After his spacecraft smashes into the dead sea of an alien planet, a man is separated from his fellow astronauts when a raiding party of intelligent apes attacks them. Captured, he finds himself a prisoner in a world turned upside down, with apes as the rulers and man in its zoos. His only hope is to communicate with a couple of chimpanzee scientists who just might be open-minded and compassionate enough to be sympathetic to his cause. But the man named John Landon will discover that intelligent minds, be they ape or man, all fear the unknown, and his destiny is not to become part of this new world, but instead to find himself under the knife of a simian brain surgeon on the PLANET OF THE APES.

Set during the classic 1968 film, CONSPIRACY OF THE PLANET OF THE APES tells the story of what happened between the scenes and centers on the astronaut Landon, Gorilla police chief Marcus, and Chimpanzee scientist Dr. Milo, and contains over 50 illustrations from various top talents in the industry, including full-color paintings by Jim Steranko, Joe Jusko, Dave Dorman, Barron Storey, Sanjulian and Mark Texiera, starship design by Andrew Probert, character portraits by Matt Busch and more!

We caught up with writer, Drew Gaska to talk about Conspiracy of the Planet of the Apes.

Horror News Network: Can you talk a bit about your love for Planet of the Apes?

Drew Gaska: It all started with the ABC 4:30 movie.

I first became an apes fan as a child.  I remember catching the first film on the ABC 4:30 movie on a Monday and being surprised to see the story continue throughout the week; especially after the world altering events in Beneath the Planet of the Apes  (Interesting enough as 'Battle' was not part of the line up, I didn't even know the movie existed until about a decade later).  As these movies were repeated quite often, even as a child as I watched multiple viewings, I would see questions that remained  unanswered between each film.  As an adult, I know that these were continuity errors.  As a child, I used my imagination to fill in the blanks and cover up the mistakes.  So it could be said that the genesis of Conspiracy was actually in my childhood. 

Horror News Network: What made you want to write Conspiracy of the Planet of the Apes?

Drew Gaska: I want to give something back to, as well as to add to the mythos of, the licensed properties that touched me as a child – you know, the ones that didn't talk down to me like so much children's programming does. Planet of the Apes was one of the franchises that had a huge impact on my life - when I was a kid, I was fascinated by gorillas with guns on horses. As I matured, I began to see political and social context.

While I feel I have important things to say to the world, I am no politician or diplomat. My talent lies in my ability to tell a story. I hope that Conspiracy will make at least one person realize the ridiculous and self destructive nature of mankind - mirrored in a society of apes who think they have transcended humanity, but have in actuality joined the human race. Who knows? Maybe that one fan will become that one person who can then steer us off this course of self-destruction, so we don’t blow up the world in the end.

Horror News Network: How did you hook up with Archaia?

Drew Gaska: Well, Archaia’s Chief Creative Officer Mark Smylie IS a very attractive man... no.

I actually met with FOX myself, proposed the book, got the license, and started production; hired artists and what not -- all on my own. After that, my science fiction comic series, Critical Millennium (the hardcover collection of which hits stores this August), was picked up by Archaia, and received some great advance reviews calling it cerebral, visceral and political. When Conspiracy was nearly done, I presented most of the the art and the second draft to Archaia, and they loved it -- we decided to expand our publishing relationship and here we are now.

Mr. Smylie tells me this was somewhat of a unique process-- usually a company secures a license, then looks for a writer to work on it. This time, the writer brought the license he secured on his own to the publisher.

Horror News Network: Can you tell us about the main characters involved in this book?

Drew Gaska: Yes! Dr. Milo is the chimpanzee who managed to fix Taylor’s ship and get himself, Cornelius, and Zira back in time to 1973 during the third film, Escape from the Planet of the Apes, only to meet an untimely demise at a zoo, of all places. His character has begged for extrapolation from the beginning. He was clearly introduced in Escape in order to get Cornelius and Zira back in time, but a science ape of his level of genius must have had a story to tell, not the least of which was how he found Taylor and Landon’s ship, and fixed it up enough to get it back in the air.

Astronaut John Landon is the guy who gets all the bad breaks. He signed up for a mission that he didn’t really understand, gets ridden by Taylor during a ruthless trek through the desert, is beaten up by apes and lobotomized. His story is going to make it clear just how lucky Taylor was to have found allies in Cornelius and Zira.

General Ursus, an ape of some power who was important to Beneath the Planet of the Apes, was absent from the first film. You will find he was involved with aspects of Conspiracy while the cameras were rolling elsewhere in Ape City.

Chief Marcus was originally supposed to be an integral part of the original movie, but was mostly cut out. The most information fans have had on him to date comes form a movie poster showing the gorilla and saying “This is Marcus. His specialties are violence and torture.” In Conspiracy you will find out that the chief is also a family ape, and a loving and caring father.

Dr. Galen, the surgeon who fixed Taylor’s throat and argued with Zira in the original film, is a major antagonist, as is Dr. Zaius.

Finally, there is a host of new characters, designed to show the reader other aspects of ape society. There’s even the civil service gorilla named Mungwortt, who is a garbage ape!

Horror News Network: What can we expect in terms of ape brutality in this tale?

Drew Gaska: Apes will seem very human in this book. That being said, there is backstabbing, political maneuvering, cruelty to animals (humans, in this case), butchery, and executions. The only things more brutal than the apes in the book are - the humans. It’s the feel good book of the Summer!

Horror News Network: Can you talk a bit about the artists involved in this book?

Drew Gaska: One of the things I wanted to do with Conspiracy from the beginning was to introduce some of my favorite artists into the apes saga. The artists featured in Conspiracy are all either fan favorites within the realms of comic and fantasy art or rising stars in the field, but for each, this is their first foray into the POTA universe. 

Conspiracy has over thirty full color paintings, nineteen scratch board illustrations, and eleven black and white character studies. The book is truly a synthesis of story and art.

There’s a fantastic cover by legendary artist Jim Steranko, who created the original concept paintings George Lucas used to sell Raiders of the Lost Ark to Paramount back in 1979, as well as creating innumerable logos for major sci-fi and fantasy films, and designing the look of Francis Ford Coppola's take on Bram Stoker's Dracula.

We've got beautiful pieces by Joe Jusko and European artist Sanjulian. We have additional paintings by Dave Dorman, Chris Scalf, Matt Busch, and Brian Rood of Star Wars fame, as well as Ken Kelly, Barron Storey, and Mark Texiera, to name a few. 

I was even able to get veteran sci-fi designer Andrew Probert of Star Trek: the Motion Picture, Star Trek: The Next Generation, Back to the Future and classic Battlestar Galactica fame to design the rest of the Liberty-1. The Liberty is Taylor’s ship, which we see the nose cone of sticking out of the water in the first movie, but we have never gotten a look at the rest of the ship, as it was never designed. Utilizing story notes I provided, Andrew gave us what apes fans have always wanted to see, a good look at the whole ship.

As far as new blood, Dirk Shearer, who worked on the collected Mice Templar, has provided amazing scratch board chapter break illos for the book. David Hueso and Miki, Spanish artists working on my upcoming SPACE:1999 graphic novel series, have contributed some beautiful pieces, and fellow Archaia creator and love-of-my-life Chandra Free of The God Machine has painted two exceptionally eerie images. Dan Dussault, the artist on my Archaia published sci-fi dystopian series, Critical Millennium, has even provided us with three fantastic paintings.

The book is lavishly illustrated and truly a work of art.

Horror News Network: Would you like to have a follow-up-on tale to Conspiracy of the Planet of the Apes?

Drew Gaska: Would I? I do! I have a two-book deal with FOX and Archaia, so expect to see Conspiracy followed up by the end of next year.

The plan for Conspiracy and it’s sequel(s) has always been to enhance the greater story of the entire POTA saga by filling in the holes that the feature films left wide open.

The second novel will tie up the remaining loose ends between the first and second film and tell what happened to Taylor during the time he was missing in Beneath the Planet of the Apes. Its the story that has never been told:  what happens to Taylor after he disappears in the beginning of ‘Beneath’ and before he reappears at the end? It’s the last possible Taylor story, and it is begging to be told.

I have actually plotted out a six novel arc, so if these first two do well, there will be more on the way as well!

Horror News Network: Where can we find our more about Conspiracy of the Planet of the Apes?

Drew Gaska: As Bea Arthur said in the Star Wars Holiday Special, follow me!

On Twitter @thelibertylogs, or me on @drewgaska
On blogger at:  theconspiracyapes.blogspot.com/
On facebook at: www.facebook.com/copota or http://www.facebook.com/andrew.gaska
At Conspiracy's publisher Archaia: www.archaia.com/blog/titles/conspiracy-of-the-planet-of-the-apes, and my studio site, www.blamventures.com

Horror News Network: In closing, what would you like to say about Conspiracy of the Planet of the Apes?

Drew Gaska: This project is a labor of love.  I urge fans and new readers alike to give this a look - not just because I wrote it, but because this is the kind of spin off project that most companies have been afraid to tackle, a story within the framework of the original source material - that tells a complete story in it’s own right, and links and binds the property's universe into a cohesive whole, rather than shying away from the established areas and setting up something that is that property in name only. People love these franchises because of the unique worlds and messages that they convey. Conspiracy ‘fills in the blanks’ while creating a whole new experience - something I hope will catch on in the licensing world.

Horror News Network: Thanks for your time, Drew. Comment on this interview here.

Copyright © by Horror Comic Book News - Comic Monsters All Right Reserved.

Published on: 2011-07-13 (926 reads)