This June, Dark Horse Comics will be releasing “The Lonesome Hunters” #1, the first of a four-issue miniseries by Tyler Crook (“Harrow County,” “Colonel Weird: Cosmagog”). The series is a big leap for Crook since he’s writing “The Lonesome Hunters” too, so we here at Multiversity Comics wanted to have a chat with him about such a major milestone in his comics career. Read on below.
Tyler Crook: Hahaha. No. I have actually had very few experiences with magpies. Although in my magpie research I came across a lot of amazing photos of unfortunate Australians being attacked by magpies. I think the ones you got are a lot more aggressive than the North American ones. When I was a very little kid I have a memory of being out in the Idaho desert with a friend of the family and them shooting their revolver into a giant magpie nest for some reason. But it’s one of those memories that makes very little sense and might just be made up.
Besides the magpies, the other thing that immediately jumps out at me is, of course, that huge sword. I know you can’t say much about it at this early stage, but in your interview with AIPT, you mentioned the three-bladed sword from The Sword and the Sorcerer. It’s an iconic sword and it clearly made an impression on you. The sword in “The Lonesome Hunters” is very different, but also very iconic with its chisel-like shape. Did it take a while for you to pin down what it would look like? Were there certain aspects of its design you knew it had to have even early on?
TC: It took me a long time before I even sat down to finalise the sword design. I was thinking about it for years and I think I was scared to lock it down. For a while, the only thing I knew about it was that it was very old and that it needed to look distinctive. It wasn’t until after I had written the first few issues that I settled on having it be made out of stone or onyx. Very early on I had the idea that the sword might look like a Macuahuitl, an ancient weapon used mostly in South and Central America. It’s sort of a long handle or a paddle edged with squared off obsidian blades. Ultimately I decided against it because I wanted something that felt disconnected from any particular culture. But I think the squareness of those blades is what inspired the squared off chisel tip of my sword design.
I have a thing for swords in fiction that say something about the people that wield them. When I see this giant obsidian blade that’s completely impractical, it immediately tells me either the sword or the person using it is magical—or perhaps both. Do you have any favorite swords from fiction, not for their design, but for the purpose they serve in the story?
TC: Yeah! The sword in “Berserk” is one of those. I was pretty far into that manga before I realised that when he was a kid, Guts (the lead character) was using an adult-sized sword. So as he grew, he kept using swords that were the same relative size to his body. In that way, the sword sort of represented how he was still dealing with problems using the tools he learned as a child. In his case, the specific sword isn’t that important. The important thing is that the sword should make him look small.
Yeah, I can definitely see that influence in “The Lonesome Hunters.” I want to say more about this, but I think I’ll come back to it when our readers have been able to at least read the first issue.
Continued belowThis isn’t your first time writing—you’ve previously written short backup stories in “Harrow County” and you’ve got a serialized story, “The Void Without,” on Instagram. But this is certainly your first writing project at this scale. What do you feel you’ve learned along the way as a writer, taking on bigger and bigger projects?
TC: This is a hard question. I am still neck deep in this first arc. I mean, it’s all written but I’m still making dialog revisions and tweaking things as I draw the pages. So I’m still learning. I’m also finding that I’m not good at talking about writing with any kind of authority. My approach so far has been pretty intuitive. I guess the big thing that I have learned and really internalised is that you have to know clearly, in a way that you can explain to another person, what the characters want and what is preventing them from getting it. And then you have something solid to build your story around.
I feel like good writing involves getting to know your characters, rather than just a laundry list of things that happen to them or merely their story function. “The Lonesome Hunters” has two leads, Lupe and Howard, and one thing that came across very strongly in the first issue is the internal lives of these characters. Howard especially had moments where you can see separate aspects of his personality taking control—his fear, his anger, his sense of duty—and not just in a reactionary way. Do you remember what first made the characters real to you? What’s it been like to see them evolve from that first spark nearly ten years ago into the people that live on the comics page?
TC: I think “The Lonesome Hunters” is exactly what it says on the tin. These are two lonely people. That’s the starting point for both of their characters. And there are so many ways to be lonely and so many reasons to be lonely that it becomes very rich for exploration. As soon as I started thinking of ways that these two could find themselves feeling isolated and alone, they started to write themselves. Howard hasn’t changed much since I first conceived of him. But Lupe has gone through a lot more development as a character. She’s young so she hasn’t had time to develop a deep and complex backstory. But because her story is more rooted in reality—no magic swords, no secret cultists, etc.—I’ve had to be more thoughtful about what she went through and what it might mean to her.
It sounds like you’ve found both shared ground for the characters, but also quite a bit of contrast too.
As I understand it, you’ve got quite a bit planned for Lupe and Howard—this miniseries is the beginning of a longer journey with “The Lonesome Hunters.”
TC: I sure hope so! There is a lot of ground to cover before this story is over. I just need this first arc to sell well enough that I can get to the rest of it!
We’ve got the cover for “The Lonesome Hunters” #2 here. I’m curious, knowing that this is a new series and that readers may see all four covers before they read the first issue, do you approach these covers differently than you would for a returning series?
TC: I worry about the covers being revealed too soon a little bit. But I don’t think they are too spoilery. It’s a weird balance you need to strike with a new series. You have to balance the need to let potential readers know what the series is about and the need to avoid “spoilers”. My approach to these covers hasn’t really changed too much. In general, I’m feeling a little bit more free to do exactly what I want with the covers. Because I don’t have to find consensus with a collaborator, I can just choose what moment or idea I want to focus on and execute it. Dark Horse has kind of a standard back cover that is usually a dark texture with a small graphic on it—something taken from the issue. But I wanted to do something a little bit cooler, so we are doing wrap around covers for all these issues. Oddy, I’ve been finding it a little bit easier to compose the covers.
Continued belowOh, so we’ve only seen half of the first issue’s cover then?
TC: That is correct! Although, I don’t think the back cover holds any wild revelations or anything like that.
You’re quite busy with a few projects at the moment—not just “The Lonesome Hunters,” but also coloring and lettering on “Manor Black: Fire in the Blood” with Cullen Bunn and Brian Hurtt, lettering on “Tales from Harrow County: Lost Ones” with Cullen Bunn and Emily Schnall, and most recently it was announced you’re one of the artists on a segment of “Colonel Weird and Little Andromeda” which is running in Jeff Lemire’s Tales from the Farm newsletter. It sounds like you’re juggling a lot!
TC: Don’t forget that I’m also working on the “Harrow County” board game right now!
Oh, wow. That too?
TC: Haha. It’s too much!! It’s been challenging but so far it hasn’t killed me. The “Colonel Weird and Little Andromeda” thing is only one page and lettering “Tales from Harrow County” really doesn’t take up that much of my time. The hard part has been managing “Manor Black.” Usually when Brian’s pages come in, I have to drop everything else and turn those around as fast as I can. But I also really look forward to it. Coloring Brian’s inks has been wildly rewarding. It’s the first time I’ve done anything like that—painting right over someone else’s art. I’ve been learning a lot from it.
“The Lonesome Hunters” comes out June 22, 2022. Be sure to pre-order; final order cut-off is May 30.
