Over the past year, First Second quickly became one of my favorite publishers. With a slew of absolutely stellar graphic novels like “Rise of Aurora West”, “IRL”, “This One Summer” or “The Wrenchies”, First Second put out a ton of Best Graphic Novel of 2014 contenders and truly lived up to their mantra — great graphic novels for every reader.
It looks like 2015 is already setting up to be great for First Second, as today we can exclusively reveal one of their upcoming titles: “Quirk’s Quest,” by Deborah Lang and Robert Christie. The tale of Captain Quenterindy Quirk, the book follows him as he explores uncharted territory at the behest of his King, and coming into contact with all kinds of strange and wonderous flora and fauna.
Here’s the official summary, from First Second:
Crutonia is a vast land where adventure and danger are never far away. To discover the possibilities the kingdom holds, King Hoonkl has ordered the intrepid but cavalier Captain Quenterindy Quirk on a special mission to learn the land’s secrets and to map its uncharted territories. However, early in the expedition overconfidence leads to disaster as the Captain and crew find themselves suddenly stranded. Quirk’s Quest follows the adventures of Quirk and his band of explorers, and the trouble they find themselves in as they journey deeper into uncharted Crutonia. Within these unknown lands, they come upon menacing creatures, perilous terrain, and citizens with questionable intentions.
Read on as we chat everything “Quirk’s Quest” with Christie and Lang alongside your first look at two (awesome) pages from the book, and look for the book in shops next year.
So, I know this is kind of a standard question, but it’s an easy place to begin: could you tell me about how you first came together and where you came up with the idea of “Quirk’s Quest”?
Deborah Lang: Rob and I started collaborating in junior high, and we worked on the foundation of what is now our “world” of Crutonia while goofing off in class. We came up with a group of characters, creatures and stories. We started with stories about royalty and battles and such, but we eventually became much more interested in the everyday people that live in Crutonia. It wasn’t until relatively recently that we started “Quirk’s Quest”, although many of the characters are from previous stories.
Robert Christie: Deb and I actually met in the lunchroom in junior high, so we have known each other a long, long time – I’ll refrain from disclosing the actual number of years. Basically, we just geeked out together and started making up characters. Interestingly enough, Quirk was one of the first, though it would be many years before we wrote a story around him.
The idea for his story came from our realization that although we had been writing stories in Crutonia all along, there were areas of the land we might never get to work with if we stayed in the so called “civilized” parts of the kingdom. So a Lewis and Clark style exploration was just the thing to satisfy our desire to tell a story and still create new characters and places to entertain ourselves.
Who is Captain Quenterindy Quirk? What do you think makes him appealing, and what makes him a hero?
RC: Captain Quenterindy Quirk is an aristocrat from Crutonia’s capital city of Cruton. He served in the royal armed forces with somewhat questionable distinction, a fact that may have had something to do with his “honor” of being sent off to the most remote parts of the kingdom. As for his appeal, I think he wants very much to be seen as a hero and to be respected, but he doesn’t always know how to go about it. He can be brash and arrogant, but ultimately this is to cover a lack of confidence. Although the story is based around this journey of discovery of Crutonia, it’s also about finding the hero in ourselves.
DL: Not everyone will agree that Quirk is a hero. In some ways, he isn’t, since he may have overestimated his preparedness and abilities. However, he can still be a heroic character since he’s willing to go above and beyond in his mission. He has his flaws, but at least he is brave enough to go outside of his comfort zone. I think it’s due to his faults that he’s relatable and likable.
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What do you find appealing about adventure stories? Did you both read a lot of adventure stories growing up?
DL: We both enjoy exploring the unknown. I don’t think our characters are thrill seekers or overly brave, it’s just their curiosity that drives them. I’ve always enjoyed a good adventure, too, such as Star Trek and Elf Quest. I also like reluctant heroes, like Frodo in Lord of the Rings. Some of the adventure stories of Theodore Roosevelt and his journeys in the Amazon are really great, too. He had some of these overconfident intellectual fellows with him who were totally unprepared for their trek. There are some parallels to our story for sure!
RC: Adventure stories, especially in the science fiction/fantasy genres are just such a great place to let your creativity go wild. If you can imagine it, you can draw it, and if you can draw it, you can write it. I certainly read the canon of Tolkien, C.S. Lewis and Frank Herbert growing up, and many times since. Watership Down was also a favorite, but I was as likely to be reading one of Roger Tory Peterson’s field guides from cover to cover as I was to be reading fiction.
“Quirk’s Quest” is to chart unseen territory, so what can you tell me about the world of Crutonia, and what went into developing it?
RC: Crutonia is a kingdom that spans a small continent. Although its southern provinces are civilized and pretty well mapped, a great expanse to the north is mostly wild land. This was largely intentional as it was formerly the stronghold of a race of fearsome creatures called schlorgks who were overthrown by King Hoonkl’s grandmother Klemntyne.
DL: We have been building the world of Crutonia since we were in junior high, and we know a lot of details such as climate, fauna, flora, terrain, cities and towns, citizens that live there, and so forth. We started with a general map, and over time we have filled in regions in more and more detail. Sometimes we focus on a specific region and build it up with the geography, creatures and such. Alternatively, we develop details on a location as we write a story. It’s all good fun.
RC: We put an almost obsessive amount of work into creating the world of Crutonia before we ever started writing “Quirk’s Quest”. We have binders upon binders full of creatures, their habits and habitats, even information about the plants found in different parts of the land. We started developing the world when we were kids — just for fun — long before we ever thought that publication could be a real option.
What were some of the challenges you found when creating a new landscape, and what do you find most rewarding about it?
RC: The landscape itself is a pretty standard fantasy world landscape. The fun and challenges come when you start populating it with creatures and characters! We intentionally tried not to make it too “alien” or surreal — we thought it would distract from the story we want to tell. We’re much more interested in making sure the characters and creatures are highlighted. We draw a lot from nature, but we try to take a different angle on it.
DL: Oh, it is mostly rewarding and fun. Sometimes it’s creating a territory that has some known plant life or creature, other times it is all newly created. One of the challenges we have is to try not to repeat ourselves. Even if you see a creature or plant only in the background, we like to know about it in terms of how it lives and where. We try to have everything be interesting in its own way.
Can you talk a bit about some of the creatures and places we may be seeing throughout the book? The two pages shared by FS are pretty wonderful, I must say.
DL: Thanks! Well, I don’t want to give you any spoilers, but there will be some creatures that are friendly, some that are rather dangerous, and a few crazy ones thrown in, too. We tend to think of the world of Crutonia as a character in the story, too, so there is usually a lot of naturalism going on as a backdrop to the main story.
Continued belowRC: Our main ensemble of characters, Quirk and his crew, include a variety of different species. We have done our best to make sure that each species has their own perspectives and predilections, and we try to work in how these differences create their own subtext within the story. Oh, and there are some overly friendly yet poisonous fellows who show up and do their part too.
Looking at the preview art the book seems to be a bit Henson-esque in its inspiration. Would that be a fair assessment? What would you both say are your major influences?
RC: That’s an inevitable comparison, and a fair one. Sesame Street and The Muppet Show were definitely an obsession of mine as a child. Interestingly, we get a lot of questions about Fraggle Rock specifically, which I know Deb had never seen, and I think I only saw a couple of episodes. I guess you could say that not having access to the real thing inspired me to try and create something similar of my own.
DL: We get the Jim Henson comparison a lot. At first I was very surprised about it, since I was not consciously influenced by his work, but I do see some similarities with Fraggle Rock. In terms of comics, some of my major influences were the previously mentioned Elf Quest by Wendy and Richard Pini, and the work of Julie Doucet. In addition, I really love the Bone series by Jeff Smith, and the drawings and books of Edward Gorey and Tove Jannson.
RC: As far as other influences go, I would have to say that Dave Trampier’s “Wormy” comic strip from the back of Dragon Magazine in the early 80’s was definitely inspiring. (Did I mention that I was a nerd?) I also had a love of William Stout’s dinosaur illustrations. He had a way of making these beautiful drawings and paintings of the most terrifying of creatures. Tove Jansson’s Moomintroll books and illustrations also need mention, as they beautifully show the sweeter and more melancholy side of what inspires me.
How close are the two of you working on the book in terms of creation and design? Is there an even line in the sand drawn in terms of process, or is it a bit more amorphous?
RC: We work very closely on both the writing and the design. The way we write is more or less a game of exquisite corpse. We pass the stories back and forth between us, without knowing exactly what each other come up with. We have a general plan for the stories, but the actual storytelling more spontaneous process. This can lead to some tricky bits of editing later on, but it keeps the process fresh and exciting for both of us. After that, I do the finished artwork.
DL: We both work on creation, design, drawing and writing. For a long time, we were really just writing and drawing, and passing things back and forth between the two of us. We still do our story development this way, and Rob now does the finished inks and colors for our published work.
You’ve both worked in other fields besides comics. Robert, you worked on costumes and prop manufacturing, and Deborah, you did scientific illustration — which sounds pretty great. Does this other work that you’ve done play any role in your creative process on this book?
RC: I can’t speak for Deb, but my work in the costume world doesn’t play a big role, as a majority of our characters don’t even wear clothing!
DL: I actually work in the sciences, and tend to create illustrations for my own papers as well as my colleagues. My other career does influence this story in particular, since several of the characters may be thought of as scientists, and their mission is one of exploration and discovery. Some of the attributes that our characters have in terms of personality and behavior are common among scientists!
This looks to ostensibly be an all ages book, but often times one of the challenges of those titles is to really make them for all ages. What do you think “Quirk’s Quest” does right in terms of having a broad appeal?
Continued belowDL: Our original audience was just Rob and I, so we tend to write what we think each other would find amusing. We like to write stories that we think are humorous! As with any adventure story, there is the potential for danger and violence. It’s at the same level as a nature documentary, the whole things-getting-eaten-circle-of-life. We try to have a story set in an interactive environment.
RC: We wrote “Quirk’s Quest” to be an all ages book by default, mostly because when we started writing it, we were kids who were writing it for each other. We never thought “who is the target audience?” In my mind, that’s a good thing. I think that if we tried to write it for a specific audience, we would have second guessed ourselves and hampered the creative process.
Lastly, in terms of scope, how do you see the book? It sounds to me like Crutonia is pretty vast, something that would maybe be explored over a whole series. Is that something you’d like to do, or do you see this more as a one and done?
RC: We’ve always thought of “Quirk’s Quest” as an ongoing series. Maybe not completely open ended, but we have plans for more books. We also have some other story lines and some shorts floating around, some of which may be developed in the future.
I have recently become acquainted with Joann Sfar and Lewis Trondheim’s “Dungeon” series. I love the way they have developed a series of standalone stories that all have points of intersection. If you are paying close attention you understand the bigger story more fully, which makes for such an enjoyable reading experience.
DL: I think that this book can be enjoyed as a stand alone, but we’re already working on more. While we were pretty happy with keeping our work on a small scale, we are really excited and honored to have this great opportunity to share our story through First Second.
