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Brody’s Ghost

Mark Crilley is the developer of the Akiko series in addition to the young adult series Billy Clikk as well as Miki Falls. This month he returns to comics with his new series, Brody’s Ghost, from Dark Horse. Crilley just recently talked with Westfield’s Roger Ash about this new series.

Westfield: What was the motivation for Brody’s Ghost?

Mark Crilley: a number of different things came together for this project. I’d always wished to do a story set in a Bladerunner-like futuristic location. I’d likewise never told a story including ghosts, as well as wished to see exactly how such characters can be utilized to check out matters relating to death. lastly I felt that while the concept of an typical person all of a sudden acquiring superpowers had been done to death (Spider bites! Gamma radiation!), the concept of that exact same person very, extremely slowly attaining those powers with huge self sacrifice had not been tried much. Luke in empire Strikes Back is about the only one I can believe of. I wished to see exactly how believable I might make the whole training process.

Westfield: who are the primary characters in the book?

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Crilley: Brody is our protagonist. He’s a young guy whose world is rather actually a mess. His apartment’s like a landfill, as well as he’s quite much flushing his life down the toilet complying with a break up. into this comes Talia, the ghost character. She’s a woman who died of leukemia five years earlier. The idea is to make the living character, Brody, type of half dead, whereas the dead character, Talia, is much much more full of life. lastly there’s an ancient samurai ghost character, Kagemura, who will ultimately serve as Brody’s mentor in unlocking his supernatural powers.

Westfield: What can you tell us about the story?

Crilley: Well, it’s a six-part story, extremely thoroughly organized out. In book One we get to satisfy Brody as well as these other characters as well as see where he is, what he’s up against, as well as just exactly how far he has to go. Talia needs Brody’s latent psychic capabilities to assist her find a serial killer she’s been charged with apprehending. So from the get go we see this typical man getting sucked into a extremely harmful world. As the books are released as well as the story progresses, I’ll get to do the most intense action sequences of my career. as well as the truth that I’ve worked the plot out so thoroughly implies there will be absolutely no filler: whatever that’s in this story is there for a reason.

Westfield: Why did you choose to do this as a series of graphic novels instead of monthly comics?

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Crilley: You know, I never truly thought about the monthly comic book route, though that would have been cool. When I pitch any type of job I want as numerous different publishers to look at it as possible. Mainstream publishing homes like HarperCollins as well as random home can only think about graphic novels, to ensure that was clearly the very best method to go. likewise this story, like practically whatever I come up with these days, has a extremely film-like quality: A solid beginning, middle as well as end, rather than a sprawling episodic tale. graphic novels enable you to pull the visitor in for a longer time as well as provide them that “it’s like I’m viewing a movie” experience.

Westfield: are there any type of other jobs you’re working on that you’d like to mention?

Crilley: I’ve got tons of other things I’d like to get going. Brody’s Ghost is front as well as center for now, though. If all goes according to plan I’ve got much more than 500 pages in front of me, so I’m going to have to be careful about handling a second job in the years ahead.

Westfield: any type of closing comments?

Crilley: I’d just like to provide a huge shout out to Jill Thompson, who single handedly hooked me up with the people at Dark Horse. She believed in this job practically without even understanding what it was — such was her belief in me as a comic creator. thanks to her I’m truly coming back into the comics market in a huge way. I can’t wait on this book to hit the shelves this summer. I believe it’s truly going to surprise people.