The Curt Pires Interview: The future of Lost Fantasy, The Objectivist and putting family pets into armor

This interview has been edited for clarity and brevity.    

Perez: How did you meet Franklin [Jonas]? And how was ComicsPRO for him?

Pires: San Diego, that’s kind of how I met him. He was moderating this panel for Image at San Diego, so I think he’s gone to San Diego Comic-Con like every year since he was a kid. He’s very obsessed with comics. ComicsPRO was his first signing as a comic creator, and he had a lot of fun. That was your first time; you always remember it, so I think it was really cool for him, and I mean, our booth was great.

We had one of the busiest booths and only a few posters left at the end of the night. Retailers were excited about Lost Fantasy. Many said the video game covers sell well, which is reassuring. It’s good to know the concept is working for people.

Perez: I’ve seen a post on Reddit about someone being like, “I don’t really read comics, but I saw this video game cover, and I took a chance on it.”

Pires: Yeah, I saw that one too. It’s extremely flattering because that’s exactly what I want—it pulls people into comics and starts a conversation. That’s my goal.

It’s funny, though, because when you work on all this stuff, and you make it, it’s kind of in a vacuum. Obviously, I know the numbers and stuff, but I’m like, OK, is this something people are enjoying? And then when you go online, and you see posts like that, and you’re hearing from people [saying], “OK, it’s really something that’s like connecting and working for people”, so it’s kind of affirming in a way. 

Issue #9 is out the same day as Fireborn and features a Final Fantasy 8 homage, as well as a Marvel vs. Capcom homage. We have more Metal Gear homage coming up. There’s gonna be another Final Fantasy one.

I’m choosing covers based on my favorites. For number 8, we did a Resident Evil 4 homage, which coincides with the release of the new Resident Evil game—good timing. We’re focusing on retro rather than contemporary themes, though we’ve done some recent games like the Elden Ring cover.

Perez: Right, and I think it’s a very interesting point in the series to bring a lot more people in because issue #7 connected back to the start of issue #1

Pires: Issue #8 is the ending of our second arc, and it’s a big twist. It reveals the backstory of what is probably the most important scene in issue #7: the cause of the rift in Henry’s family. As the deranged wizard is talking to him, issue #8 builds on that by showing Henry facing off with Edge, who reveals even more context. That sets the stage for the world’s stakes and the original sin of the great hunters.

There’s one panel in issue #1 that sets up the Magic Civil War, and when you’re reading it, it’s kind of just a throwaway panel, but it’s one of the most important panels in the book. It’s been planned since issue one and it will finally reveal the backstory behind that, and I’m very proud of it. I think it’s one of our best issues.

Perez: It all feels planned because we were hearing about Fireborn in like issue #5, right?

Pires: Yeah, when we teased Fireborn, some said: “Only four issues out and already planning a spin-off.” I get it, since so much in the industry is a spin-off, but I always planned something special for Lost Fantasy’s one-year anniversary. As Franklin and I worked on Fireborn, it made sense to launch it for the anniversary.

Issue #5 was just the teaser. By the time Fireborn is released, we’ve been working on the book for a year, and nearly 400 pages of Lost Fantasy will be out—these are big issues.

The first look at Fireborn was in Lost Fantasy #5, and that was out the same day as our first trade paperback. So it’s like a big thing, you get your first look at Fireborn, you get the first issue of the second arc, and the first trade paperback. So Fireborn #1 is out April 15th, and so is Lost Fantasy #9, which features a sequence co-written by Franklin that serves as a prologue to Fireborn #1. I sort of use this one a lot, but I always think of it the way Christopher Nolan puts prologues before his movies. If you go see it in IMAX, you kind of get that.

Lost Fantasy #9 features a sequence that directly sets up Fireborn, and enriches it for people who read both, but again, you could just read one or the other if that’s your thing, But also out that same day is  Lost Fantasy Volume 2.

We are working hard to get everything out in a way that feels exciting and can continue to pull in new readers, because the whole thing is if people are coming in to buy Fireborn who have not read Lost Fantasy because they want to support Franklin. Having Lost Fantasy #9 out the same day means like retailers can say “Oh this ties into it too” and then it starts a conversation about what is Lost Fantasy, and then we can pull those readers into the book as well, so it’s giving comic shops ammunition to like sell the books, as opposed to  a lot of the time I feel like some of the way creators approach it can feel like they’re just sort of throwing shit at the wall.

Perez: It can definitely lose momentum if you have to wait months for the next thing and you can’t go back to the previous thing.

Pires: Yeah, exactly, and I think it’s just like my habits as a consumer. When the Image boom was happening, I would always go to the store, and it’s like, oh, the first trade of Manhattan Project is out, and the next issue is out. I’d always grab that next issue because after finishing the trade, I didn’t want to just stop. With this in mind, I really wanted to recreate that experience for our readers by planning consistent releases.

Perez: So issue #9 is when we’re gonna get more about the character, Bombshell, and I know Franklin Jonas, Timmy Heague, and Eamon Winkle are working on that.

Pires: Issue # 9 also has a new 3-part backup, which is an origin story for Bombshell, who people seem to really like and respond to since we had that great Amilcar Pinna cover. She’s a big character in the universe, and there’s a 3-part backup by Timmy and Eamon that I’ve co-written and sort of creatively and narratively directed that’s about her and Henry’s history, and this mission they go on that reveals their backstory. It’s a fun adventure. I think that’s a character that we’ll see more of down the road, and the Los Fantasy stuff is such a big sandbox, as it  grows, my role for it is almost like Dave Filoni or like George Lucas, where I’m even if I’m not writing it, I’m kind of the boss of the universe. I know what feels Lost Fantasy – a lot of the notes I give are “that’s not Lost Fantasy” and it’s a world that’s always supposed to be viscerally cool, that’s our North Star. Is this the coolest shit that would drive your parents crazy to not buy it for you when you’re 12? If it doesn’t do that, then we have to fix it.

So the magic stuff, I don’t like high fantasy stuff, which I talked about before, and so sometimes guys will be working with me, and they’ll turn in the thing and be like, “Oh, can we have a broomstick?” And I said absolutely fucking not, no fucking broomsticks. That’s the opposite of it. There’s magic in the universe, but fuck no, no broomsticks. It has to be cool, right?

Bombshell does some magic, but Timmy and I always discuss the coolest approach. She has a motorcycle that turns into a sword. At one point, she has a bazooka that can combine into a sword, it’s just crazy comic book shit that’s fun and feels true to the universe. There’s just something inexplicable that makes something like Lost Fantasy. Whenever I do anything, even Fireborn, it’s just a different flavor of Lost Fantasy, but it’s still Lost Fantasy.

Perez: How did you go about picking the people that you work with, or did they find you?

Pires: It’s natural—Lost Fantasy brought me together with the team. Most people I work with were fans before joining, so they understand what works. I want only contributors who appreciate what we’re doing, since it’s a specific energy.

With Franklin, I saw this podcast he did with these guys the Paneloids who have a great podcast, and they support a lot of creator-owned books, and they had Franklin on as a guest and he was talking about how Lost Fantasy was his new favorite book. So when I saw that Franklin was going to be moderating the panel I was on, I reached out to him and said, “hey man, wanna grab some food or something?” and we just got to talking about comics and everything, and where I wanted to take Lost Fantasy. I was telling him about the core concept of Fireborn that was an idea that I’d had for a while, and then I said, “Hey, I want to do this, would you be interested at all in co-writing this?”  and I think, really to his credit, the book is so much more interesting because of Franklin’s presence.

A lot of my favorite things in Fireborn are things that Franklin’s added or amped up, and he’s had a lot of really cool ideas that are very just pure comic book stuff, which is the stuff I love. I’ll have a sequence that I’ve written, and he’ll say, “What if we amp this up a bit more, make it crazier?” and I’ll be, that’s great, that’s exactly what I want.

And so I think he’s done a great job, and I think there’s this — I understand the people can have this aversion to [celebrities writing comics] I have very complicated feelings on it because I don’t like when Franklin, who reads comic books religiously, is at the shop every Wednesday and on Instagram boosting his favorite comics is not the same as a celebrity actor, you know, doing an IP farming exercise. I feel really protective of Franklin about this sort of shit in a way because it really does bother me when people are trying to say, “Oh, why did Franklin get an Image book before me?” or whatever, and then like I look at the thing they’re trying to pitch, it looks like complete shit.

I’m excited for people to read it because I know Franklin just lives and breathes comics, and he does a lot to boost the medium and share his love for it.​

Perez: So kind of on that note, and taken off of you mentioning that you’ve always been an Image fan, Image just did those invincible covers for all of those other titles, and I know that you guys got picked up for the I Hate Fairyland ones, right?

Pires: It’s kind of funny because we do have an Invincible homage for Fireborn #1, but we just had to skip a month, like Last Fantasy #8 was supposed to be out at the end of February, and not this week, but we had to push it back a week because it was bigger, and so we didn’t do the Invincible month because it was a skip month for us. I was definitely kind of wishing we had the books out, but someone from Image pointed out we did get kind of get to participate cause we do have that invincible one for Fireborn #1. I think our cover B is the Invincible one.

I think the cover theme months at Image are great because it’s a great way for everyone to cross-promote the books. I’ve always been a fan of Invincible, and I’m a big fan of what Robert Kirkiman does, because I think it’s cool how he’s always advocated betting on yourself and doing the creator-own stuff.

I remember almost 20 years ago, where there was this YouTube debate [Editor’s note: it was actually a panel at Baltimore Comic Con] between him and Bendis, where it’s corporate versus creator-owned comics, and Kirkman was obviously really on the side of the creator-owned stuff, and I think both those guys have had great careers and are super talented. I definitely find myself leaning more to the Kirkman side of the argument, and so I’ve always really respected Robert, and I love Invincible. Also doing the Absolute Batman one was a lot of fun as well — I love that book, and it’s a good way to get people to pick the book off the shelf.

It’s all about getting eyes on the book, starting that conversation, and getting someone to take a chance on the book who wouldn’t, because I’m confident in the work we’re doing. There’s just so much content coming out, so I’m always looking for ways to pull people in.

Perez: Let’s talk about your new Kickstarter, The Objectivist and Super Mondo Mega Mutts

Pires: The Kickstarter one is this idea I’ve had for a while called The Objectivist, which is sort of inspired by outlaw vigilante comics, and builds on the premise of this obscure Steve Ditko comic which was very inspired by The Question [Editors note: and Ayn Rand who founded the philosophy of Objectivism], where he’s killing people who he thinks are morally wrong. It’s very violent, but also an intellectual comic that’s about an architect in  art deco city, kind of like Sin City. It combines all these different asynchronous things that I think are cool, so there are blimps and art deco architecture, but also guys running around beating the shit out of people with a hammer.

So it’s this guy who’s basically obsessed with this Ditko-style comic strip in a city that’s crumbling, while the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. Again, it’s very inspired by our world in some ways. And then this architect starts to dress up as a cartoon character from his favorite comic strip to be a vigilante and it very quickly goes sideways. There’s some Taxi Driver in there, there’s all these different influences that we’re really alchemizing, and we’re gonna launch it as like a deluxe hardcover straight to Kickstarter for readers.

We got Jae Lee to do the cover, and it’s being drawn by Alex Diotto, who I did Indigo Children with and who’s done a lot of the Lost Fantasy video game variant covers that people love. I’m looking forward to getting that out.

Perez: When is that coming out?

Pires: We’re going to be launching that actually right around the time Fireborn comes out, we’re targeting around April 17th. It’s goingto be out a couple of days after Fireborn, so we’re looking to build the projects off each other. Because obviously, doing a Kickstarter, you’re doing a lot of stuff on your own, so the Image launch [will] bring more eyes to this one.

But I’m really excited about it, and it’s kind of the first in like a few different books I’m trying to do direct to our audience to build out that pipeline, because crowdfunding is really exciting, and it’s a good, different arm of publishing to do in addition to Image and the stuff that [is] coming up through the comic stores. It’s a different pillar of what I’m trying to build.

Perez: Yeah, absolutely, just another approach to it.

Pires: Exactly, so that’s really exciting, and then yeah, I’m definitely super excited about the Super Mondo Mega Mutts with Oni, which Juan Gedeon is drawing the absolute shit out of, and it’s probably one of the best first issues I’ve ever done. It’s just so much fun, and it’s got so much heart as well as action, which is kind of funny because when I was first talking to Hunter Gorinson from Oni about it, we were just talking about how there are all these like sad animal books, right?

Everyone’s like doing these books where it’s like, oh, it’s like, you know, this metaphor for this, but it’s with like sad animals and like I was just like, what if we do an animal book, but like instead of it just being all sad, it’s like they have, you know, Rob Liefeld guns? and they’re like the Ninja Turtles? but dogs and it’s violent, and it’s sci-fi and it’s got all this Jack Kirby influence on it. It’s like a really special book cause I feel like it threads the needle in such an interesting way between something like We3 or Pride of Baghdad, but also with the Ninja Turtles, and I’m just very proud of it, and I think it’s probably the most accessible project I’ve ever done in terms of you could walk up to someone on the street and say, “Hey, do you want to read a story about mutant dogs who protect the earth?”​

One of my pitches for it was “You know what’s better than turtles? Dogs, right?”

Because not that many people have pet turtles, a few people do, but everyone loves dogs, so it’s drawing inspiration, obviously from the Ninja Turtles, and how bombastic and cool and special that project is, but spinning it into all these different directions.

There’s some area X in the book – where the thing that empowers the dog is this alien biome, so I think it’s fits my DNA is a storyteller. My first dog book is Galactic, right? So that’s the dog pilot in the spaceship.

The second one is the Mondo Mutts, and then the third one I’m just about to start  working and planning on, which is like a totally different flavor but has a dog in it as well. And so it’s my trilogy of dog books.

Perez: The book just looks fun, like Saturday-morning cartoon kind of fun.

Pires: Well, that’s totally the thing too, where I was like “OK, this is gonna be like the best comic book, when it comes out, it’s gonna be so much fun” but the dogs, when we draw them, they [need to be] an action figure. Juan got exactly the stuff he likes to draw, and yeah, I’m already salivating to have some of these action figures of these dogs, especially the giant Cable gun one.

The other thing about this that I didn’t really mention is that all the dogs are based on my family dogs. So  one dog is based on my dog Wolfie, who is the lead dog, and the other three dogs, who are the fighters, are based on my brother’s dogs: Frankie, Griffey, and Fred.

Their name is the same thing, and then the last dog who’s the one who’s in the wheelchair, who’s like the Professor X, who’s being kept alive by the wheelchair is based on my childhood dog, who’s dead, but in the universe of this comic, I’ve kept him alive using this medical superpower wheelchair. He’s the brains of the operation. It’s a kind of mutant-powered love letter to the family pets.

Perez:I hope we get pictures in the back of the book.

Pires: Oh, we should because the photos are in the pitch, and when Juan started working on doing the designs, he used the pictures of the dogs and a description of each dog’s personality.

Perez: Anything else?

Pires: I’ll just say quickly: Galactic will be back. Issue two is done, like it’s kind of already known at this point by the publisher’s statement; the delay was not the creative team. We’ve been done with issue #2 for a while, so we’re looking forward to getting that book into people’s hands and finishing our story as soon as possible. 

It was as frustrating for us as it was for everyone else, but I’ve had good conversations with DSTLRY, and I’m confident they’re on their path forward and will do everything they can to get this book into our readers’ hands as soon as possible. 

So, even though it wasn’t my fault or the creative team’s, we’re very appreciative of everyone’s support for the book and their patience.