INTERVIEW: Ryan O’Sullivan Talks Void Trip, His Comic Inspirations And More

Ryan O’Sullivan is a writer who comic fans may be familiar with from his work on Turncoat, an immensely well-received graphic novel about the adventures of the world’s worst superhero assassin. We talked to him about his new Image project, Void Trip, as well as working with artist Plaid Klaus, and who his literary inspirations are.

“VOID TRIP is a new comic series from Image Comics that I’m working on with illustrator-and-co-creator Plaid Klaus,” O’Sullivan begins, when I ask him to give us a quick run-down of the new book, “this is the second comic series we’ve worked on together, the first being the webcomic-come-graphic novel TURNCOAT, which we released on Kickstarter last year. Void Trip is very much a dream project of ours. In fact, when we were wrapping up Turncoat, we’d already started working on Void Trip. It’s very much a spiritual successor. A lot of the dark humour, violence, and existential dread from Turncoat can be found in Void Trip. As for what Void Trip’s about? It tries to answer the question “How can we be free in a universe that will always try to limit our freedoms?””

“It follows Ana and Gabe, the last two humans left alive in the galaxy,” he explained, giving us more of an idea about the kind of characters we’ll be following, “…unfortunately for the future of the human race, these two humans don’t care much about making babies or clones or even hunting for other humans who might be alive out there in the dark reaches of space. Oh no. Ana and Gabe are a pair of space hippies. All they care about is getting high off-of psychedelic space froot, partying the night away, and living life to the fullest on the intergalactic highway as they journey towards the promised land: Hippy paradise planet Euphoria. Unfortunately for our heroes, an all-white, nameless, creature is hunting them. He is the great white whale, but in our story, Moby Dick is the one our heroes are trying to escape from. Will they make it to Euphoria? Will the Great White catch up with them? Am I ending this on questions in a shallow attempt to trick people into reading? Who knows. Better buy the first issue (out in stores November 22^nd) to find out!”

“I’ve always wanted to tell stories my way, and Image is the place where you can do that,” he says, when I inquire what it’s like to work with a publisher that so many aspiring comic creators dream of working with, “we’re lucky in that Image give us a lot of freedom in how we market, sell, and publicise the book. Don’t get me wrong, there’s a lot of people at Image who do that stuff full time, and they’re helping us diligently with getting the book out. But Image are totally down with us getting involved too. It’s great to work with a company who give you as much business freedom as they do creative freedom. It’s hardly surprising that so many creators love working with Image.”

I then ask him about Turncoat, and the impact the series had on his and artist Plaid Klaus’ careers: “When Klaus and I were putting out Turncoat, first as a webcomic, and later as a kickstarted graphic novel, I spent a lot of time reading up and analysing the comic book indie market to figure out how to promote work as a first-time creator. Jason Brubaker wrote a book called Unnatural Talent, which taught me how to reach new readers with a webcomic. (Project Wonderful, Reddit, and Facebook Targeted Ads are the answers, in case anyone is interested.) Similarly, I sat on a Ryan Browne seminar at ComicsExperience which taught me the basics of running a Kickstarter. From there it was just a case of putting what I’d learned into practice and hoping for the best. I’m flattered that so many people dug the book. But they didn’t come from nowhere. We put in a lot of hard work making sure people who might like our book were able to find us.”

“That said, all of the above would be useless if the book itself wasn’t good. Klaus and I poured our heart and souls into Turncoat. It was the first graphic novel either of us had ever done, and I think you can see that love for it come across on the page. I think that might be why so many people dug it, because they could connect with us as creators through it. (The comments section on the webcomic was always fun. The sheer amount of conspiracy theories. Haha.)”

I then asked him about what he likes about comics as a whole, and his current thoughts on the industry: “I like that it’s on the fringe. For all this talk of comics being for adults, comicons spreading all over the world, Big Bang Theory normalising nerd culture, and superhero movies making everyone into casual nerds, I do still feel like the comic medium itself is still very much fringe. I grew up on 2000AD and the Vertigo bad-boys it inspired in the 80s and 90s. That’s my jam. Alan Moore once called comics a “gutter medium” and I kinda like that. It makes me feel like we can do anything with it if we want, because there’s not a huge amount of expectation there. This freedom, of course, brings with it even more pressure. Because with more freedom, it’s very easy to make something bad. Hmm. Now I think about it, maybe Moore was referring to panel gutters. Bloody wizards and their word-magic…”

And finally, his inspirations for the comic, and also just his writing work in general: “For Void Trip? Charles Bukowski, Hunter S Thompson, Jack Kerouac Cormac McCarthy, Herman Melville, and Thomas Ligotti. Any author who can look at the world, see it for what it is, and point to it, without morally posturing, is an inspiration for me. That brutal honesty, of just pointing at what is, and allowing the reader to figure out for themselves what they’re going to do with this newfound information. THAT is the purpose of Void Trip. Yes it’s funny. Yes it’s pessimistic. These are the same thing. The universe and life in general can be terrible and cruel, but we can also laugh at it.”

“Void Trip is out November 22^nd in all good comic stores and via Comixology,” he finishes, “you can follow me on twitter at @ryanosullivan and Klaus at @PlaidKlaus. Both Klaus and I will be attending New York Comicon this week, and will be signing preview copies of Void Trip #1 at the Image Booth at 5pm on Thursday. If you’re in the area, come say hi!”

Thanks to Ryan O’Sullivan for taking the time to chat with us!