In the 1960s, Stan Lee, Jack Kirby, and the collaborators pioneered a new style of superhero comics with the creation of the Marvel Universe; a place where costumed crusaders dealt with the fantastic threat of supervillains and the complexities of the modern world. The world has How, the "world outside your window," as Marvel once described it, has changed and evolved since then, but it still needs heroes. So crime and comic writer Alex Segura has teamed with fellow mystery novelist Elizabeth Little, artist David Hahn (Batman '66, Wonder Woman '77), colorist Ellie Wright, letterer Taylor Esposito and veteran editor Joseph Illidge to create a new type of superhero comic that can take a more nuanced look at the ideas of heroism and villainy while still being a fun tale of costumed adventurers.
Their creation is the titular character of The Dusk, an original graphic novel that's now on Kickstarter. CBR spoke with Segura, Little, Hahn, and Illidge about the book, its nocturnal vigilante protagonist, the complex world he'll try to navigate and some of the rewards available to backers of the Kickstarter campaign itself. CBR also has a first look at some interior pages from The Dusk as well as some of Hahn's designs.
CBR: It feels like the DNA of this project comes from your love of crime fiction and Marvel “world outside your window” style superhero comics. Is that a fair description of what you're looking to do?
Alex Segura: Yeah, I think you're right - when I look back and see how the idea came to be, it became clear to me that it was me subconsciously trying to blend my two tracks: crime fiction and superhero comics. I love both so much, and I don't claim that this is something totally new, but it felt really organic to me.
The idea, though, came from my son - who has a deep, wonder-filled love for superheroes. The costumes, the worlds, the colorful characters. He talks about them all the time. I love this, of course, because I grew up on them, too. But I did have some worries about the message some of the stories were giving him - that punching and overpowering your enemies solves problems. That jail is this place where people go to get better, and if they go to jail it's always because they were bad. The mental health connotations of villainy. I think as adults, we're able to separate fiction from reality and understand the tropes better, but for a five-year-old, it feels very real. I was talking to my wife about it, and she's a public interest lawyer - and she just asked "Well, why not create a superhero that tries to do good in the real world? With all the inherent complications of that?"
Again, The Dusk isn't a "this is how you do it" story; we all love superhero comics deeply. It's more a prompt: Could we create a character that celebrates all the cool things about being a superhero, but also take a page from crime fiction - which is so great at shining a light at our world, warts and all - in the process of telling a compelling narrative? I added another layer to that, too; I wanted this to not feel overly grimdark, gritty, or needlessly violent.
So, that was the challenge I had bouncing in my head - and what I landed on was taking the general dark deco aesthetic of something like Batman: The Animated Series, which doesn't shy away from the fun of Batman, but also really spent time with the characters and this world to create something that could be appreciated from so many different perspectives and ages - and trying to bring that into a more "real" version of our world, blending the things we love about superheroes, the things we love about crime fiction, and wrapping it in a package that is accessible to as many people as possible, including kids like my son. Then I realized this would be very difficult, and I'd need some major help from talented people.
What can you tell us about the Dusk and the world he inhabits? What's life like in book's setting, the fictional city of Blackstone?
Segura: Jaime Nuñez is a Cuban-American kid from Miami who saw his once-promising baseball career derailed by injury on the cusp of the major leagues. But he didn't let that break him. One thing about Jamie that stands in contrast to a lot of other vigilantes is that he's not broken or hardened by tragedy. He's much more in the vein of Nightwing or Mark Waid-era Wally West: he wants to do good, he wants to help, he can do it with a smile, and he's grateful for what he's got.
So, after his baseball career goes under, he gets a law degree and dives into the deep end by becoming a public defender in the city of Blackstone, a fading, once-great metropolis that evokes Boston or Philadelphia. But even doing that, Jaime discovers he can only help so much and go so far. There are still injustices he can't fix from behind the defense table. This gnaws at him when he receives some startling news: He's inherited a huge amount of money. Financials aside, Jaime also discovers he's been bestowed the tools to do that good he was struggling to achieve: Weapons, devices, costumes - the whole set. So he dons the Dusk costume and tries to "do good," but the big thing we explore in this first arc is that intent and desire are nice, but the execution is also important.
Jaime is trying to do the right thing, but how does one do good in such a complicated world? Can you make the right choices when you're in an alley facing off against a gang of armed henchmen? Is it right to hand a henchman over to the police, who are not perfect either? The Dusk graphic novel is about Jaime becoming The Dusk, long after he puts on the mask. It's about him learning that maybe the methods he thought he'd use - violence, intimidation, the justice system itself - might not be the right ones, and finding the alternatives that will help him not only "do the right thing," but do it in a way that lets him sleep at night.
The balance is a challenge, for sure. Our goal, first and foremost, is to tell a fun yarn that tweaks the genre and adds something new. But we also want it to make people think and invert some of the tropes to bring them a bit closer to our own world, a place where the justice system is flawed, where not everything is as binary in terms of crime, and to show that maybe a punch should be a last resort instead of the immediate, first option. We don't claim to have answers, though, but I think raising the questions, through a compelling protagonist like Jaime, will make for fun reading.
What can you tell us about the antagonists the Dusk will be up against?
Segura: In terms of villains, there's a big bad we're keeping under wraps, which is at the core of the story, and sets up a (hopefully) second arc. But we'll also see some love letters to comics as a whole in terms of colorful baddies. Plus, we'll explore the idea of "good" and "bad" in the ways we tend to see it in street-level superhero comics, and kind of shine a light on the reality that sometimes the bad guys aren't the ones being thrown in jail.
The big mystery of the OGN will be Jaime himself - who gave him these toys and money and tools - and why. We'll also see Jaime from all sides: as a divorced dad, as a son, as a public defender, and as a young hero, and how those things intersect and complicate each other. Dawn, his daughter, is an integral part of the story - she's in many ways his compass, best friend and inspiration. As a dad - and David and Elizabeth are parents, too - I wanted to have a level-headed, positive hero who is also a dad, to show that you can do good and still have a life and family. You don't have to be a brooding loner to make a change. It's much more nuanced than that.
Elizabeth, what made you want to get involved with The Dusk? And, as a crime writer yourself you have plenty of experience with certain elements of this project, but what's it like playing with the superhero tropes?
Elizabeth Little: I’ve actually always hoped to get a chance to work in comics - it’s a medium that I’ve been reading since I was old enough to ride my bike to the neighborhood drugstore, and now that I have a taste of what it’s like from the creative side, I only love the form more. But I’m really, truly, historically bad at putting myself out there, so if Alex hadn’t approached me about working on The Dusk, I probably would have just gone on silently hoping for the rest of my life.
As a mystery writer, I have to be constantly thinking about how I can leverage the reader’s expectations -crafting a satisfying but surprising whodunnit requires a pretty deep understanding of genre tropes, which is to say that I’m often banging my head against crime fiction narrative convention. So it’s both a thrill and a relief to get to slip into some new tropes as well as a fundamentally different storytelling syntax. All in all, the process so far has been super creatively stimulating, even more so because I have Alex, David, and Joe at my side, and I’m so excited to see where this energy takes us.
David, what were the elements of the characters and world of The Dusk that jumped out to you?
David Hahn: The overall design elements Alex asked of me for creating the Dusk and his world were right up my alley and something I had been wanting to do for a long time; crime noir. The fact that Dusk is essentially a nighttime character in a city full of wrought iron and brick really opened up options for a chiaroscuro approach, something I don't often do. As far as content - and even more important to me - is being able to draw domestic scenes between Jaime and Dawn, his daughter. This comic is the best of both worlds for me, as I will get to draw grimy back alley fights, but also "regular" home life scenes.
Joe, when did you become involved with The Dusk? What sort of potential did you see in the project?
Joseph Illidge: Alex asked me to be the editor and creative consultant for The Dusk once he, Elizabeth, and David had the bible completed with the developmental material and long-form plan for the full saga. We've known each other for years and always wanted to work on something together, so my previous experience as a Batman editor helped make me a good fit for the vision of The Dusk.
The potential I see in The Dusk is certainly multilayered, but it comes down to a father/daughter story about heroes of color in a world that operates more like real cities do ala HBO's The Wire and less like superhero comic book cities do, in which justice is a "wash, rinse, repeat" paradigm to maintain a baseline mythology.
I'm falling in love with the main characters the more I work with the team on them, and the many opportunities to subvert expectations while we get into character truths. Disillusionment. Tainted courage. Personal wherewithal in the face of not knowing if your solution to the problem is the best answer, but having to do something because no one else will.
Obviously, the big reward of this Kickstarter is the graphic novel itself, but what can you tell us about some of the other rewards and possible stretch goals that you've lined up?
Segura: We've been so lucky to not only have an amazing core team of creators on this book, but an all-star cast of stunning artists contributing variant covers and lobby cards. Out of the gate, backers will be able to get covers by artists like Rebekah Isaacs, Jamal Igle, Francesco Francavilla, Gabriel Hardman, and more - and as the campaign progresses, we'll be unveiling some more images in different formats. It'll allow readers to experience the book however they want - as a single OGN, via standalone comics, as a bundle, or with added tweaks like lobby cards. I'm grateful and humbled by the support - when we first thought of this character and his world, I don't think we ever envisioned it coming to life this way. It's been really fantastic to see.
As for stretch goals, we'll be doing some fun bundles that include other work we've created, some interactive stuff, original art, and the chance to get drawn into The Dusk OGN itself.
Finally, why bring The Dusk to Kickstarter?
Segura: When we got into the weeds on The Dusk, I knew we weren't going to have much wiggle room if we wanted to deliver the story we were all interested in telling. We didn't want to water it down or make it feel more like anything else. It was a big reason why we engaged with Joe and had him step in as editor. We wanted that critical, thoughtful voice, but we wanted it to be part of our process. And as we considered where to shop the book around to, it became increasingly clear that we had to do Kickstarter to just get our vision out there, in an unfiltered way. We're lucky to be able to work with the team at Ominous Press, who've been fantastic and are handling so much of the campaign that felt like a completely different language to us. They've been a huge help and guiding light, and it's made an intense and fraught process that much easier.
If you're looking for a book that celebrates the fun and adventure of superhero comics but also tries to present those beloved ideas in a new, timely way, this is the book for you. It's created by people that love superhero comics, that want to create stories for their children or the children in their lives, while still entertaining their contemporaries and longtime comic fans. In a complicated world where right and wrong often blur together, how can one man do some actual good? That's the question we've kept front-of-mind, and I hope we can get the opportunity to finish telling the story.
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