Art Feature

On the comic book side of writing
by Bruce Rodgers

Like a lot of kids, particularly males, Jason Aaron got into comics early on. “I’ve loved reading them since I was a kid but I wasn’t planning on a writing career,” he said.

The Other Side by Jason Aaron, and published by Vertigo/DC Comics, will be released the summer of 2006.

Aaron is referring to writing comics. He already writes. Aaron, a Kansas City resident, is one of eKC online’s film critics, writing mainly about new DVD releases. But a couple of things happened to Aaron beyond just his love of comics that led him to comic book writing.

One was knowing his late cousin, writer Gustav Hasford. “Gus was an eccentric guy to say the least, “ Aaron told Dave Richards, staff writer for Comic Book Resources (CBR) in February.

“Unfortunately, he’s probably best known for having stolen 748 library books from libraries across the country. Gus tried to say they were merely ‘overdue,’ but the judge wouldn’t buy it.”

Hasford got a few months in the county jail for his “collection” and the incident made national news. “Beyond that,” Aaron continued, “Gus was simply one of the finest writers to ever tackle the Vietnam War in fiction.”

Hasford’s book The Short-Timers was the basis of Stanley Kubrick’s 1987 film Full Metal Jacket. Hasford was in Vietnam with the First Marine Division ISO Snuffles (1967-68), combat correspondents. He wrote a sequel to The Short-Timers titled The Phantom Blooper and a third novel, A Gypsy Good Time. All three books are out of print, something Aaron is fighting against on a web site he built, www.gustavhasford.com. Hasford died in 1993 on the island of Ithaca, Greece.

“I never go to know him as well as I would’ve have like,” Aaron told Richards, “even though he was one of the reasons I aspired to be a writer.”

The other thing that nudged Aaron into comic book writing was winning the Marvel Talent Search in 2002 and seeing his work in the pages of Wolverine.

“Winning the contest gave me the courage to keep plugging away,” said Aaron. That and his polite persistent in trying to get Will Dennis, an editor at Vertigo, to read his work The Other Side, which Aaron started working on the same year he won the Talent Search.

Gustav Hasford shown here on the set of Full Metal Jacket, a film by Stanley Kubrick and based on the book The Short-Timers by Hasford. (photo courtesy Jason Aaron)

It paid off. The Other Side is to be published by Vertigo/DC Comics. The five-part series, with a For Mature Readers imprint, will be released in July or August this year, over five months, for worldwide distribution. Then, the series will be packaged as a trade paperback. Critically acclaimed illustrator Cameron Stewart, best known for his work on Catwoman, will do the art for The Other Side.

The book follows two soldiers on opposite sides in the Vietnam War, Marine Pvt. Bill Everette and Vo Dai. “The story begins with their respective training and ends with their brief confrontation during the bloody siege of Khe Sanh,” Aaron said to Richards of CBR.

The book has surreal elements said Aaron. “What you get is really the same type of archetypal hell descent we’ve seen in everything from Beowulf to Apocalypse Now, except here we have two men in direct opposition to one another, each undertaking his own heroic quest.”

Aaron likes the collaborative effort in creating a comic book. “It’s like three people in a room putting out a comic. You don’t have to deal with the bureaucracy…so refreshing.”

He said comics can do more than a novel. “With a novel, it’s in the reader’s imagination. In a comic, (the story) breaks down to a visual interpretation. People tell what’s going on by the art,” Aaron said.

Jason Aaron can be contacted at everywhere73@yahoo.com. Bruce Rodgers can be contacted at publisher_editeKC@kcactive.com.