INTERVIEW: Garth Ennis is still hanging out with ‘The Boys’
Photo: Courtesy of Amazon Prime / Provided with permission.
The Boys, Garth Ennis and Darick Robertson’s celebrated comic series, may have been created at the time of the second George W. Bush administration, but it’s still as timely as ever. Perhaps that’s why Amazon Prime has adapted the comic for a new TV show, premiering Friday, July 26 on the streaming service.
The superheroes in this unique tale have unimaginable talents, but also a penchant for abusing their special powers. Still, they are adored like celebrities and revered as gods, and TV audiences will not have to ponder too hard on how The Boys comments on society in 2019.
For Ennis, who is also the writer behind Punisher, Preacher, Hitman and a host of other comics, the entire process of Amazon adapting his series for the small screen has been fascinating.
“It’s intriguing to watch the process, to see what’s going to make it, what’s not, what’s going to change,” the comic book writer said in a recent phone interview. “I’ve learned from Preacher to treat the original and the adaptation as completely separate, as two different beasts. I find that separation gives you the perspective you need to understand them.”
The Boys first came to life as a comic when Ennis started drafting the five main characters in early 2005. Before he had the storyline or settings, he had these five characters, including the memorable Billy Butcher, played in the Amazon series by Karl Urban, of Star Trek fame.
“He is … my all-time favorite character, and he was the guy it seemed to me most appropriate to take us through this world,” Ennis said of Butcher. “The idea was that it’s a bad world run by bad men, and so you need another bad man, perhaps an even worse man, to face them. And it was enjoyable actually coming up with Billy Butcher, someone that charismatic, that dangerous, that guy that seems charming at first before you realize that he’s the most lethal man you’ll ever meet, and yet a terribly necessary man, like some of the terribly necessary bad men we’ve seen throughout history.”
At the time of The Boys’ creation, it was the early 2000s, a time that Ennis characterized as riddled with corporate corruption of government and abuse of power in politics. “If I was writing it today, I would continue with those themes, but I think I would have to add a degree of instability, perhaps even insanity to the actual administration and my portrayal of the administration,” Ennis said.
Back then, The Boys began at Wildstorm and eventually moved to Dynamite Entertainment. Ennis said the transfer was fairly easy; he received a new editor, new publisher and renewed creative freedom.
“I knew I had a publisher and an editor who would back me to the hilt,” he said of his Dynamite days. “The creative and professional relationship that I began with Dynamite, with Nicky Barrucci and Joe Rybandt, has proven to be one of the most rewarding of my career, very definitely the right way to go.”
All told, The Boys had 90 issues in print, when counting the main series and the spinoff miniseries. When the comic came to an end, and audiences said goodbye to Billy Butcher, Hughie, Mother’s Milk, Frenchie and The Female, Ennis felt it was the right place to stop. After all, he had been planning the finale for quite some time.
“I was very satisfied with the way it ended,” he said. “I tend to think of my endings first, or at least fairly early on, and then build toward them. I’ll have imagery and moments and lines in my head that will form the ending, and they tend to come first. When you come up with a character as strong as Billy Butcher, you understand that you’re dealing with a pretty epic, iconic kind of a guy and someone who deserves an ending that fits such a character, so I’ll think of that kind of material pretty early on. No, I was happy with the way it ended, and I was happy that it ended when it did. Sometimes I think about revisiting the characters. If I was to do that, I would need a good, strong story. I wouldn’t go ahead without that.”
For those fans who have followed Ennis’ career, they know that he has completed stories in both a creator-owned capacity and for the big houses, like Marvel. He said that early in his career there was a large difference between these two approaches to comic writing. Nowadays, it’s not exactly night and day.
“I would say that if I’m doing creator-owned material, it’s 100 percent creative freedom,” Ennis said. “I don’t intend to take the job on unless that’s guaranteed from the start. On the other hand, if I write something like The Punisher for Marvel comics, I’m well aware that I don’t own the character. I didn’t create the character. He is just in my keeping for those six issues, but at the same time, there’s an understanding on the part of the editor and the publisher. And I’m glad to say that they’ve always been very sympathetic. If you’re going to hire me, you know what you’re going to get, and there’s no point in trying to get me to write something more mainstream that perhaps a regular writer might. And so with that mutual understanding and sympathy, I think it is possible to do interesting work on something like The Punisher. Again, if I was to talk about it as a percentage as I did earlier, usually on creator-owned books, I have 100 percent creative freedom. On The Punisher, I’ve got about 95.”
For the Amazon Prime adaptation of The Boys, Ennis promises TV viewers classic stories and characters from the comic series, and also some new tales to tell. Overall, the series, which also stars Chace Crawford and Jennifer Esposito, receives a thumbs up from the comic creator.
“I’ve already seen all the episodes,” he said. “I saw rough cuts of them some time ago, so I already know what happens. … I think they’ve managed a very entertaining story.”
As far as the future, Ennis is staying busy. The second volume of his World War II comic Out of the Blue is out this month, and he recently released Sara, a book about a female Russian sniper during the siege of Leningrad.
“That I think is the best I’ve ever done, if not damn close to it,” he said of Sara. “Beyond that, you’ll see more Punisher. I have two miniseries currently being drawn. I have another graphic novel, another World War II story … which is more of a naval-aviation story. You’ll see that next year. There are other things, of course. There are always other things bubbling away, a new series for a new publisher I can’t tell you too much about, but it will involve time travel and hopefully a few laughs.”
By John Soltes / Publisher / John@HollywoodSoapbox.com
The Boys, adapted from the comic series by Garth Ennis and Darick Robertson, will release its inaugural season Friday, July 26 on Amazon Prime. Click here for more information.
