Oscar Isaac Chats New Graphic Novel Head Wounds: Sparrow (Exclusive)

When Oscar Isaac isn’t saving a galaxy far, far away or fighting crime as the Fist of Khonshu in Marvel’s Moon Knight, the actor oversees Mad Gene Media, a production company he operates with his partner and wife Elvira Lind. As of this New Comic Book Day, Head Wounds: Sparrow has been released in comic stores around the country, a production between Isaac’s Mad Gene and Legendary Comics.

Developed by Isaac and lifelong friends Bob Johnson and John Alvey, the story features a protagonist—one that looks like Isaac, nonetheless—that serves as a detective investigating crimes. Unfortunately for the detective, he’s cursed with feeling the pain and wearing the wounds, literally, of those he’s unable to protect.

“I was dying of cancer, man, and I was in an office job where I was making good money, but my life sucked and I wasn’t doing anything creative at the time,” Johnson tells us of the story at hand. “And we’ve always created together since we were kids, so it was a bucket lister to make something and actually show people that thing that I made. Of course, when someone tells you you’re going to die, you go to that place where you think about what happens next. And you think about, where did I come from? Where am I going from here? And this crazy shit is what happened in my head as I laid dying, as I was going through that stuff, man. That’s what happened.”

Johnson then took that idea and passed it to Alvey, a Dungeons and Dragons player who was able to help refine the idea and begin the earliest stages of development. Johnson and credited as the creator of the graphic novel while both he and Alvey get co-story writer credits.

The hefty 120-page OGN was then written by Brian Buccellato and drawn by Christian Ward, an artist that was personally selected by Isaac himself.

“When I saw Christian’s work and just saw how expressive it is and how much of a storyteller he is, sometimes it feels like it’s a director,” Isaac adds. ” It’s like a Almodóvar or a David Lynch kind of thing. The way that he tells his stories through the panels and the way that he fucks it all up as well. And of course his use of color is just unequal.”

Head Wounds: Sparrow is now for sale online here or wherever comics are sold.