Black Hammer’s Jeff Lemire Chats Upcoming Visions Anthology

In a matter of weeks, Dark Horse’s Black Hammer universe continues with Black Hammer Visions, a new series introducing eight new creative teams to the Jeff Lemire and Dean Ormston-created comics universe. Unlike other Black Hammer spinoffs currently being released — see Colonel Weird: Cosmagog and Barbalien: Red Planet — Visions will serve as an anthology series with each story focusing on a separate character in the Black Hammer world.

As previously revealed by Dark Horse, Black Hammer Visions #1 is written by comedian Patton Oswalt as Dean Kotz serves as the artist. Black Hammer Visions #2 then takes a sidestep into the macabre and features Geoff Johns and Scott Kollins on a story featuring Madame Dragonfly. At the end of all eight issues, the anthology title will be collected into a hardcover edition with a new cover by the outstanding Jae Lee — and we have your exclusive first look at that below!

In support of the impending release of Visions, we caught up with Lemire over email during the holiday season to talk about the anthology series he has planned, and the overall future of the Black Hammer world. Keep scrolling to read the lowdown on Black Hammer Visions, due out next month!

Introducing New Creatives

ComicBook.com: We see with Red Planet and Tate Brombal you’ve decided slowly to introduce more writers into this world you’ve created. Visions blows the roof off on that with nearly 10 additional writers being pulled into the fray. At what point did you feel comfortable releasing your grasp on this world you’ve create so that other creators could play in the sandbox? Was there a single moment/epiphany you remember that set you on that path?

Jeff Lemire: I can’t say there was a single moment. It really just came from the fanboy inside of me wanting to see what other creators whom I admired would do with this universe I had created. At this point, after several years of publishing and world building, I felt confident enough to let others in and see what they would do. Mostly I just wanted to have some fun with the world and characters and open it up a bit.

Pitching Stories

Visions has an all-star cast. Patton Oswalt, Geoff Johns, Kelly Thompson, (unfortunately) Chip Zdarsky, and plenty more. I’m super interested to hear about the pitching process involved with not only selecting these creators, but the stories they wrote.

Did you send them The World of Black Hammer Encylopedia after they agreed to write a story? Did you have a certain amount of stories you had developed and had them choose out of the pool?

Well, there wasn’t much of a pitching process to be honest. I just approached people I admired and whose work I was a fan of and let them loose. They all came back with their ideas and I let them run. I don’t think there was ever any point with any of the stories where I gave notes or pushed back on any idea. My feeling was that readers already know what the Black Hammer books are like when I write them, let this really be these other writer’s visions without me getting in the way.

I had no preconceived stories or ideas at all, I left it totally open to them. I believe Daniel Chabon, our editor, sent them all reference material and we left it open for them to choose a character to work with. In the case of Chip Zdarsky, I didn’t need to send any reference because Chip is a Black Hamer superfan. He has Barbalien tattooed on his back and an entire room in his home dedicated to me and my work. So obviously, he was very familiar with all the nuances of Black Hammer (trust me, I get three or four “fan letters” from Chip every week with his “ideas” for BH).

When it comes to the artwork, how did you decide on the collaborators there? Was that all you choosing who you wanted them to work with based on the story or did the writers also get their say?

Again, I was very hands off and just watched it all unfold. In most cases each writer already had an idea of an artist they would like to work with and I think in almost every case we were able to make that happen. In some cases it was artists that those writers had worked with in the past and wanted to work with again, like Geoff with Scott Kolins and Mariko with Diego.

It was really fun for me to watch the art come in, and see these characters rendered in interesting new ways. In some cases these were artists I had never worked with myself, so it was especially rewarding to get to know their work a bit more.

New Characters

Without giving too much away, Black Hammer: Visions #2 introduces a pretty gnarly powered character to the Black Hammer universe. Can fans of the franchise expect more of that as Visions progresses?

Geoff Johns came in with a really specific idea for a story, and I was excited about it. Obviously Geoff and I had worked together in the past at DC, so there was already a shorthand there in how we went back and forth. Geoff does introduce a pretty amazing new character whom I can’t wait to use in my next Black Hammer project and he’s not the only one. Both Chip and Kelly introduce new villains as well. That’s the real joy of this, seeing these new surprise elements added to the universe that I can carry forward myself in new stories.

I think it’s set for an eight-part anthology series right now. Any chance that’s a test and this format could go longer than eight issues?

This one will definitely stay at 8, but the list of creators I would love to see write or draw the Black Hammer characters is really long, so there is no reason we couldn’t do another run down the road.

Future of the Black Hammer Universe

By now Skulldigger’s nearly done. Cosmagog and Red Planet will also be done before we know it. Then we’ve got Visions and Reborn out there as well. It’s no secret you often keep your plate as full as possible, so it stands to reason there are plenty of additional things in the works. Once the three aforementioned titles wrap, is Visions the flagship Black Hammer title of 2021? Is Reborn potentially a 2021 title? What else is in the works?

When Visions and the current miniseries wrap my plan is to actually shrink the universe back down to one or two core books again. I had a ton of fun building out the world and universe and all these mini-series have added so much to the foundation of that world, but now I have one very specific story I want to tell using everything we’ve done as the building blocks, and that story will be in the pages of Black Hammer Reborn our new core title that will launch in 2021. We’ll have more details on that soon I expect. I will also be doing another Black Hammer series with my co-creator Dean Ormston that will focus on the supernatural side of the universe. This will be our other sister series and these two books will weave together to tell one epic story.

The Black Hammer Bible

Last but not least — do you know how the Black Hammer world ends? I’d previously heard a tale of when Mike Mignola first pitched Hellboy, he had this massive story bible that included an outline of the end, which eventually ended up as The Devil You Know. First, do you know how (and when) the Black Hammer story ends? Second, does the Black Hammer “Bible” exist?

I did have a bible, but that bible only went up to the end of Black Hammer: Age of Doom. That was my original ending. But of course we expanded so much in ways I didn’t expect, and built out the universe so much, that things kept growing beyond that. The last couple years have been about expanding and universe building. And now that I’ve done that, I do have an ending for the whole thing planned and a new bible that outlines that. This is the path Black Hammer Reborn will put us on.

*****

Black Hammer Visions #1 is due out from Dark Horse Comics on February 10th.