While the Ghost Ghost Machine Machine Print Print Ghost Machine of the publishing belonging to Creator continues to win new readers through its titles, one of the strong points is the best -selling series Rook: Exodus. Created by Geoff Johns and Jason Fabok, the comic strip series takes place in the distant world of exodus, with its replication of natural habitats of the earth in danger while the engines of the world of the planet begin to dies and weaken. While humanity flees this dying world and its abandoned cities, a handful of individuals, known as guardians, use advanced technologies in various helmets to interface and order the different animal species of exodus, with a protagonist tower connected to birds.

In an exclusive interview with CBR, Rook: Exodus The creators Geoff Johns and Jason Fabok reveal the origins and inspirations of their comic strip series, explain how history is very different from their past collaborations with DC Comics and Teptport where this story of science fiction focused on nature then takes place.

CBR: So many ghost machine titles have very clear their environment as characters themselves in history, be it Geiger Or Hyde street. How did it work with Jason Fabok to create the dying world to Rook: Exodus?

Geoff Johns: I am a fervent believer, even more every day, that everything runs with who you work with. Jason is an incredible creative partner and a genius. He is not only an artist, he is a storyteller. We are talking about these characters all the time, who they are and what they do. Rook started a conversation on a design that Jason made of this character, Rook. It was slightly different, but quite close to his appearance now. He had drawn it a long time ago, with this cool bird helmet, but he did not really have a story behind it yet. He had a sort of a character, with an attitude and a tone.

I tried to take this attitude and this tone, through what Jason I worked on, with Batman: Three jokes And Justice League: Darkseid War. There is something really interesting in Jason’s work where he does these conceptions and technologies of really detailed characters, a work of complex and unique design through everything. But then it can become very large and epic with the scope. We started this very little story in Justice League called “the Amazo virus”. It was small compared to the place where we went, but it was important that we started to feel the type of stories that we could tell together. Honestly, I had trouble finding a partner for stories about Justice League. When we connected, it was like magic.

“The Amazing Virus” allowed us to go Darkeid was. Between the character’s work and the scope of it, I knew the scope of what we wanted to create and the emotional heart of it. But this whole story came from Jason’s initial design and asked what the helmet was for. We just started talking about life, ideas and cool things. One of my favorite movies is The ghost With Leonardo DiCaprio. It is survival on the American border. I love the idea of ​​taking the tone of the American border and science fiction, and associating them together and creating a different world from all the other extraterrestrial planets that we have seen before. It more reflects North American terrain, at least according to what we have seen so far.

The extent of the exodus and being a character returns when the world was not necessarily disputed by environmental concerns, such as pollution or overcrowding. He was still relatively young during the American border, then he evolved so quickly. I wanted to create a world that had the impression of always having this hope for the future, that it might be different. And then there is something that threatened him in such a massive and catastrophic way as the chances of this better world were threatened.

In Exodus, the reason why the terrain is thus because of contact points that came out of the conversations between Jason and me with what this world was going to be. A world of promise under threat. A world that has not yet been completely corrupt or destroyed, while the earth Rook: Exodus crossed the edge. We have this character called shell, a guy from Turtle who has been living for over 100 years. He saw the earth fall and was there when she could have been saved. He is our crossing for this, and that comes back to fight or theft.

Jason Fabok: I remember some of our first conversations where we throw things from characters and history, and you really challenged who was this character of Rook and what was going to make this story of science fiction unique and different from everything we have seen. Originally, it was as if Rook was a Space Batman who passed from the wicked from the planet to the planet. I remember that you were like “it’s too much like The Mandalorian. Let me think about this tonight and see if I can come back with something. “The next day, you came back with this thing:” And if there is this planet, and it is dying because the engines of the world have failed? “”

It completely struck me that that’s what I want to do. Something where there is a race against time to save something and these characters are on this planet and watch it disintegrate. He linked to the whole visual that I really liked Star Wars encounter Mad. I really like the universe used by the universe, like the original Stranger. The design of the spacecraft in this film is so good. I am naturally attracted by this kind of look and sensation.

Adding all this element of animal life of the earth, I remember that Geoff had said “What if the helmet could control the real birds?” The first character just after was Geoff saying “And if there was a character who could control giant bears?” It was as if our minds exploded. We have written this list of all these cool animals. It was then that it really started to feel unique because most of the fiction sciences are, they will fight extraterrestrials on a planet. With that, it is if there were real North American animals, but it is almost prehistoric in a way, where everything is larger than life or there is a torsion in the way that everything has been genetically designed.

At this point, I could really visualize and see this thing, with the quantity of history that we could tell and the quantity of characters that we could also find, with all these different animals. There is also this visceral link that people have with their favorite animal. Especially when you talk to children, your imagination is unleashed when you start talking about it. My son always comes to me saying that I should make characters according to this or this animal. It really advances the mind. This is what we felt too.

We were really excited about this, and it was very fun to find the world, especially in this first issue, and to find the visual. Now that I am locked up on this, it is easier to conceive everything from now on. It was to find this uniqueness, and he came to Geoff overnight. He just called the next day and played everything. It was there.

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Johns: It’s a bit like my brain works. Once I started a story, everything suits me in my head. I have to think about it for a while, but when it appears to me, the whole story appears. If I know what it is, everything else plays almost catching up. If I know that this is our relationship with nature, I already know what it is. Everything must contest, support and explore this.

When I spoke to Jason, was my challenge what we explore? As a storyteller, what do we want, except to make a cool comic strip? When you are on superheroes that have existed for decades and decades, which is great and super fun, is a very different exercise. Your work is to explore this character and find a certain relevance for this character. My job was to take Aquaman, Green Lantern or who was, and to try to find the relevance for us as human beings and to explore this through history.

It was very different because I don’t want to work on something unless I really have something to say, something to explore as a human being, not even as a writer, but as a living person. What do I want to think, challenge and communicate with readers? Our relationship with nature is really strange. We are not talking about it much. Some cultures speak about it and [for them,] That’s all it is! I think that today’s culture, we are more distant from nature. We say it is threatened, but most of the time we are not even surrounded. It’s crazy that people are increasingly distant from nature and the world, but we are more concerned with the world than ever. Then let’s come back to connect with her.

Part of what has developed with this is exciting for me, because I like animals, was to develop this link with animals. What if we had a technology that could connect our minds to animals? How would we change good manners and bad? We would have an understanding, a relationship. This is what this whole book explores, our relationship with nature. There are many characters, but it is told by this only specific character who must learn it. Once he understands it, he kisses it, then everything is on how to favor it, protect it, understand it and grow up. I love it because now Jason and I have something to say. It’s also fun because who does not want to choose an animal?

With Exodus, we only saw a small area of ​​exodus. Where we were a North American climate. We are going to go to other climates. You will see almost all types of climates represented possibly on Exodus: deserts, mountains, everything. If there are on earth, there are there. To be on this kind of planet, it is endless for our exploration, but Jason and I have already mapped it a lot.

One of the things that I like in Exodus right now is that the North American terrain is covered with wild nature, but from time to time, there is a modern city with pizza salons, cinema theaters, bikes and car garages. There are all these modern things that are relatable because the earth went there and made it beautiful. It is almost as if it went from the 1700s to a little in the future from today, but without developing everything at the same time. There are these gigantic manufactured cities that seem from now, but they are surrounded by nature.

Rook: Exodus has the opponent with the Bear goalkeeper, Ursaw. How was it to create this villain, and how did you want him to challenge Rook?

Johns: There is a real high, muscular and aggressive octane tone in Ursaw. But it was really just created a force of nature itself. Someone who was unstoppable with this mass and almost non -emotional, you could not reason with them. You can’t reason with Ursaw. I like it to be very territorial, like the bears with which it is linked, and that only improves its aggression.

The bears are great, but if you see a hike in the woods, you don’t want them to see you. They are frightening and it’s just their nature. Having a villain reflects this, it seemed that a bear was the most threatening of the North American climate that we explore in this first arc. It seemed that bears are the most aggressive and frightening creatures you could meet.

Fabok: They are the top of the food chain.

Johns: Yes, and the fact that they could be held on their back legs were more conflicting than any other animal on the North American continent. Knowing Jason’s work, just creating something that was frightening to cope and save the revelation of his motivation until later. You just knew he wanted helmets and would kill anyone to get these helmets. You didn’t really know why until the end of the first arc, which brings us to the whole series.

He has just been sent here by the company that hired them to recover the helmets. They assume that they were left by the Better World Corporation, but now they know that Better World actively seeks to recover their technology and do not care about them. It changes the nature of being on this world because now there is a threat beyond. Who knows what they do next and if there is already someone else on the planet?

Fabok: From a visual point of view, one of my first ideas for Rook was that he was a space guy and fighting a breed of space giants. This idea took place in Ursaw because I wanted the villain of Rook to be a giant. Whenever Geoff says “Here is a character”, I go with my instant intestinal sense of what the character is. I always thought that Aursaw should be this big guy, like a task. Geoff found this idea that he changed genetically, so it made sense. He is like a Viking warrior meets a Pile Orc, all those things I love.

One of the interesting things about the design of the helmets, every time I look at the animal, I start to look at the animal’s skull. Isn’t it funny how every child has a teddy bear? We consider bears as these cute and cuddly things in our society. When I conceived the helmets, it looked like a large teddy bear walking. I started to look at the skulls and the way in which the curvature of a bear skull is. It informed the character and was born from that.

I have an explosion to design these characters and find their visual. I just knew he had to be like a bear, a real character center. We talked about the fact that there was more of this type. You could see him as this brute, but there is a background in this character, and we will get there when we cross this series and reveal even more about him.

Rook learning to connect with birds without the helmet looks like a pandora box time. There are necessarily consequences on this subject, and it seems that the implications take place as the world of Rook: Exodus will become much larger.

Johns: It is! Rook has a link with birds. Helmet always helps it to determine this, and we will see that developing as you go. They have a mutual relationship and an understanding which is very different from saying Wolf and his pack. Some of the guards have unhealthy relationships with their animals, others in good health, others do not have them and others have very antagonistic.

I have a story that I want to make for a director and their animals who want to destroy themselves. I don’t know when we get there, let’s hope it earlier than late. I am delighted that we have something called the influence of instinct. Humanity was too arrogant that these helmets would connect our minds to animals and control them. This connects our minds with theirs, but the spirits go both directions, they are both open. Now, they display each other, and they appear so that their neuronal ways change as they do in real life, where the neuronal ways are rewritten as a program.

They can remove their helmet and feel this, wondering if it’s the helmet or just them. There is a large blurred line between this. This is something that we will continue to explore. It is something that Jason and I have talked about and developed as we go, that the helmets are not so clean and easy. It’s not like you encouraged animals. Sometimes they hit you back, and you don’t know it most of the time and animals don’t always understand them. This makes it a really complicated relationship, which is really fun to write and explore.

Created by Geoff Johns and Jason Fabok, Rook: Exodus vol. 1 is available on April 2 in Image Comics.