Indie Comics Showcase #177: Pale Rider, Heretics, and Silver Sun

Check out the campaign page here!

Check out the crowdfunding campaign page here!

Chris Braly: Welcome to Indie Comics Showcase! Hit me with the elevator pitch for Heretics of the Fathomless Realms.

Dorian L. Alexander: Heretics is an emotionally charged action/adventure comic chock full of strange creatures, high stakes hijinks, and rousing interpersonal drama. It features the roguish wizards El and Im, buoyed by an expansive cast of charmingly unconventional characters, as they explore the boundlessly fantastic and dangerous Fathomless Realms in pursuit of truth, magic, and a lil’ mischief.

The first issue of Heretics follows the roguish wizards El and Im as they rekindle their ancient friendship by stealing a magical cactus from the powerful Church of Sylisstrene. The comic is 24 pages, in full color, with 6 pages of additional material including an extra mini-comic.

CB: Very cool, Dorian. Where did the idea come from, and what led you to self-publish?

DA: Jeremy (the artist) and I initially came up with the idea during an urban exploration trip to Seattle. Enchanted with the city, we began to improv a number of different characters, including the roguish wizards featured in the comic, traveling through a neon fantasy world. We spent about a year figuring out what sort of medium we wanted to use to capture these characters (originally we were thinking of some sort of interactive scavenger hunt installed throughout the city) before deciding it’d be a comic. Our first thought was to try and pitch it to a big-name publisher.

However, as we started working on it, we realized how important the theme of community was to the overarching plot of the series and decided that we would crowd-fund its production instead.

CB: This sounds a like its own genre to some degree. Who would you say this is aimed at? What sort of comic reader will get the most enjoyment from this?

DA: Fans of shows like Adventure Time, Castlevania, Over the Garden Wall, Gravity Falls, Rick and Morty, Breaking Bad or Quantum Leap.  Anyone that enjoyed The Dark Crystal or Labyrinth. Fans of comics like Saga, Isola, The Sandman, Don’t Go Without Me, Monstress, Deadly Class, ODY-C, East of West, or Fables. Fans of Science Fiction, Fantasy, Old Westerns, Psychedelia, or Horror. People familiar with the works of H. P. Lovecraft or traditional occult practices. And anyone that loves a good story, magic, strong world-building, experimental comics, or queer characters.

CB: That’s a pretty wide swath of readers. Can you tell me a little about how you developed your style and the creative process?

DA: Jeremy calls the comic’s style “magic deep space noir.” On Kickstarter, we call what we do “neon fantasy.” For me, this description captures the scintillating, psychedelic nature of the art as well as the seamier side of its thematic content. There was a brief moment when we thought we might go in a slightly more cartoony direction (and there are definitely still elements of that inclination evident in there), but this style basically emerged straight from the get go.

CB: Give a quick shout out to your creative team on this project.

DA: I am the writer and creator, along with artist and creator Jeremy Raab. Our colorist is Gabriel Fischer and our letterer is Rus Wooton.

CB: So what’s your production workflow like? 

DA: Jeremy and I like to call it our “weekly argument.” A lot of writers and artists have a bit of distance from each other, but we’re constantly looking over each others’ shoulders. We’ve gotten into a pretty good rhythm now that we’re working on issue #2, but there are definitely still moments when we (mostly) playfully threaten each other with bodily harm trying to squish our separate visions together.

CB: Are you learning anything from crowdfunding and creating through this process?

DA: That I hate social media. It’s an unfortunate necessity of getting your name out there, but having to constantly shout about your project to anyone who’ll listen is exhausting for me personally. I’ve also learned more about CMYK color formats, business banking fees, and graphic design than I ever wanted to know.

CB: Any plans beyond this book?

DA: Heretics is meant to be a long running series and we’re slowly but surely working towards what we hope to be a consistent bi-monthly release of the comic via Kickstarter. The next several story arcs have been fully plotted out and our goal is to have the entire first arc (seven issues) published in 2023. This first arc is mainly about El and Im questing after the perfect piece of décor for the study of their interdimensional lake house, a journey of escalating misadventure that shows the wizards’ complicated relationship with each other, their lovers, and the various worlds they explore. This arc leads directly into subsequent arcs, where the wizards must face the unintended consequences of these earlier misadventures, requiring them to recognize and rely upon their communities rather than just their own individual talents.

CB: Any unique aspects of this book you’d like to mention?

DA: I really like the way older comics were more attentive to the power of back material, especially Alan Moore’s stuff. Because of that our comic has some back material I think is really neat – bonus mini comics, spells you can do at home, that sort of stuff.

CB: Thanks for chatting with us, Dorian. Any final words?

DA: For us, Heretics is about manifesting the magic in the mundane. We believe that fantasy doesn’t just have to be about talking swords and slaying dragons (although there certainly is some of that in our work). Instead, we want to recognize the magic that exists in our daily lives, communities, and relationships and rely on that magic to explore queer and other non-traditional experiences. We want to place front and center the kind of principles, people, and powers that are usually dismissed as heretical because we see them as the true source of magic in our lives. We hope that that resonates with people and that they’ll want to become heretics too.

Check out the crowdfunding campaign page here!

Check out the crowdfunding page here

Chris Braly: Welcome to ICS, Jonh. Can you tell me about your latest comic Silver Sun?

Jonh Curcio: Sol de plata (Silver Sun) is the story of our national hero, born from a myth that tells: when the country needs it most, a silver soldier appears to save the day. Sun is the silver soldier of our days. In his mind he is programmed only to serve and protect the nation, but his past haunts him, because he doesn’t know who he is or where he came from. He saved us, but he cannot save himself.

CB: What made you and your team decide to self-publish it?

JC: This comic is a fusion between what I have been developing since I was a child in the ’90s, when I created the character, with Luigiman’s ideas and the modernization that we gave him with the creative team. We wanted to have a “flagship” hero for our publisher and we felt that Sun (among all the characters we own) had the potential to accomplish that task and capture a wide audience for our newly launched publisher. The volume has a total of 180 pages in full color.

CB: Tell me who this book is aimed at? What sort of audience is going to enjoy this the most?

JC: It is aimed at an audience of the classic superhero genre, such as DC or Marvel readers, since they were our main influences. The fact that the character is radicalized in Argentina does not prevent his reading and understanding, since except for the real settings where the story takes place and his obvious clothing, we do not make any apology to our country, nor are there customs that cannot be easily understood. In fact, we have a subplot where several superheroes, from four real publishers from different South American countries, come together for the first time creating what we call: the South American Union, the first Latin American supergroup of heroes.

CB: How did you guys develop your creative approach to this?

JC: Both Luigiman and I are cartoonists, but we are not as good as these artists, that is why we prefer to put ourselves in the role of editor and take advantage of all the talent that exists, offering a quality product, in full color and that has nothing to envy the other publishers. We believe that our project is what differentiates us from others, that is why we bet on Latin American talent. We have been in this role for five years now, and have published a total of fourteen comics spread over five titles.

CB: How far along is the book? 

JC: The book is complete, since it includes the first six issues of the Silver Sun series. The only things we still need to finish are the internal designs of some editorial columns, things like the index or the extras pages, things that won’t take us more than a month to finish.

For the regular series, we had a production flow of between three and four months, but we were delayed by different situations outside the editorial, such as the endless inflationary debacles in Argentina or the recent pandemic.

CB: What’s been your biggest takeaway from self-publishing? And are there more stories you want to tell in this universe?

JC: Learn We have learned a lot, since we have launched ourselves as editors without any specialization or knowledge. The truth is that we may have been wrong at times, but I think there were more times that we have been right, with the different decisions we have made. We have full confidence that our products are of quality and that they will surely fulfill the objective of entertaining the reader. We have four more titles from the UMC universe waiting their turn and this is Sun’s first story arc, we have more planned for the character.

CB: Before we close out this edition of Indie Comics Showcase, do you want to mention any special features in this book?

JC: Yes, as an alternative to the book, we offer the possibility of buying the comics separately, in case you are nostalgic fans of the comic book format like us.  The other luxury option is the possibility of not only acquiring the tome, but also a spectacular polymer clay sculpture, plus a cloth mask and a GIFT keychain!!!

I would also like to clarify that if anyone has already had the opportunity to read one of our comics and “suffered” the translation from Spanish to English, they should stay calm because on this occasion we have commissioned a new translation from a professional translator so that they can enjoy of the comic in the best possible way.

CB: Thanks Jonh. Good luck with the comic campaign!