About time
BACK TO THE FUTURE Marty McFly and Doc Brown live on in a new comic-book series.
While Robert Zemeckis has ruled out a big screen Back To The Future reboot, Marty and Doc will soon head for the comic-book page. Subtitled ‘Untold Tales And Alternate Timelines,’ October’s four-issue mini-series will team up original screenwriter Bob Gale with fellow scripters John Barber and Erik Burnham and artists Brent Shoonover and Dan Shoening.
Why does the comic series focus on Marty and Doc’s past adventures rather than exploring what they might have done next? I believe fans of the trilogy want to see the characters they love from the films. The adventures of a 47-year-old Marty doesn’t sound all that interesting to me, and if we’re going to create a brand new cast, then it’s disingenuous to call it Back To The Future. Back To The Future means Marty McFly and Doc Brown as we know them from the movies, and this series gives us an opportunity to explore aspects of the trilogy that fans have expressed interest in. For those who want to experience something akin to a sequel to Part III, Telltale’s Back To The Future videogame takes place six months after the events of Part III.
What was your original inspiration for Back To The Future? Were you aware of Doctor Who, which also features an eccentric time traveller? I conceived Back To The Future in 1980 after discovering my father’s high-school yearbook and wondering if we would have been friends had we been classmates. As for Doctor Who, I’ve never watched an entire episode, nor do I think Bob Zemeckis has. What little I saw of it back when I was in high school in 1968 simply didn’t do anything for me. We were influenced by the works of Ray Bradbury, Robert Silverberg, The Twilight Zone and the 1960 George Pal movie of The Time Machine.
This year marks Back To The Future’s 30th anniversary. Why do you think Marty and Doc have proved to be so enduring? They’re wonderful, well-drawn and very human characters who were brought to life by two of the most talented actors in the world in a perfect confluence of performer and role. Somehow we managed to capture the proverbial lightning in a bottle with them and these movies, and the public continues to respond and embrace them.
Are there any aspects you’ve updated for the comic, or is the story still firmly rooted in the ’80s? We’re not updating anything, as the characters are of their time and they’re also, we hope, reasonably timeless. SJ
ETA | 22 Octo ber Back To The Future is published by IDW this autumn.
The Inside Scoop ‘Somehow we caught lightning in a bottle’