Chris Roberson is best known for his work on the comic iZombie, which inspired the hit CW show, but as a writer and editor, he’s had a long, long love affair with the pulps. That’s led him to the world of Hellboy, co-writing Hellboy & The BPRD 1952, and now, exploring the roots of the mystical villain the Black Flame, whom Hellboy and others have fought over the years, Rise of the Black Flame, coming on September 7. Roberson was kind enough to sit down with us and answer a few questions about the pulps and writing in somebody else’s universe.
What are some of the tricks you find help when working with other people’s characters? How much backstory do you have to work with?
I enjoy solving puzzles, and working in an established world with someone else’s characters is always a really engaging intellectual exercise. You’re always looking for gaps that could be filled with interesting bits of story, or characters who might be fun to explore further. And working in different historical eras and cultural milieus just makes it that much more enjoyable, finding real world events or locales that suggest interesting narrative possibilities.
Siam isn’t a setting we often see in comics. How much research did you do for the setting? Were there any opportunities you found in there to add to the story you weren’t expecting?
Oh, I did a ridiculous amount of research for this story, but then I usually do when writing period pieces or stories set in different cultures. I chose the Kingdom of Siam originally because I’ve always been fascinated with Thailand, and in particular the fact that it was the only Southeast Asian country to avoid colonial rule by one of the European powers. But in the end, I found so much amazing material about the region that we were only able to use a fraction of it in the story. And I practically buried my artist collaborator Chris Mitten with reference images!
Tell us a little bit about the Black Flame, at this point. We know where they wind up, but where are they starting?
Just where the Black Flame cult comes from is a mystery that will be solved over the course of the story, but I can say that they have been hiding in the shadows of the Mignolaverse for a very long time, and that there might be some unexpected connections with other things we’ve seen in those stories before.
What goes into writing a good hero, especially one fighting a creepy cult?
I think it largely comes down to how the characters react in a crisis. It’s not the extraordinary circumstances that someone finds themselves facing that makes for a good hero, but how they respond.
What call-forwards or details should fans keep an eye out for?
I won’t go into too much detail for fear of spoiling future surprises, but there are most definitely strong connections between the events of Rise of the Black Flame and stories that we’ll be doing further down the line in the pages of Hellboy & The BPRD and Witchfinder, among others!
Rise of the Black Flame will be available September 7 from Dark Horse