Ulf is a German poet and comics writer who is taking Brian Meredith's web-based character, Lucifer Fawkes (from the Modern Pulp website), and bringing him to the printed comic page with artist Ryan Sergeant. By the time you read this, Ulf's hardcopy debut, LUCIFER FAWKES: ORCUS EX MACHINA, from new comics publisher Rorschach Entertainment, will already be on the stands. This not quite too long in the making interview becomes Mr. Charlie #35:

Would you mind introducing yourself to the readers, maybe giving us a little biographical or background info about yourself?

ULF: I currently live in Bremen, that lush and laid-back if somewhat rainy city in the north of Germany, probably familiar to many from the old fairytale. Familiar to even more as the home of the green-bottled ambrosia Beck's beer, I suppose. Here I work as a writer and installation artist, the latter with my girlfriend and artistic partner in crime Andrea. Music journalism and the odd ad gig is what puts the tofu on my bread; in order to maintain my sanity, I write poetry, comics and produce text for the installations Andrea and I come up with - our Poetronics as I like to call them. No kids, but a cat with the most sardonic sense of humor I've ever found in a roommate unable to handle a can-opener.

Could you also introduce Lucifer Fawkes?

ULF: He's the star of four one-shots to come out this year from Rorschach Entertainment (http://www.rorschachentertainment.com), with LUCIFER FAWKES: ORCUS EX MACHINA, written by me with art by Ryan 'Sarge' Sergeant being the first. Lucifer Fawkes is the creation of Brian Meredith and one of the most popular characters of the cult web comics site Modern Pulp (http://www.modernpulp.com). A complete unknown to the world at large, Lucifer Fawkes is a frontline soldier known as the Keeper. As such he fights a Cold War against the ever-encroaching darkness brought on by the supernatural. He is a master in the arts of the occult and mystical, as well as a hell of a good shot with a gun. It's his job to keep the world safe from the demons and ...things that plague his world, while keeping the populace fully ignorant as to what lurks in the shadows.

So, on the surface Fawkes is a bad-ass nocturnal warrior. But he's also a seriously messed-up guy with a lot of pain and loss to deal with. He has lost his life as a human being after his transformation into a creature that is something quite different: part half-life predator, trying to come to terms with his new role as the Keeper, part post-mortem trauma victim clinging to what's left of his humanity. That's what makes Fawkes so compelling to me, his complexity and the potential for gloomy and wild but also deeply human stories.

How did you become involved with this project, and have you written comics before Lucifer Fawkes?

ULF: I was part of a writing group on the Digital Webbing message boards where I became friends with C. William Russette, who told me about Brian Meredith and his cool Modern Pulp site. That stuff was right up my alley. Pulp, Horror, superheroes, crime and adventure. I immediately fell in love with the characters Brian had created: Lucifer Fawkes, of course, the detective out of time; James Sprecken, the armored science hero of the occult; Constable IV (who also stars in ORCUS EX MACHINA by the way). So C. William and I got in touch with Brian who asked us to send him some writing samples and faster than you can say 'Red Harvest' we were on board. Brian told us that he had a deal with the new Indy publisher Rorschach Entertainment (http://www.rorschachentertainment.com) to bring the Modern Pulp character Lucifer Fawkes to print in form of four one-shots and invited us to pitch some story ideas. Mine were ORCUS EX MACHINA and NORTH OF HERE, the latter with Dario Carrasco (STAR WARS, PINHEAD) on art, will be published in early 2005. These two were the very first comics I've ever written, aside from a handful of short scripts done for practice in aforementioned writing group.

Did you have a freehand in writing the comic, or rather, how much direction did you get in scripting the book?

ULF: Brian gave me so much leeway I was absolutely flabbergasted. After detailing how I view the characters and where I wanted to take them with my stories, he told me to just go ahead and be sure to have some fun. Having been trusted with someone else's toys I was quite careful not to break them while playing in this wonderful sandbox that is the Modern Pulp verse. It was an all around new experience for me - working on somebody else's properties, writing comics that were actually going to see print, that someone would risk their money on to produce and, believe me, I was biting my nails after turning in my scripts. Thankfully, Brian and Rorschach Entertainment publisher James Taylor loved what I came up with.

When you were writing, what part of your creative nature did you have to summon - meaning in terms of your education, life experience, and stories you've read that have influenced you?

ULF: Creatively, the basic idea behind ORCUS EX MACHINA, was to find out how a merging of cyberpunk and Magick could possibly work in a "post-superheroic" Modern Pulp context. All these are things that interest me, aesthetically as well as (pop-) culturally. The idea that the individual experience of virtual reality and magical thinking, which is an important part of shamanism, are in fact related in that both require a great deal of imagination, devotion and concentration fascinates me. So I came up with this Techno-Shaman and sleeper agent Martin Dupree who employs both systems of transcending "reality" to open the gates of Hell: technology and shamanism.

You'll also find that there's a mini-evolution in there, where confrontations with the supernatural are concerned. We open with Dupree's techno-magickal invocation of a demon called The Gate-Crusher, mixing the primitive like pentagrams and amulets with the sci-fi aspects of the highly advanced AI system that's getting jacked in order to penetrate the demon's dimension and bring him into the Modern Pulp verse. Fawkes responses evolve from raw physical violence to guns, magickal self-defense to finally taking the battle into cyberspace where the occult and VR mingle. It's a learning curve of sorts. Fawkes has to combine his own strengths with his opponent's methods, he is forced to think outside the box and tackle the problem at its very root. All of this culminating in mass destruction, which brings everything back down to earth in a quite devastating manner.

In a nutshell, I wanted to create a page-turner. A fast-paced crazy adventure with a few surprise twists that keeps the reader plowing through the book until the final page. But I also wanted to weave in the little bits I mentioned above.

Do you write comics as simple escapist entertainment, or are you looking to get certain ideas or messages across to the reader? Also, is there an innate calling in you to be a writer?

ULF: There's an innate calling in me to create, yes. I've been making up stories since I can remember. I've also been drawing and painting and I played the guitar in several bands, but all of this has taken a backseat to writing and text art lately.

As for escapism, I have no problem with that at all. Imagine a world like ours without a temporary emergency exit. Of course it's important to maintain a balance between escapism and reality. Not to get lost in worlds other people made up. It's all about the mixture in my opinion. I love some good entertainment every now and then - blockbuster action movies and simple superhero popcorn like THE ULTIMATES. But I also need my Kafka and Baudelaire. Both extremes if you can call it such, are equally important to me, be it art, literature or music. Entertainment and intelligence aren't mutual exclusive, I think, nor should they ever be. See pretty much every comic by Alexandro Jodorowsky, Grant Morrison or Alan Moore to name but a few. Books like THE INVISIBLES, THE FILTH or PROMETHEA are not only insanely intricate works brimming with millions of ideas, providing the reader with food for thought for months to come, they also make for a damn good read.

As a writer, I usually try to combine all those aspects: fun, entertainment and weird ideas. First and foremost, I want to give people something to enjoy. That's very important to me. If my work is a fun read, that's great. If somebody gets more than "just" entertainment from it, well, that's even better.

Being new to comics, do you worry about measuring up to other writers whom you admire, and who are some of the comics creators who have influenced you?

ULF: There are so many great writers I admire, if I, as a glassy-eyed freshman, worried about measuring up to them, I'd go nuts, I suppose. So for better or worse I'm trying to focus on developing my own distinct voice and keep honing my skills. And while I do analyze what it is that I like about a particular work and study the techniques employed therein, I try my best to steer clear of channeling my own private Untold Tales of Garth Ennis.

I love Alan Moore, Grant Morrison, Neil Gaiman and aforementioned Mr. Ennis. I'm pretty sure those have influenced me to varying degrees, as have Lee and Kirby. But my main influences come from outside of comics: Dario Argento, Clive Barker, Franz Kafka, William S. Burroughs, David Cronenberg, and Trent Reznor.

I imagine that there are some things that you hope Lucifer Fawkes will help you accomplish or that it will at least help you move closer to some goals. If you want to talk about that, what do you hope Fawkes does for your career as a writer?

ULF: For the time being I'm happy if those who've read ORCUS EX MACHINA remember me fondly enough to give a book with my name on the cover a try. My work on Lucifer Fawkes has already brought me in contact with quite a few fascinating people, fans and industry insiders alike. I have made new friends, thanks to comics, so that's very cool. As for my career, we'll see how things will develop. I'm cautiously optimistic.

Recently, I've seen a few comics creators really get out on the Net and push their comic with the same effort they used to create it. Are you going to be constantly "pounding the pavement" to get people to know about your books? Does that get tiresome or do you enjoy talking to different people to inform them about Lucifer Fawkes?

ULF: It's a tough time for Independent comics and for mainstream titles that try something new, aesthetically as well as where content is concerned, like SLEEPER. If you don't make your work known, chances are, nobody will ever notice it. So unless you're a huge name and/or working for the Big Two, you HAVE to be your own PR agent. You've got to hit the message boards, get your stuff into the hands of reviewers and do interviews. Of course, it's a lot of work. Work that requires time. Time that could also be spent writing comics. It's all about multitasking. I enjoy communication and the Net is awesome for that. I get to know new, interesting people. I get to talk about my work, my ideas. If you don't look at it as promotional grind but embrace it as a fruitful dialogue that grants you a chance to explain yourself and your work and which you'll more often than not leave as a wiser person, you'll learn to cherish this particular part of the process.

Tell us about working with Fawkes artist Ryan Sergeant. How much interplay was there between the two of you? Did the two of you exchange a lot of ideas, and did his style alter what you were planning to do?

ULF: After I had finished scripting, it was unclear who was going to provide the artwork, since the initially assigned artist had to drop the project. That made me a bit nervous because I asked for some pretty crazy visuals and I frankly wasn't sure how fast we could find someone to pull it off.

But then Brian brought Sarge on board and he blew me away with his insanely detailed all around professional work. I almost felt like a green fan-fic lad who had hit the jackpot and found himself all of the sudden teamed up with Art Adams or Frank Quitely. Working with Sarge was a blast: such a talented artist and a great person to boot! He brought a lot to the table. And while I tend to write rather detailed scripts, I always add a note encouraging the artist to tell me what works for him or her and what doesn't. Sarge would send me the latest page and we'd talk it over to make sure everything turned out to our mutual satisfaction. I think we were both a tad surprised how well our styles and ideas gelled. Everything looks so great. I still can't believe my luck. And to think ORCUS EX MACHINA is his first full-length comic.

I really hope I get a chance to work with Sarge again before the big guys fight over him and he becomes unaffordable.

Before we close the interview, would you like to say something to the readers or plug upcoming books?

ULF: All in the mood for some high-octane post-superhero Techno-Horror-Pulp with beautiful b/w art check out LUCIFER FAWKES: ORCUS EX MACHINA. The Diamond item code is MAR042758. If your local retailer doesn't have any copies on the shelves and can't help you with reorders, you can purchase the book directly via the Rorschach Entertainment Web Store (http://www.rorschachentertainment.com/shop/index.php). And if you like Fawkes and his world keep your eyes peeled, there's much more to come. Next up is LUCIFER FAWKES: BLOODFLOW, written by C. William Russette with art by Ryan Sergeant.

I also have a lot more print and web stuff coming out over the coming year. Material ranging from the creepy to the psychedelic with a variety of great artists like Sean Dietrich, Philipp S. Neundorf, Dario Carrasco and Jason Moser.

Thanks to everyone who is giving the Indies a chance and thanks to you, Leroy, for this interview.

AND THANK YOU, ULF. In the meantime, be on the lookout for more coverage of Rorschach Entertainment.

And remember, if you are a comics creator or publisher and you want to talk or have material for review, hit the clickable name link to contact me. Holla!