Comics are a big, bold, powerful medium. Some creators find their muses in crafting tales published by the Big Two. For others, the siren song of a story creating a new world from one's imagination is too strong to ignore. Due to the time-consuming and chaotic nature of making comics, creators often choose to pursue one path exclusively. Recently, thanks to Substack's hosted subscription-based and creator-owned comic imprints, several writers and artists have found a unique way to introduce their fans to new characters and stories on their own terms.
Kelly Thompson is the latest creator to launch a Substack imprint. Thompson is best known as the writer of Marvel's current and acclaimed volumes of Black Widow and Captain Marvel and past issues of Jessica Jones and Hawkeye. Her new Substack imprint, 1979 Semi-Finalist, will bring two new and original titles to her fans. CBR spoke with Thompson about Black Cloak, a fantasy-detective series, and The Cull, a sci-fi/horror/mystery crafted with Jessica Jones collaborator Mattia de Iulis. Also included with this interview is a sneak peek at artwork from The Cull, created by de Iulis, and Black Cloak's cover, created by Meredith McClaren.
CBR: You've made a lot of fans from your work at Marvel, and soon those readers will get a chance to see what you can do when you let your imagination run free and wild thanks to 1979 Semi-Finalist. How does it feel to get a chance to dive back into creator-owned work in such a big way?
Kelly Thompson: I'm genuinely so excited about it. I've been working so hard on Marvel stuff for the last few years and there just hasn't been room for anything else, but I think the goal as a creator is always to make your career more of a hybrid -- where you're doing both works for hire and creator-owned, the best of both worlds. I think my own career, while very fortunate, has been pretty out of balance in that way and I'm excited to try to bring this balance back in by adding some creator-owned to my plate. I hope fans will follow me there -- I have a lot of really great stuff planned with some incredible collaborators.
What's sort of your goal/vision for the frequency of comic and content delivery of your imprint? Do you see these as standard full-length issues? Or more serialized stories?
We're operating right now with standard full-length issues but broken up into smaller digestible weekly pieces. The plan is for the comics to run pretty seamlessly at about five pages a week (or 20 pages/month). But the story doesn't always break into neat five-page sections, so there will be times when we break those rules -- for example, the first "issue" is 22 pages, not your standard 20, and the first section of pages fans are going to get on Black Cloak will be seven pages, not five. So there will be exceptions -- but I think so far they're mostly going to be good/fun exceptions -- the kind that comes from being free creatively to follow the story where it wants to go and not be strictly beholden to all of the rules.
You've written digital comics before, but what's it like working on these new titles and with this new method of delivery?
My Jessica Jones book (with Mattia de Iulis) was an interesting experiment on this front as we were a "digital-first" title and now I've got It's Jeff! with Gurihiru running on Marvel's upgraded Marvel Unlimited app. I think digital is interesting. I don't think it will ever replace print... It's just a whole different thing, but it's interesting! It provides a lot more people access to comics since more people have access to the internet than they do good comics shops. So it takes away some of the barriers people have to entry in comics and I'm always a fan of that. I also think there are interesting ways to play with form and structure digitally.
So far my approach on these first two Substack titles is pretty traditional overall, but I'm not opposed to us taking some chances and exploring. This is all a grand experiment. That's part of what excites me about it.
Let's talk about the books you have planned starting with the one that will launch first, Black Cloak, which should be of special interest to fans of your work on Jessica Jones and Hawkeye since it's your return to the hardboiled detective genre, but it's also a fantasy tale. What can you tell us about the world of Black Cloak?
I love detectives. I can't help it! They just really are always my favorite stories -- as both an ingester of media and a writer. I love mashing them up with other things because I think you need detectives (or something like them) in almost any civilized society -- so building what that looks like in a futuristic fantasy world is really fun.
Usually, when we see a fantasy world, it's everyone coming together to vanquish the great evil... But what if you already did that? What if you came together as a society and defeated the great evil... What now? What does that look like? That's sort of where I started and where I found this story.
What's it like building the world of Black Cloak with artist Meredith McClaren? What are some of the facets she's added to the look and feel of this series?
Meredith, is, quite plainly, a badass. She has this lovely precise clean style, that is cartoony but incredibly flexible -- she leans into comedy effortlessly, but she also hits emotional intimate moments with such huge power. She's also just a wildly creative and terrific designer which has been integral to building the world of Black Cloak. And that was particularly important to me because a lot of times in "Fantasy Worlds" you get mostly a bunch of human characters and a few characters that are extremely human adjacent -- elves that look like humans but have fun ears, etc. We have some of that too... But I wanted our world to look much more vibrant and varied than just that.
So I really emphasized that to Meredith and she has done a fantastic job building out that world into something really fascinating and different than what I think you see in your typical "fantasy" story -- setting it in a sort of Blade Runner-ish, neo-noir future version of a fantasy world is also helping us push on boundaries.
You're also developing, The Cull, for release sometime next year with artist Mattia de Iulis. How does it feel to reunite with Mattia on a creator-owned book?
I'm such a huge fan of Mattia, not just as an artist but as a human being. I love working with him and it's been exciting to "get the band back together" and create something all-new together. Jessica Jones remains one of my favorite stories I've written for Marvel and that's in no small part thanks to the brilliance Mattia brought to it. I believe we can capture that magic again here and I'm really excited about it.
What can you tell us about The Cull? The description and preview art I've seen suggest it's a work of mystery, sci-fi, and some horror. Is that the tone you're aiming for?
Yeah, I'd describe The Cull as a sort of sci-fi/fantasy adventure story; but there's definitely some horror running through it too. In my head, it's a little bit like a darker, more grown-up Goonies kind of story but with more sci-fi and fantasy elements.
Will subscribers to 1979 Semi-Finalist also receive content besides comics?
Yeah! There will be tons of behind-the-scenes and process stuff -- interviews with other creators, special giveaways, and stuff like that.
But also, weirdly, in some ways this will be like a return to my blogging days in that I have a lot of column topics lined up that I think are going to be really fun. I hope this experience for people is really more than just reading the new comics -- I mean, yes, that's the star, obviously, but I think there's a whole journey here that's interesting, and that's what people always say right? It's the journey, not the destination? Must be a saying for a reason!
Finally, with the launch of 1979 Semi-Finalist you're going to be very busy because in addition to your creator-owned work you'll also be working on Marvel titles as well, correct?
Exactly.
I'm still writing Captain Marvel and Black Widow and more It's Jeff. I'm still on the Amazing Spider-Man team and I'm even in the early stages of developing something else over there for 2022 that I'm really excited about!