This week, fellow columnist Caleb Monroe and I are pleased as punch to present a wide-ranging, column-spanning interview with Jason Aaron, writer of the Vietnam War mini-series THE OTHER SIDE and the ongoing crime series SCALPED, both for Vertigo. Part 1 is right here, right now. Part 2 will run in Caleb's Making Good column on Wednesday.

THE EARLY DAYS

1) Can you tell us some about when you first decided you wanted to take a stab at writing comic books, and the steps you took to get started in that direction?

Well, considering I was a comic fan since childhood and that I also knew from an early age that I wanted to be a writer, you’d think it’d be a no-brainer that I’d pursue a career writing comics. But I never really did. I think just because I had no idea how to go about it. I grew up in a small town in Alabama, and as far as I knew, there was nobody in my neck of the woods who wrote or drew comics for a living. I assumed you had to live in New York and have a brother-in-law who was an editor to get a job writing for one of the big companies. So I just pursued every other kind of writing I could. In college, I started out majoring in journalism, then switched to English after I realized how much I hated journalism. I wrote plays, a screenplay, a couple of novels and tons of poetry. The overwhelming majority of it was totally dreadful, but still, I was always writing. I was always trying something different. And I think that definitely helped me in the long run. Eventually, I sold a few short stories and then got a job writing movie reviews. It wasn’t until I won the Marvel Comics Talent Search contest in 2002 that I ever imagined I had a shot at writing comics for a living.

2) Can you talk a little about your convention experience in those days, and are there any tips or suggestions you could share with the Scryptic Studios audience on getting the most out of a convention?

My convention experience was like that of most any other fan. I went to the Wizard World Chicago Con most every year to get books signed and go to panels. I’m a quiet guy, so I never even worked up the nerve to try and chat up editors. It’s so hard when you’re trying to break in as a writer. Artists can just whip out their portfolio, but no editor wants you coming up to them on the con floor, pitching stories. I think the best thing you can hope for is just to network a little and get some people to know your name, so when you email them ideas you’re not just some faceless entity.

3) I recently wrote a column here titled “Are You Serious?” The basic gist of it was, are you (the aspiring writers we hope to reach here) serious about wanting to write, or do you just think it would be cool to be a writer. When did you realize that you were serious about writing – that it was not enough for it to just be a hobby or a “maybe someday” kind of thing – but that it was something you had to do?

I realized one important distinction when I was in college and attended a local writer’s conference. I went to all these different panels where writers talked about their craft, but it seemed to me that the vast majority of the people attending were only interested in learning about how to get published. They all seemed convinced that their novel was the next great thing, and they just wanted to know how to get an agent and get it in print. I didn’t know much at the time, but I did know enough to realize that I wasn’t anywhere near good enough to warrant being published. I was only interested in becoming a better writer. I just figured that once I got to the point where I was actually good enough that people would pay money to read what I wrote, then the whole publishing end of things would somehow take care of itself.

4) In 2002, you won a Marvel Comics Talent Search and got to write a Wolverine story that saw print in the pages of his monthly title. What was that experience like?

It was incredibly exciting. For the contest, you had to write a short outline for an eight page Wolverine story. My first impulse was to do a fight scene or something set in a bar. But then I figured I’d go for something more offbeat and set my story on a dirt road in the middle of the woods, like the Flannery O’Connor short story “A Good Man Is Hard to Find.” I dropped my outline in a big box at Wizard World Chicago that summer and months later, I had a message on my phone from an editor at Marvel. Turns out I was about the only person whose story wasn’t a fight scene or something set in a bar. The whole experience was a huge thrill. I got to write “SNIKT” in a script, and then they sent me a check with Spider-Man on it.

5) Once it became apparent that the Wolverine story was most likely not going to lead to bigger and better things with the House of Ideas, how did you handle that, and what was your next step?

There were four winners in that contest, two writers and two artists, and none of us ever really did anything else for Marvel, so that was disappointing. I pitched lots of stuff to Marvel at the time. One of the first things I pitched was the same idea that would eventually become THE OTHER SIDE. I pitched it to Marvel as a relaunch of THE ‘NAM. I was disappointed that I couldn’t get anything else going with Marvel, but still, the whole experience encouraged me to keep plugging away. Sure, I only had eight published pages to my name, but still, for the first time ever, I felt like I could actually make a go of it as a comic book writer. I felt like I was finally good enough.

GOOD WILL PITCHING

6) We talked a little on MySpace once about how you got Will Dennis, who’s probably best known today as editor of Y: The Last Man, to let you pitch him on The Other Side. For the benefit of our readers, can you talk a little bit about that experience – both why you picked Will, and how you first approached him?

I decided to pitch THE OTHER SIDE to Will Dennis at Vertigo because he had been the editor on the Garth Ennis WAR STORIES books. I just emailed him out of the blue and told him in general what the book was about and also told him a little about myself and my interest in the Vietnam War. He basically replied, “Sounds interesting, but no thanks. War books don’t sell.”

7) Once Will gave you some version of “thanks, but no thanks,” what then? It must have taken some cojones to re-approach him at that point.

I was surprised to even get a response, so I emailed him again and pointed out how I thought THE OTHER SIDE was different from previous Vietnam War books and how it could be marketed to Vertigo readers. I already had the first issue script written at that point, so I asked him if he’d be willing to look it over. Will said I could send it to him, but he still didn’t think he could use it. This was March 2004. I was still pitching the book to every other company I could get in touch with and getting nothing but rejections. Nobody wanted to do a war book. I would send Will an email about once a month, just to remind him of the project. It was June 2004 when he emailed me and told me he would love to do the book at Vertigo.

8) What did you actually wind up sending him: I assume the full script to the first issue at least, but did you include other material like a pitch/plot synopsis?

Yeah, I sent him the first issue and then later a synopsis of the rest of the series. At that point, I’d never seen a professional pitch before, so I had no idea what I was doing really. Now I know that most pitches are about one page in length, so it was incredibly kind of Will to humor me and read my entire 40 page script.

9) What did you take away from this experience that might be helpful to Scryptic readers down the road when they are ready to pitch their dream project?

As Karen Berger later put it, I was persistent but polite through the whole process. It also helps to be extremely patient. Pestering an editor with email after email will only do you more harm than good.

UNDER THE MICROSCOPE: SCRIPT TO PAGE

Aside from Elton:  Back when I was first trying to get the ball rolling with my own writing, one of the things I most wish I had, but didn't, was an actual comic book script that I could compare to the final published comic. Since that time, I have seen a few script-to-page studies here and there and have always found them to be educational and enlightening.

Jason was kind enough to offer for Scryptic Studios readers the script to pages 2-5 of THE OTHER SIDE #1 (and the accompanying images of the finished pages). Following the script, he has included a few comments on these pages, as well. Big thanks to you, Jason, for providing this invaluable educational tool for our readers!

Page Two

Four wide panels

2.1) Private Falkner being zipped up in a body bag. He’s filthy with blood and mud and shit. A vestige of the look from Page One is frozen on his face. Operation Swift, which began on September 4, 1967, was one of the bloodiest operations of the year. Four companies of Marines would have been wiped out by the NVA were it not for the timely intervention of U.S. airpower. When the bombs actually began falling, the order had already been given to fix bayonets and the grunts on the ground were standing by for hand to hand combat. Those who’d run out of ammo had degenerated to rock-throwing. Two of the soldiers killed that day received the Congressional Medal of Honor, including a chaplain, who continued ministering to the dying, despite his wounds.

1 CAPTION A: Ambushed by a vastly superior NVA force, the Marines of Operation Swift were nearly overrun that day.

2.2) Two Marines, with rifles slung, have lifted Falkner’s body bag from a pile of body bags and are carrying it toward a waiting chopper. Heavy rain is falling. The grunts are exhausted and numb from the fighting of the last few days.

2 CAPTION A: Still, the grunts of Mike Company 3/5 managed to gather up Private Falkner’s remains and ship them back to The World…

3 GRUNT #1: The Lord giveth and the smoothbore, drop-fired Eighty-Deuce taketh away.

4 GRUNT #2: There it is.

2.3) Private Falkner’s graveside funeral. A few family members are present, sobbing. The priest reads from his Bible. The casket is draped with an American flag.

5 CAPTION A: where in his hometown of Ypsilanti, Michigan, 30 miles outside of Detroit…

6 CAPTION A: a million miles away from the ‘Nam…

7 CAPTION A: the lucky shitbird was laid to rest.

2.4) Nineteen-year-old Alabama farmboy Bill Everette gets his draft letter. We’re looking at his hand, squeezing the letter. The knuckles are bruised and bloody. Beyond the hand, we see the mailbox, dented on the side where he punched it. The mailbox is labeled “Everette.”

8 CAPTION A: The next day, I got a letter from My Uncle.

9 CAPTION A: Seems LBJ was hopin’ I could pick up where the late Private Falkner had left off.

10 CAPTION A: Welcome to the world of zero slack.

11 EVERETTE: Fuck me.

Page Three

Five panels

3.1) Establishing shot of the Everette family house in rural Alabama. It’s a small farmhouse with a rusty tin roof. Weed-grown fields stretch into the distance. Pick-up truck sits in the driveway. In the side yard a junk car sits up on cinder blocks, half-covered with kudzu. Laundry hangs on the clothesline. The whole Everette family (mom, dad, Bill and Bill’s little brother) are standing on the front porch, as Bill leaves home for boot camp. A mangy looking dog wallows in the dirt.

1 CAPTION A: Russellville, Alabama is a piss-ant town no bigger than gnat shit.

2 CAPTION A: We got four or five bonafide sluts in town, and when I got my notice I screwed every one of ‘em, just prayin’ I’d get VD or some shit.

3.2) Close-up of Bill Everette’s mom, crying her eyes out.

3 CAPTION A: Then the night before my physical, I got stinkin’ ass drunk and puked on myself.

4 CAPTION A: I even told their doctor I was queer as all get-out and was gonna fuck every boy’s ass I could get my hands on.

5 MOM: Oh Jesus, help me! Not my Billy! Jesus, don’t take my Billy!

3.3) Close-up of Bill’s dad, dry-eyed and serious.

6 CAPTION A: But they still took me.

7 DAD: Keep The Lord first, boy. He’ll help ya kill those Commie bastards an’ make us all proud.

3.4) Close-up of Bill’s little brother, looking up fearfully, not quite understanding.

8 CAPTION A: My little brother asked where I was going.

9 CAPTION A: “Probably Vietnam,” I said.

10 LIL’ BROTHER: Bye, Bill.

3.5) Bill Everette stands on the front steps with a duffel bag in one hand and his draft notice in the other. He’s a lanky teenage farmboy with a mass of curly brown hair.

11 CAPTION A: “Where’s that?” he wanted to know.

12 EVERETTE (quietly): I got no fucking idea, bud.

Page Four

4.1) A mangrove swamp in South Vietnam. Dead Viet Cong have been buried in shallow graves. A withered hand pokes up in one spot. A bloated, upturned face and open mouth in another spot. The mouth is filled with flies.

1 CAPTION B: My country is a graveyard.

2 CAPTION B: In the mangrove swamps of the Mekong Delta, where the graves are shallow and unmarked…

4.2) Deep in the jungle, along the Ho Chi Minh trail, a squad of NVA have been caught in a blast of napalm and burned to a crisp. We’re at ground level, looking into the charred face of a dead soldier. He’s lying on his side, staring straight at us with empty eye sockets. His lips are burned away, so he grins a morbid grin. Beyond him, the trees are black and smoldering, and the other NVA are all scattered, frozen in various poses of fright and surprise, their bodies covered with a viscous black magma resembling tar. Partially cloaked in shadow, a tiger drags away one of the corpses.

3 CAPTION B: In the jungle along the Strategic Trail, where the fighter planes drop barrels of fire…

4.3) A village has been bombed. Smoking craters dot the ground. Thatched huts are in flames. Dead villagers lie half-submerged in the water of the rice paddies. A naked child stands on the paddy dyke, wailing.

4 CAPTION B: In the torture chambers of the Saigon gangsters, in the tangled wire encircling our enemy’s bases, in the filthy streets of the occupied hamlets…

5 CAPTION B: And even in our own rice paddies…

6 CAPTION B: My brothers and sisters lie dead.

4.4) Vo Dai, a 19-year-old Vietnamese farmboy, is praying at the altar of his ancestors. We see his hands holding a cluster of long incense sticks, trailing smoke. The altar sits on the dirt floor of the Vo family’s bamboo hooch. The earthen floor is as hard and smooth as concrete. Inside a small, wooden cabinet sits an image of the Buddha surrounded by candles, flowers and old black and white photographs of Vo Dai’s ancestors (a few of the photos show men and women brandishing guns).

7 CAPTION B: At the altar of my ancestors, I pray that my own death in the war for liberation might exemplify a soldier’s dauntless heart…

8 CAPTION B: That I can fight until the last breath, then drop my wasted body on the battlefield like trash…

9 CAPTION B: And be at peace.

Page Five

5.1) The Nam Phong village, near Hanoi: a collection of rice paddies and thatch huts. In the center of the village sits a military transport truck with a red star on the door. The back of the truck is filled with young Vietnamese men carrying rifles and AK-47s. An NVA propaganda minister with a bullhorn stands nearby, speaking to the villagers working in the rice fields and emerging from the huts. An emaciated dog rolls in the dust.

1 CAPTION B: North Vietnam. The village of Nam Phong, near Hanoi. My village.

2 NVA RECRUITER: Vietnam is one! North and South are of the same family!

3A NVA RECRUITER: With our Southern compatriots fighting for their liberation against the Saigon imperialists and their puppet army men…

3B NVA RECRUITER: how can you deny your duty?

5.2) Close-up Vo Dai’s mother, sad but proud. Her teeth are stained reddish-black from chewing betel nut.

4 CAPTION B: I tell my mother to think of me as dead, but to not be sad.

5A MOTHER: No mother ever wants to lose her son. But if you must die, die gloriously.

5B MOTHER: And I will see you again in the next life.

5.3) Close-up of Vo Dai’s tiny father, standing with the aid of a cane, sternly handing over a gold pocket watch.

6 CAPTION B: My father gives me his most honored possession: the gold watch he took off the body of a French soldier after the victory at Dien Bien Phu.

7 FATHER: Do not disgrace us, Dai. Choke the villages of America with the blood of its sons. That is all I ask.

5.4) Close-up of the NVA propaganda minister, yelling fervently.

8 CAPTION B: My name is Vo Binh Dai, son of farmers, son of soldiers.

9 CAPTION B: Now I am ready.

10A NVA RECRUITER: In the present state of blood and fire, the People’s Army of Vietnam requires your commitment!

10B NVA RECRUITER: Who here is willing to fight and die for the glory of the revolution?

5.5) Vo Dai presents himself to the NVA recruiter. He’s dressed in simple black pajama-style clothes and rubber sandals, with a haversack thrown over his shoulder.

11 VO DAI: I am.

"I think the best thing about this opening is that it manages to lay out the setting, the time period, the two main characters and the obvious conflict, all in one fell swoop. Other than the supernatural element that surfaces later, you have the whole book right there in the first five pages. I also like the symmetry of the two sets of pages. You have the open-mouth expression of the dead American soldier in panel 2.1 and a similar expression on a dead Viet Cong in panel 4.1. You have the grunts dragging a dead body in panel 2.2 and a tiger dragging a dead body in panel 4.2. And you have a close-up of one main character’s hands in 2.4 and of the other main character’s hands in 4.4."

KANSAS CITY

Jason Aaaron (right) and some guy named Tony that used to draw zombies a lot

This area is also home to artist Jeremy Haun, inker and writer Ande Parks, writer Jai Nitz, upcoming writer Seth Peck, writer Kelly Sue DeConnick and artist Steven Sanders, as well as comic vets like Bruce Jones and Richard Corben. I had no idea there were so many comic book creators around town when I moved here six years ago. It’s an incredible resource to have, and I’d love to work with some of these guys in the future.

Thank you, Jason!

Be sure to visit Caleb's Making Good column tomorrow for part two of Jason Aaron: The Deluxe Interview!

Elton Pruitt writes comic books in the bustling metropolis of Little Rock. His first published story will appear in Sequential Suicide, due in early 2007. He hasn't smoked a cigarette in exactly two years as of January 1, 2007! And if you visit him in EltonSpace, he'll be delighted – particularly if you subscribe to his blog!