Received as a burst of new energy in an established genre when it was launched in 1981, Mike Baron and Steve Rude’s Nexus takes the science fiction and superhero genres and infuses them with their own personal styles. Horatio Hellpop is Nexus, who hunts down and executes the despotic mass murders he sees in his dreams. Nexus also brings back persecuted refugees from the lands he visits, providing them with asylum on his home planet of Ylum.
In Baron’s Nexus stories the characters are believable, exhibiting both a bracing existential angst and an entertaining strand of slapstick humor. Rude’s virtuoso artwork offers action-packed stories driven by powerful, gracefully rendered characters. Nexus set a high standard for comics produced in the 1980s, although for the past decade or so it looked like Baron and Rude would never put together another issue of their beloved series. But in 2005, Dark Horse started publishing the Nexus Archives, a hardcover reprint series of the original Nexus comics. Now in 2007, Baron and Rude have new Nexus stories coming out from Rude’s own publishing company, Rude Dude Productions, which will also handle the reprints of these new comics.
PW Comics Week: Reading volume six of the Nexus Archives as well as the new issues, I notice that there’s a rhythm to the comic that is rare, certainly today. It really moves. There's a lot going on in a story, although it's never confusing. Mike and Steve, when you started doing Nexus again, did you guys feel like you returned to a certain technique or "feel" for storytelling?
Steve Rude: In returning to Nexus, I just wanted to let readers know that we were the same old team who had not lost any steam in 10 years. There’s nothing worse than a reader or fan coming back to a favorite book to see that the author or artist has disintegrated talent-wise, which seems to be a common occurrence in my eyes.
Mike Baron: Most def. When I began writing comics, I would draw each page out by hand and make the story up as I went along I changed methods partly because it was killing my back. I now do a detailed outline before I write the full script. I enjoy writing full script. It’s a little more difficult with Dude in Arizona and me in Colorado, but we touch base often on the phone and Internet, make sure we're on the same page.
PWCW: Steve, you’ve created a dense, detailed environment for Nexus and his supporting cast. In the foreground of a panel, the main characters could be talking and yet there's still stuff happening in the background that tells us how rich a place Ylum is. How do you shape the bizarre world where the comic is set?
SR:Nexus is visually shaped due to my instincts as an artist. All the influences you experience on your way to making it as a pro are all deep within you. They come out as situations require.
PWCW: Mike, you’re not afraid to allude or even use politics outright in your stories. In volume six of the archives there’s a story line with the Sov government. In Space Opera there's the story of Nexus's battle with Brother Wenceles and how it’s portrayed in the media. When do you decide to turn current events into stories?
MB: I’m not trying to write “ripped from the headlines” [kind of stories,] but Nexus was always intended as a philosophical treatise on politics. Politics with aliens. However, we're human, and we write for humans, so we must make the stories appeal universally. The struggles we show in Nexus mirror the struggles humanity has always grappled with. There will always be dictators. There will always be religious fanatics. It’s just part of human nature, and it’s foolish to think we can somehow change human nature. That's why communism doesn’t work. When the Soviet Union collapsed, a lot of Nexus readers said, “Well, Mike, you didn't see that one coming.” Well, yes and no. I didn't think it could last forever. It was a pyramid scheme. Nothing coming in while putting on a big show. If Putin has his way, the Sov Empire will be back big time. My story doesn't seem so quaint now.
PWCW: I believe the new Nexus story will be Nexus Goes to Washington, D.C., what can we expect from that?
SR: Nexus goes to Washington for the same reason Jimmy Stewart did— to amend political confusion among the world leaders most responsible for keeping the peace. I hope Nexus succeeds.
MB: Drama, comedy, action, romance. Or as my old writing instructor Jerry McNeely used to say, “You make 'em laugh a little bit, you make ’em cry a little bit, you scare the hell out of them, and that's entertainment!”
