This year Multiversity Comics had a big presence at New York Comic Con and we know all of you couldn’t be there in person so that’s where we come in. Jody Houser is undeniably one of comic’s hottest names. She’s been writing for just about every publisher and everything she’s touched has turned to gold. As a big RPG fan, Houser is a natural fit for something like Stranger Things. We had the chance to talk to her about the first ever comic book series that spins out of the show’s first season.
For anyone who hasn’t checked out the first issue yet, where does this story take place in the context of the show?
Jody Houser: The story of the miniseries follows season one of Stranger Things, but it’s from Will’s perspective, so we’re actually seeing everything he goes through in the Upside Down. So it kicks of right during the first episode where he’s being chased by the Demogorgon, and then just when he disappears we follow him instead of staying around in Hawkins and seeing the fallout.
Did doing this specific story allow for more freedom since this is a part of the Stranger Things story that wasn’t really explored too much on the actual show?
JH: Definitely and, I mean, we have our touchstone points where Will does make contact with his mom or you hear him over the walkie-talkie so there were sort of those moments that we could pace around where we knew we would fit into the show’s timeline. But for a lot of the time no one knows where he is of what he’s doing so that’s all the space we got to play around with.
Did that make this project different from any other licensed project you’ve done before?
JH: I mean, to a certain extent. I’ve done other licensed books where things were fitting very specifically in moments of continuity of the existing show, but this one was pretty special because we are following an entire season. So that was sort of a lot of fun to just chart this, what was going on in the background.
So a big part of Stranger Things is role playing games. The kids are big “Dungeons and Dragons” fans, so do you have any background with those kind of games and did that inform any part of you creating this story?
JH: I mean, I love playing RPGs. I’ve done more science-fiction and horror. I’m in a long running Star Wars game. I started playing “Call of Cthulhu,” was the first one. So I have played “Pathfinder” and “D&D,” but my heart’s always sort of with gore and sci-fi games, but Stranger Things is sort of a horror science-fiction story so that ended up working very well. But I definitely did some research into the version of “D&D” that the kids are actually playing because I’m most familiar with fifth edition that’s out right now. So I didn’t want to be putting references to the modern iteration of the game that didn’t match what was actually around back in the early ’80s.
We see a little bit of their game being played in the first issue. Are we going see any more of that as story goes forward? Are we gonna see a shift between Will and then what the kids are going through back home?
JH: There will definitely be more flashbacks to their gaming sessions because that friendship is such a core part of Stranger Things, but when Will’s by himself you don’t get to see his friends so this is a way for us to work in how much his friends mean to him, what their friendship is like, how the gaming sessions have taught him how you survive on an adventure even though he doesn’t have his party with him right now. So, yeah, it’s a way for us to sort of bring those core elements of the show to what is very much like a solo character story.
The show has become this huge thing over the last couple of years. I think when it hit it was kind of quiet and then all of a sudden it just became this mega force of pop culture. What do you think has resonated with fans about this story?
Continued belowJH: I think there’s elements of it that harken back to very beloved movies and TV shows and books from the ’80s, but it’s also something that’s very new and fresh. I think there’s always something that’s sort of fun watching kinds going through the sort of adventures that you kinda wished you had when you were a kid. I’ve always loved stories like that since I was a kid and then when I grew up and maybe this, dealing with the Upside Down, isn’t what I would’ve wanted to do as a kid, but at the same time it’s just really fun to watch these friends use their friendship to sort of get through monsters and evil government agents. Yeah, it’s definitely a nostalgia factor, but the fact it is new and exciting and there’s these wonderful characters to follow. I think just hits a lot of people’s buttons in numerous ways and it’s such an easy show to get into.
Yeah. There are a lot of moments in the first issue where we really start to feel the kind of fear and the doubt that Will’s going through in the Upside Down. Could you talk about crafting that and how you’re able to pull readers into the Upside Down when that’s something really we see a lot of in the show itself.
JH: One of the things I wanted to do with the comic is the way the show feels like it’s a show that could’ve been made in the ’80s. I wanted the comic to feel like it could’ve come from the 1980s so I’m doing a lot of stylistic things that we don’t see in comics so much today like the narrative captions and the thought bubbles and that’s actually a much easier way to sort of bring the atmosphere in alongside the art. To not only see what Will is seeing, but hear what he’s thinking and to sort, you can describe how things smell in the captions so it’s sort of painting an even bigger picture that I think, again, you sort of, these days a lot of comic storytelling has been simplified which I think is really a great thing in a way, especially as art and coloring have gotten a lot more advanced with the technology we have now. But, it’s really sort of fun to play with these older comic tools and to just make something that has that same sort of nostalgia factor the show does.
And lastly, we did see a little bit of Eleven in the first issue. Can you tease anybody else we might be seeing that might be surprising for the rest of the series?
JH: There are definitely characters you’d be surprised to see and that’s probably all I can say without spoiling anything.
