Writer Kurtis Wiebe (Rat Queens, Bounty) and newcomer artist Justin Osterling are delivering a twist (or several) on the fantasy comic genre this March in Dryad #1 with Oni Press… and they will be traveling many, many roads not taken. The preview for Dryad promises a lot of familiar stories (a family with secrets and a pair of twins destined to uncover them) but that is only the beginning.
Indie comics have been defined in part the past few decades by series with strong refreshing takes on once familiar stories: Saga, Pretty Deadly, Hip Hop Family Tree, and of course Kurtis Wiebe’s own Rat Queens to name just a few. (The list goes delightfully on.) Wiebe and Osterling combine forces to forge not only a new dynamic duo of talent but also new paths through the realm of fantasy. They will not only be playing with genre and twisting plot but also drawing readers into a fantasy world that strays from traditional European origins into the histories and myths of First Nations and Latinx communities. Lest fans think they know where this series is headed from the previews, think again. Dryad might have been inspired by some of the greats, but readers should be ready to question everything they know about fantasy. Wiebe and Osterling were kind enough to take us into the inner sanctum of Dryad and hint at what is to come.
You both are starting off on what promises to be quite the fantasy epic with Dryad. (At least I hope so having read the first issue). To start us off, can you both talk a little bit more about your dreams and aims for this series? Obviously without too many spoilers. How would you lure readers into the world of Dryad?
Kurtis Wiebe: Anyone who’s read my previous take on fantasy, Rat Queens, knows that I approach it with a very particular lens. I like to take familiar concepts and deconstruct them through the characters and narrative, subverting what some might expect. Dryad is another love letter to fantasy, but readers will discover that subversion much more slowly, as the series progresses. Nearly every issue of the first five-issue arc has a big reveal that changes the nature of the story and how the reader will perceive it.
This isn’t going to be a traditional fantasy fairy tale.
Justin Osterling: Well I have to say that if that’s how you’re feeling after the first issue, then you’re going to have a great, wild time with the rest of this series! I think for us both we hope that people really connect to the Glass family. Their reliance, their frustrations, and ultimately their trust in each other. It’s part of the human connection, whether it’s blood family or families bonded on their own and I’m glad we get to explore that in this setting together.
As for luring in readers? In the first issue, we see what their day to day life is like in their wee hamlet. What their world is like. Later… well, we see that world is a bit bigger than what they think it is. Let’s say people like Tupac and A Tribe Called Red have more influence than Tolkien does in Dryad.
This is a new partnership – what was it like to work together to build a whole new world? And Justin, given that this is your debut on the published comics page, what was the transition like? Did your previous work experience inform how you tackled bringing this world to life?
KW: Dryad was a story I’d worked on quietly for a few years. I’d written the script, did some of the world-building, but it really didn’t come to life until I approached Justin to take on the art for it. I’d followed his fantasy art for a long time and knew he’d absolutely nail the visual look we needed for Dryad to stand out.
Truth is, a lot of the major world details were still vague when we teamed up to make Dryad happen. When Justin came on board, we did a number of long calls to fully realize the setting, each of us bringing our own ideas and hammering out details together to find the finished world. Dryad sings because it’s as much Justin’s world as it is mine. The confidence we have with this very unique universe really shines through in the pages of the comic.
JO: Kurtis and I actually knew each other for a while before we eventually started work on Dryad. When we first started I was bartending and actually developing a project that was super close to what he pitched to me in my off hours! It was actually a super natural fit for what we both wanted to work on and it’s been a blast developing ever since!
To be honest the transition was rough! Comics is a hard industry with rough hours and takes a lot of discipline to get through the day. If anything I was able to bring focus during chaotic times and handling late hours from bartending.
Kurtis, you’ve said in the past that you have started with some core questions – specifically with Rat Queens “What did I love about fantasy? What was ridiculous? What was annoying and outdated?” – and that seemed to have been a sort of guiding light for you. Are you still asking yourself the same questions with Dryad – possibly with new answers? Or is there a whole new set of questions?
KW: I mentioned earlier that I like to approach fantasy with a loving, yet critical eye. I grew up reading fantasy novels as my favorite genre, but when you read enough fantasy, you notice many clichés. One of the major tenets of fantasy is the chosen one, or characters born of prophecy. Only they can save the world.
Dryad is, in a lot of ways, a much smaller story. About a family, two parents, two kids, living a seemingly normal life. Its focus is on the relationship between all of them and events that could drive them apart.
Table-top gaming has played significantly into both of your work. Is that an influence that fans can expect to see in this series as well or are there other influences from fantasy culture that will be making a strong appearance?
KW: Interestingly, there’s much less influence this time around on Dryad. Gaming is such a huge part of my life, and I’m sure it permeates through my work, intentionally or not, but the main narrative of Dryad is almost slice of life. We are seeing the Glass family through the window of their home. There’s still some monster-slaying and bad guys, of course, but I won’t be banking too hard on RPG tropes this time.
JO: Haha, I will admit I have “Roll 1d20” in Dwarvish tattooed across my knuckles so I think the TTRPG influence will always be in my work but not really in the same way as most people. when it comes to fantasy. There’s so many great artists out there who do traditional fantasy so well that it so for me it’s always been “How can I make this my own?” So while absolutely there’s gonna be some comparisons to tabletop, I think it’s safer to say that we’ll see a lot of outside influences from fantasy make an appearance in Dryad.
I loved reading about your research and influences on Dryad. Could you talk a little more about what drove you to highlight “new” histories in the fantasy realm – particularly that of First Nations and Latin origins? It would be great to hear more in-depth about what drew you to creating not just a slice of fantastical life, but to paraphrase, a fantasy world for the Americas.
KW: We’re drawing inspiration from a more North American historical place, rather than the standard European fare most expect by now. For me, I come from First Nation’s ancestry. I was adopted as an infant, but my birth father is Metis, my grandmother is Cree. While I’ve never met that side of my family, I’ve always known about them and it inspired me to find out about those roots. That research has appeared in a lot of my other projects, from Peter Panzerfaust to Green Wake, and I love the idea of blending it into a fantasy world.
JO: Honestly for me, it’s as simple as I’m a Latinx fantasy artist. I wanted to draw characters and people that I could relate to and who’s symbology I learned in school. When I approached Kurtis with the idea, he brought up that he has First Nations ancestry and we immediately started vibing on the influences of the cultures and where we could take it within our story.
At the time of writing this, I believe there are two ways of handling cultures and POC’s in storytelling. The first being what we’ve really mostly seen, which is representational storytelling. Where you do a deep exploration into a culture and the people to you show what that life is like or what that history is. The second being what I’m personally trying to do in Dryad and which I think “Fantasy” is really great at doing is a celebratory way of showing different cultures. Taking different stories and symbols from different cultures to show their commonality to the human experience. I’m not Tolkien writing massive volumes of lore and history based on real-world history, I’m trying to get the emotional experience and feeling of awe from that I first felt when I learned about them growing up.
Following that up, Justin, you also mentioned drawing on titans like Hayao Miyazaki and Masamune Shirow. Where do you find your own artistic voice in the middle of all that incredible influence?
JO: It’s wild and humbling, I’ll say that. I can’t draw cartoony to save my life so drawing inspiration from anime quickly went from the art style to what is the feeling I get looking at these artists. The absolute scope and overwhelming calmness in the hidden grove scene of Princess Mononoke is the same feeling I’m dreaming I can get with Dryad. Seriously go read that first issue with “The Legend of Ashitaka” playing in the background. Masamune gives his characters this weight and hardness that just makes everything feel like it properly exists that I feel is properly needed for fantasy to thrive. It’s a weird comparison to do for a fantasy comic but Ghost in the Shell has it’s heavy influence, especially when we get to the armor and how characters move.
So much of Dryad’s story is about history – family history, archaeology, cultural history, and two children striking out on their own and answering to history. How does that play into your writing and art for this series? And how much of your inspiration comes from personal experience versus what you see more generally in the world around you?
KW: So much of what I’m putting into Dryad comes from a lot of questions I’ve had to answer myself the past few years since my daughter was born. It’s such a strange concept to consider, that to her, I am one person; Dad. But I’ve lived a whole life before her, full of triumph and failure. All she can ever know of that is what I tell her.
With Dryad, I’ve dialed into the scariest part of that. What things would I never want her to know? That question permeates the series as Morgan and Yale have to ask that question of themselves. The big difference is that their past shows up in a big messy way and overturns the peaceful family life they’d secured in Frostbrook.
JO: I grew up in a disconnected house so anytime Kurtis writes a heavy family scene it hits me so hard in a very cathartic way, then he just silently nods with approval before disappearing into the Great White North. Even culturally I was disconnected, I grew up in Arizona learning about Meso American and Native American history in school and even traveling to different ancient sites but it wasn’t until I was much older that I realized how important it would become to me. So now I feel like I’m trying to make up lost time and reconnect with the culture I was raised with and that means for me as a storyteller.
Speaking of family sagas, Fiona Staples worked on a variant cover for Dryad #1. How was the process of sharing your family with her?
KW: Fiona’s known about Dryad for a number of years. We’ve been friends for some time now, and up until very recently (I just moved from Canada to Stockholm, Sweden) she lived a five-minute walk from us. Interestingly, we all played tabletop RPGs and board games together, and I’d often talk about the progress of the series.
Fiona was the first person I asked to do a cover for our series. No one knows fantasy art like her and I absolutely love the way she puts her personal spin on it. You just never know what you’re going to get. She did such an amazing job.
JO: So being an unknown artist I don’t really get the art of characters that I have, so when Fiona Staples comes out of the woodwork with our characters… I lost my shit and ran around my apartment out of excitement!
And finally, you both have had this series just between you for quite some time, and I imagine have been eagerly awaiting its announcement to the world. Do either of you have a question that you are dying to be asked about this new project or at least ones that you prepared a really great answer to?
KW: Easy. Why Dryad? It’s simple: There is no greater vulnerability than being honest with your child about who you were, are and will be. Dryad is how I’d answer if we lived in a fantastical world.
JO: There are so many questions I’m beyond excited to talk about. Even expanding on ones you’ve asked here but even saying them is a spoiler. Luckily for us all, the wait for those questions isn’t that long. ;) So I’ll say these:
Wait, what? Are those??
But you said it was a…??
How could you do this to us?
Dryad #1 will be available at your local comics shop and online March 4, 2020.
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