@’s by EFFIGY writer Tim Seeley!!!
Ambush Bug here with the first of a series of interviews I plan on catching up on this week. I’ve known fellow Chicagoan, longtime writer of HACK/SLASH and REVIVAL, new go-to person at DC for Bat-related projects, and all around great guy Tim Seeley for quite a while now with the writer/artist appearing on my Reinventing Horror/Horror on the Paneled Page panels at SDCC and NYCC over the years. Tim’s got a new comic coming out from DC Vertigo called EFFIGY. It’s a fascinating and bizarre take on celebrity and society’s fascination with it. Tim was kind enough to answer a few questions about EFFIGY, which is available this week at comic shops everywhere!AMBUSH BUG (BUG): OK, for those who don't know much about EFFIGY, what's the elevator pitch you used in order to get the book made?
TIM SEELEY (TS): It's basically an examination of the modern culture of celebrity, and how close it is to religion by way of a fun, sexy, sleazy murder mystery/conspiracy thriller.
BUG: While there are definitely adult themes at play here, how do you see this book fitting into DC's Vertigo line?
TS: I think it pushes the envelope and asks questions that are uncomfortable, in the way that Vertigo books should. BUG: The story deals with fading stardom, egos, and culture's fascination with fame. What about these subjects compelled you to write this series in the first place?
TS: I spend a lot of time at Comic Conventions, and I hang out with a fair amount of 'con celebrities.' They're lives and the culture they live in always kind of fascinated me. And I've had a near lifelong distrust of religion and a dislike of reality TV so it made sense to combine all of these things into one big crime mystery that'd keep me as entertained as the audience will hopefully be.
BUG: Part of the issue is set in my home state of Ohio. Was there a reason for that?
TS: Yeah, Ohio is sort of the perfect "inbetween" place in the minds of most Americans. Plus, I wanted a place that had a history that included effigy mounds.
BUG: Tell me how you lucked upon finding Marley Zarcone as an artist?
TS: That was all Shelly Bond's brilliant idea.
BUG: As an artist yourself, do you find it helpful in communicating what you want to see on the page to your artist? TS: Not really...though if need be I can draw a sketch of what I'm thinking, and I'm a expert at googling reference after years drawing.
BUG: Some of your most notable work has been with a female protagonist. Is there a secret to writing female characters or does it just come naturally to you?
TS: The secret is probably just not to spend too much time trying to think about the differences between men and women, and just write people.
BUG: What kind of research goes into making a book like this? Does the celebrity you've achieved in comics factor in at all with themes in the book?
TS: Ha, no...my "celebrity" isn't so much a thing. But I do spend a fair amount of my life surrounded by cult movie and TV actors, so that informs a lot of my ideas.
BUG: Is EFFIGY a miniseries or an ongoing? How many issue do you have planned out so far?
TS: Ongoing! I have a good year mapped in very solidly. BUG: Horror is often a large element in your work and while EFFIGY deals a lot with celebrity, horror seems to factor in here as well with the mummified body that shows up in this first issue. How much will horror be a part of this story?
TS: As with all things I write there'll be a certain amount of fear and ickies. But, in EFFIGY it's not the point, as much as it's a consequence.
BUG: What is it about the horror genre that makes you keep coming back to it over and over again?
TS: I think I'm naturally a pretty fearful guy, whether I like to admit it or not. It goes with my anxiety , and it kind of seems to help to view and write horror as a means of therapeutic escape.
BUG: What else, at DC and otherwise, do you have coming up? TS: I have GRAYSON every month and some other stuff that'll be announced soon I'm sure!
BUG: Last chance, why should folks take a chance with EFFIGY when it is released this month?
TS: I think Effigy is a classic VERTIGO comic…it's for readers who like their comics with an edge and a new perspective on this weird ass world we live in. Also, there's the fact that it has beautiful art by Marley and awesome covers by W. Scott Forbes.
BUG: EFFIGY #1 is out this week from DC Vertigo Comics. It’s definitely worth your time to check it out!
Ambush Bug is Mark L. Miller, original @$$Hole/wordslinger/writer of wrongs/reviewer/interviewer/editor of AICN COMICS for over 13 years & AICN HORROR for 4. Follow Ambush Bug on the Twitters @Mark_L_Miller.Be sure to tell your comic shop to order his new comic PIROUETTE (out now!) from Black Mask Studios!
Proofs, co-edits & common sense provided by Sleazy G
