Talking With Josh Hicks About His New Sci-Fi Satire ‘Hotelitor: Luxury-Class Defense And Hospitality Unit’

Lost in space and facing all the problems that come with being stranded in a luxury hotel, that just happens to be a giant, fully functional mecha, overworked and underpaid (she ain’t even paid!), Anna Greene and her fellow service-level crew members have to keep the guests happy and the aline threats at bay. Josh Hicks’ Hotelitor: Luxury-Class Defense and Hospitality Unit is a fun-filled cosmic spanning sci-fi saga with a mean line in social commentary. Just my kind of comic book. And so I chased down creator Josh Hicks to interview him about this new graphic novel, and quiz him on his influences, his own experience of dead-end jobs and petty-minded bosses and more.

Olly MacNamee: I’ve seen a lot of mechas in my time but I don’t think I’ve ever seen one that’s a working hotel. What a cool concept! You’ve just got to tell me where the idea for HOTELITOR: Luxury-Class Defense and Hospitality Unit came from?

Josh Hicks: Like all good ideas it started as a doodle. I drew a big mech hotel for an illustration a few years ago – I can’t fully remember where the initial idea for that came from, but I have to imagine I’d recently watched some kind of mecha anime or stayed at a hotel. Maybe both? I carried on working on other projects, but as time went on I found that I couldn’t stop thinking about Hotelitor, and this story of a giant mecha hotel getting lost in deep space started to come together.

MacNamee: The central cast of characters are already all overworked young staff members who then find themselves in charge of fending off a Kaiju-sized alien threat. I feel this story is based on some personal experience of crappy jobs in your own past? Graham Smough, the hotel’s shift manager and suck-up social climber, reminds me of a boss or two I had in my time working dead-end student jobs.

Hicks: It’s certainly a mix of various bad jobs I had in my youth, and Smough is like the platonic ideal of a slimy middle manager. He’s not really based on one specific person – he’s more like a vessel I could pour lots of my bad workplace gripes into. It was fun to make him as snivelling as possible. I also liked the idea that the 80-foot-tall space aliens would pale in villainy compared to a little guy with a moustache and a pen.

MacNamee: Both stylistically and narratively, what were your inspirations fuelling this satirical space opera? The artwork and frothy, humorous banter cleverly disguise the real targets.

Hicks: That balance was driven by a combination of anger, indignation, and really wanting to draw spreads where a hotel punched things. I’m a people-pleaser, I guess and I really want everything I do to be an entertaining good time – but I also had legitimate stuff I wanted to write about and work out through the comic. 

MacNamee: As a result of their battle they find themselves stranded in space. But even in space, there is the ever-present division of the haves and have-nots. They do say sci-fi often mirrors society’s fears. Is late-stage rampant capitalism something we should be fearing?

Hicks: Unfortunately I am too much of a fool to talk in any meaningful way about politics, but I do have a point of view and real feelings about all of this. It probably can’t be divorced from the fact that I’m from Wales, which is a country with a long and storied history of labour struggle. I’m not breaking any new ground here when I say that rampant capitalism is all around us and is probably what will ultimately destroy us all, but I think the best I can really do is just put forward my perspective in an entertaining way and hope that it resonates a little bit. And if it doesn’t, it’s okay. You can just concentrate on the robot punching.

MacNamee: And like any good satirical work that takes on big business, we have our very own evil corporation in Apatus, with Dylan Blumquist at the head of operations. As in the case of HOTELITOR: Luxury-Class Defense and Hospitality Unit is it better to laugh rather than be angry at our powerlessness in the face of such economic powerhouses?

Hicks: I don’t think it’s one or the other, necessarily. Like, I am legitimately angry about the state of things, but I don’t walk around all day with a Peanuts-style rage scribble hanging above my head. Although, maybe I should! Powerlessness is the right word, and it is obviously exhausting – and I think being able to laugh at something hellish for a couple of hours can be a good balm. You’re still engaging with the issue, but now there are also jokes. 

MacNamee: Our hero, Anna Greene, starts off as a highly insecure and overworked intern but certainly learns a good deal about herself along the way. What did you learn from your own experiences of poorly paid jobs in the past that you poured into this book? Or, was it simply the desire to do what Anna can on the page, but would get you sacked or even arrested in real life?

Hicks: Anna is about as insecure as I was when I was her age and starting work. My poorly paid work experiences definitely fed into the writing, but shamefully I don’t think I ever stood up to a bad boss the way she does. I would just try to get my wins where I could. Always go to the toilet on company time, that sort of thing. I’m too scared of conflict – I’d much prefer to stew for a decade and then spend years writing a graphic novel about it. 

MacNamee: Finally then, Josh, your graphic novel is full of interesting and diverse characters. My personal favourite is the man/dog hybrid, Robert Gurney, who no one seems to listen to – or read his newsletter – but plays an integral part in the story’s concluding third act. As you developed this book, who were the characters that stood out for you?

Hicks: I think Gurney is my favourite too! Anyone who’s read my last book, Glorious Wrestling Alliance, knows I love a tortured and petulant artist, and I think he fits that bill. I’d love to do a prequel or something where we just follow him around for a week as he angrily tries to put some type of newspaper story together. I quite like Klak, the musician-in-residence who accidentally starts a cult, too. I’m not sure why. Maybe I subconsciously want to be a musician. Or to start my own cult.

 MacNamee: Thanks for your time, and as Public Enemy keep saying, fight the power! 

Hicks: Thanks Olly! Thanks Chuck D!

HOTELITOR: Luxury-Class Defense and Hospitality Unit is out Tuesday 7th May from Graphic Universe/Lerner Publishing Group