Posted in: Comics, Recent Updates | Tagged: boom, Colin Lorimer, Comics, curse, entertainment, Jim Campbell, michael moreci, riley rossmo, Tim Daniel

New Werewolf Lore Lands This Week in Cursed – Michael Moreci and Tim Daniel Talk Lycans, With Preview

Published Tue, 14 Jan 2014 13:00:00 -0600

by Hannah Means Shannon

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This week, January gets a new dose of comics horror in the form of Curse from Boom! Studios, and it has quite a sizable production team behind it, each doing their part to create this hybrid of traditional werewolf lore and a modern take on insular characters looking out for their own interests and causes. We have Michael Moreci and Tim Daniel writing, Riley Rossmo (currently of Drumhellar from Image) and Colin Lorimer on art, and letters by Jim Campbell.

Though Curse is a comic of many themes, one of them is certainly power versus powerlessness, and types of power and control in the face of human limitations look likely to play a key part as the series develops, not unlike Jack London's Call of the Wild. Only the comic is crafted like a thriller with the same weighty pauses around character development that we have come to associate with tense dramas, enriching the story while establishing plot.

Michael Moreci and Tim Daniel talk with Bleeding Cool here about their characters, their views on horror, and their team of collaborators:

Hannah Means-Shannon: It seems like there are two levels of horror in this story, the looming threat of possible werewolves rampaging around killing people, and also the in many ways more horrifying threat of illness striking down those we care about. What does the horror genre mean to you and why combine those two things?

Michael Moreci: I think the thing is this: the werewolf portion makes Curse dynamic, while the illness/survival aspect makes it real. To me, horror only works when you care. There are certain conditions that need to be met in order for me to be scared. Extreme, mindless gore does nothing to me, the same for characters doing dumb, unreasonable things in order to set up a fright. I become scared when I truly care about what I'm reading or seeing on the screen. Salem's Lot scared the living hell out of me because I was invested in the entire world Stephen King created. It's a fairly typical vampire story but, man, it is terrifying.

For Curse, we want to draw readers in. You're there with Laney and his pedestrian struggles—lousy health insurance, broken dreams, money woes, stuff we can all understand—and when things go bad for him, you should feel it. You want him to save his son, to fix his life, but he's got this werewolf to contend with and, to Tim [Daniel] and I, is where Curse's tension is born. There's plenty of cool werewolf action, but everything, all the conflict in the book, is heightened by the personal investment we want readers to have. Combine that with [Colin] Lorimer and [Riley] Rossmo's art, and I think you have a pretty satisfying read.

HMS: There are a lot of powerful people in the comic so far, a sports star, a police woman. Can you tell us more about these protagonists and why they appeal to you?

Tim Daniel: The cast of Curse are some pretty interesting folks mainly because as the question states, their identifiable labels make them immediately accessible to readers. Yet real people are always more than the labels we prescribe to them. What makes them appealing is their flaws. They are nothing more than people we know, people with very familiar concerns, including those we harbor ourselves. Sheriff Nora Hughes may be running her department with a stern confidence and authority but she's struggling to catch what appears to be a ruthless serial killer right in her midst. Laney Griffin might have been a standout collegian football player destined for pro stardom, but a physical trauma curtailed his dreams. We all know people quietly waging their own war with the demands of every day life and the cast of Curse is no different.

HMS: In researching and working on Curse, what particularly in werewolf lore stood out to you as intriguing?

TD: The entirety of traditional werewolf lore informs our handling of Anton Chavoy (Curse's werewolf). We took no liberties with that really, but we did look for opportunities to insert a wrinkle here and there to established werewolf mythology. Mike plays dumb with his contribution here, but if memory serves, it was him that came up with the notion that our werewolf would fluctuate with the different phases of the moon. We also experiment with the virility of the curse in relationship to how long one has suffered its affect. Overall, we tried very hard not to exploit the lore, to capitalize on it in a cheap, offhanded manner, but rather use it as a strong foundation and respect the tradition.

HMS: Are we going to get to know this lycan better in the series as a "person" too?

TD: You can bet your sweet canines we'll get to know Anton. It would be unfair to his character and readers if his existence were merely a device. He's kind of a tidy mixture of Boba Fett and Nolan's Joker. Readers will get to see plenty of him, both in human form and in action, but there's a lot left in reserve. As a result, he casts a dark mystique across the series, slashes right across it with his looming presence. Ultimately, how we use Anton's character is necessary the reader's focus remains on the father-son story of Laney and Jaren Griffin, but boy would we have a field day with exploring his life further.

HMS: Can you introduce us to your teammates on the book (who are rather fabulous) and tell us what you think they each bring to the story?

MM: I'm lucky to be working with such amazing collaborators. Riley [Rossmo] and Colin [Lorimer], as everyone should know, are tremendous talents. And what they bring to this book is so unique and cool. Colin is all about control, that's how I see it. He is a precise storyteller who never misses a story or character beat. This suits the story perfectly, as Laney is a man who is so very desperate to exert control over his life.

On the other hand, you have Riley. Kinetic, wild, Riley. He is a master of his own chaos, and it works so well against Colin. Riley does the werewolf portion of the book, which literally saturates Laney's life with a loss of control. They are the ideal team for this book, a perfect balance.

Tim [Daniel] is the heart and soul of Curse. He really taught me a lot about opening up in my writing and pushed the book into the difficult directions it needed to go. He's adroit at understanding monsters, both internal and external (as evidenced, also, in his awesome book Enormous).

Everything about Curse is so very unique—from the story to the big collaboration to the art—and we all believe the book is something truly special. I know it's my book, but I can't urge people enough—horror fans or not—to give it a shot.

And here's our preview of Cursed #1 coming this week from Boom!