DF Interview: Brandon Graham brings Prophet saga to a close with latest miniseries

By Byron Brewer

A clone general goes against his Brain-Mother overlords to gain control of an alien egg. Therein, writer Brandon Graham and several artists begin the final six-issue miniseries that will bring an end to the long-running Prophet series.

To discover more behind this momentous occasion, Dynamic Forces sat down with Graham to talk Prophets new and old.

Dynamic Forces: Brandon, I know Prophet as a character has been chugging around comicdom since 1992 and had a number of series about him, but still for the uninitiated tell us briefly about John Prophet.

Brandon Graham: Sure. Prophet was a 90's Liefeld comic about a super solder that was frozen during WWII. The stuff we're doing with Prophet follows an empire built from clones of the original Prophet, 10,000-ish years in the future after mankind as we know it has died out. They are grown to survive different environments and functions. There's Prophets made to live in space, and Prophets that are grown as living spaces for other Prophets.

DF: Wow! Were you a fan of the character before you got attached to this assignment, and how did that come about?

Brandon Graham: I was deep into comics when the old series was out but I wasn't reading super hero stuff. In a lot of ways my run on Prophet feels like me coming to terms with the popular comics that were coming out when I was a teenager. Taking the initial ideas and seeing where me and my collaborators can take them has been really fun.

DF: Tell us a little about the storyline of this fourth series coming in January, Prophet: Earth War.

Brandon Graham: I guess Earth War is the fourth series. I hadn't thought of it like it. Really, it's just an ending of the run of Prophet me Simon, Giannis, Farel and the rest of the guys have been doing.

Anyway, the story follows the characters we've been following, Old Man Prophet and his team of Prophet clones, robots, once humans and aliens. who have now come together and returned to Earth for the final push to defeat the Earth Empire -- the conquering, enslaving goons that the majority of Prophet clones have become.

The first three issues are each one artist drawing from one character's perspective. Issue #1 is Giannis Milogiannis drawing Old <an Prophet; #2 is Ron Ackins drawing from the point of view of one of the empire generals; and the third issue is an assassination mission drawn by Grimm Wilkins. After that, it's a mix with me and Simon Roy also jumping in on the art.

DF: Can you tell us about any of the other protagonists in the series?

Brandon Graham: One of the focuses in Earth War is The three-armed Prophet general who has been obsessed with destroying Old Man Prophet's rebellion. He's learned from studying him and has been building his own secrets based off of what he's learned.

Also there's a lot of focus in this on Diehard, who has been one of my favorite characters. He started in WWII as a cyborg soldier who eventually had nothing human left in him. Now, 10,000 years later, he's been working to remember what it was like to be a lib.

DF: Who – or what – is the big-bad this time around, and what can you tell us about a mysterious “alien egg”?

Brandon Graham: Something I'm trying to do is show the other side of the empire and how clones within a bad system can find themselves and grow but, that said, I guess there's some crystal worshipping alien cult that plays a big part in this series and is hard to love.

DF: Am I correct that this six-issue mini-series will in effect end the Prophet saga? No plans for a fifth series at this time?

Brandon Graham: Yeah, this is the end of Prophet. I like the idea of stories having an ending. I certainly have a lot of fun playing with Liefeld's characters and would love to do some Youngblood or something in the future. At one point, we were messing around with a Giannis series of YoungStar -- which was the not-too-distant future moon-based Youngblood that we showed in a few pages of Prophet, but who knows?

DF: Finally, Brandon, do you have any other projects, current or near future, you’d like to discuss.

Brandon Graham: Yeah. I'm mostly working on a comics magazine called Island these days. It's a large monthly book with three to four 20-60 page comics in it by myself and creators whose work I'm excited about. It's edited by me and Emma Rios. Also, Emma and I are in the middle of reworking our 8House series that was a book of shared universe fantasy/sci-fi stories, along with Marian Churchland, Fil Barlow, Helen Maier, Hwei Lim and Xurxo Penelta. 

Dynamic Forces would like to thank Brandon Graham for taking time out of his busy schedule to answer our questions. Prophet: Earth War #1 hits stores January 20^th!

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

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