UPROXX Interview: Paul Scheer & Nick Giovannetti Discuss Writing Their First Comic, ‘Aliens Vs. Parker’

When we fight aliens in Halo, frag terrorists in Call of Duty, or otherwise completely destroy a bunch of gaming code with our friends, we like to imagine that if the situation was real, we’d be the same set of hypercompetent commando ninjas. In reality, though, we’d probably be the same bunch of bumbling idiots we are in everyday life, which is the entire premise of Aliens Vs. Parker, from UPROXX pal Paul Scheer — who you may know from TV shows like The League, NTSF:SD:SUV, Human Giant and films like Hell Baby — and comedy writer Nick Giovannetti.

As we’ve already noted, Aliens Vs. Parker is pretty great, and Paul and Nick were kind enough recently to take some time to answer a few questions from us about the comic, along with their grimdark reboot of Captain Caveman.

How did ‘Aliens Vs. Parker’ first get started?

NICK: AVP got started the way all great ideas do, two friends kicking around ideas while doing a pile of blow off a prostitute’s butthole. Now those “friends” weren’t Paul and I mind you, they were high ranking members of the illuminati. They had taken a liking to our work and asked us to write something like Shaun of the Dead meets Aliens. We jumped at the chance.

PAUL: I can’t really confirm or deny this because of certain pending legal situations.

What was different about comics? Was it a natural fit, or was there a learning curve?

PAUL: The biggest difference with comics and TV is that one is drawn and the other involves are real people. For example if we don’t like what a character is doing, we can erase him from existence. It’s way harder to get rid of pesky humans.

NICK: Well it’s not hard for the illuminati to get rid of pesky humans, which is partly why we wrote AVP, for the safety of our loved ones. I’d say comics are a tougher medium to write comedy in for sure. You don’t have a lot of room to set up jokes. That took some getting used to.

How much of yourselves did you find in the characters?

PAUL: Each character has elements of different parts of our personality, so it’s just kinda letting those parts lead. When writing, I think Nick and I could really jump into different characters pretty easily, we write longer conversations and just revise until it’s super tight.

NICK: The story is about regular guys in an extreme circumstance. So some of this stuff is just Paul and I imagining how we might react in these situations.

It seems like Call of Duty is kind of a theme here? Do you play a lot? Any good at it?

NICK: Oh for sure it is. I used to play a ton. I’m okay at CoD, but I was much better at Rainbow Six. That was my jam. Many of the Marines’ names are an homage to CoD and Tom Clancy games. There is a little bit of Halo and Gears sprinkled in as well.

PAUL: Really?! I felt like this game had much more of an NBA JAM influence but look to each their own. (I do play COD but a lot of time kids from around the world just kick my ass at it)

Will you be coming back to comics? A sequel to AvP, perhaps?

PAUL: I’d like to bring back Captain Caveman in a gritty noir-esque thriller, ala Ed Brubaker. Overall this experience definitely left us wanting to do more in this world and since publishing and comics is where the money is, you can bet we’ll be back!

NICK: Yeah, it’s possible. We’ve kicked around ideas for a sequel and Paul and I both love comics in general. So who knows?

Aliens Vs. Parker will be hitting the stands in a collected edition tomorrow.

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