D4VE #1

D4VE #1

Debuting on 11/20 from writer Ryan Ferrier and artist Valentin Ramon and published by MonkeyBrain Comics comes D4VE, the story of a robot having a mid-life crisis. It’s darkly humorous with great sci-fi aspects, all while being a bit of a heartbreaker. With the release just a couple of days away, writer Ryan Ferrier was kind enough to talk a bit about D4VE and how the comic came to be.

Leo Johnson: Your new comic, D4VE, with artist Valentin Ramon is coming to Monkeybrain. What’s the story of D4VE all about?

Ryan Ferrier: D4VE is a story, at its core, about a former hero now dealing with a crippling mid-life crisis. The Earth is inhabited only by robots—who long ago conquered the planet, and took out all life in the galaxy—and D4VE was the leader of the robot defense squad in charge of defending their race. Now, after the robots have adopted the human way of life in every aspect, D4VE finds himself trapped in a soul-sucking desk job. The series pits D4VE against his crumbling personal life and throws him back into his glory days when the planet gets some unexpected visitors.

LJ: Where did the idea for D4VE come from? What made a humanless world of oddly human robots so intriguing?

RF: Without divulging too much, D4VE draws from some very personal feelings and fears, certainly ones that a fair amount of us go through. So there’s a lot of me in the book, albeit with different spins and different filters. I think we all feel monotonous and unremarkable at times, and sometimes our personal battles can seem like fighting a giant monster. I see D4VE (the series) as being a mash-up of all the things many of us love and hate at the same time. I’ve always wanted to do a really introspective dark-comedy book, but I’ve also wanted to do a very light-hearted science-fiction book, so it worked itself out very naturally. As soon as Valentin Ramon became involved, it became something totally of its own. Valentin is amazing, and has shaped this world we’re building, this story we’re telling into something that we feel has a lot of heart, but also a lot of character. I think with D4VE, we’re telling a story that excites us, but also allows us both to grow creatively. As for where it came from specifically, I remember doing a lot of reminiscing and having a stressful time at an earlier day job that started the whole thing.

D4VE #1

D4VE #1

LJ: How did the book come to make its home at MonkeyBrain, especially as you’ve published several of your comics on your Challenger Comics site/imprint?

RF: I’ve been fortunate to letter a few books from Monkeybrain creators, specifically THEREMIN, SKYBREAKER, and now PRIME-8′S. Since their launch, Monkeybrain has been really blowing my mind, in terms of the creators involved and the content they’ve been releasing, and I really am grateful to be a part of it. Monkeybrain has such a focus on great creator-owned comics, which is something that I’m really interested in. Lettering those Monkeybrain titles was a way for me to get the opportunity to pitch D4VE to Chris Roberson and Allison Baker, the amazing people that run Monkeybrain, and thankfully they liked it and let us tell our story. Chris and Allison must be some of the hardest working, most dedicated people in comics, they are both incredibly talented and awesome.

As for Challenger Comics, that’s still very much a part of my comic-making modus operandi, certainly. Obviously, as a young writer, I’m hungry to work with publishers and build on my work, but I very much want to keep moving forward. So while I’ll always continue to self-publish and work with other creators through the Challenger Comics collective, the chance to work with publishers is, to me, a huge goal. At the end of the day, all I want to do is make comics, tell stories, and work with amazing people.

D4VE #1

D4VE #1

LJ: As with all MonkeyBrain titles, D4VE will be digital first and distributed via Comixology. Did this affect the way you wrote the book at all?

RF: I haven’t noticed anything different really. I know that a lot of Monkeybrain or other digital-first books sometimes have a shorter issue-length, but that’s not entirely something that I worry too much about. I think with D4VE we’re averaging around 18 pages per issue, give or take. Originally we had planned the series to run four issues, and that’s now changed to five, but I think that’s more a case of telling the story in the best possible way. Still, writing with page count in mind, I’ve noticed that my scripts have become tighter and Valentin’s work is just stunning regardless. If anything, creating a book for digital-first has lit the fire beneath us, in a good way. I like the immediacy of making comics digital-first. While it’s most certainly not an overnight thing—and again this is just how great Chris and Allison are—the turnaround for release is quicker than for print. It keeps our head in the story, and is really quite exciting. Conversely, another benefit with digital-first is that we’re not entirely limited by the page-counts, and we have the option to include some (hopefully) really neat things in the backmatter.

LJ: Where can those interested keep up with you and your work?

RF: You can find me on tweeting through @ryanwriter, blogging at rferrier.tumblr.com, and making some comics at readchallenger.com. Valentin can be found blogging at valentinramon.blogspot.ca.

LJ: Finally, is there anything else you want to add?

RF: Thanks for taking the time to chat with me about D4VE! To any D4VE readers, or potential readers, thank you so much for checking out our book. We love you for it. We’ll be running a letters column in the back of each issue starting with #002, so if you’d like to write in you can do so at .

 

 

Related posts: