. Has Flash Gordon been like that for you?
JP: Exactly. It just clicks like some amazing machine that does even more than what it’s supposed to do. As a result I may have gotten too sparse with my panel descriptions because I think Doc is just reading my mind anyway, and so is Jordie. Panel 3: Flash does that thing! Jordie, I think you can tell what overall palette THIS requires.
RM: I'm a big fan of pulp stuff as both a reader and a writer. Flash Gordon isn't specifically pulp, but it's of that era. Do you feel like you have to do anything in particular to make these characters resonate with a modern audience?
JP: I figured the best thing to do was to really treat it like no one has ever heard of or read Flash Gordon before, that we’re starting from scratch with all the basic stuff the same. If you dote on how long it’s all been around, you’re going to handle Flash like he’s an old serious hero and it’s going to feel tired. Start with Flash young and fresh and with an infectious energy. Some of the story changes I made were to get a better balance of the three main characters so readers could get more from them.
Zarkov is a brilliant thinker who never lived up to the potential everyone expected from him until the moment he pioneered space travel. Dale is a science writer, so now she doesn’t have to have the science explained to her, she can understand Zarkov much better than Flash, and she’s incredibly crafty as someone who makes a living in such a field has to be to survive. Flash is the olympic level athlete who is also a dilettante -- he’s great at everything that doesn’t matter in our world, but makes him The Boss on the colonies of Mongo: sword fighting, gymnastics, climbing, diving and so on. In Kings Watch, I made him the one that flies the rocket to Mongo instead of Zarkov as in the original, because the title hero should be the one driving the story, not getting pulled along. His real strength/power, though, is that he cares about people.
RM: Obviously Alex Raymond casts a very long shadow on Flash Gordon. How do you honor his legacy without becoming imitative?
JP: Well, you put amazing artists on it, which we’ve done! Raymond was one of the most influential artists to grace our medium, so that had to be top notch. For my part, I tried to bring back a lot of the elements that often get thrown out in modern versions, and find a way that it all makes story sense. If I’d try to do it exactly as he had, it wouldn’t honor him, finding the ways to bring it to life and get readers fired up, that’s following what he really did.
RM: Full disclosure: I am not a fan of the 1980 Flash Gordon. Way too campy for my taste. I'm even a huge Queen fan, and the song doesn't appeal to me that much. Does this make me a bad person?
JP: It divides comics creators in a polar way, that’s for sure. I had the album, I love that Queen got so into it. I enjoy the movie even though it’s not the approach I’d do. I mean, Lorenzo Semple Jr. wrote it, and I’ve also followed him on Batman ’66! I don’t like Flash being a football player and all that, like wearing a shirt with his name on it. But man, the cast -- first I’m a Max Von Sydow fanboy, and it has Timothy Dalton and Brian Blessed nailing their characters of Barin and Vultan. So I’ve still done some shout outs to the movie in the comic. We actually tried to cherry pick all the stuff we like from various versions. And Flash’s relentless positivity was something I liked about that version. It helps set him off from so many other heroes now, who are all trying to be antiheroes. Flash is about as pure hero as you can get.
Check out Jeff Parker's FLASH GORDON and also Ron Marz's JOHN CARTER: WARLORDS OF MARS, both have new issues on sale 12/10/14 from Dynamite Entertainment! Also, check out Parker's mini-series KINGS WATCH featuring Flash Gordon.
Also, check out an extended preview of FLASH GORDON #7 right here!
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