Syd Kiowa is like no hero you’ve met before and this fall the world will thrill to her continuing adventures in PLANET OF THE DEAD from Jim Ousley and Ben Sawyer
1. Tell us about Butcher Queen!
BEN: Butcher Queen is a near-future cyberpunk tale with aliens and supernatural horror elements! It's also a culmination of almost ten years of collaborative efforts with Jim!
JIM: Ben and I both love sci-fi, horror, and cyberpunk. So we decided we wanted to put all of that great stuff that we enjoy as genre fans into a series that was as much fun to create as it hopefully is to read! The year is 2120, and the first series starts here on Earth in a place called Black Star City where alien off-worlders are being systematically attacked and removed from society by a clandestine paramilitary group called the Overseers. Our protagonist is Syd Kiowa, a fugitive cop-turned-mercenary who takes it upon herself to accept jobs helping people that aren’t capable of helping themselves in an effort redeem herself for past sins. Syd is contacted by an off-worlder named Avina, who recently escaped the Overseers compound where her empathic powers were being experimented upon. She hires Syd for protection and to ultimately reveal the truth about the Overseers. It was a lot to pack into a four-issue series, but we did it, and I’m so proud of how it all came out. The trade for the first series is called Butcher Queen Volume 1: Black Star City, and that comes out in September. The NEW series is called Butcher Queen: Planet of the Dead, and that starts in October. It’s a bit early to give too much away about it, but it involves other dimensions, some new characters, and you’re going to see what the cyberpunk aesthetic looks like in different parts of the world. We’ve been having so much fun working on it!
2. What inspired you to frame the story in a neo-futurist/cyberpunk setting?
JIM: Science Fiction and all that it entails is so entrenched in our DNA at this point that it’s unavoidable, particularly when dealing with the future and how all of our decision-making, collectively and individually, is going to have an effect on it. Technology is both a friend and a foe in this regard, so it was a given that we would tell this story using cyberpunk as a touchstone.
BEN: This is one of my favorite aesthetics and also one I have the least experience with. I wanted this book to look like so many of my deepest inspirations while also possibly creating something unique in such a busy genre.
3. Our protagonist, Syd Kiowa, is a woman haunted by her personal history and the regrets that come with it. How is that explored in the new series?
JIM: The original idea for Butcher Queen happened as I was going through some really challenging personal things with family and there was some real regret involved. No matter how much of a good person you are, you sometimes have to fight to get the feeling back that you are indeed a well-intentioned and decent person, you know? So the initial inspiration for Butcher Queen didn’t even come from sci-fi, it came from that very specific feeling.
So in the first Butcher Queen series, Syd is carrying the burden of guilt and helping off-worlders survive as a way to kind of save her own soul and find some salvation. What she ultimately finds is a new purpose and the importance of family, whether they’re blood-related or not.
In Butcher Queen: Planet of the Dead, Syd has grown quite a bit. We’re finding her in a bit of a better place as she assembles her crew of misfits. When she’s offered the chance to redeem herself in the eyes of the law, it’s an offer that she genuinely cannot refuse. Syd’s team is going to get a little bigger, and we’re going to find out some things about her that are very interesting.
4. What can you tell us about collaborating with each other?
JIM: Aside from being enormously talented, the truth of the matter is we just have a really good rapport. It’s extremely difficult to be in a working relationship where you don’t get along with the other person or simply aren’t on the same page. Our goals are the same, we come from many of the same influences, and we both really enjoy playing in the sandbox we created together. It’s fun for us to hang out in this world, and that makes everything a creative joy. I need to mention that our editor Jason Green is an enormous help in making this series as good as it can possibly be.
BEN: Jim is as easy going and open to change as any writer I've ever worked with. Got an idea? Let’s go with it! Jim lays the foundation, throws enough hints and suggestions in there to get my brain started then let me off the leash. I have almost complete freedom to create whatever I want and that's not a freedom I suspect many creatives have.
5. What comics did you grow up loving that encouraged you to become a creator?
JIM: For me it was all the Neal Adams Batman stuff with Dennis O’Neil writing. Dennis O’Neil had this way of sneaking some pretty deep themes into his work, and I always admired how he did this while keeping the story moving forward at a really crisp pace. Plus, he’s from here in St. Louis, so that always made him special to me. Gerry
Conway’s Spider-Man work was also extremely impactful to me, especially during the time when they killed Gwen Stacy. I had never really experienced the emotion I felt reading that as a young kid up to that point. It’s funny, I was having a conversation with a friend of mine about the things that sort of shape our perspectives and help us form that internal moral compass, and for me, so much of that came from comic books and Saturday morning cartoons. The outside world may have been in turmoil with the state of race relations and the generally utter lack of respect that humans show each other, but in the comics and cartoons, I saw that people could get along, and everyone could be represented. People want a fair shake, and everyone deserves equal opportunities, and as a kid it seemed so obvious. As an adult, I’m even more fixed in that belief, and being in a position to tell stories with that concept as the framework is so incredibly satisfying.
BEN: I grew up on X-Men and Spider-Man. The Professors protection of the downtrodden and abused has never been lost on me. I also loved the sense of humor and quick wit of Spider-Man. You know? Even as an adult I've preferred Spider-Man's sense of humor to Deadpool. More my language. But I've always thought that my inner sense of justice has come from reading comics as a kid.
6. Outside of the new series Butcher Queen: Planet of the Dead, the first series is being collected in a trade paperback that comes out in September. What can fans expect from that collection?
BEN: Firstly, I have spent dozens of hours of remastering panels and sometimes entire pages of what I considered substandard art. Second we've combined some of our older Butcher Queen stories into the trade so you can get a little more backstory of our characters in previously hard-to-acquire content. Lastly, a trade really is the best way to read a comic, ain't it?
JIM: The guys at Red 5 Comics have been so supportive of this series, and the idea that we wanted to do more than just put the four issues into a collected volume. We added some great bonus stories, an art gallery, and Ben’s remastered panels really look fantastic.
7. What outside-influences unrelated to comics influence your work as a creative person?
JIM: Music is a huge factor for me, on so many levels. I play music and write songs, and that opens creative doors for me that help with everything else. Figuring out a piece of music is very much like uncovering a great story or solving a puzzle. As far as what I listen to, I love old new wave music, David Bowie, Johnny Cash, especially his Sun
Studios work, and I’m a huge KISS fan. What other band fought Doctor Doom, right? I’d love to write a KISS comic, now that I think about it. Also, and this is a very boring thing to admit to, but probably the biggest influence on my work these days is the ability to go to the park by myself and walk, and figure out story conundrums. It always seems to help. I should also recognize the fact that seeing the first Star Wars and Planet of the Apes movies when I was a super-young kiddo were life-changing events and blew my little mind, effectively changing my life forever.
BEN: I am a HUGE videogamer so I'm just as inspired by mutants and smart-ass webslingers as I am space marines and mech warriors. I've been building computers and collecting video game consoles since middle school. As I try to stay on top of trends I always gravitate towards sci-fi simulations involving giant space battles or giant fighting robots. If you want me to fall in love with you we need to argue (yes argue) about robots and drink strong beer.
8. What's next for Jim and Ben?
BEN: Who. Freaking. Knows. I've always wanted to do a crowdfunded webcomic but I'm also developing games and a few other projects like animations and such. You just never know!
JIM: I’m working on a couple of non-comic projects, but what currently has me really excited is outlining the next comic book series. It’s not related to anything we’ve done before, and it’s really getting me pumped up for next year because I’ve never taken on a story like this. For now though, we’re all about making Butcher Queen: Planet of the Dead a really fun ride. We hope you dig it.