Star Wars Jedi: The Dark Side with Scott Allie

Anyone who knows me understands that I’m no longer a fan of the Star Wars Universe. I was greatly disappointed with the prequels, and after hearing Darth Vader’s legendary scream in Episode III, I gave up on anything touched by Lucas. Despite my disappointment, I jumped at the opportunity to interview Scott Allie, writer and editor of Dark Horse Comics, about his new series Star Wars Jedi: The Dark Side. This series is about one of the earlier adventures of well-known Star Wars characters Qui-Gon Jinn and Xanatos. I wanted to interview Mr. Allie because I have always enjoyed the Star Wars stories that have been produced by Dark Horse; my favorite being the Dark Empire series. And when Scott Allie’s Star Wars Jedi: The Dark Side comes out as a trade in Spring 2012, I will also collect it and add it my bookshelf.

I was very pleased with the choice of artists for this series. Artist Mahmud Asrar, colorist Paul Mounts and cover artist Stéphane Roux did an epic job of helping to create such a fantastic story. What I loved best about the series that this isn’t a generic action story. There is as much inner conflict as there are lightsaber duels. Can a person’s training and destiny be derailed by the emotional issues that a dysfunctional family can cause? Scott Allie does a fantastic job in exploring that question.

Below is the interview we did at the New York Comic Con, where I had the opportunity to discuss the Star Wars Jedi: The Dark Side series with Scott Allie as well as his duties and time as editor of Dark Horse Comics. Remember that you can wait for the trade to come out in the Spring of 2012 or you can pick up the back issues at your local comic book store today.

Tell us about Star Wars Jedi: The Dark Side.

SA: Star Wars Jedi: The Dark Side is a five issue series I wrote that just concluded. Mahmud Asrar drew it and it features Qui-Gon Jinn about 20 years before Star Wars: Episode I, with his padawan Xanatos, who people might know from other Star Wars stories and this is the mission that Xanatos goes over to the dark side.

What themes are you hoping to incorporate into this story?

SA: I like the classic stories of the struggle between good and evil. We got into the political aspects of the Star Wars Universe and [this foundation] will set up a a new story where Qui-Gon is very far away from the Jedi Council and from all the politics in the galaxy. The thing that I really love about Star Wars is that you can have a spiritual approach to an adventure story. We really dug into it, like Qui-Gon’s spiritual struggle and the struggle his padawan had [in order ] to master his better nature.

Now you are an also an editor at Dark Horse Comics. What projects are you currently working on?

SA: I am the editor of  Hellboy, Buffy The Vampire Slayer, The Goon and a bunch of other titles. I’ve been there for 17 years and this year we had a lot of big things going on. We just launched Buffy Season 9 and the Faith and Angel series going really well and it’s a really fun gig where we work with Joss Whedon and writers from his TV shows. We are working on ambitious stories that are tackling big things with the characters and [we are] shaking some things up. With Mike Mignola we have some Hellboy comics, BPRD and and a bunch of titles like Lobster Johnson and Baltimore. We have more Mignola books coming out in the next year than we ever had.

During the 17 years you’ve been at Dark Horse, what would you say is your favorite story-arc or your proudest moments in a series?

My favorite thing during these 20 years… I’ve loved my time on Buffy and had a great spin editing Conan but the work on Hellboy has been specially rewarding for me. One of my favorite arcs is the second arc to The Umbrella Academy and it’s something that I’m proud of. When I work on a series, I’m deeply immersed in it so my favorite stuff is the stuff I’m doing now or what I’m looking forward to next.

The fifth and last issue of Star Wars Jedi: The Dark Side is already out. We are going to have a trade paperback in the Spring of 2012. We are slowly working on the second series now.

A lot of old Star Wars fans (like me) tend to be jaded when it comes to the recent things George Lucas has done to the Star Wars Universe. To those fans who aren’t sure of picking up this series because of that, what would you say to them?

What we are doing with Qui-Gon in this series, an interesting character in Episode I who we really didn’t get to know that well because the way things went down, we are really trying explore this character through a story that showed him how he grew to be the guy in Episode I. We are trying to make sense to his character in a scope from the whole history of Star Wars Universe and in this story you’ll see that we’re doing a good job in bringing Qui-Gon to life and we’re giving him a more relatable personality than he had in the film.

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