Faith Erin Hicks Talks Universal Monsters: The Mummy

Faith Erin Hicks is a Canadian-born writer/artist best known for her work in the young adult graphic novel space, including Zombies Calling! and Friends with Boys, the webcomic Demonology 101, Avatar: The Last Airbender, Pumpkinheads with Rainbow Rowell, and her work on The Last of Us: American Dreams comic series. Her most recent work is Universal Monsters: The Mummy with Lee Loughridge, which launched last week. Hick is is putting her own spin on the classic horror series. I spoke with Faith about the book. See our conversation below.

This interview has been edited for clarity.

How did this opportunity to work on The Mummy come to be?

I'm not the first name that would come to mind when you think about doing an adaptation of any of the Universal Monsters. I was actually approached by my editor, Alex Antone, about possibly writing this project.

Over the last few years, I've become a lot more interested in horror. I've always been interested in it as a genre. But up until very recently, I was a bit of a chicken when it came to watching horror movies. I very easily get overstimulated by horrific images. And as a child, I was fascinated by horror, but I was much too scared to ever watch it. So it was always kind of this, like—not forbidden- but I had forbidden myself because I was so afraid of being frightened by a movie, being frightened by visual images.

In the last few years, I just started diving into it and making myself more familiar with the genre. I've always really, really loved the Alien franchise. It's just so weird and crazy. I really love John Carpenter's The Thing, which is also one of my favorite movies. But you know, I hadn't really moved into horror as a writer and as an artist.

It was something that was very new to me. And initially, Alex had approached me just to inquire if I would be interested in writing The Mummy. I watched the original movie. I found it incredibly compelling. Like a lot of people my age, I actually grew up with the 1999 Brendan Fraser and Rachel Weisz version. I saw that movie in the theaters and all three of the trilogy in the theaters. I enjoyed them. But they're very, totally very different from the original Mummy. I don't really consider them horror movies. I feel like they're more in the vein of Indiana Jones. So, you know, action, adventure, supernatural goings on, that kind of thing.

The original Mummy, I found it very compelling. It's very, very slow-moving, very filled with dread. And the core story is essentially a romance. And I just found that very compelling. The idea of these two lovers who had essentially been torn apart by death, and then reunited through both reincarnation and this horrible curse, bringing one of them back to life. I found that just so fascinating, and was really interested in delving into it.

So initially, Alex had approached me about writing, and through a complicated series of events, I didn't end up being able to go forward with the project at the time he approached me. But then, about a year later, he came back to me and basically said, We still don't have a writer for this project. Are you interested? And at that time, my schedule was free. And I was like, yes, I'm totally interested in writing this. But also, what about letting me draw it too? I know my past books don't indicate that I could draw a book like this. But I'm kind of up for the challenge if you'll have me, and to his credit, he was okay with going forward. So yeah, that's how I ended up in this position.

And it's been a wonderful project. It's been creatively just very inspiring and very challenging.

Were there any major surprises about jumping into a new genre or jumping into a genre that people, I guess, wouldn't expect you to do?

I don't know that there are any major surprises.

I feel like I approached it the way that I approached all of my work, which is just really looking for the humanity in all of the characters, both human and undead monster. I find The Mummy very compelling as a character. I find it very sympathetic. In comparison to the 1999 movie, that movie really sets him up as a villain. He's a murderer. He's not a nice person.

Whereas in the 1932 Boris Karloff version, he's not really a guy until he starts killing people in modern times. In ancient Egypt, the great sin that he committed was that he was really sad and his girlfriend died, and he wanted to bring her back to life. So he was just sad. He wasn't able to let go of her. I mean, gosh, I find that very sympathetic. So yeah, that was my initial attraction to the project was just to really dive into the humanity of the character.

My approach was initially different than my other projects, but it definitely went in a much darker direction than my usual young adult fare.

Was it intimidating at all to put your own twist on such a storied character? Like this is someone who's existed in media for seemingly forever.

Yeah, it was absolutely scary.

It's always intimidating to go into someone else's playbox, someone else's world essentially, and to try and put your own stamp on it. Universal Monsters was very generous. They were on board with my take from the beginning.

Alex was great to work with. He was really good at challenging me and really good at making the story the best it could be. Yeah, it's always terrifying because when you're creating a graphic novel that's like your own creation, nobody has preconceived ideas about it.

But yeah, with The Mummy, it's like people have an idea in their head of what that character is, what they should be doing over the course of the story, and maybe they disagree with my interpretation. And that's fine. But yeah, it can be very intimidating when you're starting out.

Were there any characters you enjoyed writing and drawing more than you expected once you finally got into the story?

I really loved writing and drawing Helen. She's the main female character in the movie, and she's basically the point of view character in this story.

There's a flashback sequence in one of the later issues, and I really, really enjoyed that one. It was a lot of fun to draw Imhotep, who is The Mummy, and then also his beloved, his girlfriend, Anak Sunamun, as they were back in ancient Egypt. That was really enjoyable. I really had a lot of fun with that.

How much fun is it to be part of this line at Skybound Comics that's brought in all these characters? They all seem to focus on allowing the creators to put their own stamp on things. What is it like to be part of that group, and is it inspiring to see the work done by other creators? 

Yeah, it's really cool.

I feel like it's fun to be part of a shared universe, essentially, a dark universe, as you will. I'm looking through the history of these movies, and they had so many crossovers, which I think is really quite funny. So, I don't know.

It is kind of being part of a great big monster mash, a great big monster party, and we're all just hanging out with our various monsters. Yeah, it's been really fun. Working in graphic novels and comics, sometimes it can be very isolating. You feel like you're creating on your own completely, with hopefully the support of an editor and a publisher, but this has been really different. I feel like I'm part of a team and part of this really cool venture that's bringing these characters to life in a very unique way.

Would you be up for some sort of crossover?

I think that would be really fun. It would be a really fun challenge. I actually had someone ask that question before, and at first, I had a silly answer, which was, I think, The Mummy should meet the Invisible Man, because they both wear bandages, and they can talk shop about that, which is very, very silly.

But I kind of think there's something in maybe The Mummy meeting Dracula, because Dracula is also immortal, like The Mummy, but for The Mummy, it's a curse, whereas Dracula is just having a good time drinking the blood of virgins throughout the years. So I think it would be interesting to have two characters meet who have a very different perspective on being immortal beings. Yeah, it would be cool to see that.

What was it like to see Lee Loughridge's work on this book? Their colours are pretty consistently fantastic. Is this your first time collaborating with Lee?

Yeah, first time. I was familiar with his work from colouring everyone, essentially.

He's been amazing to work with, really diligent, really fast, like shockingly fast. I'm used to working in the graphic novel pipeline, which is much slower than the monthly book pipeline. The monthly book pipeline is slightly terrifying, just the speed at which everything has to be produced.

But it's also really fun, because you feel like you're constantly running this crazy sprint to the finish line. But yeah, Lee is absolutely amazing. I was a big fan of his work.

I'd seen his work with Becky Cloonan before, and I'm a big fan of hers as well. I think with colourists, it can be really challenging to find someone whose colouring style complements the artwork that you produce. I know sometimes I don't like working with colourists to really render their work, because I don't feel like that complements my particular drawing style.

And Lee has just been amazing in bringing my artwork to life.

Speaking of your drawing style, was it a challenge to kind of fit this to your style, given your past body of work? Or is it just something where it's like, your style just kind of is your style, and that's kind of how it fits?

I don't know that I radically changed my style, but I was really trying to visually, I really wanted all of the artwork on the page to have as much impact as possible.

It is really different when you're writing and drawing a graphic novel, regardless of audience, because in graphic novels, there isn't that 24-page limitation. Whereas with a monthly comic book, it's like 24 pages, and that's it. So I couldn't do my usual technique of really decompressing a scene or drawing out emotions.

So yeah, it was a lot of really intense facial expressions, really trying to make every single panel have the biggest impact it possibly could. So yeah, my style didn't necessarily change, but I feel like I upped the intensity of each page, because yeah, when I'm producing a graphic novel, it's just different. The story flows a lot more differently, whereas The Mummy, it's so intense, and every single page matters, as opposed to a 300-page graphic novel, where you can draw out a scene for, I don't know, 20 pages if you want to.

Speaking of the format, is it nerve-wracking at all when you have a book come out so staggered, as opposed to when you're doing a graphic novel that comes out at once?

It's actually been more fun, in a way. I don't know. I love working in graphic novels, because I do love the fact that you can basically hand someone a complete story and be like, here's all of it.

It's not one of four or anything like that. Here's the complete story, with a beginning, middle, and end. As a reader, I really enjoy that, but I do enjoy the fast pace.

Well, I don't necessarily enjoy the fast pace. I enjoy the feeling of a new Mummy chapter coming out every month. That's really fun and exciting, to get to experience a reader's reaction as the story is going on, as opposed to a graphic novel, where you don't get the reaction to the process.

You just get the reaction to the final piece. I remember having that experience with The Last of Us. Then, I also had that experience when I used to do webcomics many, many years ago. You're growing and changing, and the story evolves with the readers, as they read and give feedback. It's really interesting. It's a very different way of working.

I feel like there are strengths and weaknesses to both angles, but I don't know. It's been really fun to take a break from graphic novels and do something this intense and fast. I'm not even done the book yet, or all of The Mummy issues. I'm working on the fourth issue right now. The first issue is already out, which never happens in graphic novels. It's like you're done.

How exciting is it to get the story into people's hands?

It's really exciting. I'm so thrilled to be a part of this. Yeah, I'm really excited to see people's reactions to it, because it is so different. I feel like, despite the fact that I do a lot of comics for middle grade and young adult readers, so teens and younger elementary school kids, I still feel like I have a decent amount of adult readers. It's been really exciting to go into an adult space making comics. It's not something I've really had the opportunity to do.

With The Last of Us, even though that was the prequel to an M-rated game, the story that I told was still a story about young teens. Even though they had swear words and graphic violence, it was still about young teens.

Whereas this is very much about adults and is very much about certain themes that might not necessarily be in a young adult graphic novel. I've just been really excited to see the adult reaction to this comic, as opposed to the teenage reaction. We'll see if there's much of a difference between that.

It's been really great. Really great to do adult comics for kind of the first time in my career. Hopefully, I get the opportunity to do it again sometime.