With ‘A Star Called The Sun,’ Simon Roy evolves his weird, charming sci-fi universe

To be clear, Simon Roy isn’t the biggest fan of autobiographical comics.

“People love those comics, and it’s not in my nature or interest to necessarily draw them,” Roy told me during a recent Zoom call.

So, it’s just a smidgen funny, then, that his latest story collection, A Star Called The Sun, would begin with just such a comic — with Roy emerging from his very own sci-fi bunker to introduce the book.

“Part of it was just for funsies,” Roy said. “In 2014, when my first sci-fi story collection came out, I wasn’t sure what to do about that. So I was like, ‘Oh, I’ll make a little intro comic.'” So I did something similar. But this time around, I feel like I was very much doing it for the same reasons that I make comics generally, which is, exploring my interests and…bringing people into the isolated mental space that I live in.”

He added, “Maybe it’s a bit on the nose, but it’s also just a really fun way to connect all the stories together and connect myself to the stories. It’s probably as close as I get to doing a ’90s-style autobiographical comic.”

Very minor hypocrisy aside, it makes sense that A Star Called The Sun would be so dang personal for Roy. It’s not just that they’re right in his wheelhouse, a “curious and peculiar collection of interconnected, character-driven sci-fi stories all set in the far future.” Or that they involved “robotic clergy, post-human hive-men, immortal cyborgs, and ancient alien races.” It’s also that they’re set in the same universe as both Habitat and Griz Grobus, two of Roy’s biggest and best releases. They’re very much the spears of what Roy is doing with his career to create singular, highly potent sci-fi.

“I think because of the stakes of comics, it’s very much a medium where you can just make what you want to make,” Roy said. “I’m making comics specifically that I want to read. It’s maybe a little masturbatory in some angle, you know, but people like that, too. There’s many industries that are masturbatory-based.”

Self-indulgence is quite alright – Roy’s very much aware of what happens when folks aren’t following their “muse,” as it were.

“When you’re watching a show, and you can feel the writer’s voice in a bad way, and you can feel that it was made by a guy or gal who lives in L.A. and has been on Twitter this year when they wrote it,” Roy said. “Making content like that makes maybe more sense if you’re doing it on a deadline with a guest or people as an item for mass consumption. But here in the boutique world of comics, I think you can afford to do something personal.”

And if you really want to understand the kinds of stories Roy is telling, A Star Called The Sun really is akin to his greatest hits. For one, it’s very much a continuation of his own viewing habits as a youngster.

“For a while, I liked the ‘A Portrait of The Artist As Hive Parasite,'” Roy said of his favorite titles in the collection. “But after finishing everything, I think it’s ‘The Anchoress.’ I know that one’s my favorite just cause it was an attempt, format wise, like an old serial TV show. Or, that it’s a character who discovers something is not quite as it seems; they figure out the riddle of the place, and then everyone leaves and nobody’s dead. It’s like a soft Next Generation episode or something.”

And while he admits that the “Star Trek series has its helpings of stinkers,” something like Deep Space Nine had some real value in a very specific way.

“Deep Space Nine really got me because I was like, ‘Damn, you can really feel in a good way that the writers…they’ve been watching the collapse of the Soviet Union, the war, and all these things,” Roy said. “They were thinking about it and trying to process it in an interesting way. I also feel like Next Generation is definitely easiest to dip back into on a sleepy day.”

It’s here we come upon an important part of Roy’s storytelling: the messaging. As a Canadian with a “very blessed life,” Roy doesn’t always pack his stories with DSN-like explorations of war and general humanity. It’s less about “processing historical trauma” and more about responding to the world in one way or another.

“Maybe it’s reprocessing stuff that I’ve just read about, and I’m interested in that I’ve studied for fun,” Roy said. “So it’s more about thinking about that intersection between the shape of history and then also everyday life, where people are just happily existing and learning a new instrument and falling in and out of love.”

Roy added, “With some [stories], I would like to think that there are deeper things to find there if you want, but it’s not carefully hidden as this, like, quotidian thing. If you don’t pick up anything deep, that’s totally fine. If you find or even project something deep onto it, that’s also great for me.”

Case in point: “A Portrait of The Artist As Hive Parasite,” a proper standout from the collection. There’s a surface-level concept (“an outsider playing around in the hive mind”) but then so much deeper if you were so inclined to go digging.

“It’s also a more cynical commentary on an artist trying to present something personal and meaningful, and seeing what happens when the audience gets something that’s more of a base reflection of themselves and how they actually like that a lot more,” Roy said. “I feel like with keeping it loose enough, there’s always an emergent process for me.”

It’s a lesson learned not from the likes of Captain Sisko, but another, slightly less celebrated sci-fi author.

“Instead of being like, ‘OK, I’ve built this world, I’ve got to drag you through it…my favorite author, Jack Vance, he’s an old ‘50s, ‘60s pulp sci-fi guy, and there’s often stories where he’s clearly just doing that,” Roy said. “Like, he had a bunch of fun ideas for a planet. And then he takes his character and drags him through it all. He’s not necessarily that interested in the character, but he really wants you to know about the different people of this weird city.”

As an extension of this, Roy doesn’t have what we called “a story bible.” You know, that massive collection of ideas/notes that informs the very state of Roy’s massive, increasingly robust universe. He’s got no need for such “direction,” folks.

“I know a lot of things broadly, but I don’t have a show bible kind of thing – in part because I think a lot of the fun in this for me…is focusing on an aspect of this broader sci-fi setting and then really diving in,” Roy said. “That, and building a mental model of what it would feel like and what it would be like. So even though I know the shape of it generally, there’s a lot of room to dive deeper and figure it out, which is the fun of making a story, or a big part of that for me at least.”

That’s not to say that Roy doesn’t do his research. He does so much, in fact, that he can sometimes get a little lost.

“I very much enjoy doing the short-term research rabbit holes,” Roy said. “Like, I feel as if it might be cool to have a sauna in this story. And then, like two weeks later, I’ve been spending a lot of time reading about the history of saunas, the different types of saunas that have occurred throughout the world, all the different approaches people have developed for dry and hot and steamy saunas.”

But even getting lost can still have its larger, overarching sense of purpose.

“But at the same time, for the types of stories that I want to tell, it’s better to have that in the background,” Roy said. “Maybe I’ve thought about the obsessive cultural lineage of some object or some group or whatever. But we don’t have to necessarily even mention it.”

Here’s a good example: manhole covers. OK, more specifically, there’s a certain kind of research that Roy does that touches on these last few points, and combines history, story themes/messaging, and his love of rabbit holes. It’s an approach or technique to study to better grasp this idea that the “things you don’t consider being shaped by history very much are shaped by history.” So, yeah, manhole covers.

“Like, I’m constantly watching and learning about the war in Ukraine,” Roy said. “Not just the war itself, but all the different threads between the political clans in Ukraine and who they’re backed by. The long history of some oligarchic clan that came from eastern Ukraine and had to go to the West. There’s so much weighty context choking everything in the world that’s overwhelming to get into, but it also informs why everything happens. It informs even the smallest uh detail of, like, the design on the manhole covers in this city. There’s some long context to how that artifact got there.”

It’s a “technique” that’s also best exemplified in his design work. Of Roy’s many “accomplishments” across these stories and beyond, his work in developing creatures and/or future tech is especially impressive. Few other creators feel as novel and refreshing in their depiction of some gangly, oddly charming mutant elephant or a sweet, sweet set of power armor.

“The stuff that I like the most, I think it comes down to reference basically. Reference and internal logic,” Roy said. “Whenever I’m trying to design a machine or a critter, it usually involves lots and lots of looking at actual machines and actual animals and trying to extrapolate from that to where I need to use it in a story.”

Roy said that he’s most interested in a kind of “tension” between “having something that’s grounded and it feels like something that’s existed in its own world for a while.” He added, “It should not just be a giant blue guy. Or, a suit of power armor that you’ve seen a million times in different video games.”

It’s also in the design work where he bucks some of those “obvious” influences a la Deep Space Nine. He said that while it’s “very natural to want to imitate other people’s creative properties,” it also makes “everything look the same and be boring.” The solution? Do more research, but also approach things in with a fresh angle.

“If I’m trying to design some soldiers, I usually spend way more time trying to track down, like, riot control gear from the Warsaw Pact from the ‘70s and ‘80s then, say, a game that came out three years ago.” For the backmatter of A Star Called The Sun, for instance, Roy Spent time cruising early 2000s websites featuring “old Popular Mechanics and General Electric stuff from the ‘50s, ‘60s, and ‘70s.”

There’s also the litany of “maquettes” featured in Habitat. These are concepts to “show the Department of Defense in the ‘50s and ‘60s. Like, ‘Can we get another $10 million to try and make a one-man forklift?’”

Sure, he could just look at something like Aliens instead, but he’d rather “look at the stuff that the guys who designed that were looking at.” It’s one hugely important way to do something that no one else is doing at the moment.

“Some of those guys weren’t trying to be cool or make something nerdy. They were trying to design functional machines for the least amount of money,” Roy said. “There’s a big part of when you’re designing stuff – people are getting more clued into this and want it to look sick. Now there’s enough material and access to other people’s strange autistic obsessions that you can be like, ‘What was the design brief in 1965?’ Like, ‘When these Russian designers built this thing for the Soviet Union, what was their train of thought that led to them making it look like this?’”

Even some of history’s biggest “losers” are still important lessons.

“In the ‘60s, the Americans designed something called the Hardiman,” Roy said. “It was basically a hydraulic, one-man power armor forklift exoskeleton thing. And they built one and they tested it a little but they quickly concluded, ‘This is way too dangerous. If you do it wrong, it’ll just rip your arms clean off.'”

Roy added, “It’s a good thing to keep in mind when you’re thinking about weird sci-fi designs – what’s an interesting way this could not work as well?”

It’s ultimately not just about scratching his own creative/artistic itches, or even telling novel stores. No, it’s about generating the kinds of stories that feel exciting and important to his audience. Everything is there (obvious or otherwise), and it’s not just about engaging the reader, but giving them ample permission to take any single story wherever they want to go.

“If something’s not explained, then there’s room for the reader to infer from the details their own conclusion,” Roy said. “It may or may not be what I was thinking when I was making it, but it’s more engaging because the person reading it is the person taking the story somewhere. Making space for that is very important to me.”

Similarly, Roy doesn’t like when you “read or watch something, and it’s just someone and their personal propaganda. They’re just grabbing your head, shouting in your face.” That might work for some folks, but it only really fits when everyone agrees with that “personal propaganda.”

What happens with the stories across A Star Called The Sun, then, is what Roy calls the “gradual accumulation of data,” adding, “So if you do read Habitat, and then you read a bunch more recent stuff, you’ll slowly get a bigger picture of, ‘What are these big shiny post-human gods? What’s their deal?’ You’ve got to figure it out yourself.”

Not all of it has to do with personal preferences and whatnot. Roy said that the stories across the collection represents years and years of effort, and that this slow, deliberate creative process informs each story’s particular shape.

“There’s a certain thing that happens when you’re making comics specifically, where it happens in so many stages,” Roy said. “I feel like, personally, I may or may not forget how I was feeling six months ago when I was coming up with the idea. And then three months ago when I was actually doing it. I usually approach it methodically, where I’ll outline and think about that for a while and then script it and then draw it over the course of two months to three years, depending on whatever.”

Roy wishes he had instances where the story “reached out and grabbed me and I just followed it.” But he doesn’t, and so he instead must find other ways to craft these stories and keep his interest and emotionality as high as he possibly can despite these unique constraints.

“It’s not quite as obvious,” Roy said. “I feel like there’s small emergent plot points that happen where I’ll be stuck on something, some idea, for a few years. Then once I’ve done some other stuff, I’ll have almost made enough context for myself to actually be able to solve the problem of whatever was keeping that other story idea. It’s just not like a religious experience of something being revealed.”

Roy added, “All these days in the bunker, they flow together.”

But all that added work and isolation is generally worthwhile. Not every creator can say they’ve got an intellectually curious audience, but Roy has found that his approach and output has garnered some truly exciting insights and responses from your average reader.

“I think Habitat had that happen the most, because the story ended in a way that in my mind was obvious, but I didn’t actually specifically tell a lot of what was happening,” Roy said. “So I feel like with that one, I had lots of stuff where people would almost pitch me their read on it.”

Roy added, “They’ll say, ‘I loved how this happened. And it’s like, ‘That’s not what I was thinking.’ But I’d think about it more later and go, ‘Maybe that’s how it should have happened.’ Or, my favorite thing was going to conventions and a guy being like, ‘Dude, I love the book. No idea what was happening.’ Perfect; that’s all I could ask for.”

A Star Called The Sun will likely generate similar levels of attention and engagement. But its release doesn’t mean that Roy is somehow done with his great, wide universe. Elsewhere, Roy and some collaborators are hard at work filling out the rest of this universe.

For instance, there’s Nightsoil, which he’s been telling in segments in the confines of his Patreon. That story sees settlers, armed with a “handful of robots and a big spaceship full of frozen embryos and some gene editing stuff,” fight off starvation by “genetically engineering a whole bunch of different tastes to support the society. It’s a space colony that within one generation is already becoming like a feudal hell world.”

It may be depressive, but it’s also something of an achievement for Roy.

“It’s a project that I’ve attempted a bunch of times over the past 15 years and never quite sunk my teeth into, but in the past two years, I finally I figured out how this idea could fit into the Habitat universe,” Roy said. “I just had to sand off the edges, edit some more new stuff in the middle, and then it started to build from there. I’m going to try and finish in the next year and then maybe print the year after.”

On the opposite side of the emotional spectrum from Nightsoil is CITIZEN ONE. Created alongside Naomi Peterson, it’s “basically the opposite of feudal hell world – it’s communist utopia planet.” Here, former army buddies now in charge of a planet find out that everything’s instead being run by a “giant space God that everyone thought was killed 100 years earlier. The conflict is between this cadre and the God mind as they decide how to govern.”

(And, to stoke his “self-indulgent” tendencies, Roy is working on project of prose and illustrations where “every moment there’s an aside where I’m like, ‘Well, actually here’s a paragraph that you need to read.’ So I’m scratching that itch but it’s not in a comic so it’ll be it’s own.”)

Even with that aside, however, it seems like Roy is primarily focused on his weird and wild universe. At one point, I ask if he ever feels “trapped” or instead somehow “empowered” by having to continually add to it. He said, “I think it’s a bit of both ways.”

Which is to say, before Habitat and Griz Grobus, he’d “always had done one-off, self-contained things.” But then he noted that “people also really like reading more of the same thing. So if you make something that they like, and if you produce more of it, they’d like to read more.”

It then became a journey of navigating both sides of this — the artistic process and the commercial promise.

“There was a hint of cynicism where I was like, ‘Maybe I should tie these all together so it becomes more of a coherent series of sorts,'” Roy said. “So that it’s easier to sell people. And could I print it in the same format? So it all becomes that thing.’ So I feel like in that way, I made a trap that’s also a tool.”

Which sounds pretty dang autobiographical for a guy who doesn’t really do that sort of thing. But then A Star Called The Sun is clearly deeply personal for Roy as it represents the summation of his artistic ideas and career perspectives. It is, as he mentioned, both a trap and a tool — something he can use to grow as both a person and artist because of what it demands of him with each new story. But it’s also not that personal, either, with a focus and scope that should excitement almost anyone. Let’s call it “autobiographical comics for the truly, unwaveringly nerdy” and leave it at that, yeah?

“If you like mid-century sci-fi and weird comics and hive minds and ancient technology and power armor and religious robots,” Roy said, “this is a collection of science fiction stories that will scratch a variety of different itches for you.”

A Star Called The Sun hits comics shops on February 11 (and bookstores on March 10).