Wonder of Comics: Interview with July 2009 Zuda Contestant, Interrogation Control Element

This month on Zuda we have a fantastic new entry called Interrogation Control Element by Tyler James which brings a little bit of seriousness to the competition with it’s political intrigue and debate over the use of torture. The run for the coveted Zuda contract has just started but people are already talking about ICE’s great story and artwork. Tyler was kind enough to talk with me about his comic and how he came to chose the controversial subject of torture as the subject for his story.

Yeah, let’s talk about me!  I’m Tyler James, a comic book creator currently residing in Newburyport, MA, and the writer of Interrogation Control Element (ICE), involved in this month’s Zuda battle royale.  Zuda diehards may remember my comic Super Seed, which competed against your Re-Evolution in fact, back in April 2008.  Additionally, I’m the writer/artist of Over, a romantic comedy online graphic novel that debuted last month and is getting an incredible reception so far.  Over is sort of a cross between “Chasing Amy” and “Forgetting Sarah Marshall” and I think comic creators especially will enjoy it. I’m also writing another webcomic, Tears of the Dragon, a fantasy epic, which debuts next week.  When I’m not making the funny books, I work as a video game designer and content produce for a small software company, and do some teaching (comics mostly) on the side.

Now, back to Interrogation Control Element and this month’s killer Zuda comp.  ICE is a story that was inspired by a New York Times article about a guy named Deuce Martinez, the CIA interrogator who broke Al Qaeda mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammed. Like many Americans, I was ill at ease with the abuses of prisoners at Abu Ghraib, and the allegations of the use of waterboarding, rendition, and the Iraq war in general. But this article about a soft-spoken, unimposing interrogator who built a rapport with the vile terrorist and got him to talk really struck me as interesting stuff. Here’s a guy who was offered training in waterboarding and “enhanced interrogation techniques” and said no thanks. AND he was effective. He’s kind of like the anti-Jack Bauer.  I thought such a character could make for a compelling protagonist.  And as I started doing my research, it was clear there was a very powerful story to be told here.

ICE takes place in a post-GTMO world (which I expect to be near future) and tells the story of Trip Higgins, a brilliant senior interrogator for the U.S. military.  Trip was one of the most effective interrogators in Iraq and Afghanistan, a by the book kind of guy who used his wits, psychological ruses, and other legal means to consistently break prisoners and provide valuable, accurate intel to his superiors. However, as other interrogators seemed to rely more on those so called “enhanced interrogation techniques” and his superiors turned a blind eye, Trip became disillusioned with his work and left the military.

Jump forward several years and a new administration, and Trip is tapped to become the senior echo (chief of interrogators) of a new Interrogation Control Element on American soil.  Here, Trip will be training a young group of ‘gators how to break the nation’s most valuable (and in some cases deadliest) prisoners, within the bounds of the Geneva Conventions.  Some of the young interrogators will be extremely green, while others have done this job in the past and may have a different view on the effectiveness and legality of enhanced interrogation, creating conflict with Trip.

While Trip is busy getting his new house in order, so too is Fazul Shallah, a brutal extremist who, after an eight month stint in an Afghan prison, decides to eliminate the leadership of his multi-national terrorist organization and assume control himself.  Once he’s solidified his control, Shallah intends to orchestrate the most devestating terrorist attacks the world has ever seen.  Soon, uncovering information that will lead to Shallah will become Trip’s team’s number one priority, setting these two incredibly strong-willed men with diametrically opposed world views on a collision course.

Well, I suppose after a year, I forgot how effing stressful and nerve wracking a Zuda competition can be and decided to put myself through the grinder once more.  Seriously, though, I had a great experience the first go round.  While Super Seed came up short, Zuda provided the property some great exposure, and after the contest was a perfect time to lauch www.superseedcomic.com.  [By the way, I'm currently running the Poster Child storyline over there for the first time.  It's the issue that has been the biggest seller, and worth checking out.  A new page each day this month!]  I really enjoyed interacting with the fans, even those who had some pretty harsh comments.  And honestly, that Zuda contract still looks pretty good to me.  So why not give it another go?

4) You both wrote and drew your entry Super Seed but with ICE you have a new team working with you including a new artist Damian Couceiro. Can you tell us  why you decided to work with a team this time around? How was your experience like working with Damian?

A Zuda competition takes it’s toll on you.  (And all of you potential submitters just dying for a shot at Zuda probably think I’m crazy, but once you get into one, you’ll know what I’m talking about.)  Super Seed was my baby. (Pun intended.)  It’s the first comic I’ve ever taken from a germ of an idea all the way through to print.  (And three complete issues at that.)  As I did everything thing on the comic, I got to take all the praise…and all the crits.  One of the resounding take-aways from the Zuda competition was that the core idea of Super Seed is incredibly strong, but the execution could have been better.  In accessing my strengths and weaknesses as a storyteller, I decided to take a break from doing it all and just focus on writing for a while.

Putting Super Seed aside, I decided to expand my brand.  I started working on three new projects, with three different artists.  ICE was one of those projects, and as soon as I saw some samples of Damian Couceiro‘s work, I knew he’d be absolutely perfect for this story.  Luckily, he found the script I sent him compelling and was itching to take a crack at Zuda as well.

Working with Damian has been a blast.  He’s great at taking direction and delivering what I ask for him and full of ideas himself.  In most cases he nailed the layouts first time at bat, and by page 4 he completely won me over with that gorgeous montage image.  Damian was also a great sport, and went above and beyond the call for this submission.  After having my script and the first draft of the pages reviewed by editor Steven Forbes, I realized the submission needed the two page prison break scene (pages 5-6.)  That scene was originally intended to fall after the first eight pages.  Looking back now, that scene is absolutely crucial.  Not establishing the antagonist in my submission would have been submission suicide.  Thankfully, Damian was more than willing to draw an extra couple of pages, and man did he do a number on them.

While I think Damian’s inks are gorgeous and can stand on their own, I’ve noticed that unless Kwanza and co. slap an instant win tag on your submission, black and white is almost a sure fire way NOT to win a Zuda competition.  (Sad, but true.)  I was already working with Paul Little on Tears of the Dragon, and once he saw Damian’s line-work, he pretty much HAD to color it.  I think Paul did an outstanding job on colors, and the textures he used really compliment Damian’s art nicely.

Needless to say, I love this team.  (And while they may not know it yet, I’ve got another project in mind for them after ICE concludes.)

Although I wrote the script for this comic almost a year ago, I suppose the stars all aligned for me in terms of ICE dealing with an extremely hot topic.  (I swear, Dick Cheney isn’t on my marketing payroll.)  Here’s the thing about torture.  On a cerebral level, we all know it’s wrong.  But sometimes that gets cloudy when we’re caught up in the moment.  It’s kind of like the death penalty.  There are all sorts of intelligent arguments against it (it doesn’t deter crime, ends up being more costly, eye for an eye leaves the whole world blind, etc.)  But hell, hurt someone close to me and that all goes out the window and I might want to kill the SOB myself.  With the interrogation debate, most Americans believe the United States should not torture.  But then, they plop down and root for Jack Bauer shooting a guy’s wife in the leg to get him to talk.  Hell, I do.  It’s great TV.

I wanted to write this story because I saw a challenge. The fact is, MOST of the interrogators in Iraq and Afghanistan did things by the book.  They used legal means and in some cases incredibly intelligent tricks and ruses to get prisoners to talk.  Sometimes all it took was some humane treatment.  But we haven’t really seen this portrayed in film, on TV, or in comics.  So, I saw the challenge of writing a character who relies on his wits rather than force in the interrogation room as one I wanted to take on.