JH Williams III Talks New Series Echolands Exclusive

It’s All In The Details

JH Williams III is working on a new creator-owned series, Echolands, to be published by Image with his regular collaborator W Haden Blackman. The series kicks off in August and Williams III just spoke to Tripwire’s editor-in-chief Joel Meadows about the genesis and evolution of the series…

TRIPWIRE: What was the genesis of the series?

JH WILLIAMS III: This has been something that has been living with me for a very long time in some form or another. It originated with the character of Hope Redhood, who I came up with when I was a kid. I was probably around 10 or 12 when she came to my mind. Although at the time she really only had the name Hope. But other details from back then remain to this day… A platinum blonde woman with subtly strange eyes wearing a red hooded cloak, a red shirt, black pants with side leg yellow stripes, using a variety of weapons from swords to guns. And living in a future world very different than our own due to some sort of upheaval, but yet familiar, populated by a wide range of characters, including her main adversary, the wizard Teros Demond. I have quite a few drawings from when I was a kid showing some of these characters. Fast-forward to my career in comics having developed into a real thing, and I met Haden early on while working on the first year of Promethea. He was doing lots of stuff for Lucas Arts at the time. We hit it off and did a very short Hellboy story together. We both enjoyed the process. I mentioned to him this thing I wanted to do involving these characters and thought we could make for a good team on it. And so creation discussions ensued, developing characters and elements that already existed and inventing lots of new ones, evolving the concept into something more unique. Taking what my young child-mind had considered and transform it into something more complex and sophisticated, but without ever losing the sense of big adventurous fun the story needs to have. It’s something we’ve slowly developed over years of conversations while our careers ran their courses. Waiting for a good time to get this out to the world. During that time we also developed several other concepts as well. And then got opportunity to take over Batwoman, which served as a good trial run on how our working collaboration process would function when it came to script creation.

TW: How closely did you work with your collaborator Haden Blackman?

JHWIII: We work very closely together, discussing every aspect of the concept and writing process. We’re co-creators in the truest sense of the term. It’s really the best way to do stuff like this.

TW: How does the division of labour in terms of the writing break down between yourself and Blackman?

JHWIII: The writing process began with developing what the story is and how it functions in the world we spent a lot of time together developing, coming up with a solid outline to base scripts on. But interesting new elements came to mind as we began to write scripts that didn’t exist in our outline and the story is better for it. The division of labour flexes a lot. We handle this the same way we handled our time on Batwoman. We both work on the plotting, then both work on the scripts. Either me or Haden will take a first stab at specific scenes or whole issues. That first draft of content then bounces over to the other person to do a second draft. After that is where I tend to place a lot of ideas for page layouts into the scripts. We bounce drafts back and forth quite few times, on average 4 to 5 times in total, before we feel it’s in enough shape to finalize dialogue, which is usually done over the phone. Sometimes we need less drafts, and other times more, it’s a bit fluid. We both give our suggestions for panel descriptions and dialogue along the way. After what is hopefully the final dialogue phone draft is done, a fine tuning of descriptive details draft tends to be done by me, mostly to make sure I have readable clarity on what I want for the visual flow of how the pages should function since I’m the artist drawing from the scripts. Then drawing commences. But even though we spend a lot of time on making sure the script works, I end up treating it like I would anyone else’s scripts during the drawing process, changing pacing or visual flow or layout ideas as I go along, doing what the art is telling me needs. Giving myself the flexibility any comic needs during drawing process. That is all relatively instinctual, without thumbnails or other preliminary drawings. Just going with my gut on what needs to work on the page.

TW: What was it about Image that made it the perfect place to publish it?

JHWIII: Image is about giving creators the platform to follow their vision for a concept without interference of any kind on the content. Creatively they are extremely supportive, and are understanding of life balance. I’ve had a lot of various unexpected interruptions in getting this project off the ground, and they have remained supportive and in my corner the entire time. Very few publishers are willing to do that. The creator matters to them and they’re not interested in being just some IP farm. They love comics and want to publish comics that seek a vision purity. And if you want to completely own the work, I don’t think there is any other publisher that gives to you.

TW: How did veteran colourist Dave Stewart and master letterer Todd Klein come on board?

JHWIII: Dave and Todd came on board because I asked for them. And both of them I’ve had a very very long working relationships with. Todd has lettered the majority of my work. And Dave has been with me since before Batman stuff, going way back. They both are great collaborators. And both bring a distinct amazing sensibility to Echolands.

TW: What do they bring to the series?

JHWIII: The thing I relish most about their involvement is that each of them bring a thoughtful creative perspective. Both are open to try interesting things rather than just stay in a single groove. And my projects tend to need that.

TW: Give us the one line elevator pitch for it?

JHWIII: The story of Earth’s Last War starts with Hope’s sticky fingers… In a strange version of San Francisco a thief steals a gem from a tyrannical wizard that will unlock the secret of the world’s ancient unknown past, eventually leading to a war between worlds. Echolands: where magical thieves, cyborg elves, axe wielding biker huns, Roman demi-gods, gothic vampires, Dick Tracy style mobsters, robots, pirates, alien oracles, retro-rocketships, and so much more, collide together in wildly diverse fantastical settings… Converging on a path that breaks open all possible story genres into one big grand tale that might make you question what it means to be human.

TW: It is a series that has been gestating for a number of years. Why has it taken so long to bring to publication?

JHWIII: The goal is to focus on quality. To hopefully create something that will stand the test of time and remain evergreen, much like many of my other works. To handle this concept properly takes a lot of time. But in reality I’ve been thinking about this stuff my whole life. Part of the “many years” you cite was the development of the concept as Haden and I worked on various projects. The intention was to start after Batwoman, but then Sandman Overture came up and all agreed that should be done. That project took some time. And those interruptions I mentioned above? Well, they were quite significant life altering events. We moved to another state, not as quick a thing as you might think. Then I almost died three times, resulting in a very very long recovery time, probably a year. Then I had also been previously contracted to do 50 painted illustrations for Amazon on a new edition of Bram Stoker’s Dracula. And then the mass shooting in Las Vegas happened, our new home town. Which my wife and I ended up curating a very large benefit book project to help with various causes from the shooting, that took over year from start to finish to promotional time. The most recent schedule problem was the pandemic., that ate time for just about everyone, still is for many around the world. During all this I have occasional residual physical effects from being so ill previously, that sometimes still can be a problem. All of that along with the very complex work of writing, drawing, inking, sometimes painting, sometimes coloring of world building an entire diverse concept presented in a unique challenging format. Then there is technical production stuff to deal with every issue, much too much go into detail here, but it takes time to do. These are large issues, each containing slightly more pages than the average title, plus creating back matter content that is story relevant. I think the issues clock in at 40+ pages of content when all is considered. But on the bright side of how difficult it’s all been, as I handle this interview I’m deep into work on issue 7.

art courtesy of Image Comics

TW: This is the first creator-owned series that you have written or co-written yourself. Were you waiting for the right time to debut this?

JHWIII: It’s something I’ve always wanted to do, but other things would also come up that were wise to take on. But like I mention above this is my career goal, to really only mostly create my own things from this point forward. I hope the future is kind to me and that creator-owned is where I can remain focused.

art courtesy of Image Comics

TW: It is an ongoing series. As a very meticulous artist, how are you able to cope with an ongoing schedule?

JHWIII: That’s the trick isn’t it. Time is always the enemy on projects. As I say, we have an entire arc done ahead of time. Right now, the thinking is we’ll deal with this like seasonal events for each arc. Hopefully that schedule works best.

TW: You have also always been known as an artist who likes to create very intricate and complex pages in your art. What would you say is your visual approach to Echolands?

JHWIII: Wide flow.

TW: Will you be bringing on guest artists to keep you on track with the series?

JHWIII: No. This wouldn’t work with other artists doing arcs. Everything is much too specific to accommodate that. Perhaps down the road if we spin out other Echolands tales, that might be something to think about. But we do have variant cover artists set up for each issue. Asking some of my favorites, pairing them with certain characters that I can visualise each particular artist doing has been fun. So stylistically, even our variant cover artist choices are not arbitrary. They’re all super great talents. We’re lucky to have them.

TW: The series seems to be a cross genre affair mixing fantasy, sci-fi, horror and history. What was your motivation behind making this such a hybrid series?

JHWIII: The fun of it, really. It started with that being a fun thing to do. It makes for creatively interesting things to happen. And then in this particular story there will be an actual reason for it, revealed eventually.

TW: You have worked with many of the best comic writers in your career. What do you think you picked up from them in terms of your own writing or co-writing?

JHWIII: Hmmm… Perhaps detail, and always look for ways to challenge expectations. Not to settle into a single groove. A desire for inventiveness. Well, that last bit isn’t quite true. I always had that desire, I just managed somehow to align with others that wanted push things in surprising ways as well.

TW: The comic will also include a Raw Cut edition giving readers a different look at each issue as it comes out. What does this offer for you as a creator and why was it important for you to publish this as well as the regular edition? And what do you see that this gives the reader who picks up this Raw Cut edition?

JHWIII: The Raw Cut Editions weren’t originally in the mix. There was thought that hopefully we’d do well enough that later we’d release giant Artist Edition or Gallery Edition style books. But Image was looking for some unique ideas for this project and I mentioned to them that with Sandman Overture we released Special Editions of each issue showing the art how it looked leaving my studio. That was done for that entire series. So Eric Stephenson said let’s try that with Echolands as well. The thinking is that it gives a unique look into the creation of a unique series. It gives a secondary reading experience for all comics enthusiasts that are interested in development process. I think… I hope… people will enjoy them. That’s why we make things, isn’t it?

Echolands starts in August from Image Comics

https://imagecomics.com/comics/series/echolands