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I am mainly a graphic storyteller, a writer who's lucky enough to be an artist too, so I can illustrate my own ideas. Generally, I work within the thriller, horror and science fiction genres. Running as a strong influence through much of my work is music -- weird music.

One of the unusual characteristics of your work is its fusion of science fiction (spaceships, aliens, weird astronomical phenomena) and electronic music. However, some of our readers might find the history of electronic music a bit confusing -- could you please enlighten us as to the origins of "space music" and its relationship to science and science fiction?

There are many accepted origins of electronic music (a/k/a space music). Let's look at one more targeted to the SF genre. In the 1950s, Louis and Bebe Baron created the soundtrack for the "Forbidden Planet" movie by constructing little cybernetic brains, each one making their own noise. They spliced it all together to create what is still today a thoroughly enjoyable soundtrack. Over the next two decades, a bunch of people invented synthesizers and various devices to create unearthly sounds. Most of the "music" made with these early devices were confined to the noise genre (bloop bloop, beep beep, no melody -- applied to pseudo-classical interpretations).

In the early 1970s, two factions of creative endeavor became obsessed with electronic expression of music. These two factions are what introduced me to this music: the European electronic scene (Conrad Schnitzler, Klaus Schulze, Tangerine Dream, Heldon, Kluster--a/k/a Cluster) and the acid rock found in Great Britain (Gong, Hawkwind, Van der Graaf Generator, Pink Floyd, David Bowie). While bands from the Euro scene pursued the other-worldliness of instrumental tapestries, the UK based front delved into adding science fiction to modern rock'n'roll, producing a fusion of the two in the form of weird music that told spacey tales. The Euro scene explored the technical side of electronics, and the UK scene fused actual SF with the music (as with the involvement of Michael Moorcock with Hawkwind's early releases).

Neither of these factions saw much financial success, despite the critical acclaim accorded to both, then and now. Kraftwerk applied dance sensibilities to the Euro electronica, gaining international renown as the fathers of a sound that had existed for nearly a decade. In England, fashion created a flurry of bands who applied their music to SF themes (Ultravox, Duran Duran, Gary Numan). Again, despite some meager financial success, the electronic genre faded from public awareness and continued to grow in the shadows.

Enter the techno scene, whose entire existence owes fealty to these earlier incarnations. This electronic movement finally plugged firmly into the dance aspect. Because the concept of music from a pile of machinery (instead of guitars and bass) and percussion produced by sampling rhythm boxes are concepts not easily understood by the public, the entire scene has been labeled by outsiders as science fiction. But is it? These synthesizers have been around for decades, used by everyone from the Beach Boys to Billy Joel. Oh well, it's called science fiction because there are no lyrics, just spacey melodies. But what is classic music or movie soundtracks if not lyricless melodies? Beethoven and the theme from "Jaws" -- really spacey stuff, huh?

Please give the stock speech here about how you got into electronic music and its role in your work. Bonus points if you use the phrase "sonic curiosity."

When I was a kid during the early 1970s, there really wasn't much opportunity to hear such amazing things as electronic music -- unless you knew where to look. I must admit, that my initial introduction to these bands was visually motivated. A local shopping mall had a chain record store, and hidden way in the back of the store was an import section (mostly Hendrix and folk rock stuff). Among those records sitting in sealed plastic bags with outrageously high prices were some albums that bore weird names and even stranger covers. It was the cover art of early Tangerine Dream and Can albums that attracted my sonic curiosity. And once I had heard what these bands had to offer, I went looking for more. The weirder the better. The more obscure it was, the stronger I suspected it would delight my ears. Neu, Harmonia, Amon Duul II, Magma (now, there's a good example: a French jazz band who were prolific at rhythmic intensity, and they were telling a long tale that spanned many albums of a vast space opera, and they were doing it in a totally alien new language!).

Music became a vital part of my life. I would sit and draw for hours, listening to this curious music, allowing its strangeness to inspire me to wild new associations and incredible visualizations. It was no surprise that I would find means to incorporate this strange music into the equally strange storytelling I was doing.

The new, dance-oriented electronic movement in music still uses a lot of futuristic imagery. Do you like Orbital, Future Sound of London, and all these other new-futurist artists?

Since my sonic heart is rooted firmly in the European electronica of the 1970s, I perceive the current techno and rave music as simply a maturity of that earlier scene. I could rant for hours on the wonders of these modern electronic bands and the beauty of their computer generated visuals. But I won't.

What are you listening to these days, anyway?

Okay, maybe I will... I very much enjoy Orbital and FSOL, but, as is often the case with my tastes, I tend to concentrate on the more obscure bands. I've recently heavily gotten into Radio Massacre International, a UK based group who are producing some excellent stuff in the vein of the old sequencer & guitar style 1970s electronica. Another band further exploring this abandoned sound is Mark Shreeve's Red Shift. Dweller at the Threshold are another electronic band injecting life into the ambient scene.

There's been a strange movement in the last few years, wherein some of the more savage industrial rock bands have been injecting a strong electronic ambience to their sound, like Haujobb, Front 242, Front Line Assembly (in their offshoot identities of Syneasthesia, Intermix, Delerium). I've become particularly fascinated with the brutal electronic music of Autechre, who produce savage almost-dance music comprised of harsh electronics and e-perc that are so richly devoid of any humanistic trait.

Other bands that recently frequent my CD player: Anubian Lights (mixture of space music and ancient Egyptian), Lindsay Buckland (electronic dulcimer stuff), Philharmonie (guitar trio onslaught of an intellectual nature), Soma (modern weirdness meets Ennio Morricone), Kinder Atom (crisp dance electronics), Robert Rich (somber atmospheric soundscapes), Ian Boddy (more electronic ambience), Ozric Tentacles (grand blend of space rock with maximum guitar brilliance), Spicelab (electronic rave music with a tasty SF twist).

"NO SOUND" effects notwithstanding, if we could record space, filter it through some kind of computer program to translate it into sound and then play the tape back, what would it sound like? You can either list an album(s) here or pose your answer in the form of a challenge to any musicians reading.

There are numerous bands whose music approaches this manifestation of the infinite void. Steve Roach, Robert Rich, Dweller at the Threshold, Dilate. Much of the music by Chuck van Zyl (a/k/a Xisle) is clearly a tribute to the frontier of space. Why, if one considers the intensity that must surround naked singularities out in space, I wouldn't be surprised if their output came close to Autechre's music.

In the last section of this exclusive interview, to be published September 2, Howarth sums up his views on extraterrestrial life, do-it-yourself comic book publishing and other far-flung topics.