Here in the Star Wars galaxy we know Ethan Sacks well, and certainly here at Fantha Tracks after his stellar 42 issue run on Bounty Hunters and his current work on the Jango Fett mini series, but – as with all of us – he has a life away from the GFFA, and that life had to navigate the toughest times as his daughter Naomi struggled with depression. As a writer, Ethan used his skills to conjour up a thought-provoking idea that he would develop with his daughter, an idea that would become the four-part comic and book A Haunted Girl.
Ethan Sacks was sitting in the cafeteria at New York City’s Bellevue Hospital in March 2019, overwhelmed with guilt and fear. His 15-year-old daughter Naomi was upstairs in the children’s psychiatric ward, hospitalized for major depression and suicidal ideation, and he was spiraling into self-blame.
“Maybe if I had been a better parent, I would’ve caught this earlier and helped her,” Sacks remembers thinking. He and his wife, Masako, a bank manager, “were completely unmoored,” he says. “We thought, ‘Where do we go from here?’”
As he waited for visiting hours to see his daughter, the comic book writer and former Daily News journalist pulled out an old reporter’s notebook and stared at the blank page. “I wanted to come up with a story that would inspire Naomi to want to live,” says Ethan, 51. He scrawled a single sentence in his notebook: “A girl who doesn’t know if she wants to live is the only one who can save all life on Earth.”
Over the next few years that nascent idea became a fully realized labor of love for both Ethan and Naomi, now 20. The result, A Haunted Girl, a comic cowritten by the father-daughter team with art by Sacks’s collaborator Marco Lorenzana, is a supernatural horror tale that follows teen heroine Cleo as she navigates life after a suicide attempt and battles a demon apocalypse that only she can prevent.
A book version of the four-part series, which includes a mental health guide and resources, has just been released. “For Naomi, I hope the experience is empowering,” says Ethan, who has authored several Marvel and Star Wars comics. “And if we reach people and help through the book, that’s a plus.”
We were fortunate enough to talk with Ethan earlier this year ahead if the completion of Bounty Hunters, a chat you can hear below. Additionally, grab Star Wars Insider 224 for my interview with Ethan.
