Quick 10 Interview with Reginald Hudlin

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Your run on Deathlok seemed to be full of allusions to the black experience. The lead character's trapped in a cyborg construct and has his body stolen from him. His fear and shame at how his family would see his new form keeps him from them. He's literally separated from his own humanity. And the dialogues between the cyborg's computer AI and Michael Collins riffs on the twoness that W.E.B. DuBois spoke about. How much of this was explicitly in your and Greg Wright's pitch and how much did you slip under the radar?

None of it was in the pitch, but all of it was intentional. Invisible Man was, and still is, my favorite novel. I'd just read The Souls of Black Folk and was explicitly thinking about Skip Gates' The Signifying Monkey. Godel, Esher, Bach and Derrick Bell's dialogues about race and law sort of crashed in my head. Deathlok was a way of sharing some of my thoughts about all of this.

Foremost, though, Deathlok was supposed to be a modern-day take on Marvel's The Thing (a man alienated by his surface appearance), as well as my own commentary on the "grim and gritty" trend in comic book heroes. Contrary to the fashion at the time, I wanted to do a superhero who was more moral than I, not less.

You've talked about how the character of Buck Wild came about as a commentary on the complicated love/hate relationship you had with Luke Cage. Do you still feel the need to address that relationship today? Did doing those issues with Buck help work that stuff out?

I'd worked those issues out even before I started Milestone. I just wanted to share those ideas with the comic book readership in an entertaining matter. Interestingly, those stories are about to be reprinted this summer as Icon: Mothership Connection. The excesses of Blaxploitation comics characters like Cage is the past, though. I'm much more interested in dealing with the stuff that's going on now: more green characters with their own monthlies than black characters, a criminal lack of people of color in writing and editorial positions on mainstream books, et cetera... The last time I tried to write about that stuff in a mainstream book, my story was bounced (by the same people who asked me to write about it, mind you), and my editors wanted to replace it with clichés from twenty years ago, clichés that not coincidentally shielded mainstream readers and comicbook creators from any responsibility for the current state of affairs. I passed on that. I'll write about those issues again when I have more control over the content.

You can see hints of Song of Solomon in Icon and maybe a little bit of The Autobiography of Malcolm X in Hardware (where Curtis starts off operating from a vengeful drive but eventually matures to a justice-for-all mindset)? Is there any literature or a writer who's influencing you now? Like, where you read something and think, I wonder if there's something I can play with there?

I'm in a very strange reading phase right now. I'm obsessed with paperback original crime novels from the '50s through the '70s or so. It's people writing very quickly, for money, with very little filter on their world view, so as long as their entertaining, they can talk about whatever they like. Comics used to be like that, I guess I'm just nostalgic.

I'm currently reading a lot of Ed Lacy, whose 1957 Toussaint Moore novel, Room To Swing, is still one of the best, most human portrayals of a black character ever in detective fiction. I imagine him hanging out on the porch with Easy Rollins, and talking about life. Let's see, Dennis Lehane's The Given Day really knocked me out. I also just discovered Percival Everett, how the hell did I not know about this guy? I'm reading a lot of Steven Pinker, surely that stuff will come out somewhere, sometime.

Really though, my major writing influences right now are from television. The Wire is a work of art on par with the best in any field of human endeavor. I've not tried anything on that scale in comics, and I don't know if I'm up to the challenge, but I'd sure like to try.

On another level, I loved Sports Night and Arrested Development. I should mention something on the air now, shouldn't I? I love House and the main character reminds me of my take on Hardware -my family has accused me of being like very much like both characters. I can't decide if that's a compliment. Probably not.

Expo Founder Jamal Turner flew to Los Angeles to interview Reginald Hudlin.

The two haven’t spoken since Jamal failed to make the cut for the Boomerang soundtrack.

How would you describe growing up in Centreville, Illinois?

RH: The nearest hospital to the house my father built for us was in Centreville, so that’s where I was born. But my childhood was in East St. Louis. East St. Louis is a small town, but Centreville can fairly be called a village. In high school someone from Centreville asked me if I lived in a middle class neighborhood. I asked what he meant by that. He then asked if my street had sidewalks. So to him, I was ballin’ with sidewalks and all.

How did your hometown shape your appreciation of music? What would be your dream cast for a musical?

RH: First of all, we had great radio stations. George Clinton loved one of our local DJs so much he dubbed him “Dr. Jockenstein”. I grew up hearing blues, jazz, soul music and rock and roll on the regular.

My dream cast for a musical would include Sun Ra, Bootsy Collins, the Wu Tang Clan, Beyoncé, and Drake.

Pre-Sopranos, you and your brother Warrington Hudlin created the Twilight Zone -inspired Cosmic Slop for HBO. How involved was the network with what you were creating? Did you have total freedom? How did you go about selecting talent i.e. actors, directors, writers, etc. to work on the show?

RH: HBO is a very creative-friendly network. Because they don’t have advertisers, they like noisy, bold shows. If there was any trepidation, it was from Black employees at HBO, who were nervous about the “Space Traders” episode, in which aliens offer the United States renewable energy, mineral wealth and a clean environment in return for all their Black people. The Black HBO employees were concerned the story would give White people ideas…as if we could come up with something that we had not already been subjected to in the past four hundred years.

The show came about after I read Derrick Bell’s book Faces at The Bottom of The Well. I thought there were a lot of short stories like this floating around and maybe doing a modern day Twilight Zone about cutting-edge political issues would be cool. I wanted to do one, my brother wanted to do one, and I just called my friends…novelist Trey Ellis and comic book maestro Kyle Baker…to help out. I picked Kevin Sullivan to direct one because he seemed like a pro, and he was.

Later Quentin Tarantino got in my ass because he thought Space Traders should have been a movie, not a TV show segment.

Did you get to say all that you wanted to about the Black Panther in your run on the Marvel comic? Is there a DC Comics character that you would like to sink your teeth into?

RH: All I wanted to say? Never! But given that I originally signed up for a six issue mini-series, I got to say a lot. I married Black Panther and Storm, which was a Really Big Deal. There had never been a high-profile love story with Black characters in comics before. Ever. Isn’t that weird?

I wanted to have Panther, Luke Cage and Blade do a team up, but most importantly, have the kind of conversations I thought Black characters would have with each other, but had never been seen before. I did that too. I’m good with what I achieved.

As for DC, I love the Milestone characters, but it’s really tough doing books in continuity these days at either Marvel or DC. Too much coordination with broader editorial mandates that can lead to some great stories, but it’s tough to devote that much time if it’s not your main gig. I’m concentrating on graphic novels right now, and will eventually do some original characters.

The latest graphic novel project you’ve written for Marvel Comics is “Flags of Our Fathers” which hits stores in April. In the story, you feature the first meeting of comic book icons Captain America and the Black Panther during World War Two. What was the genesis of the idea?

RH: Denys and I said it’s a crime that we’ve never done a comic together, so the idea of doing a Black Panther/Cap book popped up. We talked about documenting their relationship through the years, and it ended up focusing on their first meeting, and really fleshing out that story.

Was your approach to historical accuracy closer to HBO’s Band of Brothers or Tarantino’s Inglorious Basterds?

RH: Denys is doing mad research for the art, which looks incredible. But my research was basically a lifetime of reading Sgt. Fury and His Howling Commandos. Quentin actually invited me to see a rough cut of Inglorious Basterds shortly after I started the project and it was a real inspiration to me.

Were there strict guidelines from Marvel that you had to follow for writing these two characters?

RH: Well, there was definite attention paid to the depiction of Captain America with the movie coming up, but it wasn’t a problem. I am a big Captain America fan. He represents the best of the American Spirit, and that’s a big part of the storyline. Until I went to President Obama’s inauguration, the only time I felt patriotic was reading those old Stan Lee/Jack Kirby Captain America stories.

The project is drawn by acclaimed illustrator Denys Cowan, who is also a friend of yours. How was it working together for the first time on a graphic novel project? Did he involve you in the storytelling process by showing you layouts and designs, or did you only see the artwork after it was completed?

RH: It was great working with Denys because he would send me rough layouts, and I got to put my two cents in. Conversely, I would run plot stuff by him so he could weigh in on that as well. It’s a real partnership. This project is the first of several books we’re doing together.

What’s next for Reginald Hudlin?

RH: Well, after taking time off, I thought about what I really wanted to do. Movies? TV? Comics? Another executive gig? Then I realized I didn’t have to choose. So quietly, methodically, I’m doing it all.

The African American martial arts star of the 1970s gets a DVD set devoted to his impressive skills.

By Steve Ryfle  January 10, 2010

Before Jackie Chan and Jet Li, before Chuck Norris, Jean Claude van Damme and Steven Seagal, Jim Kelly earned his place in the pantheon of martial arts heroes fighting alongside Bruce Lee in 1973's "Enter the Dragon." With his lightning-quick fists and feet, cocksure attitude and repertoire of quotable one-liners, the Afro-sporting, chisel-chested Kelly was as cool and flashy as Lee was fast and lethal.

Nearly four decades on, Kelly has become a certified cult film legend -- the 2009 blaxploitation spoof "Black Dynamite" contained more than one homage to his movies -- though his Hollywood career was all too brief.

This week, Warner Home Video will release its Urban Action Collection, featuring three of Kelly's classic films on DVD for the first time: 1974's "Black Belt Jones" and "Three the Hard Way" and 1976's "Hot Potato." A fourth entry in the set, 1974's "Black Samson," stars Rockne Tarkington, the actor who was originally set to play Kelly's groundbreaking role in "Enter the Dragon."

The collection and a new wave of public appearances are going a long way toward helping Kelly reclaim his legacy as Hollywood's first African American fighting film icon.

"I broke down the color barrier -- I was the first black martial artist to become a movie star," said Kelly, 63, the owner and director of a tennis club in the San Diego area. "It's amazing to see how many people still remember that, because I haven't really done much, in terms of movies, in a long time."

She gives me hope for the future.

Buy your copy today!

Talk about it on the HEF - Hudlin Entertainment Forum

My episode of Better Off Ted appeared on January 1, 2010 on ABC:

My episode of THE OFFICE called "Koi Pond" aired Thursday, October 29th.

Check out Modern Family airing this Wed, Oct 7th at 9/8c on ABC
Episode: Come Fly With Me directed by Reginald Hudlin

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