Heaven's War is a 128 page B/W graphic novel from Image, drawn by Michael Gaydos, artist of Marvel's Alias, and written by Micah Harris.
Imagine a graphic novel with the following characters- J.R.R. Tolkein, C.S. Lewis, Charles Williams, and Aleister Crowley. This is Heaven's War made available this month by Image Comics. I first read the script about five years ago after having met creator and author Micah Harris. Recipient of a lot of bad fiction I set it aside only to pick it up a couple of months later when I was bored. I was immediately blown away by Micah's story arc, sense of humor and dramatic tension.
They were three of the 20th century's greatest writers of fantasy:
Before one wrote of the fellowship of elves and men,
He knew another fellowship.
Before another opened a magic wardrobe,
He learned of another secret doorway.
And before the world was at war,
There was another war --
Heaven's War.
INTERVIEW WITH AUTHOR MICAH HARRIS
Q: Did you always envision this as a graphic novel?
A: I always wanted the book to end up in graphic novel format, i.e. in one volume. But we thought it would be serialized over a finite number of issues initially and then collected. But it was always a novel, with a beginning middle and end.
Q: What do you think this story is about?
A: The theme of the graphic novel is about the nature of duality, or apparent duality, in existence. You get different responses in the book to this issue, such as the Gnostic Cathars who say matter=bad; spirit=good, or Crowley who says it's an illusion, good and evil are all the same and equally valid options, and people like C.S. Lewis who hold that "every existence as such is good," and that evil is only a perversion of what is originally good. Evil is a parody of Good and thus dependent on it, but Good is in no ways dependent on Evil for existence. You can have an original without a counterfeit, and that's just fine; you can't, however, have a counterfeit without an original.
Q: When did you first get the idea to turn Williams Romantic Theollogy into a narrative device?
A: As for adapting Williams' theology, I'd done some reading on some guys who creatively addressed the theme of past, present, and future interconnecting under what Williams called "the Arch of Eternity." It was appparently a theory making the rounds around the late 19th and early 20th centuries, but it goes back further than that into medieval times, "the simultaneous possession of all time."
Q: What sort of feedback have you gotten?
A: Not a lot of feedback so far, except from folks who've seen the work, such as yourself, in some stage of development. WE have had some good responses on the project in its embryonic and developing form, both on the art and the story.
Q: What's next for the astounding team of Harris and Gaydos?
A: As for next projects . . . Michael Gaydos is finishing up the Alias book at Marvel and will be joining that titles writer, the popular Brian Michael Bendis, on a new book at Marvel. I'm currently developing a miniseries with artist Loston Wallace called "Strange Passages." It's set in the '30's, and is a homage to that period's pulp style fiction and movie serials.
