Is Salvation Necessary For Jason Aaron's The Goddamned?

by Vince Brusio

Go to your comic shop, and start picking books off the shelf that fit into a genre. You’ll have groupings of books that can be labeled “superhero,” “fantasy,” “manga,” “horror,” and so forth. But you won’t have a label that applies to reading material which examines the beginning of time before humanity was eradicated. No, there’s only one book that fits into this category, and it's Image Comics' The Goddamned #1 (SEP150529) by Jason Aaron and R. M. Guera. In this PREVIEWS Exclusive interview, Jason Aaron takes us back to the time when men were not worthy of God’s salvation ... and, there were dinosaurs. And from there, you're on your own to figure out what happens next. Time to think about the Bible, and see if you paid attention in Sunday school.

The Goddamned #1 (SEP150529) is in comic shops November 1.

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PREVIEWSworld: Without spoiling the story for readers, what more can you say about this comic beyond what PREVIEWS spells out in the September issue? The description of “brutal biblical noir” brings to mind all kinds of chaos, and the possibilities are endless.

Jason Aaron: Yeah, I think biblical noir sums it up nicely. This is very much a crime story. But a prehistoric crime story. Part gritty noir, part caveman adventure story. In terms of the possibilities, well, you'll be seeing some characters you might be familiar with if you've read the Bible. But these are new stories, not adaptations of the Book of Genesis. And they're not really the sort of stories you would've heard about in Sunday School.

I've always been fascinated by the story possibilities of the antediluvian world, of the world before the Flood. Not so much from a perspective of faith or religion, but simply as a storyteller. There's good fertile ground. Bloody, but fertile. The story goes that it was a world so out of control with sin and violence that God regretted having ever made man in the first place and decided to just wipe everybody out all at once and start over again. That's a world I want to explore. In a way, this is a story about the world on the brink of apocalypse, but not in the far flung future. This is the very first "end of the world" story, in the guise of a caveman crime comic. Also there are dinosaurs.

PREVIEWSworld: The characters in the story: from where did you draw inspiration when you conceived of their personalities?

Jason Aaron: The Bible. 1960s Italian westerns. Samurai dramas. Old caveman comics. Conan paperbacks. Cormac McCarthy novels. Chick tracts.

PREVIEWSworld: So if you had the opportunity to “geek out” over a specific scene in the story, what would that scene be, and why are you fond of it?

Jason Aaron: We kind of put all the cards on the table right here at the beginning. We're not trying to fool anybody as to what kind of comic this really is. So early on, there's a ten-page fight scene of near wordless slaughter that sets the bar for the kind of action scenes we'll be doing in the series. It's stark and brutal and beautifully drawn and tells you a lot about the world we'll be exploring, and the harsh and primitive people who call it home. Also I really like seeing Guera draw people fighting with bones and rocks and sharpened sticks.

PREVIEWSworld: So what last words would you like to say about The Goddamned #1 that would help readers take heed, and make sure they put it on their pull list?

Jason Aaron: I'm quite confident in saying that there isn't another book quite like this one on the stands at the moment. This series is a punch in the face and a kick in the gut but also a serious exploration of character and setting in line with what Guera and I previously did in the pages of Scalped.

Also, there are dinosaurs.