The Electric Ant.
Philip K. Dick Comes to Marvel David Mack discusses his adaptation of the short story The Electric Ant. by Richard George & Jesse Schedeen July 25, 2008 - Sometimes a story is just too good to stay confined to one medium. That's been the case with many of Philip K. Dick's novels and short stories. Dick is regarded as one of the greatest sci fi writers ever to have put pen to paper. Stories like Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep and Minority Report don't just make for good reading, they make for good movie watching too. Comics, however, have been home to very few adaptations of Dick's work. David Mack is hoping to change all that. Best known for his creator-owned series Kabuki, as well as his work on Marvel books like Daredevil, Mack is turning his attention to the realm of science fiction. A huge fan of Dick's stories, Mack is hard at work adapting one tale into a mini-series. The story in question is The Electric Ant. This short story was a prototype for many of Dick's later work like Electric Sheep. The story explores notions of existence and the perception of reality in a way only Philip K. Dick could tackle. The project is set to debut late this year, with Mack writing, Pascal Alixe illustrating interiors, and Paul Pope providing covers. We chatted with Mack for a while to learn more about this adaptation. Mack reveals the effect Marvel's Stephen King adaptations have had on the development of this project. He also discusses what led him to choose Electric Ant among all of Dick's stories, and whether or not readers can expect future adaptations from this team. Alixe also stopped by to lend his thoughts on bringing Dick's surreal work to life. Marvel seems increasingly interested these days in adapting literary material, whether it's the Marvel Illustrated Classics line or Stephen King's Dark Tower books. Why do you think this is? What do these types of stories have to offer to readers? David Mack: Addressing Philip K. Dick specifically, his work is incredibly prescient. And it is has a lot to offer readers in terms of the philosophical underpinnings of his ideas and characters. But this can also be an epic event in that it is the first time Philip K. Dick is being officially adapted into comic books. PKD has been adapted into film with great success: Blade Runner, Minority Report, Total Recall, A Scanner Darkly, and the world of comic books offers wonderful visual possibilities for his stories. You mentioned Stephen King at Marvel, and that is a good point. I was working on this project with the Dick Estate - with Philip K. Dick's daughters, Isa and Laura. The producer of A Scanner Darkly and Waking Life, Tommy Pallotta, had been working with the Dick Estate and approached me to adapt Philip K. Dick to comics. Once I signed on and we were working on it, I learned they already had offers from publishers for this project. I asked Isa and Laura if I could meet with Marvel to offer it to them first. I thought that if I could bring Philip K. Dick and Marvel together it would be fantastic. Again, having Stephen King at Marvel is one of the reasons I was able to make the case to Isa and Laura to ask if I can offer this project to Marvel. I felt like the adaptation of Stephen King's work at Marvel was smart and well done I thought it was a great template for introducing Philip K. Dick to comics as well. IGN Comics: Of the many stories written by Philip K. Dick, why choose The Electric Ant? What makes it particularly well-suited to the realm of comics? Mack: Well, that is a good question. We wanted to start with a story that we thought crystallized the major themes of Philip K. Dick. Tommy Pallotta, and I discussed it quite a bit. We even got advice from novelist (and PKD scholar) Jonathon Lethem on what would be the best story to start with. Tommy and Jonathon suggested Electric Ant as it was always a favorite of theirs. The story has quintessential themes of humanity, and we chose this story to begin with because it has what we considered the classic quintessential Dickian themes. The story asks the enduring existential questions: Who am I? Who created me? What was I created for? What is the meaning of my life? Do I have free will? Am I limited by my programming? Can I evolve into something beyond my original programming? What is reality? Is the way, I perceive reality, different than a fixed reality? Can I alter my perceptions to transcend my ego and programming limitations and see a pure reality? Does my internal reality affect the external reality? Which is more real? IGN Comics: Can you briefly recap the story for readers unfamiliar the work? What is the general conflict driving this tale? Mack: A man wakes up in the hospital from a traffic accident only to have the doctor tell him they cannot treat him because he is a robot. He did not know this. It is difficult for him to believe. But they show him the x-rays. And he sees that he is missing his mechanical hand from the accident. He then has a lot of questions. Who made him? Who owns him? What is his program? Can he alter it? Has he been walking around seeing things differently than they really are? All the things he is thinking and doing- is he programmed to do that? Does he have any free will? Do his close friends know about this? What about the girl that he is interested in? Does she know this? What if she finds out? And does he only like her because he is programmed to? He sets about trying to find some answers. He tries to find his maker. He tries to find out what his essential program is. And can he change that program? Can he alter it? Is there any room for growth of him as a person? Is the reality that he sees, real? Is it absolute? Or can he change that too? Or are there fail safes to stop him doing that? Are there people to stop him from doing that? IGN Comics: How will this project be structured? How many issues is it, and when can we expect to see the first one? Mack: It is five issues. It is all written. I don't know what date Marvel has set for the first issue to ship. As far as story structure, it is kind of a mystery story. And also a kind of love story. Possibly even a crime story. There is action in it, but I would not call it an action story. And there is quite a bit of surrealism and good old science fiction. IGN Comics: Compared to Dick's mainstream (and movie-friendly) works like Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? and A Scanner Darkly, The Electric Ant is a little more obscure. Was this part of the appeal, as the past versions might not be quite so ingrained in readers' minds? Mack: That is an interesting point. Well, it would be a real challenge to adapt Electric Sheep because Blade Runner is such an exquisite adaptation. But I learned that this story was a kind of short story precursor to ideas that Dick developed and put into Electric Sheep. A lot of his short stories held incredibly fertile ideas, that Dick would later revisit in longer novel form. To adapt a novel, you often have to cut out a lot of it. With this original short story, it seemed perfect for the visual format of comics, because I could adapt it very true to the source material, I had room for all of the source material, but also, room to let the incredible visuals of the short story, really sing. IGN Comics: Frank Miller did a very loose adaptation of the story in the form of a comic called Hard Boiled. Were you inspired by that work in any way? How would you compare these two different interpretations of the story? Mack: Well I am a big fan of Frank Miller and Geoff Darrow. I absolutely love their work. I was very inspired by both of them in my formative years as a writer and artist in comics in general since I was a kid. I grew up on Frank Miller and he is a major reason why I began exploring the medium of comics as an art form. And I love Hard Boiled. But I don't think anything from Hard Boiled consciously influenced the adaptation of this story, because I was going directly from the source. I was working directly from the short story, and with Philip K. Dick's daughters, and my main concern was writing a story of their father's work that rang true to them. So if Hard Boiled is a loose adaptation, this story is a very close adaptation with the focus on the character tampering with his reality programming to alter and control his realities and its effects. IGN Comics: We're very interested in the look and feel of this project. David, given your talent as an artist, did you have any desire to draw it as well? Would you have done so if you had the time? Will you at least be providing covers or something along that line? Mack: When the Dick Estate gave me their blessing to adapt Philip K. Dick's work, they were going by my work on Kabuki, and they asked if I wanted to write and draw it. I said that was possible, but I mainly wanted to write it, and then find an artist that is right for it. I looked at many artists for this project, and Pascal is really going to shine on it. I've been pals with Paul Pope since way back, so I knew he was a PKD fan, and I thought he would be perfect to do the covers. So I asked him if he was interested and Paul signed on for covers. I did do one cover painting for the project that I think Marvel will use for a cover. And Brian Michael Bendis and I are big admirers of Blade Runner, so I asked him if he was interested in being a part of the project and he was into it. IGN Comics: How did you choose Pascal to be the artist? What about his work made him the right partner for this project? Mack: I really enjoyed that Pascal is capable of a variety of styles. For each of his projects I saw that he had developed a unique and individual look. And he is amazing at painting and his line art is quite incredible. This story has a collision of different realities and many surreal scenes. It offers possibilities for Pascal to show the many talents that he has and possibilities of rendering different scenes and realities in contrasting ways that change with the story. I saw from Pascal's examples that he could render tech and humanity and emotion and bring a unique sensibility to all of it, in a variety of styles or media. IGN Comics: Pascal, tell us about your approach to the art. How do you go about interpreting Dick's world visually? How will the art on this series compare to what we've seen in books like 1602: Fantastick Four? Pascal Alixe: I think the main difference is the painting. It offers a different approach to the narration, where I will express the story not only with the drawings but the colors, lighting, etc. I am also very excited to see how many levels of reality David is preparing me to explore, through our electric ant's mind. IGN Comics: Assuming this project does well, would you be interested in future adaptations? Which of Dick's other works would you most like to tackle? Mack: Yes. We planned to do more. I hope this project is well received because I'd love to continue the Philip K. Dick adaptations. While searching for which story to start with, I had outlined adaptations to other stories as well, with the idea that it would be fun to work with wonderful artists on each adaptation. And I involved Brian Michael Bendis in this early on as well in discussing the adaptations and which ones and how to approach it. I was staying at Brian's house when I began writing Electric Ant. We sat down in his writing studio and watched all the extra features of the new Blade Runner collection to get into the mood for it.
Philip K. Dick Comes to Marvel David Mack discusses his adaptation of the short story The Electric Ant. by Richard George & Jesse Schedeen July 25, 2008 - Sometimes a story is just too good to stay confined to one medium. That's been the case with many of Philip K. Dick's novels and short stories. Dick is regarded as one of the greatest sci fi writers ever to have put pen to paper. Stories like Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep and Minority Report don't just make for good reading, they make for good movie watching too. Comics, however, have been home to very few adaptations of Dick's work. David Mack is hoping to change all that. Best known for his creator-owned series Kabuki, as well as his work on Marvel books like Daredevil, Mack is turning his attention to the realm of science fiction. A huge fan of Dick's stories, Mack is hard at work adapting one tale into a mini-series. The story in question is The Electric Ant. This short story was a prototype for many of Dick's later work like Electric Sheep. The story explores notions of existence and the perception of reality in a way only Philip K. Dick could tackle. The project is set to debut late this year, with Mack writing, Pascal Alixe illustrating interiors, and Paul Pope providing covers. We chatted with Mack for a while to learn more about this adaptation. Mack reveals the effect Marvel's Stephen King adaptations have had on the development of this project. He also discusses what led him to choose Electric Ant among all of Dick's stories, and whether or not readers can expect future adaptations from this team. Alixe also stopped by to lend his thoughts on bringing Dick's surreal work to life. Marvel seems increasingly interested these days in adapting literary material, whether it's the Marvel Illustrated Classics line or Stephen King's Dark Tower books. Why do you think this is? What do these types of stories have to offer to readers? David Mack: Addressing Philip K. Dick specifically, his work is incredibly prescient. And it is has a lot to offer readers in terms of the philosophical underpinnings of his ideas and characters. But this can also be an epic event in that it is the first time Philip K. Dick is being officially adapted into comic books. PKD has been adapted into film with great success: Blade Runner, Minority Report, Total Recall, A Scanner Darkly, and the world of comic books offers wonderful visual possibilities for his stories. You mentioned Stephen King at Marvel, and that is a good point. I was working on this project with the Dick Estate - with Philip K. Dick's daughters, Isa and Laura. The producer of A Scanner Darkly and Waking Life, Tommy Pallotta, had been working with the Dick Estate and approached me to adapt Philip K. Dick to comics. Once I signed on and we were working on it, I learned they already had offers from publishers for this project. I asked Isa and Laura if I could meet with Marvel to offer it to them first. I thought that if I could bring Philip K. Dick and Marvel together it would be fantastic. Again, having Stephen King at Marvel is one of the reasons I was able to make the case to Isa and Laura to ask if I can offer this project to Marvel. I felt like the adaptation of Stephen King's work at Marvel was smart and well done I thought it was a great template for introducing Philip K. Dick to comics as well. IGN Comics: Of the many stories written by Philip K. Dick, why choose The Electric Ant? What makes it particularly well-suited to the realm of comics? Mack: Well, that is a good question. We wanted to start with a story that we thought crystallized the major themes of Philip K. Dick. Tommy Pallotta, and I discussed it quite a bit. We even got advice from novelist (and PKD scholar) Jonathon Lethem on what would be the best story to start with. Tommy and Jonathon suggested Electric Ant as it was always a favorite of theirs. The story has quintessential themes of humanity, and we chose this story to begin with because it has what we considered the classic quintessential Dickian themes. The story asks the enduring existential questions: Who am I? Who created me? What was I created for? What is the meaning of my life? Do I have free will? Am I limited by my programming? Can I evolve into something beyond my original programming? What is reality? Is the way, I perceive reality, different than a fixed reality? Can I alter my perceptions to transcend my ego and programming limitations and see a pure reality? Does my internal reality affect the external reality? Which is more real? IGN Comics: Can you briefly recap the story for readers unfamiliar the work? What is the general conflict driving this tale? Mack: A man wakes up in the hospital from a traffic accident only to have the doctor tell him they cannot treat him because he is a robot. He did not know this. It is difficult for him to believe. But they show him the x-rays. And he sees that he is missing his mechanical hand from the accident. He then has a lot of questions. Who made him? Who owns him? What is his program? Can he alter it? Has he been walking around seeing things differently than they really are? All the things he is thinking and doing- is he programmed to do that? Does he have any free will? Do his close friends know about this? What about the girl that he is interested in? Does she know this? What if she finds out? And does he only like her because he is programmed to? He sets about trying to find some answers. He tries to find his maker. He tries to find out what his essential program is. And can he change that program? Can he alter it? Is there any room for growth of him as a person? Is the reality that he sees, real? Is it absolute? Or can he change that too? Or are there fail safes to stop him doing that? Are there people to stop him from doing that? IGN Comics: How will this project be structured? How many issues is it, and when can we expect to see the first one? Mack: It is five issues. It is all written. I don't know what date Marvel has set for the first issue to ship. As far as story structure, it is kind of a mystery story. And also a kind of love story. Possibly even a crime story. There is action in it, but I would not call it an action story. And there is quite a bit of surrealism and good old science fiction. IGN Comics: Compared to Dick's mainstream (and movie-friendly) works like Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? and A Scanner Darkly, The Electric Ant is a little more obscure. Was this part of the appeal, as the past versions might not be quite so ingrained in readers' minds? Mack: That is an interesting point. Well, it would be a real challenge to adapt Electric Sheep because Blade Runner is such an exquisite adaptation. But I learned that this story was a kind of short story precursor to ideas that Dick developed and put into Electric Sheep. A lot of his short stories held incredibly fertile ideas, that Dick would later revisit in longer novel form. To adapt a novel, you often have to cut out a lot of it. With this original short story, it seemed perfect for the visual format of comics, because I could adapt it very true to the source material, I had room for all of the source material, but also, room to let the incredible visuals of the short story, really sing. IGN Comics: Frank Miller did a very loose adaptation of the story in the form of a comic called Hard Boiled. Were you inspired by that work in any way? How would you compare these two different interpretations of the story? Mack: Well I am a big fan of Frank Miller and Geoff Darrow. I absolutely love their work. I was very inspired by both of them in my formative years as a writer and artist in comics in general since I was a kid. I grew up on Frank Miller and he is a major reason why I began exploring the medium of comics as an art form. And I love Hard Boiled. But I don't think anything from Hard Boiled consciously influenced the adaptation of this story, because I was going directly from the source. I was working directly from the short story, and with Philip K. Dick's daughters, and my main concern was writing a story of their father's work that rang true to them. So if Hard Boiled is a loose adaptation, this story is a very close adaptation with the focus on the character tampering with his reality programming to alter and control his realities and its effects. IGN Comics: We're very interested in the look and feel of this project. David, given your talent as an artist, did you have any desire to draw it as well? Would you have done so if you had the time? Will you at least be providing covers or something along that line? Mack: When the Dick Estate gave me their blessing to adapt Philip K. Dick's work, they were going by my work on Kabuki, and they asked if I wanted to write and draw it. I said that was possible, but I mainly wanted to write it, and then find an artist that is right for it. I looked at many artists for this project, and Pascal is really going to shine on it. I've been pals with Paul Pope since way back, so I knew he was a PKD fan, and I thought he would be perfect to do the covers. So I asked him if he was interested and Paul signed on for covers. I did do one cover painting for the project that I think Marvel will use for a cover. And Brian Michael Bendis and I are big admirers of Blade Runner, so I asked him if he was interested in being a part of the project and he was into it. IGN Comics: How did you choose Pascal to be the artist? What about his work made him the right partner for this project? Mack: I really enjoyed that Pascal is capable of a variety of styles. For each of his projects I saw that he had developed a unique and individual look. And he is amazing at painting and his line art is quite incredible. This story has a collision of different realities and many surreal scenes. It offers possibilities for Pascal to show the many talents that he has and possibilities of rendering different scenes and realities in contrasting ways that change with the story. I saw from Pascal's examples that he could render tech and humanity and emotion and bring a unique sensibility to all of it, in a variety of styles or media. IGN Comics: Pascal, tell us about your approach to the art. How do you go about interpreting Dick's world visually? How will the art on this series compare to what we've seen in books like 1602: Fantastick Four? Pascal Alixe: I think the main difference is the painting. It offers a different approach to the narration, where I will express the story not only with the drawings but the colors, lighting, etc. I am also very excited to see how many levels of reality David is preparing me to explore, through our electric ant's mind. IGN Comics: Assuming this project does well, would you be interested in future adaptations? Which of Dick's other works would you most like to tackle? Mack: Yes. We planned to do more. I hope this project is well received because I'd love to continue the Philip K. Dick adaptations. While searching for which story to start with, I had outlined adaptations to other stories as well, with the idea that it would be fun to work with wonderful artists on each adaptation. And I involved Brian Michael Bendis in this early on as well in discussing the adaptations and which ones and how to approach it. I was staying at Brian's house when I began writing Electric Ant. We sat down in his writing studio and watched all the extra features of the new Blade Runner collection to get into the mood for it.