A Mythical, Fantastical Place: Chris Condon And Jacob Phillips Discuss ‘The Enfield Gang Massacre’

The creative team behind That Texas Blood is back with a spinoff, of sorts, to its acclaimed series. The Enfield Gang Massacre, which premieres in August from Image, is set in the same Ambrose County as Blood, only 150 years earlier. In a Comicon exclusive, writer Chris Condon and artist Jacob Phillips discuss why they placed their story in the Old West, the allure of Texas and their creative process.

Tom Smithyman: It’s been several months since the end of That Texas Blood’s terrific latest arc. I guess I don’t have to ask what you guys have been working on with all your spare time, huh?

Jacob Phillips: Spare time? What’s that?!

Chris Condon: Ha! Well, first of all thank you for your kind words on our third volume. Jake and I agree that we think it’s our best work yet. We hope that Enfield is even better than that.

Smithyman: The Enfield Gang Massacre takes place in Ambrose County, Texas, just like TTB. Do you consider this story a spinoff of the main thread? Will we see any ancestors of characters we’ve already met?

Condon: Yeah, we consider this a spinoff. When I was initially crafting the story, I was thinking about whether to tell it from the modern perspective, flashing back and forth to someone learning about the massacre through a book or a teacher or historian. I wound up deciding that if we wanted it to feel like its own thing, we might as well just embrace that and set it entirely in the past with a set of entirely new characters. As for whether we’ll meet the ancestors of our established characters…well, you’ll just have to wait and see!

Smithyman: This story, like the main series, features an aging law enforcement officer. Did you have concerns that you were presenting readers with an overly familiar story?

Condon: No, that’s not the story we’re telling. The character you are referring to is Texas Ranger Quentin Ely who is, in my mind, one of the villains of the piece. Not only that, it’s not really his story. He’s not necessarily a villain in his mind, but the choices he makes and the tactics he uses are brutal. With someone like That Texas Blood sheriff Joe Bob, we examine what it’s like for him to be aging and how that affects his career and his choices. None of that comes into play with Ely. Our focus is on Montgomery Enfield, the outlaw.

Phillips: There is one panel in particular where I realized Ely and Joe Bob do look quite similar. They both look like old versions of me with moustaches. But I think that may be as far as the similarities go.

Smithyman: There’s a visual for you! What is it about Westerns that get you excited? (Especially you, Jacob, as an Englishman?)

Phillips: As somebody who, until recently, only knew Texas through films, it really seems like a mythical, fantastical place where anything is possible, which I guess, is how it felt for them back then too!

Condon: I like the setting. The locations themselves are beautiful and sparse, but also the lawlessness of the frontier makes it an interesting place to set a story.

Smithyman: How do the two of you work together? Are there hard lines between script and illustrations, or is there a lot of give and take when it comes to writing?

Condon: We both let each other do our own things and we rarely, if ever, get in the way of that.

Phillips: Yeah, Chris gives me a script and I say: “That’s great!” And then a few weeks later: “Here’s my drawings!” Just once I’d love for him to send me something bad so I can say: “This stinks!”

Smithyman: That would make for some Texas blood, wouldn’t it? Speaking of which, when do you expect to turn your attention back to That Texas Blood?

Condon: We plan on returning to TTB and Joe Bob next year. We just wanted to tell this story first.

Smithyman: From Jesse James to Wyatt Earp, the Old West had such great characters. If you had a chance to go back and meet one of them, who would you choose?

Condon: I might like to talk to Jesse James or Wild Bill Hickok. I imagine they’d have some great stories to tell.

Phillips: For me it’s Marty McFly, y’know, in the third film? History really is fascinating.

Smithyman: Not exactly the character choice I was expecting, but fair enough! Good luck with the new series!