USA Today interviews Max Brooks about Hearts and Minds

by generalsjoes | May 20, 2010 | Comics and Cartoons, G.I. Joe, G.I. Joe Comics, IDW

Sometimes it’s good having geeks in the right places…  Brian Truitt at USA Today is an unabashed toy, comic, and media geek, and as such, gets some great opportunities to interview folks connected to those properties and share them with us!
Over on USA Today, Mr. Truitt has posted a great interview with Max Brooks, who  talks quite a bit about G.I. Joe: Hearts and Minds the new limited series he’s writing for IDW.  The interview is littered with great insight and information, and even discusses some characters from Hearts and Minds:

“Some choices have been controversial, he says. At first, Brooks couldn’t use Major Bludd (because he’s starring in a subplot in Chuck Dixon’s G.I. Joe book) or Spirit. “I think they were afraid of coming from a point of view of the standard stereotypical Indian,” Brook says. “That’s actually what piqued my interest, when they said Hasbro doesn’t want to offend people. It was barely passable in the ’80s, and is just not acceptable now.”
In subsequent issues, Brooks has a Blowtorch story that discusses whether using fire is a humane form of warfare, and a tale about explosives expert Tripwire, “who doesn’t have a death wish but is in a situation where he can’t lose — that’s how he looks at it,” Brooks says. “The character of Doc deals with an issue of medical malpractice, which hits very close to home. With Dr. Mindbender, instead of making him the traditional mad scientist, I wanted to deal with the issue of religion vs. science and ethics vs. science.”

The interview also reveals that Max Brooks was a Joe fan as a kid, and that he contributed a short story to a collection of G.I. Joe related prose that is possibly in the works.  Check out the full interview right here, and be sure to add Brian Truitt’s Twitter Page to your favorites and follow him!

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