PETER MILLIGAN
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DF Interview: Peter Milligan spins a horrific tale with echoes of the pandemic in ‘Human Remains’ By Byron Brewer Dax and Bisa love each other. But in this new and terrifying world, love is dangerous. Feeling anything is dangerous. Earth has a new and terrible invader: monsters that deprive us of the very feelings that make us human. A shocking tale of pent-up emotions, perilously loud sex, and forced composure in the face of unspeakable horror from writer Peter Milligan (X-Force, Enigma, Shade, Hellblazer) and artist Sally Cantirino (I Walk With Monsters, The Final Girls). I sat down with scribe Peter Milligan to discuss the book. Byron Brewer: Peter, I often ask about the genesis of different books as they are conceived and created but Human Remains is fascinating in that it stems from your personal observations of the folks you DID see during the initial period of the pandemic. Tell us about that and the comic series that has spun out of it. Peter Milligan: Yes, I remember the exact moment the idea that would eventually become Humans Remains was conceived. The moment of inception, you might say. There was a complex gestation period to get through before the creature called Human Remains took its first breath and screamed. (Don’t worry, this is as far as the birthing metaphor goes.) This story isn’t about the covid pandemic. But you could say it span out of my reaction to how I viewed the world – or the people in this changed world – during it. In one of our early lockdowns, we were permitted to go out once a day for exercise and it was during one of these trips that I saw how differently people were behaving to each other. How quickly we had changed. How quickly what had once seemed so normal was now almost outlandish behavior. When I watched films or TV shows during this period and there was a crowd scene, or people embraced in the street or stood close to each other—it seemed so odd. So wrong. We quickly managed to lose many of the very things that made us human. BB: I love a thought you have mentioned that you had during this period: “How much can you strip away from what it is to be human … before you stop being human?” Can you further expound on that? Maybe related to the months of Covid as well as in Human Remains? Peter Milligan: Touch, closeness, they seemed to be such key parts of what it is to be human. And now these were the very things we couldn’t do, these were the very things that now felt so wrong and so dangerous. And that got me thinking about what other aspects of being human I could strip from a bunch of characters, and what it does to them. How much humanity would remain? What dramatic and character-revealing agonies could I put these poor people through? And yes, how many of these vital aspects can you lose while remaining recognizably human? BB: What more can you tell readers about the world you and artist Sally Cantirino are building here in the coming book? Peter Milligan: When you have a strong vision of how a world, how a set of characters look, it’s always a slightly nervous moment when you see someone else’s vision joining you. Sally does have her own vision, which is great. With a story like this, a story where there’s a lot of horror and a lot of weird, hideous nastiness, it’s really important that it’s grounded in the everyday and normal. Because that’s what this story is about, the utterly unexpected and terrible impinging itself upon normal lives. Sally is clearly a master at this. Sally has a great eye for those little details that give the story its sense of verisimilitude…she also draws great monsters and doesn’t flinch from the blood, gore and horror…and there’s a lot of that in Human Remains. BB: Introduce us to Dax and Bisa: who they were, who they are. Peter Milligan: Dax and Bisa are young lovers who are at the heart of the story. They’re an odd couple, she a high-achieving African-American young woman at med school, he a self-employed white musician slacker…but they’re totally in love. It’s at their wedding that the full horror of what has awoken in the world becomes clear. BB: What other characters may be key to this saga? Can you spotlight some of them here? Peter Milligan: Human Remains follows the lives of a disparate different characters whose lives interact due to the arrival of the monstrous life-forms. People like Mumbai-born Naresh Sharma. She’s a virologist trying to understand this new threat—and her own personal life will be horribly changed by the events in the story. General George Sullivan has very different ideas about how the creatures can be dealt with—against the odds these two very different people will find some common ground. The Reverend Jackson Hays has seen the attendance in his church dwindle…maybe the arrival of these alien “demons” is the answer to his prayers. BB: Can you give readers any clue as to the “invaders”? Anything non-spoilery about them at all? Peter Milligan: You really don’t want to meet one of these chaps. The way they hunt, the way they seek their prey – us – is at the heart of this story. We had a lot of fun – albeit pretty dark fun – fixing on the exact visual representation of these monsters. We eventually took inspiration from some photographs of minuscule bugs and creepy crawlies, blown up to terrifying and monstrous dimensions. Perhaps that tells you almost everything you need to know. BB: Talk about the awesome artwork of Sally Cantirino and your collaboration. Peter Milligan: We are a few issues in now and I really feel we’re understanding each other, getting what each other is trying to achieve. Sally brings dimensions to the story which I wouldn’t have imagined…which is exactly what you want a great artist to do! BB: Peter, what other works of wonder might you have coming soon for us? Peter Milligan: I’m doing some work for the nice people at AfterShock. Right now we’re publishing Out of Body, an occult thriller and very different kind of murder mystery. This is drawn by the excellent Inaki Miranda. A one-off story called God of Tremors is coming out soon, art by the equally though differently excellent Piotr Kowalaski. It is a Victorian gothic tale that takes the reader in the dark pagan woods. Over at Marvel, Mike Alred and I have been working away at the new series called The X-Cellent. This is now due for publication in March ’22. After that, Mike will be joining me on a new creation called The Influencers over at AWA. I have a few other very exciting projects with AWA, with amazing artists, but I think it might be a little too early to talk about this in detail. But more news soon! Dynamic Forces would like to thank Peter Milligan for taking time out of his busy schedule to answer our questions. Human Remains #1 from Vault Comics is slated to be on sale Sept. 22nd! For more news and up-to-date announcements, join us here at Dynamic Forces, www.dynamicforces.com/htmlfiles/, “LIKE” us on Facebook, www.facebook.com/dynamicforcesinc, and follow us on Twitter, www.twitter.com/dynamicforces. ALL NEW MIRACLEMAN ANNUAL #1 JEFF SMITH VARIANT CGC GRADED! ALL NEW MIRACLEMAN ANNUAL #1 JEFF SMITH VARIANT! ALL NEW MIRACLEMAN ANNUAL #1 JOE QUESADA VARIANT CGC GRADED! ALL NEW MIRACLEMAN ANNUAL #1 JOE QUESADA VARIANT! ALL NEW MIRACLEMAN ANNUAL #1 SIGNED BY MIKE ALLRED! TERMINAL HERO #1 TERMINAL HERO: THE DEATH AND LIFE OF RORY FLETCHER TRADE PAPERBACK
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