Horror Reanimated… the home of Bloody Books

Interview with Jasper Bark by JD’L

June 4th, 2010

Oh, joy!

Tonight, after months of scheming and dirty deals, I have finally snared the slippery and elusive Jasper Bark, author of Dawn Over Doomsday and Way of the Barefoot Zombie. We tracked him down using private detectives, crooked coppers and undercover prostitutes. After a failed blackmail attempt, we kidnapped his children. He said we could keep them. In the end, we had to resort to a large transfer of funds into his numbered Swiss account. There’s nothing we won’t do for you, the horror-lover, here at Horror Reanimated.

Okay, that’s a complete lie. We should have strapped Jasper into the ‘interview chair’ several months ago but I forgot.

Still, he’s comfortable now. Ears pinned to the backboard with carpet tacks, hands nailed to the armrests with a staple-gun. We removed his foreskin and eyelids – purely for reasons of hygiene, you understand; the filth of the dungeon just doesn’t enter the bloodstream properly if we don’t take certain precautions. Septicaemia should be setting in about now…

Joseph D’Lacey: Welcome to Horror Reanimated, Jasper. We’ve done our best to make you comfortable but if there’s anything else you need, don’t hesitate to ask.

Now, sir, I’m curious about the various Abaddon Books worlds. To write a Tomes of the Dead novel for example, what are the parameters? Similarly, what rules exist for The Afterblight Chronicles – both of which you’ve written for?

Jasper Bark: Okay, I’ll spill the beans on the Abaddon worlds as long as you promise to omit the sordid confessions of the last hour and sew my thumbs back on.

The parameters and the rules are slightly different for both series. The Afterblight Chronicles is a shared world series. The world was created by Si Spurrier who also wrote the first novel in the series The Culled. He was supposed to write the next instalment but around the same time he sold a novel called Contract to another publisher and decided to work on that instead, so Rebecca Levene got the job.

You’ve got a pretty free reign as a writer so long as you uphold the basic ‘post plague’ premise of the world and make certain you don’t contradict any of the events and timelines of the other novels in the series. My novel picked up on some of the events in Si’s novel and I stayed in touch with Scott Andrews and Paul Kane while I was writing it, as they were both working on their Afterblight trilogies at around the same time and we were all trying not to step on each other’s toes.

Tomes of the Dead is just an umbrella title for a series of contemporary and somewhat edgy zombie novels. The only thing that connects them is the defiant attitude of many of the authors and their general interest in subverting and experimenting with the sub-genre of the Zombie novel. When the series was first launched Matthew Sprange did write a shared world bible based around the back drop to his novel Death Hulk, which was the first in the series. Editor in Chief Jonathan Oliver soon fell out of love with the idea of the series having a shared world though and decided Tomes of the Dead would simply be a line of zombie novels.

JD’L: What attracts you to writing Zombie/Apocalyptic fiction?

JB: Although both those genres have become conflated thanks to Romero’s excellent Dead movies, none of the Zombie fiction I’ve worked on has been post apocalyptic. The appeal of each genre is quite different for me.

What I like about zombies is how malleable they are as a representative icon. As society trades old nightmares for new with each advancing decade the zombie keeps adapting and changing the things it stands for in our collective unconscious. In the 30s when the zombie was first introduced to western culture it stood for the western colonial fear of the nations it was exploiting. Over the years the zombie has come to represent mainstreams fears of everything from communism and terrorism to sixties radicalism and growing economic unrest. This makes it very appealing to writers like myself who have an interest in writing social commentary and satire.

The thing that appeals to me about post apocalyptic fiction, on the other hand, is that it allows you to study society as a whole in microcosm. As we view the shattered bands of survivors trying to rebuild their life in the aftermath of the collapse of civilisation there’s a huge opportunity to examine the everyday tensions and conflicts of our current society. The backdrop of a lost and ruined world allows us to view these opposing forces in a more naked and honest light, outside of the contexts and allegiances of our contemporary culture. This throws them into sharper relief and allows us a fresh perspective of the problems they’re causing us and the long term consequences of certain courses of action.

Plus err … zombies are totally awesome. They eat brains, they never wash and they always, always win. Vampires and Werewolves might be in an eternal conflict but Zombies can kick both their butts. A vampire or a werewolf can bite a Zombie as many times as they like and it’ll still be a zombie. A zombie’s only has to bite them once and you’ve got a zompire or a werebie. (Is it just me or does a ‘werebie’ sound like a creepy undead furby fetishist?)

JD’L: When a novel has a strong theme, it can be a tightrope act walking between what the story’s about and what it’s really about. Way of the Barefoot Zombie uses the walking dead sub-genre as satire. At times I found the message blazing as brightly as the story itself. Was that intentional? Once you knew where you were going, did you find it hard to keep a lid on all that social comment?

JB: You’re right it can be a tightrope act but I’m glad you said ‘blazing as brightly as the story itself’ and not ‘strangling the fecking story to death’. I think the writer’s ultimate responsibility is to the story itself but I think the story is strengthened no end if it is about more than just the characters themselves and what happens to them. As a writer you get incredibly close to your story and subject matter when you’re spending eight, nine and even ten hours a day working on it. You can’t help but ruminate a lot on your themes, so when the greater significance of certain parts of your story occurs to you, you want to point them out.

I was a lot more subtle about this in  Dawn Over Doomsday and as a consequence a lot less people noticed. So I think this time around I was over compensating a little and trying to point out the subtext to the reader, possibly a little too much at times. But I’m only on my fourth novel and I’m still learning how to get the balance right.

I do aspire to write genre fiction that is fast paced, completely gripping but just as intelligent and significant as more weighty writing. This is a tall order though and sometimes you can fall between two stools. The sort of people who just want quick entertainment can get really annoyed when you start asking them to think a bit and the sort of people who might appreciate the more complex ideas you’re considering can be put off by the schlocky nature of some of the content.

Still, it’s not worth doing if it’s too easy is it.

JD’L: Course, WOTBZ was a lot of fun too. How important is humour in your work?

JB: I would say it’s extremely important where it’s applicable. It’s often highly applicable when you’re writing horror. In fact horror and humour are the two genres that are specifically geared towards getting a particular physical reaction from the audience, you either want them to laugh or hurl. Because of this it’s easy to get it wrong and get a laugh when you’re looking to horrify so, in a way, getting the laugh in first – where you want it – is a way of keeping the reader on side and not losing them.
For me it’s also a way of puncturing any possible pomposity. If you’re writing work that aims at some type of profundity and insight it’s very easy to get a bit full of yourself and to come across as sanctimonious or preachy. Humour is a great way of undercutting that and maintaining a balance in the tone of your work. It’s a way of showing that I take what I do very seriously, but not myself.

For many years I led a hand to mouth existence as a stand up performer and I wrote and performed comedy sketches for BBC radio and live theatre. So along the way I learned how to be funny. It’s another tool in my armoury I guess.

JD’L: The novel has a strong grip on the traditions and practices of voodoo. Is this something you’ve had personal experience with or did it all come from research?

JB: Initially it came from research. I knew from the get go that voodoo would be central to the plot and my conception of the zombie. I wanted to go right back to the root of the myth. However Voodoo is one of the most misunderstood and misrepresented religions in the world. Horror fiction has contributed a huge amount towards the misconceptions surrounding this belief system, so I decided I was going to treat it with due reverence and present as authentic a view as I could.

So I did a lot of reading and sought out practitioners. A lot of people were very generous with their time and shared their experiences with me and they also lent me lots of books. Research is key to my work. I also did a lot of reading about economics for this novel.

I didn’t have any practical experience of economics but I did sort of get quite up close and personal with Voodoo. Followers of the faith are known as ‘Servant of the Loa’. The Loa are the spiritual beings who act as intermediaries between us and God. The Loa commune with us by taking possession, or ‘riding’ one of their followers during ritual ceremonies where the followers go into trances and the Loa choose a ‘horse’ to take possession of, so they can talk to their servants.

Writing can be quite a ritual activity and it certainly sends you into a type of trance after a while. I write a lot about different religious beliefs and tend to steep myself in them to such a degree that I tend to convert myself as I’m writing. This means there are times when the lines between the world you’re writing about and the world you live in can blur.

When you’re writing scenes of authentic rituals that conjure up the Loa it does feel like they come and have a look over your shoulder. They also demand a co-writing credit. I didn’t really write any of their dialogue whenever they appeared in the novel I just sat and took dictation and wouldn’t have dared edit it either. So in that sense you could say I had a bit of a practical experience.

JD’L: There’s a growing trend for novelists to accompany their new releases with online video teasers but I have to say the teasers for  WOTBZ are among the best I’ve seen. Who wrote them? And how and where were they made? Also, they looked expensive – did you get lottery funding???

JB: I wrote all three. They were made over a two day period across three locations here in the West country where I live.

We had next to no funding so although they should have cost in the region of £12,000 to £15,000 to shoot we managed to do all of them for under two grand. That’s mainly because I was able to talk the incredibly talented individuals at Level Films into working for nothing. In fact everybody who worked on the three short videos gave their time and talents for free. The make up and special effects artists, the actors, the sound and camera guys they were all fantastic.

I was very up front with everyone about the fact that I had absolutely no money but they all agreed to get involved because I can be very persuasive when I want to be and the project looked like a lot of fun. In fact we all had a blast. I hope that comes across when you watch them. If you’re reading this please do go watch all three. I promise you’ll laugh and you won’t have seen anything quite like them before.

JD’L: Are there more Abaddon titles to look forward to from your good – or should I say damnably evil – self?

JB: I am at work on something new for Abaddon at the moment, it’s for a new line of titles that hasn’t been launched yet. Nothing has been finalised at the moment, so I’m going to have sound all enigmatic and leave it at that.

JD’L: Now, I’ve heard Jasper Bark also writes books for children and is well known in the world of graphic novels. When did all this start and how do you fit it in around writing horror novels?

JB: Well the comics and graphic novels probably came first. While I was working as a music and film journalist I got in touch with The Losers creator Andy Diggle, who was then editor of 2000AD and offered to get him in to see any band or up coming film he liked for free. After a screening of the film Snatch I mentioned I was interviewing the cast and director the next day. Andy told me if I could get a quote from director Guy Ritchie he’d buy a script off me no matter how ropey it was. So in the middle of the interview I asked this drawn out question about 2000AD and got Guy Ritchie to endorse it. I let Andy out of the deal though and eventually sold a script to his successor, current editor Matt Smith.

After writing grown up comics for a while I began to notice there weren’t any really good comics for kids anymore and as I was a parent myself I felt impelled to try and write some so I moved into the kids comics market. From this I moved into writing kids books. Some of my kid’s books have been translated into nine different languages while others are used in schools all over the country to help improve literacy in senior school children. I’m even published in all sorts of new media now, with a series of books for young children being sold exclusively on the i-pad and the i-phone called The Recyclies and an audiobook about to be launched on i-tunes called Mr Woznotiz. I’ve also just finished a 30 part graphic novel series for Channel 4 Education for young adults too. It’s called Alien Ink and it’s available initially on line.

JD’L: Do you think horror has a purpose, above giving people a comfortable, entertaining scare?

JB: I really do believe it has. In my opinion the best horror stories use the weird and other-worldly as a metaphor for a deeper or more personal truth. I also think that the world is quite a scary place at the moment and because of this the tropes and motifs of horror are some of the best ways of addressing the contemporary world. A lot of the horror writers coming up at the moment seem to be interested in social commentary in the same way that the New Wave and the early Cyberpunk writers previously used science fiction as a vehicle for social comment. It’s one of the (many) things I like about your work actually.

JD’L: Regardless of whether you could sell it or not, what is the book you were born to write?

JB: The Scratch and Sniff Karma Sutra – don’t know why it hasn’t been done before.

Seriously, I have so many books and graphic novels that I still want to write that I haven’t the time or space to list them all here.

JD’L: As you may know, every Horror Reanimated interviewee is imbued with a temporary but godlike power.

You, Jasper Bark, may now bestow The Sword of the Ultimate Darkness upon the work of horror in any medium which you consider the pinnacle of ghastly achievement.

JB: Well I think the EC Horror comics work of Johnny Craig deserves an honourable mention, as do the short stories of Ramsey Campbell and many episodes of the original Twilight Zone.

But perhaps my favourite horror work in any medium is the 1945 portmanteau horror film Dead of Night, which has never been bettered.

JD’L: When you’ve done that you must cast forever into The Plague Pits, the worst work of horror in any medium.

Please exercise your power now…

JB: I had to think a long time about this having seen and read a lot of terrible horror. I did consider the movie Troll 2 but that’s now kind of famous for being unbelievably bad.

So I’m going to go with Guy N Smith’s second novel The Sucking Pit. And no, that’s not cockney rhyming slang but it ought to be as it would perfectly describe this novel. Published in 1975 it manages to be racist, sexist and atrociously written with moronic dialogue, almost no characterisation and a pitiful plot.

This said I have a grudging affection for it. In his excellent book On Writing Stephen King talks about the joy you feel the first time you read a book that’s so bad you realise you could easily do better. I was about 12/13 when I first read The Sucking Pit and I was so encouraged by the thought that if something this awful could get into print then I stood more than a chance myself, that I began work on my first novel the very next day.

Now here I am, (ahem) years later, talking to you writer to writer. So I guess when I’m done here I should really head up the apples and pears get on the dog and bone and thank Mr Smith for writing something so Sucking Pit.

JD’L: Thank you for joining us, Jasper, and from all the Horror Reanimated team good luck for a dark and dreadful future!

JB: Thanks for having me Joseph, I’ve had a brilliant time … now can you loosen that tourniquet round my nuts like you promised?

Entry Filed under: Interviews