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I Want A New Drug…To Time Travel

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by Vince Brusio

If ever there was an argument to re-examine the legalities of dangerous substances, it would be made not after hearing that hit Huey Lewis song, but instead after reading the book Narcopolis: Continuum by Scott Duvall. Time travel, it seems, may not be as exciting as what you see in Back To The Future. No. It might be as dangerous as jamming a hypodermic needle in your eye! In this PREVIEWSworld Exclusive interview, Scott Duval gives us the backstory on one man’s life that may run out the clock, even though his time to act...is now.

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PREVIEWSworld: What sparked your fascination with time travel, and how did you take your love for this plot device and tweak it to create the story which is Narcopolis: Continuum TP (OCT161616)?

Scott Duvall: I've been passionate about time travel stories for as long as I can remember. The first short story I ever wrote as a kid revolved around time travel and so Narcopolis: Continuum isn't my first stab at dabbling with the concept and it won't be the last. Back to the Future is primarily responsible for igniting that fascination as it plays with the idea of how these moments in time, some seemingly insignificant, can have very significant consequences, and change the course of history. So going back in time and changing some of the details and imagining how different the outcome will be is something I think about a lot. I'm sure I'm not the only one who's asked "how different would my life have ended up if I'd chosen this path instead?" 

Spoiler for anyone who hasn't seen the movie Narcopolis, which inspired the comic, but the time travel element isn't introduced right away, adding to the mystery of an unidentified corpse. Ultimately that is the part of the movie that I latched onto, so when given the opportunity to tell a story in this universe, I wanted to delve full on into the time travel and use that to explore a different side of the characters and their world. I chose Continuum as the subtitle for that reason, a nod to BTTF.

PREVIEWSworld: Tell us about the main character, Ben. We learn that his father has disappeared 20 years ago, and this obviously has had an effect on him. What were the consequences? How does it affect Ben’s decision making? Is he unstable? Or focused?

Scott Duvall: Ben grew up fatherless as a result of the movie's outcome and this had a major impact on the man he would become. He was always a boy genius, always inventing, but it was this hole in his life which inspired him to focus his energies and do the only logical thing he could think of – invent a new drug that unlocks the key to time travel. Why a drug? Well in this world all drugs have been legalized and Ben just so happens to work for the top drug manufacturer with a top of the line research facility at his disposal, so it only made sense.

Ben is extremely focused, not letting anything get in the way of his goal, which is to use his invention to uncover the mystery of his father's disappearance. Although patience is what got him there, he can also make rash decisions when he's caught up in the moment and made a breakthrough, such as jamming a syringe needle through his eye to inject the drug. Science!

PREVIEWSworld: What can you tell us about the supporting characters? Does anyone stand in Ben’s way, or is it time itself that turns against him?

Scott Duvall: One thing that was fun to explore is that Ben played a small, but key role in the movie when it was Frank's story, and now with Ben in the lead, Frank becomes one of Ben's supporting characters. Using him to create pivotal scenes that would really push the plot forward were some of my favorite scenes to write, further exploring the father/son dynamic that is the heart of the story.

That was my goal with all the supporting roles – make them count. I didn't want them to just pop in and out like a guest star with nothing more to do but give Ben a familiar character to exchange lines with. I wanted to take my favorite aspects of those characters introduced in the movie and give them an extra layer or add to their backstory.

Eva, Ben's lab assistant, is not quite what she seems, and we get to see her as a freedom fighter who knows more about Ben’s future than she leads on. Yuri, another brilliant Russian scientist who knows what is at stake if Ben makes a wrong move, is another character who plays a key supporting role, just as he did in the movie.

The major hurdle standing in Ben’s way is a man by the name of Todd Ambro, the most powerful drug lord in the UK. Ambro has known what Ben would become even before Ben knew and has been keeping a close eye on him for more than half his life, waiting for him to fulfill his destiny so he could strike at the right time and steal that power for himself.

Time itself also plays an important role as it really dictates the direction, pacing, and setting of this story.

PREVIEWSworld: Describe the production process with artist Ralf Singh. Were you strict in your descriptions of perspective, body language, and scenery? Or were you more liberal in letting Ralf try things out to see what illustrations best-suited your panels?

Scott Duvall: My scripts are very descriptive in that I really try to paint a picture to help the artist visualize the room, inform the emotions of the characters, the tone of each scene, everything. It's the only way I know how to do it to get as close to what's in my head visualized in pictures. Part of it is I want to make the artist's job as easy as possible by providing them with all that information, but I also am never opposed to them bringing their own ideas to the table. It doesn't matter who came up with it, the best idea always wins out.

However, one of the most important lessons I've learned from working on a project like this is it may not always come out on the page the way you pictured it in your head or scripted it, but trusting in your artist can lead to a page looking even better than you could have envisioned if you sit back and allow your collaborator to take the wheel and shine. There's nothing better than being surprised by how much cooler something looks than what you had in mind, and it would remind me why I handpicked Ralf for a reason. 

I come from a filmmaking background where I would write, direct, and edit my own stuff and so having a great deal of control over every aspect of the creative process was something I was used to. But that's not comics. It's more collaborative than that in many ways and my editor Val would keep me in check and let me know when I was being too precious with the script (that’s code for being a control freak). 

One of my absolute favorite pages Ralf drew was in issue two where Ben and Eva crash through a window of a skyscraper. I can get pretty descriptive with the angles of each panel but Ralf chose his own angles for that page and it turned out brilliant. He earned my respect time and time again with his keen eye for action scenes.

He's one to watch and I can't wait until people see what he has in store for his next project – a post-apocalyptic tale with dragons set in London. It’s the best work I've seen from him to date. He even brought on our Narcopolis letterer, Taylor Esposito, so it's a mini-reunion. I can't wait to work with him again in the future. 

PREVIEWSworld: If you could tease a particular scene or scenes that would best summarize the energy of Narcopolis, what words would you be banging out furiously on the keyboard?

Scott Duvall: My method is a bit unusual where I will write the scenes of each issue that I’m most excited about first since those ones just pour out of me, and will later go back and fill in the rest of the scenes after that led up to it. I love dialogue, so many of my favorite scenes to write are character-driven scenes with two or more characters just having a conversation. Those scenes I can bang out quite easily. But breaking up those talky scenes with action makes for some fun transitions, so I never forget it’s a comic book and do my best to cut out the boring bits and exposition.

One of my favorite scenes that I had in mind as early as the initial pitch was a cliffhanger where Ben breaks in to his childhood bedroom in hopes of discovering the solution to his problem and is confronted by his father Frank, who quickly tries to break his neck. Ben tries to explain that he is, in fact, Frank’s son from the future, which only enrages Frank further as he bellows out that his son is dead! What? How? When?! Those are the questions hopefully keeping the reader turning pages.

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