Adam P. Knave And DJ Kirkbride Catch Us Up On Amelia Cole Versus the End of Everything

It's been a couple of months since we checked in with the creative team behind Monkeybrain Comics's amazing Amelia Cole.

In that time, much more has come to be known about the nature of the world Amelia is protecting, as the final battle against the Council has started to take shape.

As ever, Knave and Kirkbride joined us to talk about the issues. And as ever, we're about to get all spoilery up in here, so if you haven't read Amelia Cole #27 and #28 yet, GO BUY THEM NOW and read along with us.

When we come to the basement in #27, it's looking very…moody. Is that just the change in Nick's art over the life of the series, or was it meant to look less welcoming in this arc than when we last saw it?

DJK: Nick's art is reflecting how much in turmoil the world is. With the Council basically taking over, the mood is grim. I love it when comics, instead of going for a totally realistic look, use color and lighting to evoke the emotions of the scene.

APK: The first time was about discovery, this time is tinged with desperation.

When did you guys decide to add Laura to the big picture story? Was she always involved, or did it come up when Hector went human-side?

APK: We decided to bring Laura back for the previous volume, to give readers someone they sorta knew to tie in with Hector, but in an early-early draft of volume five she wasn't there, she got left behind. But as we finished volume four we both realized that didn't work for who Laura was, or for Hector's story, or Amelia's even. She had become really important to us and so we threw her into the larger mix, and it really helped cement volume five for us.

DJK: Laura is also connected Amelia, as she's the friend Amelia was meeting for coffee when the Persuasion Demon showed up in the non-magic world way back in issue 1. It felt right to tie everything together here at the end.

I love that she's driving so much of the story here, with her simple desire to help. It's been a while since we had anybody taking center stage who's kind of just…good. Everyone has a lot going on, but they're all so complex and layered by this point in the story that Laura's kind of a breath of fresh air.

DJK: Good! That was our intention. It seemed like a good idea to have someone be new to this again. Amelia, Hector, Omega Company, even Mike and George and Malone, are all almost used to how crazy everything has gotten. Introducing a new point of view character from a world that's barely been represented in this comic was a way to bring back some "WAIT WHAT???' to the proceedings.

APK: And we get to see that the way Amelia affects her friends is an ongoing thing. She gravitates toward people like Laura, like Hector, even if it that took a while, and so on.

The "Yeah — action" panel is one of my favorites. It feels kind of throwback-y, since we don't really see the "looming images" thing in current comics art much. Was that scripted?

APK: The looming monsters part was sort of scripted? We knew monsters were there, and the barrier was there, but we didn't specifically ask for them to be looming like that in the script.

DJK: We wanted the threat to be visualized, and Nick, as he always does, took it to another level.

Did you guys have an internal storytelling reason why the Internet and such didn't develop in the magic world?

DJK: Magic is quicker than science, so they have all these cool, fantastical things like magic carpet taxis and floating TVs, but it comes at the cost of developing technologically. Why create the internet or even cell phones if you can just project your friend with your wand? The biggest downside is that the non-mages can't do that, so it pushes them further behind.

APK: It helped sharpen that cultural divide for us in fun ways we didn't really have to sit and explain, it just hits you - hey wait, if they don't have this then…

Is the "It is time for your story to come to an end…now" kind of a meta joke that's too depressing for me to get?

DJK: It's just some tough guy talk for the bad guys to say. They're winning. They feel pretty confident, so they figure it's time to just put it all out there. It's not to meta in that life is a story, but, yeah, there's lots of talk of endings at this point. It's on all of our minds.

APK: I promise I did not show the Council the scripts.

Please tell me we can get a Lemmy Corps spinoff one-shot. It really needs to happen.

DJK: We'd love to do stuff like that! Right now we're just happy we get to do this one series, but in an ideal world, there would've been AMELIA COLE spin offs, or at least an AMELIA COLE PRESENTS title. THE LEMMY CORPS would be one, for sure. Speaking of "corps," OMEGA CORPS, of course. Maybe a prequel comic called FREEMAN: MAGIC BEAT COP or a kind of hangout and hijinks relationship sitcom called MIKE 'N GEORGE, oh, PRIVATE GARZA, about Hector first joining the magic army -- oh, man! There are so many more stories to tell!

APK: There was a time, I mean it could still even happen I suppose, we were discussing even short prose stories with spin-offs. There's just such a lush world to play with.

The council got more abstract-looking in #28. Was that just a function of what they had to do in the story? I mean…suddenly they're fighting an army of huge golems.

APK: They've been eating. Also, I know I love the way they seem to fade in and out of focus with the world a bit, through Nick's art. Sometimes they are all detail and menace, and sometimes raw force. It fits them well.

DJK: They used to hide in the shadows, then they came out into the light... now they're sucking the light into the shadows. It's all menacing stuff, and Nick sells it with the creepy art.

Is that "Let's Go Save the Worlds" shot intentionally an homage to the Iron Man movies?

APK: Hah yes and no? I mean the control shots of Amelia inside MechLemmy were obviously influenced by Iron Man, so… kinda? D.J.?

DJK: Yeah, visually we asked for a kind of Iron Man look, as it is just such a fun representation of being inside a suit. At first I saw this Lemmy/Amelia combo as something like Ripley in the mech suit at the end of Aliens, but Nick drew a different take that worked awesomely and also lent itself to having that kind of Tony in the Iron Man suit look for the Amelia shots.

With Futurama and Star Wars references, plus maybe a little backhanded wink and a nod at Man of Steel, it seems like 28 doubled down on the pop culture references.

DJK: Haha, I have to look through the issues again, as I missed some of them. It's been a while since we wrote it, but I bet most of the winks were Nick having fun with the art. Another reason to go back and re-read the series, Lemmyheads!

APK: I realized the other day there was a ref we were going to put in at that last minute in 27 I think, that we totally forgot to add in. It was just a dialogue change at the lettering pass and when it came time we forgot - which means it wasn't worth doing probably - but we passed up a Star Trek reference.