I have a question. I know Trekker started in the 1980s, when the climate was a lot different, LGBT-wise. So did you know that Mercy and Molly would get together back then? Or was that an idea that developed over the decades?
Excellent question, Brian! Hope you are ready for a longish answer 🙂
You are right– back in the benighted 80’s, LGBT issues were still largely “off the table” in anything like a mainstream comic. I would love to say I had it in mind from Day One, because that would make me look like a bold, visionary creator. But the truth is a bit less glorious, though maybe not without some interest. I knew from the start that Mercy and Molly would have a very strong and unique connection, that whatever else was going on in Mercy’s life, she’d always make time for Molly. And I think that shows up pretty clearly from the earliest stories. Molly is her trusted confidant, and about the only one Mercy will willingly let challenge her. The only one around whom Mercy will let her walls down to any degree. The one she goes to when she’s wounded. And as the great poet says, “Every heart to Love will come, but like a refugee”. But it wasn’t until the late 90’s that it became clear to me just what that love would become for Mercy. From then on, it was finding a way to let that unfold and develop in some way that seemed to fit Mercy’s temperament and history. Mercy had a “pleasant” relationship with Paul, but she knew that something was missing there. She’d always had that wall up, and in fact would use sex as a defense as I tried to convey in the Janus Voyage scene. The sources for which included her own anger and wounds from the loss of her parents and her general issues with trust. Breaking that wall down took some time and some hard blows– Paul’s death in Trial By Fire, the crisis when Molly was captured in The Train to Avalon Bay, the rift between the two women in Rites of Passage. Ultimately, it was when Mercy’s passions were overwhelmingly flamed to life by her chemically-induced feelings for Pell in Chapeltown that her truth finally hits her between the eyes. So, long in the planning and in the execution! My hope, of course, was to make it convincing and moving to the readers. And I’ve been immensely gratified to hear that is seems to have come across that way.
Thanks for your great answer. I also want to mention that you never mention the words gay, lesbian or any other equivalent in the comic. I like that. It’s like, for all its problems, at least society has evolved beyond those labels, and people get to enjoy a big old squidgy ball of personal preference.
This is going to be an odd comment, but I hope Trekker ends. Not today or tomorrow, but someday. Because Trekker is a great story, and the best stories have satisfying endings. I’d rather see Mercy and Molly have a great happily-ever-after, or whatever else you have planned, then have the story dwindle and peter out.
Thanks, Brian. Actually, for me the sentiment that you like the series enough to want it to be a strong, fully realized work is a very complimentary comment. And honestly, you have mirrored my thoughts exactly. From the very beginning, I planned TREKKER to be “novelistic” in that it was intended to trace Mercy’s life journey– to take her from a definite starting point (young, badass bounty hunter) to a definite end point (yet to be revealed, of course). Back then, I knew that I wanted Mercy and the series to change, grow and evolve gradually over time and that it all needs to lead to some conclusion and resolution. And by now, I have the whole rest of that “novel” mapped out (at least in its in broad, outline strokes). So, I know where we are going and how we are getting there. Fear not, though, we have a lot of Trekking and a lot of adventures to tell yet before that endpoint. Plenty of twists and turns that I’m still looking forward to getting down on the page.
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I have a question. I know Trekker started in the 1980s, when the climate was a lot different, LGBT-wise. So did you know that Mercy and Molly would get together back then? Or was that an idea that developed over the decades?
Excellent question, Brian! Hope you are ready for a longish answer 🙂
You are right– back in the benighted 80’s, LGBT issues were still largely “off the table” in anything like a mainstream comic. I would love to say I had it in mind from Day One, because that would make me look like a bold, visionary creator. But the truth is a bit less glorious, though maybe not without some interest. I knew from the start that Mercy and Molly would have a very strong and unique connection, that whatever else was going on in Mercy’s life, she’d always make time for Molly. And I think that shows up pretty clearly from the earliest stories. Molly is her trusted confidant, and about the only one Mercy will willingly let challenge her. The only one around whom Mercy will let her walls down to any degree. The one she goes to when she’s wounded. And as the great poet says, “Every heart to Love will come, but like a refugee”. But it wasn’t until the late 90’s that it became clear to me just what that love would become for Mercy. From then on, it was finding a way to let that unfold and develop in some way that seemed to fit Mercy’s temperament and history. Mercy had a “pleasant” relationship with Paul, but she knew that something was missing there. She’d always had that wall up, and in fact would use sex as a defense as I tried to convey in the Janus Voyage scene. The sources for which included her own anger and wounds from the loss of her parents and her general issues with trust. Breaking that wall down took some time and some hard blows– Paul’s death in Trial By Fire, the crisis when Molly was captured in The Train to Avalon Bay, the rift between the two women in Rites of Passage. Ultimately, it was when Mercy’s passions were overwhelmingly flamed to life by her chemically-induced feelings for Pell in Chapeltown that her truth finally hits her between the eyes. So, long in the planning and in the execution! My hope, of course, was to make it convincing and moving to the readers. And I’ve been immensely gratified to hear that is seems to have come across that way.
Thanks for your great answer. I also want to mention that you never mention the words gay, lesbian or any other equivalent in the comic. I like that. It’s like, for all its problems, at least society has evolved beyond those labels, and people get to enjoy a big old squidgy ball of personal preference.
You’ve put it perfectly, Brian– thank you!
This is going to be an odd comment, but I hope Trekker ends. Not today or tomorrow, but someday. Because Trekker is a great story, and the best stories have satisfying endings. I’d rather see Mercy and Molly have a great happily-ever-after, or whatever else you have planned, then have the story dwindle and peter out.
Thanks, Brian. Actually, for me the sentiment that you like the series enough to want it to be a strong, fully realized work is a very complimentary comment. And honestly, you have mirrored my thoughts exactly. From the very beginning, I planned TREKKER to be “novelistic” in that it was intended to trace Mercy’s life journey– to take her from a definite starting point (young, badass bounty hunter) to a definite end point (yet to be revealed, of course). Back then, I knew that I wanted Mercy and the series to change, grow and evolve gradually over time and that it all needs to lead to some conclusion and resolution. And by now, I have the whole rest of that “novel” mapped out (at least in its in broad, outline strokes). So, I know where we are going and how we are getting there. Fear not, though, we have a lot of Trekking and a lot of adventures to tell yet before that endpoint. Plenty of twists and turns that I’m still looking forward to getting down on the page.