HACKTIVIST is coming back. The story is not over. Actress/activist Alyssa Milano teams up with Jackson Lanzing, Collin Kelly, and Marcus To once again for the next installment.
What's been going on since we last visited this world? We spoke with Lanzing and Kelly to find out. Plus, check out our exclusive preview for the first issue.
COMIC VINE: Was a sequel planned from the beginning? Did you always have a big picture in mind?
COLLIN KELLY: The short answer is “yes”, but not in the way you might think. From a character perspective - which is how we do everything - we always knew this story would need a sequel, because the adventures of Ed and Nate were simply not done. Luckily, Alyssa Milano - creator of this book and UNICEF Ambassador - had the same instinct as us; in absorbing the current political and social climate of our country, she came to the conclusion that something had to be said about what was happening in our own backyard. Once we knew she wanted to turn the lens of this story on domestic issues, we knew exactly how Ed and Nate - along with some very dangerous new players - would react, and luckily the fine people at BOOM! were along for the ride.
CV: Why did you guys go with picking up the story six months after the first volume?
JACKSON LANZING: HACKTIVIST 2 is a new story - one that introduces new elements, tackles fresh challenges, and requires a new status quo. We ended HACKTIVIST 1 in the aftermath of a chaotic shake-up for our two leads, Ed and Nate. Where they were once brothers that could always rely on the other, Volume One left them on opposite sides of the world and the law. The general public thinks Ed is dead and believes Nate to be a government stooge - and while neither of those things may be entirely true, there’s a kernel of truth at the center of the lie. Examining that kernel, which really is the focus of Volume 2, required the characters to get used to their new lives. A six month time jump let us come back into their story just in time to shake things up again.
Also, as you’ll see in Issue #1, the tremors of the massive information leaks - and Ed’s very public “execution” - are more than just aftershocks. Those events are not forgotten - and in fact are building to something rather explosive. The time jump allows us to skip right to the next earthquake.
CV: How will the story and tone compare to the first volume?
KELLY: To say they’re day and night is a simplification, but it’s also true. In HACKTIVIST 1, Ed and Nate teamed up to help the people of Tunisia unite around a cause they were already hungry for; in fact, in the time since our book was released, the secular Nidaa Tounes party has come to power, though thankfully through open elections and not a populist revolution. In Hacktivist 2, the problems they’re forced to confront are the problems of our modern country - racially charged crime, massive wealth inequality, and entrenched political divisiveness; these aren’t issues with simple answers, or any answers at all, and that’s why we knew this story was what we had to tell. When we were prepping this book we realized that we’d be taking shots at some of the most powerful institutions in the country, shots that could have genuine ramifications for the people involved. When we voiced our concerns to Alyssa, she had four words: “Lets cause a ruckus.”
LANZING: This volume has exponentially more anger, edge, and teeth. Hacktivist was a story about optimistic revolution. Hacktivist 2 is a story about violent revolt.
CV: Do you ever get a little paranoid with your ideas and thinking what if some of them actually started happening in real life?
LANZING: All the time. But then again, we’re the guys that wrote a book about hackers with a main character named Ed six months before Edward Snowden perpetrated his leaks. We are, to some degree, quite used to our story mirroring reality in some pretty direct ways that we could never anticipate. We approach these stories as theorists, not engineers - so we’re never sure what idea might pop up in the real world next.
In this darker chapter of the Hacktivist saga, we are trying to take some ownership over that phenomenon. As we researched and built the framework for Volume 2, we attempted to do something more akin to White Hat hacking - exposing vulnerabilities in our culture and our information systems to show how they could be exploited by those with less ethical mindsets than ours. We hope people on both sides of the law - and everyday people who work within those systems - look at this story and really think about the consequences of information warfare, anonymity, law enforcement, and social network-driven cultural change. Hopefully some of the events we warn about can be prevented by people with more knowledge of engineering than ourselves.
CV: How cool is it seeing art and pages from Marcus come in?
KELLY: It is like having every day be your favorite birthday. Marcus is not only one of those rare people who have genuinely good hearts, but he also pours all of that love into the work. With every issue J and I try to panel something in a way we’ve never seen before - Marcus has taken that challenge and blown it out of the water, taking the things we thought were really clever and completely innovating on them in ways we never imagined. Combined with the coloring talents of Ian Herring and Deron Bennett’s stunning lettering work… we want this book to come out just so that we can share their beautiful work with the world.
CV: With this being six issues, is there a definitive end to this arc or is it still possible for the story to continue?
LANZING: Oh, there is definitely an ending. As with Volume One, we have a story we’re looking to tell and it is defined in many ways by how it ends. Whether that story is the end of Ed and Nate’s journey… well, that would be telling.
CV: What was your favorite thing about the first volume, if it's possible to narrow it down?
KELLY: Yikes, that’s a big one. HACKTIVIST was the first graphic novel I’d ever written, so everything about it was my favorite, because everyone on the team made every step of the process the best possible version of itself. What blows me away to this day however is the fact that the story can be read without ever reading a line of our dialogue. Just go cross-eyed and look at the way Marcus and Ian play with color and shape… it’s all there, but it’s only a fraction of what they achieve with Volume 2. What about you, Jackson?
LANZING: I love Ed’s realization that while he wants desperately to be the hero - to be a warrior on the forefront of change - that he cannot fight that battle for others. Comics is a medium often driven by savior stories. Volume 1 was an exploration of how valid (or damaging) that concept really is in our modern, global community. That sparked a lot of conversation with our readers - we had countless conversations at conventions across the country about the viral nature of “white savior stories” and the effect of the internet on popular revolution, and our fans surprised me at every turn with their thoughtful commentary and willingness to come to the story with an open mind. Volume 2 goes after the same questions from a very different angle and with the lessons of the previous story still ringing in our heads. I can’t wait to start the conversation all over again.
HACKTIVIST Volume 2 #1 is on sale July 29, 2015. FOC is Monday, July 6, so be sure to let your comic shop know to order you a copy. Check out the preview for the first issue.
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