New Graffiti For The Tomorrows
May 14, 2015
by Vince Brusio
In the future, how precious a commodity will be our imagination? Yes, it’s hard to answer, as speculative fiction makes it difficult to narrow down what the political topography will be like in the next century. But for Curt Pires and his new book The Tomorrows (MAY150013), artist/terrorists and a sentient supercomputer Warhol will be at the front of the graffiti revolution.
The Tomorrows #1 (MAY150013) is in comic shops July 8.
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PREVIEWSworld: The Tomorrows #1 (MAY150013) kicks off a new series in which artistic expression is thrown under the bus. Why? What happened?
Curt Pires: I don’t think it’s that much of a stretch to imagine a future where art is illegal. I mean, let’s be honest, art is how we express and articulate the things that words and other forms of communication cannot. Art can be political, can be dangerous, can be a call to arms — a call to wake up. All these things are dangerous to totalitarian structures and corrupt governments, such as the ones that occupy the world of The Tomorrows.
PREVIEWSworld: Do you think corporate greed and oppression are similarly putting their boots on the throats of artists and writers today? Or is that being too harsh?
Curt Pires: I don’t think it’s even possible to be too harsh to corporations if we are being honest. They’re not human, they don’t feel emotion. There’s no need for empathy in this context. Do we need to care and be empathetic towards the humans caught in these larger structures? Absolutely. Kindness is key.
I think the boots are still on artists and writers throats. Anyone with a knowledge of creator rights in comics would probably agree. We can build a better future though. It doesn’t have to be this way forever.
PREVIEWSworld: In The Tomorrows, what characters are introduced as the agents of change? What can you tell us about them?
Curt Pires: They’re a global network of artists/terrorists fighting to liberate the earth from oppressive structures and trying to make it more beautiful in the process. Our core cast is the New York chapter, the leaders of the whole thing: Claudius, Sasha, Jiro and their newest recruit Zoey. Oh and we can’t forget their sentient supercomputer Warhol.
PREVIEWSworld: The solicitation for this book labels it “speculative-fiction.” Could you elaborate a little on what this means?
Curt Pires: Speculative fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginative content such as futuristic settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, time travel, faster than light travel, parallel universes and extraterrestrial life. It often explores the potential consequences of scientific and other innovations, and has been called a "literature of ideas.”
I think that hits the nail on the head. The Tomorrows deals with basically, all of those concepts.
PREVIEWSworld: When you sit down, and look at this body of work in front of you, what goes through your mind? How would you summarize what it was like developing The Tomorrows as a comic book series?
Curt Pires: I feel great. I’m making amazing comics with some of the best collaborators around. I’m blessed and stoked to be able to put such cool things into the universe. I’m still working on The Tomorrows, but so far it’s been a ton of fun, a little bit of losing my mind, a lot of embracing chaos, a lot of using writing the comics to process reality, and basically everything else under the sun that you could imagine.