Artist P.J. Holden has a new comic called Terran Omega, and he’s sharing it now — one page per week — via his Patreon, which is free if you just want to read the story but also offers process material for paid subscribers.
I, of course, am a paid subscriber. No hesitation. I’ve been a big fan of Holden’s for a while — from his war comics to his collaborations with John McCrea to the absolutely hilarious Noam Chimpsky strips he’s illustrated and co-created for 2000AD. So checking out this comic, which he off-handedly calls a spooky haunted house in space was a no-brainer.
And I also reached out to P.J. to have a brief chat about the comic, why he choose Patreon to publish it (for now), how he’s fitting it into his busy schedule, and more.
Check out our interview below…
P.J. Holden talks TERRAN OMEGA
THE BEAT: What was the motivation to start doing Terran Omega, and why through your Patreon?
P.J. HOLDEN: Well, it comes down to that I wanted to write something that I’d own. I’ve taken a few swings at creator owned projects, where they’re usually writer led, and I’ve written a few short things myself over the years (notably a horror story for 2000AD, a short for Declan Shalvey’s Old Dog, as well as a bunch of short goofy strips).
I’ve written longer things over the years, but the big obstacle has always been “ok, when are you going to draw this 50 page story?” Since I’m a working comic artist, I can’t just afford to blow 50 pages of unpaid work on my own projects. So I figured, what if I did it as a weekly comic? I’d stick the pages on Patreon (which I’d tried successfully before when I did the Folklore Stories with John Reppion) and hopefully build enough of an audience that by the time I’m finished a good chunk of them will hop over with me to Kickstarter to help fund getting a book of it published (fingers crossed!).
Editor’s Note: These are process pages available via P.J. Holden’s Patreon
THE BEAT: What’s the series log line? I think I’ve seen you call it a “spooky haunted house in space” but I know you’ve mentioned having a series bible and many more ideas for this world…
HOLDEN: Humanities deadliest weapon is now the Universes greatest Hope. Can Terran Omega escape the ghosts of a war that ended millennia ago?
But Spooky Haunted House in Space is punchier.
We dip into Terran Omega’s past in this story a little, but yes, I’ve a lot of ideas. In fact this is her second story. The first was published in an anthology published by Broken Frontier about a decade ago. I’ve been sort of sitting on ideas for 10 years. The big key part of Terran Omega’s world is it’s set after humanity has long since disappeared (or been wiped out? who knows) following a horrific universe-wide war, but it’s left all these unfathomable weapons behind — weapons that have long since leaked into the surrounding areas and become deadlier, weirder and more alien. It’s a fun little macguffin generator that allows me to come up with the sort of story I’d like to do and then figure out how that would make sense in her world. Largely inspired by things like Kung Fu or The Incredible Hulk TV show, where a super powered character would wonder along until pushed into action by circumstances, which allowed all sorts of stories to be told.
Right now I’ve notes on two other Terran Omega stories, a short, probably 14-15 pages and something longer, probably another 50+ pages plus some things I want to sprinkle into this that will lay the ground work for later bigger ideas. We’ll see if I ever get to them, hopefully I do and it won’t be another ten years before her next adventure.
THE BEAT: I feel like the main character we see here definitely has a space knight feel to her. What went into her design?
HOLDEN: I wanted something that would look alien? Or at least have a form that doesn’t make you immediately think “ah, a human” — hence the big helmet. And I like the mix of fabric and hard carapace, those were my guiding principles for her look. She’s a kung fu space knight.
On Page 1 of the Ghosts of War, I wanted a reader to not be sure what’s a human ship and what’s alien. The big pin like ship is Terran Omega’s ship, the Black Omega, a ship designed to destroy planets, powered by a black hole that rips itself through spacetime when it wants to travel somewhere. A ship that Terran Omega will do everything in her power not to use. I’m honestly having a hoot just making up mad fun big ideas.
Did you know you can do that? Just make up stuff? Is this what writers do all the time? Man, no wonder they all go mad…
THE BEAT: Can you talk about your creative process on this? Have you scripted the story in full or are you working in chunks as you go along?
HOLDEN: I wrote the whole thing a while ago, the process largely went “I’d like to do a ghost story. SET IN SPACE!” and then over the course of weeks, while driving I’d start telling myself that story.
Once I have some notion of what it’s about, I largely started thinking about escalating things, and giving the characters a reason to exist, and Terran some way to stop what ever awful thing is about to happen from happening, though often times her role is to help other people become the hero of the story. Sadly, they don’t always survive this.
Then I write a bullet point list of the story each point being one page, dividing it up into sections for acts, and trying to move it along to hit the beats I want page by page. Then in the writing I’ve an eye on two things: how do I make each page end on some sort of mini cliff hanger — doesn’t have to be big, just a thing to move us along — and what’s a cool reveal, what will look amazing in a double page spread.
That’s partly because I knew I’d be drawing one page a week and wanted a hook on every page, and partly because I want to draw cool things! I mean, why else write it myself? And finally, and horribly, mercenarily, when I come to do the Kickstarter, I’ll be putting all the pages up for sale to help the book earn enough to get it in to print!
Once I’d written it, I spent a day and did thumbnails for the entire strip, and it’s my guide to keep me sane as I draw it — I lift the script out, check out the thumbnail and draw what it says. Sometimes (more often than not, apparently) I curse the scriptwriter for being too wordy and start editing dialogue out. I’m in mortal fear of saying too much with dialogue. Could be I’ve over cut, but I’m hoping once there’s more online I’ll start to see reader feedback and can figure this out. Once it’s all finished, I should be able to sit down and discern whether it makes sense or not and start adding things back in.
THE BEAT: Finally, now that you’re 7 pages in, how has the workload been for this? Are you finding yourself still excited to work on it on top of your other work?
HOLDEN: Oh yeah, I mean, I’m honestly surprised it’s working out as well as it is. I’m always excited to get to do a page, and because there’s been two double page spreads, it’s taken five weeks and I’m seven pages in, and it feels like I’ve made more progress than expected.
I’ve also coloured every page, which at the beginning wasn’t the plan (maybe one or two? but nope, looks like I’m colouring it all!), and I’ve been sitting thinking “well, which of these other long projects that I’ve written do I want to do next?” which is a slight problem because I’d like to do all of them. The real proof of the pudding will be when it comes to the Kickstarter — my target is to cover the printing of a nice hardback version, and if I can get to that, then I’ll be happy. A book like Dan McDaid’s Dega is sitting on my shelf and man, I’d love a book that looks like that.
You can follow Terran Omega now for free via P.J. Holden’s Patreon
