Hi, I'm Joshua Dysart...

[Joshua Dysart]

I only have one question at the moment:

1) Does Flamingo have a broken heart tattoo on her chest? I feel like I saw it on a few pages in Harby 11 yet do not recall it prior to the Harby Wars arc?

Namaste!

Jonesy

Nameste! Aayubowan!

That broken heart tattoo was in the original design, but was not used in the books during the Renegades arc, and it slipped in on a few pages with the return of Khari. I prefer it not be there. I'm going to try to have it pulled from here on out. Giving the kids tattoos would be very character appropriate, but tattoos are hard as hell to keep consistant in comics.

Thanks, Jonesy! great question!

[Joshua Dysart]

A Few Questions for you:

1. Was Woody in the piano recital in issue 7?
2. What's your favorite ongoing comic? (beside your own)
3. Have you read any VH1? If so what's your favorite title?

Hey Blujay!

1.
2. I'm digging MIND MNGMT, PROPHET, THE MASSIVE, X-O and ARCHER AND ARMSTRONG. I still miss NORTHLANDERS, SCALPED and HELLBLAZER. But I mostly read graphic novels.
3. I have read VH1. ARCHER AND ARMSTRONG was my favorite title from back in the day.

Thanks!

[Joshua Dysart]

Hi Josh.

Has Dino shown you his pube collection yet?

Yes.

[Joshua Dysart]

Hello, Joshua. I am really interested in how you write your scripts. Based on what I have read, I assume that you basically use full scripts. Am I correct? I love the transition panels changing from one artist to another specially in Harbinger #0 with Mico Suayan and Pere Perez. The transitions were very "Watchmen"-like, for lack of a better term. Are you consciously writing to the different art styles when you do your script for multi-artist books like Harbinger Wars #1, Harbinger #11 and the early Habringer issues with Khari Evans and Lewis LaRosa.

Finally, you and Pere Perez's work Harbinger #9 is amazing. One of the best single comic book issues of the past couple of years. Faith is such an amazing character. And it's good that her spotlight issue is really amazing.

I do use full scripts! I'm not sure what you mean by "Watchmen"-like transitions. Can you elaborate?

When I have worked with an artist a little and start to have a feel for what they do best I absolutely right to their strengths. But if I've never worked with an artist before I just sort of do the best I can based on what I've seen of their work.

I LOVE that Perez issue. He was AMAZING on that book. I'm really happy with the way that whole thing turned out.

Here, this will probably screw up the formate, but I'll cut paste page 1 from issue 9 into this window and see how it turns out...

PAGE 1 (4 PANELS)

PANEL 1 EXT. FREEWAY - DAY
Open on a car, model circa 2002 (or before). It’s a sensible four door. But it’s also flipping violently across the freeway in a horrible auto accident. How anyone is going to survive this, I have no idea.
1. CAPTION: MY NAME IS FAITH HERBERT.
2. CAPTION: AND IT SEEMS LIKE I’VE BEEN FLYING MY WHOLE LIFE.
3. CAPTION: ONE WAY OR ANOTHER.

PANEL 2 INT. CAR - DAY
Inside the car we see a pretty, but heavy, eight-year-old in the backseat, strapped in a booster seat. This is YOUNG FAITH HERBERT. She’s scared to death. Screaming. The car she’s in is flipping. Not quite upside down, but on its way. Capture the horrible force of the motion and weightlessness on her little body.
4. CAPTION: THIS HAPPENED THE SAME YEAR MOM AND DAD TOOK ME TO SEE “SPIDERMAN” AND “ATTACK OF THE CLONES”.
5. CAPTION: THE YEAR “FIREFLY” STARTED.

PANEL 3
Show her parents in the front seats. Father on the driver’s side. Mother on the passenger’s. They’re both overweight, not terribly, but they’re certainly big people. The father has a beard that’s intentionally cropped like Riker’s on “Star Trek Next Generation”. The inside of the car’s roof is crumbling in from impact of the hard roll. The crushing roof is smashing in on them as the car is now fully upside down. It’s obvious that neither parent is going to survive this. Shattered glass speckles the image like glinting flakes of snow.
6. CAPTION: THEY LOVED “FIREFLY”. BUT THEY NEVER GOT TO SEE THE BEST OF IT.

PANEL 4 EXT. CAR - DAY
Emergency crews have arrived now. It’s chaos. The highway is blocked off. EMT’s are pulling the dead bodies from the wreckage. In the f.g., the focal point of the image, is little Faith, being carried away from the destroyed upside down car by a Fireman. She's screeching. The kind of wail only a lost child can manage.
7. CAPTION: I WAS PULLED FROM THE RUINS.
8. CAPTION: LIKE SUPERMAN CARRIED AWAY IN A ROCKET FROM A WORLD THAT MIGHT HAVE BEEN…


*

So there you go. As I said, the format changed in a few places, bolds, underlines, etc. But that's what my scrips look like.

[Joshua Dysart]

Will you come on OTV again to talk about Harby and Harby Wars?

-Sean

Of course I will, Sean!

[Joshua Dysart]

In particular, I want to thank you for what you've done with Torque. The changes you made to that character in both powers and his unpowered state is truly inspired and I look forward to seeing how he deals with his new reality. That origin issue for Torque literally made me tear up. The emotion behind that scene where 'Big Torque' took 'Little Torque' into himself to keep him safe was beautiful.

Thanks! I'm super proud of that one too!

[Joshua Dysart]

Hey Joshua!

Did you mention Cartoon Network? I love Cartoon Network (and yes, I'm 32)! I'm on your FB, I'm the poker nut......you probably know who by now. Anyhow, what are you diggin' on Cartoon Network right now? Personally, I'm loving Adventure Time and Regular Show, but I also love the DC Nation stuff, the Ben 10 programs, and the CN/Adult Swim Toonami lineup on Saturday nights.

Well, nice talking with you

Hey Manga!! I mention the shows I'm watching a posts up! Love Adventure Time!

[Burrito Boy]

You *SQUEE*! You killed Faith's parents!

Oh, and thanks for that example.

[Joshua Dysart]

How much does the events, characters, and tone of the other Valiant books influence you? How for instance, can Harada exist in a world with the One Percent from Archer & Armstrong. The tone and characterization seems to be completely at odds, so much so that it becomes difficult to imagine they are in the same universe.

One of the best moments of VH1 was Torques death and it's impact, given Valiant's approach to death at that time. When characters die in Harbinger, do you intend to leave them dead or is your approach closer to Marvel or DC?

Regarding the influence of the other books, we are all technically in a shared universe. And so eventually Harada is going to have to deal with the One Percent and the Hive, etc. And I have some cool ideas for how to do that. But right now we're just trying to make the books individually awesome. But yes, I'm always thinking about how to make that move to a larger, more connected U. I agree that tonally the books are difficult to link up. But this is the crazy nature of shared universe comics. It's like juggling, no matter how amazing you are at it, you can't juggle forever, eventually you're going to drop a bowling pin (or whatever). So eventually something's not going to work as we synch this stuff up, but we'll always do our best.

Regarding your last question, dead is dead.

[Joshua Dysart]

Hi Joshua,

Any plans to take over Shadowman? Would love to see you write the title.

Nope. Give the book a chance. It's going through some team transitions right now, but there's some super talented people on it. It'll be amazing, you'll see!

[Joshua Dysart]

Welcome to the boards!

Since this is posted in the spoiler section, I have to question whether this is in fact Joshua Dysart. What's the spoiler?

I figured it would just be safe to put it here. You never know what we'd be talking about it! And no, this is not the real Joshua Dysart. Next Question!

[Joshua Dysart]

Quick question:

The Beatles, The Stones or Wu-Tang Clan?

Do I have to pick between the three? All of them (but not all of all of them, if you know what I mean)!!

[Joshua Dysart]

I've got something I've been meaning to ask you for a while.

In Harbinger #2, when you introduced Kris, you said she was a Buzzcocks fan, and that she was hopelessly, confusingly in love with Peter.

Was the Buzzcocks mention meant to be an allusion to the song, "Ever Fallen In Love With Someone (You Shouldn't've Fallen In Love With)?"

You're amazing!!

You're the first person to catch that in all this time! Not even my editor got that! There should be a prize for you!!

[pixierosa]

Hi Josh.

Has Dino shown you his pube collection yet?

Yes.

[Joshua Dysart]

Hi Joshua, welcome to the boards!

When I reread Harbinger 11, I was curious about something, and now I have the chance to ask you directly for the answer! What was Kris listening to in the car? All we know is that it's "good desert driving music", "gay", and not Pantera. Or, maybe to expand the question, what songs are on each character's favorite playlist? So far we have Nas (Pete), Buzzcocks (Kris) and Pantera and Megadeth (Torque). How about Harada? I imagine him liking jazz.

Feel free to answer in the form of a 4 part miniseries. ("Harbinger Renegades Road Trip: The Battle for the Car Sound System".)

Art

Okay, I love this question, but I'm not going to answer all of it. I WILL tell you what Kris was listening to in the car though, because it was in the original script and we took it out to keep from namechecking too many modern bands that no one had ever heard of. She was listening to the new FALTYDL album HARDCOURAGE. It's electronic scape jazz. Kris has the widest range of musical taste, but she does like punk and electronic goth quite a bit. But this wasn't one of those days. This was an expansive chill electronic music day (good desert music).

Want to hear more of what Kris likes? Here's the spotify playlist I made while conceptualizing issue #6... it's all her music.

http://open.spotify.com/user/joshuadysa ... RHvZk7KOy6" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

I wanted to do this for the other characters, but haven't gotten around to it. Awesome question!


And you're absolutely right. HArada loves Jazz and Classical.

[pixierosa]

Want to hear more of what Kris likes? Here's the spotify playlist I made while conceptualizing issue #6... it's all her music.

http://open.spotify.com/user/joshuadysa ... RHvZk7KOy6" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[Joshua Dysart]

1. I have rough arcs lined up for the foreseeable future. But when it comes to the details, I'm pretty last minute about that stuff.

2. I do think it's like Yin and Yang. The book needs both Harada and his sprawling corporate organization and The Renegades tiny human little group to achieve thematically what we are going for. But yes, from the beginning I set out to make Harada more sympathetic. I generally find villainy boring and tedious. To me it's so much more interesting that Harada has these extremely nobel goals, but is ultimately on a huge power trip. The first real slug line we came up with was, "Humanity will have a better future... or no future at all." That's Harada all over. He believes he is more important than anyone else. He believes his vision of the future is the only one possible. He is, through and through, a polemicist and antidemocratic in every way. Peter, on the other hand, is a total populous. It makes him uncomfortable to have power. He freely admits he doesn't know what the right course of action is, he lacks faith in himself almost to a fault. The Renegades vote before they leap to action (as you saw in issue #11). So that's what this book is about, these two competing ideologies. It's not about good versus evil. It's not about Campbell myth making. It's about democracy vs. dictatorship. And that struggle becomes much more fascinating when the dictator is depicted as a utopian and the democracy is fueled by flawed, addicted people.

3. It was done for two reasons. The first was to up the stakes on the universe and Peter's role in it and to really show why a man like Harada would take an interest in Peter. The other reason was to clue into the culture of mental illness and addiction that is such a huge part of the youth-in-America experience right now.

4. I'm not sure she'll ever be able to fully get over it. Though she has noticed Peter struggling to become a better person. And that's something.

Thank You. Love these responses ... Appreciate the time you put into answering them. What you said in your 2nd answer hits directly to what I love and enjoy about this comic. There are so many different layers to the storytelling from the struggles of kids just trying to grow up and be responsible and be greater then what they ever thought they could be ... to more lofty narratives including the horrors of war (especially when it concerns the innocent) and the flawed human condition which I think you explored brilliantly in Harbinger #0

Just two more quick questions ..for now
1) What writers, comics, books were the biggest influences on you growing up? (sorry if this was already asked)
2) Ax was one of my favorite villains from the original - just wondering what you thought about him as a character from the original and your thoughts about perhaps bringing a re-imagined Ax back into the universe..?

You are totally getting the book. Love your comments, they're dead on. Thank you for reading it and giving it some real thought.

1. The list is far, far, far too long to fully go over, but growing up I read a lot of Bradbury, Clark, Lem, Bestor, Heinlein, Dick, LeGuin, Wilson, McKenna, Moorcock, Barker, King, Campbell. So I was a big Science fiction/horror geek. Then I got into "high-lit" (which is a terrible term - it demeans genre, which sucks) and discovered Paul Bowles, Toni Morrison, Steinbeck, Phillip Roth, Ballard, etc. With comics it was all about Moore and Rude and Miller and Veitch and Ostrander and Alan Grant and Mike Baron and Dave Sim and Los Bros Hernandez and Katsuhiro Otomo and Mobius and jodorowsky, etc... the list goes on and on. But to be honest, I attribute role playing games as responsible for beig the bigest force for personal creative empowerment in my life. I played them all. Moved on from D&D pretty early in the 80's. If there was a pencil and paper RPG put out from 1980 to 1990, I played it, and the odds are I also GM'd it. That's where I learned how to tell stories, by telling them to my players. I recommend everyone play pencil and paper RPG's with their kids. It's so much fun, and really good for them. I love videogames too, I'm the first generation gamer, my mom brought home pong, but videogames feed the imagination - which is good - but they don't force you to imagine and world build, they do all the work for you. Pencil and paper RPG's are still the best way for imaginative growth and empowerment in my book.

2. Well, we sort of collapsed Ax's power into Livewire. So we'll see how it goes. There does need to be a very powerful hacker in the Valiant U. I agree with that. That might eventually become Livewire.

[Joshua Dysart]

Welcome to the boards, Josh.

1. How did you get into writing comics? Was it something you were interested in doing in your youth?

2. What would you recommend someone who is interested in getting into writing comic books do?

Finally I would just like to say until you decide to move on, you can most definitely, Make Mine Harbinger...there has to be something that has a better ring to it.

Hey Zaphod! Love the nod to Hitchhikers!

1. I always read comics but never thought about writing one. A friend of mine married a comic book artist and they wanted to publish a comic, but didn't have a writer. So they asked me to do it. The very first comics I ever wrote (the black and white version of Violent Messiahs #1 in 1996). Got optioned for a movie that was never made. But the option was encouraging, so I decided to keep writing them! I didn't get paid to actually write a comic unti 2001, five years later. I didn't start being able to eat and pay rent making comics until around 2006. Ten years later.

2. Self-publish! Find an artist you gell with (this is the hardest part go to cons, spend time on deviant art, hang out at your LCS) and put out a web comic or a print comic and just self-publish. Do that for ten years. If people haven't started noticing you by then... keep doing it. Screw it. Whether your famous or not, it's what you love. Self-publish!!

[Joshua Dysart]

Welcome to the board Josh, always assumed you were lurking around here somewhere! Always a pleasure conversing with you and catching your interviews. For us die-hards, your participation has far exceeded our expectations [as I'v said to you before but hey, it's so true]. Keep up the great work and welcome to the HIVE-MIND! P.S. Check out my music in my signature! I think you'll digg it since you can appreciate hip-hop.

Thanks for the music tip. I'll totally check it out.

[Joshua Dysart]

How the heck do you pronounce your last name?

DIE-SART!

[Joshua Dysart]

As far as Canadians go, they are obviously the great evil of the Western world. Look at all the wars they've caused! Look at all the madness they've wrought through hundreds of years of colonialism. And what's with having all of those guns but hardly ever using them to kill other Canadians. Only to hunt with? What!? It's unAmerican I tell you! And they are part of the Americas so there's no real excuse.

We blew up The White House once, we can easily do it again..

HA!

[Joshua Dysart]

3. I am! I love a lot of music. I listen to music more than I watch TV and movies (and about the same amount as I read). Though that might change with all the Cartoon Network shows on NETFLIX right now. I listen to all kinds of music, but yeah, I love hip hop, and I love NAS. None of the Renegades are very representative of my believes or personality, but Peter's love of the man who's straight out of the dungeons of rap is one of the few places where we overlap.

My wife and I had several days off together last week. We have watched so many of these - almost the whole way through Justice League and Cow and Chicken. I love some Powerpuff Girls, Dexter's Lab and Johnny Bravo too. Ed, Edd and Eddy is going to make it into the mix eventually too.

I'm more into the adult swim stuff. Super excited to have Venture Brother, Boondocks and Squidbillies. I do really love Adventure Time. And Powerpuff Girls and Dexter's Lab too. As well as Metalocalypse.

Too bad no Tim and Eric yet....

Ah, and hello, Josh!

Love Harbinger....definitely my favorite series running now. No real comic-related questons, but:

1. Are you going to be at Heroescon this year?

2. You down for some hard drinking and karaoke if so?

Yeah, love Tim and Eric. Have you seen THE COMEDY yet? Warning, it's super, super bleak. It's basically the BAD LIEUTENANT of Williamsburg *SQUEE* trust-fund hipster movies. It is intentionally not-funny. It attacks what is portrays and makes nobel that which its protagonists attack. It's a brilliant step for Tim Heidecker but not easy to watch.

Sadly I don't think I will be at Heroescon this year. Generally the cons are for more work than play. But you never know when you'll catch me!

Just got the call from Josh Johns, lettering proofs are in, that's all for today. I think I got through a lot of them. Thanks for the questions!!

And also thanks for all the super kind words, to weed through these I haven't given a shout out to everybody, but I'm reading and loving it all. Thank you all so much.

[Joshua Dysart]

Dude?! I can't say *SQUEE*?! What a bunch of *SQUEE* *SQUEE*!

[MarkRoseHFX]

2. Well, we sort of collapsed Ax's power into Livewire. So we'll see how it goes. There does need to be a very powerful hacker in the Valiant U. I agree with that. That might eventually become Livewire.

damn, was hoping we'd be seeing Ax in the new Valiant U but looks like that won't be anytime soon.

[MarkRoseHFX]

Dude?! I can't say *SQUEE*?! What a bunch of *SQUEE* *SQUEE*!

I tested the Carlin 7 dirty words and only *SQUEE* and *SQUEE* don't get censored