Curious Cooking Served On No World

by Vince Brusio

All great ideas start with the urge to fill a need. Multiplied with a tab to binge on French fries. Sounds like unconventional thinking, yeah? Well, you can’t make great art with grandma’s recipes and old-fashioned cookie cutters. But you do have to have experience in cooking. You do need to know the basics. Because you have to know the rules before you break them. Scott Lobdell’s resume on writing team books about characters that rip out pages from the rule book is pretty extensive. He was tapped to write No World #1 (FEB171232) for Aspen Comics for this very reason. He had to serve a regular full-course meal that would satiate the taste buds, but it had to qualify as the Manager’s Special.

No World #1 (FEB171232) is in comic shops April 26.

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Vince Brusio: How did you get involved in writing this title for Aspen? What were the circumstances that led to you driving the train as a writer on No World #1?

Scott Lobdell: Like all great Aspen assignments, this one started with a phone call from Vince Hernandez — actually a missed phone call.  Okay, four of five phone calls I let go to voice mail because I thought he was hounding me to pay him back for the curly fries he bought me at the Long Beach Comic Con in 2016.

When I couldn't take it any more I answered the phone and shouted "I thought it was a gift! Get a grip, man!"

He had no idea what I was talking about and quickly explained the reason he called. Aspen was looking to create a title where all their myriad characters could interact... and as I had done Four Points for them — and a team book about mutants at another company a few years ago — so they felt I'd be the right guy for the job.

I said "Great! Send me everything I need to get started!" The next day I got a bunch of .pdfs bringing me up to speed on all things Aspen. And a receipt for the curly fries.

Vince Brusio: What plot threads from Aspen Universe: Revelations spin off into No World #1? Or has that chapter closed, and now we approach a new horizon?

Scott Lobdell: There will certainly be nods to AU:R — but this is a new way in to all things Aspen.

Vince Brusio: How will a new cast of characters share a room in the same time/space continuum as, say, Executive Assistant Iris or Dellec? Will there be physical confrontations? What might we see?

Scott Lobdell: Gosh, I would love to take credit for something ground-breaking...but the truth is comics have been mixing "worlds" and time/space and genres for almost as long as there has been comics!   Years later we all take it for granted that a Norse God who lives in Asgard fights alongside a gamma-irradiated scientist-turned-monster, or a scrawny teaching assistant with spider-powers can travel back in time to protect a mutant witch and her android husband from the homicidal zealotry of Cotton Mather!

To answer the question, yes, Dellec and Executive Assistant Iris and Miya and Thicke and No are all in the same place and the same times mixing it up and trying to save the world as a team.   

As my friend Bizarro might say "These am comics!" Enjoy!

Vince Brusio: What kind of communication traveled through phone lines and email between you and artist Jordan Gunderson? Or was the relationship non-verbal? Did you instead adopt the Elton John/Bernie Taupin Two Rooms approach for this book?

Scott Lobdell: Sometimes we talk, sometimes we don't. When you're working with someone as talented as Jordan, one of the best parts of the job is waiting for that email chime to indicate a new page has arrived!  I've worked with many superstar artists in my career and I am 100% sure the rest of the industry is going to be standing up and taking notice of Jordan soon.  Not only is he a great artist, but he's a great guy.

Vince Brusio: As you’ve worked extensively on superhero team books like X-Men, do you feel that such an experience has primed you to break new ground with a book like No World #1? Meaning, now that you know the rules, are you prepared to leave them in the trash heap to do something different?

Scott Lobdell: Tough question — because I always try to make every series I write different from any other series I right.  Like a chef, it might all be food, but I don't want my lasagna to taste like my creme bruluee.

As far as practical matters go, the X-MEN were around almost before I was born and had been a team for years before I got there, whereas we see this team actually forming in the opening issues of this series. While the X-Men can sometimes feel a little too familial in their relationship, we don't have to worry about that happening with Dellec and Iris and Thicke. They are each coming to this adventure for their own reasons and with their own goals... some of which are going to contrast with each other.

So yeah, expect No World to be its own creation!

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Vince Brusio writes about comics, and writes comics. He is the long-serving Editor of PREVIEWSworld.com, the creator of PUSSYCATS, and encourages everyone to keep the faith...and keep reading comics.