When the residents of past time periods get stranded in New York City the Big Apple becomes the kind of melting pot no one ever expected full of vikings, ninjas, cavemen and more in Bryce McLellan’s up-coming sci-fi series VERGE.
1. Tell us about Verge!
Verge is a sci-fi time travel police detective comic! It's set in a world where people from the past have travelled through time and arrived as refugees in New York. Twenty years later, they've all formed their own communities, with their own unique culture and way of seeing the world. Our hero is Connie Liu, an NYPD detective tasked with solving crimes in the refugee districts. But Connie has a secret - she's a refugee herself, and not just any refugee, but a Chinese princess who fled the Mongol Invasion as a child. The case that starts the series is the murder of three Samurai in the middle of Vikingtown, which sparks a war between the police and the Viking and Samurai refugees.
2. What were the challenges of adapting Verge from a screenplay to a comic book series?
The biggest challenge was working out what aspects of the original story to focus on and what to leave out - it's a big world and there was a strong temptation to cram in as much cool stuff as possible, but consequently the characters ended up getting less focus. So we pared the story back and made sure that the characters were people you really cared about. And there's still plenty of cool stuff for future issues.
3. Time travel in stories is tough to pull off, but Verge does it so well. What are some of your favorite time-travel stories?
My go-to time travel film is 12 Monkeys, I think it's the best type of time travel story; where every change to the timeline has a psychological effect on the people who make it. I also love Slaughterhouse Five, where time travel is used to draw a line between free will and fatalism.
4. Can you tell us about your creative collaborators?
I'm working with Andy Schmidt, who is an awesome editor who people might know from many Marvel and IDW series. The artist is Silvio dB, a fantastic guy from Brazil who has an incredible attention to detail. He researches everything, to make sure that it's as historically accurate as possible. And Louie Joyce, who like me is from Australia, is our colorist and knows how to use color to pull you into the story.
5. What comics did you grow up loving that encouraged you to become a creator?
Sandman and Bone were the comics that made love the medium. I'm also a big Batman fan, and in particular the Gotham Central series and anything by Alan Moore.
6. Sci-Fi has sometimes been used as a way to comment on current events. Do you feel the storytelling in Verge does this?
I think it does - many of the characters in Verge are refugees and immigrants, and the cultural and racial tension that comes from different groups of people living in such close proximity drives a lot of the conflict. The role of the police is also under a lot of scrutiny right now. Connie does her best to be fair and empathetic, but all of our characters are working within a flawed system that is resistant to change. That being said, however, many people want to read comics for pure escapism, and Verge has that too - if you want to read a series where Vikings fight Samurai, then Verge is for you.
7. What outside-influences unrelated to comics influence your work as a creative person?
I'm a big fan of history, I think there's so much to learn from the past about who we are now.
8. What's next for Bryce McLellan?
Hopefully more issues of Verge! There's a lot more of the world that I'd love to have the opportunity to explore. I'm also working on a Sci-Fi film at the moment called Earthbound, keep an eye out for it!