We recently caught up with writer Garth Ennis (The Boys, Battlefields, Preacher), and Dynamite Comics publisher Nick Barrucci for a conversation about Ennis’ work for the company and what’s coming next. In part 1 of this two part interview, we talk about Ennis’ new three-volume war story series, Battlefields, and the new Just a Pilgrim collection. In part 2, we talk about what’s coming from The Boys, the amazing sales on the trade paperback collections, and The Boys Trading Cards.
First maybe you could talk a little bit about Battlefields. I know you’ve got three three-issue story arcs planned. Maybe you could lay those out for our readers and what the stories are about.
Ennis: The first is called the Night Witches and the art for that is by Russ Braun. It’s the story of a Soviet woman bomber pilot who operated on the Eastern Front from 1942 onward and a small German infantry unit that comes into conflict with them.
Then you’ve got Dear Billy, with art by Peter Snejeberg. That’s about a young British nurse who’s captured by the Japanese in the retreat from Singapore in early 1942 who suffers at their hands, later escapes, and while in India, which was the last part of the British Empire not to fall to the Japanese in that theater of war, she becomes a nurse and begins a relationship with a young pilot who’s a patient in the hospital. Fate drops a chance for revenge in her lap in the worst way possible. A very strange story, that one. I’m not quite sure where it comes from but I think it’s one of my best and it’s one I have to tell.
The third one is the most conventional. It’s called the The Tankies--art on that by Carlos Ezquerra, and it’s about a young, inexperienced tank crew, a British tank crew involved in the
What are your plans on how to collect those? Are you going to do a separate volume for each of the story arcs or put out one volume for everything?
Ennis: Individual collections at first, then we might do an over-all collection. That’s the plan, isn’t it Nick?
Barrucci: It is, it is. Right now we’re going to collect each three-issue arc. This way fans can read them, if they haven’t picked up the monthly they’ll be able to pick up the collection. Then when the whole storyline is done, for the holidays next year we’ll have a complete collection of all three. We’re seeing whether or not doing it as a hardcover may be possible as well.
The covers are all by Cassaday with a variant on #1 of each by Gary Leach. The covers are quite stunning as you can imagine. Obviously Carlos is a living legend so it’s fantastic to be working with him. Peter we worked with before on the The Boys #13 and #14; he helped out on those two issues. He’s knocking it out of the park as he always does. The real, real, real surprise was Russ, who’s a great artist but he’s actually inking himself on the first story arc, and I have to say they are probably the most beautiful pages he’s ever done.
Ennis: Yes, superb. Really really good. I think it shows what happens when you give an artist a chance to really shine on something that he can work on from the ground up.
Tell us about the history of this property. You did some war stories at Vertigo that these are tied to?
Ennis: They’re certainly tied to them thematically. Each story stands on its own. There are no actual people, but yes, these stories are part of a number that I had to continue the Vertigo series with. Of course war stories are a hard sell and you have to wait for your moment. I think if you’re familiar with the Vertigo war stories you’ll recognize the theme as strong story-telling and characterization, frequent dark humor in some of them. While they’re very action-oriented stories I think there are adult themes and characterization running through them. They’re definitely a continuation of what I started back then.
You said that since war stories aren’t particularly hugely commercial you have to pick your moments. What did you mean by that, or why is this the moment?
Ennis: I think it’s a question of building up the confidence of the publisher and the editors in the material. With Vertigo for instance, once I finished Preacher, Vertigo were happy enough with that and the performance of some of the things I’ve done to say, alright, what have you got next? The same goes for Dynamite with The Boys. I think The Boys did well enough that Nickie and Joe were both curious to see what I would do if I started a new property from the ground up. And of course my first choice is always going to be war stories. Nearly always, anyway. I feel like I have a ton of them waiting to be told. Any outlet for those is of course welcome.
Has there ever been any interest in your war stories, either new or older for other uses, say for the movies?
Ennis: There’s always been a good bit of interest in nearly every property I’ve done. How serious are people about that, of course varies enormously. I tend to take that kind of
I know you’re also releasing, Nick, Just a Pilgrim or a collection of that. Is that all the material that was originally done for Black Bull?
Barrucci: It is. It’s the complete series, both series run and it’s in one collection which hasn’t happened before. It’s kind of an omnibus.
Is there anything new in it?
Barrucci: There won’t be anything new. We’re right now just putting up the material as it stands and running with it. It’s been out of print for a couple of years now so I think getting the material out there was where our focus was.
Are there any plans to do anything with this property in terms of new material?
Barrucci: We’d want to talk it over not only with Garth and the guys at Black Bull, but also Jimmy Palmiotti who originally edited the Black Bull line if we were going to do anything else. It hasn’t gotten that far yet. Right now the biggest focus is putting out the material and putting it back in print because it’s a good story and it’s got some great artwork. I don’t know if you noticed, as well as Carlos having done the interior art you’ve got covers from everybody including J.G. Jones, Mark Texeira, I think Phil Noto did a cover, quite a few really great artists.
Garth, is that something you’re open to, doing additional stories based on Just a Pilgrim?
Ennis: I wouldn’t really have any interest in it myself, I don’t actually own the character or much of it anyway... I may have something of a minor interest in it. But that wouldn’t mean that I’d be averse to someone else tackling the character. I wouldn’t have any objection to that.
Let’s talk about the Just a Pilgrim movie. Do you know what the status is on that?
Ennis: Oh gosh, I really have no idea.
Barrucci: I’ll chime in on that for a second