INTERVIEW: taking on ‘High Society’ with Dan Abnett
18th October 2018
In the late 21st century the remains of the human race are crammed into the Habitats: vast artificial space stations; hotbeds for crime and madness policed by private security firms.
When a routine drug bust goes wrong, no-nonsense Investigator Bridget Kurtis finds herself in a life or death struggle with a new sect of cultists. But evidence begins to point to something far more sinister going on behind the scenes…
The latest story in the atmospheric, sci-fi thriller from Dan Abnett and I.N.J. Culbard is underway in 2000 AD with Brink: High Society.
In the last incredible collection, Bridge was investigating the possible sect crimes on Galena Hab, and ended up uncovering something far bigger in the process. And hanging over it all, there’s still the, as yet unexplained, issue of Mercury simply disappearing.
Richard Bruton caught up with Dan Abnett to talk ‘High Society’ and where they’re taking Bridge to next…
I don’t know how much you want to give away of the story in ‘Skeleton Life’ that saw Bridge investigating possible sect crimes on the new build habitat Galena – but, can you give us some idea of what readers can expect from ‘High Society’?
Dan Abnett: This is the follow up investigation, as they try to track the things they learned in book two back to the heart of it. We enter the world of the privileged few in Brink society, and we do so via an expected angle (in contrast to the previous two stories, this case is ‘undercover’). Ian and I have really enjoyed fleshing out another aspect of the “world” of Brink.
Brink book one was very much the police procedural and buddy cop tale, with a sci-fi and cultish twist. Book two was veered more into Nordic Noir realms; introspective, hidden agendas on both sides and an underlying threat that is still not yet revealed. Where are you taking us with book three, ‘High Society’, in terms of the overall thematic feel – and will we finally learn what happened to Mercury in this volume?
DA: As I said, undercover. Deep undercover. And there are some big answers, but of course SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER Mercury Event SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER
When we talked about Brink: Skeleton Life, we talked about the summary top-line of your work, so Brink was something along the lines, in my words, of True Detective meets Outland, and you described your other works together in similar fashion; “New Deadwardians was “The Walking Dead meets Downton Abbey”, Wild’s End was “The War of the Worlds meets the Wind in the Willows” and Dark Ages was “Kingdom of Heaven meets Starship Troopers”. So, how are you de-scribing Brink: High Society?
DA: Oddly, we were off and running with such energy this time, bursting with ideas, we never summed it up… but I guess “Upstairs Downstairs meets The Devil Rides Out” (or Night of the Demon). In an SF context, naturally 🙂
You’ve talked of Brink initially being a trilogy, with ‘High Society’ as the final part, but also the possibility of continuing it, as both of you are really loving working on Brink. So, if the series will continue past volume three, have there been any necessary changes to the saga?
DA: This is a pretty hefty piece of punctuation for the trilogy, but we have several really big, fresh ideas that could take the story (in the sense of the world and what’s going on) further. So this chapter is exactly what it was always going to be – nothing got revised. But composing with this story allowed us to see more clearly what possibilities could follow.
Would it be true that the reaction you’ve received with Brink, with its slower pace, concentration on character and dialogue, means that it’s the sort of strip that some don’t think ‘belongs’ in 2000 AD?
DA: Yeah. Almost universally… people didn’t expect it to ‘fit’ and then were caught up in it. We were the same, to be honest – we could both see it defied most of the conventions of 2000 AD (which are good conventions, BTW, and allow for a really wide range of things). But Brink’s pace particularly was very ‘un-2000 AD”. We hoped it was still very much in the spirit of 2000 AD (which is why we pitched it!) and are delighted the readers have embraced it.
With the art for Brink, there was a real shift in ‘Skeleton Life’ from the closed down, claustropho-bic spaces on the habitats in book one. The Galena build was a huge, open environment, and Ian’s art and colouring shifted massively to accomplish this. Are we going to see a similar tonal shift with the artwork on Brink?
DA: Can I just say here, in order to convey the ‘environmental duality’ that is the basis of this book, Ian’s done some very clever, very subtle work with scale and panel-by-panel composition in the storytelling.
Finally, the most important question, how big a role does Louis Armstrong get in this one? And I’m assuming Frank, Bing, Grace, and the rest of the gang will all be in there somewhere?
DA: Ah, I hoped the big surprise that this chapter was a musical would catch people out, but I see you’ve already guessed our big showstopping number “Who wants to be a Vovek spawn? I do!” Of course, ‘high’ has another meaning too…. 😉
Brink book one and book two are available as a bundle from the 2000 AD webshop, while ‘High Society’ continues in this week’s 2000 AD!