Welcome back to Hoax Hunters Backstage Pass, where you get a behind the scenes look at the work done by writers Michael Moreci and Steve Seeley. They’re taking you inside the big moments & mysteries of every issue.
This month we have a previously unlikely romantic pairing, some meddling demon birds that can take down airplanes, and come face-to-face with the literal demon from Donovan’s past. This was another big one!
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Remember that we’ll be spoiling these issues, so read the book before getting the inside look. Let’s dive in:
Let’s talk about the Devil’s Blindness for a bit. You open the issue with a little thematic treatise on it. Is this a real urban legend? Where did this idea originate?
Michael Moreci: That’s just the result of going down the research rabbit hole. I knew what I was going after in that first scene, about myth and how it blends with reality, so I started doing my usual poking around. I came across the devil’s blindness, and it was perfect in every way. And it is real–it’s a disease carried by black flies. Nasty business.
Over with Jack and Ken, we’ve got the thunderbirds, which appear to be the thing that has been terrorizing random cities from the last issue. These are another urban legend, of sorts. I know they are traditionally cryptids of African or Native American origin – were you basing them on either of these? Are they a harbinger of worse things to come for the world of “Hoax Hunters”?
Steve Seeley: Yeah, our Thunderbirds are based in the cryptid Mythos for sure. I really enjoy the Native American legends, however, the idea to use them came from a story I researched about a Thunderbird in the Washington DC area during the 60s that apparently took down a plane. And to answer the second part, I don’t think Mike or I really saw them as harbingers, per se. The are part of a bigger threat, however, they are just pawns.
Donovan lets us in on his “origin”, so to speak, in a big way this issue. He also lets on to ties to Borges, the partner of Jack’s father than we’ve seen in past issues. This issue did a great job of weaving together a lot of these dangling threads to make the larger world of “Hoax Hunters” a little more clear. Is Donovan’s interest in Borges tied to the multiverse that we’ve seen Jack exploring? In this way, can we expect Donovan and Jack’s quests to dovetail at some point?
MM: YES. And I’m so glad you spotted this. Everyone–Jack, Donovan, Borges, even the Faceless Man (more on him in issue #12)–is after the same thing, whether they realize it or not. I love this issue for this precise reason that you state a lot of threads come together here. We’ve been building toward this for months and months, knowing our mythology really thoroughly, so it’s a lot of fun to start exposing how all this works, and where it’s headed. And what that place is–dovetail is a great word, I can say that. By the end of issue #13, which is the end of season one, Jack and Donovan will certainly be in interesting, unexpected places.
Jack levels a pretty funny threat towards Murder involving filling his suit with “diarrhetic geese” – is Murder able to understand irony? And on a day-to-day basis, how does the communication between Murder and the rest of the crew work?
SS: Good question. We often talk about this; what he can understand, whether it be words specifically or even the way words are delivered. I think we generally agree that Murder has a pretty comprehensive understanding of what is said. But his way of communicating is pretty simple, limited to a “kaw” or a maybe a thumbs up.
Donovan is given a tragic backstory involving the death of his wife due to supernatural meddling. You know me – I don’t necessarily trust Donovan. Can we trust him here?
Continued belowMM: Actually, yes. In terms of whether or not the story Donovan tells is true or not, it is. All those things did happen to him and his wife, and his emotional response to it is real. But, it’s still hard to exonerate him for being a sleazy lying asshole.
Will we learn more about the circumstances of Donovan’s tragic past? He seems to want to sweep a lot of it under the rug. Is there more he should be ashamed of?
MM: There’s definitely wiggle room there, specifically how he came to be a Hoax Hunter (a story intertwined with Borges that, I think, will get told in season two). We know Donovan’s origin, but how did he get from demon’s slave to head of a very powerful organization? There’s a good chunk of story waiting to be told, and I look forward to getting to it. But, man, I look forward to a lot of stories that are yet to be told in the HH universe!
Oh man, you guys. We have to talk about the big moment of the issue: The kiss. Maybe other fans felt differently, but I had to cringe a little bit for Regan here. Again, I don’t trust Donovan. Is she falling for another one of his cons here? Is there really something there between these two? Is this a moment of real vulnerability for either Regan, Donovan, or both? Is Regan, perhaps, playing Donovan herself?
MM: I like to think of the kiss as a connection of two damaged individuals; two people who have had to spend much of their lives alone because of similar circumstances. When Regan hears this story, it awakens her own troubled past, which she’s been thinking about a lot of late. She feels vulnerable, as you say, and sees the same in Donovan–maybe two vulnerable people can make on strong person? They both know that well-adjusted lives are gone for them, and they’ll likely die in South America (Regan couldn’t possibly leave Donovan there to die). So, for a night, it makes sense. But beyond that….
Borges comes to call on Jack by the end of this issue. I suspect this has something to do with his father? He says that he needs to listen if he wants to survive. Can you guys hint at what might be around the corner?
SS: Oh man, thats gonna be a tough one to answer without spoiling anything. Borges has the most knowledge of what happened to Jacks dad, but he’s a very shadowed indiviudual and not necessarily trustworthy. So yeah, you’ll have to wait and see.
