EXCLUSIVE: AXCEND Writer Shane Davis Tells Us All About His New Series
One of the preeminent talents in comic books today, Shane Davis (Superman: Earth One) joins forces with his wife and fellow artist Michelle Delecki on an all-new book under the Image Comics umbrella. Axcend is an epic sci-fi/thriller that's like Tron meets Inception with a cheat code!
What happens when a video game decides to come to our reality to play? When there are no extra lives, and Armageddon looms on the horizon, when your life revolves around gaming like teenager Eric Morn, you Press Start.
CBM: Can you tell us little bit about Axcend , and how you came up with the idea?
Shane: I don’t remember exactly were to pinpoint when I had the idea, I know I wanted to do a story about teens and attaching a lot of power to a teen I think there’s a nice position there when you have characters who are under developed morally. You give them absolute power were they have a lot to learn in life and a lot they haven’t learned in life, have very self- centered teenage angst, I guess I built the story from there . If you look at the gaming angle of the story, it deals with two different realities or two different actions the way you would see something people do or their actions in online gaming or in the society of online gaming vs of what you would see them do in the real world. That mentality can be weird or scary if brought over into the real world.
CBM: So it sounds like it takes place in a video game and in the real world ?
Shane: In the first issue the main character gets approached by an A.I. system for a new online world game and gets sucked into the video game literally, but then he will come out of the game when all three characters log off. Parts of the game follow them into the real world so it is like a catch 22 when you play this game. When they start to activate in the real world it is all fun and games at first for the main character Eric to use his abilities in the real world. The problem is one of the players they could never beat in the video game he is going to come over to the real world too. In the book itself it is going to deal with the concept of life and death in video games and life and death in the real world and how that’s the one thing that never relates. Where in a video game people die and they respawn and keep playing and maybe play better than they did before. In the real world if they were to die by this player they don’t know if they can respawn and don’t know if they can even stop him. The thing with this player he upgrades by getting kills so they don’t know if he is going to kept trying to upgrade and get kills. If he starts rolling in the real world they are worried about getting claimed and that is the main mission of the book. Eric and the main Female character Rain, team up, being lead by the A.I. system dog to get to him and try to stop him before he actually comes to the real world. The first three issues will deal with one of those characters individually.
CBM: Do you think people will relate to this comic because of Eric living in a video game, isn’t it every kids dream?
Shane: Yeah, that is what I wanted. It deals with the escapism a lot each character has their own problems in life Eric is a surviving twin, his brother died earlier. We come into his story a year after his brother’s death. His brother’s death, there was a car accident. Eric was the one that was pulled out of the car while the car caught fire with his brother still in the car. He will be dealing with a lot of guilt in life being the one that was saved from the car and not the one that burned to death. I don’t really talk about the action as much I talk about his grief and how he is dealing and coping with it all. Video games are an escape so I hope our readers understand that because a lot of times when we’re playing games we’d rather be somewhere else and be someone else and do something else. So I will definitely be dealing with that type of escapism. The idea of that being active in the real world is something I hope I see people wishing they can do.
CBM: You’re mostly known for being a comic book artist, what’s it like writing and being the artist on this series?
Shane: It is a little bit different, I definitely can improvise a little more. Sometimes I know what needs to be happening in the scene so I can lay it out, draw it out, and then fill in the dialogue. Which is the old school Marvel way of doing things. It is how Stan Lee and Jack Kirby worked. So basically work that way so sometimes the writing isn’t happening until I have completed the scenes and dialoged everything after I draw the scene. I will figure out the scenes and layout. I will know something like, this kid needs to be picked on by a bully in 1,2,3. Then I will lay it out and tell the story in pictures, write the story to go with it. Sometimes there are scenes were there are no movements or actions like a scene with Eric and his therapist, so I will do it the opposite were I will write everything out and then draw the scene.
CBM: Is this the first time working together with your wife?
Shane: No, we have been working together on a lot of covers at Marvel and DC. She did a page back when I wrote the Batman story, but she mostly does Covers . We bounce ideas off of each other. She is a big help.
CBM: Is there anything else you want people to know about Axcend?
Shane: As commercial and video gamey as it seems we are dealing with a lot of real world issues such as bullying, teen suicide and substance abuse. It’s mainly school bullying that is a big focus in these books. I deal with their personal life more than the video game. They are only in the video game world in the first issue and the rest of the series is about everything spilling out of the game into the real world. Something that is new and I have been hiding this, is each of these players are going to activate in the real world after their video persona after they die, so each issue will be the characters, and that is why they were chosen to beta test the game for certain reasons that will come out later on. It has a weird theme of life and death in a video game, restarting and life and death in the real world. I have been hiding this each of the characters will be activating in the real world once they have died in the real world. That’s the mysterious part of the game, when it comes into the real world and each player dies in their unique way.
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