The ComiXology Originals comic book series Virtually Yours, created by Jeremy Holt and Elizabeth Beals, is coming to print for the first time courtesy of Dark Horse Comics. The romantic comedy follows Brooklyn-based New Yorkers Max and Eva as they find themselves entangled in a spellbinding misunderstanding and attempt to navigate the foibles of online dating through an eponymous dating service where not everyone is as they appear. As Max and Eva grow closer together, this digital disaster is sure to catch up to both of them with surprising consequences.
In an exclusive interview with CBR, Holt shared the origins and themes behind Virtually Yours, reflected on how the story holds up as it receives its first print release, and teased details about their upcoming comic book reimagining of The Great Gatsby, aptly titled Gatsby, launching this November from AWA Studios.
CBR: Jeremy, how did Virtually Yours come together?
Jeremy Holt: I wanted to do a romantic comedy! I love rom-coms. I've watched a lot of them and, over the years, deconstructed them, which is fun. I thought about writing one that I had never seen before, and I wanted to essentially write a story, not about two people falling in love but two people navigating life outside of that bubble of love where I think all of us exist most of the time in our life. I just thought that was more interesting, and I also found it to be an opportunity to resurrect a version of Brooklyn that I missed circa 2009.
I find that a bit funny because, when Virtually Yours was first coming out as a ComiXology Original, you weren't living in Brooklyn at the time, and now as it's coming out in print, you are.
Yeah, I was writing it while I was living in Vermont. I remember just writing it in bed, where I don't usually script things, but I just remember writing most of it [there], and I gave myself this ridiculous deadline. When it was originally with ComiXology, the way that they work is that they want a very general but concrete timeline on production -- when are you going to hand in scripts and finish the art. I was just anxious and excited to get this process going, so I didn't want to hold up the process, so I gave myself six weeks to write a 100-page comic. The rationale was the sooner I get the script done, the sooner Elizabeth could work on the art. I look at this book, and I'm still pretty happy with how it turned out, considering it's the fastest thing that I've ever written
In revisiting and revising Virtually Yours for the print medium, is this version of the book largely as is, compared to the original digital version, or were any changes made?
It's as is. There were a couple of scenes that Elizabeth and I went back to, the flashback scenes. I wanted to differentiate them because I don't think it was very clear in the original digital run of the book that those scenes were explicitly flashbacks. We discussed how to tweak those pages to evoke the fact that it's a memory. What was very interesting was that, in the original script, there is music featured in the book, which is important because a lot of rom-coms feature music.
Originally there were lyrics, and ComiXology said, based on their legal department, that they had to cut out the lyrics for copyright reasons. There was so much shuffling of files with this that somehow when we were working with Dark Horse for print, they found the pages with lyrics in them. I thought we had to take out the lyrics, but Dark Horse said, "We operate differently. That's not a big deal." [laughs] But I said to go with the non-lyric pages, just to be safe.
How did Elizabeth Beals become part of this project?
She and I have known each other for a pretty long time, and I've always wanted to work with her on something. Since this book is set in a very real place, I wanted it to feel very grounded and needed someone who could draw a lot of detail -- not just with backgrounds but with fashion. Something I want to give full credit to her for is that I didn't write any notes or descriptions about the clothes. This story takes place across four seasons in New York City. She took it upon herself to look up spring, summer, fall, and winter fashion and just really brought all of it to life.
Between this and Made in Korea, you're putting a lot of yourself into these protagonists, with Max for Virtually Yours. What is it about layering that personal vulnerability into these stories that appeals to you?
Virtually Yours was basically my first opportunity to start weaving my own personal narratives in my stories, more specifically, my own personal traumas into my stories. It sort of coincided with this life moment of coming out as non-binary, and when that happened, I reviewed all of my work. It was all white savior narratives that I don't want to do because that's not my story. The combination of gender identity as well as leaning into my Asianness, I looked at Virtually Yours -- which originally was a bunch of white characters -- and changed them to see what would happen. Once I did that, the characters had opportunities to go in different directions that would not work with white characters, with certain topics and things that are discussed. I realized that it was a lot more interesting and fun to write.
Where did the inspiration for Eva come from?
Honestly, an ex-girlfriend. [laughs] Down to where she lives and what her parents do for work. Eva's dad is a doorman at a fancy building, and that was my ex-girlfriend's dad's job. I just pulled from real life there. [laughs]
You mentioned your love of rom-coms. What are some of your favorites in the genre, and what did you want to add to it with Virtually Yours?
Anything by Richard Curtis, I really love, and anything by Nora Ephron and Nancy Meyers; those are the filmmakers I really love. A Nancy Meyers movie feels as if Pottery Barn was a movie set. It just feels quaint, nice, and wondrous. The Jennifer Kaytin Robinson film really had me reevaluate the direction of where the story was going. I really just wanted to show that friendship is equally, if not more, important than love. I think rom-coms today -- and I don't see a lot of change in this -- promote this narrative and idea that, if you have this spark and hit it off with this physical attraction, the rest is going to work itself out.
What I've come to realize from my own experience is that no one talks about chemistry and compatibility. These are two different things. To me, chemistry is that spark, and compatibility is the firewood. A relationship doesn't work unless you actually work on the compatibility part, gathering that wood and making sure that you have something to burn effortlessly. You can keep gathering matches, but a match is not going to stay lit. I wanted to write a story that highlighted that friendship is as much of a meaningful pursuit as falling in love.
Was finding the balance in a tone a tricky storytelling challenge?
I was concerned about Max's situation, with his marriage falling apart and how toxic it is. I was concerned [that] it was going to be too jarring for people, but at the end of the day, I needed to do something to my characters that would really mess them up. I sent an early draft of the script to an editor I had been working with for a long time named Mark Irwin. He read it and said it was generally pretty good but that I had this habit of leading the characters to the ledge but not letting them fall. You've got to let them fall and hit the ground so they can get up, and if you don't let them fall, there's nothing to ascend to. I thought that was such a good point. I thought of different and meaningful approaches to messing up the character, and I thought of a toxic marriage. As someone who was in a toxic marriage, I thought it could work, and I wanted to show a representation of that.
What did you want to explore by making Max an actor and former child star?
I just thought it'd be easier than having him go to a day job and explain his wealth. I just thought it'd be fun if he was a Black Macaulay Culkin who emancipates himself from his family. [laughs]
You mentioned wanting to evoke a past iteration of Brooklyn. What was it about revisiting that halcyon period for the borough in Virtually Yours?
I just had so much fun living in Brooklyn at that time. Bourbon Street Comics was a shop that I loved and used to go to all the time. It was my home away from home. The community that Tom and Amy built with that shop, having signing events all the time -- [they] were always so friendly, introducing me to people in the industry, it was a no-brainer to make Max a huge comic book reader. I thought of that in combination with this HBO show I love called Bored to Death that was also featuring Brooklyn at that specific time. I just wanted to live in those moments again because these places like Bourbon Street and Beauty Bar in Park Slope don't exist anymore. It's fun to create these places that don't exist that these characters could hang out in. I just wanted to live in that time period for a little bit.
Moving over to AWA Studios, how did the opportunity to reimagine The Great Gatsby come about?
I was in between literary agents and, as a result of exiting from my first agent, I sort of gave up on writing. I thought I was a terrible writer, and this wasn't for me anymore and decided to just focus on reading 50 books within a year. That was the goal. Gatsby was on that list, and I read it and was quite surprised with how relevant the material is today, specifically about the concept of the American Dream, the class and wealth disparity, and, more importantly, about reinvention; that's what hooked me. There's this man who reinvents himself in the ‘20s, and you can do that with a lot of money. There was no internet then, so to do that would be fairly easy.
My thought was, how does someone do that in the 21st century? I have friends that have no digital footprint. One of them, I went to high school with, and I could not find him for years. My ex-wife is a professional researcher and managed to find him in a week, but it was very hard; it is possible to just disappear. There are also things with that character, with him being a bootlegger and things like that, that translated pretty easily to a modern setting. Because I saw all these dots connecting, I thought I could do this, but I wanted to de-age them because I love teen dramas. I think they're more fun to watch.
It also gave me the opportunity to modernize it and change the ethnicities of the characters, and I had to alter some of the relationships because they're younger. The George and Myrtle Wilson versions of the characters are husband and wife in the original text, but in this, I made them brother and sister because it made more sense. It's why I like historical fiction, I'm writing this new narrative, but I have a very clear framework to work off of. For Gatsby, I get to slot things in and see how they fit in seamlessly, and it was actually pretty fun.
How is it working with Felipe Cunha on Gatsby?
Amazing! He and I have known each other for a long time, and we did a short for an anthology that never saw the light of day. He's also really close with George Schall from Made in Korea, so that was nice to know that connection. He can draw all the detail, so, once I saw [his] pages, my whole exercise became to see if I could come up with a scene with so much crazy stuff in it and see if Felipe can draw all of it.
Especially in Gatsby's mansion, I wanted to evoke a wonderland. You'll go to a party and see things you'll never see anywhere else. I just let my imagination run, and he came back with these drawings and did better than I described them. He's starting Issue #7 right now, and there hasn't been a single thing in the scripts where he couldn't do it. He's a champ!
Virtually Yours is on sale now from Dark Horse Comics.