Eric Nguyen is the Co-creator/artist of Strange Girl, and Gigantic. He has also provided art for Batman, and a variety of comics that start with X at Marvel. His latest project is called White Savior and is coming out from Dark Horse Comics. Eric was nice enough to stop by First Comics News to let our readers know all about White Savior.
First Comics News: Who is Todd Parker?
Eric Nguyen: Todd Parker is the hero of our story, a Japanese American film teacher who finds himself whisked away to feudal Japan, where he has to save a small village from following the titular “white savior,” who is the complete opposite of a savior and leads the village to their demise.
1st: Where is Inoki?
Eric: Inoki is a fictional village in Japan. It’s a small, peaceful village that’s under attack from larger forces like you commonly see in films and literature. We named a lot of our characters and towns after Japanese wrestlers, so “Inoki” actually comes from one of the greatest Japanese wrestlers of all time, Antonio Inoki.
1st: Who is Nathan Garin?
Eric: In every story, there’s a hero destined to save everyone. In our story, Nathan Garin is supposed to be that hero, but we spin the genre on its head, and make the “destined hero” turn out to be, as my co-writer Scott describes him, “ a drunken idiot on a good day.” He’s the last person you’d want to have in charge, and the first two pages of our comic are a flashback where he fails at protecting the village and gets himself and all the villagers killed. Luckily, the third page introduces our hero Todd, who travels back in time to feudal Japan and sets out to save the village from, ironically, the “savior”.
1st: How does Nathan Garin end up in Japan?
Eric: Hmmm… that one might be a spoiler that we don’t want to give away just yet.
1st: What is the Akuno Clan?
Eric: Sometimes villains have shades of grey. A little bit of good mixed with a little bit of bad. However, that’s not the case in our book. The Akuno clan are the epitome of evil, continuously attacking the good citizens of Inoki. Long story short, they’re not the types of people you want to invite over for Sunday brunch.
1st: Who is Kenzo Mitsuhide?
Eric: Imagine the most intense bad guy ever. Then crank him up to a hundred, and you have Kenzo Mitsuhide. That being said, our book is a comedy, so after the first issue, you’re going to start seeing unexpected layers and maybe a few supporting villains as well.
1st: What is the Omura Clan?
Eric: The exact opposite of the Akuno Clan. Led by Yoshihiro, they are a group of brave warriors searching for peace. But of course, any time trained warriors with very large swords look for peace, there’s going to be some inevitable, good old-fashioned violence.
1st: Who is Yoshihiro Moromiri?
Eric: A noble hero, Yoshihiro is the greatest warrior of his era and head of the Omura Clan. His trusting nature and belief in ancient prophecies are what lead to Nathan, the “white savior”, becoming somewhat of a “de facto” leader over the village.
1st: How does Todd end up in Feudal Japan?
Eric: Without spoiling too much, he runs into an alley and… for now, we’ll keep it a little more ambiguous.
1st: I get a bit of Mark Twain’s A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court vibe to the story, or am I misreading it?
Eric: Not at all. That’s a spot-on, perfect comparison. So the title of our book, “White Savior”, comes from a very common trope in literature and film in which an outsider comes to a foreign land and rescues under-represented people from unfortunate circumstances. And Connecticut Yankee might be the precursor to the “man out of time in a foreign land” story that we’re lampooning in our book. There are definitely similarities, especially In later issues where Todd uses his knowledge from the future too, hopefully, better the past.
1st: When does White Savior ship to comic shops?
Eric: It’s a four-issue mini-series, with the first arriving on January 18th. What we’re calling #WhiteSaviorComicDay!
1st: What makes White Savior so cool no true comic fan should miss it?
Eric: First and foremost, we like to think it’s the funniest comic you’ll ever read. On top of that, we have badass samurai action, crazy characters, cool art, and a great message of representation and creating your own destiny that we think all fans can relate to.
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