Mark Interviews 1990+

Luke has found his way Home

It's been a year since I first had the pleasure of speaking with Mark Hamill and Eric Johnson about their groundbreaking project for Dark Horse, The Black Pearl. Despite the fact that they've long since finished their comic-book script (the 5th issue has recently shipped, as I write this), the two writers have kept quite busy. In addition to the release of the STAR WARS Trilogy Special Edition, and their usual mountain of work (including Mark's hectic voiceacting career), Eric and Mark have been feverishly developing the Black Pearl screenplay! I spoke with the gentlemen from Mark's California home via conference call.

Now that The Black Pearl limited series has concluded, what have some of the reactions been?

Eric Johnson:
Most of the feedback has been really positive. We didn't edit out any negative response from the letters column in the series.

Mark Hamill:
One of the most unusual responses we've gotten has been a request for the story to go on in an ongoing series -- which was never our intention, to put it mildly. The whole idea is to analyze why The Black Pearl, a one-man vigilante, wouldn't work. But we didn't kill him! He gets away in the last panel.

I was just in my local comic book store. I usually go in and sign copies that are unsigned. Every week they tell me they're still doing well for them. They were one of the stores that were glad they bought large amounts. They keep putting them out. I'm sure autographed copies at no extra charge helps, but the store owner, Bob, said to me, 'I know we'd do well with a sequel.'

That's got to be encouraging.

Mark Hamill:
So's the trade paperback. We wouldn't be doing this if we didn't do well enough in the first run to justify it.

Let's revisit Luther Drake a bit. It caught me by surprise that Luther survived at the end. The whole time it seemed like this guy was headed for a crash. I think "reclusive weirdo" isn't an unfair description, yet he manages, by going through hell, really, to become redeemable. What were you thinking about when you designed this character?

Eric Johnson::
In the incarnation in the comic book it's much different than in the screenplay. In the screenplay we wanted him more rooted in reality. But in the earlier version of the story we researched various serial killers and stuff. That was our initial impulse.

Mark Hamill:
Arthur Bremmer.

Eric Johnson:
Yeah -- Arthur Bremmer, the kind of odd loner in the crowd. But even as we were writing the comic book he changed and we gained an affection for him, I think. Now, in the current rewrite of the screenplay, he's much different than that. He's much more of a protector than a voyeur.

Mark Hamill:
The comic book to us was invaluable in terms of learning what we liked and what we didn't like, in addition to gauging the fans' reaction. The comic book took on a life of its own. As much as we tried to fit it into the real world, it still became a comic book, we were still working in a medium with panels and balloons. So this kind of cinema verite docudrama that I wanted I couldn't accomplish in a comic book, although we could make it rooted in reality with things going wrong and so forth.

We were also able to take advantage of the fact that there is no budget on what a pen and ink can draw. We didn't feel constrained by budgetary considerations the way we are with the movie version. It would be prohibitively expensive and logistically a nightmare to try to stage a gigantic rally at the end like that with thousands of people who erupt into a riot.

With the comic book I tried to figure out what set of events I could conjure up to make me believe someone would do this in real life. He can't be like you or me, because if we were at that liquor store and that happened to us, you or I would go to the police. So certain things had to be in place to make it all work. Once I figured out how he could emerge in a costume I had to work backwards from that point.

This comic was like taking a play out on the road. That's a luxury you don't even get on Broadway anymore. I've done shows out of town and I've done shows where you open them right on Broadway. There's a distinct advantage to out of town tryouts. You can't emerge full-fledged in a version that all of the creative people are satisfied with under that glare, under that spotlight. We're so grateful to Dark Horse for allowing us to "make our mistakes" without coming in and dictating what they saw. I don't think we would have gotten that anywhere else.

Eric Johnson:
They gave us complete free rein on telling this story.

Mark Hamill:
Of course, with the trade paperback, there's a lot more we wish we could change. It's not just a matter of putting tops on the girls. That alone was a real eye opener. In this country they're much more sensitive about nudity than they are about violence. I'm saying that not in a critical manner, it's just the way it is. We got much more mail about the nudity than we did about somebody getting their head blown off or a huge explosion. It's in direct contrast to the way they are in Europe. In Europe they don't like gratuitous violence, but nudity is in orange juice ads on television.

So you're saying that the nude panels are going to be covered up in the trade paperback?

Eric Johnson:
Dark Horse is calling it a "re-mastered version." It's funny. I mean, Dark Horse initially approached us on the trade paperback and told us that they wanted exposed breasts covered up so that kids could buy it and they could also get it into chain bookstores. We said, 'Yeah, we're fine with that.' In fact, once we saw the nudity in the book ourselves, we thought, mmm, you know, we could have gone the other way easily the first time around, too, so that kids could buy it. The subject matter is still adult, I think. We really didn't have a problem with the language either.

One of the more interesting letters we got was from a comic book store owner in Canada. He was thrilled when the book came in, however he obviously didn't read it, nor did he read the solicitation copy that said it was for mature audiences. On the first day they all sold out and he was thrilled. On the second day he was horrified when irate parents were returning copies. Then he goes on to say how he put them in plastic bags and put them in the "Adults Only" section and they sold out again. And he ads a P.S: 'By the way, guys, great story. I loved it!'

I took the presence of the extroverted women and so forth to be a part of the larger tapestry of insanity within the L.A. world that you guys created. There aren't just naked women here and there, there's all kinds of funky shit happening...

Mark Hamill:
That would need to be changed to "funky stuff" for the trade paperback...

Uh, right. So you couldn't have Delman's effect happen in a midwestern conservative town. For the whole tabloidization thing to happen it would have to happen in a world where everybody's thinking the way they are in your comic book.

Mark Hamill:
I always like being on firm ground as far as writing about what you know. The reason I felt emboldened to write about someone who was once involved in the adult film industry was because I worked with an actress who had been a pornographic film star. I did that on Wing Commander. So I was fascinated by the way it could happen to someone who regrets that decision and tries to get on with her life. She seemed much more well adjusted about it than, for instance, the crew, who couldn't get over it!

For the screenplay, though, the subject opens up a can of worms that I'd really rather not get into. It is, I think, a legitimate issue. But it's something that we corrected out on this latest pass with the screenplay. The fact that her back story involves her being on the run is what's important to the story, not the specifics of her being involved in pornographic films. It brought a kind of sordidness to the story that I didn't think was necessary, although I'm glad we were able to try it.

Eric Johnson:
Initially, I think, we were playing too many themes with voyeurism and what that does with a person's life. That's one of the reasons why we made that choice in the comic book. But once we had done that, I don't think either of us were comfortable with that sordid aspect of the story. I mean, like Mark says, that's not what it was about. People focused on it more than we wanted them to, because that's not the story we were telling. So in this newer version of the screenplay that element is gone.

Mark Hamill:
At one point, I guess in issue #3 in the letters page, I wrote, "Next month - a Think and Do page." What I wanted to do was put in little cutout bras and stuff for people who were upset about the nudity.

Eric Johnson:
I loved that idea!

Mark Hamill:
But it was another page of art, so they told us it didn't qualify as a letters page, that they'd have to draw it...

Eric Johnson:
Yeah, there were deadlines that it wouldn't meet and budgets and all of that kind of stuff.

Mark Hamill:
But we did a signing in Santa Monica where a lady gave us a Xeroxed page where she drew a bra on Tina - a foreshadowing of things to come. I mean, as we're talking, I'm looking at the modified Xerox pages that they've sent me. We didn't have that much bad language in it - there were probably half a dozen swear words in all five issues. 'Are you shitting me?' becomes 'Are you kidding me?' - which is fine! Initially I thought that since we're playing to adults we ought to have adults talk the way adults talk, especially someone as crude as Delman. But it doesn't change anything so far as I can see. I could get up on the soap box and say, 'The nudity was integral to the story line!' But the fact of the matter is, guys like to look at good girl art, and H.M. Baker draws great women. So having Frank have his investigation take him to a strip club - whoopee! Have your cake and eat it, too!

The trade paperback isn't that different, I don't think. But one of the exciting things from a collector's standpoint is that it makes the comic book series completely unique now. The people that were the true believers in the beginning have an added bonus...

Or a "removed bonus," so to speak...

Mark Hamill:
Yeah, there you go. But the trade paperback is going to make their books even more valuable.

Will there be anything in the trade paperback that wasn't in the series?

Mark Hamill:
We've got introductions by Bill Mumy and Peter David. Bill due to the fact that we've been friends - not drawn together as actors, but as collectors. That's when I first met him, when we were both collecting Golden Age back in the '70s or early '80s. Peter David I've known just as a friend over the years and eventually I did a little cameo for them on their Space Cases, so they owed me a favor. Fortunately, Bill was a fan of the screenplay and the comics. Of course, now he's expecting a part in the movie, now that he's written the introduction. Besides the introductions, there will be a cover gallery...

Eric Johnson:
And you were talking to Dark Horse about reproducing one of the pages of your sketches.

Mark Hamill:
Oh, that's right! I have a notebook where we laid out each page the way we saw it and we Xeroxed that and sent it off to H.M. Baker. Some of it is just, you know, neanderthal stick figure placement of the camera and the angle and so forth, and there are other pages where it was much more fully realized and closer to the finished art. I mean, nothing compared to H.M. Baker, but part of me thought that I should really show people how involved we were in the layout and the look and the angles and so forth. It's especially apparent when you produce a page side by side with the way the art turned out.

There was also some horrific stuff in there that I wouldn't want anyone to see. But it was on a spiral notebook, so I couldn't exactly rip pages out. I just Fedexed the whole notebook up to Suzanne Taylor [at Dark Horse] with the proviso that she not circulate it around the office for big laughs.

Eric Johnson:
I think readers are going to love to see something like that. Mark went through and selected a couple of pages - there's one where H.M. Baker followed it exactly, and there's another where he changed it a little bit. We told them to reproduce both of those, or to pick one. But that's the kind of thing, as a reader myself, that I would love to find in a book like that. You know, like those Gary Larson collections where he shows a lot of his old art and sketches. I can't get enough of that stuff. But we only had so many extra pages to play with, and some of them were taken up by reproducing covers and the introductions and things like that.

Mark Hamill:
And again, financial considerations kept us from beefing up the added material as much as we could. Pages from Luther's diary, original sketches of how the early artist we engaged to visualize his costume developed something that ended up really close to the actual costume... but there was only so much we could do and still stay within our budget.

Eric Johnson:
We would love to have had a nice, embossed cover or done some special, flicker effect, but we had to be realistic with how much was in the kitty to do that kind of thing.

Well, who knows? Once this becomes a blockbuster film, perhaps Dark Horse would be motivated to, say, license Graffiti to do a deluxe, leather-bound, marbleized, tipped in volume slipcased with the bound screenplay...

Eric Johnson:
Oooh, now you're talkin'!

Speaking of which, are you guys writing the screenplay on spec, or is someone waiting for it?

Mark Hamill:
The answer is yes to both of those questions. No one has driven a Brink's truck up to our house yet, but we do have people who read the comic book and really liked it. They gave us suggestions to rewrite it for the screenplay. The gamble is, if they liked the comic book that much, will they be disappointed if we give them something that's based on the comic book but is different?

There were lots of things in the comic book that I was really sorry to lose, but for financial considerations or for the fact that in the new configuration it's not motivated we just had to lose them. I have people now that are in my court and are my advocates and really want to see this thing get made.

Wow, that's encouraging. Mark, what's life been like for you recently, with the STAR WARS anniversary?

Mark Hamill:
Well, I've been juggling it with my voiceover career. It's time consuming and they've been able to consolidate shows that I owe them where I'm not able to work with the whole cast. I do my part solo - which I don't like. I like being with the whole cast. On Blues Brothers and Bruno the Kid and various other things I had to do it that way.

I didn't really have to do a lot for the reissues of the movies because they sort of have a life of their own. But I did a few things. You can't do everything that they ask of you because you just have to keep going on with what you're doing. I thought it was a nice opportunity for people to see the movies the way they should be seen. I don't know that I was real anxious to have to deal with it all over again, but you know, I remember Vertigo coming out in the movies, and Lawrence of Arabia. It's great for people who love movies - especially kids who've only seen it diminished on a TV screen. And it's great for George Lucas. He's finally going to go on and do the new ones. The last thing I did was the Royal Premiere, which STAR WARS never had in the first place. It was kind of interesting watching the movie sitting next to Prince Charles, who *chats* all through the film.

But that's it. I did some talk shows to a certain extent. It was a good opportunity for me to talk about what I'm doing now. I was thinking of it more in terms of The Black Pearl than I was for the STAR WARS movies; Dark Horse even made me a little Black Pearl button that I can wear on my lapel in case I don't get to talk about it as much as I want but obviously those movies allowed me access to do shows like Rosie O'Donnell and Conan and Tom Snyder and Oprah. And then I did a couple of things that were just for fun, like Saturday Night Live. Coming up in May, I'm playing myself on an episode of Third Rock from the Sun, which was fun. Oooh! By the way - I talked to the writers of Third Rock, Bonnie and Terry Turner. I said, 'Look, this series is set in Rutherford, Ohio. I can tell you a legitimate reason I would have been in Rutherford, Ohio, and that is, Dark Horse sent me on this tour of cities for the comic book!' So they wound up adding a scene where I'm at a signing for The Black Pearl! Dark Horse sent down a big billboard of the first cover and stacks of the book. It was perfect - it was like real life. They built this comic book store set which looked like any number of comic book stores I've been in. Once I finished the filming, which only took one 12-hour day, they asked if I could stay afterwards because a lot of the crew wanted to get autographs for their kids and stuff like that, so it was ironic, I thought. Rather than going wandering around the set and finding the various people who asked me to sign, I just went to the comic book set, sat down at the table, and they lined up! It was like I was doing a signing! Moved a lot of Black Pearls that day! (I wasn't charging, but...) It was funny because four hours earlier we had all the extras lined up doing the very same thing.

One of the things I was impressed with when I read the fifth issue was the way in which you were able to bring all of the plot threads and characters together so succinctly in the end. Was that real tough for you to do?

Mark & Eric:
YEAH!

Mark Hamill:
It was real tough to do! You start painting yourself into a corner and say, 'Oh, my God! What are we gonna do?' And sometimes you only pull it out in the last second. It's like being in school and putting off your book report until the last weekend and then you pull two marathon sessions. It always happens. It's terribly difficult. I don't know who said it, but I agree with it, 'I don't like writing. I like having written.'

Eric Johnson:
Truman Capote. And yeah, it was hard. I have gained a new respect for people who put comic books together. It was a lot of work. We wanted all five issues together to tell a story, but we wanted each single issue to tell a story as well, with a beginning, a middle, and an end, and then some sort of momentum into the next issue. I'm really proud of the series.

Mark Hamill:
What I hope people will understand is that it is not a conventional look at a costumed hero. One of the things that most people responded to that I was glad they did was the humor in it. When we originally were talking about the screenplay, when we said 'black comedy', Hollywood, at least, thought Blankman or Meteorman, which were overt comedies. We were thinking more in terms of the kind of humor that came out of movies like Dog Day Afternoon or Bonnie and Clyde - basically tragedies that have laughs in them just because of human nature and the way people behave. As the story goes on, especially in issues four and five, we really found our stride. It's got big laughs in it. But it's also, I think, touching. We couldn't be happier.

Eric Johnson:
That is one thing that surprises people - how funny it is. It surprised us that they were surprised. It's just sort of the way we are and the way we write. I think it's important for people to know - it's fun to read! You will laugh!

Dark Horse, August 27, 1997