INTERVIEW: Tim Seeley relaunches Valiant’s ‘Bloodshot’
Image courtesy of Valiant / Provided with permission.
Bloodshot, arguably Valiant’s most beloved comic series, is gearing up for a relaunch thanks to writer Tim Seeley and artist Brett Booth. Issue #1, which will be released Sept. 25, is meant to coincide with the upcoming cinematic adaptation starring Vin Diesel.
“It feels like it’s been in the works for so long because I started talking to the Valiant guys four or five years ago, I think,” Seeley said in a recent phone interview. “I’ve always been a fan of the properties, and I had been reading the reboots. So I kind of inquired early, like, ‘Hey, I’d be interested if you guys are up for something.’ And our schedules could never align, but at some point the Valiant guys reached out and said, ‘Hey, we have a project for you.’ And I kind of assumed they were going to say it’s Quantum and Woody, or it’s Archer & Armstrong because that’s kind of the stuff I assume people associate with me. But they went right to Bloodshot. I was like, ‘Holy shit, man. OK, yeah, I’ll do that.’ I spent a couple months working with the editors and coming up with a version that we kind of felt would really work for old fans and new fans coming in after seeing the movie.”
Before Seeley starts a project that has been created by other writers, he takes a look at the back issues. For Bloodshot, that means he dove into Kevin Vanhook’s earliest issues, plus some reboots over the years.
“I always read the old comics of anything before I start, so I had a lot of the old stuff,” he said. “I do always reread stuff, but for this I wanted to see what kind of version of the character boiled down the best. … So I read all the versions to try and distill it into something I kind of felt like was at the core of the character and why he resonates so well.”
Seeley actually wrote the script for issue #1 before Booth was attached as the artist. Then Valiant let him know that the artist was in consideration, and he became quite happy about the prospects of working with him.
“I think my email back was like, ‘Oh my God, holy shit, are you serious?’ because I had never gotten to work with somebody of his caliber of action comics,” said Seeley, who also writes Money Shot and Dark Red. “I think he does big crazy action stuff better than just about anybody, so I was super excited about it. And by the time issue #2 came around, I was sort of writing it towards Brett because I had read even his earliest stuff going back to his WildC.A.T. stuff and his Backlash and Wildcore. I had read all that stuff when I was in high school, not trying to make Brett feel old, so I knew his stuff. I knew what he did, what he did best. I think he kind of found his perfect niche of comic books. This book is absolutely perfect for him, the level of detail and the action, and it’s a little bit sexy.”
Valiant didn’t give Seeley too many restrictions on the iconic character, who is a supersoldier powered by nanites. In the new series, he must get to the bottom of the mysterious Black Bar and find answers about his past.
“I put my own restrictions on stuff whenever I start a project, so for me I wasn’t try to reinvent the wheel with the character,” he said. “I was just trying to boil down the essence of the character and figure out what is the core version of that character that everybody kind of responds to. Basically the stuff I would get from Valiant would be, ‘Oh, you don’t need to mention that sort of stuff. That’s deep continuity that we don’t really need to reference. You can just make it simple.’ I definitely didn’t ignore anything, but I didn’t feel the need to go back through and really cement anything that had already been established as far as continuity goes.”
Seeley usually has several irons in the fire. He might be working on Bloodshot in the morning and then Money Shot in the afternoon and Dark Red in the evening. This is the life of a freelance comic book writer, and he enjoys the diversity of the content.
“I have to do three or four or five, otherwise I’ll have to sell my house and move into my parents’ house,” he said with a laugh. “For me, it works out pretty well because if I get stuck on one thing, I can go to brainstorming another. … Sometimes you’re working on one character, and you have an idea and it doesn’t quite work for that character, but you can use it for another one. I kind of like the balance. For me, especially, if all the books are the same tone, I think I would get bored. But Bloodshot is my big gritty action book, and at the same time I’m writing Money Shot, which is a sex comedy about scientists. At the same time, I’m writing Dark Red, which is a horror story. I like that kind of diversity. I don’t know if readers like it because they want to pigeonhole a writer into one kind of style, but I like to move around.”
By John Soltes / Publisher / John@HollywoodSoapbox.com
Bloodshot #1, written by Tim Seeley and featuring art by Brett Booth, will be released Sept. 25. Click here for more information.
