Today, finer comic shops everywhere will be selling “Gotham City Monsters” #1, the start of a new six-issue miniseries from DC Comics. Written by Steve Orlando (“Justice League of America,” “Martian Manhunter”) and illustrated by Amancay Nahuelpan (“High Level,” “Calexit”), the series focuses on a really interesting gang of DC characters – Frankenstein, Andrew Bennett (I, Vampire), Killer Croc, Lady Clay, and Orca – dealing with the ‘City of Bane’ storyline, and the fallout of that on Monster Town, one of Gotham’s most under-utilized settings. The writer who introduced the neighborhood at the start of ‘Rebirth’ is none other than Orlando, making this a really great pairing of writer and property.
We had the chance to talk to Orlando and Nahuelpan about the series and, having read the first issue, it is absolutely worth your time and money. Check out our interview, and then go pick up the book.
This ‘team’ is a really fun collection of some of DC’s less heralded, but absolutely cool heroes on the dark/supernatural side. Steve, when you were pitching this book, was this the team you always wanted in place? Or were there others that, for whatever reason, didn’t work out?
Steve Orlando: The team for me was all about Frankenstein, dropping him into Gotham and using him as the epicenter for the rest of our characters—who would love him? Who would hate him? Who would think they know him better than he knows himself? I couldn’t have been luckier with this team—it’s worked out perfectly. We have the iconic DC creatures and Gotham monsters we’d always wanted, and then we have some gems we can polish up that haven’t seen love in a minute, like Lady Clay and Orca. Plus we get the chance to create a NEW Gotham hero in the Red Phantom, who even after all these years brings a new facet to the Gotham Landscape, someone who’s quietly been stopping crime since before Bruce Wayne’s grandparents were born.
Amancay, With this roster of characters, you get to draw quite the variety of creatures. Were any of the characters particularly challenging for you to find the right approach for? Which one gave you the most trouble?
Amancay Nahuelpan: Orca was definitely the one that took me longer to get more comfortable with. I had never done any art or anything with her included, and I had only seen her pop up here and there, so it took me a bit to get a grip of her shape and particularly her orca head attached to a human like body. But now I’m having a blast every time she shows up! I guess the most challenging one would be Croc, because of all the textured skin he has, but they’re all awesome to work with and I really enjoy drawing this group of misfits monsters.
Steve, some of these threads have been building since ‘Night of the Monster Men,’ your “Batman” crossover from a number of years ago. Was there always a plan to return to Monster Town, or have these opportunities been surprising ones for you?
SO: I’d always HOPED to return to Monster Town, but as always, books have to come together at the right time, with the right circumstances. With the wild array of characters we have on this team, it took the perfect intersection of ‘City of Bane,’ “Justice League,” and “Event Leviathan” to bring the characters, and the book, together. These strange, exciting dramas gripping the DCU all intersect here, and it took for this moment for that to be possible. So it was a surprise! But I’d always had thoughts about what was next for Monster Town, and plans for Frankenstein in general since I first read his debut miniseries.
Andrew Bennett is a particular favorite of mine; what is it about “I, Vampire” that makes him so unique and enjoyable in the DCU?
SO: Bennett is the perfect foil for Frankenstein in this book—he’s another hero who’s seen incredible triumph and tragedy, and he’s maybe even older than Frankenstein. He’s the one character on the team that’s maybe even wiser than Frankenstein, or at least thinks he is. Bennett’s self-confidence is incredible, he’s been low, he’s been a lord, and now he’s something new. He’s had to refocus himself after having and losing power, and after having and losing a team with the previous Justice League Dark. Bennett is unique because he stands in a world of Gods and Icons, and despite lurking in the shadows, his wealth of experience and personal sacrifice makes it so he never blinks. He is never awed, such is his life and self-concept.
Continued belowWhen drawing such gruesome characters, a lot of times it is easy to lose their humanity or fragility, but you do some really wonderful work with Killer Croc in this issue, which gives him more pathos than, perhaps, we’ve ever seen before. How do you find that spark of decency in these ghoulish characters?
AN: Thank you, Brian. Yeah, I guess that’s the biggest challenge when working with these characters, they all have a deep story that they have to carry with. And as an artist it’s crucial to help the readers understand what’s going on with them even before reading the caption boxes or word balloons. Steve’s script helps me a lot to drive these emotions in each character, and it’s my job to express that on paper. It’s basically just thinking about these characters not as monsters but as some being, an outcast, that’s had a tough life and has to face the world with that weight on their shoulders.
Finally, give our readers a little tease of what they can expect from this series.
AN: Some characters you’d never imagine might show up.
