Joe Harris Talks Collecting Great Pacific, and the Future of the Cult-Favorite Series

Great Pacific is returning as a deluxe hardcover, and there might be more story to tell.

By Russ Burlingame

More than a decade after it debuted, Joe Harris and Martin Morazzo debuted Great Pacific, an Image Comics series about a rich kid who wants to make the world better in one of the weirdest ways possible -- and now, that series is finally getting a proper collection thanks the folks over at Zoop. Harris describes Great Pacific 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.

The series is full of political allegory, black comedy, and the depth of character and quality of dialogue that made Harris's run on The X-Files comics one of the most beloved aspects of that franchise in years. The crowdfunding campaign, meanwhile, isn't just a straightforward collection; with a little luck, they'll hit a stretch goal and there will be new Great Pacific content for the first time in years.

"The garbage patch hasn't gone anywhere," Harris told ComicBook. "So the issues that surround it, I think, are even more in the mainstream news now. I feel like a day doesn't go by and I don't read another story about how microplastics are being found in the Arctic, it's being found in babies. So if anything, this has just exacerbated. And our protagonist sort of predates the whole media celebrity, entrepreneur, billionaire, would-be industrialist. I'm thinking about Elon Musk right now, but this idea that you're really rich, and you think you know what the world needs. It seems like those guys are more visible now than they used to be, and they're all conflicted and crazy Libertarians and whatnot. So there's a lot of themes in this that I think ring true today."

The original story was pretty complete, making the new collection a great chance for fans to get a new version that can be their "bookshelf copy." Meanwhile, Harris suggests that if they do reach that stretch goal, the short story the creative team has planned would set up potential future stories without making the original feel any less "complete."

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"Volume one, for lack of a better way to describe, pretty much turned out the way we wanted it to," Harris explained. "As with most sales on indie comics and creator-owned books, there's a process of attrition that goes on from the highs of issue #1, 2, 3, 4, to the lows of issue #15, 16, 17. That probably played some role in the overall arc of the story, but we left it pretty much all on the field. Do I want to do more? The answer is yes. In fact, our big stretch goal in this Zoop campaign is going to be unlocking a new short story that Martin and I are going to do together, which would both serve as a reunion with old friends, as well as having an eye on a potential figure, should we do that and explore it."

Besides selling a hardcover collection of the series, the Great Pacific crowdfunding campaign is giving fans a chance to own signed copies of the original comic, sketches by Morazzo, and even original art from the comic. You can check it out here. With 21 days left, Harris and Morazzo are hoping to raise a little over another $5,000.

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