Rick Remender is no slouch when it comes to sci-fi stories, especially those that are epic by nature. From The Sacrificers to Tokyo Ghost to Uncanny X-Force, he’s proven he’s more than capable of coming up with wickedly original ideas and dazzling with wonderment while working with great artists. Napalm Lullaby is all that and more.
In development with artist Bengal for several years, and due to release in March via Image Comics, Napalm Lullaby is a story about a child with unimaginable power who is subsequently discovered and raised to believe he is God by a cult built upon hatred. Jumping ahead some years, the story proper centers on a world ruled by The Magnificent Leader, where just such a cult imposed their will on an entire world to create the ultimate theocracy. It’s truly haunting stuff, and it’s all too easy to see where our own world took a turn for such an utterly bleak future.
I was lucky enough to chat with Remender all about Napalm Lullaby, including digging into its creation, working with Bengal, and the book’s large end-goals. However, this is just an abbreviated version of the interview; to get the entire interview, don’t miss the AIPT Comics podcast.
Scroll down for exclusive preview art of Napalm Lullaby #1!
Courtesy of Image Comics.
AIPT: Thank you for the title of this book, Napalm Lullaby. What a killer title. How did you come up with it?
Rick Remender: While I was outlining the story, there’s some big stuff that happens. I’m really taking my time these days. I don’t feel the need to sort of rush these stories. And there’s an event that takes place. Not to give anything away, but in 7, 8, 9, and as I’m outlining it, those words were in the outline. And I was like, “The old title was not as good.” Righteous Thirst Vengeance came out of my outline. There’s a number of titles that, as I’m working the work-in-progress title will quickly become less good.
As I’m writing, I use big bold bullet headers for chapters and I’ll type up quick title names. And it’s interesting, the ones that sort of just on the fly come out while you’re in story will oftentimes lead to better titles than what you were working with.
AIPT: May I ask what the original title was for Napalm Lullaby?
RR: It’s had so many. I think the original title, it doesn’t spoil it, it was The Magnificent Leader or something. Napalm Lullaby is a hell of a lot cooler than that.
Courtesy Image Comics
AIPT: The first press release that came out talked about how this is a series that plays around with theocracy and societal decay. What made these themes important for this series?
RR: It’s interesting, a lot of the time, this has been one that was sitting in my to-do box, or I have a morgue, and at this point it’s a hundred pages of ideas. 25 years, I’ll just have an idea. I’ll wake up, have an idea, I’ll vomit it up, and I’ll go through that sometimes when I’m developing. Deadly Class was one of those, and it was called Reagan Youth originally. And it was me writing stories about me and my friends, you know, and what the Gen X experience actually was for punkers and hip-hop and goth kids in the mid-80s.
This one was sitting there, and it was basically kind of a “What if the Messiah came back and was raised by some kind of kooky hate cult?” The Jim Jones sort of nutty cult got the baby. Bengal and I actually started picking away at this prior to even doing Death or Glory and, pivoted to Death or Glory in the midst. ’cause I couldn’t quite find my in. And then as I was writing Death or Glory, it struck me that this is a story about moral authority. We live in a world more and more where there are numerous moral authorities that are dictating to us the correct exact way one must be and behave.
And they’re on all political spectrums. I was fascinated by that. Like enforcing moral authority on other people was sort of the headline of what became fascinating to me. The in was, let’s jump forward and deal with a world where that moral authority has been established and won. One moral authority exists. And that moral authority takes the shape of a religion in this case. And then we’re dealing with two kids raised in this world. And that was where I was, immediately started typing. So you’re always looking for that spark that gets you to the computer where the ideas just start dumping out. And so once I realized it was the children of this Messiah and, in this case, bastard children who were supposed to have been killed but made it out. That was where I found the story.
AIPT: So it was a journey just to get to the computer and start typing it out.
RR: You just never know. I have a rule of three things. I’m looking for something I want to talk about in the world, something that I’m witnessing or seeing. And as a writer, you always try to take a perspective from being outside of society and looking at it. Like an alien watching Society.
Two, I try to find a personal in something that I experience that’s very personal to me that I want to express.
And then three, you’re looking for big bombastic visuals or in or even just cool noirish visuals. I work in all kinds of genres, but I’m always looking for something that I can see is an exciting visual world to go to. When I hit those three things, which is rare, it’s hard to hit those three things. I will go, “That’s a book that I’m gonna do.” And in the case of Napalm Lullaby, it just keeps expanding and unpacking. It’s turned into something that I’m in love with. It’s a joy to write. And I think when people see, you know, this is again, one of the best illustrators on earth.
Courtesy Image Comics
AIPT: What made Bengal the right artist for this one?
RR: I mean he’s the right artist for anything. He’s so good that when we were doing this originally and then pivoted to Death or Glory, I remember looking at some Mobius’ Blueberry and thinking, well, the Italians and the French do Western comics other than Joe Kubert, and maybe a few exceptions, they’re the best. They love it. And they make it high art. Bengal is this next-level brilliant French illustrator, and then putting him in the grimy, crime-drenched American Southwest in a story dealing with truckers, methamphetamines, and serial killers. It’s always fun to push them out of their comfort zone. And in the case of Death or Glory, what we created is just a beautiful piece of high art, I think.
This is clearly in his wheelhouse. It’s in my wheelhouse.
AIPT: While this is a science fiction story with some incredible world-building, ’cause after reading the first issue, I think it was a solid start. There seems to be a reference to a superhero, let’s say, a kind of origin we’ve seen before. Is this where the bud of the story germinated for you originally? Or was it something you backed into?
RR: I backed into it. ’cause as I was thinking in terms of, of Messiah. I love history. I constantly am listening to history podcasts and reading books on. The Messiahs throughout history, the Messiah idea. I’m a nerd and so my brain grabbed onto that piece of pop culture. There’s a story reason for it. And we’ll get there eventually where you’ll see that it’s not just a construct of me doing a sort…
AIPT: Deconstruction of…yeah.
RR: It becomes something much, much more interesting when you bookend these things and play a long game. By issue six or seven, I think people get an idea of kind of what that opening of issue one means more than just a familiar trope.
Courtesy Image Comics
AIPT: There’s some high-tech sci-fi stuff going on in this first issue that I got to read. Do you ever craft future tech with the thought that this could be our future? Or is it about achieving something in the story more than anything?
RR: I read something a long, long time ago in, I think, Scientific American, and they were talking about the reason imagination exists is that the human mind can predict the future and prepare for it. According to this article. I always think about that because the writer, especially a science fiction writer, especially somebody who endlessly is a pessimistic Gen X punk rock kid who keeps falling into doing dystopic stuff. It’s a kid who grew up with the fear of nuclear Armageddon. That’s Gen X. We grew up drawing mushroom clouds. Every punk album has a mushroom cloud. You look at the best things that we created in that era. It’s all fear of the future. Road Warrior is fear of the future.
So the imagination, when I’m thinking of science fiction, usually goes to a moral authority. If any of the moral authorities in the world today were to win and take over, then it would simply be those who are the zealots, the acolytes who follow the moral authority, be it political or religious or whatever. They’re going to be rewarded. As long as you don’t question anything, as long as you get in line, don’t intellectually poke at any of it. Just get in line. Shut up and do what the moral authority says. Then you can live in, in this world, these paradise domes.
So the 1% in this world, there are these beautiful domes [in Napalm Lullaby] with clean air and bright, beautiful cities, but they’re built in the midst of this sprawl of everyone living in sort of the slums of Brazil with shanty towns and cardhouse and living under found item huts. It is sort of taking the imagination coupled with fear of the future. ’cause my biggest issue is climate change. It’s the thing I’m most obsessed with and terrified of.
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