C2E2: Q&A With Tom Morello!

This weekend at C2E2 The Nightwatchman himself Tom Morello hosted a Q&A panel about his hit limited series Orchid. Orchid, which debuted back in October, follows Orchid, a prostitute in a post apocalyptic wasteland, and her story of resistance and survival. The panel started with Morello giving a little back story, both of his experience with comics and the of the comic itself. While this panel didn’t bring us any news about Orchid or any of Dark Horse’s other properties, Morello did answer a lot of interesting questions about the future of the comic, his music career an the differences in the creative process between music and comics.

The Q&A started with the obligatory question about Morello’s inspiration for Orchid, which he said was a mix of “childhood escapism and adult politics”. He went on to elaborate that the characters in the book were based on some of the people he got to know in his early days in L.A., drug addicts and prostitutes that were exceptionally nice to him. Morello went on to talk about the differences between the creative process between music and comics, saying the strict deadlines comic book creators face cramped his style where as in music he doesn’t have such deadlines. He continued talking about the various ways the creative process has been different then he thought it would such as the tremendous amount of coloration involved with artist Scott Hepburn.

At this point the fans attention began to turn away from Orchid and towards Morello’s musical career. After a fan asked about the score Morello has been writing to accompany the release each issue of Orchid and whether there would eventually be a full length concept album, Morello explained that the idea had occurred to him and he had ultimately rejected it. When another fan asked the second obligatory question about future plans for Rage Against the Machine, Morello said was nothing currently planed but the group might do something for their 20th anniversary. A few other questions were asked about Morello in Guitar Hero 3 and his non-profit social justice mission Axis of Justice. The Panel wrapped up with a fan asking if we would ever see Morello running for a political office which he responded to with an amusing anecdote about when he worked as an intern for a senator. He said he took a call from a lady who was complaining about her neighborhoods growing Mexican population, the conversation ended with Morello calling her a racist and telling her she was going to hell.

If you haven’t yet, make sure you check out Orchid available in your local comic shop or in our digital store!