C2E2 2013: Steve Horton on AMALA’S BLADE

Dark Horse Comics has had an amazing year so far with many new series catching fans’ eyes, and perhaps most intriguing of them all is Amala’s Blade. A four-issue mini-series from writer Steve Horton and artist Michael Dialnyas, the book is off and running in pretty unique territory, and I was lucky enough to grab some time with Horton last Friday at C2E2 in Chicago.

22080Matt Santori: Congratulations on the launch of the mini-series, Steve! The genre mash-up in Amala’s Blade is pretty spectacular, from cyborg to steampunk to an almost Yojimbo type storytelling. What is it about each genre that interested you and you felt would combine so well?

Steve Horton: Well, I was reading Wikipedia one day, and sometimes I click on the random articles for story ideas. Kind of like how Harlan Ellison would say, “Give me two words and I’ll write a story about them.” I thought, I could do that. So, I was reading about the Dalai Lama, and how they choose this person at birth. What if that happened and the kid found out about it — that they were going to be taken from their parents, was terrified, and ran away? What would happen then? So, that’s how the story started.

Amala was chosen to lead her people, to prevent war from happening. When she was eight years old, she overheard that they were going to take her away from her parents, and she ran. It was thought that she was kidnapped, both sides blamed the other, and they started the war. So, she’s responsible for a twenty year war. She decided to become a sword-fighter instead, and been making her way ever since.

22079MSG: Will we see any of the politics behind the civil war between Modifers and Purifiers play out in the mini-series?

SH: Yes. There has always been this ideology that split people apart in this country called Naamaron. There are people that liked technology and worshipped it as a god, and implanted it throughout their bodies. There are all these others which were “back to the land” type people. And they’ve never gotten along well and there was an uneasy cold war for many years. This spiritual leader was supposed to come along, bring them all together, help them live together as one, and get over all their differences. But it didn’t work out. They split into separate halves of the same country, put this big neutral zone in-between them, and started a twenty-year war — which is just now ending at the time of the story.

They’re divided by ideology, but they’re really the same people. They just don’t realize it yet.

MSG: So, how much of the past twenty years will we be seeing in these initial four chapters?

SH: Well, I did ten pages to pitch the series to Dark Horse and the artist, Mike Dialnyas, drew the prologue. But once we found out we were going to be in Dark Horse Presents, the ten page prologue wasn’t going to fit anymore. It had to be three parts, so we chucked it. We’re going to weave the prologue into this main story now, through flashbacks and dialogue, and will be including that as an extra in the trade paperback.

So, we did the prologue, a stand-alone story about pirates for Dark Horse Presents, and we jumped into the mini-series after that.

22082MSG: One of the things from the DHP story I really loved was the cyborg monkey Amala kills, and that he reappears as a ghost in the first issue was fantastic. This idea of ghosts haunting their assassin has never quite been so funny before! What inspired you to take a more humorous approach to the character and story of Amala’s Blade?

SH: I like The Princess Bride and things like that. I like to have a lot of humor in my fantasy and sci-fi, instead of the really serious stuff. I kind of have to include that when I write.

It’s funny that you mention the monkey. I had done some signings for the pirate story and heard, “I loved the monkey! I can’t believe you killed him on the first page!”  And Michael really loved drawing the monkey, so I thought, why not bring him back as a ghost? And he’s been following Amala around ever since.

MSG: How did you come to collaborate with Michael Dialnyas on Amala?

SH: I did a web comic for a short time called Spinning to Infinity. It was one-page, self-contained stories with a different artist every day that I did for about a year. I found artists by looking at anthologies that had been published and one of them was called PopGun, from Image Comics. I emailed a bunch of artists from there that I liked, and he did a page for me about the Revolutionary War.

When I was going to do Amala’s Blade, the original artist dropped out before we had a chance to get going. I contacted Michael, since he was one of the best artists I’d worked with on the web comic. He was free, so we did an entire prologue story and sent it all to Chris Warner at Dark Horse — who I had been pitching to for about a year unsuccessfully. He liked it, and everything snowballed from there!

22081MSG: Clearly, one of the hot topics in comics today is the female-led book, and Amala is certainly a stand-out character among female leads. What do you feel she has to contribute to the fantasy genre in terms of gender expectations in comics today?

SH: I have no interest in writing stories that have female lead characters who are sex symbols, or in chain-mail bikinis, or who stick their butts out on the covers. That’s not me, and that’s not the kind of story I think a woman would like. They’re kind of male power fantasies, and I have no interest in writing those kinds of stories.

If I’m going to write a story with a female lead, I want her to be true-to-life and believable — look and act how I think a female sword fighter really would look and act. In the world of Amala, there are girls and guys who do all kinds of jobs and careers. She meets a bard in the second issue who is a girl, has a big hat, and gets in trouble with the bartender.

I really like the story because there aren’t a lot of other books on the stands like it. I’ve heard from many women comic book reviewers and fans that I’ve signed books for. It’s almost universal that they say, “This is really cool. I want more books like this.” As long as people like it, I’ll keep doing it!

MSG: Any other teases or spoilers you can share with the Comicosity audience?

SH: We did a print for C2E2 that has these giant mechanical worms in the background. One shows up in issue #3 and it’s going to be really surprising what happens with that. It’s not really what you’d expect. She doesn’t kill it — I’ll spoil it that way. She can’t physically do it, so she has to find another solution.

We’re going to do another Amala mini-series from Dark Horse later in the year. Things are looking good. We’ll definitely be doing a trade paperback of this series in January. So people who have been waiting for the trade can buy the book then.

Amala’s Blade #2 from Dark Horse Comics hits comic book shops on May 29, 2013.

 

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