Scott Snyder’s eighth Comixology Originals series, Duck and Cover, arrives next week with its very first issue. A long time coming, it officially marks the end of the first batch of originally announced titles, pairing Snyder with longtime American Vampire collaborator Rafael Albuquerque for a story that plays with ideas of genre, social classes, and even the great change that defines our collective youths.
Already a highly anticipated series, it’s also changed its approach oh-so slightly since last we last heard from Snyder about the Comixology Originals titles. Set in 1955, this latest story follows Del Reeves, who dreams of getting out of a small town to make movies. However, he’s soon stuck with the very classmates that he hates, hiding under their desks as a nuclear bomb goes off overhead. And so begins an adventure that’ll span multiple genres (with a different such framework used in each issue).
I was lucky enough to chat with both Snyder and Albuquerque recently to discuss all things Duck and Cover. Among other topics and tidbits, we touched on the book’s core themes, why it’s set in the ’50s, and what to expect over its four-issue run.
These are edited excerpts from the larger conversation. Check out the AIPT Comics podcast this Sunday for the full unedited interview.
Courtesy of ComiXology.
AIPT: Duck and Cover was first announced back in 2021. What’s the story about, and has it changed since its first announcement?
Scott Snyder: It’s a story about kids who miraculously survive this mysterious catastrophe, that’s all kind of predicated on the sort of mistakes and fears and paranoia of their parents’ generation. It felt like it was a good time to tell a story about kids deciding that they need to try things a different way. Growing up in an era that’s kind of been devastated by the previous generation’s kind of lack of ability to think beyond some of the kind of immediate impulses and fears that I think are sort of our worst, probably a part of our worst selves. Initially it changed a bit, it was going to be a little more kind of Mad Max, and then that felt a little too, it felt a little too kind of easy and less resonant.
It was kind of leaning into the zaniness of it. Instead we wanted it to be a character piece about, these kids that have no reason to get along and are in fact from groups that are almost not allowed to interact in a lot of ways. And then instead wind up becoming a team that’s gonna kind of take down a threat that their parents couldn’t, really fathom. It starts off in the kind of a premise that they survived this nuclear attack. And then the mystery is how did they survive? What’s special about the metal in the desks? Are these really Russians? Are they something much weirder? All of it becomes more and more kind of pulpy and moves through these different genres. Each issue is designed around a different genre. So the first one’s melodrama, second [is] sci-fi, third [is] horror, third is sci-fi, [and] fourth is Western.
AIPT: Neat.
SS: It’s kind of about how those genres at that time were really good delivery systems for commentary and critique on things happening. But if those kinds of storytelling forms aren’t potent anymore, it’s time to kind of break ’em and try something different. That’s why this is like a mishmash of every crazy thing possible.
Courtesy of ComiXology.
AIPT: Rafa, are you approaching each issue differently visually in any way to capture those genres?
Rafael Albuquerque: Yeah. There’s, of course, this consistency on style wise and everything. We try to pick up the essence of these genres and trying to fit somehow in the narrative sometimes in storytelling, sometimes in the designs. So yeah, we try to add some flavor of each one of the genres on each one of the issues.
AIPT: It’s also a bit of a period piece, set in the fifties.
SS: Yeah, and we thought that that was part of the reason is it’s a moment when the zeitgeist was very fearful and there was a lot of worry about change and about sort of young generation wanting things the old generation felt were were too progressive. It felt like it had a really interesting mirror in this moment. The things that I love about working with Raphael, other than the fact that he’s just like one of my best friends, is that we have the same kind of priorities on two fronts. One is like, we always like to challenge ourselves, try something we haven’t tried before. And then secondarily, like, we love a lot of the same stuff like Americana and pulp and genre and horror, all, all the kinds of stuff that were there that made American Vampire probably my favorite series ever to work on. All those things that we love in a pop culture way, but that have a deeper meaning too are kind of mixed up in this crazy story.
Courtesy of ComiXology.
AIPT: Are both of you interested in that era, the ’50, like that American Graffiti kind of style?
RA: Yeah, exactly. That’s one of the visual reference for sure. All these movies that were made in the late seventies and early eighties. But I think they captured this feeling of the fifties in a way.
SS: I love the ’50s. I love these moments when things become very fearful or feel like they’re coming to a head and there’s a kind of cultural clash. I find these things really interesting, new forms are created like this, like new genres are made in film, new kinds of music are suddenly emerging and becoming popular and shining a light on different kinds of marginalized populations, but also new music is forming. It’s a mix and mishmash of everything. It feels like there’s kind of a creative burst at a lot of the moments when there’s also this real drive towards backwards movement. So the fifties felt like it had a particularly resonant kind of aura for this moment to be able to tell a story.
AIPT: Is there any significance to the way the ti the title looks? I think one word is white and one word is black. Is that on purpose for some reason?
SS: If you’re pointing at the idea that it’s a time of tremendous, like racial discrimination and strife that is a part of the story. The idea is a deliberate choice to kind of have the characters be multicultural and have the lead be African American. It’s part of the importance of the story is the idea that these kids that not only are some of whom are really discriminating against, but also as a group collectively are encouraged not to be together, are supposed to sort of come together to try things very differently. Is is kind of batteries of the story.
Courtesy of ComiXology.
AIPT: As an interviewer, it’s kind of exciting that we got to talk I think the days before it was even announced that the eight titles were coming and now we’re talking again with the last one coming. Is there another wave coming?
SS: There are a few more books. One of them we did announce [that] I’m writing with my son, Jack.
AIPT: There’s a strong filmmaking element in Duck and Cover as well. Did either of you want to get into filmmaking when you were maybe in college or high school?
RA: No. I, I wish I could, but I never did university, but at the time I was like looking at options where I could draw and tell stories, but at the time we didn’t have a movie making class right yet, so on the end I just started doing my own comics and that was it.
SS: When we first got to know each other through American Vampire, it’s so long, it’s so funny. Movies were a lot of our reference points when we were first getting the aesthetic for American Vampire. Reusing them here again, the idea is to sort of say, genres in the fifties as they really kind of solidified, when you go back and look, they’re popular because they speak to the fears of that moment. So the story kind of embraces all of that and has fun with the pulpiness of it, but then says, well, if they don’t work anymore, then it’s time to mash them all up and make something different. Which is why the whole story starts with that movie that Del is making that’s kind of out of control and fun.
AIPT: So how many ducks are gonna show up in the, uh, series.
RA: <laugh>
SS: <laugh> Well, initially, the school team was gonna be the ducks. Rafa actually came up with a better idea for the team, the school team being a snapping turtle thing. As you learn more about the true nature of this attack and may or may not have like alien <laugh>, components, the rival team that they were about to have this big game against right before this whole nuclear exchange happened are krakens, they’re like a big squid thing. There’s Easter eggs in the first issue for sure.
Courtesy of ComiXology.
AIPT: Since comics take so long to make potentially do you write something or draw something and you know it’s gonna come out in a couple months and then you see something in the news — like maybe the submarine — and you’re like, “Oh my God, we have a story about something like this that’s gonna come out in eight months.” Does that ever like, make you feel weirded out or anything like that?
RA: It happens in small doses, not something as big as the submarine, or something that I felt like I should change. Nothing that big, but I have had ideas and I start developing these ideas and suddenly just see something very similar and then you just decide to push back or change something. Sometimes it’s done and when it’s done, it’s done. Then you just go with it.
SS: I agree with that a hundred percent. I’ve been on all sides of that, honestly. Like I’ve been on the side of writing a violent joker when there’s been horrible things in the news in real life with that. Undiscovered Country where we wrote a story about a pandemic that makes the world close and then all of a sudden it was before the pandemic. The sort of more exciting version of that where you’re hitting on something about aliens and then there’s all this kind of stuff in the news.
Ultimately like having been on the side that’s very uncomfortable and then on the side that’s comfortable too or exciting, you kind of learn that like you can’t change the stuff. That at the end of the day, the reason that you told this story is because it’s about something that matters to you. If those things become present in the news, then that’s not a bad thing necessarily. You just have to be really sure about what you’re saying. Using something sensationally or using something in a way that’s not thoughtful is where you really get into trouble, you know? If you’re using it in a way that you’re aware of the danger of like, “well what if this became something?” Then I think then you’re probably doing a good thing by writing about something that might be uncomfortable in some way.
RA: Important to have some good taste on making decisions.
SS: Good taste is the lesson.
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