Interview: Ron Marz on Dynamite’s Turok

Turok #1 Bart Sears cover

Turok #1 Bart Sears cover


Ron Marz is the popular writer of Witchblade, Dread Gods, Green Lantern, Shinku, and much more. Now he turns his attention to a classic comic character in Dynamite’s Turok. Discover more about this upcoming series in this interview with Westfield’s Roger Ash.

Westfield: What attracted you to Turok?

Ron Marz: The concept is elegant in its simplicity: two brothers in a lost land, fighting dinosaurs. It really appeals to my Edgar Rice Burroughs-loving inner 12-year-old. There’s a reason we go see Jurassic Park and Jurassic World, and it’s not the acting. We want to see dinosaurs. So you’re definitely going to get plenty of dinosaurs in Turok.

Turok #1 Butch Guice cover

Turok #1 Butch Guice cover


Westfield: A difference between this series and ones in the past is you’re setting it in the old west. Why did you go with that approach?

Marz: Well, it starts in the old west, because I feel like it’s a setting that everyone can plug into immediately. And, honestly, I wanted to write a Western, so I did. But by the end of the first issue, the old west is in the rear-view mirror and we’re pretty firmly in the Lost Valley.

Westfield: How much research did you do on Native American culture as well as dinosaurs to prepare for the series?

Marz: A fair amount of both, though they’re both already areas of interest to me. I’m not as concerned with getting every last historical detail exactly right, but I want everything to have a sense of reality, of verisimilitude. So it’s all as accurate as it can be … for a story with Native Americans encountering dinosaurs in a time-lost land.

Turok #1 Jeffrey Veregge cover

Turok #1 Jeffrey Veregge cover


Westfield: I can’t hear the concept of Turok without thinking of the classic Ray Harryhausen film The Valley of Gwangi. Did the movie have any influence in your take on the series?

Marz: Actually, no, but the mention of that movie brings a smile to my face. When I was a kid, I wanted to grow up and be Ray Harryhausen, so maybe Turok is letting me to do that a little bit.

Westfield: Are you introducing any new characters to the world of Turok?

Marz: Turok and his brother Andar are definitely the central characters, and I’m telling the story through them. But everybody else is new, including a group of cavalry soldiers, a bounty hunter on Turok’s trail who is more than he seems, and others we’ll introduce along the way.

Turok #1 Roberto Castro cover

Turok #1 Roberto Castro cover


Westfield: You’re working with artist Roberto Castro. What can you say about your collaboration?

Marz: Roberto is turning in really lovely work. Obviously one if the biggest aspects for the book is … well, drawing cool dinosaurs. We needed to be sure, so Roberto actually did a batch of try-out pages and knocked them out of the park. Just beautiful stuff. When the first pages if issue #1 came in, we knew we had the right guy.

Westfield: Any closing comments?

Marz: Dinosaurs! I mean, really, what more do you need to know? Dinosaurs!

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