Michael McMillian portrays Reverend Steve Newlin on the HBO's hit series, True Blood. His character has dedicated his life to saving his fellow believers from vampires. However, Michael's interest off screen is a lot more fun. He is pursuing his dream of making comic books. It was announced at Comic-Con that Zachary Quinto (from Star Trek and Heroes) with his company, Before the Door Pictures, will be developing comic books with Archaia Comics. Mike is writing a four issue mini-series for them called Lucid set to debut in the summer of 2010. Michael has been an avid reader of comics since he was in the third grade. He used to write and draw comics as a kid. He also wrote and drew a comic strip for his high school newspaper. He told Newsarama about some of his favorites. "I have my moments where-I mean, I've always been a Marvel zombie, but I'm really into Green Lantern and the Blackest Night stuff going in DC right now, and I love the new Batman and Robin. I've always got my core DC books but probably, if I had to pick one at the end of the day, I'm more of a faithful Marvel reader. But I also like a lot of independent stuff too. I'm a big Jeffrey Brown fan, and Adrian Tomine, and Chris Ware. I like a lot of the stuff Top Shelf puts out. Now I'm reading Archaia's books, which is really cool."Michael told Newsarama that he is a huge fan of action, high adventure, and fantasy. He grew up on Indiana Jones, H.G. Wells, and James Bond. In the past few years he has become fascinated with counter-culture and the history of magic. He explains:
"Lucid sort of springs out of the love of those worlds, and it takes place in an alternate universe where major world powers have black ops agents working for them that are trained in the mystic arts, sorcery and magic. So it's kind of like this world where James Bond has been matched up with Harry Potter in a way and magicians are working in the interest of national security."The main character of Lucid is Matthew Dee. Matthew is the "right hand" man of the President of the United States, President Jefferson Monday. Michael says:
" I kind of wanted to play with the idea of what happens when the President gets into office and then discovers that all the conspiracy theories or counter-culture ideas are true that there is this hidden world out there full of mystery and magic and supernatural, and the government has a responsibility to protect its citizens against these things. And so this new President is coming to power and along with him, Matthew Dee who is an agent of the Secrets Department, as his new go-to guy in this, sort of our country's James Bond. Matthew is a descendant of this historical figure named John Dee who was Queen Elizabeth I's court magician."John Dee is a real historical figure. He was indeed Elizabeth I's personal magician. He used astrology to calculate the date of her coronation, and he was the inspiration for Shakespeare's The Tempest. Mike also explained where the title Lucid comes from. He explains:
"The title stems from the conflict of lucid dreaming, and having the ability to change and control your environment. And also it conjures up sort of, you know inherently mystical images, and colors and symbols, so I wanted to have the title tie into that theme that this is the character that is in a reality that he is able to manipulate, and take some control of. And that will feed into some of the larger themes of the book as we go along."Some people on the comic scene may be skeptical about an actor writing comics, and Michael is understanding about that. He says:
"Yeah, and I relate to that 100 percent because I'm that guy too. It just happened that I've been very lucky in my other passion, which is acting, to find myself in a fortunate position to do something in comics. I completely understand the cynicism that's born out of that. I feel the same way every time I see a new movie come out that's based on a beloved character. I'm like, 'Okay are these people going to get it right or are they going to bastardize it?' And you know, I think readers should feel a little protective of this form of art that they love."Though Michael is coming from Hollywood, he assures comic fans that he is 100 percent dedicated and working really hard to make this a great comic book. Source: newsarama.com Photo credit: HBO Inc.
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