The Big Bad Wolf: Hello, Steve, it is a pleasure to speak with you. Many people know you for your most famous work, Howard the Duck, but you have also had a great history in monster books; classic stuff such as Tales of the Zombie, Monsters Unleashed, Dracula Lives, Vampire Tales and more. How did you wind up writing so many monster books--was it just luck of the draw, or did you have interest in it?

Steve Gerber: It really was just luck. Or, more accurately, the effects of tenure. At the time I came to work for Marvel, the company's main area of expansion was in the area of what we called "mystery" or "monster" comics, because the Comics Code didn't allow them to be called "horror." As you'd expect, the more established writers were always handed the prestige assignments—i.e., Spider-Man, Fantastic Four, Avengers, the better sword & sorcery titles, and so on—and new writers got whatever was left. The "mystery" books were what was left.

The Big Bad Wolf: This is taken from your profile in Tales of the Zombie #3: "Another bit of weirdness. Although I'm writing both ZOMBIE and the four-color comics version of the macabre MAN-THING...I don't really care much for the horror/mystery genre. Find it a crashing bore as a rule; utterly predictable, terrifyingly un-terrifying. Which, again paradoxically, is why I'm genuinely pleased to be writing these magazines." Looking back is that how you felt in general?

Steve Gerber: Not very elegantly phrased, but yes. What I meant was that the work presented a singular and interesting challenge to me: writing a horror comic I would actually want to read.

The Big Bad Wolf: From the above, has horror as a genre--in comics, in books, in film--done anything since the 1970s to change your mind?

Steve Gerber: That was another happy coincidence. The early '70s was a very pivotal period for horror in film and prose. Stephen King was just beginning his career. Novels like The Exorcist and Audrey Rose had just been published. A new model for how to write in the genre was being defined, and I did my best to participate in the process. Horror set in the present, without all the gothic trappings and theatricality, was much, much more interesting to me.

The Big Bad Wolf: What is your favorite horror movie?

Steve Gerber: The Exorcist.

The Big Bad Wolf: Do you have worked with a bunch of great horror-related comic characters. I am going to list a few and tell me briefly some thoughts on each character.

Steve Gerber: By far the most difficult character and series I've ever written. Man-Thing couldn't speak, couldn't think, couldn't emote, couldn't react on his own. He was completely at the mercy of whatever emotions came into his sensory sphere. Even more restricting, until the last few issues, he couldn't leave his swamp, so every story had to come to him. Fortunately, I was new at writing comics and had no idea how excruciating this series should have been to write. I just accepted the character as it was handed to me and ran with it. Youth and inexperience worked completely to my advantage in this case. The series' limitations became its strengths. It became a series about the inner lives of the characters who stumbled into the Man-Thing's swamp, and there was nothing else quite like it at the time.

The Big Bad Wolf: Son of Satan

Steve Gerber: Daimon Hellstrom was a lot of fun -- the ultimate tortured soul. Souls, plural, actually, since at some point I decided he had two of them and that they were constantly in conflict.

The Big Bad Wolf: Simon Garth, the Zombie

Steve Gerber: Man-Thing Lite. Okay, maybe that's being too dismissive, but the Zombie, like Man-Thing, also couldn't think, couldn't feel, couldn't emote. He did harbor a few vague memories of his living existence, so that was a small distinction between the two characters. In all honesty, though, most if not all of the Zombie stories could just as easily have been told with Man-Thing as the starring monster.

The Big Bad Wolf: Lilith the Daughter of Dracula

Steve Gerber: Lilith was fun, too. I wrote her as Wonder Woman with fangs.

The Big Bad Wolf: If you could come back to any of those horror characters you are most famous for, which would it be, and why??

Steve Gerber: Each one has its particular attractions. I hinted at certain kinks in Lilith's personality that would be interesting to explore in the freer atmosphere of today's comics. Son of Satan would be a major hoot, if only to outrage the religious right. But Man-Thing is probably the one I'd choose. I'd like to try a more sophisticated approach to the character, attempt to take readers on a real tour of his non-mind and force them to view the world as he does, through those big bulbous red eyes.

The Big Bad Wolf: It's well-known that you harbor some animosity on Hollywood's handling of Howard the Duck in the 1986 live-action feature. What are your feelings regarding the upcoming Man-Thing film, especially considering that, allegedly, the script is adapted from one of your stories, Fear #16?

Steve Gerber: Regarding the Duck movie, not animosity, just extreme disappointment. As for Man-Thing, I haven't seen the film and I don't have any desire to. I just hope they had the decency not to put my name on the production.

The Big Bad Wolf: Do you think Marvel Comics and Hollywood may have learned from past mistakes, considering the success of other recent pictures?

Steve Gerber: The truth? I don't think about it much. I don't go to the movies very often anymore. I've seen the Spider-Man and X-Men films, and they're okay if you don't think too deeply about the logic of the stories. They're certainly making money for the company. On the other hand, you've got garbage like Daredevil and Elektra -- the movies, I mean -- out there, too. Hollywood is still a crapshoot and always will be.

The Big Bad Wolf: Share some of your thoughts on taking over the Man-Thing series from his co-creator, Gerry Conway?

Steve Gerber: That really didn't enter into the equation. I plotted my first Man-Thing story while I was still living in St. Louis, a month or two before I moved to New York and met Gerry. My impression -- and I could be completely wrong about this -- was that Gerry didn't have very much interest in the character.

The Big Bad Wolf: I have heard Satanists wrote letters to Marvel Comics while you were working on Son of Satan, making certain observations, critiques and suggestions (most notorious for giving artists the direction to invert the pentagram on Daimon's chest). Have you had any other uncanny experiences with fans on anything you have worked on?

Steve Gerber: Well, there were the people who sent the duck carcass to Marvel's office with a note reading "MURDERERS!" attached, after we apparently killed off Howard the Duck in Man-Thing #1, but I was out of town at the time that package arrived and only heard about it second-hand. Other than that, no. The Church of Satan folks -- who actually paid me a very cordial visit at the offices -- were, I guess, the most uncanny for their time. Today, of course, they wouldn't be considered uncanny at all. They'd just be Vertigo fans.

The Big Bad Wolf: I wanted to ask you about Tales of the Zombie #9. What are your thoughts on that issue that dealt with laying the Zombie to rest? I believe the issue was solicited (in Zombie #8) to have been written by you, but when the finished story came out, Tony Isabella and Chris Claremont took credit. As it stands, it's the only major Zombie story of the magazine's run for which you seemed to have no input. Was there editorial interference, or other factors operating?

Steve Gerber: I'm reasonably sure that when the promo in Zombie #8 was written, somebody -- possibly even myself -- believed I would be writing the final issue. As best I remember, I left the Tales of the Zombie series for reasons that had to do with scheduling and nothing else. I didn't plot the last issue, and I don't think I've ever read it. Tony and Chris were definitely not taking credit for something that was my work.

The Big Bad Wolf: Your current work, HARD TIME, published under the DC Focus banner, seems to be a foray into psychological horror. Tell more about the book and why Comicmonsters.com readers should take a look.

Steve Gerber: HARD TIME is the story of Ethan Harrow, a teenager who inadvertently takes part in a high school shooting and, as a result, receives a prison sentence of fifty years to life. Fortunately for the sake of his survival, Ethan discovers he has a strange power that allows him to leave his body for short periods of time and travel in a kind of astral form. Fans and the comics press have tended to pigeonhole HARD TIME as a "mature" series, because the protagonist doesn't wear a costume, but it's very much intended to be read by kids Ethan's age. As much as anything else, the book is about that stage of life when hormones are raging and alienation is a natural state of being. It's about the prisons life erects for us, those we build for ourselves, and how to survive in them or, better yet, escape. "Mature" readers can relate to that, too, of course. Once you've been sixteen, you never quite forget it.

HARD TIME is different from virtually everything else on the stands in terms of tone, setting, and the kinds of characters and situations we deal with. We've created a very large and diverse cast of very interesting characters. And, amazingly, we've managed to achieve the right mix of gritty realism and bizarre fantasy. Balancing the inherently dark and violent prison setting with the strangeness of Ethan's powers and the legends of ancient astronauts and Sumerian warrior princesses was difficult, but I think we pulled it off. And, as far as I know, we're the only book on the stands with a serious recurring character named "Fruitcake." That's a distinction all by itself.

The first six issues have been collected in trade paperback format. The book is available at your local comics shop or bookstore and from Amazon.com. I'm hoping DC will get issues 7-12 into that format shortly. We've been "renewed" for another twelve issues, and HARD TIME Season Two will hit the stores in July The Big Bad Wolf: In a parting shot, I discovered in an interview with Steve Niles (30 Days of Night), that one of his favorite comics growing up were your "Zombie" stories. How does that make you feel, to know that you've made such an impression on the current generation of horror writers in comics?

Steve Gerber: I'm flattered, of course. I've been told that people like Alan Moore and Neil Gaiman also cite me as an early influence on their work. My feeling is that if I've contributed in any small way to the work of writers like Alan, Neil, and now Steve Niles, my career has been worth the trouble.

The Big Bad Wolf: Thank you for taking the time to do an interview Steve. Best of luck. Everyone check out Hard Time!