Bob Frantz, Kevin Cuffe, and Drew Moss Talk 'Chase The Moon'

Bob Frantz, Kevin Cuffe, and Drew Moss are fan-favorite indie comics creators who are working to develop a new, original graphic novel titled Chase the Moon. The project, which is a kind of '80s-inspired tragic love story featuring monsters, is being funded via crowdfunding and only has a few days left to finalize its funding and get fans on board for the project.

You can check out their Kickstarter here.

Frantz, Cuffe, and Moss joined ComicBook.com via e-mail to talk briefly about the project.

The Kickstarter page cites pop culture reference after pop culture reference to contextualize Chase the Moon for audiences. When you're creating a work like this, how useful is that? And do you ever worry about not quite fulfilling the expectations because you said "Monster Squad" and delivered "Chase the Moon?"

Bob Frantz: Not at all. A lot of the times when you are pitching a brand new idea to companies or an audience for that matter, you have to hit on familiar tones and visuals of the work. Is this book Monster Squad? Not at all. However, all of the monsters featured in the film appear in Chase the Moon.

Kevin Cuffe: It provides a frame of reference for audiences to relate it to. I think it'd be harder to say exactly what it is without some frame of reference to bring to mind for an audience. No, not really. Monster Squad is a thing that provides influence to what we are trying to do, to actually expect us to deliver kids fighting monsters when we made the promise of a "coming of age" werewolf story would be a misnomer. But to say it didn't have some influence on what we did in the story would also be false.

Drew Moss: personally I think it more of a John Carpenter film like Big Trouble in Little China or They Live. To me the Monster Squad reference is more that it is a book that has classic, and other monsters in the 80s

Is there a challenge to making a horror story where the world is so rich and there are so many THINGS at play that it isn't just "okay, here's werewolves, and we can spend all our pages on those rules?"

Bob: Oh definitely, it is a challenge. We are world building while trying to tell a very personal story of two young lovers that exist in this world.

That being said, we NEED to lay out the rules and conditions of the world Chase the Moon is set in because those rules play such a major part of our story. These two kids, Samantha and Jason CANNOT together because of the rules we established through world building. That's part of the conflict and drama of the book.

And if you are worried that this mushy stuff and world-building will get in the way of awesome werewolf action, don't! We got you, monster lovers!

Kevin: The focus for us is on the story at hand. This particular story focuses on The Lunatics, the werewolf pack and primarily on Jason and his forbidden relationship with Samantha. It's a story about love because when we are in the worst places in our lives, we often turn to those who love us to get us through.

We'd love to do an anthology where we let other writers and artists tell stories about all the other monster factions involved so it becomes sort of a shared thing. It's a goal for the future, right now we just want to fund this one so we can tell more stories in the world if the interest is there.

Why "Jason?" Does the name mean anything? In a book that's fueled in part by '80s nostalgia I immediately think Vorhees.

Kevin: That's funny. We were more thinking "The Golden Fleece," so it's more mythology influenced than say horror movie influenced in that case.

For Sam, she's a tomboyish character she's smart and sassy with a lot of wisdom so it was more of a take from John Hughes Sixteen Candles even subconsciously, where Jason was more of a version of our Lloyd Dobbler from Say Anything.

Bob: It's not THAT Jason. Being kids of the '80s, we were just kicking around names of kids in our classes. The name Jason kept popping up, so we went with it.

Drew, you're a prolific commission artist and are offering some of those as KS rewards. What is the oddest or most elaborate thing you have ever been asked to do?

Drew: I get some odd ones some times. I guess the one that pops into my mind is a set of commissions featuring male characters taking showers. It wasn't sexual in any way. Literally characters taking showers. Odd because I don't usually get that but not strange because I felt it was tasteful. Elaborate was a 18 character cover recreations if Avengers #200 featuring a different set of avengers. That took awhile and I am no George Perez.

What is the thing you would most like to tell a wider audience about this comic?

Kevin: It's a big world the three of us have tried to create here and there are many many more stories in it — we happened to set this one in the 80's but we wanted to tell stories there that are from all the eras in the world since the monsters "come out of the shadows" in the 1920s. Chase the Moon has bigger themes at play, what does it mean to be human versus what we as humanity feel is monstrous?

The truth is that even though characters in the book may be monsters they want the same sorts of things the humans do. In the end, we all just want to be loved.

Bob: We are writing and creating a tragic love story. This is Romeo and Juliet, man. Just replace the Montagues with some badass werewolves!