Novelist and comic book writer Jeff Mariotte launched his first Desperadoes mini-series at Jim Lee's WildStorm Productions under the Homage Comics imprint ten years ago. At that time Westerns were considered non-starters in comic books (and most other media, too) and no one had ever heard of his artist, John Cassaday. Needless to say, times have changed. Scoop talked with Mariotte about his role in reviving the Western.

Scoop: How would you describe Desperadoes to someone who wasn't familiar with it?
Jeff Mariotte (JM): Desperadoes is a Western/horror comic book series that tells the story of a group of comrades who were brought together by the hunt for a mystically-powered serial killer, and have stayed together, battling various supernatural foes, ever since. The core group has changed as people have died and others joined, but at the moment it consists of Gideon Brood, former Texas Ranger and stock detective, Abby DeGrazia, ex-prostitute and school teacher, Jerome Alexander Betts, former slave and buffalo soldier, and Clay Parkhurst, outlaw and all-around rogue.

Scoop: How did you first come up with the concept?
JM: When we were putting together Homage Comics at WildStorm, a creator-owned imprint for which Kurt Busiek's Astro City would be the only superhero title allowed, we launched with that, Terry Moore's Strangers in Paradise, and James Robinson and Paul Smith's Leave it to Chance. But Jim Lee wanted to explore other genres, too, which we gradually did, and knowing of my fondness for Westerns, Jim asked me if I had any ideas for a Western comic. I spent a few days putting together the Desperadoes pitch. In it, I mentioned that we could take the series in a supernatural, horrific direction, and Jim--recognizing that Westerns were hard sells in those days--really responded to that aspect, so that's the way we went.

Scoop: From your first thoughts about it until the first issue appeared, how long did it take in development?
JM: I don't remember exactly. It went pretty quickly, I know. The hard part was finding the right artist, someone who could get the historical West right and also do action and horror. I shared a meal with Mark Waid at a convention, and he told me about a kid named John Cassaday who was looking to break in. As soon as I saw John's samples, I knew he was the guy. He grew up in Texas and knows what the Western landscape looks like, knows horses and hats, and has a brilliant, realistic style and a powerful work ethic. Once he was on board, it all came together in a hurry, and the first issue appeared in September, 1997.

Scoop: When you got the first issue of the first mini-series, did you think you'd be dealing with the characters a decade later?
JM: I really had no idea. The first issue was an immediate sell-out, necessitating a second printing, so we thought we were on to something. But it's had its ups and downs, sales-wise--as I mentioned above, Westerns were then, and now, a hard sell. It's been nominated for every major award in the horror field, and it got me into the Western Writers of America organization, where it also has fans, so I guess by reaching out to those two disparate audiences--and to people who just love good art and exciting stories--it has managed to endure in a marketplace where spandex still rules the day.

Scoop: Why do you think it's lasted?
JM: As I mentioned above, some amazing art has helped a lot. It would be too self-aggrandizing to talk much about the quality of the writing, but I think the characters are solid enough that they get into people's hearts--it's been said that reading each new miniseries is like checking in with old friends whose lives have continued in the meantime. And it's still pretty unique in the comic book market.

Scoop: Starting with John Cassaday, you've had some amazing art on Desperadoes. What can you tell us about each of the artists?
JM: I talked a little about Cassaday before. I knew then that I was lucky to get such a talented artist on the debut miniseries, but of course I couldn't know that before Desperadoes reached the decade mark, John would be the most popular artist in the business. Deservedly so--he never turns in a page that's not his best work, he can stick to a schedule, and he's supremely talented.

He was followed by John Lucas on the one-shot Desperadoes: Epidemic!. Lucas is a friend of Cassaday's and a fellow Texan, and he brought a different look and style to the book that was still very cool. I was impressed at the time that Desperadoes could be a series of different stories told with very disparate styles and could still work.

After that, I was lucky enough to get living legend John Severin, who had been drawing Westerns as far back as the 1940s. Desperadoes: Quiet of the Grave was the project that brought him out of an almost-exile, working for humor magazines like Cracked instead of the comics that had made his career. Since then he's continued doing Westerns, and I've heard he's working on one now for DC.

Jeremy Haun came along after the series moved to IDW. Putting together the miniseries Desperadoes: Banners of Gold, I found Jeremy's samples in my file of submissions that were good enough to keep for future reference. He refused to change his name to John, but he was talented enough that I didn't care. He's destined to be one of the most popular artists in comics, too.

Finally, for Desperadoes: Buffalo Dreams, Chris Ryall of IDW found Alberto Dose. Alberto has mostly worked as an animator, but he's also done some terrific comics work--none better than what he came up with for this miniseries, though. I wound up being thrilled on a regular basis by the beauty and power of his pages.

Each of them has his own strengths, of course, but there's not a weak artist in the bunch, and I've been very, very lucky to work with them.

Scoop: What influences are you conscious of in Desperadoes?
JM: Oddly enough, the main thing that comes to mind is a novel I read in 6th grade, called Mystery of the Haunted Mine, by Gordon D. Shirreffs. It's a Western but a contemporary one, set in the 1950s (when it was written) in Arizona. It's about a fictionalized version of the Lost Dutchman's Mine in Arizona's Superstition Mountains (called the Espectros here), and while the villainy turns out not to be supernatural (spoiler alert!) it was still very scary, and included Western elements as well. Not only did that little novel (which I got through my school's Scholastic book club) start me on my path of writing Westerns, horror, and combinations thereof, but I now live in Arizona. So Mr. Shirreffs has a lot to answer for.

Scoop: When you're working on a Desperadoes story, is it any different to you as a creator than working on any other property?
JM: Absolutely, and I think because of the same syndrome I mentioned earlier in regards to readers. The characters of Desperadoes, maybe because they've been with me so much longer than the characters in any given novel or other comic book, seem like old friends. I kind of pop in and find out what they've been up to, then share that with the readers. I don't have much patience for writers who claim that their characters "take over" the stories, because to mean that seems like a nonsensical notion--if the writer isn't in control, how much good with the final product be? And these characters don't take over, but they definitely influence the direction because of who they are and how they'll react to things.

Scoop: Have any of the stories come easier or harder than the others in the series?
JM: Probably the easiest was Quiet of the Grave. I got the news that Severin was interested, but needed to see right away what the storyline was before he would commit. Not wanting to risk losing him, I went home and developed the outline from scratch--I hadn't even been thinking about another mini at that time--and we got it to John the next day. He liked it and signed on, and the story didn't really deviate from that quickie outline.

Scoop: What's your working process like?
JM: I'm a pretty dedicated day-to-day writer. I haven't always been--when I was working staff jobs in the comics business I had to confine my writing to weekends, and that was often complicated. Now that I'm just writing full-time, though, I'm usually at my desk first thing in the morning, or after my ranch chores are done (and this is a word ranch, not a cattle ranch, so they're sometimes wearying but not as hard as they might be). I'll work until lunch, take a short break, and then get back to it until about five. I mix up different projects when I have to--a novel today, a comic for two or three days after that, back to the novel, then maybe a short story, etc.--just because I have a lot of commitments.

In my office, the bookcases facing my desk are full of Western history and natural history books, so if I have reference questions I can usually find the answers close at hand.

On comics, I work full script, almost always. I also prefer to work well ahead of the artist--I like to get a whole miniseries done before the artist starts, when possible. I like to leave as much as possible, visually, up to the artist, but if I'm going to need a horse in the pasture in issue 4 I want to be able to let the artist know that in issue 1.

Scoop: There appears to be a solid renaissance of westerns, both traditional and otherwise, going on in comics. To what do you attribute that?
JM: Desperadoes.

Okay, maybe not entirely. Genre acceptance seems to be cyclical. A few years ago we were all about hard-boiled crime. Then it was horror. Now there are a bunch of Westerns. I'd love to see a lot of good pirate comics on the market next.

Scoop: What's next for the Desperadoes gang?
JM: I don't know. I think they're up to something, but I haven't looked in on them for a bit. Probably in 2008, though, we'll find out.

Scoop: Any chance of seeing some of the out-of-print material collected?
JM: There's been discussion of a comprehensive collection of all the Desperadoes stuff, maybe in the now time-honored "phone book" format, maybe some other way. I'd love to see it happen, because although I take pains to make sure with each new miniseries that the characters are "introduced" again, there's a lot of history now and each series kind of builds on what came before. I would hate for readers to feel like they don't want to try the book because they don't know the backstory, so having it all in one place for a reasonable price would be great.

The John Cassaday miniseries, collected as A Moment's Sunlight, is out of print but the five issues (a four-part story and a stand-alone) are availabe as downloads from Pullboxonline.com, and they're cheap.

Scoop: What else do you have coming up?
JM: My current novel, Missing White Girl, has done well enough for me to sell two additional original horror novels, and the first of those is due in November. So that's occupying most of my time. I'm also working on some comics projects that haven't officially been announced yet, but that will be soon. One of these is, oddly enough, a horror/Western I'm writing with Shannon Eric Denton, called Graveslinger, with amazing art by a videogame artist named John Cboins. I'm also doing some original graphic novels with Atomic Pop Entertainment, and after the current horror novel I need to get busy on a Spider-Man novel. In the near term, the second 30 Days of Night novel that Steve Niles and I wrote, called Immortal Remains, will debut next week at Comic-Con. In November, Harper will release a novel based on the Supernatural TV show, called Witch's Canyon, and sometime next year we'll see a CSI: Miami novel I wrote, called Right to Die.