Are you a storyteller?

If so, what drives you to tell a story?

The working theory is that human beings connect to each other through story, using it to help them understand and interpret the world.

I’m a storyteller.

I live and work in a world of storytellers.

You’re most likely a storyteller, if you know it or not. If you think so or not.

But do you ever ask yourself the questions I ask myself all the time --

What, exactly, is a story?  Or more importantly, what makes a story *good*?

What drove me to write the original OTHERWORLD, published by DC Comics’ Vertigo line back in the early 2000s, was my longing to understand our world at the time (and a desire to play with genre and the medium of comics to do so). 

The US was in the middle of the Iraq war.  9-11 had happened just a few years earlier. Our world at the time seemed splintered into many different camps -- beyond our society’s usual political disconnect we were watching a battle between regressive religious fundamentalism, and soulless, unfettered capitalism, both seemingly villains in the continuing dissolution of society.

The original Otherworld was an exploration of those ideas in a big genre-busting mash-up, using fantasy and science fiction and super-heroes, and setting each of the 12 issues as one chapter of a traditional Hero’s Journey (to test that model as well).

It was a “big idea” book-- big themes! Big swings! High concept! Big art!  I mean, it scored an Eisner nomination for Jeromy Cox’s stunning color and established a design aesthetic that sits with me to this day. 

But I’m not sure Otherworld ever landed where it needed to with its characters--  with emotions.

This new title, which revisits the world of Otherworld in a new way, is about my interest not just in big ideas and themes, but in the emotional lives of the people tackling them. 

Author Karen Armstrong has said that what makes a story effective is when it provides insight, a new way of thinking about the world,  and encourages us to think anew about the age-old questions about the universe and our place in it. What makes a good story, I think, is one that has emotional resonance as well as intellectual reverb. One that means something to people because it hits them in the heart, not just in their head. One that feels personal, somehow. 

It feels like all stories should be about that. But sometimes they’re not.

This summer was a big one for me.

I moved. I loved -- a lot. I lost some too. I won awards, realized dreams, and saw others fade away.  Friendships were affirmed, old relationships reestablished, new ones born. It was magical -- I haven’t felt this full and alive in years. And that sense of life and responsibility is what’s fueling this work.

I also won my first Eisner awards for Wonder Woman: Historia Vol 1, a career high. In one of my speeches, I said that Historia was author Kelly Sue DeConnick and my refusal to be small, in a world that so often asks people, especially women, queer folks, and folks of color, to be exactly that. 

Beyond the big ideas, beyond the earth-shattering cosmic war between magic and science, fundamentalism and unfettered consumption, which I’m actually thrilled to attempt in this new scroll-comic format --

-- what I’m most excited about with this project is getting the chance to tell stories about people who might seem small in the world, but are not small in mine.   In fact, they’ve taken an almost outsize shape and scope.

And boy, am I glad they have. 

All of them are part of me, one way or the other.  A reflection of an experience I’ve had or a person I’ve known.  My hope is that you’ll love them as much as I do, mess and all. 

Zestworld is a great place to work and a great new format for comics.  And I hope you’ll stick around to watch the drama unfold as these people, seemingly tiny but none of them small, get caught up in a war far beyond their understanding —and see who rises to the challenge to face it.