Faith Erin Hicks Talks ‘Universal Monsters: The Mummy’, The Original Film, And More

Helen has lived in Thebes her whole life but, when it comes to making friends, having a powerful father who isn’t known to put workers first tends to act as a deterrent. What connection does Helen have to a certain Universal monster? That’s for readers to find out when they pick up Faith Erin Hicks‘ limited series, Universal Monsters: The Mummy but, for now, here are some other questions Hicks was able to answer in advance:

Rachel Bellwoar: Of the Universal Monsters, I feel like the Mummy is the one I know the least about. How did you first encounter the character and did you start with the Boris Karloff/Lon Chaney Jr. films or the Brendan Fraser trilogy?

Faith Erin Hicks: Like a lot of Elder Millennials, I saw all three of the Brendan Fraser/Rachel Weisz films in theatres. I still have a soft spot for them; they’re not really horror movies, they’re more similar to Raiders of the Lost Ark than the original Mummy movie. I didn’t watch the 1932 Boris Karloff starring Mummy until Alex [Antone] (my editor at Skybound) approached me about possibly adapting it for comics. I was surprised at how moody and romantic the original movie was, and really fell in love with that aspect. At its core, my interpretation of the Mummy is about the tragedy of refusing to let go and grieve lost loved ones, which is threaded throughout the original movie.

Bellwoar: Unlike Dracula or Frankenstein, who have literary origins, the Mummy began life on the silver screen. What’s it been like adapting The Mummy for the comics medium and was there a specific idea that sparked your take on the story?

Hicks: I was immediately very drawn to the Mummy’s female lead, Helen Grosvenor. We don’t see much of her backstory in the original movie, but she’s half Egyptian, half British, and I thought it was interesting to have a heroine with a diverse, complicated background as a lead in a 1932 horror movie. I used that as a jumping off point and explored how her ties to both the British and ancient Egypt shaped her, and shaped her reaction to the Mummy, when he rises from the dead and begins his pursuit of her.

Bellwoar: In the first issue we meet Helen at nine years old, before a time jump takes us to 1921 when she’s 16. Why did you want to cover that span of time?

Hicks: I wanted to broaden Helen’s backstory, give us a glimpse into who she was growing up, so readers could better understand her as an adult. She’s a young woman that’s caught between the British and Egyptian world due to her heritage, and also caught between the modern world of the 1920s and ’30s, and ancient Egypt.

Bellwoar: The place at both ages is the same, though. What made you choose to set this story in Thebes and have you ever been to Egypt?

Hicks: I haven’t been to Egypt, so spent a lot of time on historical websites trying to get as many pictures of old Luxor (formerly Thebes) that I could for this project. I’m not a historian but I find the sheer breadth of human history to be really staggering. These incredibly complex and successful societies existed thousands of years ago, and survived for thousands of years! The ingenuity of humans is really wonderful, and I wish I had more time to travel and take in the magnitude of what we’ve produced. It also makes you feel sort of small, doesn’t it? Like, what have I contributed to the development of human society? Please read my comics! 😉

Bellwoar: It’s unclear who the narrator is yet but they seem to spend a lot of the first issue telling Helen things about herself that she should already know, like her name. Is there any light you can shed on that voice?

Hicks: Nope, that’s a spoiler! You gotta read the rest of the comic to find out who the voice actually is. 😉

Bellwoar: What was it like coming up with the look for your Mummy? Did you know right away how scary or realistic you wanted to make it?

Hicks: I knew that I wanted to push myself creatively, which is why I asked if I could draw as well as write this comic. My background is mostly in middle grade and young adult comics, so drawing a realistic looking horror comic for adults I knew would be really challenging. I’m very happy how the book came out. I used some watered down ink washes overtop my traditional inks to give the comic pages a dusty, ancient look that matched the movie. It was a complicated process and I wouldn’t do it for a longer project, but I’ve enjoyed how the Mummy is turning out. I hope readers enjoy it!

Bellwoar: Thanks for agreeing to this interview, Faith!

With colors by Lee Loughridge and letters by Hassan Otsmane-Elhaou, Universal Monsters: The Mummy #1 goes on sale today from Skybound.