This spring Alex De Luca and Glen Fernandez introduced us to the world of the Dragon Whisperer. Now Alex opens up about some of the secrets behind the story including what’s coming in Dragon Whisperer Vol. 2!
1. Tell us about Dragon Whisperer!
Alex: Dragon Whisperer is something along the lines of a steampunk Doctor Dolittle, except Doctor Dolittle here is young 13-year-old Rosalinda Eberhardt and the animals she speaks to are totally nutso, steampunk-cybernetic, cool as heck, creatures, and a dragon!
It's an adventure story; a quest, and a passing of the torch. It's got lots of fun stuff like airships, a bit of magic, sky cities, sky islands, monsters, automatons, a bit of romance, battles and did I mentioned a dragon!
It takes place in a world a little bit like ours (called Galda), except that all the technological advancements have their foundation upon the template of a mechanical and steam infrastructure. Imagine that the pinnacle of technology plateaued at around the Victorian era and that all advancements thereafter hinged upon the notion of clockwork and steam.
2. Rosalinda Eberhardt, the Dragon Whisperer herself, is a great protagonist. Would you say this is a coming-of-age story as much as an adventure?
Alex: Absolutely! I believe that every coming of age story is also the hero's journey. When you, me, all of us, came of age, and began to transform into the person that we are, we were embarking on a journey throughout that entire process. And, in every way, that entire process was an adventure!
I created Rosalinda to be kind of like myself, really. I’m kind of short and nothing special, but I enjoy life, trying new things, and the company of good people.
Like Rosalinda, Sometimes I'm brave, but sometimes I'm scared. Sometimes I know what to do, but sometimes I don't. Sometimes I succeed, but sometimes I fail. Sometimes I fall down, but I always get back up. Just like her.
One thing I wanted her to have that I don't have is a beautifully diverse ethnicity. I'm only one ethnicity. Italian. My parents were born in Italy and that is all I will ever be. I've always been kind of jealous of so many of my friends that have such assorted mixes in them. A little bit of Native American, little bit of African, a little bit of Russian, Filipino, Chinese, etc. I'm happy with being Italian, but I have always pined for the idea that I have many cultures in my blood.
I owe so much to the artist Glen Fernandez. I had a very distinct idea of what Rosalinda should look and be like - I even provided two models as templates (one of whom was a waitress at a restaurant bar where I played guitar! She was thrilled with the idea that she was the model for a comic book character!), but Glen helped give her such a sparkle. Nothing gets her down for too long.
3. What inspired you to frame the series in this amazing steampunk setting?
Alex: I had always loved the various representations of steampunk iconography, but was never actually a devotee of the subculture or genre. I think it's very beautiful and romantic. A view of the future from the past. In fact, that description right there came from the source of what really made me embrace steampunk: The late great Neil Peart of Rush!
For me, for the last over 40+ years, all music revolved around Rush. The greatest band in the universe in every way shape and form, for all of time! I'm even tickled at the idea that my son might live to see the year 2112 (he'll be 108 so it's an off chance, but hope springs eternal!).
Rush's last and stupefyingly extraordinary album is the concept album Clockwork Angels. It's Rush's only FULL concept album and it tells this really wonderful coming of age hero's journey adventure (hmm…). So, if steampunk was okay by Rush, it was more than okay by me!
Dragon Whisperer had its spark initially around 13 years ago. It was a quite different, non-steampunk, story, with a different artist and different characters. It received a nibble here and there from publishers, but nothing that followed through. I revisited that story idea, then changed it like crazy to what is now Dragon Whisperer, got together with Glen, submitted it and Red 5 Comics liked it!
4. How did you guys form your creative partnership?
Alex: I found the extraordinary artist Glen Fernandez on DeviantArt. I had very particular search parameters: Steampunk and comic book. I got a few hits but the one that hit me so hard that it left a crater was a steampunk Batman that Glen did. He was so amazing, it made me weep. Not only was it cool beyond belief, it had proper engineering behind it! Glen’s Batman had leather wings, and at the top of the wings were several cogs pulling a cable such that the wings could be manipulated mechanically. I just loved, loved, LOVED the fact that he took the time to incorporate meticulous engineering behind his design. Nothing "just floats". There’s a completely mechanical rationale behind the way Glen creates his art such that it can exist in reality.
I courted Glen non-stop, like a dog desperate to play fetch. We had some back and forth via email, struck an agreement, and embarked on our project.
I thank my lucky stars, every moment, to be able to work with a consummate pro such as Glen.
5. What comics did you grow up loving that encouraged you to become a creator?
Alex: I was very fortunate to get into comics in the early '70s thanks to my brother, who is 8 years older than I am. We would go to this newspaper and magazine shop in my town of birth, Rochester New York, where in the corner were the comic books! We would beeline through that beautifully distinct scent of printing press paper and just sit in that corner, perusing all the wonderful comics.
I started with the classic Marvel work: Spider-Man, Hulk and Fantastic Four mostly.
Then, a bit later, Jim Shooter happened…
He was an editor-in-chief that, with no doubt at all, found that sweet spot of gonzo superhero storytelling incorporated with real, deep, far-reaching, emotion, and true life problems. What he did to Marvel, and subsequently all mainstream comics thereafter, laid the foundation for the fan that I was to continue as, and the comic book creator that I was beginning as.
THEN Alan Moore happened...
Mind – blown - forever.
If the potential of comics before Alan Moore could have been measured on a scale from 1 to 10, after Allan Moore they went from 1 to 100 kajillion while throwing in everything else including the kitchen sink, fish, the letter V, weird food, weird religion, mold, and whatever else you can think of.
That was it. I started writing comics like crazy. Neil Gaiman hitting the scene was further gasoline on the fire.
Then, in 1994 I met and befriended the great Jimmie Robinson of Bomb Queen Fame, but this was years before Bomb Queen.
I told him I was interested in writing comics and had lots of scripts (but couldn't draw for nuts).
He then said the phrase that changed my life, dramatically:
"Hey, Alex? Want to write an issue of my comic Cyberzone?"
I felt like a girl at a Beatles concert. I wanted to scream, then faint.
I said a very terrified yes, churned out a script, Jimmie provided his typical brilliant art, then it was published! Cyberzone #6. I got to write the love story! It was that experience
(and also Jimmie’s subsequent much larger exposure) that opened the door for everything comic-related for me that followed. And, the protagonist of Cyberzone is a black, gay, woman, and this expanded my then more limited view of the potential of this incredible medium. Protagonists could look, and be, like anyone and everyone.
I also wanted to have a more tangible contribution to the creation of comics, so I learned the craft of today’s comic lettering. I’ve been blessed with several lettering gigs with different publishers and am lettering Dragon Whisperer. It’s such that it has become unimaginable for me that anyone else could letter Dragon Whisperer because I revise so much between script and final page! If someone else lettered it, that person would want to punch me for all the revisions I would ask of them!
Glen: My mother and my grandmother used to be active painters and ceramists, and were very art oriented. My mom loves everything artistic and I loved helping her when it came to ceramics, but I liked casting molds, etc. I never drew or painted.
Throughout most of my infancy I only had a couple of comics, from Mickey Mouse and one about Laurel and Hardy, and every Sunday I read the newspaper strips insert which had Spider-man, Alley Oop (it was known as Trucutu in my country of Venezuela), Dick Tracy, Garfield, and a bunch of others in color too.
It wasn't until I was about 17 years old when my sister gave me the comic book of X-Factor #110. It blew my mind so much that I started drawing the same day I got it. Before that comic book I had no interest in arts.
I must note that in my country comic books where not that known at the time, we mostly had newspaper strips.
6. Dragon Whisperer is one of the few all-ages books that can truly be enjoyed by ALL ages. Do you think that's part of its appeal?
Alex: I absolutely think that Dragon Whisper’s all aged demographic is core to its appeal. In every old man and woman there is still a little boy and girl. And, while sometimes we don't want to admit it, we like to reminisce and get back in touch with that young person. My favorite author is the late great John Bellairs. His books are a time capsule of the late 40s early 50s youth and uninhibited childlike enthusiasm. I still adore those books to this day. It's easy to find examples of all age media that has an appeal much broader than its core demographic.
7. What outside-influences unrelated to comics influence your work as a creative person?
Alex: Influences outside of comics that have inspired my creativity are music, of course, in particular the aforementioned Rush and the melodramatic epic-ness of progressive rock in general.
Also film. 1933 King Kong especially. I love the classics, and worshipped Kubrick and Ridley Scott, but one filmmaker, and one film in particular, that really changed everything for me - as in I grew up a little bit after watching this movie - is Andrei Tarkovsky. And the film is 1979’s Stalker. I was fortunate to be able to see that movie in the theater. It was touted as science fiction so I thought to myself "Cool! I love science fiction!" I was expecting the usual Flash Gordon thing but what I saw was... indescribable... The deep, painful, devastatingly beautiful and elegiac bit of deliberate filmic storytelling in that movie... It changed everything. Tarkovsky's autobiographical film book is called Sculpting in Time, and that is exactly what he did. If he were a sculptor his clay was time. He also made the much more classic science fiction movie Solaris (the original). I can't possibly recommend strongly enough to everyone reading this to watch his movies. I guarantee they will change your perception of the potential of visual storytelling.
Glen: Old School point & click adventure games. Ever since I got my first computer (a 386 dx4 100 with 2mb ram and a whooping 80mb hard drive and a 13" VGA monitor) I wanted to create adventure games. I wanted to write them since I was art-numb at the time and was also miss-lead to think I needed to become a systems engineer to do that.
8. What's next for Alex De Luca and Glen Fernandez?
Alex: What's next! Well, first I've already written the next story arc for Dragon Whisper! As a matter of fact, the first issue of it is 100% done! I also, as would be expected, have lots of other projects cooking. Some of them are for a much younger audience and some of them for a much older audience! And, they're across many platforms of media spanning many genres. Some are even nonfiction. I'm very grateful to the wonderful people at Red 5 Comics to be able to provide a platform for the stories I love telling!