By Andrew A. Smith
Tribune Content Agency
What if we found a cure for death?
That’s a core concept in A.D.: After Death, a new, upscale, three-part series from Image Comics by two giants in the industry. Written by Scott Snyder (Batman, Wytches) and painted by writer/artist Jeff Lemire (Descender, Sweet Tooth), A.D. incorporates comics, prose and illustration to tell what Snyder describes in an interview as both a “a really fun blend of the most intimate kind of writing and the most speculative, bombastic, over-the-top, sci-fi story.”
The first issue, which arrived Nov. 23, is 72 pages and bound in what the industry describes as “Prestige format.” The second two issues, which will arrive in December and January, are 80 pages each. Each issue goes for $5.99 and can be found at your friendly neighborhood comic shop or online dealer.
What merits all this extra attention? The presence of Snyder and Lemire, for one thing. The two are favorites of both fans and critics, and their careers encapsulate everything from superheroes (Snyder created the “Court of Owls,” currently appearing on Fox’s Gotham) to creepy, intimate horror to sprawling sci-fi serials.
A.D. is hard to pigeonhole, though. It has a little bit of everything. Best to let Snyder describe it:
“The story itself has these two elements,” he said. “On the one hand it’s this big sci-fi mystery that begins 800 years after the present day when the world has seemingly died. The only people that seem to remain are these people that have been subjected to this medicinal cure for death and live up on this mountain in this clinic that sort of transformed into a small community over time.
“They have no idea what has happened to the world below and the main character, Jonah Cooke, who’s responsible for the cure in a way, has decided he’s going to come down and see what’s down here. In one way the story is this adventure, this mystery about what’s left of the world we knew.
“And on the other hand there’s this big kind of confessional, journal aspect where Jonah is telling you, first person, the long story of how everything got to be to where it is and the story of his own life. … [He] has a kind of intertwined story with the cure itself and how it changed the world.”
That’s two elements, but it’s presented in three timelines. Snyder describes that, too:
“The first, which is the most futuristic, the present of the story, has Jonah rushing down the mountain, being chased, coming down to see what’s left of the world we abandoned so long ago,” he said. “The second storyline is the tale of what causes him to leave this community, what his life is like in this community up in the mountains you see, this futuristic land of immortals that lives up in the Andes. And the third, which is the prose element, tells the story of the present-day now, and his life leading up to the genesis of the cure and after that. It’s the connective tissue. The prose tells you how we got to where we are.”
And it’s those prose sections that really set A.D.” apart from other comics. It’s “sort of confessional, intimate, almost claustrophobic telling of the story of the cure’s development and … Jonah’s biography,” Snyder said. Lemire provides watercolor comics for the other two timelines, but it’s his spot illustrations for the prose sections that are the most impressive.
The prose forced Snyder to flex different muscles, too.
“One thing you forget as a comic book writer is how much you rely on your artist,” he said. “Coming from a prose background I was always used to being singularly in charge of … the creation of the world, and the tone and the mood. But I’ve gotten so used to being able to say, ‘It’s dark and stormy and tense in the scene.’ And [the artist] has to draw it and make it so. But for prose it gives you the opportunity that is both challenging and empowering, to engender all that yourself. So, for me, the blend of it was liberating and exhilarating, that sense of complete control. And yet, in the comic elements of the story, giving up more control than I’m used to, to Jeff and letting him do more of the storytelling visually. It really was a great partnership in that regard.”
Speaking of Lemire, Snyder had nothing but praise for his colleague, who usually writes any long-form comics he illustrates. For one thing, he said, it was Lemire who suggested taking a short story Snyder had pitched and turning it into what has now become. For another, Lemire’s range made it work.
“The thing I love most about his art is how evocative it is,” Snyder said. “It’s so saturated with emotion at all times. … It’s the perfect art for this book. On one hand it tells this big robust sci-fi story, but on the other you have this poignant side illustrations for the prose. I think superhero art, or art that is maybe more literal and a little bit less expressive, may not work as well with a book like this. But his is so dreamlike and emotional that it really resonates. He’s just one of the best storytellers out there and again the fact that he was so supportive of me in wanting to do this book in a way that was less intentional and encouraging me to do prose. He’s just the best partner you could ask for.”
So who is this Jonah guy, and how did we get to this terrible future? It’s not the cure for death itself that ruins the world, Snyder said, but various “cataclysms” that occur independently in the next century. One, ominously, is called “the Great Dying.” Meanwhile, the clinic in the Andes is working on life extension. Eventually, as the world collapses, it becomes the last safe haven.
“So the people have the golden ticket to go up to this place, this secret place that barely anyone knows about, begin to stay up there,” Snyder said. “And the people that are left down here have to fend for themselves. The world stratifies in a way. … They are all kind of immortals, living up there on the mountain.”
The “cure” makes reproduction impossible, so the community’s population is stable. They do listen for radio signals from below, although it’s been 60 years since any have been heard. But they don’t go down the mountain. “They really feel like the terrors and the things they saw the last time they were down there make it too risky to even go look,” Snyder said. “And if you go down … you can never come back up. The risk of you bringing up infection, bringing up anyone who follows you, is just too grave.”
Is it utopia, then? “Depends on who you are, I think,” Snyder said with a laugh. “Some of them find it perfect. Some of them find it horrifying.”
A character named Inez is probably in the former camp. A former companion for Jonah, she doesn’t understand his obsession for what’s downhill. She plays an “antithetical” role in the story, Snyder says.
Jonah, though, hasn’t given up hope. Which is probably why he decides to go down the mountain, although we won’t find out the details until the second book. He also likes to steal things – not for fun or profit, but to preserve them.
Jonah “has lived his life crippled by his fear of death,” Snyder said. “And one of the strange impulses that comes from that is this sense of wanting to remove things and hide things from the physics of the world, take them and hide them from the life cycle.” Jonah is “a character who is excellent at this. … Because ultimately I think that’s what he wants for himself and this place is in the mountains in its entirety, the removal of a certain group of people from the context of the human story.”
Snyder notes that there’s a lot of horror in the book, but in the end it’s “a meditative and explorative piece about whether or not it’s possible to find meaning or joy in a life that doesn’t end.”
Reach Captain Comics by email (capncomics@aol.com), the Internet (captaincomics.ning.com), Facebook (Captain Comics Round Table) or Twitter (@CaptainComics).
Replies
I think I may have to tradewait this one if it turns out to be good. I am a huge fan of Jeff Lemire, but I find that Scott Snyder tends to be really wordy.