Roy Thomas Interview

A Q&A with Roy Thomas
by Brad Cook

Q: So how did you get involved with the X-Files comic book?

A: Well, I had been involved with Topps Comics, which has the rights to the X- Files, ever since the very first comic they did, back in '92, which was the adaptation of Bram Stoker's Dracula, the Francis Ford Coppola film. My old friend Len Brown was one of the people that was involved when Topps started its comics operation back then. He has been with Topps since I guess at least the early 60s. [So] finally, after all those years of Len wanting them to, Topps started to publish comcs, and Len asked if I was interested in talking to them about being the editor-in-chief, because he himself was too busy to consider that. I declined, but I suggested one or two names to him, one of them being Jim Salicrup, who got the job. He just quit in the last few weeks. So as a result I wound up doing Dracula and Frankenstein and Cadiallacs and Dinosaurs and some of the Jack Kirby material and several other things.

I had seen the X-Files a few times and like it because I'm very interested in that kind of thing. I'm not an active pursuer of information about flying saucers, but I've always maintained an interest in that sort of thing ever since the 50s, off and on. With adapting the X-Files, the combination of my interest in that sort of thing and the fact that I've been affiliated with a lot of adaptations such as some of the Conan stories and the original Star Wars comics, so it was a natural to get into that area. I've had a lot of fun with it.

Q: Have you gotten a chance to speak with Chris Carter at all?.

A: No, I haven't dealt with anyone there. It's all handled by Renee Witterstater, the editor of Season One [the series he's doing; he's adapting the first season's episodes]. I talked to a couple people who work for Fox and for X-Files at the San Diego Convention last year, and they seemed quite pleased with the script writing. Although I'm merely adapting some of Chris Carter's words and pictures and that kind of thing, it is a little as Ted Turner says in the title of his book: it ain't as easy as it looks. At least I'd like to think not, [from what] I've been told by some people who have tried similar things. Len Brown was talking about when he was adapting the Mars Attacks movie - it's a little harder than it looks to take a script and turn it into a comic book and so forth, and keep everybody happy with it..

Q: Do you think there's any social significance to the X-Files' success? It seems like UFOs were big in the 70s and then it seemed to fade away, and now it's come back with X-Files and Independence Day and everything..

A: Well, X-Files, while it started off with the first few episodes being about UFOs and there are still from time to time, it's really expanded greatly from that show. By the third episode they wanted to show that it was more than just a show about flying saucers. I think part of it is the revival of mysticism in our society. When I was growing up I was thinking that it looked like things like mysticism and even religion were going to whither on the vine. In the aftermath of World War 2 it just looked like this rational, non-magical, non- spiritual world was emerging..
Instead, maybe because of the frustrations of that kind of world, the religious and mystical sides have come back with a vengeance, and probably there's just as much witchcraft and things like that being practiced by cults around the world now as there was 40 or 50 years ago. And X-Files taps into that on the one hand, which people are almost more likely to believe now than before (even if they don't, they can just enjoy it as a good story, as I generally do), but also they've tapped into along with that the paranoia and the suspicion of conspiracy in everyday life. This is nothing new. Everybody looks at X-Files and sees that more than anything. Watergate and the years past have shown us what anybody with any brains should have known, I suppose - but a lot of us didn't think about it - that the government or anybody in power is just as likely to lie to you as tell you the truth, and therefore they've come up with this particular world in which you can't trust anybody.
I think there are two things in people, especially young people today, fighting each other: the romantic and the cynical. I think X-Files appeals to both of them, because it's a romantic show in the sense of dealing with fanciful subjects, even if it's in a dark way (there's even a sexual tension between Scully and Mulder). It's a romantic flight of fancy, albeit in dark shadows, and on the other side there's the cynicism toward elected officials, wealthy people, or any kind of people in power, of the left or right or anything else. You put the cynical and the romantic together and you've got X-Files. Other people have tried to tap into that same vein, but they haven't done as well.

Q: Have you had any interest in getting involved with Star Wars again, now that it's become popular?

A: Well, nobody's asked, except that I've signed some hundreds of copies of the reprinted adaptation at Marvel, which I was never totally happy with in the first place, except that it got done. I wouldn't really mind, but I was mainly a fan of the first movie, and the second, although good, was darker and went in a direction I wasn't wild about. The third one I didn't like at all. So, despite my respect for George Lucas, who I met a number of times in connection with this, I just never really went pursuing it. I wouldn't mind doing it, but I haven't really kept up with the Star Wars thing. You have to keep up with the mythology of something like that to do it, and I never read the Star Wars comics or any of the novels or other materials.

Q: I heard you're working on a couple books for CFD: The Behemoth with John Orlando, and The Invicibles with Rich Buckler..

A: I met John through Rich. I've always enjoyed working with Rich, ever since he wandered into Marvel's office with some very Al Williamson-esque samples some years ago, and Rich had made up this idea of some virtual reality heroes.
John said he'd like to work on something which had the feel of the old Kirby and Lee monster comics, that kind of thing. We'll start working in more detail soon..

Q: Do you have any other projects in the works right now?.

A: Well, yes, for Topps I just finished doing this Hercules five issue series, and I haven't done anything more than come up with several suggested plotlines for a Xena: The Warrior Princess mini-series. I was dissapointed to see that in today's weird market Hercules, which has a huge audience on television, didn't take off. I think that Xena is probably even a better idea in today's market. I've been interested in Xena ever since I co-wrote one episode in the first season. I'm also involved with the upcoming live action Conan television series..

Q: What's your take on all the recent Marvel business, from the distribution soap opera to their financial woes?.

A: Well, of course I'm just watching it from a distance right now, because I haven't been working for Marvel for a couple years. It's kind of sad to see how the mighty have fallen. It takes a lot of work to take the world's biggest comic book company to near bankruptcy in a year or two. [Laughter] If somebody a few years ago had said it was going to happen, they would have said it couldn't possibly happen. A number of us always knew for years that Marvel's leadership in the field was soft, so to speak, and it was mostly that they didn't have much competition. It was only when people began to break away and form Image and things like that and several other things happened [that] the holes kind of showed..
Marvel's attuned to a different world. Although they had all these wonderful characters and these talented people, it just hasn't been able to hold onto its leadership. A lot of it obviously had nothing to do with the quality of the books being produced. It had to do with other things. You could have the best comics in the world and you couldn't necessarily make out if other things are going wrong..

Q: What wuld you do to turn the company around if you were given it?.

A: Well, since nobody's asked me or is paying me, I would just as soon not comment..

Q: What do you blame the recent industry downturn on? What do you think caused the recent recession?.

A: Well, of course [the market] was terribly overextended several years ago, due to the brief speculator thing, and that meant that everyone came in and started a billion new companies from the late 80s through the 90s, as the market kept growing and growing and everybody had stars in their eyes about comics and first issues selling a million or more copies. The bubble was bound to burst, as it did years ago with Florida land and Dutch tulip bulbs. The trouble was that by that time several things had happened, one of which was that many new companies had come in but you had the same pie, shrunk back but cut into a lot more pieces now, and therefore it's harder for Marvel to hold onto its percentage lead..

Comics has been a very cyclical thing. Timely was virtually wiped out in the late 50s by a business move more than anything else, but also by the downturn of comics when the Code came in and a lot of other things, and then in the late 60s things were going down again, and in the middle 70s they were doing well in sales but because of changing economics they weren't making any money. So it's gone through a lot of different situations like this, and it's probably as bad as anything since '57. Whether it will return or not is hard to say.