X-Files Writer Joe Harris Talks His Creator-Owned Series Great Pacific

Joe Harris and Martin Morazzo's Great Pacific is one of the handful of recent Image launches that have made the publisher's last few years a remarkable success story. Along with books like Fatale, Saga and Revival, the series is one of a number of new, original concepts that are consistently selling out while drawing rave reviews and best-of nominations from around the industry. And in Harris's case, Great Pacific is the kind of widescreen adventure story that many of Images's smaller-scale, more personal books tend to be short on. Harris describes the title as "a sci-fi adventure and survival story about a guy who's been given everything but wants to change the world in ways money can't, directly, buy," but of course it helps that the guy in question is Chas Worthington, a spoiled rich kid who's embezzled a ton of money from his own company and has a lot of people after him while he "hides" in plain sight in, basically, his own little country. Harris joined us recently to talk about the currently-ongoing second arc in the series, as well as his emergence as one of the Image Firsts line of $1 first issues and being part of the great post-apocalyptic craze in creator-owned comics.

ComicBook.com: There aren't many guys whose work is showing up in as many places as yours these days. You've worked for DC, Image and IDW--just that I know of--just in the last year. Is there a reason you haven't pitched a tent someplace? Joe Harris: Well, I can assure you, it hasn't always been a choice. This can be a tough business, as most everyone knows, or should. I've been up, down, up again, down again, and on and on and on over years in and out of this industry. As to lately, I'm happy to just work where I'm wanted so long as I can primarily focus on my original material, like Great Pacific at Image. Writing comics is fun, in most any case though, and I'm happier writing The X-Files Season Ten than I may have ever been doing work-for-hire in the comics industry. ComicBook.com: How do you become part of the Image Firsts program? Is it a question of sales and Image just brings it to you, or is it something the creators pursue? Harris: I don't know how it works, for everybody. Image wanted to do it, in the case of Great Pacific. They were readying a new round of "Image Firsts" and we were thrilled to add our first issue to the mix when approached. ComicBook.com: Your first issue is really interesting, actually, in that you gave the art a lot of room to breathe, and made sure that the "voiceover" happened on pages that had action and movement. Was that a conscious choice or just how the book broke down in your mind? Harris: It was all more organic and natural than not, honestly. Though I'm happy to let anyone who wants to credit me with being as deliberate and thoughtful, with regard to how I write, as they'd like! I tend to approach voice-over from the position that it has to not only add something to what we're watching, visually, unfold. But should contrast in some way too. I like when narration speaks to something else, specifically, than what we're physically watching, or reading -- I keep thinking about this in terms of movies, but the principle is the same for comics. At least, to my mind. And the voice-over and caption narration should dovetail into what's you're visually presenting to make a larger point, most definitely, in the end.

ComicBook.com: What's your elevator pitch for Great Pacific? The first volume of the trade just arrived in stores last week so it should be at Barnes & Noble and Amazon this week. Harris: It's a sci-fi adventure and survival story about a guy who's been given everything but wants to change the world in ways money can't, directly, buy. It's about a young, would-be industrialist who heads out to the infamous "Great Pacific Garbage Patch," plants a flag and declares it his own sovereign nation, always imagining he's have to work hard to transform the world's largest garbage dump into something sustainable and inhabitable, but continually floored by the threats he'd never considered and which he'll have to survive... from pollution-mutated sea creatures, to modern-day pirates, to hostile natives indigenous to nearby islands who aren't happy he's there, to even the United States Navy who come seeking to drag his ass back home. ComicBook.com: Do you think there's something in the water these days, as it pertains to environmental disaster stories, or is that just a good way of telling a kind of "everything is stripped away" story that doesn't fall to zombies or war? Great Pacific and The Massive are both terrific, but it's odd that they hit around the same time and I can't think of another, recent example. Harris: Who knows. Whenever I have an idea I love, and which I know is a contender to be the next big thing of mine I throw my effort behind, I always feel this rush to get it out there because I'm excited and, hey, you never know. But The Massive is a fantastic book. ComicBook.com: I'm always interested in the finer points of craft, especially when it comes to creator-owned books. Both the color and the letters in this book really stand out from the pack. They look very different from other books on the stand, and arguably they're more accessible to the bookstore market than most. How'd you guys come to the look of the title? Harris: Well, we have a great supporting creative cast. The guys at Tiza Studio do great color work under scrutiny and deadline pressure every month. And our letterers, from Douglas E. Sherwood to our new addition, Michael David Thomas, have definitely contributed their share. But the biggest driver of the overall, who designed everything, really, is Martin Morazzo. He colored the first issue himself, which really set the template, and even attempted to letter this book himself too before I took that away from him lest we never keep on schedule. He could do it all, and he's amazing. ComicBook.com: You know, it occurs to me, too, that Chas is quite a different kind of rich kid than we're used to seeing in fiction. I mean, he's not without his faults but he's conscientious and doesn't start out as "that loser whose parents' money buys him out of trouble." Did you think it was time to move away from that archetype a bit? Harris: I wanted to surprise with Chas. I wanted him to be cocky and prideful. Better to set up a fall, I guess. But he's a world-beater. A would-be conqueror. A self-styled industrialist in the mold of Carnegie and Rockefeller and Vanderbilt. Someone who changed the world by force of will, and who left a body count in his wake. Chas is ambitious, and mostly noble. But he's also, and always, scheming. I find characters like this, who aren't necessarily out to save the world but to make it in their image, as they want it, more interesting. ComicBook.com: The next arc just kicked off earlier this month. What can fans expect? Harris: It's called "Nation Building" and the name really does imply the gist of it. We've flashed-forward about a year and half. New Texas is now a bustling frontier town full of fortune-seekers, immigrants and workers toiling on the giant HERO-technology terraforming operations. But the next step in Chas' master plan is to gain international recognition for his fledgling state, and that's going to require some unsavory deals with even less savory actors on the world stage. It's going to involve eco-terrrorists who aren't happy with his endeavors, an assassination plot to do him in, an attempt to address the United Nations and even more batshit stuff that tends to materialize as I sit down to write.