Post by goldenfist on Mar 18, 2008 12:50:01 GMT -5
Here's an interview with Matt Fraction on Thor Legends of Asgard.
IGN Comics: What's the general premise behind Tales of Asgard?
Matt Fraction: Basically, I just got harassed by Warren Simons, the editor of Thor, about doing my own Thor book. I just came up with some ideas and threw them at him. Patrick Zircher had an opening in his schedule, and Warren was looking for a new book for him to do. Warren knew I had a fondness for Thor and that I wanted to take a stab at it, so he suggested Patrick and I do some Thor stories together. That's the background behind it. So I went back and looked at the Norse myths and the actual Norse sagas and built my stories from there.
media.comics.ign.com/media/142/14241380/img_5367156.html
media.comics.ign.com/media/142/14241380/img_5367158.html
media.comics.ign.com/media/142/14241380/img_5367161.html
IGN Comics: What we're hearing so far is that the series deals with the past, present, and future of Thor. Can you clarify what that means?
Fraction: Yeah. It's really out-of-continuity, all about the cyclical, "the more things change the more they stay the same" nature of the Norse myths. Ragnarok happened, a few people survived and repopulated the world, and the whole cycle began again. We're looking at these same stories through different eras, with different looks and different experiences and different ways of looking at it that we've never seen before.
All of this actually predates Thor in a way. One of the stories is about an angry and petulant teenager, sort of a brutal Thor who is so disconnected from his humanity that Odin cursed him with a human life.
media.comics.ign.com/media/142/14241380/img_5367150.html
IGN Comics: Does that mean we're going to see a new take on Thor merging with his human host, Dr. Donald Blake?
Fraction: Well, it's more the lead up to that, the cause for him being cast down and what kind of person he was to earn that wrath from Odin.
IGN Comics: Are you approaching the book as a three-issue mini-series or more as an interconnected series of one-shots?
Fraction: It's a connected series of one-shots – three separate stories that relate, rather than one story broken into three parts.
IGN Comics: You said the story is more or less out of continuity, but will the future portion play at all into what J. Michael Straczynski is doing in his Thor book?
Fraction: No, no. These are evergreen stories that aren't reliant on any kind of continuity. They don't step on anyone's toes or anyone's plans or anything like that. Just Thor stories.
IGN Comics: Would you say this is a good starting point for someone that isn't too familiar with the Marvel Thor but might want to get into the comics?
Fraction: Yeah, I think so. I think it's a good taste of epic, mythological power in all its scope and scale. It's continuity-free and all that. These are the types of stories that have been told for thousands of years, you know?
IGN Comics: Comparing Thor to some of the other characters you've been writing at Marvel lately, like Punisher and Iron Fist, he's quite a bit less grounded and definitely not a street-level type of hero. Do you find Thor to be out of your comfort zone at all and more challenging to write?
Fraction: I was never very comfortable with the sort of faux-Shakespearian dialogue, you know? So the solution is to just not write it. I think it reads very terribly and stiffly and can be a real turn-off to some people. So, no, you just sort of look at the character and find out who they are. Then you write what you know and go from there. At the end of the day the character remains. Ultimately what the stories are about are the characters.
media.comics.ign.com/media/142/14241380/img_5367152.html
IGN Comics: How are you trying to approach the dialogue? I know when JMS started writing Thor he looked to books like Lord of the Rings, where the dialogue is old-fashioned but not necessarily so goofy.
Fraction: Yeah, old-fashioned is the way to describe it. I'm kind of writing the book from a very angry place. Thor doesn't speak much. When he does it tends to be in very short sentences. The rest of the gods have a very proper, old-fashioned way of kings type of speech. Thor spends the series very filled with rage and doesn't say much at all. Old-fashioned is the way to put it, without being stilted.
IGN Comics: Are there any definitive Thor runs that you look to while your writing Tales of Asgard?
Fraction: Walt Simonson's stuff. The original Stand and Jack run – specifically the second and third Essential trades are just terrific. The Eternals Saga that Ralph Macchio and Keith Pollard did is just fantastic. But, really, the original Stan and Jack stuff is the biggest inspiration. It's just super-duper, and actually some of the best Kirby comics out there.
IGN Comics: What's your impression of Zircher's art so far?
Fraction: It's beautiful. You've never seen a Thor comic like this before. It's just breathtakingly great. I had sort of an idea of how I wanted to write the book and how I wanted to write the characters, and I looked at some of Patrick's work on Terror, Inc. I knew it would be big, colossal, epic comics. I've never seen anything like it before, and I can't wait to unleash it on the world.
IGN Comics: What's the general premise behind Tales of Asgard?
Matt Fraction: Basically, I just got harassed by Warren Simons, the editor of Thor, about doing my own Thor book. I just came up with some ideas and threw them at him. Patrick Zircher had an opening in his schedule, and Warren was looking for a new book for him to do. Warren knew I had a fondness for Thor and that I wanted to take a stab at it, so he suggested Patrick and I do some Thor stories together. That's the background behind it. So I went back and looked at the Norse myths and the actual Norse sagas and built my stories from there.
media.comics.ign.com/media/142/14241380/img_5367156.html
media.comics.ign.com/media/142/14241380/img_5367158.html
media.comics.ign.com/media/142/14241380/img_5367161.html
IGN Comics: What we're hearing so far is that the series deals with the past, present, and future of Thor. Can you clarify what that means?
Fraction: Yeah. It's really out-of-continuity, all about the cyclical, "the more things change the more they stay the same" nature of the Norse myths. Ragnarok happened, a few people survived and repopulated the world, and the whole cycle began again. We're looking at these same stories through different eras, with different looks and different experiences and different ways of looking at it that we've never seen before.
All of this actually predates Thor in a way. One of the stories is about an angry and petulant teenager, sort of a brutal Thor who is so disconnected from his humanity that Odin cursed him with a human life.
media.comics.ign.com/media/142/14241380/img_5367150.html
IGN Comics: Does that mean we're going to see a new take on Thor merging with his human host, Dr. Donald Blake?
Fraction: Well, it's more the lead up to that, the cause for him being cast down and what kind of person he was to earn that wrath from Odin.
IGN Comics: Are you approaching the book as a three-issue mini-series or more as an interconnected series of one-shots?
Fraction: It's a connected series of one-shots – three separate stories that relate, rather than one story broken into three parts.
IGN Comics: You said the story is more or less out of continuity, but will the future portion play at all into what J. Michael Straczynski is doing in his Thor book?
Fraction: No, no. These are evergreen stories that aren't reliant on any kind of continuity. They don't step on anyone's toes or anyone's plans or anything like that. Just Thor stories.
IGN Comics: Would you say this is a good starting point for someone that isn't too familiar with the Marvel Thor but might want to get into the comics?
Fraction: Yeah, I think so. I think it's a good taste of epic, mythological power in all its scope and scale. It's continuity-free and all that. These are the types of stories that have been told for thousands of years, you know?
IGN Comics: Comparing Thor to some of the other characters you've been writing at Marvel lately, like Punisher and Iron Fist, he's quite a bit less grounded and definitely not a street-level type of hero. Do you find Thor to be out of your comfort zone at all and more challenging to write?
Fraction: I was never very comfortable with the sort of faux-Shakespearian dialogue, you know? So the solution is to just not write it. I think it reads very terribly and stiffly and can be a real turn-off to some people. So, no, you just sort of look at the character and find out who they are. Then you write what you know and go from there. At the end of the day the character remains. Ultimately what the stories are about are the characters.
media.comics.ign.com/media/142/14241380/img_5367152.html
IGN Comics: How are you trying to approach the dialogue? I know when JMS started writing Thor he looked to books like Lord of the Rings, where the dialogue is old-fashioned but not necessarily so goofy.
Fraction: Yeah, old-fashioned is the way to describe it. I'm kind of writing the book from a very angry place. Thor doesn't speak much. When he does it tends to be in very short sentences. The rest of the gods have a very proper, old-fashioned way of kings type of speech. Thor spends the series very filled with rage and doesn't say much at all. Old-fashioned is the way to put it, without being stilted.
IGN Comics: Are there any definitive Thor runs that you look to while your writing Tales of Asgard?
Fraction: Walt Simonson's stuff. The original Stand and Jack run – specifically the second and third Essential trades are just terrific. The Eternals Saga that Ralph Macchio and Keith Pollard did is just fantastic. But, really, the original Stan and Jack stuff is the biggest inspiration. It's just super-duper, and actually some of the best Kirby comics out there.
IGN Comics: What's your impression of Zircher's art so far?
Fraction: It's beautiful. You've never seen a Thor comic like this before. It's just breathtakingly great. I had sort of an idea of how I wanted to write the book and how I wanted to write the characters, and I looked at some of Patrick's work on Terror, Inc. I knew it would be big, colossal, epic comics. I've never seen anything like it before, and I can't wait to unleash it on the world.