Star Trek: Lower Decks: Warp Your Own Way from IDW is a one-of-a-kind interactive graphic novel featuring the crew of our favorite Starfleet vessel, the U.S.S. Cerritos. Written by Ryan North with art by Chris Fenoglio, colors by Charlie Kirchoff, lettering by Jeff Eckleberry and editing by Heather Antos, this OGN is a must-read for Lower Decks fans.
To learn more about Warp Your Own Way, The Beat caught up with North, Fenoglio and Antos over email. We asked all about the origins of the interactive OGN, about challenges that arose in creating such a unique comic and about the creative team’s favorite Easter eggs.
Please note: this interview includes mild spoilers for Warp Your Own Way throughout, plus a pair of extra-spoiler-y (but clearly marked) questions near the end. Click the link in the first paragraph above to enjoy The Beat’s non-spoiler review.
AVERY KAPLAN: Heather, what was the origin of Warp Your Own Way? Was there any kind of pushback against such an unconventional Star Trek graphic novel?
HEATHER ANTOS: The origins were pretty simple, honestly — I’ve always wanted to DO a “choose your own path” graphic novel. When I became the lead editor on the Star Trek line, Lower Decks seemed like a natural choice for the format and Ryan and Chris the obvious creative team. I’m just lucky everyone else in charge agreed!
I’m no stranger to meta-narrative and unconventional formats in my history of comic book work — from The Unbelievable Gwenpool‘s panel manipulation and fourth wall breaking, to You Are Deadpool‘s dice rolling adventures, to the iambic pentameter in The Mercenary of Venice with Shakespeare expert Ian Doescher…I love challenging creators to push the medium, and Lower Decks is no different.
KAPLAN: Ryan, I noticed that your hallmark “bottom-of-the-page” notes are absent in Warp Your Own Way. This decision isn’t too surprising to me, considering how complex the OGN already is! But, can we expect to see them return in the ongoing Lower Decks series that debuts next month?
RYAN NORTH: Yeah, given the format – and physical dimensions of the book – it didn’t really make sense to include them in this graphic novel. But yes, they will be there in the ongoing that debuts next month! And I always have fun with them.
KAPLAN: Chris, you previously depicted the Lower Decks crew in the excellent 2022 3-issue miniseries. How did that work compare with your work on Warp Your Own Way?
CHRIS FENOGLIO: I’m really glad I had the experience of the 3-issue miniseries before jumping on something as ambitious as Warp Your Own Way. From the beginning of working on Lower Decks, I always wanted to try to mimic the look and feel of the show. Those first 3 issues gave me a chance to work out some of the kinks and make a few things better before jumping onto Warp Your Own Way. For example, I remade my model of the Cerritos and was actually using screencap images of the model versus painting over models of ships like I was in the first series. That’s something I couldn’t have done on a technical level during the first series because I simply didn’t have the skills to do it.
I also colored the first series, but the amazingly talented Kirchoff colored this one, and he fit like a glove. His work is so gorgeous, and he was able to intuit exactly what I wanted almost organically. Seriously, 90% of what made this book look so incredible is his coloring.
KAPLAN: Heather, do you need to have seen every episode of Star Trek to enjoy Warp Your Own Way?
ANTOS: Dare I say, you don’t have to have seen a single episode of Star Trek to enjoy Warp Your Own Way!
KAPLAN: What kind of unexpected challenges did you encounter while writing, working on the art or editing this interactive graphic novel?
FENOGLIO: Oh, like the whole book. Seriously, I read a script and my first instinct is always, “How the hell am I gonna draw that?” I usually somehow work it out by the time deadline hits, but there’s always that initial anxiety of, “There’s no way I can do that and everyone will know I’m a fraud and I’ll never work AGAIN!”
Specifically, for Warp Your Own Way, a lot of the environments and backgrounds were a struggle. Sometimes you only see them briefly in the show or from one or two angles, so you have to either hunt for reference or make up what certain areas look like. I eventually ended up building 3D models for a lot of those areas so I could “shoot” them from different angles that you might not see in the show.
Also y’know, I’m working in a style that’s fairly different than how I would draw normally. So making characters — especially legacy characters — who haven’t appeared in the show can be tough. I want them to feel like they could be directly dropped into the show (honestly, my wildest dream is that Lower Decks would just straight up using my models), but again, I’m fairly far removed from the people who ACTUALLY make the cartoon, so it’s a lot of guess-work and me thinking, “Man, I hope they like this…”
ANTOS: I can’t speak to any “unexpected” challenges, necessarily. I’d say the challenges we faced were pretty expected — 200 pages of any comic is a challenge, let alone planning out a bookmap for an interactive, choose your own path book that has to work. Putting together and testing the order of the pages was a 16 hour day in and of itself (the papercuts!!! OH THE PAPERCUTS!!!!). My mantra of “this will be Future Heather’s problem” became “current Heather’s problem” very quickly.
Also, fun fact — one Warp Your Own Way takes exactly one full inkjet cartridge to print out in B&W. Who knew?
NORTH: I’m not sure if unexpected is the right word, but there were a ton of expected challenges that you always have to deal with when writing an interactive book like this. The main one is ensuring that everything fits together, but you also want to ensure that the reader has a great experience with it.
One of the things I’ve learned from my other interactive books, like To Be Or Not To Be or Romeo And/Or Juliet, is that you can predict what most people will do most of the time when they first pick up a book like this. They tend to go for the most interesting options, or the most sensible ones – and so by knowing THAT, I can ensure that the book would seem to respond to them in this fun way that’s kind of spooky.
I’ve seen a few people online already talking about how they felt like the book was relating to them, responding to their choices, and that’s really fun.
KAPLAN: Chris, am I correct that I spotted cameos from the creative team in Warp Your Own Way, including all three of the subjects for this interview?
FENOGLIO: Maybe…
I might’ve also snuck my wife in somewhere.
KAPLAN: Heather, since they aren’t included in this interview but I do want to spotlight their work, do you have any thoughts on the contributions of colorist Charlie Kirchoff and letterer Jeff Eckleberry to share?
ANTOS: Um, only that they are the best?! Colorists and letterers often get pushed aside from the spotlight in reviews but I definitely want to single their work out. Charlie has been working on Star Trek comics for a long time and is a master of not only his craft, but being able to expertly capture the tone of each show, era, and character with astute accuracy. Understanding the color language of an animated show is not easy and together, Chris and Charlie make each panel look like a screen capture. It’s really quite impressive!
And if there wasn’t enough going on in the visuals or the narrative of Warp Your Own Way, Jeff had his own Everest with the letters for this project — from the multiple threads, various balloon styles, cramped pages of piling dead bodies, and dozens upon dozens of choices, it would be enough to make any grown man swoon. But that’s what I love about the Warp Your Own Way creative crew — no one is afraid of a challenge. And be it creating sound effects for a warp core explosion or Dionysus’ wrath, Jeff impressed at every turn of the page.
KAPLAN: Ryan, both the 2022 3-issue miniseries and Warp Your Own Way feature the holodeck in prominent but very distinct roles. Is it fair to say that this is one of your favorite Star Trek tropes? What is it that makes it so endlessly fascinating?
NORTH: I actually hadn’t made that connection before now! But you’re right in that it is an endlessly fascinating thing to think about. I’ve heard it described as something like “humanity’s last invention”, because once we have a perfectly simulated reality, what would we need with the real thing? But I think the answer we’re discovering in the present is that reality still has something to recommend itself.
ANYWAY, the holodeck does play a big role in this book – but to say more would be a spoiler!
KAPLAN: Since I have previously asked both Heather and Ryan this question: Chris, what would you, personally, order from the food replicator?
FENOGLIO: The real question is what WOULDN’T I order from the food replicator?
SPOILER ZONE!
KAPLAN: Ryan, at what point did you realize this wouldn’t be an interactive graphic novel in the conventional sense? Was the meta-narrative baked in from the beginning or did you arrive at it later on?
NORTH: Oh, it was there from the very beginning.
SPOILERS: the initial pitch was to tell an interactive story that uses the fact we’re in an interactive medium as part of the structure and motivation for it. That’s what got me the most excited about the book – this idea that we could have the format of the story be motivating the story itself in a way I hadn’t seen done before.
I’m really pleased that when people open the book, and they see Mariner dying all the time, they think “okay, sure, that’s because you die a lot in interactive stories like this. Nothing new to see here!” But then, readers gradually see more and more that something else is going on, there’s a secret sinister plot, and before you know it you’re starting to interact with the book in a way you weren’t expecting – and interacting with the characters in a way you weren’t expecting – and suddenly the stakes for Mariner are your stakes as well! And that’s just in the first half of the story.
I think it’s just a beautiful comic, and I’m really proud of what we did!
KAPLAN: Was there any legacy Star Trek element or Easter egg you were particularly excited to have included?
NORTH: I gotta say, I am pretty pleased we could include Freeman saying the phrase “Somehow… Khan returned.”
FENOGLIO: Khan was so much fun. I read that whole section and could NOT stop laughing. The Reliant was a fun challenge also, but I really like how it turned out.
ANTOS: Honestly the Khan sequence cracks me up every time — I still can’t believe we were allowed to have him appear!!
Star Trek: Lower Decks: Warp You Own Way is available at your local comic shop and/or public library now.
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