Mega-City Max Interviews: Hannah Templer Takes DeMarco into the PI business
22nd July 2023
Mega-City Max is a brand-new comic special set deep in the world of Dredd, but coming at you with a distinctly different look at the world with the stories featuring teen- and post-teen versions of classic 2000 AD characters.
Inside Mega City Max, the hottest talents take a fresh look at the world of Dredd, including the brilliant Hannah Templer (Cosmoknights) who talks to us here about the lead-off strip in Mega-City Max, DeMarco P.I.: Snake Oil.
In Mega-City Max, a continuity-free new beginning for 2000 AD aimed at teen readers, you’ll meet characters reinvigorated and reimagined, including Devlin Waugh, Walter the Wobot, and Harlem Heroes, plus a brand-new tale of Mega-City madness from Lucie Ebrey, not to mention Hannah Templer’s take on a young DeMarco.
After being unfairly expelled from the Academy, DeMarco’s set herself up as a private investigator. She wants to help people and if she can’t do it as a Judge, she’ll do it on her own. She’s there to tackle the sort of cases that the Justice Department can’t or won’t touch, standing up for those desperate citizens of Mega-City One looking for help.
But she’s not in this completely alone, she’s still in touch with two good friends from the Academy, the straight-edged Barbara Hershey and the psychic Cassandra Anderson. In 2000 AD, DeMarco, Hershey, and Anderson have a long, long history of highs and lows. Here, we’re right back to the beginning – that’s the Mega-City Max way!
Hello Hannah, first of all – what’s it like to be here on the ground floor as 2000 AD launches a new comic?
HANNAH TEMPLER: I’m excited to revisit these characters for a modern audience! I wasn’t super familiar with many 2000 AD characters outside of passing recognition (and of course, both Judge Dredd films), so to be working with them for a new comic is pretty cool.
When it comes to Mega-City Max, the whole idea behind it is to broaden the readership, with MCM aimed at a teen readership, something you’re well accustomed to in your work.
HT: I usually write for teens and young adults, so I really enjoyed this approach– especially revisiting female characters who have been through it, so to speak. It’s refreshing to think about these characters in a more personal and youthful light.
The story I wrote for DeMarco is set up sort of like a pilot episode, so I would love to return and see the story continue! There are a lot of fun things to explore in her world.
How did the gig for DeMarco come about?
HT: I first got connected with Rebellion via the 45 Years of 2000 AD: Anniversary Art Book – I was honored to do a Halo Jones illustration for the book, and was subsequently contacted about doing a story for Mega-City Max! To be honest, I was unfamiliar with Dredd and only had a passing recognition of the characters, but after reading some of the comics, I was instantly hooked.
Originally, I was asked to write a story for a different character, but I inquired if there were any female characters I could write for instead, since this better fits my body of work. My editor suggested DeMarco, and after I learned a little more about her, I was in!
I was really fascinated by her personality and original storylines; the fact that she struggled with navigating Justice Department resonated with me, and I was excited to revisit some aspects of her older storylines with an updated feel. Some of the stories felt like they dismissed her emotions and empathy as weaknesses, but I was really excited to examine them as strengths.
In a universe that esteems Justice and stoicism, a woman that questions absolute authority in the face of unpredictable and complicated humanity is intriguing.
I think I know the answer to this one – but what was it that you found attractive about one of the very strong female characters in the 2000 AD universe? Not to mention Cass and Babs!
HT: I love strong female characters, and when I was reading some of the older comics, it immediately struck me that DeMarco seemed very misunderstood. DeMarco was famously dismissed from Justice Department because of her feelings for Dredd, but she was also labeled as a “bleeding heart” on several occasions for constantly questioning the way things were done.
As a female reader, I connected with the prejudice and apparent sexism surrounding her dismissal – was it really about being “too emotional”, or did she overstep and question authority one too many times?
I immediately wondered if the romance angle was really just a convenient excuse to get rid of her, and my reimagined DeMarco really sprouted from that interpretation.
I love exploring female friendship and was really excited to explore the tensions that arise among young friends as they grow older and grow apart as adults– Cass and Babs are really interesting companions for DeMarco in this setting as they struggle with their own challenges and guilt while trying to do right by the city.
Your art here is, not surprisingly for anyone who’s seen Cosmoknights (and frankly, if anyone reading this hasn’t seen Cosmoknights, they really need to rectify that right now – it’s an amazing thing!), a rather great thing.
You succeeded, certainly from my point of view, in capturing not just the essence of DeMarco but also the essence of the strange world she exists in. But you do it in a very different fashion from what we’re used to. The look comes through in your use of tonal colours, giving everything a specific look, perhaps a lighter look to Mega-City One than we’re used to but still recognisably MC-1.
And then there’s the storytelling used, all very formal panel structures at first as we’re exploring DeMarco PI but then, towards the end, exploding into kinetic action and very different panel structures when it’s the climactic meeting of DeMarco and the villain of the piece.
HT: Yes! Thank you! I tend to gravitate towards moments of joy and friendship against dystopian backdrops, and I think I bring a little bit of that flavor to Mega City Max as well, especially spending time with Cass, Babs, and DeMarco more casually, outside of the workplace.
Obviously, it’s all part of the storytellers craft to vary the pace and the style to get the maximum effect but I do think it’s rather perfectly done here.
What sort of process do you go through when putting together something like DeMarco? I’d imagine it’s a rather different process than with Cosmoknights?
So as I mentioned I wrote this script as sort of a pilot episode, with the idea that while it would be self-contained but could end with a spark.
I spent a lot of time reading older Judge Dredd comics and familiarizing with the world and its themes before diving in, but otherwise the process was actually not-so-different from how I work on Cosmoknights (albeit more condensed).
Even when writing for myself, I like to write fairly detailed scripts so that I can nail down intention and not revise too much during artwork, so generally I go from outline to script to thumbnails to lettered layouts to inks to colors– nothing too unusual!
Now, as far as you’re concerned, you’re most well-known for Cosmoknights, something that, as far as I’m aware, began as a webcomic and has now seen two volumes published by Top Shelf. Feel free here to explain to everyone reading just what Cosmoknights is and why they should be reading it!
HT: Cosmoknights is my sci-fi graphic novel series about lesbian gladiators fighting the patriarchy… in space!
It follows the story of Pandora Leverett, a young woman from a small planet at the edge of the galaxy who gets swept up in an epic adventure. After helping her best friend Tara (a space princess) run away from home to escape an arranged marriage, Pan finds herself an outcast, blamed for her home-planet’s economic downturn. But when a pair of charismatic Cosmoknights show up on her doorstep years later, Pan is intrigued– these women compete in jousting matches not for the hands of princesses, but for their freedom. On an impulse, Pan sneaks onto their spaceship to join their cause.
Cosmoknights is full of strong women and fast-paced fight scenes, but it is truly about female friendship and surviving in a world that was built without you.
As far as DeMarco’s concerned, would you like to return for more Mega-City Max adventures?
HT: Certainly! As I mentioned, I would love to work with this iteration of DeMarco some more, there are many more adventures to be had! I love writing strong female characters, and this was a lot of fun.
Finally, what sort of things have we got to look forward to from you in the future? Whether that’s for 2000 AD or elsewhere?
I’m working on the third Cosmoknights book (wrapping up the trilogy) and am also adapting a series of middle-grade graphic novels for Scholastic!
Thanks so much to Hannah for taking the time to answer a few questions from us.
You can find her DeMarco P.I. tale, Snake Oil, in Mega-City Max – the brand new special from 2000 AD that came out on 19 July from comic shops and 2000 AD’s web shop.
You can, and should, find out lots more about Hannah at her portfolio site and Twitter, she’s one of the hottest, greatest talents coming up in comics and has already made a huge impact. A queer cartoonist and graphic designer, she’s written and drawn Cosmoknights and was the artist for IDW Publishing’s GLOW, as well as putting her glorious artwork on covers and interiors on plenty of comics, always making them so much better!
As for the incredible Cosmoknights, you absolutely HAVE to go look at the webcomic site cosmoknights.space – once you do that, you’ll definitely want to be buying the books that were published by Top Shelf, two volumes so far but a third and final volume coming soon.
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And here’s that quite wonderful Halo Jones piece that Hannah did for the 45 Years of 2000 AD Anniversary Art Book – Halo Jones gets the Templer treatment. This is what she had to say at the time about that –
For the anniversary art book, I illustrated Halo Jones! I was super excited to take this character on because I draw a lot of women and sci-fi, so her character was right up my alley. For this piece, I explored a couple of different concepts (including sketches of alien planets), but really wanted to focus on a sense of wonder, excitement and exploration. I was inspired to draw Halo Jones flying through space (literally), surrounded by a surreal background full of brilliant hues and colors. You can also see elements from the comic in the background – I love the retro-futurist designs for the spaceships and cities, and had a lot of fun creating a sense of scale for this piece.
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And finally, a moment to just show you the absolute brilliance of Hannah Templer‘s Cosmoknigthts comic, a brief introduction to your next favorite comics…. this is the first few pages to volume 1. 10 pages of set-up, magnificently done, perfectly rendered, Hannah Templer really starting something wonderful…
