Interview with comic book creator John Cullen

Ive pulled up an old friend mine comic book artiest and writer John Cullen to discuss his likes and dislikes about the Alien series.




Martin: Which charater of the Aliens franchise was your favorite and why?

John: I know it’s probably the same answer nearly everyone gives, but I’ll go with Ripley (keep in mind that I’m only counting the first two movies here).

I like her because she’s a very believable ‘bad ass’ female character, without it feeling cheap or forced. You fully buy Ripley as an ordinary woman caught up in these extraordinary circumstances and it draws you into her world and situation all the more.

It’s also really interesting seeing how her character progresses and evolves over the course of the two movies.

Martin: Which of the Aliens franchise was your favorite and why?

John: No question: Alien.

Alien is just the perfect movie. It’s sci-fi, it’s horror, it’s character drama…all wrapped up in an absolutely gorgeous looking package. Other than ‘John Carpenter’s The Thing,’ there are very few sci-fi/horror hybrids that hold together as well as Alien does.

It is still one of the best looking sci-fi movies ever made and has aged fantastically well.

However, I have a lot of love for Aliens as well, as it was both my first Alien movie AND the first movie I ever saw on DVD. It still stands up as a great ‘80s action flick, but never quite hits the highs that the original does.



Martin: Where would you like to see the Alien franchise go considering the mess that was Prometheus?

John: Honestly, outside of the first two movies, I’m not overly concerned with whether the franchise continues in movie form or not. I mean, I’m sure it will, but I doubt anything will come out that will recapture how great the first two movies are. I was so excited for Prometheus, as it looked like t would be a return to form and would add some rich new lore to the franchise. Instead, it just ended up making things even more needlessly complicated.

The beauty of the first movie is its stark simplicity: it is a haunted house/slasher movie in space. That’s it. Perfect.

Unfortunately, I find that, due to the Alien/Xenomorph being such an ingrained part of movie and pop culture, it has lost a lot of its original mystery and scariness; a part of me wishes that I could go back in time to the late ‘70s and experience the movie and Xenomorph as audiences  did at the time: as this exciting, new, and terrifying thing, unlike anything that had come before.

In order for the franchise to become relevant again, it’ll either need to be taken in a drastically new direction or —dare I say it— rebooted.

However, I am *very* excited for the upcoming game, Alien Isolation, which looks to take things back to basics and actually attempt to make the Xenomorph scary again. Even if the movies never recapture the magic of the originals, there’s every chance that Isolation could be the beginnings of a return to form for the franchise and may be something that will teach a whole new generation to fear the Xenomorph again.

You can check out more from John here
http://nellucnhoj.com/
and also pick up his awesome comic book here.
https://gumroad.com/l/nhoj