For months now, we’ve been talking about and hyping up DSTLRY. The very young publishing outfit promises a simple but revolutionary approach to comics: let creators tell the best stories possibly by empowering them both creatively and financially. And with some decidedly big names attached — including Scott Snyder, Christian Ward, Elsa Charretier, James Tynion IV, Mirka Andolfo, Ram V, Jock, and Becky Cloonan — it’s easy to see why this group could actually achieve its “takeover” of the comics realm.
But now the group is about to reach perhaps its greatest challenge so far: letting the fans in. The months of hype has lead up to the release of The Devil’s Cut, an 11-story sampler of the forthcoming eight series/titles coming from DSTLRY in late 2023/early 2024. (Only three stories won’t be launched into full standalone books: “What’s Mine Is Hearse,” “What Happens Next…,” and “Waiting To Die.”) The 88-page collection is officially in stores this week (August 30), and could very well dictate if this novel project hits the ground running or may have been suffering from just a tad too much hype.
But before you grab your copy at your local comic shop, the creators have one more chance to win you over with the following group interview. We’ve collected creators from six of the stories, and asked them all about their inspirations, how these stories reflect DSTLRY’s values and goals, and some other intriguing tidbits. Even if you don’t buy The Devil’s Cut or any of the resulting series, these Q&As are nonetheless a bit of “inside comics” from some of your most beloved and inventive creators.
The Devil’s Cut is available August 30 via DSTLRY.
“Shepherd”
Marc Bernardin (writer) and Ariela Kristantina (artist)
Courtesy of DSTLRY.
AIPT: How would you describe this story? And without speaking too specifically, how does it inform the tone or what’s to come in the forthcoming series/story?
Marc Bernardin: The Shepherd story in The Devil’s Cut is an appetizer for the main course — which is the complete Shepherd story that we’re currently working on. But what we wanted to do was provide a little emotional context for one of our main characters, and sketch a little bit of background for the world we’re going to be setting our story in.
AIPT: What was the genesis of the premise (warriors protecting frozen travelers against space pirates)? Is there something particularly relevant about this tale?
MB: Deep space travel and colonization is such a science fiction mainstay. It’s a part of some of my favorite sci-fi stories, from Aliens to Pitch Black to Firefly. But travel over vast distances has always had its problems — one of which has historically been piracy on the high seas. And what is the darkness of space but the highest (or lowest, depending on your perspective) of seas. So…of course there would be pirates. And I am personally curious about the manifestations of grief. In our The Devil’s Cut chapter, we have a scientist faced with the worst tragedy that can crash into a husband, the loss of a spouse. How does he choose to remember her? To mark her coming and going in this world?
AIPT: Ariela, I noted in my review that this book feels a lot like Alien. Are there any more specific visual touchstones for you?
Ariela Kristantina: When I was working on it, Alien wasn’t exactly the first thing that comes to mind. My inspiration mostly comes from manga — think Neon Genesis Evangelion and Trigun, and video games, such as Mass Effect, Dead Space, Destiny, and Detroit: Become Human.
AIPT: Marc, You establish the female warrior as hugely compelling and interesting from the get-go. What makes a really strong hero/lead/character in general?
MB: I think heroic characters often require both a wish fulfillment element and a feeling of solitude. We want to be strong and capable like our heroes because we are often not strong or capable — and least in the ways we’d like to be — in real life. But heroes are rarely part of the clan they are heroes to. They are almost always on the outside, fated to stand on the wall that protects the tribe, but never truly OF the tribe. “I’m a loner, Dottie. A rebel.” And so stories about heroes are often stories about found families, the people who come together and form their own tribe.
AIPT: How do you balance the grandiosity of a space adventure and what feels like an utterly human story of love and devotion?
MB: Stories are always, ultimately about character. Sure, we all love laser swords and spaceships and blaster pistols, but we respond to the people who wield/fly/shoot them. If there isn’t an emotional core to the stories we tell, the audience won’t show up for them. So, for us, it’s making sure that the beating heart of the story is at the forefront. And then we coat it with the whiz-bang.
“8 Rules To Make It Out In One Piece”
Elsa Charretier (writer-artist) and PK Colinet (writer)
Courtesy of DSTLRY.
AIPT: How would you describe this story? And without speaking too specifically, how does it inform the tone or what’s to come in the forthcoming series/story?
PK Colinet: It’s the spy comic you didn’t know you needed. It’s bonkers but classy, utterly sexy but not male-gaze-ey, light but, we hope, kind of smart. Our lead spy, the most lethal spy in the world, has stormed off-shore bunkers, infiltrated secret government mints, and removed shadow kings from global chess boards. But all she really wants is to make it home in one piece.
Elsa Charretier: Turns out, spies are just like us. Sometimes, they just need to make it through the day. No matter the peril, she subscribes to eight rules that keep her fingers attached to her hands and both legs running!
PC: All of the energy and fun you see in this story will find its way into the series, in addition to a lot of character moments. We’re going to be walking the fine line between comedy and drama, and that’s a very exciting challenge for us.
AIPT: I love the look of this book, and definitely think it’s among the most stylish. What went into developing the look and feel?
EC: It might seem counter-intuitive, but, as a writer, I tend to approach plot through visual storytelling, especially for short stories. I knew I wanted “8 Rules” to be a sort of prequel to our series, but my goal was as much about introducing a character as it was about making the best out of the format (short, in length, but with larger pages and more room than I’m usually allowed). Hence, the many panels, the almost storyboard-ey aspect of the fights. And the smaller the panels, the more bold you want to get with shapes, so even the tiniest character remains legible. These two aspects had a big influence on where I took the style. But the biggest thing was probably that we pitched this series as the coolest-sexiest-over-the-top-spy-comic ever. We had to make good on our promise.
PC: I remember seeing a commission Elsa had done, with a very stylish female character, cartoony, but in a slightly different way than what she’s used to doing and I thought, hm, this style would work wonders on a spy book. And here we are.
AIPT: Elsa, What are the challenges and/or opportunities of being both the writer and artist here?
EC: The abundance of choice can be a little daunting. I’m the first to say that there are countless ways to draw a scene, but in the end, if the script says “she walks out,” ultimately your shot must include a woman walking through a door. Whereas when you write, especially as you flesh out a story, you can do a million things with a single premise, take it down so many different roads. What if I’m going down the wrong road and not telling the right story for these characters? So I tend to be all over the place at first, unable to pick a path and just go with it. As for opportunities… Well, I can guarantee you that no horse, hat, or motorcycle will find their way into any script that I’ll write for myself.
AIPT: This feels like a spy thriller that’s decidedly not interested in the genre. What’s the interest in playing with stuff a la James Bond?
EC: We’re not rejecting the genre but its tropes, at least the biggest one, yes, most definitely. I’m not saying we’ll ever match Invincible-level renewal of the genre, but that’s what we’re striving for.
PC: James Bond’s whole thing is that we don’t know a whole lot about him, he’s an agent first and foremost, a vessel. Our spies are sisters, daughters, wives…They have a life outside of their, albeit unconventional, careers, and their humanity is for us equally as important as their skills as mandated killers.
AIPT: There’s heaps of cool fight scenes here, and I’m curious, what goes into plotting these out and making them feel as fun and free as the story itself?
PC: The biggest thing kung-fu movies have taught us is that clever use of the characters’ environment is an absolute thrill for viewers. Unfortunately, that’s rarely applied in comics because first, drawing stuff is extremely time-consuming for artists, and second, we’re limited in space! Start laying out a typical Jackie Chan action scene and half your issue is gone! So we usually resort to a couple of punches and call it a day because the fight is often not what the issue is about. “8 Rules” is entirely about kicking ass, though, so we went all in with the choreography.
EC: The trick was to figure out moves that were super fun but didn’t require too much panel real estate, like PK mentioned. We wrote down a list of fun fight ideas, acted them out — to the best of our physical abilities — trimmed when necessary, tossed the ones that were too complicated, and polished the best ones.
“What’s Mine Is Hearse”
Stephanie Phillips (writer) and Joëlle Jones (artist)
AIPT: Stephanie, I love that this story is really bonkers and funny and deeply disturbing. How do you balance those ideas and energies?
Stephanie Phillips: I couldn’t tell you. I think “bonkers” and “disturbing: are in the brain of the beholder.
AIPT: Joëlle, is there anything in particular that inspired the pulp-y look of this tale?
Joëlle Jones: When I got the script from Stephanie, I thought it was so grisly and great, but I didn’t think it would work as well if I played it straight, so I wanted to give an eerie googie feel. And I’m glad I did, it was really fun to play around!
AIPT: Why is death so funny, sad, and thrilling as a storytelling device?
SP: The storytelling device is the narration and artwork working in tandem to tell competing narratives. Hopefully, if we did our jobs correctly, what you’re reading and what you’re seeing are at odds with one another.
JJ: Um, I think that is a much longer conversation than either of us have time for here, I’m sure! But George Bernard Shaw said, “Life does not cease to be funny when people die any more than it ceases to be serious when people laugh.” I think laughing at something that can be quite painful acts as a release valve that makes life more bearable!
“The Stowaway”
Jock (writer, artist, and letter)
Courtesy of DSTLRY.
AIPT: How does the original “short” — titled “The Stowaway” — set the tone for the GONE series in full? Does the rest of the story start here or build from it?
Jock: “The Stowaway” is more like a slice of life from the world of GONE… we meet our main character, Abi, and get a sense of the world and life that she has. Think of it as running alongside the main story, rather than a chronological start!
AIPT: What’s it like being both the artist and writer? I think you’ve said it’s freeing, but what are some key challenges?
Jock: Honestly, the main challenge is the writing… almost all of my concern and attention is on the script, so the actual drawing of the pages is incredibly freeing! Beyond that, though, being able to pace the story and give it the exact rhythm I’d like is great. A lot of my favorite creators are writer/artists, and it’s always been something I’ve wanted to do. I’m incredibly grateful to the guys at DSTLRY for their trust and enthusiasm with GONE.
AIPT: It seems like the book explores the idea/concept of refugees. Is there any specific world event or news story that got you thinking about this?
Jock: Not so much refugees, but there are definitely themes about the divide in GONE’s society that are prevalent in our world today. The Space Liner that Abi boards caters to the 1%, so the divide between the customers, the workers, and some of the stowaways is magnified in a story like this. I think good sci-fi should always have those parallels to current culture and it’s fun to explore those themes.
AIPT: What tidbits and standout moments can you tease from the book itself?
Jock: Visually I want the ship to have a real sense of scale… this thing is huge! But I guess I’m most looking forward to sharing a very specific story-telling device that we’ll see in each separate issue. When I hit on that idea, everything came together for me – I was like, “That’s it!”” That gave me the key to the story.
AIPT: What compelled you to have such a young protagonist for this specific story?
Jock: It made sense with the story I have to have a young, vulnerable character… a kid. And as the story develops, how she pushes through these incredibly challenging situations along with strong feelings of loss and abandonment, is at the core of her character. That said, without spoiling things, stick with it. Books two and three develop it in a different way!
AIPT: I love the look of the first story as it’s really grounded. Why opt for that more “realistic” take on sci-fi, and does it fit with some of the main themes and motifs?
Jock: Thank you! I guess that is just what comes naturally to me, and it’s the style of world-building I enjoy realizing. I love making things that are larger than life but feel grounded… to me it makes them relatable—even though, quite literally, they’re out of this world.
“Deleted Scene #2”
Brian Azzarello (writer) and Eduardo Risso (artist)
Courtesy of DSTLRY.
AIPT: How would you describe this story? And without speaking too specifically, how does it inform the tone or what’s to come in the forthcoming series/story?
Brian Azzarello: I really wouldn’t describe it as a story… I mean, it’s called “Deleted Scene” for a reason. It’s a vignette that didn’t make it into the final cut of the forthcoming story. So it’s a taste; an amuse-bouche.
AIPT: Brian, you’re known for your exceptional crime tales. What does this era/time period present in terms of further exploring some of that space/genre?
BA: Well, the American Western myth is one that resonates very strongly today; the ethos of a man and a gun making their way through a dangerous world, and that holds true whether it’s white hats or black hats. Inherent American violence is in my work going back to 100 Bullets.
AIPT: Eduardo, The work here is super vivid and so lively. Can you walk us through, even super briefly, how you plan or develop a page?
Eduardo Risso: I don’t mean to sound like the “how to draw an owl” meme, but that’s pretty much what goes on in my head. After doing way over three thousand pages with Brian, whenever I get a new script from him the whole thing just pops into my brain. And, since I haven’t done traditional color in a while, there’s a huge chunk of trial and error, sometimes I reach the tone I aimed to on the first shot, and some other times I need to do some panels, or even an entire page, all over again. And of course there’s also a ton of digital post production.
AIPT: I’m curious, what’s the continued interest and/or obsession with cowboys and that specific trope?
BA: It’s not so much cowboys as much as life on a frontier, the space where there are no rules. Morality —and mortality — on the edge.
ER: What appeals to me from that context is the rawness of it all, when even going to the bathroom was a high stakes endeavor. In a day and age with this over abundance of resources, being transported back to a time where there were no antibiotics or indoor plumbing should be, at least, reassuring.
AIPT: Brian, I feel like the dialogue here is especially top-notch. How do you plan it out or get it to feel so real/authentic?
BA: That’s me doing my job.
“What Happens Next…”
Jamie McKelvie (writer-artist)
AIPT: This story broke my heart and also made me believe in people. How did you develop the idea of these “soul backups” and people leaving them behind?
Jamie McKelvie: Firstly, thank you! I’m really pleased the story is connecting with people. It’s a romance as much as it is a science fiction story, so I really wanted it to hit people in the heart as well as the brain.
The idea of a digital copy of a person’s mind isn’t new to science fiction, so I can’t claim credit there. But I chose to call them “soul” backups for two reasons—one, it feels very human and maybe a bit romantic, and two, it shows how this culture views itself. The concept of the person has been separated from the physical being, which is merely an avatar for the person. You can shape that avatar any way you want or even have multiple avatars around at once. The scientist in the story hasn’t shaped hers much, but she’s got extra sensors embedded around her eyes so that she can get more information about the world around her. Her hands have two thumbs, index, and “middle” fingers each. That was inspired by a recent study that showed giving people an extra controllable thumb prosthesis on the other side of their hands quickly allowed them to carry out many manual tasks with one hand that would normally take two. The brain adjusts to the new digit remarkably quickly. I thought as someone who would regularly handle complicated machinery and experiments, she’d value having those. In contrast, the artist’s changes to his body are almost entirely for aesthetic reasons; it’s another canvas to work with. The way they have shaped their avatars tells you a lot about who they are and how they look at the world.
And while these avatars are effectively immortal anyway, the constant backup of the “soul” to a secure “server” means the fear of physical risk has been all but removed from this society. What does that do to a culture? That’s one of the questions here.
AIPT: I noted in my review that there’s so many clues and depth and all-around history “baked into this gorgeous world.” How are you able to make the visuals or the look of this story effectively act as their own character?
JM: It all comes out of the backstory, the same way I approach human characters! This megaconstruct they’ve created (exactly opposite where Earth used to sit in its orbit around the sun) has so much more land space than our planet, so their concept of a city is much, much more spread out. Giant buildings, yes, but also large plazas, parks and spaces to just exist. They’ve mastered creating “natural” environments from scratch and can control climate and seasons, so I filled lots of it with lush forest. They know how to make materials that are incredibly strong and durable, so their architecture can be so much larger than ours. They’ve eradicated scarcity, so nothing is crumbling from lack of investment or care. Everything just works, and is dependable, and predictable.
Which, of course, is why the events of the story shake things up so much.
AIPT: I also mentioned how the story lends “a sense of peace in not knowing the next step.” Why is that compelling, and does enough sci-fi not do that these days (i.e., hinting at a future and not telling us directly how things will work out)?
JM: I am a big fan of letting the reader take what they want from the story, but doing so from a place where I know the answers. Especially with a short where you simply don’t have the room to provide all the answers, it’s much more important to leave the reader with a feeling. They’ll carry that with them much longer than any solution to a puzzle.
There are other reasons that it’s important I work out more of the story than is shown to the reader, too. It lets me make the world feel more real by implying it has life beyond these five pages; The Eternal City has a history and a future, and so do our two leads. It also gives the mystery that drives the story some weight, because the bits the reader DOES see follow the logic of the full picture. They can piece together what they think will happen next.
And it helps me draw out the heart of the story. My first drafts always spell out so much more, and then I strip everything away until only the most important bits are left. Comics have to do so much in such a small amount of space, I need to know what has to be there on the page.
(Bit of a tangent, but one thing I hate about prequels is how many of them feel the need to cram in answers to every question you might have about the backstory of a character. Oh, that’s how he got that name, and made that enemy, and got that thing he always carries with him, and came to hate that particular type of dog? And it all happened in a period of a week? I feel like it reduces stories to a set of bullet points. That’s not what I want from them.)
AIPT: Could we ever see anything more from this story/universe?
JM: Definitely possible! It’s intended as a standalone story, but like I say, I know a lot more about this world than you see in these pages. A bit of that might end up turning into a story of its own.
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