AMERICAN REAPER – LET'S SEE SOME I.D.
Dystopian futures are the most exciting to write
Future cops - known as Reapers - hunt down criminals who carry out illegal identity transplants. With the digitisation of consciousness, the old, the sick and the rich are able to occupy the bodies of healthy teenagers and enjoy a new lease of life.
There are even controversial plans to legalise ID transplants, with young prisoners on Death Row paying their debt to society by ‘donating’ their bodies to the great and the good in return for rewards paid to their families.
I saw an X post recently which said, ‘We thought the future would be flying cars, living forever and never working.’
That was the upbeat and optimistic image of many of us believed the future would be, visualised in Britain in Frank Hampson’s early Dan Dares in 1950s Eagle and with buoyant and bright science fiction novels by Isaac Asimov, Arthur C Clarke and Harry Harrison. There would be set backs and challenges, of course, but ultimately humanity would triumph.
And then, in 1977, came my 2000AD, where I presented a darker and more cynical view of the future, even as I told the readers that it was, ‘A future YOU will be living in.’
Dystopian futures are the most exciting to write and, I fear, the most likely. Hence that X post above by BladeoftheSun concludes, ‘Instead it will be sickness and destitution in a dying world, killed by people who just want another trillion dollars.’
And Armageddon is now the usual vision of our future from Mad Max to the Walking Dead. Reinforced by a glance at the news headlines any day of the week. Even the future city of New Eden in SHA, written by myself and illustrated by Olivier Ledroit has amazing technology and seems like paradise, but is actually over-run by demons. And then there’s Mega-City One, of course, which – the last time I looked – was over-run by lunatics.
So when it came to creating the world of AMERICAN REAPER, I wanted to say something new, something different, I wanted to get closer to that glossy, happy, reassuring view of the future which was there – for some people at least – in the 1950s world of Dan Dare.
Or at least that’s how it would seem.
So Reaper is set in 2062, a time where people can Live the American Dream again.
Where everything’s all right again.
Where you can have it all again.
And… eternal life.
It recreates the Lost Age of the 1950s and early 1960s where people genuinely believed things were just going to get better and better. Where people smoked, drank, partied and behaved very badly without worrying about tomorrow. Not least because there was no one around with a mobile phone to secretly film them. A world where the great and the good looked eminently respectable. In Britain it was defined by Ladybird Books views of men and women and the Dunn & Co. tailors uniform of tweed jacket, cavalry twill trousers and brown brogues. But it was actually a calculated disguise because many of these brylcreemed paragons of virtue were very far from respectable. Abroad, it was a time where the United States were widely seen as a force for good in the world. And that, too, is also open to question.
But it was a time that Trump and co. yearn for today with their slogan ‘Make America Great … Again.’
This Lost Age can be precisely identified in cinema to between 1958 and 1963. The grim post-war 50s are finally over and now it’s time to celebrate with Hitchcock films like North by Northwest, the early Bond films, fashions worn by actresses like Audrey Hepburn and Tippi Hedren, and the most fabulous and opulent cars. It has been recreated in more recent times by Far From Heaven and Mad Men, with the latter having the same lighting, hairstyles, fashions, cars and attitudes as in the Lost Age.
It’s a wonderful fantasy that I love to see recreated in film and comics, even though I know, from living through it as a boy, that it was utterly bogus.
Then, in 1964, everything changed and we entered the very different psychedelic world we usually associate with the 60s. The Lost Age was eclipsed.
But artists like Mac Conner had recorded it for posterity. And I have a copy of The Art of Robert E McGinnis, whose work also epitomised the Lost Age.
Fantastic cars are an especial hallmark. Those gas-guzzling beasts from the past have always had an especial fascination for me – it was one of the reasons why Lisa and I went on holiday to Cuba. There, we effectively travelled back in time, because, thanks to the ongoing United States embargo, the original cars of the Lost Age are still beautifully preserved as you can see here.
To feature futuristic versions of these monsters in Reaper, there needed to be unlimited cheap energy once again, this time from some entirely new and innovative solar system of power.
Our car advert in Reaper, by Fay Dalton, sums it up so well.
But underneath the self-congratulation of life in 2062, we see the driver, cigarette hanging out of his mouth, has a bionic arm and is clearly a casualty of some future war. And his glamorous front passenger has a carefully concealed but still noteworthy look of veiled disgust on her face.
So all is not quite so smug and self-satisfied as it would seem.
As far as possible, I wanted Reaper to be a recreation of the Lost Age in every visual respect, including the décor. Thus I was equally fascinated by the classic hotels we visited in Havana. Many, incredibly, still have exactly the same furniture as when Sinatra and the Rat Pack used to make that ninety mile trip to Havana when the Mob ruled Cuba. The Havana Riviera Hotel is a case in point. It had originally been owned by mobster Meyer Lansky, inspired by the original Riviera Casino in Las Vegas. Sitting in the Riviera’s lounge, on one of the ultra-long, beautifully preserved, vintage, vinyl sofas, beneath an original, outrageously exaggerated, golden sunray clock, I actually could feel the physical energy of the past. It was not a pleasant feeling. Despite the bright, primary colours of my surroundings, I felt an oppressive darkness, suggestive of the dirty deeds that had once been planned on this very couch.
And that is just how I see Reaper – a bright, primary coloured world with evil lurking in the shadows. You’ll see the Riviera referred to in one of the supporting stories.
In Reaper you will see that the buildings themselves have a deliberately rounded look, typical of retro science fiction, and actually inspired for me by the interior of an old 1950s valve radio. In this I was following the logic of Stephen Spielberg, who based the mothership in his Close Encounters on an oil refinery seen at night. The ‘glass valves’ encasing the skyscrapers are designed to protect the buildings from the extreme weather. Nature in all her forms – including ageing – must always be defeated. Nothing can be allowed to diminish the perfection of this future world.
And I needed an iconic look for the Reapers themselves. Clint had sent me a book of World War Two propaganda images. There was an Italian cartoon featuring an American gangster politician with a US flag cravat and that was the one I chose.
Clint has adapted it to give our protagonist Detective Matherson a truly iconic look with an on-off button on the side of his head to control his scanner. You’ll note that the slicked back hairstyle is also faithful to this past-future world. What goes around has come around again and this would apply to all the fashions – with one addition: holograms are now ubiquitous, so hologram late 50s-style dresses are feasible rather than the burdensome materials of the Lost Age.
But this bright, wonderful, existence lacks only one thing: eternal life. All the face lifts, all the rejuvenative sciences, legal and illegal, could still not allow the rich to cheat death.
Then one day scientists found a way to transfer consciousness from one body to another.
The story possibilities are endless, involving war, espionage, and urban crime. Now wealthy old people can transfer their consciousness to a young body, while the youth’s consciousness is either expunged, kept on file or switched to the old body.
The trade is illegal and finds an echo in the modern day trafficking of young people, in Hollywood and elsewhere and alleged blood-harvesting by elites for adrenochrome. Whether it’s true or false, that vampiric appetite for exploiting and feeding off youth is true enough and has always been there. But it has gone underground just like in this future world policed by the Reapers. But their scanners can detect the true nature of consciousness within a body and alert them whether it’s the genuine person or an identity thief, a ‘coffin-cheater’.
It’s the ultimate identity theft which also finds an echo today. Not with cyber criminals and scammers secretly acquiring and using our vital data, but with the daily parade of deepfakery that takes advantage of our trust. There’s no Reapers with their scanners to tell us whether that is true or just a fanciful conspiracy theory.
But so the stage is set for the deluxe, ultra-fashionable, glossy world of 2062, beautifully visualised by Clint Langley, that is about to turn into a nightmare as dark and as terrible as Mad Max or the Walking Dead.
Completing the world are the features and supplementary stories by Fay Dalton who has done James Bond artwork for the Ian Fleming estate. You can see how her work adds a further delicious, retro-frisson to this adventure of future past.
CROWDFUNDING REAPER
We were pleased with the positive reaction to our imminent crowdfunder for SHA, a three-volume graphic novel collection written by myself and illustrated by Olivier Ledroit, one of France’s best selling science fantasy artists.
The crowdfunder for SHA Book One – in association with 77 Publications – will be launched at the end of October. There’s a deluxe edition exclusive to Kickstarter with a dust jacket, gold foil detail on the cover, a place holder ribbon, and a bonus art gallery from Olivier. We’ll also offer a standard hardcover, which will be on sale through comic shops and from our website.
So we’re thinking of running a similar Kickstarter for Reaper. The story comprises three volumes, and we’d start with volume one. We’d offer a hardcover editions and possibly a cheaper softcover edition as well.
It will celebrate the fabulous retro-future world of the Reapers and the grim choices DETECTIVE MATHERSON has to make involving his own family!
Sound good …? Let us know if you’re up for it. We welcome your feedback!
American Reaper was created by Pat Mills and Clint Langley. With additional art by Fay Dalton. It was featured in 2000AD’s Megazine 2011 – 2012. 328 pages of art approx. Divided over 3 Volumes.
The comic script based on Pat’s screenplay for the film version was optioned by Maven Films in conjunction with Amblin Entertainment, Steven Spielberg’s company.
This is a great premise and I would be glad to support a crowd funded collection. It shares some similar thematic concerns as Richard K. Morgan's Altered Carbon, where the rich have relative immortality by transferring consciousnesses between bodies, which are called sleeves.
I’ve been waiting to hear this announced for a long time. I’d definitely buy a copy. The ‘widescreen’ art really sold the contrast between the bright future and its dark foundations.