Great comics are all about the story (obviously). But they can also be just as much about the story surrounding the story, and how something comes to be in this world. That’s certainly the case of Death Strikes: The Emperor of Atlantis.
In 1943, Peter Kien and Viktor Ullmann were prisoners at the Czechoslovakia concentration camp Terezín. While imprisoned, the pair wrote an opera, Der Kaiser von Atlantis, which “presents many lessons for modern society on war and technology.” While its creators never lived to actually see it put on live, Der Kaiser von Atlantis has since been performed several times over the years, and lives as a testament that “beauty and humor can be found even in the face of doom.”
But the story doesn’t end there, and that’s where we actually get to Death Strikes: The Emperor of Atlantis. It’s a comics retelling of the opera from journalist Dave Maass and artist Patrick Lay (as joined by artist Ezra Rose and letterer Richard Bruning). Said to mix “dystopian sci-fi, mythic fantasy, and zombie horror,” this take emanates from an “alternative universe where Atlantis never sank but instead became a technologically advanced tyranny, [and a] power-mad buffoonish Emperor declares all-out war — everyone against everyone.” A novel new chapter for what’s already a compelling story, Death Strikes: The Emperor of Atlantis is a powerful history lesson, a celebration of art’s undeniable power, and a generally inventive and compelling story.
The hardcover Death Strikes: The Emperor of Atlantis is due out this week (January 24) from Dark Horse Comics, and features a suite of “designs from the original opera, historical essays, [and] photographs.” To celebrate its release, we spoke with both Maass and Lay, who told us all about their introduction to this story, the reinterpretation process, working fluidly together, and why this project really matters, among other topics and tidbits.
Courtesy Dark Horse Comics
AIPT: What’s the elevator pitch for Death Strikes?
Dave Maass: Death Strikes is based on an incredible little opera written in 1943 in the Terezín concentration camp as a satire on war and power and one last F-U to the Nazis. It imagines a world where Atlantis never sank and instead became an all-conquering military power. When the Emperor declares that everyone still alive must fight everyone else in one last battle, Death says hell no and quits in protest. What’s left is a hellscape of the living dead and the question: what is the point of war if no one can die?
AIPT: How did you first become aware of the opera from Peter Kien and Viktor Ullmann?
DM: In the late ’90s, I was a teenage mallrat listening to skater punk and metal, and one day I was wandering around the CD section of a Best Buy when a classical music sampler called The Music Survives, a collection of music suppressed by the Nazis, jumped out at me from the display. That’s when I was first exposed to Der Kaiser von Atlantis, Terezín, and a series of works by censored, persecuted and murdered artists. It really affected me in ways that would later shape my career as a journalist and an activist.
AIPT: What was so striking or poignant or impactful about the original piece/opera that demanded this adaptation
DM: When most people think of opera—if they think of opera at all—it’s usually four-hour-long fairy tales or convoluted love stories. So I was amazed to come across an opera with elements of dystopian sci-fi and fantasy, with zombies and a curmudgeonly Grim Reaper. Not only that, but it’s funny, loaded with sly commentary on authoritarianism and technology that is as relevant today as it was in the 1940s. I felt a larger audience deserved to experience this masterpiece, and the graphic novel medium felt right, considering the librettist Peter Kien was also an illustrator.
Courtesy of Dark Horse Comics.
AIPT: Similarly, how did you adapt the opera itself? What’s the process look like, and how close do you land to source material in terms of tone/feeling/etc.?
DM: If you’re a fan of Der Kaiser von Atlantis — granted that’s a small demographic — you’ll immediately recognize the heart and structure of the opera in our adaptation. We stuck to the same four scenes or chapters, the same cast of characters, and paid homage to many of the signature music elements, like Loudspeaker’s HALLO, HALLO! and the dance of the Living Dead that starts the final chapter. Almost everything in the original libretto is in our book. What we did, though, is build upon it. We deepened the characters, expanded the scenes, added some additional word play, and updated some of the references. Our goal wasn’t to change the opera, but to use it as source material to create a compelling graphic novel and not simply the libretto set to pictures.
AIPT: What were the unique challenges of this process? What about the unique opportunities?
DM: The first problem was that there is no definitive version of the opera. There was a handwritten libretto, a handwritten score, and a typed version that appeared to have been rewritten after being rejected by a censor. And among those versions, there were disagreements. For example, in one version the character of Life is embodied as the archetypal Pierrot, in others, it’s Harlekin. There were also some plot holes for us to figure out. For example, one of the main characters disappears without explanation just before the finale. Once we looked at the score in person, we discovered the reason was one actor was having to do double duty, presumably because there weren’t enough performers in Terezín, and therefore couldn’t play both roles in the final chapter. We were able to fix that in our adaptation.
AIPT: There’s obviously some modern-day relevance to this story — why is this tale still so important and what’s it say about life in 2023?
DM: The opera and our graphic novel serve as a warning against devaluing life and reveal the perils of a world measured in body counts. It forces us to imagine what would we do if war wasn’t an option, and asks, why don’t we try that instead? These are tumultuous times, with censorship and demagogues and war and misinformation, and we can learn a lot about the power of humor and creativity from those who fought back through words and music.
Courtesy of Dark Horse Comics.
AIPT: There’s lots of humor and absurdity to this book. Is it hard to balance those tendencies given the serious subject matter and context?
DM: Irreverence is Kien and Ullmann’s weapon of choice in this opera, and so it was important to me that we lean into it. It wasn’t that hard, because the script was so defiant and fearless in its humor, and I tried to encourage the whole team to also take on that fearlessness. I want people to be so engaged and entertained that they forget for a moment the origin of the story. Then, when the deeper meaning and context does sink in, it hits all that much harder.
AIPT: I think this opera is another great evidence of perseverance and life finding a way amid the Holocaust. What does this story say specifically about the thoughts and feelings and experiences of Kien and Ullmann and millions of others at the time?
DM: At the Terezín Memorial, they’ve turned a former barracks into a museum dedicated to showcasing art and culture created by the Jewish prisoners. We were blown away by how much survived: one floor of music, another for dramatic performances, and yet another for the visual arts. So, Kien and Ullmann weren’t the only ones using art to find meaning in the darkest of days. But perhaps what makes these two artists different is how willing they were to confront the reality of what war and oppression does to the psyche and to disarm it through comedy and fantasy.
AIPT: What was the collaborative process like on such a specific project as this?
Patrick Lay: Comics are always collaborative — each role adds something essential that the final book couldn’t do without. Early in development, Ezra Rose created character and prop designs based on Dave’s initial scripts and provided feedback when I took over drawing duties. Later, when we connected with Berger Books, Dave crafted a working draft of the script with the help of tons of research and Karen Berger, our editor. All three of us regularly met to look at the pages as I drew, offering edits and deciding whether changes needed to be made in the script or on the page (sometimes both). It was extremely collaborative, even as Richard Bruning took on lettering duties. He was a huge resource as our book designer as well. Each step had all eyes on it, which was pretty incredible. It was the whole team working to make Dave and I’s book the best it could be.
Courtesy of Dark Horse Comics.
AIPT: Do you have a favorite moment or scene from the story that speaks volumes about what this whole project is all about?
PL: One of my favorite scenes is from the first chapter: the banter between Life and Death about who has it worse. Dave adapted so much directly from the opera, including a scene where they take on the roles of salesmen, cheerfully trying to sell a few more days like produce that’s gone bad. It’s funny and dark, sardonic but not really bitter. It captures a certain vibe that threads through the whole story: that the world has gotten bad, but it didn’t used to be. And doesn’t have to be.
AIPT: Is there some kind of overlap between comics and opera that worked in favor of this adaptation?
PL: Opera narratives have this incredibly dramatic, mythological tradition. A dry, passionless opera isn’t really a thing, so we knew that we could swing for the fences. Even though this particular opera didn’t have many settings to pull from, we could see the way a black set was being used to imply a world. There weren’t many resources in a concentration camp to make props, so they wrote around the limitations. Being able to pull from that opera tradition meant we could visualize what Kien and Ullman implied.
AIPT: Why should anyone read Death Strikes?
PL: This story is two things: it’s a sci-fi/fantasy narrative with really potent stances on death, war, dictatorship, and the power of hope to reset the world. But it is also an artifact: a product of one of our worst atrocities. What I hope anyone can find in the story is connection with that past. You should read it to feel their anger at having their lives turned upside down, their hope and humor, their talent turned to creation when they could have chosen despair. And you should read it to see what they couldn’t — the machines of bigotry and war that snuffed that talent out.
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