Exclusive: Red City’s Daniel Corey on Taking The Hard-Boiled Detective to Mars

The series, which Corey has been trying to adapt to a stage musical (an area where he’s had success in the past), is available in a hardcover Deluxe Edition and is the centerpiece of Corey’s convention appearances — so it was a bit surprising when, rather than a new arc of Moriarty, it was an all-new property that Corey recently brought to comics in the form of Red City.

The first issue debuted yesterday from Image Comics, and tells the story of a hard-boiled detective character in a spacebound environment, blending elements of Raymond Chandler and Ray Bradbury.

Corey spoke with ComicBook.com about the four-issue miniseries (you can buy the first issue on the Image Comics website or ComiXology), the future of the property and the state of Moriarty.

Daniel Corey: Red City, the really basic one-liner, is that it’s like L.A. Confidential on Mars.

It’s set in the way-distant future, it blends science-fiction and cop noir. That’s the very quick elevator pitch: Bradbury meets Chandler.

ComicBook.com: You seem to immediatley start bumping up against things like Blade Runner. Did you see as you went, “Oh, wow, we have that…”

Corey: Blade Runner is an obvious comparison because they were inspired by Philip Marlowe and such. That movie is a little more about existential crisis, to me, than it is about being a detective story. The detective story I felt was kind of a vehicle for this philosophical introspection — which I love but that just wasn’t our goal with Red City. Our goal was just to tell a cool, fun, detective mystery.

It’s also got a much brighter look; we’re on the surface of Mars with the bright red and yellow sky and there’s aliens in this. It’s kind of got a brighter feel to it. Where Blade Runner has a sense of pessimism to it, this one is more about bettering yourself in hardship. I’d say it’s a little more optimistic that way. People also compare it to Total Recall and I hadn’t thought of that one iota until people started saying it. To me, Total Recall is about virtual reality and we don’t deal with that at all.

Corey: Mark naturally has this kind of retro-future-type style. It all comes very naturally to him and the book visually has a very Ray Bradbury look — whenever you see artistic representations of Bradbury’s work, becuase it has that kind of 1950s view of the future and that’s what Mark is doing. He has that kind of period pulp style anyway so when he puts it into outer space, it lends itself to that kind of flavor.

ComicBook.com: Is the plan here to do a kind of Hellboy-inspired series of miniseries or is it really planned as just this story for now?

Corey: I’ll be honest and say the latter. It’s a volume one that we’re doing and it’s a self-contained, season-one story. If we can do more, we will. I would love to do volumes two and three and so on. It’s hard — it’s a cop procedural story so there’s all kinds of mysteries that you can devise for the gang to be involved in and I would love to do more but it’s just a matter of what we can do.

In independent comics, it’s always what can we do? How far can we go with this? You’re definitely going to get a full story out of this initial four issues. It’ll have a satisfying conclusion.

Corey: Honestly, I think this might be a little more familiar to people. Thanks to Saga and its tremendous success, I think folks are seeing a lot of sci-fi at Image right now and if there’s another sci-fi title coming out of Image, you’ll want to check it out. 

As far as Moriarty fans I’ve talked to at conventions, they’re excited to see another mystery from me. I think that sci-fi and outer space is in right now and that for people who know me, they’re seeing me do a different type of mystery so those factors are working well for us. So I don’t think it’s a difficult leap.

ComicBook.com: Why not Anthony [Diecidue]? Was it just a matter of timing?

Corey: Yeah — I love working with Anthony, we’re friends, we stay in touch and he still has done work for me here and there. Any time I need concept art for movie scripts that I’ve written and am pitching around town, he’s done a lot of that in the meantime since Moriarty; it’s just things didn’t match up at the right time for Red City.

Corey: That’s been put on hold for a little while. Again, it’s a scheduling situation. I hope that sometime in the latter half of this year that Ray and I can get together and start talking about the stage show again. That’s all I can say; that’s literally all I have to tell you.

We were cooking really hard for about six months. I had the script together and he had some of the music written, but then all kinds of life happened that I can’t get into. It wasn’t strains or tensions between us — it’s just a lot of obstacles that pulled us away from that. Someday soon we’ll get back to it.

I hope we can make it happen for you. All it requires is some time for us. We have resources; we’re in LA, so we have a lot of great singers and actors that we can workshop it with. It’s just a matter of we have to get enough material together so that we can start doing the workshops. We’re a percentage there at the moment — I’ve got the script, I’ve got the book. It’s just a matter of getting a lot of the songs and the music together. There’s that! In the musical, you’ve got to have the music together.

ComicBook.com: Is there a next project lined up? I mean, with a shorter miniseries, it means you’re soliciting the final issue of Red City at the same time the first issue hits the stands this week!

Corey: I have things that I want to do but honestly I don’t have solid plans at this moment. We’ve got to wait and see — will we do more Red City or will we do one of my other projects? I have another comic that I’ve written that I am dying to do and it’s just a matter of getting it together.

I’ll tell you this much about the other story: it’s another mystery, but it’s in more of a supernatural and horror vein of things. I don’t want to say anymore because it might not happen or it might not happen for two years. We’ll have to wait and see! When you get fifty people together to make a movie or two people together to make a comic, it really is the same amount of work and expense in a lot of ways. Sometimes it feels like moving mountains. I have other stuff in mind, but I can’t say exactly what because there’s a lot going on and a lot of wait-and-see right now.