Jonathan Hennessey’s passion for American history is almost infectious. Shortly after our conversation I felt like watching 1776 or even playing some Assassin’s Creed III. His published works to date have been made up of graphic novel/history textbook hybrids, such as The United States Constitution: A Graphic Novel Adaptation and The Comic Book Story of Beer. Yes, beer! Now, Hennessey enters the realm of fictional storytelling with his new series, the sci-fi epic Epochalypse, from Legendary Comics.
Six hundred years have collapsed into one time and space. Whole societies from the past and present are forced to co-exist in a single dystopian civilization. In an effort to maintain order and restore the timeline, government “Resynchronization Officers” seek out “anachronisms,” items from the future that threaten the laws of time.
One officer in particular rises up to hunt down the criminal dealer, The Salesman, and the elusive scientist Dr. Tomorrow. Standing in his way: shadowy agencies, rebel militias, and his own forbidden desires.
Before we get to Epochalypse, I want to talk about you. You describe yourself as “American history is my muse.” How and where did your love for American history begin?
Jonathan: I will admit I didn’t always love it. I was raised in Massachusetts and [although] I was never in the military myself, I was born on an army base and my father was in the service for a pretty good chunk of my life. So I was just sort of surrounded by it. I remember having little 4th of July parades in the condo complex where my parents lived, wearing those little tricorn hats and pretend muskets.
But it gets so in your face when you live in Massachusetts, that it’s just something you get bored of. So I was sort of not interested in it for a long time. And then in my twenties, I became a sort of “born again” American history geek, I would say. I was riding a bicycle … I would say cross-country [but] it wasn’t quite that far, I started in Massachusetts up to Montreal and down to Texas [in Austin] where I lived for several years. Along the way, I went with a buddy of mine, and we were coming back [from Canada], on the New York stateside of Lake Champlain. And we kept running into these John Brown sites. John Brown, being the guy in the 1850s, he was this crazy, sort of radical abolitionist. Terrorist, really.
I remember him!
Jonathan: He wanted to incite a slave uprising. And he wanted all slaves to rise up and kill their masters, and it was gonna be his job to start it and he was going to hand out weapons. He was gonna go through Virginia handing out like, haldberds and really horrible spear-like weapons. And we just kept running into John Brown sites, [even] way up the Canadian border. And then, where he tried his ill-fated attempt to have his slave uprising, which was in Harper’s Ferry, West Virginia, we were camping there and close to that was the battlefield for the Battle of Antietam. We were camping in the swamp, like not even in the camp ground, we were sort of pushed off the trail we were biking on, and it was just spooky. And I couldn’t stop thinking about John Brown. I wouldn’t say I had a supernatural experience that night, but … there was something in the air. After that I couldn’t stop. It just got sort of reborn in me.
You use the comic book medium in novel ways. You’ve adapted the Gettysburg Address, the United States Constitution, and even the history of beer into a graphic novel format. Now, you’re currently working on The Comic Book Guide to the USA. What is it about comic books that you’re attracted to? What do you like doing in comic books that you don’t want to do in other ways?
Jonathan: I love prose literature, but I think we’re very visual animals for the most part. I know I’m very visual, but I cannot draw to save my life. I’ve tried, I’ve taken instructions, it’s not gonna happen.
Me too.
Jonathan: I would if I could! And being able to hand off your writing to an illustrator and see that person come up with something is so gratifying. It’s not that it’s easy, [but] if you were making a film you’d have to hire a whole crew, and it would be tons of money, so it’s just so gratifying to take ideas that you want to express visually, and [comic books are] a great way to do it. But also I think it’s a great way of clarifying without simplifying. It’s an old, shop-worn idea, but a picture is worth a thousand words. You can make a lot of head way, narratively with pictures and words, that you can’t get with just one or the other alone.
What led you to Epochalypse? What made you want to dive in fiction, and what influenced Epochalypse?
Jonathan: It’s interesting that you asked that. I never set out to be a writer of nonfiction, actually. These other projects were born out of me trying to shop Epochalypse around insanely. Epochalypse in 2006 was developed enough where I was sending it around to editors trying to get it going, and it was close enough to where people were interested but nobody wanted to pull the trigger. But there were people interested in doing nonfiction. There were people who asked me, “Well there’s nothing I can do with this crazy time-travel story, but what other ideas do you have? What other ideas do you have that the book publishing industry might be interested in?” And so the nonfiction book became this kind of strange interlude, unexpected but very enriching and very rewarding. It was done sort of parallel trying to launch Epochalypse.
How did you choose a character like Johannes to lead Epochalypse? You have 600 years of human history colliding, I imagine it’s difficult to pick just one. What led you to pick him? And what do you think is making Johannes tick?
Jonathan: I picked Johannes because I found myself really interested in an overlooked chapter in American history, which is the history of the Dutch colony. When the old New York was really old New Amsterdam. I’ve lived in New York City and anybody who lives in the east coast, and arguably anybody who lives in America, lives in the shadow of New York City. But New York is such a hustling, bustling place … [in cities like] Boston or Philadelphia, the history comes first. In New York, it’s not even second or third. It’s a very distant afterthought.
But I was really intrigued. How was it that the Dutch were the ones who started things here? We tend to forget that the Netherlands were great merchant exploratory power when the empire was at its height. And also, because it’s an overlooked period [we have forgotten that] the Dutch values really did help make America, America. The Dutch was one of the only really middle class countries in Europe, particularly at the time. It didn’t have a lot of nobility, it was sort of a model republic for the United States. It’s a civilization that I’m very interested in, and they were famous for their tolerance. Most people forget that the pilgrims actually moved to the Netherlands first and tried to have a go at it before they came to Plymouth.
I think I remember reading that in school, but I admit I forgot.
Jonathan: Yeah! So, Johannes came out of that for me. And in some ways I describe Johannes as a sort of anti-Batman. And I say that because, one of the things that’s motivating him as we’ll see in Issue #2 before he gets displaced from history, he witnesses the massacre of his whole family. He comes into the year 1951, along with all the people from the past and the future. Most people want to go back to where they came from. He hears that there is this mysterious new government that promises that [they] can undo what has been done and it needs people to help it, and in exchange the people who help the government restore history will be allowed to go anywhere in history they want.
Epochalypse has a distinct vision of time travel problems as paradoxes, and I think this is another bone that I have to pick with time-travel in general: I think we humans have such vanity for ourselves and our own role in the history of the universe. Like when we imagine if we [were to] go back in time and kill our grandmother or something like that, like something that trivial can really throw the whole universe off, it’s silly to me. So in Epochalypse, the only paradox in the universe wouldn’t be able to just absorb, would be some kind of event that would have huge consequences for mass or energy. Not some trivial human event. So Johannes has been told that he will be the one to go back in time and save his family. And I say that he’s an anti-Batman because witnessing the violent death of his loved ones doesn’t make him this dark person bent on revenge. It sort of awakens in him a compassion for he suffering that other people have had and the desire to alleviate that.
You seem to be exploring the more darker corners of human history, especially the realities of colonial/native relations. Coincidentally, Thanksgiving is just around the corner. How do you intend to explore the lesser known and grim realities that have unfortunately happened and tend to be swept under the rug?
Jonathan: In the case of the Native American response to this fictional universe that I’ve created is a very specific one. Because, since the event called the Incongruity has not picked and chosen people carefully. I mean, I as a storyteller have, but I imagine that the event was not discriminating. And so, in this post-Incongruity world, I think there’s actually many more living Native Americans than there would have been had history played out the way it’s supposed to. So the Native American community in this world, which we will begin to see through a character who is introduced in Issue #3, are among several communities in this world who maybe don’t have a vented interest in history going back the way that it was, and may oppose the Resyncronizers and challenge them in important ways.
The art style of Epochalypse has a sort of hyper-realism to it. Yes, it’s a comic book, but there’s a hefty amount of detail. What dictated this style? What discussions did you have with your artist Shane Davis?
Jonathan: The number one thing that I would say is that the things from the future have to really stand out from the past. We’re looking through the eyes of mostly people from the past, looking at what they imagine things from the future should look like. And so, there was a big stylistic choice to go with things that look slightly paleo-futuristic, a vision of a future that did not happen. But that’s not just a mere stylistic choice just to be cute. We will learn as the series goes on that there is a very specific, and possibly sinister reason for things looking the way they do.
I know Epochalype just started, but after the series, what are you looking to tackle next? Would you ever want to write an established character? I imagine you’d be right at home with something like Assassin’s Creed.
Jonathan: [laughs] Right? I would be overjoyed to work on a license character by somebody else. And [because] it’s very important to me, I do plan to continue nonfiction graphic novels as well. I’m exploring some other ideas for that too. It’s interesting to take common things, like beer for example, and you start to peek under the covers and you begin to see how strange history is and how unexpected things influence the present. Like in the History of Beer for example, the early Catholic church came up that I did not expect to see, and things like the Black Death, and how the Black Death helped give rise to the modern period in some strange ways, and how it all had to do with beer!
What ultimately is Epochalypse about at its heart? More than just history colliding into one time and space. What do you want Epochalypse to reflect on the here and now?
Jonathan: The big thematic question at the center of Epochalypse is the question of history itself. As the series go on, the characters will begin to have reason to question themselves. Their task is to save history. Things will happen along the way that will sort of make them question, “Is history worth saving?” Or, if destiny hands you a big reset button for the universe, would it be worth gambling on a fresh start?
From Legendary Comics, Epochalypse #1 is available on comic shelves now.
You can keep up with Jonathan Hennessey through his website.
