Th3rd World Studios, the publisher who brought us The Stuff of Legend and Finding Gossamyr, are ready to present an new all-ages comic to the masses. Thanatos Diver, from writer Nick Tapalansky and artist Alex Eckman-Lawn, is about a young woman whose whole life has been spent on an island. But exploring the sunken city surrounding them is about to expand her horizons in the most unusual way.
Tapalansky and Eckman-Lawn, creators of Archaia’s zombie noir Awakening, are certainly traveling down a different path with their latest endeavor. But as it turns out, it’s not too far from their individual tastes. We spoke with the dynamic duo to find out the background of Thanatos Diver, writing female characters, and giving babies comics.
The Mary Sue: Tell us a bit about the inception of Thanatos Diver. You’ve worked on adult-geared horror in the past, why an all-ages comic?
Alex Eckman-Lawn: Haha, yeah… this was kind of a gradual thing, actually.
Nick Tapalansky: Right. It’s been bubbling beneath our aloof and darkness-infused exteriors for pretty much the entire time we’ve been buds.
Eckman-Lawn: We had been slowly moving in that direction since about Midway through Awakening, but I don’t think it really hit us until we did that Mouse Guard: Legends of the Guard Vol. 2 short.
Tapalansky: Which was awesome to work on. I mean, mice riding whales. I got to make up mice riding on whales! And Alex drew them!
Eckman-Lawn: We had a ton of fun with that short and it just felt really natural. I think we knew as soon as we finished that we had to chase that feeling.
Tapalansky: Exactly. Like Alex said, we’d been thinking in that direction for a while, especially because we geek out about so many of the same things, and the Mouse Guard short was really like someone handed us a reason to dive in and give it a try. Six pages wasn’t enough though, so we made our own world where we could tell as many adventure-fantasy-exploration-fun stories as we could possibly imagine!
TMS: Was the current climate of the comic book community part of your thought process at all?
Eckman-Lawn: You know, I hadn’t really given much conscious thought to that. But there’s no denying the current explosion of awesome comics with a younger slant to them. I think a lot of artists who are coming into their own right now grew up looking at similar stuff, and now that influence is spilling out in a tidal wave of enthusiastic art and stories!
Sorry, I may be getting carried away, but it’s a really exciting time for comics, and indie comics in particular.
Tapalansky: It totally is! And I think a lot of those books, Lumberjanes is definitely a recent one that comes to mind but also all those awesome Cartoon Network books at Boom, Finding Gossamyr, The Stuff of Legend, Mouse Guard, Amelia Cole, and even adult books like Saga and Pretty Deadly—books like these are all bringing new people to comic shops. And fandoms and seem to be, at some level, making the community a little more welcoming, diverse, and way more awesome for everyone and not just one set of people. So I think even where the Big 2 have stumbled with that, books from other publishers are enjoying a sort of “Hey, come enjoy the geek-lovefest renaissance—everybody’s welcome” vibe that we’re really excited to contribute to.
Eckman-Lawn: Without soap-boxing too hard, I’m also glad to be working on a book with a female lead character who I’d actually like to hang out with. Women in comics have had it pretty rough for a long time, and while I do think things are finally starting to change for the better, there’s still a ways to go. It just feels good to make a comic about a girl who’s never going to sexy-pose on the cover.
Tapalansky: Yes. This. It’s funny, someone asked me the other day what I did “differently” when it came to writing a girl and I was a little surprised. Why wouldn’t I write her as genuinely as I’d write any other character, you know? She’s a composite of my experiences and the people in my life, men and women alike. She’s a person who is also a young woman.
I guess even being asked that says something about the climate (and it was a totally innocent question, don’t get me wrong, but still), that there has to be some special “process” to writing a strong not-hyper-sexualized woman. I feel like a lot of people way more qualified than me have belabored this point already, but I’m glad we’re doing whatever we can to change the temperature in the room, especially with my own kid arriving any day now. Comics should be fun and welcoming for everyone. Period. Full stop.
TMS: You’ve said you took inspiration from things you personally loved growing up (or that you still do)—JRPG, things like Bone, Ghibli works – how do those things weave into your creation?
Tapalansky: It’s sort of ingrained in the DNA for Thanatos Diver, I think.
Eckman-Lawn: And in us as well!
Tapalansky: It also turns out that we still get psyched about that stuff, which has meant making this book is the most fun I’ve ever had in comics.
Eckman-Lawn: Yup! without getting too sappy, this book has been kind of a big deal for me so far. I’ve never had this much fun making comics before, and I really hope i get to keep making Thanatos Diver for a long time to come!
Tapalansky: You’ll definitely see some nods throughout the book to all those inspirations–and even a bunch of legit easter eggs hidden throughout. The nice thing about it, we hope, is that you don’t need to have been a fan of this stuff to get into it. If you are, cool, you’re gonna get a few extra chuckles, but we really just hope to give people that same awesome feeling we had when we slammed Chrono Trigger or Zelda into the SNES, cracked open Bone, or watched Dragonball (pre-Z, even though we’ve got a soft spot for pretty much the entire jam) for the first time, you know? That feeling where anything’s possible in this place and you want to spend a ton of time exploring it.
Eckman-Lawn: Yeah! We want to pay it forward!
TMS: Talk to us about Samantha, without giving too much away, of course. What kind of character is she, what’s informed her perspective of the world?
Eckman-Lawn: She’s headstrong, a little bit selfish, and extremely confident!
Tapalansky: Yeah, Samantha’s a real trip. She does the opposite of pretty much everything I “plan” for her, which sort of tells you a lot about her I think! She’s grown up with a love for adventure and even though she lives on a pretty awesome island and gets to explore the sunken city in the ocean underneath it on the daily, it feels pretty claustrophobic to her. Everyone tells her that there’s nothing out past her island but water but she doesn’t really believe it.
Eckman-Lawn: I feel like I’m dancing through a mine field a bit, since a lot of what makes her who she is hinges on some reveals we’re saving for later issues, but her personality has certainly been shaped by being trapped on an island her whole life. She’s determined to find more excitement, more to live for, and when she does stumble upon it she doesn’t back down, even when things get real.
Tapalansky: Exactly! But there are definitely consequences to jumping in feet first, which is something Sam is going to have to learn the hard way. Being brash is exciting, but that thrill she’s after brings it’s own dangers, and not just to her. Watching her learn and grow as these things happen is definitely one of the coolest parts of writing the book, especially since she really is so unpredictable to me.
TMS: You two have worked together before, was the process different at all with an all-ages book?
Tapalansky: It WAS a little different, but not because of the subject matter, I don’t think. We’ve gotten to be best buds over the last ten or so years, so the way we work together has grown around that. Plus, we built everything about this world together from the ground up. I think this is the first time we’ve worked on something from scratch where the job descriptions were totally tossed out the window.
Eckman-Lawn: Yeah, Thanatos Diver has been a real collaboration from the very beginning. Brainstorming together has become a regular part of the process, and Nick has given me a bit more freedom as well, which is really nice. In short, we trust each other. I’m not entirely sure anymore where I end and he begins.
Tapalansky: Seriously. The workflow for this book blurs everything together pretty seamlessly. I mean, yeah, at the end of the day I’m writing a script and he’s illustrating, I guess. But we’re both so entrenched in what the other is doing, and in all the world building and character development, that it’s legitimately hard for me to point to things that “I’ve” done and “he’s” done. It’s our book, you know? And that’s pretty much the coolest way to make comics.
I mean, Alex has on occasion sent me concept art and just been like, “Let’s do a story about that place,” and I get to just riff on an image. It’s organic and ridiculously fun. Hopefully people who check out the book can tell two best buds put it together.
Eckman-Lawn: We’re Voltron-ing it. That reference probably exposes what a crusty old man I am.
Tapalansky: The crustiest.
TMS: We posted your JRPG-like promo images last week. What other sorts of things are you doing to promote the book and help make sure those who may be interested are piqued?
Tapalansky: Those were so much fun to come up with! Now we just need some intrepid game developer to see them and make all our dreams come true.
Eckman-Lawn: I’ve got a copy of RPG-Maker for the PS1… what are we waiting for?
Tapalansky: I was always so scared to use that. Like I knew if I started I’d fall into an obsessive hole of RPG making despair and never see daylight again.
Eckman-Lawn: Yeah, RPG Maker is a time suck, but mostly because it’s impossible to use and not very fun.
Tapalansky: But yeah, those game screens. We wanted to do a little something special to pay homage to that strand of our DNA, so those were a blast. Hopefully people enjoyed them! We’d love to do more stuff like that in the future.
Besides that we’re doing a blog tour, we had a Reddit AMA a little while back, and last week we started unveiling some amazing variant covers we have lined up for the first issue!
Eckman-Lawn: I am so stupid excited about our variants. We got some seriously great stuff from artists I truly respect.
Tapalansky: Yeah, I think we have seven in total now? Every time someone turned one in we both just sort of giggled to ourselves because all of these amazing people were playing in our sandbox.
We’ve got Christine Larsen, Carey Pietsch, Anissa Espinosa, Betsy Peterschmidt, and our old pals S.M. Vidaurri, Jeremy Bastian, and David Petersen on board. And every one of their covers is absolutely insane-o gorgeous. So more info about those is going to be rolling out soon.
We’re also super into this whole world building thing. Like that map on the back of the first issue that’s been floating around online? That’s totally just the beginning. Exploration is a huge part of the fun in our book, for us and for Sam, and maps are a big part of her adventure. So giving readers a chance to play along and get into the world in a legitimate way is something we’ve wanted to make sure happens.
Eckman-Lawn: We were joking about making a full SNES style instruction manual as a companion for the book. That is becoming less of a joke for me every day…
Tapalansky: It might not happen before the first issue is up, but as something to go with the collection? Oh man. I’d flip if I got one of those in my book, even if it was just printed in the back.
TMS: Speaking of which, Nick, you’re an expectant father. Are you hoping your little one will grow up loving comics, and what will be the first books you show her?
Tapalansky: Yeah, any day now actually! By the time this interview goes out to the world I might have a new little lady hanging out with me and doing baby things, which is crazy exciting and nerve-wracking in all the best ways.
I don’t want to say it’s impossible for her not to love comics, but my wife and I both enjoy most of the same things in the geek-o-sphere. We just played through Final Fantasy VII together (my first time, her millionth; I’m ashamed to say I eschewed it for Wild Arms for reasons that seem vaguely hazy now), and she’s been a huge comic and manga fan since long before we got together. We have Adam Hughes and James Jean sketches hanging in our bedroom that she excitedly sought out at conventions, and our idea of a vacation was going to Japan with two of our best pals, where we enjoyed the history, the food, and of course came back loaded down with art books from the Ghibli Museum, game soundtracks, and other assorted ultra-heavy souvenirs.
So, yeah, if she doesn’t love comics and video games and stuff, it won’t be because they weren’t around!
Once we found out we were having a baby, one of the first things I thought about was what I’d share with her first. It’s going to have to go in stages, but I think Bone is up there as one of the first. Even before she can read them on her own, that’s something we can read together and I’m, like, stupid excited about stuff like that.
Also, some of our friends make amazing books for all ages, like David Petersen’s Mouse Guard and Jeremy Bastian’s Cursed Pirate Girl (which is maybe a little scary for her early on? But we’ll play it by ear) and I can’t wait to share those with her, too. The Marvel Adventures books are also tons of fun (ditto on the old DC animated tie-in comics). But if anybody has other suggestions, I totally want to hear them so I can stock up now.
Eckman-Lawn: Calvin and Hobbes! If you want your kid to grow up well adjusted that is. I guess that’s not my decision to make.
Tapalansky: Holy crap. I can’t believe I forgot that. We just spent, like a whole night telling people it was such a huge part of our comic upbringing. I feel like a fraud!
Eckman-Lawn: I’m here to call you out, buddy.
Tapalansky: Well, definitely Calvin & Hobbes and Bone as soon as she can sit still and stops chewing on books. After that? I have some ideas but you guys tell me. What should I be reading with my impressionable young daughter? What are you guys reading with your kids? I need to know!
TMS: Let them know, folks! And thanks so much for taking the time to chat with us!
Eckman-Lawn: Thanks for having us, Jill!
Tapalansky: Yeah, thanks for sure. It was awesome catching up!
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Thanatos Diver #1 will be available digitally the day of its release but can also be pre-ordered at your local comic shop or online retailers like TFAW.com. You can also catch some behind-the-scenes action at the Thanatos Tumblr.
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