Jamie Delano’s Narcopolis

Avatar Press, publisher of comics by writers such as Warren Ellis, Garth Ennis, and Alan Moore, is set to publish a new miniseries by Jamie Delano in the coming months. In the press release for Narcopolis, Avatar Press explains:

Entrusting their welfare to the state, citizens here are repaid for aiding the war effort against the ever looming BadEvil with leisure time, sexual pleasures, and the intoxicating “juice” that is issued by the city…. NARCOPOLIS #1 will arrive at local comic retailers in February, 2008, and the 4-issue series will arrive monthly in standard-size comic book format. The brainchild of legendary DC/Vertigo trailblazer Jamie Delano, NARCOPOLIS features the artwork of Jeremy Rock and color by Greg Waller.

What follows is an interview with Jamie Delano on this new miniseries, and a few sneak peaks inside the first issue.

Why the switch to Avatar Press? Is this some sort of British invasion of comics via Avatar Press?

Jamie Delano: Given the history of recent British (and US) adventures, “invasions” of any kind are probably to be avoided. “Switch” implies the abandonment of one for another. While most of my work has been for DC Comics over the years, I have never been indentured to that company and have worked with other publishers in the past. As a freelance, I choose my collaborators depending upon the nature of a specific project and opportunities offered. William Christensen at Avatar offered me the chance and creative freedom to develop a near-future, vaguely allegorical “sci-fi”/horror scenario and I decided to take him up on it.

JD: Thanks for remembering World Without End: it was a pretty bizarre and –uh– exuberant offering which polarized readers and critics. Love it or hate it, though, it was gorgeously rendered in full-color painted art by John Higgins, and deserves to be recalled for that alone. World Without End arose out of my enthusiasm to exploit an opportunity recklessly offered by DC to work with John Higgins in a format offering high production values. We could have made the project a Batman vehicle – and would have been rich if we had – instead our “creative integrity” brought World Without End to light instead. After four years of Hellblazer, WWE felt like an opportunity to cut lose into a world of outrageous language and sumptuous imagery… and no-one held us back. The scenario of the story is fantastical and allegorical rather than speculatively futuristic. I guess its themes are more broadly philosophical than some of the specific socio/political trends I have engaged with through the more near-future settings of works such as 2020 VISIONS, HELLBLAZER: BAD BLOOD and NARCOPOLIS, etc..

It is a long time since World Without End was available in print – which is a shame.. If anyone out there is interested in rectifying that situation, rights are in possession of John Higgins and myself, and available for licensing.

What reference does Narcopolis have to the post 9-11 culture?

JD: Well… Narcopolis is a fortified, island city-state, with a technologically advanced, complex but self-absorbed population. Its citizens enjoy a relatively comfortable existence, gratefully protected from an omnipresent threat of violence from the “outside” — which occasionally is randomly realised — by an elite, diligent and all-pervasive security apparatus. Most of the population appears content to exist, incurious and unquestioning of the status quo, but the odd one or two are disturbed by the rhythm of a different drum… unsettled by the vaguely conscious suspicion that the state — represented by a sickly “maternal” philosophy/brand known as Mama Dream — may not be as benevolent as commonly perceived.

JD: As a writer I pillage reality, processing elements – political or social trends, specific significant events, fashions of thought or action – for the raw maaterial to fuel the drama of the stories I write, embellishing my perception of “truth” through fantasy dramatisations. I leave it to the reader to assess verisimilitude.

JD: No. “Drugs” in Narcopolis have no more relevance to the scenario than does booze in any contemporary western culture. We’re not talking some junkie tract, here.

JD: I don’t know. After a certain number of years it becomes habitual. I find a carefully moderated mix of caffeine, nicotine and THC works to anchor me to my desk and enable the suspension of disbelief required to get the madness onto the page.

JD: William Christensen was the matchmaker who brought the two of us together. I’m more than happy with his pick. Jeremy’s whole-hearted embracing of the themes and vision of the story, and his dedication and accomplishment in realising my madness graphically… through attention to detail, incidental embellishment, story-telling innovations. etc., makes his creative contribution to the project massive. Greg Waller adds a whole new dimension with his sumptuous color-palette.

JD: As a Necropolis is a city of the dead, Narcopolis is a city of somnabulists, its citizens dazed by recreational narcotics and apathy. Narcopolis exists and shelters its population in the service of MAMA DREAM.

In the minds of most, Mama Dream is an abstract, pseudo-religious concept, the driving cultural philosophy of Narcopolis that promises rich fulfilment of sensual and sexual desire as a reward for devotion to the ritual of work and submission to the dogmatic arcana of law. It is also a branded, state-sanctioned recreational narcotic beverage.

Most citizens of Narcopolis consider themselves fortunate, privileged to have right of residence in an economically strong and militarily well-defended city state, protected by a rule of law enforced by agents of all-seeing but responsible and beneficent government, as they pursue their inalienable right to contented self-indulgence.

It is generally assumed that outside the city all is dark and savage anarchy. Beyond the protective oceans that surround the urban island lie only the STATES OF FEAR in which the EVIL DOERS dwell, plotting the BAD-EVIL.

GRAY NEIGHBOR has been resident in Narcopolis for as long as he can remember, living the life of a pious working stiff, passing his days in honest toil knocking out weapons components at the local defence plant, spending his spare time and change supping squirts of Mama DreamTM at his neighbourhood bar, or worshipping at the cathedral’s devotional gambling slots.

Recently Neighbor has become troubled, receiving an unshakeable mental “revelation” – despite absence of exterior supporting evidence – that he is in fact a recently awoken sleeper agent, “magically” raised to awareness and action by his controllers, co-religionists and genetic relatives abroad, to launch his pre-ordained mission to perpetrate psychic-sabotage attacks against the citizens and institutions of oppressive, imperialist Narcopolis and, if possible, to work his way to the monstrous secret heart of the “Terror State” and strike it a fatal blow.

Neighbour is kind of proud to be a “horrorist” – but he worries sometimes. In his years undercover, he has developed a true-born Narcopolitan’s taste for the reassuring pleasures of Mama Dream TM consumption. He’s trying to clean up his body and mind, but it’s a struggle. That old tit is pretty tempting.

AZURE LOVE, the female agent who investigates suspect Gray Neighbour, has recently separated from a lover due to relationship pressures exerted by her job. Some vibration from Neighbour sparks her investigator’s curiosity. Although she can find no evidence in his present or past through which to condemn him, she uses a flimsy pretext to justify her continuing surveillance of his day-to-day life. Eventually she is forced to conclude that the vibration which excites her is sexual.

Agent Love’s romantic advance towards Neighbour scares him, but excites him, too – appeals to his “spy” persona. The danger in a horrorist assassin entering into a liaison with a security agent is obvious… but then so are the enhancements to his potential for successful infiltration of the enemy system. Besides, Neighbour finds Agent Love pretty hot: Why shouldn’t he enjoy some short-term benefits in pursuit of what must ultimately be a suicide mission?

It seems there’s sort of at least a thematic reference in Narcopolis to both Brave New World and Island. Is this book a homage to Aldus Huxley’s writing?

JD: In so far as I read and absorbed the themes of both Huxley’s and Orwell’s works in my early teen years, I guess they can be counted as influential. The Joos so routinely imbibed by the citizens of Narcopolis is certainly a kind of Soma. The language employed in the story is less a direct reference to the Newspeak of “1984″ than an attempt to have fun and add value by portraying the evolution of language in both a social and political context.

So it would seem the main cast is questioning authority, while the sheep keep eating. Is there a specific aspect of society you are commenting on?

JD: You could call it Democratic Apathy, perhaps. Seems to me the idea of “innocent victimhood” is not too supportable in a society in which the election of policy-makers is everyone’s right and duty. We choose our leaders, and thus cannot deny responsibility for what they do in the name of our security.

Which do you prefer: working within the mini-series story arc or writing an ongoing monthly title?

JD: I get lazy when writing an endless story, but the space in which to meander is a tempting luxury.. Miniseries force me to focus on the theme and structure more tightly, but leave little room for digression. The graphic novel would be my preferred format – a flexible, but not unlimited page count, tailored to the developing requirement of a story.

Related Links: