Across his comics career, Joe Palmer has tackled some interesting projects. There’s Time Before Time, where he helped tell a profoundly human story that just so happened to feature people mucking with the space-time continuum. Or, Write It In Blood, a gangster story with a decidedly rural bent and packed with even more cutting insights into the human condition. Later this summer, though, Palmer (who has also worked briefly for 2000 AD) takes us into even more strange but prescient directions with his debut solo project, Destination Kill.
Set to be released via Oni Press, Destination Kill takes place in 2125, where thanks to the Overcon corporation, we have “robot workers to pour our drinks and dispense our meds, all while rebuilding London’s Central City into a hyper-modern megalopolis bolted together in its own image.” But then one day the robots decide to rise up, looking to transform the anniversary celebration of the Paradise Loop (which connects NYC to London in just 60 minutes) into a statement. That leaves “stressed-out, pill-popping police detective” Gina Serene and “ex-partner turned P.I.” Lance Wingman on the case, and these two may be the only thing that can prevent an uprising that might “bring Britain’s capital crashing down around them.”
If the subject matter of Destination Kill feels painfully relevant, it oughta. Across Destination Kill, Palmer forges an extra sharp blade of pitch-perfect satire, lampooning corporate greed, personal apathy, our increasingly feckless handling of technology, and continued environmental disregard and destruction. But balancing that cutting prescience is some high-grade humor and action, and Palmer honors the work of great sci-fi by effectively rocket-launching everything directly into our brains. Whether our actual future proves as harrowing, Destination Kill at least makes me hope it’ll be this dang exciting.
Destination Kill #1 is due out May 13. (For retailers and those interested, the IOD is Saturday, March 21 and the FOC is Monday, April 20.) Ahead of the release, however, we caught up with Palmer via email to field our most burning questions about this proper slice of sci-fi madness. That includes why he might have waited so long to release his first solo book, the connections with 2000 AD and similar stories, the book’s development (and how it came from one singular image), the book’s prescience and themes, and even working as both artist and writer.
Destination Kill #1 main cover by Joe Palmer. Courtesy of Oni Press.
AIPT: Why do you think it took this long to make your solo debut? Can you talk a bit about that process of going it on your own — any upsides, downsides, etc.?
Joe Palmer: After many years of being a hired hand as far as my comics work goes, I ended up feeling like I wasn’t able to fully express myself in that role, and I came to the realization that I wouldn’t be able to unless I had full creative control. I have a lot of ideas, and life is too short to not at least try to get some of them out.
The downside is that it can be lonely, but the upside is that for better or worse, it’s the sum total of my personal expression on the page, and nothing beats that!
AIPT: The book’s already gleaned comparisons to Judge Dredd and Tank Girl, among others. Did you actively try to lean into those connections/influences at all, or do you feel like those comparisons “simplify” the book somehow?
JP: With respect to the aforementioned characters, I don’t see much of a connection myself, other than I happen to also be British. I think comparisons in general tend to over-simplify, and probably alienate people who are fans of the things that are the subject of comparison. I’d like to add that I love both Dredd and Tank Girl, but I would never compare them to this book.
Courtesy of Oni Press.
AIPT: Similar to that last question, did your experience in 2000 AD/Dredd prepare you at all for this book? Did you mean to make this story a “direct” connection?
JP: I had an extremely brief stint at 2000 AD, illustrating three short stories for them over the course of four years, and never worked on Judge Dredd, so I wouldn’t say there’s a particular connection there. I did grow up with 2000 AD around in the house though, so it was formative, along with a lot of other influences.
AIPT: You said the book came to you following an illustration of a “lone, masked builder armed with a pistol.” Can you talk about why that image resonated so intently with you?
JP: A masked builder with a gun, standing on the snow covered roof of St Paul’s Cathedral. I have no idea where that image came from! It was just something that popped into my head, fully formed, which sometimes happens. I thought A) I like it; B) it’s powerful; and C) I’ve never seen it before. That combination of elements led me to use it in the book, and I thought it made for a good opening scene.
Courtesy of Oni Press.
AIPT: You said that part of the reason you did this book was to “put something out in the world that represents me and my personality.” How do you think this book tells us all about Joe Palmer (both the artist and the person)?
JP: I’ve always preferred to view things through the lens of humor, and that’s not necessarily always been possible on things I’ve worked on in the past. That’s really important to me, to not take everything so seriously. I can get bored quickly with work that has no humor in it, as it’s such an important part of life for me. Aside from that, writing for myself means that I can put all kinds of personal things into my stories and not tell you which are real and which are made up!
AIPT: We’ve (effectively) got two leads here in Gina Serene and Lance Wingman. Why does that pairing work, and do you have a “preference” for either one?
JP: I love the interplay between two leads in fiction, and when it’s done well, it can be very entertaining. A contemporary example of this would be the “buddy cop” movie, which is more or less what we’ve got going on in this story. The fact that they seem to be very different gives you more dynamics to play with as a writer, and that’s fun. But no, no preference for either, they’re just my characters, and I like them both.
Courtesy of Oni Press.
AIPT: There’s something especially relevant about this book’s focus on a worker’s uprising amid a “robot revolution.” Is it hard to talk about something that’s right outside our window, as it were, or does that make your storytelling easier to accomplish?
JP: This is a subject that science fiction has been tackling since the beginning, but when I put pen to paper and began to write back in 2020, I was just thinking about what was happening at the time and the potential for the future. In the years in between, things have clearly accelerated much faster than I’d anticipated with regards to job losses for the human workforce, but I didn’t set out to make a statement about what’s happening.
AIPT: I also think the tone of this is the right combo of funny and serious for this kind of satire. Is there a secret to making satire that doesn’t feel hokey or weird?
JP: Well, firstly I never sat down with the intention of making a satire. I had a story to tell, and I wanted to tell it with a light touch. As I mentioned before about seeing things through the lens of humor, that’s something that naturally happens rather than something I’m trying to do. So as far as the tone goes, I really just went with whatever felt right at the time of writing. I’m a fairly simple kind of guy, and I try not to over-think my choices. It’s for the reader to decide if those choices work for them or not.
Courtesy of Oni Press.
AIPT: How do you balance acting as both the writer and artist? Is it something you want to do even more of in the future?
JP: I’m learning more and more all the time and figuring out my process along the way. Destination Kill was a huge learning experience for me, and the thing I’m working on now is the direct beneficiary of that education. I’d absolutely love to keep making my own projects, but it will honestly come down to whether that is financially viable, so we will see.
AIPT: Do you have a favorite moment from Destination Kill #1? Something that stands out or maybe sets the tone for the rest of the story?
JP: About a third of the way into the first issue, there’s an establishing panel of builders distributing guns under a bridge, and the guy who is being given a weapon says, “This is some serious s**t.” To the right of the panel is an owl that promptly cuts the sincerity of the previous line with a loud “HOO” noise. That pretty much sums up the tone of the book to me.
Courtesy of Oni Press.
AIPT: Can you tease any tidbits from the rest of this story/subsequent issues?
JP: Well, without giving too much away, next issue things in the city take a significant downturn, and we join Gina and Lance on a crazy ride as they try to figure out what is going on.
AIPT: Is there anything else we should know about Destination Kill, comics, satire, robots/technology, the future, etc.?
JP: I can’t think of anything that the book doesn’t say itself! Thanks in advance to everybody who picks the first issue up, and I hope you have a good time with it!
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