Faith Erin Hicks on capturing the gothic romance of The Mummy in comics with Skybound

Faith, it’s great to connect. Issue one of Universal Monsters: The Mummy – which you’ve both written and done the art for – lands on shelves this week. So, let’s start at the beginning – how did The Mummy find its way to you?
Skybound Editorial Director Alex Antone had approached me and he was interested in me writing this book. My background is mostly in the middle grade and young adult area of comics. I mostly do graphic novels for that age range. However, I did co-write and draw an adult four-issue series for Dark Horse 10 years ago – it was a prequel for The Last of Us video game – so I have dipped my toe into the horror waters, as it were!

Initially I was very excited to write it, but then there was a death in my family. My dad passed away from cancer. So I said to Alex: “I’m sorry, I don’t have time to work on this. Please give it to someone else.” But Alex came back a few months later – after I’d had a little time to myself – and he offered the project to me again. And a story about death, grieving and not being willing to let go of someone who’s very dear to you was deeply appealing to me at that time, as someone going through a painful family loss.

And I said to Alex: “I’m actually interested in drawing it, if that’s something that you would be interested in?” So I drew up all these sketches and handed them into Alex – and Universal was OK with hiring me for not only the writing, but also the drawing.

You mentioned that you’re best known for work in the YA space – was part of the appeal of taking on The Mummy a chance to stretch a different creative muscle?
Absolutely. I very much enjoy working in the middle grade and young adult space – and I’m not abandoning that by any stretch of the imagination – but I wasn’t feeling challenged by it… I really wanted the challenge of drawing something dark, gothic and filled with dread! The other aspect that appealed was doing something based in a specific period of history – 1930s Cairo.

Were you familiar – or a fan of – the 1932 movie?
Like a lot of people my age, my first exposure to The Mummy franchise was the 1999 Brendan Fraser Rachel Weisz film – and that was very different… It has more in common with Raiders of the Lost Ark than it does with the original Mummy. When I went back and watched the original Mummy with Boris Karloff, I was like: This is a romance! It’s a dark, gothic, deeply compelling romance. I wanted to dive into that romance in a way that was appealing to me and hopefully readers enjoy my take on it. It’s been an absolute joy.

I’ve been lucky enough to read the first issue and it’s terrific. And without giving anything away, the comic looks set to explore the characters of Helen Grosvenor and Anck-Su-Namun in a deeper, different way than we’ve seen before.
Yes, being able to put my own stamp on the story was hugely appealing. Alex said that the range of comics is built on the idea that the original movies are canon, but that we could build stories out from those.

“I wanted the challenge of drawing something dark, gothic and filled with dread!”

I’m a woman writer/artist interested in horror – and the female perspective on horror – so I wanted to approach this story from the point of view of Helen. She has this voice in her mind that’s revealed to be Anck-Su-Namun, the Mummy’s original love. So there’s this battle over who Anck-Su-Namun will choose – Helen, or her great love Imhotep? I enjoyed looking at that classic story from a slightly different angle. It was creatively very inspiring.

Absolutely. And yes, there’s this strange triangular relationship between Helen, Anck-Su-Namun and Imhotep. Did that ‘relationship drama’ and heightened emotions feel somewhat familiar from your work in YA comics?
Definitely. That whole age group is really fuelled by emotions. When you’re a teenager, it’s like, so many emotions, right? I’ve always been drawn to stories that have heightened emotions and characters entangled in very messy situations. It’s a lot of fun – especially because I’m actually a pretty boring person!

Ha!
It was delightful to be able to delve into this world of like heightened drama.

Can you talk me through how your creative process began?
Well, I watched the original film, and I was struck by the fact that Imhotep’s not a bad person. He’s a murderer in the 1999 movie, but in the original he’s just watched the love of his life die, is sad about it and is unable to let her go. He’s really grieving and the crime that he commits is done while trying to bring her back to life. They’re just people stricken by grief and struggling with their own emotions. So that was a big surprise to me.

And then I always start with a script. With The Mummy, I actually started with an outline that was approved by Universal. Then I moved to the script and then to pencils and to inks. And, of course, receiving notes from Alex along the way.

I do my pencilling on my Wacom Cintiq and then I print out the pencils and ink them by hand. With this book, I wanted it to have a dusty look to it – like the grainy nature of the film – so I did an ink wash. It made the pages feel a lot more gritty and hopefully a little more adult, because my art style is realistic, but it does have cartoony touches to it.

I imagine there’s a shared language across comics regardless of genre, but was there anything about the page layout or panels that you embraced to make this suit the horror space?
I don’t think my approach to this was drastically different from what I usually do, but I did think a lot more about the complexity of the art. I usually work in the graphic novel format. My main publisher is First Second Books – the graphic novel imprint of Macmillan. Page-count wise, they prefer me to bring in a book at under 300 pages, but it doesn’t really matter that much. It means I can really draw out the emotions on the page or really extend a sequence.

Whereas The Mummy is a 24-page comic, so I had to consider what is the maximum impact per page that I can have visually. I do like to do multiple pages of one character experiencing an emotion – and I couldn’t do that with The Mummy. That was the main difference in my approach… And then also trying to find ways to ensure the action is very clear. And, again, in a more compressed way than I would do in my young adult graphic novels.

Do you think it served this type of story better to have that 24-page limitation?
I think there’s an argument for both. I do really like working in this 24-page format – I appreciate the brevity of it… But yeah, there’s an indulgent part of me that’s like: ‘Ah, this could have been 300 pages!’ That said, I don’t think anything is lost by the shortened version… Other than many more pages of The Mummy and Helen tragically discussing their situation and staring into each other’s eyes.

Ha! Save it for the ‘Director’s Cut’ maybe!
Yes, oh my gosh, hire me for that!

There we go Skybound – we’ve put it out there! You mentioned earlier about this opportunity coming just after you lost your father. Without wishing to pry, did you find it useful to engaging with grief through this kind of creative process?
Absolutely – and weirdly enough, I didn’t know what to expect… As a creator, I get very affected emotionally by the work that I do, or by the stories I tell. My last graphic novel was based on a terrible experience I had in art school, and it was weirdly traumatic to bring up all these emotions I’d experienced 20 years ago. So yes, with this experience, I wasn’t sure what to expect. I’d gone through this awful experience of losing a family member, but I found the expression of grief on the page so compelling.

“Being able to put my own stamp on the story was hugely appealing.”

And my dad was a huge movie buff – that was really something we shared. We loved movies. When I was a kid, I was traumatized by the idea of a movie being scary. Even though I was very drawn to horror as a genre, I was too frightened to ever watch scary movies. So, I would get him to tell me the plots of various horror movies… He’d talk me through Alien and The Shining because I was too scared to watch them! It was lovely to remember those times that we had together while writing The Mummy.

So yes… The experience was weirdly lovely in a way. It’s hard to describe. I feel like I found my heart in this horror comic. That sounds so strange to say.

No, I understand what you mean.
David Cronenberg has a new movie coming out about grief and immortality – and he lost his wife of 40 years. I read a comment from him where he said he doesn’t believe in art as therapy. I understand what he means because I don’t want to go and make a comic about the experience of losing my dad. I have no desire to ever do that… But to make a comic about a character who dooms himself to this half-life as this monstrous mummy because he can’t let go of his girlfriend… As someone who’s lived through a recent experience of losing someone I was close to, I found that compelling.

Absolutely. And thank you for speaking so openly about such a tough time. Now, before we wrap up, what fuels your creativity? What helps you have ideas for comics and graphic novels?
Oh my god… My first thought was having to pay my mortgage every month!

Ha! That’s a very compelling reason!
Ha! But no, I have a routine, I do go for walks and I write better in the morning, for sure. I draw better in the afternoon and evening, weirdly enough too. The routine is incredibly important. I’m a big believer in putting my butt in the chair and getting the work done. Sometimes the creativity is there, sometimes it isn’t, but if I work through it, it usually comes.

Last question! If you could wave a magic wand and create a comic based on any brand you want, what brand would you choose to adapt?
Oh gosh, I’m a big fan of many, many franchises… I’m a big Star Trek nerd, and I love video games… I would say Dragon Age – the video game series by BioWare. I love it so much. Yeah, please give me the keys to that, BioWare!

It’s out there now! We’ll manifest it! Faith, this has been great. Congrats again on The Mummy – I look forward to seeing where the series goes.