This past weekend at Seattle’s Emerald City Comicon, I had the opportunity to have a fantastic conversation with the writer of the just-announced Pacific Rim comic series, Tales From The Drift. Joshua Fialkov is best known for series like Echoes, Elk’s Run, I, Vampire, The Bunker, and The Life After. As a huge fan of Pacific Rim and the world that Guillermo Del Toro, Travis Beacham, and cast/crew have created, I was already looking forward to the new series. After talking with Joshua, my anticipation has skyrocketed, and the November release can’t come soon enough.
Read on for our conversation, and be sure to let us know if you’re excited for the book!
Derek: Why don’t you start off by telling me a little bit about Tales From The Drift. Obviously the book was just announced, and it’s pretty freaking exciting.
Joshua: It is very exciting. I’m a huge Pacific Rim nerd. I love it, and when I went in for the meeting – I haven’t told this to anyone yet so you’re actually getting original material here– when I went in for the meeting at Legendary I didn’t know what I was going in for, but the first words out of my mouth when I sat down were “If you guys want to do more Pacific Rim comics, I’ll do it for toys.”
D: And now that’s how they’re paying you, right?
J: Nah, they are actually paying me money. I did get some toys. Not all the toys though. I still want more toys. If I do more I’m going to work that in. I want the 18-inch ones because oh-my-god they’re so cool.
But yeah, it’s set in the world of Pacific Rim. It’s very much it’s own story though, so if you just want to read an awesome story about robots fighting giant monsters you can totally go there. Also it shines new light on what you’ve seen in the movies. There might even be hints for things to come. It’s set after Tales From Year Zero but before the events of the movie.
D: So it sounds like you’re a huge fan of the film. Of course, it didn’t perform as well around here as many of us were hoping, what do you think about that?
J: I think that eventually it did [alright]. That’s the thing about great stuff. It always finds an audience, even if it didn’t at the time. That’s the great thing about Legendary is that they really believe in their work. They believe in what they’re doing and they stand behind it.
D: On that note, how does it feel to work with Legendary Comics as opposed to your traditional publishers?
J: Between the two Bobs (Napton and Schreck), like that’s 25 years of publishing experience right there, maybe even each. They have a ton of experience in comics, like Bob [Napton]’s been in comics since Image formed, and Schreck worked at Dark Horse and helped found Oni, so you definitely have these guys that really know the business and how this stuff works, so that side of it’s kind of covered. Creatively, they’re super great to work with. They love their properties, and they understand them, and they understand what’s cool about them. You get to just tell these stories that are compelling and fun and you don’t have to worry about approval or crossing over with other people’s stories because it’s one world, there’s one guy on top of that world and that guy is involved and loves everything that he’s working on. Guillermo [Del Toro] has so much passion for the franchise that he’s heavily involved and wants to make sure everything helps craft it into the property he always wanted it to be.
D: Have you been working directly with Travis [Beacham] and Guillermo in developing the book?
J: The story was actually written by Travis, and then we sat down with Guillermo and had a long conversation about the look and the feel and some of the specifics. It’s incredible, because that guy, for all the things he’s working on, had minutia level of detail of the franchise and of what he’s doing and what his plans are. It’s actually been great because you’re talking to the guy who decides as opposed to the committee who decides or the random people who don’t really have an opinion. It’s literally the guy who loves it more than anything on Earth that tells you what you need to know.
D: Stepping back a bit, I know that you loved the film, but what were your impressions of Tales From Year Zero?
J: That’s a weird question. What do you want from me? [raises voice] I though it was delightful. No, it was really good. One of the things that we talked about and one of the reasons I think they hired me is that I’ve done tons of “tie-in media”, but the stuff that I do tends not to feel like tie-in media. I really focus on how to make the story as compelling, and as important as possible. Part of doing that is about raising the stakes and part of doing that is about making the characters compelling enough to stand on their own. One of the things that we talked about, and one of the things that was important to me is that you don’t need to know anything about Pacific Rim to enjoy the comic, especially if you like giant robots or giant monsters.
D: Will we see Stacker Pentecost in the book? And how many times will he cancel the apocalypse?
J: [laughs] We did cancel the apocalypse. It was coming and I said “No, we’re good. Don’t worry about it, maybe later.” No, you might. There’ll be multiple characters from the movie showing up.
D: Obviously you’ve got quite the varied bibliography. After dealing with things like tumours, schizophrenics, murder mysteries, vampires, and more, how do you transition to writing giant robots versus monsters?
J: It’s actually all the same. It sounds funny, but it’s all about– and one of the reasons that I like Pacific Rim so much is that I tend to write about the damage that we do to ourselves. So much of the technology side of Pacific Rim is about that, right. Whether it’s literally within the drift, where you’re your own worst enemy, which we all are so it’s not science-fiction but truth, to even the ecological stuff. All those things have a grounding that’s very human and very real so it’s not that different, but you also get that part where the giant monsters fight the robots.
D: So Tales From The Drift is a standalone four issues. Is open to more afterwards?
J: I hope so. I’d love to continue.
D: And what do you hope to see from Pacific Rim 2?
J: I know like, a teeny-tiny amount about Pacific Rim 2, and it’s awesome. I think again, that Guillermo knows the story that he wants to tell, and it’s going to be so awesome.
Pacific Rim: Tales From The Drift will launch as a four-issue monthly series this November. Presented by Pacific Rim director Guillermo Del Toro, and with a story by Pacific Rim creator Travis Beacham, Tales From The Drift is written by Joshua Fialkov (The Bunker, I, Vampire, Elk’s Run) and features artwork by Marcos Marz (Batman Confidential, Blackest Night: JSA). The book will also feature Jaegers never before seen in combat, squaring off against all-new Kaiju creatures. Legendary Comics has debuted two preview pages from the upcoming book, and the both look gorgeous. Take a look below!
