The following is an interview with Eisner Award-nominated artist Jesse Lonergan (Drome, Man’s Best) regarding the upcoming release of the 4-issue mini-series, Miss Truesdale and the Rise of Man, in collaboration with Mike Mignola and Dark Horse Comics. In this interview, Fanbase Press Editor-in-Chief Barbra Dillon chats with Lonergan about the shared creative process of working with Mignola to bring the story and characters to life on the page, where you can find more of his work, and more!
Barbra Dillon, Fanbase Press Editor-in-Chief: You recently returned to the Miss Truesdale saga with the 4-issue mini-series, Miss Truesdale and the Rise of Man. For returning readers, where will this new series find Miss Truesdale and Anum Yassa on their shared journey?
Jesse Lonergan: It picks up where we left off the first series, with the consciousness of Miss Truesdale now fully in the body of Anum Yassa, and we follow her as she explores and battles her way through parts unknown. We’ve got some forest creatures, some merpeople, some lizard folk, and a malevolent force pulling a lot of strings throughout.
BD: Your work has spanned a variety of genres – from the heartwarming sci-fi adventure of Man’s Best to the mythology-steeped epic that is Drome. When tackling a story based in the Mignolaverse, is there anything that guides or propels your approach to crafting the world and its characters on the page?
JL: The first time around, there was definitely a feeling of “don’t screw it up,” but this time I’m more relaxed. Mike came to me with the story, and my job is to tell it as well as I can. With this series, we go back to a lot of sequences that have already been seen in Mignolaverse and part of my goal was to incorporate them as seamlessly as possible with the story we were telling. Sometimes, it would be a delicate balance because I would be showing a sequence that Mike had already drawn, and I don’t want to just copy it line for line, but at the same time, I don’t think it can be drawn any better than Mike did.
BD: What can you tell us about your shared creative process in working with Mike Mignola, and do you find that you have developed a creative “shorthand” in your continued collaboration?
JL: In the first series, Mike’s scripts were broken down into comic pages, so he was guiding me a little more, but with this series the scripts were looser. He might break down the opening sequence into three or four pages, but after that it would just be the story without any page or panel notes, and I would sort that stuff out. And I think respond well to that kind of creative freedom. Issue two has a sequence of semi-spread pages, that I think wouldn’t have come about if the script had been more written out.
BD: At Fanbase Press, our #StoriesMatter initiative endeavors to highlight the impact that stories can have on audiences of various mediums – no matter the genre. How do you feel that this story may connect with and impact readers, and what, if any, conversations do you hope that it may inspire?
JL: The story comes from Mike and so I’m not sure if I can really speak to the intended impact of the story on the audience. On the artistic side, the comics that have hit me hardest have always made me want to pick up a pen and start drawing, so if this can do that for someone else, that’s great.
BD: Are there any additional projects – past or current – that you would like to highlight for our readers?
JL: Drome is my recent solo book. It’s a 300-page epic creation myth that came out from 23rd Street Books in August. Although it’s gods and demigods of chaos and order battling it out in a primordial landscape, I think it’s my most personal work and the clearest representation of who I am as a person and artist.
BD: Lastly, what would you like to tell fans who want to learn more about Miss Truesdale and the Rise of Man and your other work?
JL: People can check out my website, jesselonergan.com. There’s a lot of comic stuff there, as well as a link to all the social medium platforms I’m on. There’s also my patreon, www.patreon.com/jesselonergan, where I post whatever solo stuff I’m working on at the moment. All of Drome was posted on Patreon over the course of the last four years.
