Talking ‘El Mestizo’ With Writer Rob Williams — Plus EXCLUSIVE Art

Traditionally, El Mestizo is a character who’s willing to work for who’s paying. In the next issue of Battle Action, writer Rob Williams and artist Henry Flint are bringing the character back for a new story and Williams answered some questions about the tale (along with some EXCLUSIVE art):

Rachel Bellwoar: El Mestizo is a character who’s existed since the late 1970s. Is this your first time writing for him and what do you think is the key to capturing his voice?

Rob Williams: It is very definitely Rob Williams’ first time writing El Mestizo, and what is key to capturing El Mestizo’s voice is that El Mestizo mostly talks about himself in the third person. Nobody escapes El Mestizo! etc. Rob Williams was very keen to continue this vocal style when he was writing El Mestizo. Yes.

<I’ll stop this now.>

Bellwoar: Did you look to any earlier runs or storylines for inspiration when coming up with this story?

Williams: Yes, I read a bunch of the classic Carlos Ezquerra and Alan Hebden El Mestizo stories from Battle, just to get a sense of the tone of the piece. It’s a groundbreaking comic for its time. Having a central character who is a black man and, more than that, mixed race. It wasn’t very common in the 1970s in the UK.

In one sense El Mestizo is clearly heavily influenced by the [Sergio] Leone Spaghetti westerns starring Clint Eastwood, with Mestizo in the ‘man with no name’ role. But using the American Civil War as the backdrop and the racial aspects of the story – they were pretty unusual in a comic that predominantly featured World War 2-set stories.

Bellwoar: As far as I know, El Mestizo strips have always been set during the Civil War?

Williams: It’s a fantastic historical backdrop and a visually distinctive setting for artists of the quality of Ezquerra in the 1970s and now Henry Flint in our story. I love a western and have healthy interest in the American Civil War period – one of my favourite novels is set during this time: Woe To Live On by Daniel Woodrell – very recommended.

You have the Confederate side and the Union side and El Mestizo following his own path, taking on missions for the highest bidder. But he’s also a man with his own moral code, as we see.

Bellwoar: In “The General” El Mestizo has been hired to find a Mr. Saul, whose face is constantly hidden from view. Did you have any discussions with Henry about how to keep Saul’s face shielded?

Williams: No. The script simply stated that the identity of Mr Saul was to be kept a mystery and train-stealing bandits, as Mr Saul and men are in this story, would keep their faces covered. Of course, who Mr Saul actually is provides a twist in our story which I thought was a lot of fun.

Henry Flint, I should say, has done an extraordinary job on this story, as he usually does. Henry’s well known for his sci-fi art so to have him drawing the American west and steam locomotives and big action set-pieces straight out of a Hollywood western – that was a real treat. His colours are amazing here. And there’s one particular DPS which deserves an Eisner all on its own. He’s good.

Bellwoar: The image of a handcart trying to catch up to a speeding train feels straight out of a cartoon or silent movie. Was that a deliberate choice? What kind of outside influences played into the way you told this story?

Williams: I was looking [for] a real action set-piece to weave our story around and came across [a] train robbery where a number of Union commandos stole one of these new fangled ‘trains’ and rode it along the track from Atlanta to Chattanooga destroying wire lines and burning all they could along the way. That provided the chase spine of the story for us and gave us some great visuals.

Having El Mestizo and his accomplice, the furious train driver, chasing on a handcart was fun. It felt straight out of Once Upon A Time In The West. The ‘squeak, squeak, squeak’ as the cart approaches is fun comics. But, again, there’s a twist.

Bellwoar: Part of El Mestizo’s legend is that he was a hired gun who didn’t take a moral stance but simply followed the money. What do you think has made him such a lasting character?

Williams: As I said, he’s a lead character who was way ahead of his time. His stories are fun action adventures in a fascinating landscape. And, importantly, Carlos Ezquerra drew him to look like Jimi Hendrix on a horse. Who doesn’t want to read that?

Bellwoar: Thanks for agreeing to this interview, Rob!

With letters by Rob Steen, El Mestizo: The General will appear November 27th in Battle Action #4 from the Treasury of British Comics.