INTERVIEW: Douglas Rushkoff Pt.2
Interview Conducted by Jonathan Ellis

Interview - Part 1
Interview - Part 2

The opening story involves a war protest that is really a front set up by the government to identify and deal with descendents. Was this inspired by an actual occurrence?

Well, it's not a front exactly - but it's been infiltrated, for sure. And yeah, I got the idea when I was trying to figure out what WTO protestors should do about the violent government agents in their midst. I mean, how do you do peaceful protests when there's special ops troops disguising themselves as protesters for the sole purpose of making the events violent?

Some friends of mine had an encounter with just such an operative in Seattle, and that's what inspired me to include it. I also wanted to make street protest an ineffective route in this world, so that my characters would be forced to take other measures.

Would you say that part of your reason for telling this story is to show that the bible has merit? That despite the fanatics and inaccuracies and insanity that the stories themselves can still be important?

For sure. The people who seem to have a monopoly on the Bible right now are basically insane. Truly. They're nuts, and believe really outrageous things about creation and judgment. Even our President believes this really bizarre stuff - on the order of Santa Claus myths, but dark and damning.

The problem is when we surrender the most potent mythology developed this side of the Euphrates to those folks. Sure, we still have our Star Wars and Matrix, but the Bible was written over many centuries, and holds open the door to a myriad of valuable mysteries.

I just hated the idea that the tools in there would be lost to our generation and generations to follow. So many big answers have been worked out, it's be foolish to have to start over. And if kids are willing to read Crowley and Blavatsky and the Upanishads, they really should have access to these stories, as well.

Do you feel it more pressing to explain this to those who dismiss it outright or those who praise it yet miss the point completely?

Those who praise it yet miss the point are a lot harder to reach. They're looking for the Bible to serve as an idol - and it turns out it's been written well enough to answer this need, too. It's really working on two levels at once - as any great writer attempts to. One is for the people who need to have their beliefs confirmed, and the other is for the people who are willing to have them smashed wide open.

The best writing - and I think Bible was once capable of doing this - speaks to that first group in such a way as to slowly bring them to their senses. It strokes with one hand while taking away false beliefs with the other. The problem is that the Bible was written so long ago that people no longer recognize what's allegory and what's history. The first hearers of Torah got the jokes, and saw the symbolism. People today would need to learn a whole lot of history to distinguish all the references. They may as well be reading Finnegan's Wake.

Creating character allegories for the bible, people must wonder how or if Jesus will be portrayed. Any plans, or is that something better left for later in the series?

There's plans, yeah. It's four years away, though, and there's two ways I can go with it. That will depend on how the book has been received, and what people are taking away. All I can say for sure is that our main characters will be quite divided on what to do about his arrival. If you want a secret hint, now, remember the name "Chester."

It also brings up the question of who would be a more important central character, Jesus, Mary, John the Baptist?

Well, from their own points of view, it's each of them. For the reader of superhero books, it'd have to be Jesus. Remember, though, Jesus dies pretty early in his messianic career. He's more than a single arc, but not a hell of a lot more.

"I've found some less-then-receptive audiences for these observations. When I wrote a book presenting the Bible as an 'open source' collaboration. I was blacklisted by fundamentalists of more then one religion. They just didn't want their story messed with - even though I had been able to prove it was written with that very intent!"

Whereas the other two are considered originators, John for preaching the word of the church and Mary for spreading the acts of Horasis.

Yeah - which is part of why I'm not going there, yet. I mean, the second testament is very cool - but more as a commentary or completion of the first. It all stands in relation not only to the original gods and practices, but to the reaction to them in the first testament. So you're looking through a double-lens; and given that I'm already looking through a triple lens at the Torah, moving into the age of Christ is very difficult. It's really not worth doing until I've told more of the story.

I'm really trying - moreso now than when I began (I'm working on issues 8, 9, 10 as I write this) to focus on the story arc of the main characters, rather than getting overwhelmed by the meta-plot too soon. Even our greatest modern comics writers have tended to go astray when they focus too much on moving the meta-story, and don't give us real characters to care about. Christ will come in good time, and I'll work out the Jesus/Mary stuff, then. For now, it's enough to worry about the Torah equivalent/corollary, which is Moses/Miriam. Was Miriam Moses's sister, like the Bible says? Or was she also his mother - as some quite hidden sections of Talmud suggest? And what is it with all that water dancing?

TESTAMENT also tackles the issue of control, but with so many systems of control dictating and overseeing all facets of life, can one, truly be free of control? That question itself presents another allegory, can one be free from destiny?

Freedom is possible. Absolutely. If you exist on the landscape of command and control, then it's not possible. But if you exist in service to life then nothing can touch you. Exodus is about just such a liberation from mental slavery. It's economic, cultural, and spiritual. The key is to smash the idols - desecrate them - in order to respect life and one another instead of death.

I've corresponded with a lot of people in jail who are more free than some of the millionaires I've met.

The narrative of TESTAMENT will involve both a present day and biblical times storyline, but there will also be a third narrative, that of the gods. Could you take us through how they'll be represented in the series?

That's the meta-plot, and I'd feel bad giving all that away. Suffice to say the way they are represented will change along with how much our human characters understand about them.

My original intent was for them to live outside the frames like Aragones characters in Mad. Maybe not that small, but truly peripheral. But Liam has made them quite looming - which does make more sense. I mean, readers really do need to understand that they're gods. And making gods into the very landscape of the book - the whole background - sets the place of the narrative much better.

But the easiest way to say it is that they'll be in partial control of the narrative - but dependent on the characters' decisions as well. For their very existence.

With the Gods looming they also share a position with the readership, that of being a viewer to the events unfolding.

I suppose, though I didn't really think of it that way. At least not in a long while. They've become characters to me, now. More like entities that attempt to influence the way *I* work on the story. So they're kind of like writers' aids and nemeses, the devil and angel on my shoulder, pushing for certain things to happen.

Certainly, having brought in Astarte/Kali has had a big effect on where I've gone with the story. It's becoming much more about the repression of female archetypes, and the sexual journey of the main characters. I mean, in Torah it's so obvious that the matriarchs are all Sacred (Temple) Prostitutes. It's an equal and opposing lineage going right alongside the patriarchs. Plus, this particular reading of Torah makes all the aliens and otherworldly creatures much more apparent. I don't' know why people never talk about Abraham fighting Astarte's giants for control of the Valley of Siddim. It's a huge story, but basically ignored.

And somehow the present allegory for that story somehow involves giant robots?

Yeah - and, more importantly, where those robots take their orders from. The allegories have topical parallels, for the kids: like both robots and giants are really big.

But for deeper readers, it has to do with the fact that the king in the Bible used giants who worshipped Astarte rather than his own gods. And they proved disloyal to him in battle. Likewise, the robots in our modern battle are controlled by an operating system with different priorities than the ones their controllers intend to use them for, now.

Who are some of your comic influences? I know Kirby and Grant Morrison are high up there, but who else really makes the medium stand out for you?

I feel really typical: Batman, Peanuts, Superman were important when I was a kid. Then - like you say - Eternals was a big deal for me. Later on, Omega Men were pretty influential, though I can't say exactly why. I got into Ronin, Akira, and Jim Woodring (who did a book cover for me, eventually). Watchmen, that miniseries they did of The Prisoner, all the early American Splendor.

The only stuff that's not typical would be comics from India about the early life of Krishna and Buddha. This is stuff they developed in the 70's, to teach kids about their religions. And much of it was in English. So I really liked that stuff, and it made me see how appropriate comics were for stories that don't respect linear time.

A lot of your work involves copious amounts of research, TESTAMENT partly sprung from what you learned while working on NOTHING SACRED, did you go back to the books for more when it was time to start on TESTAMENT?

Oh yeah, I had to go back. The sources are rather infinite. Torah itself is kind of infinite. I haven't had to do so much historical work this time, but I've had to go back into the stories to understand the dynamics between the people. For my book on Judaism, it was more about looking at what the stories mean thematically. To tell them again, I have to understand them from the level of character. And then translate them to this whole other set of characters in modern times, as well.

The other big research hit is in using Moloch, Astarte, Atum-Ra and Krishna as characters. There's just gobs of stuff to learn in order to represent these characters the way they might want to be. And they need to interlace perfectly with Biblical narrative. So, for example, if I'm going to tell the Garden of Eden story from Astarte's (Ishtar) point of view, who plays the snake? Is it Lucifer? *Was* it Lucifer?

So I have to go back and see which snake god the writers of Genesis were hoping to undermine with that story. And then figure out how to get him or, in this case, her in there in a way that makes logical, emotional and, ultimately, religious/historical sense.

"Business people, religious people, educators, and publishers are all equally threatened and confounded by the idea that real stuff is actually occurring in the gaps between the moments that pass for history."

I'm in the books all the time, now. I'm using this kind of cool 12-translations hypertext Bible, as well as some of my favourites (like Everett Fox) along with the Hebrew. And Legends of the Jews. But then I'm also using a bunch of reference texts on gods, angels, and prophets. Plus all the Midrash - which goes on basically forever.

Angels were always interesting to me, which you'll be touching on in part right? The Grigori and the Nephillum shared interactions with mankind, and just to take an example, cherubs, whom have been viewed as cute and cupid like were actually fierce warrior angels.

Yeah - all these folks show up. Along with some of the more terrestrial giants and prophets. In theory, the Nephillum were parents to a lot of the people in our best Bible stories. I mean, how did barren Sarah get pregnant so suddenly after the visit by those angelic "strangers." She made them her special buns - a temple prostitute action - and everything.

I've just worked some cherubs into there, too, in the Garden of Eden story where they first appear as guards after the expulsion. Indeed, you wouldn't use little winged babies to guard the entrance to Eden. They're actually terrible, fierce creatures.

The trick to using any of these creatures is to come up with modern equivalents for them. I'm keeping modern day relatively free of stuff that we don't' really see. But there are metaphorical equivalents. Technology is certainly a kind of magic.

If cherubs were to be regarded as a recurring archetype, they'd be akin to Celtic or Maori warriors so it should be interesting to see their design.

Makes you wonder about the modern equivalent of the Garden of Eden, perhaps a strip club. "Don't touch the apple".

That's what it makes you wonder about! And of course, that's why these stories are so amazing. At every level of granularity, they still serve as allegories to our daily and mythological experience.

The protagonists are a group of youths, but the antagonists are more a force of opposition then a singular entity, or does the antagonist take a specific form?

The opposition takes specific human form, sometimes, but I don't mean for us to personify this as a single person all the time. I mean, in the Torah it's Pharaoh who plays the heavy - but there's obstacles even after they get away from him. And Pharaoh isn't even strong enough to be the heavy all by himself. God has to "harden his heart" so that he'll be a better villain.

It is a comic book, so I have to personify antagonism. But, as in the Bible, I want it to happen in such a way that we realize these are bigger forces at play - and that good and evil aren't so clear cut.

The protagonists have been described as rebels utilizing 'cybernetic and shamanistic means' to fight the Orwellian-like state, I'm curious as to how the shamanism plays a part?

Well, anytime a character moves outside linear time or starts exploring other dimensions counts as shamanism in my book. So they use a bit of magick and technology (same thing?) to get outside the narrative and interact with some of the entities influencing things.

What makes it particularly fun is that shamanism can be represented so clearly in comics by simply letting a character move outside the panel - and, in my case, interact with the characters who exist there.

But when you're living in a fascist state, pretty much any independent action is shamanistic. When you're living in a propaganda state, pretty much any independent thought is shamanistic.


Well, to be a shaman isn't necessarily someone who's a healer but rather someone who can travel between worlds/realities/planes/etc.

Right. Which is why those who can do it are a threat to anyone attempting absolute control over us. Hackers are the new Hebrews - the new shamans, in this regard.

How would you describe working with Liam on art chores, right now he seems to be hitting his artistic prime. Was Liam a first choice or were there a number of people vying for the opportunity to illustrate TESTAMENT?

Chores? You make it sound like *work*! Honestly, it's harder than I thought it would be. I write the scripts like screenplays, pretty much, so there's a lot left for interpretation. And I like it that way. Still, the casting is the hardest part. I see the characters one way, and Liam necessarily sees them another. So I've had to adjust some of my characters' actions to what he has drawn.

But yeah, there were people "vying" for it. Which is quite a compliment, for sure. But what artist wouldn't want to work on the Bible? I think it had more to do with that than with me.

Liam is an inspired artist - someone who really may have been born to work on this book. Perhaps it's just because we're working with the Bible, but we both feel a real sense of mission with this book.

The more I work with Liam, the more I long for something like the original Marvel style - where the writer comes up with a scenario then the artist draws it. Then the writer goes back and writes the dialogue after that. Something feels really organic about that method. DC is more writer-driven, which gives me great control, for sure, but I feel like it sometimes puts Liam in a subordinate position - or one of keeping up with the scripts. And he's too bright to be subordinated.

"And that's when I discovered the perfect place to tell what I've come to believe is the real story of the Bible: Comics."

Rounding things up, TESTAMENT isn't just about telling a story but also about involving the reader in the story, or rather convincing them there already ARE in the story. What does the story mean for YOU and what do you expect readers to get out of it?

I'm not sure I can answer that one. I know what I'm doing and I think things out, but I'm not so good at articulating what I've got going that I can just put into words what people are supposed to get out of this thing.

If I could do that, there'd be no reason to go through the whole process.

Let me put it this way: there's something that needs to be done to the Bible in order for it to live and function today the way it needs to. In order for its power to be accessible to those who actually need it.

The wrong crowd has gotten hold of these stories, and is using them for the reverse purpose of what they were intended. And the more they do it, the less those of us ready and willing to hack reality understand that the instruction manual is available.

So to break it all open again, I need to engage people with the myth - get everyone inside - and then rip it apart.

It has to be exploded.



TESTAMENT Issue 1 is in stores today. Published by Vertigo Comics and Suggested for Mature Readers. $ 2.99 U.S., $ 4.00 CAN. Thanks to Douglas for taking so much time to chat with us and to DC Comics & Vertigo as well. Featured alongside this interview are excerpts from ON THE LEDGE, a short editorial written by Douglas Rushkoff, to read the full version be sure to check out the first issue of TESTAMENT.

For more info on Douglas Rushkoff be sure to visit Rushkoff.com and for more on Liam Sharp be sure to visit the The Art Of Liam Sharp.

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