Earlier in the week, I reviewed The Surrogates, a fabulous new series coming out from Top Shelf Comix. I was fortunate to have now interviewed title author Robert Venditti. Please have a seat, break out a nice beverage and have a read.
THE SURROGATES An interview with writer Robert Venditti
NESS: Alvin Toffler said "Future shock is the shattering stress and disorientation that we induce in individuals by subjecting them to too much change in too short a time." To what extent is The Surrogates a title that considers the negative aspects of technology's rapid growth?
VENDITTI: To a very large extent. I read somewhere once that technology doesn't advance at a constant rate, but builds on previous breakthroughs so that it's rate of development increases exponentially. The computer -- which took millennia for mankind to invent, but has made tremendous leaps in the relatively short time since it's creation -- is a prime example of this exponential rate of growth. This is wonderful if you're trying to cure disease or manufacture a more fuel-efficient car, but it can have a downside, too. Technology can advance so fast, and we can all get so easily swept up in it, that before you realize it, you've lost something that was worth holding on to.
Whether The Surrogates is about the positive or negative aspects of technology's rapid growth is a question for each individual reader. Personally, I don't know where the line is drawn between good advancements and bad. To reflect that, I tried to populate the story with characters that represent both sides of the surrogate issue. Some are for surrogates and some are against them, and it's the up to the reader to decide which group is more sympathetic.
NESS: If the rapidity of change is an issue or not, the simple depth of change due to technology is immense. How do you think that your title is willing to consider that change, and is fiction the best venue for that?
VENDITTI: With The Surrogates, there were specific subjects that I wanted to broach. The first, and most obvious, is the impact that technology is having on the notion of identity, and how things like the Internet and cyberculture are changing how we see and interact with each other. Another is the current trend to use science to provide individuals with beauty on demand, and where that trend might take us. Then there's the question you alluded to above: At what point does technology stop helping and start hindering our lives?
Fiction is absolutely the best venue for exploring these things. I suppose someone could conduct a scientific study that tried to predict the future, and they could give you all kinds of nifty charts and graphs to support their findings, but how boring would that be to read, and who would read it? Fiction draws people in by creating a world and then letting them walk around in it. It lets the audience's imagination take over, and, if it's done right, it offers a much more convincing argument. By including supplemental articles and mock advertisements at the back of each installment of The Surrogates, we went to great lengths to build a future that is as convincing as is could be.
NESS: To what extent is The Surrogates, in your opinion, a morality tale at all? Some people look at all work as having a deeper meaning or context. Is there an aspect of Allegory in this tale and, if so, what is it?
VENDITTI: I wasn't trying to be overly didactic, so I don't know that there's a moral of this particular story. There's definitely an element of subtext to the narrative, a deeper layer of meaning working its way through the characters and plot. I tried to raise specific questions, but in order for there to be a moral, I'd have to know the answers to those questio
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