Interview: Tim Seeley on ‘Hack/Slash’ and Suicide Girls Crossovers

Writer and artist Tim Seely has come along way from reading, drawing and dreaming about comics as a kid in his parent’s basement in Wisconsin. Over the years, he’s managed to write and/or draw some of the most popular cult-favorite comics in publishing, including Kore, G.I. Joe, G.I. Joe vs. Transformers, Forgotten Realms: The Dark Elf Trilogy and most recently, a comic based on the Holloween movie franchise.

He’s also the creator of the hugely popular and successful comic book series Hack/Slash, which is currently being produced as a feature film by Rogue Pictures and expected to be released later this year. Recently, ComicMix sat down with the prolific artist and writer to get all the latest details on Hack/Slash the comic, the movie adaptation and his latest project with the Suicide Girls.

COMICMIX: Hey Tim, thanks for taking the time to talk with me.

TIM SEELEY: Sure, no problem at all.

CMix: You’re the staff artist for Devil’s Due Publishing, but your most well-known work, Hack/Slash, is a creator-owned project?

TS: It is creator-owned, yeah.

CMix: How did you come up with the idea for it?

TS: My girlfriend always gets embarrassed that I tell this story at all, but I was sick for a couple of days with the flu or something so, and it was right around Halloween. I’d just lay in bed for three or four days, and all I did was watch horror movies, like every station, they all run marathons, you know?

So I’m just sitting there and I’m on cold medicine and I start noting patterns in these horror movies. I took a bath because I’m feeling all crappy, and all of a sudden, it gelled in my head, and I jumped out of the tub and ran over, dripping-ass-naked in my house, and I wrote down this kind of outline for the comic.

There’s a girl that goes from slasher movie to slasher movie.  It’s a whole meta-idea or whatever, so then I started to build Hack/Slash from there. I just wanted to do something that didn’t have the flavor of what most comics have, something more like, B-movie, kind of totally creative, not so serious, something more like Psychotronic Movie Guide, like gonzo silly, but make it really important that the characters

There is a lot of characterization, and it was going to be about two characters and about their relationship. So, I kind of combined what I like about bad movies and what I like about good movies, and just got rid of all the other stuff.

CMix: Now, in addition to the comic, there’s also the Hack/Slash film in production as well… How’s that going?

TS: Yeah, they’re working on it.

CMix: How involved are you in that?

TS:  Fairly. A lot more than I thought, and a lot more than people said that comic guys would be involved in a movie. The director and I got to be good friends, so he’s actually been bouncing things off me. He’s working on it, the studio is talking to him about new script writers and that kind of thing.

He really keeps me involved as much as he can, so I think that just by virtue of his involvement and our relationship that I’m just by proxy working on this movie. Which, you know, I was kind of afraid to ever do because I was afraid it was one of those things that could be a bottomless pit of hopeless.

Like always one step closer to making the movie and then you have to cry bacause it isn’t going to happen… again.  I mean, look at Wonder Woman. It’s taken 17 years and it’s gotten nowhere.

CMix: Oh, yeah, there’s a lot of things that get stuck in "development hell."  They have a name for it for a reason.

TS: Exactly.

CMix: So you didn’t write the screenplay yourself?

TS:  We wrote a treatment of it. There are drafts and versions and stuff but I did work on a draft with Todd, the director. The version that they’re working on right now is done by a guy called Justin Marks.

He’s writing the He-Man: Masters of the Universe movie, Voltron, Street Fighter, all that other good stuff.

CMix: So he knows something about comics and animation then?

TS: Exactly. And we didn’t even have to give him any of the books because he already had all the Hack/Slash books.

CMix: That’s helpful.

TS: Yeah, so he knows his stuff.

CMix: Do you think it would be difficult to condense Hack/Slash down to a two-hour movie?

TS:  It’s actually not. It was actually easier than I thought, because when we started doing the one-shots, the sort of idea is that it would be like a movie. So because they’re sort of using some of that approach it’s pretty simple. Basically, it’s Cassie’s story, Vlad’s story and the Lunch Lady, and it’s actually not as difficult as I thought.

Some stuff is going to be difficult. Like, Hellboy, obviously that was going to be a cramped film because you know, no matter what you do with the concept, it’s gotta be big. Fortunately with this, the whole point is that it would sort of be about two people and . . .

CMix: The characters first, and then what happens to them.

TS: Yeah.

CMix: So, do you mind telling me a little bit about how you got started and some of your influences, if you were into comics as a kid and that kind of thing.

TS: I grew up in Central Wisconsin and it’s cold all the time in Wisconsin except for three months. So all there was to do was to read comics and just sit in my basement and draw. I always wanted to do comics and stuff so eventually when I went to college I majored in illustration. Then I got a job at a children’s book company and worked there for awhile.

Later, friends of mine I always went to comic book conventions with, hounded girls with and had beers with like Josh Blaylock, started to get real jobs in comics and later he started Devil’s Due. When he did that, he gave me a job as a staff artist.  All I had to do was move to Chicago from Minneapolis.

So, I started working on G.I. Joe for him and then came up with the Hack/Slash thing so I could have something for myself to write. Now I’m a staff artist at Devil’s Due, kind of doing whatever comes up, but I usually pick my own projects and work on my own stuff too. I’m working on Halloween most recently, I just finished that up.

Then I’m doing the Suicide Girls crossover, with Hack/Slash annual for right now. Then I start a thing with Larry Hama on his Spooks Omega Team book. That’s my next project.

So, there you go.  Nice, short, totally succinct. (laughs)

CMix: You prepared that well.

TS: I wanted to have something to say.

CMix: When you were growing up and you said you were reading a lot of comic books, were there any ones in particular that were more influential on you?

TS: When I was a kid, it was definitely just about stories. At first, I never really noticed a difference in the art. I think Spiderman was the first thing I ever got, and figured out there was Marvel style, DC style, whatever.

Before that I was just really into sort of the stories and characters and stuff and then when I started getting into the indie comics when I was a teenager, then I started to really notice the art more because it was so diverse with a lot of different styles. 

Layered stuff, all kinds of different science fiction books came out from former Malibu Comics and all this weird kind of stuff.  The Crow, when that first came out from Caliber…I really got into the art styles of that stuff. And then obviously the Image guys, I mean, you’re never going to escape where you grew up in the generation that I did.

The Tick – when I was a kid, I thought it was the most amazing thing ever.  Scud the Disposable Assassin, anything that was just kind of maybe avant-garde or funny, or fun all around, I just thought was hysterical and influenced what I did.

CMix: When you start out to create something, do you think about the characters first and what happens to them after that, or is it story first, or…?

TS:  It usually sort of ends up being a combination of the two because you know you have to serve your character so you don’t want to put them in something that wouldn’t work for them, but you do have to come up with what you want to do for them, or what you think the readers will respond to.

And then, once you set up that framework, then it has to be about how the character will react to it.

I do have to think about. Very rarely do I say, ‘Well, I’m just going let them do what they want and a story will come out of it…’ it gets too difficult to explain when you have to write solicitation text, you know?  So, I kind of come up with a loose plot and the characters kind of help fill it out.

CMix: You’re also working on a Hack/Slash and Suicide Girls crossover. Can you tell me more about that? How it came about? What’s the story going to be, etc.?

TS: The story revolves around a serial killer who attacks Suicide Girls through their computers. To draw him out, Cassie does an SG photoshoot and teams up with some of the girls to kick slasher ass.

It came about pretty simply. I’ve had an SG account for like five years and I’ve been trying to get something going with them for a loooong time. I mean, obviously, I really like goth/punk girls.

Finally, I came up with a good idea, and Missy (the head of Suicide Girls) said yes!

  CMix: Have you done many comics online before or is this crossover your first?

TS: This is my first, technically. Though I have posted stuff from my print comics online in the past.

CMix: Do you have to do anything differently when writing or drawing a comic that’s going to be published online?

TS: You guys might (at ComicMix) but I didn’t. I treated it exactly the same.
 
CMix: Do you think there will ever come a time when comics will only be distributed online and not in print? Or, will there always be a demand for printed comics?

TS: Print is going to have to go the way of the dinosaur eventually. I think their will always be some printed materials. I think graphic novels and trades are one of them, but comics will definitley be moving online.

CMix: So, speaking of crossovers, is there any character existing in comics that you would love to do a crossover with?

TS: There’s this superhero stuff that I really don’t think I can do anything with at Hack/Slash because I just think the superhero stuff is really played in its own universe and I don’t think I’d get to do what I want to do with Hack/Slash. If I could do some of the Senator, or Madman or you know, one of those characters, I may have to make it work because I like those characters so much.

I would love to do a Hellraiser thing someday, too.  I love those movies. I still want to do The Crow some day.  That’s a little bit of a pipe dream, I think, but because he’s sort of a good slasher that’d be a cool thing to be able to do.

CMix: Turning to the technical side a bit, do you use a computer in your artwork at all?

TS:  I do. I’m not like a real high tech guy, like my friends are all tech heads and gadget freaks. I use it for art, I use it for drawing.  I use it for coloring.  I type on it but that’s about it.

CMix: Is it a Mac or Windows?

TS:  It’s a Mac.  But I’m still not the kind of guy to rush out and buy new stuff. But I definitely try to keep up with the technology.  If I think it’s something that will help make better books, I will use it.

CMix: So you write the stories on the Mac and then you use a graphics tablet to draw with and then color it in Photoshop?

TS:  I still like to do most of my drawings on paper because it’s sort of more fun for me to do it that way and I can sell the original art.  If I do it just on the computer, there’s nothing to sell, which kind of sucks.

CMix: Well, you can print it out, but then it’s not really original…

TS: Yeah.

CMix: And that’s how you learned, also, and it can approximate a pencil, but it’s not exactly the same.

TS: Exactly.

CMix: There’s something about the feel of it on the paper.

TS:  That’s it. I’ve seen guys who can draw on the computer as well as they can draw on paper.  I know it’s possible. But so far, it’s paper for me.  But I’ll use the computer for as much as I can.

CMix: What comics are you reading right now?

TS: That’s a good question.  I’m reading a lot of stuff from Image because I just like a lot of the crazy, creative stuff they do. I always read Invincible. I’m reading the new Scud series because that’s really cool.

Annihilation, that’s cool. I’ll be picking up Guardians of the Galaxy for sure. I also like The Bull from DC, because it’s sort of an old school, The Spirit look that just seems to be a lot of fun.

CMix: Not into Secret Invasion or anything like that?

TS: I don’t read any of that crap.  But I like Vertigo stuff.  I’ve been picking up a lot of stuff at trades, so basically last year has been like, Animal Man, Swamp Thing all the trades in that stuff. 

Let’s see… what else do I remember?  It’s always getting smaller because all this stuff is getting crossover branded and I just don’t want to deal with that stuff. Savage Dragon has always been one my favorites.  I really like Suburban Glamour by Jamie McKelvie, that was really good, really well drawn. 

Most of the stuff from Image. If it’s a nice, quality, creator-owned thing, I’ll probably enjoy it.

CMix: Since you both write and draw, which do you prefer?

TS: Writing. It’s so much easier, a lot less time consuming and in this day and age, it’s what get’s ya the most fame and fortune.

CMix: Finally, if you suddenly couldn’t do what your doing now, for whatever reason, what other career or job would you ever consider doing?

TS: Whew. That’s  is a scary thought. Y’know, I"m not really good at anything else. But, if I had to do something else, I think I’d try and get into the FBI.

Something almost as cool as comics. 

---

Halloween: Nightdance #4 is on shelves now, while "Murder/Suicide," the Hack/Slash crossover with Suicide Girls, is currently running on SuicideGirls.com. Hack/Slash #12, featuring a cameo by Evan Dorkin’s cult-favorite characters Milk & Cheese, will hit shelves late-May or early next month.

The good folks at Devil’s Due Publishing have provided the following art from upcoming titles featuring stories and/or art from Tim Seeley:

Hack/Slash #12

Hack/Slash #12 (featuring a cameo by Milk & Cheese)

Halloween: Nightdance #4

Art from the ongoing Hack/Slash crossover w/ Suicide Girls, "Murder/Suicide"

Forgotten Realms: The Dark Elf Trilogy