S.H.O.O.T First is the story of a task force that battles myths and monsters with the power of atheism. Yes, you read that right, it’s an interesting twist on the crack team of individuals taking on religious beings and monsters. Instead of a religious team we have a bunch of atheists, writer Justin Aclin gives us a different take on a story we’ve seen before. And with that, a world with its own set of rules and a set of characters that are proud of their lack of faith.

We got an opportunity to ask Aclin about this new series and a bit about this new take on religion in comics. The comic has “Secular Humanist” on the cover! Justin Aclin is up next for our “10 Questions.”

Graphic Policy: How did you get involved in the comic book industry?

Justin Aclin: I started out as an editor for ToyFare Magazine, Wizard’s toy-focused sister publication. Over many years there I worked my way up to be lead editor and lead writer of Twisted ToyFare Theatre, the satirical comic strip whose creators would later go on to launch Robot Chicken. Around the same time I started writing an original superhero graphic novel called Hero House, about a college fraternity for superheroes. That was illustrated by the incredibly talented Mike Dimayuga, who just passed away a couple of months ago, far too soon. Hero House was published by Arcana Comics in 2009, and I continued writing Twisted ToyFare until the magazine ceased publication in early 2011. Every opportunity I’ve had in comics since, from writing Star Wars graphic novellas to the adaptation of the Spicy Horse game Akaneiro, has come about because I’ve been working on getting S.H.O.O.T. First up and running with Dark Horse.

GP: Where did the idea of S.H.O.O.T. First come from?

JA: Basically, I was looking for an idea I could pitch to Dark Horse for the anthology they had at the time, called MySpace Dark Horse Presents. My favorite genre that Dark Horse did was the “team of heroes battling the supernatural” genre, which obviously included titles like B.P.R.D., but also titles that put more of a twist on it, like Beasts of Burden. So in trying to figure out what kind of twist I could put on the genre, I came up with a team that didn’t believe in the creatures that they were fighting, and therefore refused to fight the creatures on their own terms. The example I always give is if you see a team go after a vampire, they always bring crosses and holy water – you never see a team that says “This is all baloney” and goes after the vampire with their own, science-based weaponry. And then that idea happened to dovetail with something that I was going through at that time, which was beginning to question my own religious faith in a more extreme way than I’d done before. So going through that, I think, helped me craft an idea which was more personally meaningful than I’d set out to write – and writing the comic helped me work through those issues at the same time. So the prototype short story appeared in MySpace Dark Horse Presents in 2010, and I’ve basically been working with Dark Horse and my co-creator Nicolas Daniel Selma on turning it into a mini-series ever since.

GP: How did the series come to Dark Horse?

JA: Dark Horse was the only place I wanted to take S.H.O.O.T. First, because it was written for Dark Horse!

GP: The series takes on religion from a very different angle, the non-believers Why’d you go that route as opposed to the typical religious warriors?

JA: Partially, as I mentioned above, it was to express something that I was dealing with. And partially because, as you said, religious warriors is the more typical route. There are a handful of avowed atheists in action/adventure comics, but it’s far more common to see characters entering Hell or battling demons, and nobody bats an eyelash. People always cite Michael Holt, Mr. Terrific, as an atheist superhero, but he’s part of a universe where an angel was on the Justice League and the Phantom Stranger is, at least in the current incarnation, Judas Iscariot. There’s not a lot of room for skepticism there. S.H.O.O.T. First is the first action/adventure comic to my knowledge where not only are all of the main characters atheist, but the actual backstory of the world says, firmly, “religion is incorrect.” And I can understand why that’s not a position the big superhero universes would take, of course. But if a world where superheroes get their powers directly from Judeo-Christian God is the norm, I think there’s room for a universe like this one, that hopefully atheists can relate to more than those.

GP: You’ve also included the character Infidel, a Muslim struggling with his belief. Inclusion of that religion or characters that practice that religion is often touchy with a visceral, negative reaction from a vocal minority. Did you have second thoughts about that at all?

JA: I can honestly say that I didn’t give a crap what the anti-Muslim voices would think about it. I was more concerned with offending actual Muslims. Ultimately, I’m hoping the portrayal of Infidel won’t offend anyone because he’s not an in-universe stand-in for all of Islam. He is, just like all of the characters, someone who’s having their own personal struggled with faith. He doesn’t even self-identify as a Muslim anymore, even though obviously that’s his background. When I first started outlining the characters, Infidel’s “new guy” role was filled by an American Priest who’d been a chaplain in the military and lost his faith as a result of that, but that’s a story we’ve seen a lot more often. I thought it would be more interesting to include a Muslim who had lost his faith, because that’s not a story I’ve seen told as much. I think when you spend time on the Internet, there’s a tendency to think of “atheist” as synonymous with “white dude on Reddit,” and I think that the range of atheist experience is much wider than that. So it was important for me to make the cast diverse.

And I do think it’s important, by the way, to have those heroic depictions of religious Muslims in comics. If your worldview is challenged by a fictional character being depicted as heroic, then your worldview sucks. Fiction can and should depict a wide range of experiences.

GP: Have you heard from religious or even non-religious individuals about the series? What’s been their reaction?

JA: I’ve read a couple of reviews from religious people who couldn’t get past the fact that religion is depicted as incorrect in the story, and I can certainly understand that. I do think that there’s something in the story for everyone no matter what you believe, but I can understand having that reaction. From non-religious people, I’ve seen a lot of excitement about a comic that’s not only about atheists and has an atheist viewpoint, but has the words “Secular Humanist” on the cover. I’ve also seen a lot of skepticism. When people first hear the premise, a lot of atheists say, “Well, how can they not believe in a creature if it’s staring them in the face? That’s not being skeptical, that’s being stupid.” But I hope that if people check out the story, they’ll understand where we’re coming from.

GP: What type of research did you put in when it came to religion?

JA: I had to research religions that weren’t my own, of course. Kenshin, who’s one of the team members, practices Shinto, and in looking into that I learned about Kami, which is a blanket term for spirits and supernatural beings in Shinto. And the way that Kami are described, and the fact that for Shinto practitioners things like angels and cryptids would be considered Kami, is very similar to how Outside Actors work in S.H.O.O.T. First. Although of course Outside Actors aren’t spirits – they’re scientifically explicable. I’ve done a lot of interesting research into different supernatural creatures from different religions, and different end-times prohpecies. You won’t see all of that depicted in the mini-series, but it all helped me find the story.

GP: There are obviously rules with how the weapons work and the beings of this world. How worked out is all of those rules?

JA: The answer is “very.” I had to make sure I understood how everything worked, because even if not every single rule is laid out in the mini-series, I had to make sure that everything is consistent and makes sense. Luckily, when you’re creating a world you’ve got a bit more leeway into making the rules work for you than when you’re working in an established universe. For instance, I need the guns that S.H.O.O.T. uses against Outside Actors to be effective, but not too effective, otherwise the battles will be very short and uninteresting. But if you’ve got a question about how the weaponry works or how the Outside Actors function, chances are I’ve thought about it and have an answer for you.

GP: What types of hurdles have you met creating comics, and any lessons learned you can share? What advice do you have for someone breaking into the entertainment industry?

JA: I think the most important piece of advice I can give, other than “sit down and write something,” is to understand that you’re not going to hit it out of the park your first time at bat. It’s extremely important to find people you trust, have them look at your work, and be open to their feedback. Your first draft is not a sacred document that must be protected against interlopers. Productive feedback is more valuable than gold, because your goal should always be to make your work as good as it can possibly be. I believed in the story of S.H.O.O.T. First, so if someone told me that the concept sucked, I wouldn’t have taken that advice. But my first draft sucked, and I was willing to see that even though I’d thought it was pretty good when I turned it in. And I was fortunate enough to be working with an editor who could help me see some of the major problems and then let me fix them. So if you want to get into entertainment, you have to work at it, and you have to accept that what you do is probably going to suck at first, and you have to be committed to listening to how and why it sucks and to fixing it.

GP: What can we expect from you next?

JA: We’ve got two more issues of S.H.O.O.T. First to go, and stuff gets really, really crazy in those two issues. After that, I’ve got another project for Dark Horse that isn’t quite ready to be announced yet. Stay tuned!