Review Fix Exclusive: Neil Gibson, Caspar Wijngaard and Dan Watters Tak ’Tortured Life’

Review Fix chats with the creative team behind “Tortured Life,” Neil Gibson, Caspar Wijngaard and Dan Watters, who break down the series, it’s creative motivations and goals for the future.

Review Fix: How is this series different from “Twisted Dark”?

Neil Gibson: It is a limited run of six issues which ties the whole series together. We have the awesome Caspar Wijngaard onboard for the project and we have Dan writing issues 2 through 6.

Caspar Wijngaard: It’s a self contained story, with an enjoyable fast pace, unlike TD’s interconnected short stories. It also steps visually into Sci-FI and Horror.

Dan Watters: Tortured Life is pretty different from Twisted Dark- it’s a linear narrative, done in six issues, with a lot more blood and guts. Twisted Dark may be dark, but it aims to be more universal. With this comic, we’re able to get nasty and go all out horror.

Review Fix: What did you learn from “Twisted Dark” and how has it made this series better?

Gibson: We learnt how to tell stories using comics. It is not rocket science, but it is easy to make silly mistakes when you first start. When you have a few titles under your belt, there is so much you have learnt – consciously or unconsciously.

Wijngaard: I became a better artist. I discovered my strengths and weaknesses, I exploited my strengths as best I could in Tortured Life.

Watters: I cut my editorial teeth assisting on later volumes of Twisted Dark, and I feel lucky that I got to see the complete creative process before embarking on this project.   Neil and I have  very different styles and approaches to writing so editing his work made me learn to really think about and scrutinize both– this hopefully let me take the scripting reins on issue 2 of Tortured Life without too many visible seams between our two styles.

Review Fix: Who do you think will enjoy it the most?

Gibson: People who like horror and black humour.

Wijngaard: I think Dan did a great job of keeping the pace and twists at a fun and steady rate, as long as your not squeamish to some of my more gorier visuals, I thinks it’s universal.

Watters: Anyone who likes fantasy, wonder and whimsy. Also, anyone who likes to see a lot of heads getting blown open. Whimsically. Yes, fans of whimsical head explosions.

Review Fix: Without giving too much away. what is the tone and premise of the series?

Gibson: It’s about a man called Richard who gradually gets the ability to see how people are going to die. Anyone he looks at, he knows how they will die. It is pretty much torture for him and he wants to end his life, but that is where the first twist kicks in. The tone is horror I guess.

Wijngaard: I sci-fi horror comedy that travels to the world of the dead and back again.

Watters: Neil’s just given you the more straightforward premise there, but for me the story is essentially about a man who sees across the veil between life and death and then has to try and deal with the unknown, in both this world and the next. Mostly he deals with the unknown by swearing at it a lot. Tonally the book is more straight forward horror than anything T Pub has put out before, and I’d say the humour sort of worked its way in there naturally.

Review Fix: What elements do you believe stand out the most in this series?

Gibson: The Bloodyman (created by Dan and Caspar) is a great character who really stands out.

Wijngaard: The pacing and unforced natural humour, and my brother Jan’s incredible colouring. He really brought the book to life in ways I couldn’t.

Watters: The art. There’s some splash pages in there that’ll knock your socks off.

Review Fix: Art plays a crucial role in “Twisted Dark.” How important is it here?

Gibson: I’ve always thought that if you have bad art but a good story, a comic will still sell. With good art but a bad story, the story won’t sell. But with a great story AND great art, you create magic. With Dan’s writing and Caspar’s art, I believe we are onto a real winner here. Caspar is an undiscovered big hitter and it is only a matter of time before he is very well known in the comic book world.

Wijngaard: As a comic, extremely. art is always important in comics, if you don’t care for the art, then comics aren’t for you. If “Twisted Dark” were a movie, it would be a real world drama, however if tortured life were a movie it would be a blockbuster visual extravaganza. The art fits the story accordingly.

Watters: The art in Tortured Life is utterly integral. I don’t want to sound sycophantic, but both of the Wijngaard’s have made this book what it is and it wouldn’t have worked without them. Even from a story telling perspective, every time new art rolled in for the series it would totally drive me to push the story in new directions, partly just to try and do the art justice with the plot. The Bloodyman’s character, for example, changed utterly when I saw Caspar’s first piece of concept art– the image just oozed character, and really just made the guy click in my head. Also, I have to thank Caspar for not throttling me when he read some of my panel descriptions. Cheers Caspar.

Review Fix: What are your goals for the series?

Gibson: To tell a great story and show what we are capable of here at T Pub.

Wijngaard: Just that people enjoy it and are inspired.

Watters: I guess the goal was to make something intrinsically comic booky– something that we could only really do in this medium. The great thing about comics is that you don’t have to pay for special effects. We were able to create something weird and obscene that we’d need a huge budget to do in any other visual medium, just out of our heads and the tips of our pens.