Rafael Albuquerque and Mike Johnson Discuss New Series, Ei8ht

The past, present, and future meld together in Ei8ht, an upcoming miniseries by Rafael Albuquerque and Mike Johnson. The collaborative duo, who have published plenty of work on DC's most venerable franchises, are striking out on their first creator-owned property with Ei8ht. Originally created by Albuquerque as a webcomic, Ei8ht now finds new life at Dark Horse Comics with Johnson as Albuquerque's co-writer.

Ei8ht plays out like a cross between Interstellar, 2001: A Space Odyssey, and Mad Max. In the first issue, readers meet an astronaut who's landed in the meld, a dimension beyond any mortal's understanding. As his story unfolds, all of reality's rules are thrown out—even the meaning of color. Ei8ht is unique in that color plays a crucial role in understanding the story's nuances. With a color palette that's a crucial as any narrative caption, Ei8ht truly plays to the comic medium's strengths.

Below, Albuquerque and Johnson talked to comicbook.com discuss what the Meld really is, the process of adapting a web comic into a print series, and the challenges of wrangling a time-traveling story that doesn't get wrangled in its own logistics.

What is the importance of the color scheme established in the first page ?How will the colors come to affect and influence the reading experience?

Albuquerque: The colors are crucial for the full experience of this book. Each main color means a time lapse, so I believe its a interesting way to guide the reader trough the story.

Its' a funny story. This idea was originally publsihed as a webcomic, in Brazil. I had a really short time to come up with the whole tihng, and my production time was really tight. I needed to find a way to use the colors as a powerful narrative tool and at the same time be very effective and easy to do.

Johnson: Rafa's idea for the colors was a great way to make the book stand out visually, but it's also a novel and interesting storytelling tool. Usually we would rely on captions exclusively to indicate a change of scene, but the colors do that themselves.

The Meld is described as "something else entirely," in the first issue's opening page, but how would you best classify the concept?

Albuquerque: The Meld is somehow, a temporal garbage. Imagine if civilizations, animals, plants, all those ships, aircrafts...everything, that suddenly disappeared from the face of earth went there, and are somehow coexisting and evolving together in a different time lapse.

Johnson: It's a catch-all for lost things from across all of the past, present and future, whatever falls through the rare and transitory portals that pop up in our world. The Meld is a great sandbox to tell stories in, because we can pull anything and anyone from any time period and drop them in. It also gives Rafa the freedom to draw literally anything he wants.

Rafa, how has it been working on your own creator-owned series? What are the differences between working on a self-made concept like Ei8ht and the company-owned properties at DC?

It's definitely special. I value my DC work a lot, but working in something that I created by myself, from the scratch, is definitely way more challenging, but also rewarding once it's done.

What does the title Ei8ht mean? Is there significance in replacing the G with with the numeral 8?

Albuquerque: There are some: 8 is the radio channel where Joshua hears the mysterious voice that guides him in his journey. Its also an obvious reference to the infinite symbol, and the idea that life happens in circles. So the question here is, if you know what's going to happen in the future, and that everything will repeat in a eternal loop, how can you break it and change the future?

How did the web comic that Ei8ht is based on transform into this current miniseries? How does this new version of the story differ from the first web comics, and how does it remain the same?

Albuquerque: I did the original webcomic in 2011, and couldn't really finish the story because the website that was publishing it closed the project. I felt that it was a nice story, and people here in Brazil were always asking me about it. So, I thought maybe it was the time to try it again, in the U.S. My original idea was to just finish it and republish the whole beginning, but the more I looked at the material, the more I realized that its format wouldn't work in a comic book.

When you have a web comic, you need a hook in every page. When you read once a week, it's nice like a soap opera or a series episode. But, when you collect it all, it really feels weird, and you can't really develop longer sequences. So, I brought the idea to Mike, and we started to adapt that original thing to something that would really work out in a 5-issue mini. A lot of it has improved, but the core of the idea is intact.

Where in the first issue would you advise readers to look back and really re-read for further clues into Ei8ht's mystery?

Albuquerque: I'm not spoiling, but all I can say is that, this is not a easter egg type of project. We wanted to focus on the characters, and as much the whole time traveling thing may sound complicated, we made sure that the story is focused on the characters and it reads easily.

Johnson: Yeah, we wanted to throw readers right into the action from the first panel, and let them discover the world of the Meld through Joshua's eyes. But, definitely take a close look at the guy on the last page.

What are some of the challenges and pleasures of creating a story steeped in time-travel? Is there a specific rulebook to time-travel in your universe, or are you looking at other models of time travel as you write Ei8ht?

Albuquerque: Time traveling is one of the hardest kinds of stories, since we have a paradox that its impossible to beat. What we tried to tell a story that works for the reader in a way that doesn't feel weird or important. The focus of our story is not time travel itself, it's on the journey of each one of the characters.

Johnson: I think you can definitely trip over your own feet when creating a time travel story, but we try to keep it simple even as we are jumping around. Rather than infinite alternate universes, we have a past, present, future, and then the Meld running alongside all of them as its own dimension.

Awesome. Anything else that you'd like to mention?

Albuquerque: I'd like to thank fellow creators, the Dark Horse crew, and the media for their support. Everyone is very receptive to the book. And I'd like to especially thank all the fans from American Vampire, Batman, Supergirl and the many other projects Mike and I did, and encourage them to pick up the book up. We put a lot of heart into it, and I'm sure it will be noticed.

Johnson: I hope everyone who has read my work on Star Trek enjoys this very different adventure that shares Trek's sense of wonder and emphasis on memorable characters. But most of all, I want to thank Rafa for bringing me along for the ride. Working with him has been a highlight of my career.

Ei8ht #1 hits comic shops on February 18th.